to see what surprise the unholy trinity had popped on her.
The next longboat docked with no more difficulty than the last. Some people were spending a lot of time in the simulator, no doubt. It took a while for the hatch to open, but when it did, who should clop out but Ron, Kris’s favorite Iteeche.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, unsure whether to offer a hand to shake or see if she could actually manage a hug for something with four arms, four legs, and a whole lot of elbows and knees.
She did get both her arms around the trunk of her friend though it was a bit of a problem bending over his four-jointed pelvis. An Iteeche was not like the human’s mythological centaur. His body trunk rose from somewhere closer to his center of gravity, as befits a creature that swam for a lot longer in the sea and owed its ancestry more to something like a squid than to a quadrupedal land critter.
Ron hugged back, doing something that almost sounded like a human laugh.
“I could ask what you are doing here,” he said through the translator Kris had given him the last time he’d dropped by human space.
“I’m hunting for whatever’s eating up your scout ships,” Kris said.
“You are a far distance from where they went and did not return.”
“Well, yes. We call incidents like exploding scout ships a hot datum. They draw attention. We don’t want to draw any more attention to those spots. Anyone who comes nosing around them might keep nosing and bump into you. I want to come at them from the other way around and draw their attention this way.”
“You humans are very twisty in your minds. I think I like that.”
“Well, you arrived just as I and some of the fellow voyagers were about to hash over something that happened to us in this system.”
“Nothing bad I hope.”
“It’s me you’re talking to, Ron. I’m a Longknife. Bad things happen around Longknifes.”
“The way they do around Chap’sum’We,” he said, giving the ancient name of those who chose his chooser.
He paused to introduce Kris to those who had come with him. Teddon’sum’Lee Kris already knew. He still wore the gray and gold of the Imperial Iteeche Navy. The other wore black and red. Kris missed his name on the first fly, but Nelly promised that she caught it. He was from the Imperial Iteeche Army.
“No green-and-white advisors this time?” Kris asked.
“I do not speak for the Emperor,” Ron said. “Officially, I and my associates are still on an Iteeche scout ship. Depending on the outcome of this voyage, we will be welcomed with praise, or the Cup of Apology.”
Kris knew more about the Iteeche than any human alive, which was not saying a lot. However, after spending a long two months hiding Ron in human space, she did know that the Cup of Apology was filled with a slow-acting and painful poison.
Apparently, the aliens Kris had just witnessed blowing themselves to bits weren’t the only ones operating in the “do or die” mode.
“We are meeting in the Forward Lounge. You should feel right at home.”
Ron and Ted nodded agreement in their strange, four-armed way. The Army officer was busy using all four of his eyes in an effort to catch everything going on within sight. He’d get over that in time.
Kris led off.
She was halfway to the lounge when Captain Drago fell in with her party.
“Ron, we have your quarters waiting for you. I see there are only three of you now. They should be more roomy this trip.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Ron said.
“I thought you off-loaded the Iteeche’s containers,” Kris said.
“No. Admiral Crossenshield suggested that I shouldn’t. He also suggested that I not mention that fact to you. He said something about surprises being good for Longknifes. Every once in a while.”
“I thought you were the captain of my ship.”
“Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I am. You must allow me that other one in a hundred, Princess. It is not easy to serve two masters.”
“Or three or four,” Kris added, darkly.
“I am just a humble ship captain. You are the damn Longknife, Your Highness.”
Since they were at the hatch to the Forward Lounge, Kris let the captain get the last word in.
With three admirals already in the Forward Lounge, Kris didn’t rate an “Attention on Deck.” Still, as she and her Iteeche friend entered the lounge, all conversation came to a roaring halt. The room had pretty much arranged itself