When all was done and the pipes returned to march them from the mess and to brandy and cigars, Kris leaned close to Emma. ''Thank you for sharing what you've treasured in your heart.''
''I hold them there until it is time to pass them along to my daughter or son.''
''I hope they won't mind the loan of them to me.''
''There's something magical about them. Shared out, they're just as strong.''
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Colonel Hancock personally drove Kris and Tom to the spaceport next noon. ''Not exactly the way I arrived,'' Kris said when he offered, thinking, He really wants us gone.
''And this place ain't anywhere near what it was when you showed up,'' the Colonel said. ''Is it always this way with Longknifes? Their bosses either charge ‘em with mutiny or give ‘em a medal?''
''You tell me. I'm kind of new at this Longknife business,'' Kris said, and realized that it was true. Twenty-two years old, and she was only just discovering what she was really about.
The lander played the usual game of dodge potholes on its run out. As spacers and a handful of officers wound their way from shuttle to the buses Kris had hired, Colonel Hancock turned to her. ''Give my compliments to Captain Thorpe. If he's anything like the fellow he was at the academy, he'll be happy to have a tiger like you on his boat.''
''Hasn't shown much appreciation.'' Kris laughed. And if what the captain had been passing her way was his idea of happy, he was a very strange man.
''You have to remember that fellows like your captain put on the uniform to be war heroes. Hasn't been much call for that out in space. I tried to talk him into joining the Corps, but he wanted to command his own ship. Wonder if he regrets that?''
''I'm not about to ask,'' Kris said.
''No, don't. It would ruin the effect of the fitness report I'll be forwarding. I suspect it may change the way he looks at you now that he knows he's got a tiger and not some debutante pussycat.''
Kris could hope.
The trip back to Wardhaven was good for catching up on sleep and news…and what Kris had been putting off. She and Tommy studied the news feeds with scowls. As far as the media was concerned, what they'd been doing on Olympia didn't exist.
''And we could have been killed,'' Tommy snorted.
''Not a happy thought,'' Kris said, knowing that someone had been killed. How could she tell Willie Hunter's folks that he'd died for something important when the media ignored it? Kris had Nelly research all the final letters home recorded in literature. Feeling guilty, Kris cobbled some words together from the better ones and sent it off, telling herself it was better for the parents to have a good letter now than something better later.
But nothing in the media prepared Kris for what happened as she hiked though the crowded arrival hall at the bottom of the space elevator. A young woman walked up to Kris and Tommy, looked them up and down, then spat at them.
''You come to kidnap some little girl, you Earthy scum,'' she screamed even as she dodged back into the crowd before Kris could grab her arm, yell at her, The Navy had rescued the last kidnapped little girl, and damn it, I did the rescuing. While Kris was still shaking with unspent rage, Harvey appeared.
''Sorry. I thought after you rang off that I should have told you to wear civvies. There's a lot of bad blood around.''
''And if I get my hands on that young woman, it will be flowing out her nose,'' Tommy growled.
Kris, surprised, gave Tommy a silent raised eyebrow.
''I mean it. I didn't go through losing your signal on that drop and chasing around in Olympia's mud with people shooting at me for that kind of treatment.''
Unbidden, Kris saw again Willie lying in the mud, reddening the puddle with his blood, then the woman. Choking, she tried to find words to say to both. Maybe a poet could; she couldn't. ''How bad is it?'' she asked Harvey, willing him to talk, fill her head with anything but what was coursing through it.
''The PM's keeping Wardhaven in the Society, almost by his fingernails. It's going to break his heart when he finally has to give in. The opposition has demanded a vote. So far, he's managed to postpone it. Your pa wants Earth to call it quits first. That would give Wardhaven more leverage putting together some kind of follow-on organization out here on the Rim. There're fifty, sixty, maybe more planets that would join Wardhaven in some kind of confederacy. But so far, everybody's secceeding from the Society. Nobody's going to anything.''
''Fifty, sixty planets,'' Kris said, doing the numbers in her head. There were over 600 planets in the Society. True, the newer colonies were only associates, but there were 500 voting members. ''What are the rest up to?''
The old chauffeur shrugged. ''Lot will just be happy to be rid of the Society. Greenfeld seems to be pulling a lot into some kind of federation, maybe forty, fifty, the ones they've colonized or hold the mortgages on. Wardhaven's got its own bunch; most were our colonies or places we helped. Savannah, Riddle. Pitts Hope is making noises like it might toss in with us. Big shock for Earth. They figured they could go back to the Society's original fifty and tell the rest of us to go to hell. Not that easy when some that fought Unity decide they like the Rim ways more than old Earth.''
''Sounds confusing,'' Tommy put in.
''Ever tried juggling five, six hundred eggs?''
''Not eggs,'' Kris countered, remembering that Greenfeld was run by the elder Peterwald. ''Try six hundred hand grenades. And why do I suspect the pins are out of a few of them?''
''And aren't you starting to talk like me?'' Tommy grinned.
''Only on a bad day. Harvey, I'm going to need to run some errands. You busy?''
''What do you have in mind?''
''I need to see Tru.''
''Might be a problem. And speaking of eggs.'' The car was waiting where Kris expected. There was a new secret service agent riding shotgun. Kris remembered him from trailing brother Honovi at the reception. The agent was out, peeling a sticker off the side window. The windshield was spattered with eggs.
''Bunch of kids ran by,'' the agent explained as he slowly pulled off something declaring, Earth—Keep Your Hoods at Home.
Kris tried her hand at another sticker, Equal Taxation.
Tommy pulled off one announcing, Humanity—No Limits.
Harvey went around to the driver's side, growled, and pulled off a sticker saying, Remember Little Edith.
''Do I hear some jingoism jangling?'' Tommy asked.
It wasn't a joke to Kris. ''Looks like the opposition has discovered its slogans. Doc Meade said a good slogan could be more dangerous than an assassin at starting a war.''
''Maybe.'' Harvey shrugged as he got the car into traffic, wipers struggling to clean the window of egg.
So now there were liabilities to licence plate PM-4. As the car pulled into traffic, she leaned forward. ''I take it my problem meeting Tru isn't just that my father doesn't want me to.''
''Right. Feelings are running high, daily protests against this or for that. Then there's the news snoopies looking for any scrap of trash to put on the media. They must get paid by the second. Anyway, our place is surrounded. So is Tru's. I had a bloody tail when I left to pick you up.''
''It's still there,'' the agent said, turning around in his seat. ''By the way, ma'am, I'm Jack. I'll be going with you whenever you leave the grounds.''
''Not bloody likely, Jack,'' Kris snapped, pushing herself back into her seat.
''You might find me handy to have around.''
''There've been three attempts to kill me in the last month. So far the score is me three, them nothing. I don't need help.''
''They only have to get lucky once to make it them one, you nothing,'' Jack pointed out softly.
''You snooping for the prime minister?''