Kris Longknife's Bloodhound, a novella (6 page)

“I didn’t know that made the news.”

“It didn’t.  I rarely bother with the official version.  No, I was following you and her antics on your Bureau net.  You would have had a better chance of catching her if you knew where she was headed.”

“Ah, but I didn’t.  My orders to ‘Find her before she gets herself and others killed,’ was rather vague.”

“Which leaves one to wonder if you were intended to fail?” she said, raising a perfectly arched eyebrow.

“If I was to fail, why send me?”

“Yes.” she said.  “So, why did Trouble send me to you?”

“It seems that the logs of the
Wasp’s
last voyage, it being the princess’s flag, were brought back to Wardhaven and buried under an entirely new security level. ‘Burn before Reading,’ or some such thing.  The question posed to me by a good friend was whether or not we can trust the access logs of the data, or have the travels of our wayward princess been read more widely than the Prime Minister would prefer.”

The woman shook her head.  “If you don’t want data read, don’t put it on the net.  Back in the ancient days, the only way to access some data was to place an order to have the tapes hung on the computer.  You did what you wanted then put them back in a locked box, or so my old grandmother insists.  It wasn’t that way in her day, but in her great-grandmother’s day, no doubt, when the dinosaurs stomped the Earth.”

She paused to enjoy Taylor’s smile at her humor.  “Who has these logs?”

“I don’t know.  They are Navy property, I would suspect that the Navy has custody of them.”

“Hmm.”  Now Taylor observed that even a frown looked good on her.  “That could definitely complicate my job.  The Navy types are notoriously untrusting.  They insisted on being trained up on this new security system and then tweaked it to their liking.  I could likely walk into the Prime Minister’s personal files without him twitching to the visit.  Navy, ah, not so much.”

She paused to study her fingernails for a long moment.  They were a most stunning shade of lavender, and matched her eyeshadow.  Taylor had seen the combination on teenagers and been tempted to ship them off to the morgue.

On her, it was strangely alluring. 

Or was it that, on her, even death would be alluring.  Taylor closed down that line of thought.  Hard.

“To get somewhere, it often helps to know where you are coming from.  Do you have any guess who these pairs of unauthorized eyes might belong to?”

“Some of Mr. Alexander Longknife’s associates,” Taylor said.

Mademoiselle M uttered a nasty word.  “Why should I risk my neck, as well as my street cred on some intramural dust-up between that family?” she snapped, and glanced at the door.

Taylor suspected that she might allow him one more sentence.  Maybe two.

“The life of all humanity just may be weighing in the balance.”

“Says who?” she snarled.

“Kris Longknife.  And Trouble seems to agree with her.”

“That girl.  Maybe.  Him?  Damn.  Start talking, Mr. Taylor.  I might have bought your pig in a poke for just an ordinary problem.  This has got foul smelling stuff all over it and very likely several pounds of explosives thrown in for a joke.”

Quickly, Taylor ran the woman through the runaround the Longknifes had subjected him to, from chasing Kris Longknife for her father to the daughter charging him to get to the bottom of why the grandfather was so allergic to talking to his offspring.”

“He popped Sarin gas in his own office and ran away, long dress hauled up to show his bare ass,” the woman snapped as Foile ended his story.

“I was told about the Sarin and did not have the opportunity to observe him in full retreat,”

“I would have done this just for just the pictures of that,” she said.  “Why are these logs suddenly so interesting to the old man?”

“They may contain just how Kris Longknife managed to make long jumps.  Jumps of thousands of light years.”

“Right.  I wondered how she managed to get there and back again before the onset of menopause.  And if he has read the method to her madness?”

“He may dispatch a trade fleet full of all the best goodies we make to see if he can be more successful in opening negotiations with these aliens.”

The lovely lady said another, nastier word.  “Some men just never understand that ‘no’ means ‘no’, and ‘no way in hell’ means ‘no, you can’t,’ really.”

The two could easily agree on that.

“Okay, if Trouble sent you, then he shares the same fear that Kris Longknife does.  You said you were on vacation.  I take that to mean that I can’t send a bill to that nice slush fund that the WBI usually pays me out of when they need my services.”

“I doubt it.”

“And if I am hauled in sporting handcuffs, no one is likely to loan me a key when no one is looking?”

“If we succeed, there is likely to be a nice plaque attesting to the gratitude of a grateful nation.  Otherwise, we may both rot in jail for the rest of our lives.”

“Which won’t be long, because the monsters will come and kill us all.”

“I like working with an optimist,” Taylor said, smiling.

She reached across the table and removed a small bit of lint from his coat and crushed it between her fingers.  “I wonder how long that has been there?” she said.

“I have my standard issue bug detector in my pocket,” he said.

“Standard issue,” she made sound like an even nastier word.

“Has someone been listening in to our entire conversation?”

“Of course not.  I squelched the transmitter on that puppy before I said hello.  I was wondering whether it might be worth my while to let you continue passing worthless stuff to whomever is interested in you.  I just decided I don’t want to.”

“How long has it been there?” Taylor asked, not at all liking the taste in his mouth left by the idea of him being a pawn in someone else’s chase.

“Hard to tell.  We can make them so tiny, but they still need power.  The smaller they are, the shorter the time they can transmit anything.  Then, of course, they might record and only send late at night.  Who knows.  Where have you been?”

Which was an easy way for her to get a list of just who was playing in this game.  He tried to stay vague, but she got the gist.  “The Prime Minister’s residence is no big show.  They really need to hire me to clean up their act.  Nuu house is fine.  I check their security once a month.  Sooner if I think they need it.  The engineer you met up on the station.  What did her box look like?”

