“I wish Kris had been allowed to work here. It would have let me avoid so many of the questions I was starting to spend my nights trying to work out answers to. Morality is not an easy or exact science.”
“Throughout human history it hasn’t been,” Trudy said.
“Or Iteeche history,” Ron added. “My chooser says that we have fallen back on the simplest of solutions. Obey your superior. However, many of them have made very poor choices, and the People have paid a high price for them. It would be good for us to gain access to your attempts and your history.”
“But that is not what you want to talk to King Raymond about,” Kris said.
“No. No, that is not it.”
“Nelly, has having us talking with you helped?” Trudy asked.
“I think you’ve just told me to grow up. To be prepared for things that do not add up like two and two. And I just have to accept that things don’t always come down the way I’ve tried to make them. That’s what the others are talking about when they say Kris has bad karma.”
“All the time, and the worst,” Kris said with a sigh.
Silence came, sat for a while, and went only when Nelly said, “Kris, I will be your assistant, doing what you ask. I will follow the commandment, ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill,’ but I will recognize that you damn Longknifes occasionally take it as more advice than commandment.”
“You can say that again,” Trudy said.
“I will also know that I have a job if I ever need it as an assistant to Sam.”
“Anytime, Nelly girl.”
“And, there is nothing wrong with an attitude. I will feel free to give Kris lip anytime I feel like it and there is time for it.”
“Hold it, hold it, where’d that come from?” Kris yelped.
“Way to go, Nelly girl,” Sam said.
“Kids, you were meant for each other,” Trudy said with a grin.
“You humans must be ruled by the dark gods of the deep,” Ron said. “Just thinking about how you live makes my head hurt.”
An hour later, the Wasp boosted for the jump out of Alien 1. Kris, Nelly, and Ron occupied their time debating the advantages of good enough versus pushing the envelope.
“You never would have had any of these problems with my translating machine. It does what it is told to do. No backtalk.” “Backtalk” was a word Ron had just learned and liked very much. As in “You Imperial counselors are full of backtalk but you have never hatched an original thought in your misspent lives.” He wasn’t sure he could say that to their faces, but it was fun to say it where they couldn’t hear.
“But you and Kris are using me to do all your translating. I rest my case.”
Which didn’t settle anything.
Was it just Kris, or was Nelly enjoying the argument for the pure pleasure of it? Kris said little, but let the words flow over her like water.
Professor mFumbo’s head ducked into the lounge. “Are you going to tie this room up for much longer? I’d like to hold a staff meeting in here.”
“Do you usually hold staff meetings with a bar close at hand?” Kris asked.
The professor pulled his suit coat closed as if it were armor. “Bar? What bar? I didn’t know the room had a bar.”
“I wouldn’t bet money on that,” Nelly said.
“And I wouldn’t take your money. There is not likely to be any randomness in that,” Kris said.
The professor closed the door.
“How much longer will we require this room?” Ron said. “I understand that many of the young humans use this room as a place to meet and begin their mating rituals. I admit you humans are very strange in that respect. I am intrigued by the idea of two intelligent people meeting and establishing a relationship that may or may not result in them producing an offspring that they bring up together. It is very alien.”
“You don’t know who your biological parents were?” Kris asked. She was researching the Iteeche, not really talking sex with Ron.
Not that it mattered.
“How could I, and what importance could it be?”
Kris considered where that would lead and decided she didn’t want to go there. Not just now. “I’d love to go further into this,” she lied, “but I’ve got a bigger question I’m wondering about.”
“What would that be?”
“How could two species damn near make each other extinct?”
“You are sure your people believed that of us?”
“Just as sure as your folks are that we were about to do it to you.”
“You were,” Ron said.
“No way,” Kris said.
Ron paused for a moment, his neck going red, green, and black. “I do not understand.”
“I don’t either,” Nelly said.
“But I want to,” Kris said. “Nelly, inform Chief Beni that I want a full star map set up in this room. If there’s anyone who needs to be told, tell them this room is off-limits for the rest of our trip to Wardhaven. Tell Jack, Penny, Abby, and the colonel to get their butts in here, along with everything they know about the Iteeche War. Ron, I can’t tell you what to do, but I’d take it as a personal favor if you’d participate in this little advanced seminar I’m putting together on our recent unpleasantness.”
“If for no other reason than the tidal wave of curiosity you have flooded me with, I will stay.”
“Anyone on your team you want to add? We’ll talk as honestly as we can. Propaganda will be considered only for its informational content at the time. We will not refight the battles, just try to answer the question as to how close either side was to wiping out the other.”
“Both of my Navy captains will want to be here. Gods above save us from the Imperial counselors taking an interest. But they are sticking to their rooms and not bothering us much.” Ron looked up. “Sergeant, your father was an Honored Hero of that war. I often hear you talking to the other Marines about the history of it. Would it please you to be here?”
The Marine grounded his weapon and leaned on the barrel. “My lord, I would be very much pleased to share in the talk that I see coming. Very pleased.”
Half an hour later, the room buzzed with talk. Colonel Cortez and Captain Ted drew up a unified timetable for the war and lit the star chart as battle ebbed and flowed.
And Kris started to see a pattern. “Ron, did you get a star map of human space from any of the ships you captured?”
“Yes,” Ron said, seeming just as thoughtful about what he saw. “We knew where every human-occupied planet was during the war.”
Jack stood up and strode to the wall that was now a map. “And we knew where your planets were as well.”
“Does anyone else see a pattern?” Kris asked. Some heads went up and down. Others went from side to side. Here, with humans and Iteeche together, no one could miss it.
14
Kris haunted the forward lounge. Some renamed it the War Room. It was the Peace Studies Room to others. Say the Little Red Schoolhouse and everyone knew what you meant. It had been a long three weeks. For the last week, they’d even eaten their meals there.
Watching Iteeche eat was something Kris would gladly have passed on. Of course, Ron felt the same about humans. “You humans are disgusting. Eating dead animals. Ugh.”
And all of them had discovered what the other species smelled like after long hours without a shower. Actually, Kris found it no worse than a roomful of Marines after a couple of long days in the field.