“Hey! What’s this?” came from behind Kris.
“I think that’s called a sleepy dart,” Gunny told the woman. “Haven’t you ever seen one before?”
“No, I haven’t,” the medic said, eyeing the offending dart as she held it up to the light.
“It does strange things to a man,” Gunny told her.
“And how would you know?” was a question Kris really didn’t want Gunny to answer.
“I don’t have a written letter for Doc Maggie,” Kris said, reaching out to tap the woman who insisted on ignoring her.
At the touch, the woman almost jumped. She finally did look at Kris though it was a look usually reserved for something vile that had been left behind by a sick cat.
“Who are all of you? What are you doing here?” the chart-scanning woman demanded. “You all have to leave.”
“And you said this would be the easy part,” Jack whispered to Kris.
She threw him a nasty look of her own. Then, only too aware that this was not going well, she drew in a long breath and played the card that usually worked.
“Listen. I’m Princess Kris Longknife of Wardhaven, and I really need to see Dr. Rodriguez.”
It would be inaccurate to say that with that announcement the Emergency Room went silent enough that you could hear a pin drop. Around the room, patients continued to moan and whimper. One child even continued to scream, the results of an earache that needed treatment. However, with the exception of a nurse’s aide who chose that moment to drop a tray of syringes and needles, creating quite a clatter, most of the medical professionals in the room did indeed go quiet.
“Yeah, and I’m the Queen of Sheba,” the solid woman said, and made a show of turning her attention back to the med board.
“You know, Gail, she does look a bit like that woman who was on all the vids when she saved Henry Peterwald’s life.”
“And what would a Longknife be doing on St. Pete, Rosy, deep in the bosom of Greenfeld?”
“I don’t know. You tell me. But she does look like that Longknife dame.”
“You are so blind I don’t know how you keep your license,” Gail said. “She looks nothing like that trollop.” But Gail did take a long moment to eye Kris.
Kris ran a hand through what little hair she had at the moment. “You are catching me at a bad time.”
“She’s been sick,” Jack put in. “Came down with a bad case of bombs.”
At one of the workstations, a male in blue scrubs brought up a picture of Kris. “It kind of does look like her,” he opined.
“What do you want with old Doc Maggie?” a woman said as she closed a set of curtains behind her. “Get this woman up for a CAT scan stat. She’s just had a stroke. I won’t know how to treat her until we know what’s going on inside her head.”
“Maggie, the CAT’s booked solid,” the guy in blue scrubs said.
“Make a hole for this woman in the next thirty minutes or tell them they’ll have Maggie the Terrible to deal with.”
“Be it upon you, Doc,” the tech said, and got busy making a call.
“Now, what was this I heard about you having a message for me,” the doc said, eyeing Kris.
“Is there someplace we can talk in private?” Kris asked.
“Somewhere there must be such a place on this blighted planet, but I don’t have time to go there, not if I’m going to save my quota for the night,” the doc said, pulling off her gloves.
“My message is from a friend of yours. I’m not sure you’d want everyone to know about it.”
“This is Kris Longknife, Maggie,” said the gal who had first tried to get Gail to consider that Kris might be who she said she was. “You know, the Wardhaven Princess.”
“Did she bring me a new CAT scanner?” Maggie asked.
Kris shook her head.
“Sorry, I really don’t have time for you and any message from my past. Okay?”
Kris took a deep breath and dived in. “Vicky said she was never better than when she had you to share her ideas with.”
“She did, did she? And when did she tell you that.”
“After dinner on a battleship up at the space station. She asked me to come find you.”
“And why didn’t she come herself?”
“You know why,” Kris said.
“She never calls. She never writes. But you say she suddenly has this overwhelming need to talk about old times. Why didn’t she just call me?”
“She couldn’t find your number down here. She couldn’t do much of a search for you. You know that people she gets too close to get suddenly dead. She didn’t want that to happen to you.”
Maggie eyed Kris like, maybe, she was starting to believe her. “Vicky’s a part of my life that’s past and gone. Why should I reopen that can of worms?”
“Here,” Kris said, taking in the sweep of the Emergency Room, “you can save a dozen. Maybe two dozen each night. Advising Vicky, you could save the lives of millions.”
“Who’s this Vicky,” Gail demanded.
“A kid I knew a long time ago,” Maggie said.
“A kid who can save millions?”
“She’s grown up now,” Maggie answered.
“And she’s trying to carry the heavy burden of her birth,” Kris said. “She needs help. Help from someone who lets her be her better self.”
“I need some time to think about this,” Maggie said.
“I have to keep moving. You can come with us now. If you don’t, I don’t know if I can come back for you later,” Kris said.
“Hold it,” Gail cut in. “Who’s this Vicky?”
“Just a kid I knew,” Maggie repeated.
“Who now has dinner on a battleship with the likes of Princess Kris Longknife,” Gail went on. “I’ve heard tell that Victoria, murdering bitch, Peterwald is on a battleship up at our station. Is that the Vicky you’re talking about? It has to be.”
“And if it is?” Kris said.
“I don’t want to work with nobody that helped that murdering bitch over the sniffles. The doc should have drowned that one at birth.”
“So much for the Hippocratic Oath,” Maggie said softly.
“Kris, we really need to be not here,” Jack said.
“Maggie, I offered to talk to you in private.”
“Yes, yes, I know.”
“Will you please come? Now!” Kris said.
Maggie looked at her coworkers. Blood was rising in their eyes. Even some of the patients looked ready to grab something and start swinging. If ever Kris had wondered how the average person on the street in the Greenfeld Alliance felt about the Peterwalds, the unanimous vote tonight in this small part of their realm was not going well for the ruling family.
“Okay, okay,” Maggie said, stripping off her unused gloves and following Kris toward the exit. Jack stepped between Kris and Maggie, grabbed their elbows, and forced them to a trot.
Behind her, Kris could hear sidearms coming out from where the Marines had hidden them. “Calm down, folks. We’re moving on. No need for anyone to get hurt.”
Once out the door, Jack said, “Run,” and they did.
22
The young Marine had worked a miracle with the truck’s motor; it was running smooth as silk. He’d also turned the rig around; it was aimed downhill. Everyone piled in. This time, Doc Maggie was in the front seat between Kris and Jack. A complaining Chief Beni was helped into the back of the truck by a pair of Marines.
Jack put the old truck in gear. It bucked a couple of times in protest, but then, as it rolled downhill, it thought better of its complaints and became downright cooperative.
Kris glanced back at the hospital. Nurse Gail was scowling at them . . . and making a note on her med board.
“Chief, I think we need a new license plate,” Kris said.
“Yeah, I saw that, too. I’m working on it.”
At the first red light, one of the young Marines hopped down and did things to the plates. “Consider our problem solved,” the Chief told Kris through the open back window.