Kris Longknife 13 - Unrelenting (15 page)

“But I’m trying to make it fast,” Pipra said.

“Yes,” Kris said, in full tired, “I got mobbed by some workers who’d heard a whole fleet of ships were leaving them here while they got to go home. Idle rumors seem to know no limits.”

“That’s what happens when you let rumors be the only information people get,” Jacques put in. “It’s human nature.”

“And I got a lot of human nature telling me it’s past my bedtime,” Kris said.

“So you set them straight,” Pipra said. “Those two ships leaving aren’t a secret anymore.”

“If they ever were,” Kris agreed.

“Would you please make an address to, how do you Navy types say it, all hands, telling everyone what you told those few?”

“In God’s name why, Pipra, and does it have to be right now?”

“Yes, it does,” Abby said. “There’re all kinds of different versions making the rounds of what you said, only one or two of them even slightly related to what I think you actually did. You either get the real skinny out now, or you may not have a production force to wake up to tomorrow. Hell, I don’t know, even some Marines are wondering what’s happening for real.”

Kris closed her eyes. After two deep breaths, she stared at the corner where her overhead included an emergency security camera. “Nelly, can you focus that thing on me without showing too many of my worry lines?”

“I have it filtered very nicely.”

And Kris gave the closest thing she could to a decent repeat of what she’d told the threatening mob. It didn’t sound nearly as nice without the asides the workers provided.

Kris finished with a smile.

“There. Does that do it?”

“Good enough considering you’re a Longknife,” Pipra said, and stood. “Let’s get out of here, folks. I’ve see volcanos less urgent to blow.”

“Good,” Kris said, as the four fled her presence.

“Nelly, do I have another meeting?”

“No, Kris.”

“Jack, could you please carry me to bed.”

Her husband swooped her up in his arms and carried her off to bed. Sadly, she was asleep before he got her shoes off, much less her panties.

23

Kris
came awake slowly the next morning. She was still in the bra and panties from the previous day. She took a deep breath and enjoyed the thought of having nothing immediate to do.

Oops, she needed to get off
Wasp
before it sailed and down to another meeting, this time with the birds.

After reviewing her To Do list, Kris found that she just could not engage her motivator, not if it involved getting out of bed and waiting to upchuck her breakfast.

“You awake?” Jack asked.

“Who wants to know?”

“Give me a second.” In a moment, Jack appeared around her side of the bed with a small plate of crackers and a glass of milk.

“Where’d you get those?” Kris said, reaching tentatively for a cracker. Somewhere she’d heard something about crackers, but maternity was an unknown land around the girls she’d known since high school.

Sex. They knew plenty about that. Or at least claimed to. What occasionally happened next? Not so much.

“I remembered my dad bringing mom crackers and milk during her last pregnancy. So I had Sal do some research.”

“We all helped,” Nelly put in.

“What don’t you know? Crackers and milk before you get out of bed helps keep morning sickness at bay. That and getting up slowly, just like you’re doing today.”

Jack grinned at her. She gave him a death’s-head grin back.

“Oh, and ginger cookies help, too. Word is Cookie will bake you up a batch for tomorrow morning. Granny Rita sent him a request for you.”

“And all the other pregnant women, I hope,” Kris said. It was nice to have Jack and be adopted as
Wasp
’s pregnant-admiral mascot, but all the other gals deserved a helping hand, too.

They couldn’t have Jack, but anything less was open for discussion.

“You decent in there?” came in Abby’s anything but dulcet tones.

The door opened before they could make a reply and in walked Abby with something smelling of heaven on Earth.

“What is that?” Kris cried through joy as her tummy rolled over and purred.

“Cookie’s patent-pending ginger cookies,” Abby announced.

Jack grabbed for the blanket. He was in yesterday’s undershorts.

Abby waltzed over to within reach of Kris. Like a four-year-old, Kris grabbed one for each hand before taking a bite out of one. Her tummy purred and purred.

“Leave the plate, Abby,” Jack said, “and leave. I am not decent.”

“Maid rules,” Abby said, giving Jack a good leer.

