Kris Longknife: Audacious Part 15

"Well, it's still flowers mostly, but there were some fantastic animals. Last year, we actually had a Pegasus. You know, a flying horse. Tiny thing. Gossamer wings."

"Did it fly?" Another successful intervention for Kris.

But if it wasn't Marta at Kris's elbow, it would have been one of five or six standing nearby...and one of them was Ms. Broadmore. That woman Kris had sworn never to talk to again...if she could avoid it.

So Marta kept rattling on about how the genetic engineers created a tiny horse that could fly. "They lightened the poor creature as much as they could. Hollow bones, just like birds. I just never realized how strong bird's legs are."

"Oh?"

"Poor thing must have taken a fright. Ms. Broadmore swore her trainer was only supposed to let it do short flights. Anyway it took off, circled the rafters several times. It seemed to be greatly enjoying itself. But when it came in to land, it shattered all four of its legs. They had to put it to sleep, immediately. It's crying was so painful to hear."

"No doubt, its broken legs were quite painful to bear," Kris added dryly.

"Oh? Can animals feel pain?"

Kris suspected the woman would have had the same reaction if she'd suggested that her household staff and the workers who earned those dividend checks that appeared in her bank account could also feel pain.

Maybe Ms. Broadmore would be better to talk to.

BUT SHE HAD THE POOR CREATURE MADE, Nelly pointed out.

Isn't there anyone worth talking to on this entire planet!

Or maybe it's just the company I keep.

Kris managed to steer Marta into the larger group. In a matter of moments they were disagreeing with each other as to what the best artifacts of the autumn show had been. With a bit of battle tactics and judicious application of hip checks, Kris ended up beside a young woman. A docent's name badge with Samatha printed on it identified the freshly scrubbed and thoroughly curvaceous woman as someone that might know what was actually going on this evening.

"So, what is special this season?"

"Holovids," the young woman answered with a friendly smile.

Kris directed Jack to provide a momentary picket fence, and soon Kris was walking rapidly away with just the docent and a woman Marine.

"I'm Princess Kristine. Most people call me Kris."

"I'm Samatha Tidings, an art student at Eden U."

"And you bring me tidings of great art?" Kris said, smiling.

"Gosh, I haven't heard that joke for, oh, five minutes."

"Yes, but now you can say you suffered it from a princess."

"My granddad was a union organizer. I don't know how he'll take to me hobn.o.bbing with princesses and Longknifes."

"Ah, yes, but Longknifes send their kids off to college to give them an education, widen their horizons, and the brats end up doing all sorts of nasty things. My folks still haven't forgiven me for joining the Navy." Kris chuckled.

"Well, it's not like the Navy does any fighting these days."

The woman Marine beside Kris was very unsuccessful at swallowing a snicker.

"You haven't done any fighting, have you?" the young woman said, eyes growing wide.

"Let's just say that out on the Rim, folks are a bit less law-abiding than around here," Kris answered vaguely. "So, what would you suggest we look at? I'm told I should buy some of this. Any suggestions?" should change the topic.

"There's a lot to see. The central ballroom is one hologram after another. Most of those are pastoral or landscapes. Each conference room has been allocated a specialty. One of my favorites is impressionist."

"Well, there's a strike against you. My mother drools over that stuff."

"Oh."

"Yes. I was eleven when she took me through several of those holograms. Colors flowing in all kinds of weird patterns. It scared the stuffing out of me. Course it was after lunch and I was high as a s.p.a.ce station. Not a good combination. Left me with nightmares for a week."

"And you were eleven?" Now Kris had scandalized the coed.

"Just part of my misspent youth." Kris didn't add that those nightmares had been preferable to the ones of poor Eddy, suffocating under a manure pile.

They entered the ballroom just as Jack was catching up. A Marine now joined the woman trigger-puller and the two of them established a pattern of staying one hologram ahead of Kris, checking each out before their princess arrived.

The huge room didn't look all that big as they entered it. A stone wall, covered with creeping vines in flower was quite close at hand. In these close quarters, the aroma of the honeysuckles was almost overpowering.

But Samatha walked them right up to the stone wall...and into it.

And the next breath they took was winter crisp as a snow-covered landscape spread out before them.

Kris almost stumbled as the vertigo took her.

Ahead, range upon range of snow-covered mountains marched off into the distance. Here, close at hand, a deer nibbled on a tree. Foolishly, Kris reached out to touch the animal. Her hand went right through it.

"That was not well done," Samatha said.

"Yes, I do feel rather foolish," Kris said with a chuckle.

"No. Not you. The artist's work is quite primitive. That deer should have reacted to you moving your hand by bounding away. There have been routines available for that for years. It's inexcusable to be that sloppy."

It didn't look sloppy to Kris, but then she'd never been a connoisseur of holograms. "Do you have something in the show?" she asked Samatha.

