''We'll take two hundred and fifty doses of vaccine. Get someone at the warehouse to start hunting for them.''
''I have located them. I will have Jeb get them.''
''Ensign Lien,'' Kris called over the net, ''what you up to?''
''My neck in busted truck parts,'' Tommy answered.
''Meet me at the warehouse gate. We have a problem.''
''And hadn't I better bring my rifle?'' He sighed.
Kris picked up her armed escort as she double-timed out the gate. She ignored them as they trotted along a couple of dozen meters behind her. Jeb met her in an electric cart, three small boxes of medical supplies on its flatbed. ''That's three hundred units, but unless I'm reading it wrong, it expired last month.''
Kris hopped on the cart. ''Boat dock,'' she ordered, then tapped her commlink for sick bay. ''Doc, our Grearson fever vaccine expired last month. Can we use it?''
''Damn!'' was followed by a pause. ''It might do. Maybe use a bit more than normal. Damn, I can't believe I'm saying this.''
''We have three hundred doses for two hundred and fifty people. You might want to start making some new stuff.''
''No way we can manufacture enough if it gets in the water.''
''Understood, Doc, we've got to keep it out of the river.'' Now, if only the river would keep out of the ranch.
The crane truck was gone, along with two of the boat rigs. Kris headed for the boxed boat closest to the water and tapped the small keypad awake. Instructions appeared on a tiny screen. After reading through several windows, Kris punched 6 on the controls. As promised, that produced a river dory/motorized. Ten meters long, two wide, it had a high prow, flat bottom, and a control station amidships with a wheel on one side of a square pillar, the keypad and screen on the other. Kris studied what she'd done and decided it looked good. Jeb interrupted a dozen men stacking sandbags along the seawall against the rising bay long enough for them to heave the boat into the water, just a few centimeters below the concrete wall. Jeb divided his work crew, half going back to raising the seawall, half dispatched to the warehouse for supplies.
''Who's going?'' Jeb asked.
''Me, a corpsman will be along in a minute, Tommy. I need some men, people who know the river.''
''Ester said you weren't supposed to leave town.''
''I'm not supposed to make a truck run. This is different.''
''Only if you're a sprout like you, young woman. Keep this up, and you're going to get yourself killed.''
''Lot of people trying. So far, nobody's succeeded.''
''So you're pushing your luck.''
''Load the boat, old-timer.''
''I'll load the boat. Mick, you been bitching about loafing around town. You shag your freckles over to the Andrea Doria and tell Addie we want Jose. This lady's going to ride the river, and she's gonna need the best river runner we got.''
''You bet, Pops,'' said a young man of maybe eighteen as he took off running.
''I'll throw in Olaf, that big bear of a guy over there. You're going into canyon country, so you may need a bit of climbing before you're done. Nabil, Akuba, I need you over here.'' Two tall, thin men, one dark, the other darker, started jogging toward them.
The corpsman arrived, along with Tommy. He looked around, as if expecting to see smoke rising through the rain. ''What's happening?'' he asked Kris. She explained. For emphasis, the corpsman started giving shots to everyone tagged for the trip. ''Kris, you're supposed to stay here,'' was Tom's reaction when she finished.
''Already told her,'' Jeb drawled. ''Girl don't listen, so save your breath.'' Jeb was studying the boat; it drew about ten centimeters now as boxes of food and medical supplies were loaded. ''I'll let Jose have the last say about your load. Some weight might help. Too much, and I don't need to tell you the river is a killer these days. You ever been on water?''
''My folks own a boat. I've sailed a lake on Wardhaven.''
''This ain't going to be anything like that.''
''I didn't figure it would be.''
Jose arrived with Mick not far behind him. The brown-skinned man of maybe thirty eyed the craft, hopped aboard, studied it some more, then ordered, ''Lash everything down. The river, she's going to be a bitch, and I don't need no more trouble than she's gonna give me. Mick, you get me some paddles and poles.'' Again, freckles was off a-running.
The men loading the boat had brought plenty of rope; they began lashing it around the cargo liberally. Jose picked up the three small, flat boxes of vaccine. ''These why we're doing this stupid thing?''
''Yes,'' Kris said. ''You understand what happens if we don't get this vaccine upriver.''
''People die, and when the river takes them, we all die. You think I'd be doing a thing this stupid for any other reason? Jeb, get everyone a life vest. And get three packs. We'll have Navy here wear the medicine.''
Kris didn't like being reduced to a pack animal. She opened her mouth, but Jose cut her off before she got a word out. ''Listen, woman, I am the captain of this boat. If I was up there''—he pointed at the gray sky—''and wanted to stay alive in your space, maybe I'd listen to you. Maybe, if you sounded like you knew what you were doing. Down here, Jose knows everything there is to know about this river. You want to get this stuff to those people, you listen to Jose. You do what he tells you and you just may live.''
The river man eyed the inlet in front of them with a scowl on his face. ''The bay, she bad, with snags and stumps and eddies that will spin you around. The river, she going to be a whole lot worse. But I think, maybe, Jose can get you up there.''
''Maybe,'' Kris said.
''Jose's maybe is a lot better than the dead you'd be without me, girl.''
''Do it his way, spacer. Otherwise, I don't send my people out,'' Jeb added.
''I wasn't arguing. You think it's best we wear the medicine?'' she asked Jeb.
''You go in the water, you'll float, and the guys will do their best to fish you out. Those boxes go in and they'll sink. I guess we could try to do something about that, but I think Jose just did.''
''Looks that way,'' Kris had to agree.
Ten minutes later, supplies loaded, they pulled away from the dock. ''I should be back before the Colonel is, but if I'm not, tell him where I am,'' Kris hollered at Jeb.
''Why don't you use that thing on your wrist to tell him yourself?''
''He's got his job cut out for him today. Why worry him?''
''Right. What else should I expect from a Longknife?'' Kris shrugged that off, then started bailing. In the time since she'd unfolded the boat, there'd been over a centimeter of rain. It now sloshed around the bottom of the boat; anyone not busy, bailed.
''You know that luck of the little people we've been talking about?'' Tommy said from where he bailed across from Kris. ''Well, I just saw them waving from the pier. Even they don't have enough luck for this blasted river.''
''Tommy, we've got to get this upriver,'' Kris said, pointing a thumb at the pack on her back.
''Someone has to get it upriver. Nobody's died and left you the job. Me, I'm starting to wonder how much of the Longknife stuff in the history books is there because somebody just didn't know how to let somebody else do their job.'' Kris didn't have an answer for Tommy.
Jose quickly brought the boat up to full speed, about twelve knots. It handled the waves on the bay well, breasting each swell with a cloud of spray that ended mostly back in the water, only some in the boat. Things were fine right up until they hit a snag with a thud and a bump and a sudden falloff in speed, even as the engine raced.
''Damn sinker,'' Jose growled as he brought the boat around and idled the engine. Off to their left, just a few centimeters below a wave trough, a log, maybe a quarter of a meter in diameter and spiked from shorn-off tree limbs, spun from their contact. Jose pulled something the size of a stylus from his shirt pocket, extended it into a meter-long pole, waited until the log settled down to a stable rocking motion, then hurled it at the log. It stuck, a red flare igniting at its high end. In a moment, Kris's boat captain was on the radio.