“Hmm. That’s a good question. I always thought Drago’s supply honcho was a whole lot smarter than he let on. I’ll check with mFumbo. He’s got a few anthro and socio types on staff. Never know what you get when you scratch one of those weird birds.”
“I’ll do that. Meanwhile, you and the supply guy get up here. What’s Cara up to?” Kris asked.
The twelve-year-old was still on the Wasp and still wrapping most of its crew around her little finger. Not everyone. Command Master Chief Mong was still dismayed at finding a little girl somehow sharing his domain. Kris did her best to keep those two separated.
“Cara’s computer has her deep in a study of the twenty-first-century politics of old Earth. She asked me too many questions about the mess the Greenfeld Alliance was in, and I couldn’t think of anything closer to it than that lash-up.”
“Abby,” Kris cut in, “we’ve got Vicky Peterwald on board, and I’ve taken on this project because she asked me to.”
“So I’m going to be working for two spoiled brats?”
“The spoiledest,” Vicky announced, leaning close to Kris’s chest to make sure her words carried.
“What did I do in a previous life to deserve this?” Abby sighed. “I’ll get Donovan and be with you as fast as these old legs can carry me. Out.”
“Abby’s not that old,” Vicky said.
“It’s not the years,” Kris said, “but the guff she hands out that age that woman. Shall we go tell the boys how we’ve decided to spend their in-port liberty?”
“You tell the admiral. I think he likes you.”
“If he does, he sure keeps it well hidden from me,” Kris said, “but I’ll take the lead if you want me to.”
18
“YOU want us to do what?” was Admiral Georg Krätz’s response to Kris’s suggestion that they deconstruct the entire economy of the Greenfeld Alliance, starting with St. Pete.
“We’ve got clear evidence that the official reports are too good to believe,” Kris said, ticking her points off on her fingers. “Your Navy supply system shows there’s something not right about what your own computer reports,” brought down a second finger. “You’ve just had a run-in with someone using tech that only my Wardhaven gear could spot and some of it is even better than our stuff,” was good for two fingers, leaving Kris only a thumb out.
“Your Highness,” Chief Beni put in, “you may not have noticed when Da Vinci and I jammed the local network in the lounge. This thing really is the jammer that’s been hassling you.”
“Da Vinci,” Vicky said.
“Yeah,” the chief said, “my new computer.”
“He’s got one of the fancy computers?”
“Vicky, not another word out of you,” Kris snapped. NELLY, YOU KEEP QUIET, TOO.
I WON’T SAY ANYTHING IF SHE DOESN’T.
Kris wondered if all female bonding required going back to the sandbox. Then, come to think about it, male bonding sure seemed to be at that level. Oh bother.
“Staying on topic,” Kris continued, “something is clearly wrong. If anyone has any better ideas of how to tackle the problem that doesn’t involve taking a deep dive into Greenfeld’s economic databases, I’m all ears.”
The admiral was shaking his head before she finished. “I don’t know anything about finance and economics. What I do know is that here in Greenfeld territory, it is a capital crime to reveal economic secrets. If I sell you the plans for our newest battleship, I’d at least get a court-martial. If I gave out the true balance-of-payments figures for our planets, I’d be shot on apprehension. No doubt while trying to escape.”
“Is it that bad?” Kris asked.
“He has pretty much got it right,” Vicky said. “Of course, you would be doing what you did under my orders and with me at your elbow. That would make it legal, wouldn’t it?” she said, flashing the admiral a not-quite-confident smile.
“Maybe it would. But are you sure someone wouldn’t pass it along to your father with the tale twisted and torn in such a way that he wasn’t howling for your blood . . . and mine . . . before the guy finished telling his tale?”
Kris should have turned away. No one deserved to be under public scrutiny when they went through the awakening being forced on the young Peterwald woman. But Kris was held captive by the flight of emotions across Vicky’s face.
She began so innocent, so confident. She was Daddy’s little darling and had nothing to fear from her father. Slowly, reality seeped from her head to her heart. Slowly, realization dawned that she was indeed just a player in a hard and deadly game . . . and those who played it could indeed turn her father against her. Even to the death of her.
Intellectually, Vicky must have known all this beforehand. As Kris watched, knowledge roared out like a flash flood from a small corner of her brain until it soaked every fiber of her being.
The new, wiser, but infinitely older Vicky finished her coming of age by slowly nodding agreement. “You are right, sir.”
Then her face hardened. “But this is still something that needs to be done. If our beloved Greenfeld is not to be reduced to a mess of primal blood and gore, the truth must be sorted out and become the basis for our actions. We can’t just keep flailing away in the dark. Can we, Kris?”
The question posed so plaintively by Vicky was both amorphous and ambiguous. Even a hot potato in the lap had more form and structure. Still, Kris found the openness of the question more to her liking than she might have.
“Yes, in answer to the basic question,” Kris began, “I do think truth is a better policy than lies. It’s also a whale of a lot better basis for policy. And no, Admiral, it’s not my policy that a weak Greenfeld is the best friend a strong Wardhaven can have. As best I know from personal observation, it’s not my king’s preference either.
“Which leaves us gnawing at a bit of a problem. If getting to the truth is the way to go, how do we do it without being stabbed in the back? Right, Admiral?”
“I certainly find it easier to wash my back in the shower when there are no knives sticking out.”
“Who’d have thought he could tell a joke,” Vicky quipped.
“My senior officers often surprise me,” Kris said. “Sometimes even pleasantly. I may have a solution to your communication problem.”
There was a knock at the door to the lounge, and Abby poked her head in. “There’s a whole passel of Marines of various faiths and persuasion out here telling me that you do not wish to be disturbed. I told them that such plebeian rules never apply to the likes of me. Would one of you please say something before one of these fine young men rams a bayonet up some delicate part of my anatomy?”
“Let her in,” Kris said.
“What about these others?” came from the passageway.
“They’re with me,” Abby said, and ushered beauty and the beast into the Forward Lounge.
Beauty was a strikingly tall young woman with all the lovely assets that an aspirant movie star would kill for. Kris might not kill for that package, but she’d certainly commit several Class A misdemeanors to make those looks her own.
The man beside her could easily have been retrieved from under a bridge where he spent his time frightening horses and trying to eat children’s toes. Short, lumpy, and with a bent nose, he wore dungarees cut off below the knees and a sleeveless sweatshirt celebrating a jazz quartet.
“I’m Amanda Kutter,” the young woman said in what would have to be a magnificent contralto voice. “I just joined the scientists. My doctoral dissertation was on the economic tension between Earth and the Rim that brought about devolution. I was hoping to do research on the economies of the Sooner planets. If we could determine how they got started and maintained themselves in isolation, it might really tell us something.”