Jack honored her by not shooting back a “no.”
After a pause of just the right and thoughtful length, he said, “I can’t think of anything at the moment. Can’t honestly think of anything that would make killing you even close to the bottom of my long list of things to do today.”
“But she did.”
“Remember, she’s the end product of a whole lot of history and brainwashing.”
“We have our history. And don’t tell me we don’t dump a lot of stuff on our kids. I was one not too long ago, and I’m still recovering from the experience.”
Jack chuckled. “Aren’t we all? One of the nice things about being a grown-up is that you get to pull your own strings.”
“And cut a few of the worst ones,” Kris said, making a face at the overhead.
“So, love, where is all this going?”
“We’re going. That’s for sure. I came. I saw. I don’t like what I saw, and I’m leaving, with apologies to Caesar.”
“Caesar never saw anything like this crazy-house mess.”
“How sure are you that we’ve taken an accurate measure of this mess?” Kris asked.
“I’m 99.9 percent sure that some hundred and ten thousand years ago, that star up there, the first one to the left and straight on until sunset, conquered this planet. There may have even been some gene engineering to make these folks more docile. It didn’t work. It may have taken ten thousand years, but the slaves rose up and not only killed the masters but jumped right into their own star system and plowed their fields with sky-fire and salt. And they’ve been hunting for anything smart enough to be a danger so they can kill it before it has a chance to rise up. Then wash, rinse, and repeat what happened here again and again.”
Kris frowned at the overhead. “Do you think the obedience we’ve witnessed dirtside and in our own brig, the doggedness that’s kept these people wandering the stars, unable to change, might have been engineered into them by the king and queen pressed in glass down there in the pyramid?”
“Kris, people change. Slaves revolt. The underdog this war is the uberdog the next one. That’s the way of nature. That’s how it worked on Earth. The Iteeche might be more obedient than your average hairy Earthling, but they have revolts, and dynasties rise and fall. Even the Rooster elders, with their egg check, created the seeds of their overthrow. We just got there before the rebellion got big enough and swept out of the woods. Change happens. Get ready for it.”
“Except on those ships,” Kris said. “She was willing to take her own life and her child’s future rather than even consider that she might not have the world right. That she might be able to change.”
“How different is that from the captain of that first ship you shot the engines out of who then blew himself and his huge, multigenerational family into space?”
“And you said I couldn’t have seen yesterday’s murder-suicide coming?” Kris said.
“We’ve connected a lot of dots, hon. This is the first time we’ve connected one individual bug-eyed monster to the other dots.”
“Bug-eyed monsters. They look just like us, but they are the most different of any race we’ve come upon out here.”
“Yep. Now, my love, have we finished with the weighty stuff of the day, because, I have to tell you, this is not the pillow talk I envisioned when I took you for my wife.”
Kris rolled into his arms and gave him a long, loving kiss. “Is that more like it?”
He made an undecided face. “Um, is that the best you got?”
She lunged for him. “I’ll show you best.”
Much later, as Kris was washing Jack’s back in the shower, he asked, “When do we leave?”
“That depends on what the boffins have to say,” Kris said. “I hope to run into Professor Labao at breakfast and get a quick report.”
Kris did indeed find the good professor just finishing up his own breakfast as she entered the wardroom. Captain Drago had not restructured the Wasp to fully accommodate the scientists when they came back aboard from Alwa. The Forward Lounge was there, as usual, but none of the restaurants or pubs that the boffins frequented for their meals had been re-created. Like it or not, the boffins ate in the wardroom.
Usually, the Navy got the first seating and were long gone when the sleepy-eyed scientists finally stumbled to the table. Today, Kris was running late enough that she arrived when the professor was getting up to leave.
“Sit back down, Professor. I want to knock the dust of this place from my boots. How soon before I can do that?”
“We actually have a lot of research yet to finish. It should not be rushed. We have just managed to translate the dates in the trophy room of the pyramid. It seems of late that they are averaging a visit every fifty years or so, and the last one was only twenty years ago.”
“That may not be the only time they visit,” Kris said, dryly. “It appears from our discussion with one of them that they drop by regularly to maroon a few troublemakers or just some unlucky few they punish to intimidate the rest.”
“Oh. Oh. Oh! I take it that Dr. la Duke’s work has been fruitful?”
“Yep, fruitful and deadly. They don’t talk to us ‘vermin,’ they just kill themselves. Oh, and they kill all vermin.”
The good professor raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never been called a vermin.”
“I’m sure la Duke recorded all his research. Check it out in your spare time. Anyway, I’ve learned what I came here for. I wish to be going. How soon can your folks finish it up and pack it in?”
“I will see to that immediately.”
“Nelly, get me Captain Drago.”
“What can I do for you, Admiral?”
“What do you need to do to get underway for Alwa?”
“I’d like to refuel. We’re about half-full on reaction mass. That’s enough to get us back to Alwa, but we’d be coming in on fumes.”
“Can we refuel on the way out?”
“The two large gas giants are both about forty-five degrees off from the jump. The nearest ice giant is about a day or so out from here going the other way. I would prefer the higher reaction mass you get with ice to just hydrogen. For that, I’d need about three days.”
“Then get the Endeavor and Intrepid headed out to refuel for the rest of us. I’d like to get underway on the fastest track for home just as soon as you’re fueled.”
“Aye, aye, Admiral.”
“Three days!” Professor Labao was too much of an aristocrat to squeak, but he came close.
“Three days,” Kris said.
There was a long pause as the professor consulted with his computer. “Well, if you say so, I guess we can finish in three days.”
“Kris, I foresee a problem,” Nelly said.
“And it is?”
“All of the scientists will finish in three days. The problem is that none of them plan to finish in any less time.”
“Oops,” Kris said.
“Is there a problem?” the professor asked, almost looking innocent.
“We don’t have enough shuttles to bring everyone up at the end of day three. Some have to come up sooner,” Kris said.
“But who will decide?”
“You.”
“But I could never tell another scientist that their research is more important than another’s.”
“I thought that was what administration was all about,” Kris said.
The professor looked like Kris had just gotten 2+2 wrong. “I may have to make tough calls where money is concerned. Time on equipment, yes. But to cut someone off when they might be close to something that would open up an entire new area of research! No. I will not do it.”
“Then I will,” Kris said. “Meet me in the Forward Lounge at noon and warn all your teams to be available online.”
Jack had returned with Kris’s breakfast, and it was rapidly getting cold. She turned to eat, and the professor hurried from the wardroom, already talking to his research teams.