Everything worth saying said, she marched for the door. Tom and Harvey fell in beside her. In step, they quickly covered the distance to the exit. A couple of students were just coming in. They took one look at the phalanx bearing down on them and took two steps back, holding the door wide as Kris led her tiny detachment out into the sun, then they quickly scurried inside and pulled the door closed behind themselves.
''That was fun.'' Tom grinned.
Kris squinted at the blue sky above her, sun glaring down out of a fine spring day. ''We need to get Tommy a pair of sunglasses.''
''Sunglasses,'' the Santa Marian echoed.
''Yes. You're in my gravity well now, spacer,'' Kris said, turning for the car. ''No space helmet visor to protect those baby-blue eyes of yours, no suit between you and my sun. You'll need some sunscreen as well, you pasty-skinned spacer.''
''And why might I be needing all that?''
''Harvey, my parents still keep the Oasis at the lake?''
''And the dockhands still check her out each week to make sure there's no problems, though the prime minister and his lady haven't been on her for five, six years.''
''Their loss.'' Kris grabbed her fellow ensign by the elbow. ''Tommy, me boy, you are about to discover how great it feels to have wind in your hair, a tall ship beneath you, and a good star to guide her by, even if it is just to the other end of a lake.''
''A real-live sailing ship!'' Tommy enthused with underwhelming excitement. ''Any chance I could get Thorpe to let me hide out on the Typhoon for the next six weeks? My bunk back there is looking better and better.''
''Come now, Tommy, you've sailed the stars. Haven't you ever wondered how the ancients first sailed the seas of old Earth?''
''No. I never wanted to swim, either.''
''Have no fear, me boy, I'll hitch you up with a life belt that'll keep you safe should you encounter more water than you can drink.''
''Just what I've always wanted, a bit of cork and plastic between me and suffocation.''
''And what's a space suit?'' Kris laughed.
''Something I'm very familiar with.''
''Harvey, to the lake.''
As the car slipped into traffic, Kris took a moment to commune with Nelly. ''Do a planetwide search on Longknife and Peterwald, every contact they or their businesses have had in the last eighty years. Then expand the search to the entire Society of Humanity. Before you go too far, check Aunty Tru's computer to see anything she might have on the topics.''
''Tru's computer has very good security,'' Nelly noted.
''Yes, but you might find a file or two in a less-secure vestibule on Sam. Father told me not to talk to Tru, but I'm assuming that you and Sam are not covered by that.''
''Beginning search.''
Kris relaxed back into the car's leather seat. Even if someone did want her more than the usual dead that she'd learned to live with as the prime minister's daughter, here on Wardhaven she'd be her usual self. She had six weeks to decide if a certain boot ensign had more than the usual problems of a Navy career to worry about. That was plenty of time. Growing up with a politician in the household, that was one thing Kris had learned early. Time could change anything.
***
The next day, slightly sunburned but happy as Kris could only be when a tacking wind had blown the cobwebs from her brain, she and Tommy were in starched whites as Harvey drove them into the driveway circle in front of the Museum of Natural History. Its immense ballroom had been dragooned into what Harvey grumbled was going to be the worst of a long line of back-patting jamborees.
''May they break their bleeding arms,'' was the old trooper's fond hope. Tommy had done his best to duck out, but Kris had dragged him along, protesting all the way.
''What's there to worry about? No one's ever been hurt at one of these things.'' Kris assured her friend.
''Be my luck to be the first.''
''Not possible. There's absolutely no way anything can go wrong,'' Kris said with a confidence that evaporated as Harvey brought them into the drop-off circle. Several limos were already taking up parking spots there, including one identical to Kris's, except for the red and yellow paint dripping down its shiny black exterior.
''Whose is that?'' Tommy asked.
Gary, riding shotgun, pointed his wrist unit at the blotched limo and punched a button. ''One of ours, number four. Had General Ho of Earth today. I thought we had the anti-Earth demonstrators far enough back.''
''I didn't see any demonstrations,'' Kris said.
''So I guess we had them far enough away for you,'' Harvey drawled as he pulled up next to an even larger white limo that needed four rear tires to support itself.
''Who owns that monster?'' Tommy asked.
Again Gary shot his query at a rig, then smiled. ''Thought I recognized it. Not too many like that one. Henry Smythe-Peterwald the Twelfth's private battleship,'' Kris's security guard announced.
Tommy raised an eyebrow as he opened the door. ''And didn't you say no one ever got killed at these shindigs?''
''And didn't you say there's always a first time?'' Kris brogued right back as she measured the vast, hulking transport beside them. Body armor was light enough for unpowered battle gear. So what was all the weight that made that white elephant need four huge tires?
''How am I going to explain to me ancestors my coming before them with no descendants to carry on the family name?'' Tommy said as he stepped gingerly out and held the door for Kris.
''I'm sure your Blarney-kissing Irish tongue will come up with a fine story to regale them,'' Kris answered, dismounted, and squared her shoulders. While it was true that real blood was never spilled at these affairs, the political equivalent of the red stuff could run knee deep. Before, she'd just been Father's darling daughter, Mother's eligible debutante. Today, she was Kris Longknife, ensign, serving officer and medal recipient. Maybe she should rethink this.
With a shrug, Kris joined the flow of people moving up the stone steps of the museum and into the rotunda. A six-meter-tall, horned and rampant tusker stood in the center of the room, more a tribute to the taxidermist's art than to the actual creature that had terrified the original landers on Wardhaven. Most tusker habitat had been replaced by Earth-type flora; still a few herds managed to survive up on North Continent. The young Kris always considered this stuffed creature a thing of sadness. At the moment, it reminded her that today's power broker could end up as tomorrow's stuffed rug. And you wanted to be your own person. A part of her laughed.
The high-ceilinged reception hall was resplendent in tall marble pillars, rich gray rock run through with bright streaks of reds, oranges, and blues. The vast expanse of plush royal blue carpet beneath her white shoes brought out the colors in the marble and made the cool power of the immense room even more overbearing. What a splendid room for this moment's great to celebrate their instant of glory.
Kris took in the human company and found it rather shrunken by its surroundings. Most of the men were ignorable in white tie and black tails, tights, or trousers as they chose…and not always because they fit well in them. Mother had set the women's fashion with a floor-length red dress that took up a good four feet around her, flounced out by at least a score of petticoats, Kris estimated. The top of the arrangement ended way too soon for Kris's tastes in a tight, gleaming bustier that forced up what a woman had for all the world to see, except all the women were wearing them, and the men seemed too busy being seen to notice all the pulchritude around them. All the men except Tommy.