Intrepid

A spark shot out from the liner. A split second later, the ship seemed to twist off its long axis.

Then, in the blink of an eye there was nothing left of the liner and five thousand human beings but glowing dust cooling through red and yellow into violets and blue.

''Holy God,'' someone whispered on the bridge.

Kris sat there.

''Well, I'm glad that's over with,'' came from the back of the bridge, no doubt the State Security colonel's opinion.

From around Kris's neck, a suddenly little girl's voice asked, ''Kris, did I just kill five thousand people?''

What could Kris tell her computer?

''I'm sorry, Kris,'' Vicky said, reaching out to stroke Kris's elbow. ''But it's not your fault. You did everything you could not to have this happen.''

''Did I?'' Kris said, then mashed her commlink. ''Everyone who's been following this last evolution, save all your data. There will be an inquiry into it.''

''Whose?'' Vicky asked.

''Mine,'' Kris snapped. ''Captain Drago, if you will, put one gee on this boat to help with saving data.''

''Sulwan, one gee if you please.''

Kris took on weight and stood. ''Captain Drago. Captain Krätz, Jack.'' Kris looked around and found faces missing. She tapped her commlink. ''Colonel Cortez, Penny, and Abby, please report to my Tac Room. Professor mFumbo, you come, too.''

''Yes'' and ''As you wish'' answered her commlink. ''Why?'' came on the bridge from Captain Drago.

''Because I am sick and tired of hearing that a Longknife did this or that or the other, all during the same supposed whatever. I'm tired of not knowing who did what to whom. This time, so help me God, I'm going to know just exactly what happened, and if Peterwald State Security wants to say one thing and Wardhaven intelligence patches together another story, at least I will know the truth. You understand me?''

It was Captain Krätz's turn to step forward and face the fire in Kris's eyes. ''That assumes that, using the data we have, we can actually tell you what happened.''

That took a little of the firestorm out of Kris's sails. But not much. ''We have the best instrumentation of any ship in space, between what Captain Drago has pirated from whoever is his employer and whatever the boffins have ripped off from their universities. Maybe you can't tell me what I did and how it happened that five thousand lives were put to the torch. But I want you to face me, with your hands on the best information that these instruments can yield, and tell me that. You hear me.''

''Yes, we hear you,'' Jack said, coming forward. ''You've got a lot of people on this board you've set up. I understand the two captains. Maybe even the colonel. But me, Penny, and Abby?''

''You and Penny are trained criminal investigators. Abby's the board's secretary. That ought to make her job easier.''

Jack didn't look like he liked what he'd heard. But he looked even less eager to argue with Kris at the moment.

''Now, if you will excuse me,'' Kris said, ''I have to talk to a father who pleaded for me to save his son's life. Somewhere I've got to find the words to explain why I killed his boy.''

''Kris, that's cruel,'' Jack cut in. ''Don't do it.''

''When somebody makes you prince, you can gainsay me,'' Kris shot back. ''Until then, shut up.''

The bridge crew stood aside as Kris marched out.

54

The silence from Nelly was suffocating as Kris strode the passageways of the Wasp, trying to locate Prometheus's stateroom. When Kris asked for the room assigned to him, Nelly told her, but she offered no directions, did none of the things that Kris had become used to getting from Nelly without asking.

Nelly's voice was normal, but clearly, she was deep in calculating something. Examining something. Deciding something.

That, or maybe the Nelly Kris had known was gone.

Then it got worse.

Kris found the room, but the door was locked.

No one answered when she called inside. Nothing. Nada. No noise. She flagged down a boffin to make sure it was the right room, that the stranger from Xanadu had indeed been assigned it. The scientist snagged two Marines, who started working on the door.

Was it an accident that Gunny arrived before the door gave way?

And Gunny's wide shoulders blocked Kris's view of the room.

''You don't need to go in there, ma'am. I know you seen dead and death enough. There's nothing pretty about a man who hanged himself.''

Kris backed off, fighting the undignified urge to pound upon Gunny. She looked up at Gunny Brown's dark, lined face. ''You think he could have hanged himself if I hadn't ordered one gee on the boat?'' Kris asked, adding one more notch to her kills for today.

''Ma'am, a man who's made up his mind can be bare-ass naked and kill himself. You ever seen a man bite off his tongue and bleed out in zero gee. It ain't pretty.''