“I believe down would be the safest course.”
“Tell my navigator to do that,” Captain Drago said.
“Is there anything else I’m missing?” Kris asked her crew.
“Someone will have to inform the aliens,” Jacques said. “I visited with them for a bit yesterday, checking on some language issues. They find the eggs confining and want to know when they can get out of them. I told them soon.”
“Then I will have to tell them later,” Kris said, “but not now.”
She paused to compose her thoughts. “Nelly, send to Admiral Kitano. ‘We are in the system in a high-energy state. We will take over pursuit of the hijacked freighter. Please clear the area around Jump Point Beta for our use. Be advised that more reports on the investigation of the alien home world are to follow. Please pass along to me any report on your present situation. Longknife sends.’”
“That ought to cause quite a stir,” Jack said.
“We’ll see,” Kris said. “Nelly, have you and your kids sifted through all the reports we have? Select out the most complete and informative. Send all their executive summaries first, with the rest to follow. See how much we can get out before we go through Beta Jump.”
“Working on it, Kris. I assume this is a second priority to navigation?”
“Correct, Nelly. Catching Sampson is our number one priority.”
“We can handle it all, Kris,” Nelly said, and if she’d had them, she would have been busting her buttons.
There was a long wait before the first message came in from Canopus Station, and it was a visual of Admiral Kitano.
“Oh my God, you folks are coming in fast! We have a problem,” and she proceeded to fill Kris in on the problem she already knew about. Kitano was about halfway through the explanation when a lieutenant brought her a message flimsy. She glanced at it and laughed.
“So, you’ve already picked up on what I’m telling you and, as I should have known, are reacting to it. Okay, you have the right of way. We will keep the space around Jump Point Beta clear for you. Good luck and Godspeed or more.”
The admiral paused to take a deep breath. “Viceroy, I’m glad you had good luck at the alien home world, but we’ve had the worst luck here. Some of the old Rooster elders have taken to civil disobedience. They wander into roads, purely by accident, they insist, but our trucks don’t dare do more than fifteen or twenty klicks for fear of running someone down. The rains didn’t come again, so even though we’ve got plenty of farm gear to plant with, we can only use land we can irrigate.”
The admiral paused to catch a tired breath. “Someone put sand and gravel, even some large stones, in the intake for the viaduct. We got most of the big junk out, but we couldn’t get it all. We’re a good ten percent down on our water flow.”
Kitano glanced offscreen as if looking for words. “We’ve tried talking to them, but all we get is a stubborn insistence that we go back to the way things were. We tell them that there are aliens coming to really mess with their world, but they say they’ve heard enough of that, I think the word they use is something like ‘fairy tale.’ There are a whole lot of us down here about ready to pull our hair out. If that could be done, I think your friend Armstrong would be bald.”
“There have been some ugly incidents between the Alwans that follow the Associations and those that live in the deep woods. So far it’s just pecking at each other, but Granny Rita says she expects bodies to be found any morning now. Sorry to dump this on you just as you’re chasing off after my screwup. If you want my head, I’ll hand in my resignation. I hope you’ll let me keep the P Royal, she’s a sweet ship. Kitano, out.”
And the screen went dead.
“And I thought we had problems,” Kris muttered.
33
Kris dismissed her team to their duties.
“Do you want me to stay, love?” Jack asked.
“Nope. I think you better start looking into ways to board a ship at high vectors. Maybe even with high-gee acceleration still on the ship.”
“You think Sampson will be that stupid?”
“There is no limit I place on Sampson’s folly,” Kris said. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
“Can you loan my Marines the pinnace?”
“Hmm, you have an idea there. That might work. Touch base with Captain Drago. Now, General, I need some time to think.”
“Let me know when you want me around. I’ll come running, Admiral.”
Jack left. Kris reclined her egg. What she really wanted to do was get out and pace the deck. That was what admirals did when they needed to think, wasn’t it? Nelson paced the deck, didn’t he?
Not at 3.5 gees, he didn’t.
Kris reclined, stared at the overhead, and thought.
Hard.
She thought of the hall beneath the pyramids. She’d sworn that not one more head would be added to that gory collection. In her mind’s eye, she saw a Rooster in a glass cube. Would she have to take one of them back there and rub their noses on the glass?
Dare I go back after the calling cards I left?
She hadn’t planned to go back at all, not sooner, not later. But she hadn’t expected to come back and find her rear area in an uproar.
Why won’t someone just let me fight my battles in a nice clean way?
Kris almost laughed. How many statesmen or generals had asked the same question? No doubt, she wasn’t the first. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be the last.
“Nelly, send to Admiral Kitano at your earliest convince. ‘Resignation rejected. I doubt I could have done a better job myself. We will talk more when I get back with Sampson’s guts for garters. Longknife sends.’”
“I’ve already sent it, Kris. Passing along communications is something I could do in my sleep if I ever did sleep. I didn’t bother you before, but now that you asked, we are on course to the jump. We will not intercept Sampson there, but will be about ten hours behind her.”
“Thank you, Nelly. If something big shows up, break in on me, but I do want to think.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Aren’t you busy?”
“I’ve learned to delegate, Kris. My kids complain that I spell delegate D.U.M.P.”
Kris enjoyed a chuckle. “A good joke.”
“Captain Drago liked it. Mimzy and Sal are working on the course corrections. Kris, I took the opportunity to brief Professor Labao on our problem. He has his boffins breaking out the best sensors they have to help us track Sampson and see what final adjustments she makes at the jump.”
“That was good initiative, Nelly,” Kris said.
“So, what is worrying you, Kris?”
“We’ve learned a lot about the aliens.”
“We have.”
“Do I need to report all this back to human space?”
“Didn’t the king say you shouldn’t report back?”
“Yes, we want to leave as few trails as possible. But could any of the stuff that we learned help out back home?”
“Why is this suddenly bothering you?”
“The problem they had on Alwa while I was gone, Nelly. Will what we found help motivate the Alwans to stand with us?”
“I don’t know, Kris. What do you think?”
“Nelly, I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be asked what I think; I want more input.”
“I’m sorry Kris, I can extrapolate trend curves, but jumping from one possible fact to another possible fact is just not what I do.”
“Nelly, is Penny busy?”
“No. Would you like me to invite her and Masao into this conversation?”
“Please do.”