“Thanks, Nelly, but the person I really need to talk with is someone who has experience dealing with us damn Longknifes. Gramma Ruth or . . .” Kris ran out of people. “Wouldn’t be any good to talk to Father or Honovi. They’re in the middle of it.”
“Would Admiral Santiago be one you could talk to?”
“Yes,” Kris said. “She and her family have had a lot of experience dealing with us damn Longknifes, but she’s at Chance.”
“Not right now, Kris. She’s making a report or attending a meeting or something right here on Wardhaven.”
“Message her, Nelly. Ask her if she could come by Nuu House at 1900 tomorrow—2000! Anytime she wants.”
“I’ve done it. She hasn’t answered, but I will tell you when she does.”
“Good, Nelly. Good. I should have realized sooner. I don’t need to talk to Longknifes about how to survive us. I need to talk to people who have survived us. Sandy’s just the one.”
41
Next evening, Kris ate a light supper. The surgery had been successful; Nelly was once more directly jacked into Kris’s brain. She was quiet but there. Chief Beni ordered a new net jack to replace the one destroyed, one he swore would be impossible to jam.
Kris’s team was doing personal errands when the doorbell rang. Crutches gone, but now using two canes, Kris opened the door herself.
“Sandy, I’m so glad to see you.”
“Maybe not so much when you see who I brought,” the admiral said as she stepped aside. Kris got her first look at the young man behind her.
“Who’s he?” Kris said. She knew she sounded rude. But she was due for some more painkillers, and she’d been looking forward to some honest talk with one of the few people she trusted.
“I’m Winston Spencer. I wrote a story for the admiral when she was skipper of a destroyer about life in the little boys.”
Sandy cut in. “And he also wrote the best story I saw on the Battle of Wardhaven.”
The reporter seemed encouraged. “I was one of the few who reported that you were the real commander of the defense that saved our skins.”
Kris snorted. “And you were wrong. There were a lot of people senior to me who did more than their bit to get us out of that mess. It was the people on the boats that deserve most of the credit, and too many of them paid for it with their lives.”
They fell silent, there in the open door for a long moment. When nobody broke the quiet, Kris took a hammer to it. “So what are you doing here when I only invited Sandy?”
“Kris, I think we should step inside,” the admiral said.
Kris struggled to take a step back, then pointed them to the library. They entered; Kris took the same seat she’d had the night before. Sandy sat where Jack had; the reporter took Crossenshield’s place. Not too smart of him.
“There are drinks at the bar,” Kris said.
Winston hopped to his feet and only seemed dismayed when he found his choices. “Tea or coffee! Don’t you have anything stronger?”
“Not when I set them up,” Kris said.
“So the stories about you are true. You don’t drink,” the reporter said, pouring tea.
“At least that part of my story is true,” Kris admitted, eyeing Sandy, willing her to explain the strange presence of this interloper. Sandy had crossed her hands in her lap and was doing a rather good imitation of a silent Buddha.
Three glasses of ice tea on a tray, the reporter headed back to his seat. Still, he couldn’t take his eyes off the surroundings. “So this is the library of Nuu House. If only these walls could talk.”
“If they did, half the history books in human space would have to be rewritten,” Kris said dryly, as he handed her one of the glasses.
“Still, a reporter would love to know,” Winston said, handing Sandy a glass before taking his seat. He raised his glass in salute and took a sip.
If he wanted stories, Kris had one she didn’t mind sharing. “I found an early draft of one of Grampa Ray’s speeches once,” she said.
“What did you do with it?”
“I was seven, my brother Eddy was three. We made paper airplanes out of it.”
Winston groaned. Sandy showed a mother’s gentle smile. “But my big brother Honovi was twelve, and he intervened before the papers were more than bent. Someday, students will be able to compare that draft with the final one.”
“Thank heavens for big brothers,” the reporter said.
“So, the truth has some value to you?” Kris said.
“It’s very important to me,” he shot back.
“As a child I believed in the truth,” Sandy said. “Now I find that there are truths and truths, and it’s often hard to separate them.”
“Don’t try to confuse me, Admiral,” Winston said.
“Either of you two want to tell me why a quiet evening with one of my friends has turned into a mob scene debating philosophy?” Kris asked.
Sandy waved her glass toward Winston.
He cleared his throat. “I have it from good sources that King Raymond is holding secret talks with representatives of the Iteeche Empire concerning humanity’s capitulation to the Empire.” The words were fairly racing out of his mouth before he finished.
At “King Raymond,” Kris froze her smile. At “secret talks,” she locked every muscle on her face down tight. At “Iteeche Empire,” she locked every muscle in her body where it was.
That was a good thing, because when he got to “humanity’s capitulation,” she managed not to strangle him.
Who was talking to this nut? No, the talker was the nut, this kid was just the poor reporter being taken for a ride.
Trying to look as casual as possible, Kris turned to Sandy. “And you told him?”
“I told him his source was feeding him a load of bull. But he insisted that you would know the truth about this, so I decided to bring him along. Sorry about the surprise. He only got ahold of me two hours ago, and I didn’t think this was something to talk about over the net.”
“Thanks,” Kris said, her mind spinning as she used every second Sandy gave her to think.
Who was his source? Had that source lied about the meetings’ purpose, or was the reporter adding that as part of a fishing expedition? Should she shoot him right now?
That could be embarrassing, and it hardly seemed like the thing you do in front of guests like Sandy.
No, she’d have to muscle this one out herself.
“I don’t know who in the opposition fed you this line, Mr. Spencer. It beats me why they’d waste time creating a story this wild when Father doesn’t have to call for new elections for two, three years. Taken as a whole, this is a total fantasy.” That wasn’t actually a lie. Maybe Kris had missed her calling as a politician.
God forbid.
“Maybe some of the story I got was wrong. But the Iteeche have been with you. And they have talked to your great-grandfather, the king.”
There was no way not to lie to that. No way, except . . . “Who’s feeding you this stuff?”
“Wardhaven has shield laws. I don’t have to tell you my sources, and you can’t make me.”
“I thought you cared about the truth,” Kris snapped.
“I do. That’s why I’m here. What is the truth about the Iteeche and King Ray?”
Oh, if only Kris could tell him all that truth. She settled for continuing her attack. “Spencer, look at the story you’ve got. It doesn’t hold together. Why would King Ray be talking surrender? We beat them last war. Just ask any vet.”
“But it has been eighty years since we’ve had any kind of war. We’ve gone soft. Lost our edge.”
“Now you’re sounding like the opposition,” Kris snapped.