Undaunted

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.

“Remember, you’re talking about Ray Longknife, Hammer of the Iteeche.”

“And I’m talking to his great-granddaughter, who’s got orders to way-out-to-hell-and-gone. Just the thing I’d do if she’d been hauling Iteeche around in her own private yacht. Those orders would keep her and her crew from talking.”

“There’s a reason for my new set of orders. Sandy, I’ve made lieutenant commander!”

“Congratulations. Wasn’t that very deep selection?”

“Only a year. Maybe a bit more,” Kris admitted.

“A bribe?” the reporter put in.

“Hardly. If they counted every attempt on my life as a year’s extra service, I’d be eligible for admiral.”

“God help us all,” Sandy said, folding her hands and casting her eyes prayerfully to heaven.

“Okay,” Winston growled, taking a long pull on his drink as if it might somehow become more powerful if he treated it like it was, “I know there’s something up. I know it involves Iteeche. You’ve told me that I’m being lied to by my sources. Some of them. You can go off to your jobs and leave me here with just a pinch of this and a dash of that, and I’ll keep looking for the truth. But you’re not being very smart.

“This story is going to come out. It’s got legs, and twisted one way or the other, it can hurt you. It could even bring down a government. Tell me nothing, and I’m going to hunt, and I’m going to hunt, and I’m going to find the fire that’s leaking this smoke.

“Then it will come out. Hopefully with more right and less wrong in it, but it is going to come out. King Ray and Iteeche is too big a story just to lie there and go nowhere.”

Kris had heard that argument . . . years ago from a college professor. She’d argued with him and had to appeal her final grade. She’d won, but the bad feelings remained.

Kris had once talked honestly with a reporter. She was ten. The results were a disaster. Her father hadn’t said much to her, just looked disappointed. She’d sworn she’d never make that mistake again.

She ought to throw this fellow out of the house.

No way she could physically do that. Though hitting him over the head repeatedly with her canes seemed promising.

“Sandy, you know this guy. Any chance he means what he’s saying?”

The admiral chewed her lower lip for a half minute, eyeing the reporter. Eyed him long enough that he started to fidget.

“I think he believes what he is saying . . . right now. Tomorrow, a month from now, I don’t know what he will think then. You and I take an oath to protect and defend. He is committed to the truth. But the truth is a slippery thing, I’ve learned. Makes one a whole lot less resolute over the long run.”

“Is that why reporters seem to go wherever the wind is blowing?” Kris said.

“Wherever the story is,” Winston put in. “We do what we have to do to get the story.”

“ ‘Story,’ not truth?” Kris said, cutting the legs out from under him.

He was honest enough to smile. “You got me there. The story is what we get paid for, and it’s what we think about the most. But we can be trusted with truth.”

“Truth above story?” Kris asked.

“There are times when the truth is bigger than the story,” Winston admitted.

Kris studied him when he said that. He did not flinch but looked her square in the face.

“How good is this fellow?” Kris asked Sandy.

“Good at getting to the bottom of things. He asked the hard questions, both for his story on my destroyer and after the battle. And his stories had traction. People read them. I think he had a definite impact on the public.”

“So he can change things?” Kris said.

Sandy eyed the reporter. “Yes, I think he can change things.”

“Are you good?” Kris asked.

“I’m good at what I do,” Winston Spencer said.

“We may have a chance to see how good you are,” Kris said.

“Sandy, Winston is right about one thing, I do have orders for a patrol out beyond the Rim. I’m going to be out of the flow of news, and definitely far away from any chance I might have to change the way the public looks at things.”

“If that’s where things need doing, isn’t that the place to be?” Sandy asked.

“I find myself wondering a bit about that when those damn Longknifes send me there time after time because I’m the only one who can do anything about it.”

“And that was what you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Yeah. How do you keep from being run around like a bull with a ring in your nose?”

“Don’t ask me. I’ve got this ring in my nose, and I keep running.”

“You’re no help.”

“Let me know if you find a way. I’d love to pass it along to my daughter.”

“I’ve got orders to leave, and I’m going to be in no position to make sure Grampa Ray makes time to address a problem of mine.”

“Has he addressed it much?” Sandy asked.

“I can’t say that he has. It worries me that he won’t.”

“Out on Chance, I’m not likely to be much help.”

“Yeah. That leaves me wondering if maybe you brought me someone who could be of help.”

“Hmm, I got the feeling that your grampa Ray isn’t going to much care about being reminded about what he doesn’t want to do.”

“There’s a real chance of that.”

“Ah, folks,” Winston said, cutting in. “I’m not following what you’re talking about, but I’m starting to like it less and less.”

“You remember that time on the Halsey,” Sandy said.

“You asked if I could arrange a meeting between you and the princess.”

“Yes, and you said you’d do me a favor and not get me an interview. ‘Folks live longer if they keep their distance from those Longknifes.’ ”

“You can’t say I didn’t warn you,” Sandy said.

“She’s right, you know,” Kris said.

“I’m starting to think maybe she might be.”