"No, students at my level may work with a master on some project, but we don't actually enter on our own. But my boyfriend does. He's a graduate in Historical Environmental Designs. He has a wonderful scene from early Earth. The arrival of the first men and women on the American continent. When his mammoths stampede, the ground shakes. It's quite a show."

"I hope we get a chance to see it," Kris said, making a note to herself not to shoot any stampeding mammoths. No telling where her rounds might end up.

The next several scenes introduced Kris to desert and arctic views, rocky coasts at glimmering sunset and formal gardens. It was very tempting to try sitting down on one of the stone benches in the garden.

"Not real," Kris said as her hand went through the bench.

"Nothing is real here," Samatha answered. "Well, actually, a few of the rocks or stumps may be real. At least real enough to touch. They contain the projectors. That's why you are supposed to stay to the path. No way to tell when you'd stumble on a rock that's really there."

"And probably loaded with several millions of dollars of projection equipment," Jack added in a droll aside.

"So true. Lots of students are in hock to their eyeb.a.l.l.s. If they make a sale here, they'll be set for life. If not, well, it was slightly used equipment when they rented it."

Kris and Jack were sharing Samatha's light chuckle when one of the rocks suddenly unfolded like a flower petal.

Kris recognized the auto-gun immediately.

"Don't move," she whispered through unmoving lips as she froze herself in midstride. NELLY, GET THE MARINES BACK IN HERE!

ALREADY DOING IT, KRIS.

22.

In the stories and the vids, the grizzled sergeant shouts freeze and all the troops do just that. Possibly, if you're moving carefully through a battlefield, you can do it.

Kris had tried it, once, moving across a minefield, and done a pa.s.sably good job of freezing.

But who takes the same care walking through an art show?

Kris was fast learning that she could end up just as dead either place.

Even as Kris ordered those around her not to move, she knew she was in no position to take her own advice. One foot was up and way too far out for her to keep from finis.h.i.+ng the step.

Everything depended on what sensors the auto-gun had.

If it had motion sensors, the last one to move just might get away with it...a.s.suming the magazine had run empty on those that moved first.

If it had Kris's picture in its brain, nothing much mattered.

If it was under the remote control of some a.s.sa.s.sin, again, nothing much mattered.

Or it might just aim for sound. In which case, Kris was again in trouble. She did have to issue an order. Jack didn't need any. As for the girl...

It turned out she couldn't take them.

First the college docent screamed as she recognized the barrel of a gun. Then she bolted.

And the gun homed on her.

Jack, G.o.d bless him, kicked the girl's knees out from under her before she could take a second step. Then, he threw himself on top of her.

Kris could understand the male desire to do something like that. Samatha was certainly strategically well-padded enough that neither of them should be hurt. Kris hoped Jack lived long enough to enjoy it.

It also put the back of his armored dress blues to the gun. When the gun spat a long stream of darts, most of them finished sticking out of his blouse. Still, that had to hurt.

Someone was going to be black-and-blue tomorrow.

And grumpy.

But Kris had her own problems. Gravity was having its inevitable effect. She turned her fall into a tumble to the left, and went for her automatic at the same time.

And brought her weapon up as the pea brain controlling the auto-gun swept it toward her.

Kris aimed her automatic at the rock. It kicked in her hand on full auto, full power, armor-piercing magazine.

Let's see which of us can take it the longest, Kris thought.

It was a close run thing.

Kris felt the impact of darts, starting at her right foot and coming up her leg. It was purely an information dump to the brain. In the heat of battle, pain didn't arrive-yet.

She kept her aim on the rock. Sparks flew along with small parts of things. No way to tell what she was. .h.i.tting. The hologram's illusion hid whatever damage her slugs were doing.

She felt the darts. .h.i.tting her hip, and climbing up her belly. Here, the ceramic slats in her girdle earned their pay.

Kris let her fire wander, a bit down, a bit up. Maybe if she hit the auto-gun in the right place...?

Two Marines rushed into the scene, machine pistols held up before their eyes, tracking for the sound of the fire.

They put long bursts into the auto-gun even as it turned toward them.

Now Kris had a broadside view of the gun. She aimed for the arming bolt's slot. Mess that up and it had to do bad things to the gun. Why else were Gunny's all the time saying you had to keep the slot clean.

Jack took a few more hits as the auto-gun swept past him.

Even as Kris fired at the arming bolt, another part of her brain was processing the trajectories of the rounds that didn't connect with her or Jack's armor.

Outside this hologram must be a slaughter.

The chatter of the gun hicupped. Regained its rhythm, then slowed down to nothing.

A hush went over the scene.

Then the lights went out.

Now Kris heard people screaming, crying, moaning, and weeping throughout the huge ballroom.

"Somebody's cut power to the whole show," Jack said.

The two Marines showed that they took the business of being ever ready, or was that the Coasties motto. Anyway, they produced lights and a moment later, two beams were searching around the room.

"Somebody hit the G.o.dd.a.m.n lights" echoed through the room in a voice only a Gunny Sergeant could manage.