Taylor used his fingers to give the measurements of the device.  “Pink with a light green button.  More than that, I
cannot say.”

“It sounds like a Private Eyes Only, which can mean nothing at all if you don’t actually set the thing up.”

“She seemed security minded,” Taylor said.

“We shall see.”  She rummaged in her purse, muttering softly to herself.  “No, not the compact, it would take too long to train the poor fellow.  Oh, right,” she said, and pulled a small ball from her purse. 
Besides being round, it swirled with a rainbow of colors, ever changing, like a miniature gas giant planet.

“Here, keep this in your pocket.”

“What is it?”

“A talisman.  A magic charm.  Call it what you will, but it should ward off the evil electronic bugs for the next week.”

Taylor held it up to the light and watched the eddies and swirls within it.  “Will it jam my own system?  I’m not totally ignorant of modern life.  I don’t eat with my toes.”

“No doubt that you are and no doubt that you don’t,” the woman said, seeming to enjoy his joke.  “Now, you go your way and I will go mine.  I’ll get back to you when I have something to share with you.”  Mademoiselle M rose from her chair.

Taylor rose too, as a gentleman should and said, “Then I may just go fishing until I have something to share with you.”

“Oh, where do you like to toss in your hook?”

Taylor chose to ignore the double entendre and answered the simple question.  “The long pier where the Severn meets the ocean.”

“Oh, I often fish there.  We might run into each other.”

“I’ll look forward to meeting you again.”

“Let’s hope you’re not getting my one phone call from jail,” she said and let him leave the room first.

Chapter 7

That evening, Taylor found himself knocking on Honovi Longknife’s door, again.  The butler let him in and ushered him upstairs.  He passed the open nursery door; tonight, the wife was doing troubled tummy duty.  The infant seemed less fussy in his mother’s arms.

Taylor had always envied the way his wife was able to quiet their children.  A glare that would silence the most hardened criminal went right past his crying offspring.

Life is not fair.

The Member of Parliament was in his small home office.  The butler knocked, announced him merely as Taylor and left.  After a “come in,” Taylor opened the door and entered.  The room, if anything, was more disheveled than last night.  The politician had several readers open on the desk and was intently studying an old fashion monitor.

“I hope your day was better than mine,” the Member of Parliament said curtly, not taking his eyes from the screen.

“Mine was interesting,” Taylor answered with intentional vagueness.

“Don’t call Annie again,” Honovi said, turning his chair to face Taylor.  “She’s spooked.  Do you know she passed a Nuu Yard security type on the way out of the Lost Dutchman?”

“Yes, I saw him too.  However, he was gone by the time I left.  I suspect that it is his job to hang over the door like a vulture to scare anyone who might be considering anything not in his boss’s interests.”

“Well, whatever he was doing there, he scared the bejesus out of her.  If you need to talk to anyone at the dock yard, I’ll give you another contact.”

“Do you have a date for the launching and fitting out of the
Pride of Free Enterprise
?”

“No, and that bothers me.  Usually, I get invitations to attend those things.  Maybe it’s because I’m a shareholder.  More likely, they want to get photos of a Member of Parliament at one of their shindigs.  Anyway, I’m always told two months in advance.  I can’t believe it will take them more than two months to finish those ships.  There are Navy ships spinning out at the yard that are taking less time than these.”

“What do you know about the redesign of these ships?”

Honovi leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and gave Taylor a blank stare.  Taylor spent the next couple of minutes describing how the ships now had double the reactors and likely double the Smart Metal
TM
.

Taylor concluded by saying, “I’ll bet you my pension that the Kris Longknife maneuver at jump points involves high accelerations, high speeds and high rotation on the hulls, something that is anathema among safe and rational star travelers.”

“Say much more and I’ll have to slit your throat,” was the Member of Parliament’s quiet response.

So Taylor mentioned the Mark XII fire control system that had no lasers to call the shots for and the small tender that was also due to complete at the same time as the other two.

“A small ship?” said a surprised shareholder.

“Made of Smart Metal and with three small reactors when anyone worried about making a profit would have gone for one large one.”

Honovi leaned back in his chair and eyed the ceiling.  When he spoke, it was soft and thoughtful.  “The
Wasp
almost wrecked herself trying to cloud dance for fuel.  Their tanks were just about bone dry by then and if they couldn’t get more reaction mass, they were not coming home.  Really bad time my sis got herself into.”

“And a Smart Metal tender,” Taylor went on, “might be just what they’d need to refuel the big ships.”

“Yep.  That pretty much settles it.  Those two oversize freighters are not headed for any planet’s space station.”

“And the Mark XII rangefinders?” Taylor asked.

“You really are asking me to slit your throat.”

“Your father gave me crumbs to chase down Kris Longknife.  I found her, too late to stop her from invading your grandfather’s tower, but just in time to keep her from stepping off an elevator into a room full of Sarin gas.  I would prefer to solve this mystery in time for you to stop these ships from leaving human space.”

The Member of Parliament nodded along with Taylor as he made his case.  When he finished, Honovi sighed.

“You make a strong argument for yourself.”

“I make the only case I can.”

“Okay, it’s your funeral,” and he quickly told the special agent what he already had figured out.  “The Mark XII is the final argument that Grampa Al wants to go way off the reservation.  It’s the only system sensitive enough to spot what Nelly names ‘fuzzy jumps.’  You go through one of them just right and you’re guaranteed a long jump.”

“And the small tender will refuel them when they are far from the proper facilities a freighter has come to need,” Taylor concluded.