Kris ignored the young man. “Sandy, I’m contemplating what some uncharitable people might call treason. I’m thinking I ought to give you a chance to walk out of here before I decide anything definite.”

“What about me?” Winston asked. “Don’t I get a chance?”

“Nope. You came in here asking for the truth. If it happens to slap you in the face, you ought to be grateful.” Kris turned back to Sandy. “You once told me that you were sick and tired of the Longknife legend growing at the expense of Santiago family blood. You still feel that way?”

The woman didn’t even bat an eyelid. “I seem to remember that not long after I told you that I was risking my own neck and that of my crew to save your delicate rear end.”

“Which, as usual, needed saving,” Kris admitted.

“Still, yes, I think it is time and past time that other people stop bleeding for you damn Longknifes.”

“So there’s no chance you’d be willing to listen to something that might save all humanity.”

Admiral Sandy Santiago took a long pull on her ice tea. “Might save all humanity, you say.”

“I think so.”

“Treason, you say.”

“It’s a possibility. At least at first,” Kris admitted.

“If President Urm had lived and my great-grandpoppa had been found with that briefcase bomb, it would have been called treason.”

“So I’m told,” Kris said.

“Briefcase bomb,” the reporter said. “Her great-grandpa. I smell a story here.”

“Forget it,” the admiral said. “I like the Longknife legend just the way it is. For now. Okay, Kris, what are you up to?”

“Nelly,” Kris said, “send the meeting package to Winston Spencer’s and Admiral Santiago’s computers.”

“Kris, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Yes, Nelly, but it is what I intend to do. Send it.”

Winston’s glasses lit up, showing Kris the reverse of the scene in the Wasp’s forward lounge. He leaned back, taking in the view. Sandy’s computer was more sophisticated; the scene showed as little more than a gleam on her contact lenses.

The reporter sat up in his chair with a start. “Is that an Iteeche that just walked in?”

“Yes, he is,” Kris said. “Nelly, can you speed the action up? The guy in black is an Imperial herald. Those are Marines in red behind him followed by two Navy officers with two Imperial counselors behind them. The last guy in is my friend, Ron, an Imperial Representative.”

“Kris, your friends get stranger and stranger,” Sandy said.

“Tell me about it.”

“And they’re talking to you and the king,” the reporter observed.

“Yep. You might want to skip ahead. The fun starts five and a half minutes into it. You can go back and see the rest when you have time.”

“You’re going to let me keep this?” the reporter asked.

“That’s my intention.”

“That’s General Trouble,” Winston said. “I mean Tordon, and Crossie from intel. Who’s the last guy?”

“Someone who hangs around me. I hope you can delete him if you ever make this public.”

“He’s your security chief, isn’t he? Jack something,” Sandy said.

“Yes. Nelly, fast-forward.”

Winston was half out of his seat along with Grampa Ray. “What did he just say that got the king’s panties in a twist?”

“It will be repeated,” Kris said.

“ ‘Mutual enemies’! What does he mean by that?” Winston demanded.

“If you sit back down, you’ll find out sooner.”

The reporter sat, but rigidly, on the edge of his chair. The admiral stayed loose in her sofa, eyes raised to the ceiling to better see what filled her contact lenses. When the star chart came out, and the explanation began, Mr. Spencer edged back into his chair.

“Their exploration ships are not coming back?” Sandy whispered.

“As the skipper of just such an exploration ship, I can’t tell you how much that bothers me,” Kris said.

“Yeah, I can only imagine,” Winston said, then watched the rest of the meeting in silence. Finished, he took his glasses off and stared for a long moment at some space just over Kris’s shoulder.

Into the silence, Kris said softly, “Surrender was not mentioned once by either side.”

“Holy ... Mother of God,” Winston whispered finally. “The Iteeche have bit into something too big for them to chew.”

Kris glanced at Sandy. The admiral was gnawing her lower lip, apparently lost in thought. “That is a part of the problem,” Kris said. “We don’t know exactly what the Iteeche have run into. It seems they like to share a problem a lot more and a lot earlier in the problem-solving cycle than we humans do.”

“Yeah, I think I see what you mean,” Winston said. “That was bothering me as I watched this. They are losing ships. Don’t know what’s doing it, so they come to us to make nice. Do they want us to go find out what’s swallowing their ships whole?”

“They didn’t ask specifically for that,” Kris said. “I figure I’d be on the first ship headed into the monster’s maw. Since I don’t have orders to do that, I figure they haven’t asked.”

“Maybe your grandpappy doesn’t want you on that particular scout ship?” Sandy said.

“There is that possibility,” Kris admitted. “But family concerns haven’t been all that obvious in my previous assignments.”

Sandy admitted they hadn’t, with a wave of her hand.

“So, explain to me, slowly, and in little words, why you are dropping this . . . one of the biggest stories of the century . . . in my lap?” Mr. Spencer asked.

“Yes,” said Sandy, crossing her legs and leaning forward, intently.