“Leave, Abby,” Kris said, and reached for the glass of milk Jack was holding in the same hand as the blanket.

“Hey, this is nice and chilled. How’d you manage that, Jack?”

“Nelly installed a small refrigerator last night.”

“Just the right size for a glass of milk,” her computer told Kris.

“More things we have to share with all the mommies-to-be,” Kris said.

“We can talk about this at the next staff meeting,” Jack said. “Now shoo, Abby.”

Abby shooed herself, with many an enthusiastic backward glance, and Jack waited while Kris finished her four ginger cookies.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but when’s breakfast?”

“You want it before or after we shuttle down to the surface?”

“Oh, decisions,” Kris said. “How about I decide while we take a shower. While you and Sal were doing all this research
about the care and feeding of a pregnant wife, did you come across anything about sex?”

“I’ll tell you all about it in the shower. Remember, the
Wasp
is sailing early, and your Granny Rita arranged for an early meeting with the birds, so if you have any complaints, you can file them with anyone but me.”

“Hmm,” Kris said, and eagerly followed Jack to the shower.
After all, once I’m pregger, I can’t get any more pregnant.

24

The
Assemblies of Assemblies was held in the same plaza, but Granny Rita was right, the plumage of the elders was a whole lot younger. There was actually a leader of the assembly, for the first time in years, and he called them to order on time.

Human time. A clock had been added to the plaza. Several of the birds had watches of their own.

The elders listened as Kris walked them through this battle. She did her best to avoid highlighting any of the places where her battle went sideways. The Alwans didn’t seem to have a problem with Admiral Yi’s charging the alien line. That was what hunters did to their prey.

That some of the hunters paid for the charge didn’t draw a second glance.

Kris hoped these birds fit nicely into reactor watches or laser battery positions. With this kind of attitude, it would be a long time before she let one on the command deck of a ship.

The briefing was just ending when Pipra joined them. As soon as she did, the leader thanked Kris for her report, and the discussion took a hard turn, straight to production and the rewards for participating in it.

Kris sat ignored as Pipra went over what they’d talked about the previous day. In the end, Pipra put their production plans for the next six months to a vote, and the Alwans gave it a resounding “Aye.”

“So that’s why you wanted to see me yesterday.”

“Yep, I didn’t want to suggest anything to these, ah, folks, without your approval,” Kris’s private-sector subordinate grinned. “Ain’t it great when a plan comes together?”

“Ain’t it nice when we know enough to have a plan?” Kris shot back.

“Yes to all.”

As the meeting broke up, several Alwans came by to compliment Kris on her egg and how good it looked. Since she had no egg for them to look at, she accepted their praise with an appropriately metaphorical smile.

Soon enough, she and Jack were in one of the new electric cars, headed for Joe’s. The car cut the drive time in half, getting them to their cottage soon enough to enjoy fish sandwiches before a stroll to the beach.

The excuse of lying in the warm sun allowed them to shed their uniforms and every other stitch of clothing.

They were otherwise occupied when the dinner bell rang, but they managed to get in a quick shower. Kris settled for one of Jack’s lavalavas covering her from breasts to well above the knee. Jack wore his lavalava lower.

They got to the restaurant before the “total nudity not allowed” brigade to find that their usual table had been reserved.

And expanded into something that could seat six couples and have room left over for Kris and Jack. At least Kris assumed they were couples.

Each of the young women seated in the six chairs to the right and left of the empty seat at the head of the table were pregnant, from ready to pop to just starting to show a bit maybe (so don’t risk asking).

Six guys were seated to the left and right of the empty chair at the foot.

“Hi, cuz,” one gal shouted cheerfully at Kris. “We saved you a seat,” and pointed at the vacancy at the head.

“You might as well settle down here with us, you poor bastard,” one of the guys said with a big grin, and pointed to Jack’s empty place.

With a shrug for Jack, Kris went where she was pointed.

“In case you haven’t figured it out, this is all Granny Rita’s idea,” one moderately pregnant gal in a minimum bikini bottom said. Most were in the skimpy bottoms, except for one in a muumuu and the youngest-looking one in shorts. Whatever their bottoms bared, their tops were supported with solid bras.

