Kris Longknife: Defender Read Online Free PDF Page A

full coverage and very exact copy of that picture.”
    “What are you thinking, Nelly?” Kris asked.
    “I think someone went to a lot of trouble to put a very exact sky on the ceiling of this very large room that they regularly filled with people. Kris, have you heard of the Sistine Chapel?”
    “We
did
take art history in college, Nelly,” Kris said sarcastically.
    “Yes, but I could never tell how much you were paying attention and how much you were just using me for an easy A.”
    “Nelly, what happened to you being polite?” Kris asked.
    “Auntie Tru is on the other side of the galaxy and there’s no way you can threaten to take me in for her to look under my nonexistent hood.”
    Kris was beginning to wonder who else might be taking advantage of their being so far from home that the threat of sending them dirtside was very much out of the question.
    “Tell me, Nelly,” Jack said. “I didn’t take art history in college. Why is the Sistine Chapel so important to our present conversation?”
    “You did so take art history,” Nelly snapped. “I have access to all your records, Jack, I will have you know.”
    “Nelly, get back on topic,” Kris snapped.
    “The Sistine Chapel was a place of worship. It was decorated with some magnificent artwork for the instruction and edification of those attending services there. The pope in charge at the time spent a lot of money to have that ceiling painted although he had a war on and paying the painter was regularly a second priority to paying his army. Anyway, I wonder if this is not such a special artifact. I am merging several nanos so that I can get a high-definition recording of not only the precise relations of the stars to each other but also any color texturing the stars might have.”
    “You think this might represent the night sky over a unique planet?” Penny said.
    “I think it’s possible.”
    “Let me know as soon as you finish that, Nelly,” Kris said.
    “Yes, your not so smart Highness,” Nelly said, her voice more smug than any computer had a right to be.
    “Alert, Alert,” Nelly’s voice came in a totally different tenor, and it came over the entire 1MC. “A ship has just exited the nearest jump point. Ship matches the profile of one of the smaller hostile ships. Just four or five hundred thousand tons of crazy kill you.”
    The bong-bong of the battle-station Klaxon went off.
    “This is no drill. Man your battle stations. All hands, man your battle stations. This is no drill,” resounded through the ship.

4
    “Bath time,” Kris yelled as she led the way from the truncated Forward Lounge. Jack was at her elbow. Granny Rita led the Alwans, who once again looked like they wanted to take flight. Penny followed up the rear, doing her best to shoo along any who tarried without actually touching them.
    Alwans did not like to be touched by Heavy People.
    That was something Kris hoped Nelly’s translator would explain.
    Assuming they survived the next few minutes.
    Behind them, the last vestige of the Forward Lounge melted away, as did the passageway they trotted down, just as fast as they left it.
    The
Wasp
was moving to protect herself.
    “The jump has spit out a second ship. Same type,” Nelly announced.
    The distance from the Forward Lounge to Kris’s Tac Center just off the bridge was a surprisingly short gallop. The water tanks were there, already filled, with lids hanging open like waiting coffins.
    The Alwans balked.
    “They’re claustrophobic,” Granny Rita said. “I’d better show them how. Is it better not to go into the tank clothed?”
    “The Iteeche never wore clothes.”
    In a moment, the old girl was down to the buff and climbing into the tank. She was clicking and cooing at the others.
    S HE’S TELLING THEM THAT IF SHE CAN DO IT, SO CAN THEY, Nelly told Kris.I ’M PRETTY SURE OF THAT TRANSLATION.
    Five removed what little they wore and went, reluctantly, into the tanks. The sixth balked.
    H E SAYS WE’RE ALL