“I don’t know exactly. You say you’re good. How good are you at spotting shadows of stories? Hints of a hint? I’m going to be so far out that I won’t be getting any kind of news. I found that out when I came back last time, and my brother dropped a load of stuff on me. You could at least send me any stories you see about the Iteeche.”

“That would be kind of obvious,” Sandy said.

“So toss in anything about the new constitution, interplanetary politics. What’s happening on New J. I ended up fighting a whole lot of mercenaries from New J. Send me what you think I need to keep up-to-date on. But send me everything on the Iteeche. And maybe you could write a story or two about our possible new friends the Iteeche.”

“I’m not sure I dare write anything about the Iteeche.

What do you think would happen to me if I published this tomorrow?”

“Let’s see. You’d end up locked away deep in some dungeon that nobody even knows exists. The key would get lost. Oh, and I’d be in the next cell, right beside you,” Kris said with a wide grin.

“That is not funny.”

“I was not joking,” Kris said.

“I still don’t see why you dropped this scorching-hot potato on my cojones?”

“Look at it from my perspective,” Kris said. “When I have a problem, I or it usually ends up battered, bashed, and bleeding.”

“If not dead,” the reporter added.

“No, it’s usually a Santiago or some other poor sailor that ends up pushing up tombstones,” the admiral countered.

“I can’t argue with either of you,” Kris said. “But look at my present problem. I ask you, is this the kind of thing that a few kilos of C-8 can take care of?”

“I don’t see how,” the reporter said. The admiral just shook her head.

“Neither do I, and I can’t even see a way to start. So, how do I solve a problem I can’t kill or blow up?”

“I have no idea, and I’m beginning to sincerely wish I had kept my hands in my pockets and kept walking when I saw the admiral this afternoon,” Winston said, standing.

“But you didn’t, so get with the program,” Sandy said. “Sit down, Win. She’s been ordered off to the left corner of nowhere. There’s no way she can do anything from there.”

“Now I see why you get orders like that so often,” the reporter snapped, showing no willingness to take his seat again.

“Exactly.” Kris chuckled. “I’m off chasing pirates, not a bad gig, I assure you. But who’s keeping an eye on my grampa? Checking him out to make sure he doesn’t forget that the Iteeche can be our friends and that they have a problem. Maybe putting a good word in for the poor Iteeche.”

“Not me,” Winston squeaked.

“Exactly you,” Kris said. “You’re a reporter. You know what’s really going on around here.”

“I used to, but I suddenly got this attack of potted-palm syndrome. Just leave me alone and water me once in a while.”

“Didn’t you just tell me you’re one of the guys that takes the pulse of Wardhaven? Leads the people’s dialogue. Helps opinion makers form a consensus they can use to get anything done.”

“You realize this is the first time a Longknife has had anything nice to say about the media.”

“Of course not. Why I remember Father saying at the dinner table not six years ago that . . . ah . . . Well, maybe you’re right,” Kris sputtered to a halt.

“Honestly, Win,” Admiral Santiago cut in. “Can you tell me that, what with something this important hanging on the wind, you wouldn’t want to know what you know and be where you are?”

He sighed. “Damn you,” he said, turning his face from Kris. “Damn you both,” he repeated. “You know, if this gets out wrong, you being a Longknife will not protect you.”

“I told you, I’d be in the cell next to you.”

“And I’ll likely be in the cell on the other side of you,” Santiago said with a big grin on her face. “My granddad told me there’d be days like this. Even told me how much fun they’d be. I didn’t believe him.”

“You are both crazy.”

“That’s a state secret,” Kris said. “Spill the beans on that one, and you’ll end up in an even worse cell.”

While Kris and Santiago had a laugh at that, Winston Spencer settled into his chair. “So the real question before any sane person is how to avoid a cell for all of us,” he said, with another sigh. “You win. I’m in. What is it that you want the end of this to look like? You do have an exit strategy that doesn’t involve dungeons, don’t you?”

“I hadn’t really thought much beyond now. None of us in jail sounds good,” Kris said.

“Planning is not a Longknife strong suit,” Sandy assured him.

“The best way to assure none of us end up in jail is for me to erase this video,” Win said.

“I love my great-grandfather, but in this matter, I’m not sure I can trust him. He has gotten scared.”

“All well earned, you will admit,” Sandy said.

“Yes, but I’m not sure he’s not going to just make this whole problem disappear for now, kind of like the way he’s getting me out of sight. Out of mind, too?”

“So again, I say, what do you want from one lone reporter?”

“And an admiral who is headed back to Chance day after tomorrow.”

“I told you,” Kris said, “I couldn’t figure out where we go from here. All I ask is for you to give me your eyes. Give me your ears. Give me your brain. Winston, I’m really going to need your storytelling skills. I’ve let you in on something big. You give it the best that you got.”

Winston stood and offered her his hand. “And when we are done, humanity and Iteeche will be better off than we are now. Assuming that big, bad ugly out there hasn’t gobbled us down.”

“That is the hope,” Kris said, and shook his hand.