“Granny figured you didn’t want her telling you about anything,” the youngest girl piped in.

“So we got delegated the job of letting you in on a few secrets about what lies ahead,” put the older woman who looked ready to pop. “And since this is my fourth and Alanda’s first”—the youngest one, hardly pregnant, blushed to be pointed out—“we figured we might have a pretty good idea of what you’d want to know and actually know it.”

“And we’re here to tell Jack that his job is to listen a lot,” the older of the guys said.

“And give good foot massages,” two of the older women put in, to which two of the older men gave long-suffering nods of agreement.

Kris took her seat at the head of the table but held up a hand to postpone further chatter. “I do have one question of my own before you start answering questions I don’t even know to ask,” she said into the silence. Well, near silence, the youngest gal seemed to have a case of the giggles at the idea of being asked a question by the famous, or infamous, Kris Longknife, battle admiral et al.

“And what might that be?” one of her older cousins asked.

“How did I get demoted to ‘honey child’? Am I going to have to put up with that kind of stuff for nine months from Granny Rita?” Kris asked.

“Yep,” “Pretty much,” and “Get used to it,” answered the question. “Even I,” one of the older women said, “get ‘demoted’ every time I get pregnant to girl-child so-called endearments for the whole nine months.”

“Does she baby talk the kid?” Kris asked.

“No, she treats the newborn tiny ones just like they’re uniform tall,” the other older cousin said. “I don’t get it either: baby talk to us moms, but straight talk for the toothless young’uns.”

Kris shrugged. “So I better get used to being everyone else’s Viceroy but Granny Rita’s honey child.”

“Or baby cheeks,”

“Or worse,” the youngest tossed in. “Suddenly, I’m honey bear pumpkin. What’s a pumpkin?”

The look on the young woman’s face was such a delight
that everyone laughed, even her, after a perfectly timed pause.

With that, Kris began to get from five of Granny Rita’s great-great-granddaughters and one great-great-great-granddaughter, Alanda, the straight dope on impending motherhood. As soon as Alanda got her own question in.

“You look awful young to be just a great-granddaughter,” Alanda gushed. “My great-granny is a great-granddaughter of the commodore.”

“When you’ve got a filled-up world, Alanda,” one of the gals on her fourth birth pointed out, “people are a lot slower to have kids. We’re lucky.”

Kris allowed that Alanda was lucky while doubting Mother would agree.

What Kris discovered over the next two hours was . . . confusing. Take morning sickness. Please. Just take it somewhere far away from Kris.

“I’m on my fourth pregnancy. I’ve got four kids, and I’ve never been sick one morning,” one said.

“Thank your lucky stars, Belinda. I was sick every day for nine months with my first. At least this second one is letting me have some decent mornings since I started my third trimester.”

Granny Rita might have intended to help Kris, but the conclusion she arrived at as dessert was served was that every pregnancy was a voyage of discovery for mom and tadpole. What would come, would come, and you just better enjoy the ride.

That was what Kris shared with Jack as she lay in his arms much later.

“That was what the guys basically told me, too. Stay close. Don’t get scared by it all and run away, and most of all, love you no matter what kind of mood you’re in.”

“Mood I’m in, huh?”

“Their words, not mine,” Jack assured her, hand held up in surrender.

Kris sighed. “I don’t want to agree that Admiral Yi can be right about the time of day, must less about the moodiness of pregnant women, but Jack, I may need your help if I start to, ah, I don’t know. Let my hormones affect my command decisions.”

“That’s a mighty tall order,” Jack said.

“I know. I’m asking you to tell me when I’m around the bend and don’t realize it. Right?”

“It sounds that way to me.”

“Well, try to help me on that, will you?”

“I’ll try.”

“Then kiss me, and hug me, and let’s see if we can go to sleep or someplace else again.”

“Hmm,” Jack said as he kissed her.

25

“Are
you awake, dear?” from Jack woke Kris next morning.

Without opening her eyes, she took stock of her situation. She was snuggled warmly under a thin blanket, but she could feel a cool morning breeze playing on her face. What she couldn’t feel was Jack in bed beside her.