Audacious

11

So much for Kris's hope that the Longknife faction would keep a solid hold on its side of the room. Kris swiveled in her chair to face a woman. Her gray hair likely put her over a hundred years old. But it didn't look like she'd put them to use gathering wisdom. Not if she was willing to beard Kris among her own supporters.

NELLY?

SHE IS NOT SQUAWKING. I AM SEARCHING MY MEMORY FOR A FACIAL RECOGNITION.

So Kris would have to go on what she had in her own gray matter. The dress was conservative. Even old-fashioned. And the lapel pin claimed service in the Iteeche War. Somewhere in the back of Kris's head, a soft voice was whispering something. Alarm bells weren't going off. It was more like a kitten's purr. Part of Kris wanted to roll over on her back and let the woman pet her belly.

You're definitely going weird, her paranoid self snapped.

No, she's not what she sounds like, another part of Kris shouted, that young part of her that got lost when little Eddy died under the kidnappers' pile of manure.

''Gramma?'' Kris half whispered. ''Gramma Ruth?''

The woman opened her arms, and painful shoes or not, Kris ran to hug her.

''I figured for sure your mom had seen that you forgot me, after she ushered Trouble and me out of the house and told us never to come back.''

''Did she?'' Kris asked, looking down into sparkling gray eyes. ''She didn't tell me that. And I had my pictures of you and the general. I didn't exactly leave them out on the dresser for Mother's maids to steal, but how could I ever forget you. You haven't aged a bit.''

''Now you're lying like a Longknife,'' Gramma Ruth said, and swatted Kris gently.

''Is Grampa Trouble here?'' A frown crossed Kris's face as the question sneaked out without a lot of thought.

''Let me guess. From that reaction, I'd say the old boy has been up to his usual no good and maybe you're starting to understand why so few of us love that rascal's lopsided smile.''

''Let's just say I'm learning to double-check, no, triple-check any advice he gives me.''

''Good girl. Now you just be sure to do ten or twenty checks on anything that scamp Ray comes up with and you just might live to have as many gray hairs as I've got.''

Good advice, Kris would have to think about how a serving Naval officer did that to a king who had authority over her.

''So, what are you doing here?'' Kris asked as she guided her great-grandmother to her table and settled down for a long talk.

''I'm teaching ancient history, you know, the stuff five, ten minutes ago. I have a visiting professorship at Garden City University. I guess they figure a relic of the Unity and Iteeche wars is just the old fart to ramble on about the dusty past.''

SHE HAS A PH.D. IN MODERN HISTORY, Nelly put in.

''If you ramble anything like I remember, you're keeping them awake in class.'' Kris remembered that Gramma Ruth hadn't just talked about the past but dropped reading hints like pedals off a three-day-old rosebud. ''And probably burning the midnight oil finishing assignments.''

Gramma shrugged. ''Don't get too many complaints.''

And are you here just for that, or is there more to your travels, like there always seems to be to mine? Kris decided to prod that gently.

''Will Grampa Trouble be joining you here?''

Gramma snorted. ''Eden is one of quite a few planets that has a standing invitation for him to be on the next ship out if he should pause here a moment. Probably for good cause, too.''

''I'm still working on one of those here,'' Kris said. She cast a look at the woman Marine that had taken over the nano-scouts. She shook her head curtly. A social event like this took place in a flood of bugs.

Kris nodded, and quickly gave her favorite great-grandmother the official version of the assignment that brought her to Eden.

''Well, honey,'' Gramma Ruth said, ''they also serve who only hang around. Or so I told myself when I was officially just growing vegetables on the old Patton. I understand you had a chance to horse that old wreck around space.''

''You would have been proud of the vets, turning the Patton into a museum, and then into a semidecent fighting ship.''

''If they got her up to semidecent, they had her in better shape than we ever did.'' The old woman laughed. ''She always was a mess. Is she a wreck now?''

''I don't know. Last I saw her, she was as attached to High Chance as they could get her, what with all the damage. She's their ship. They'll have to decide.''

Gramma paused for a second, then asked, ''And what are you deciding?''

Kris looked around, as if she could see the nanos buzzing them. ''I really don't know. Any chance we could do lunch?''

''Not like your lunch today, I hope.''

''You heard?'' Which raised the question: ''How?''

Now Gramma Ruth laughed, a hearty belly laugh that got most of her shaking. ''One of my students is from the Turkish community on the Euro side. He suggested The Turkish Truth. Triple T. A usually reliable source.''

''I've had the El Camino Real suggested to me.''

''Good rag,'' Ruth said. ''I often see them exchanging bylines with the Triple T. Them and the Banzai, a source my Japanese students swear by.''

Kris fidgeted, wanting to talk more, but unwilling to share it with the rest of human space. There were so many things she wanted to ask someone who'd married into this zoo that was the Longknife legend. Gramma Ruth and Trouble weren't Longknifes…exactly. But Grampa Trouble had been Ray's right hand through so much of the Iteeche War. And they'd married into the family; their daughter, Sarah, had been Grampa Al's first wife until a truck driver took off her side of the car. Accident or bungled assassination attempt? It was now too late to determine.

Yes, Gramma Ruth knew the sorrow of being too close to one of those damn Longknifes. Yet here she was, saying hi to a great-granddaughter that she could have walked past.

Hold it? How did Gramma Ruth get into this soirée?

Kris realized she was not holding up her end of the conversation. ''Who gave you an invite?'' she asked softly.

Again the old campaigner laughed. ''Us college professors have our ways. We may be poor, but we're genteel poverty. Don't think my name was ever mentioned.'' She glanced around. ''Some old fart here is without his wife, I suspect. Ah yes, he's in line to dance with the confetti girl. I'll have to tell his wife. Or not.''

Kris figured there was one item she wouldn't mind having the whole universe know. ''You know anyplace where a girl can get decent shoes to wear that aren't combat boots?''

The two of them studied Kris's feet.

''In your size, I'd suggest the company that made my old milking shoes, back in the days when I was just a poor farm girl looking for a nice boy to settle down with me on Hurtford.''

''Boy did you miss. Gramma, I'm thinking you're not the one I should talk to about finding a man.''

''Oh, I'm the one, gal. Boy's are easy to find. Men, now, that's a whole lot harder to do. Hey, you, Marine. Yeah, you, Lieutenant.''

Jack turned from where he'd been facing out, giving Kris as much privacy as anyone in a social goldfish bowl could have. ''Yes, ma'am.''

''When you going to make an honest girl of this woman?''

Kris yelped, but Jack held his ground manfully. ''Commander Tordon, there is no way I could make an honest woman of a Longknife. They are born into iniquity and it only gets worse as they pass the age of reason. Assuming they ever do. Sorry, ma'am. I'll take a bullet for her, but there is no way to make her honest.''

Which, Kris had to admit, was a very neat sidestep of the question Kris would have loved to have a straight answer to. And a warning of what lay ahead if she ever did figure out a way to pop that question to the main man in her life. Oh, pooh!

The night dragged on in mindless chatter. By the grace of some bored god, Victoria Peterwald folded her tent and slipped away before the first yawn attacked Kris. So she got home at a decent hour and actually enjoyed a good night's sleep.

Officially, Kris counted that as a good day.