Next morning, Kris rendered honors, then paused at the brow of the Princess Royal. On the pier, two shabby contraptions waited for Kris and Jack.
Kris was not amused.
Four muscular Iteeche each stood beside two sedan chairs. Very plain sedan chairs. The rattan was chipped, they were upholstered in dull brown cloth, and were wide open for everyone to see as you were carried by. Distinctly low class compared to what Ron and his chooser had arrived in the night before.
“Is this somebody’s idea of a joke?” Jack asked.
“Joke, political maneuvering, it’s all the same if you can keep your sense of humor.”
“You want me to check them out for bombs?”
“Don’t bother. We won’t be using them. Nelly.”
“Yes, Kris.”
“I want two sedan chairs. Top of the line. Deluxe models, full force royal and then some. Oh, and improve the design and leave room for growth as well.”
“You bet,” tasted of pure delight.
Behind Kris on the quarterdeck, two sedan chairs flowed up from the deck. The chairs were fully enclosed in boxes of royal blue. On the one closest to Kris was a door with King Ray’s royal seal. Rising from the two front corners were small flagpoles, one with the US flag, the other with Kris’s five-star flag. Jack’s two flags included the Marine globe and starship as well as a red one with three white stars. Golden filigree screens on the front, back, and both doors, showed opulence and allowed for the free flow of air as well as a good view out. But it was the shining chrome-plated carrying poles that changed everything.
The rattan chairs provided had been like the one Ron arrived in the night before. They had two poles with an Iteeche at each quarter walking outside the traces and holding the sedan chair with one hand. Kris didn’t look forward to that uneven ride. Nelly’s design still had two poles but they were shining silver, and between them were supple brown leather harnesses, two before, and two aft. The porters would stand inside the traces and lift the burden with their shoulders as well as their hands. This allowed for a much better distribution of the weight as well as a more balanced ride.
“I bet everyone that sees this is going to be jealous,” Nelly crowed.
“What part did you miss about the Empire not wanting the lowly working class to see all the sparkly new things we humans can bring to them, Nelly?” Jack asked.
“Kris asked for a super deluxe ride. This one gleams super.”
“It’s not the gleam that I’m worried about,” Jack put in. “It’s the improvement that harness is blaring to the housetops. A minor improvement like that could half the number of porters needed to carry one person. You need to ask Amanda and Jacques what that might do to the labor force.”
“I knew exactly what I was doing when I did it, Jack.” Nelly’s words were cold, glacially cold.
“I figured you did,” Kris said. “Now, about my porters. Pale plain skin didn’t cut it last night. Any suggestions?”
“Ron’s porters were naked,” Jack said.
“But their tattoos had all kinds of designs to them,” Nelly said. “Should I duplicate them?”
“That might not be safe,” Kris said. “We don’t know what the symbols meant. Still, I guess dressing them in some sort of classical Earth servant garb might be overdoing it. We need something else.”
“I could knock together some nanos to paint temporary tattoos on them. Say something like you wore to Dance Up the Moon on Hikila.”
“I like that Nelly, but the flower and fish designs might not go over here.”
Jack coughed softly. “When I was a boy, I loved the stories about super heroes with super powers. I used to get in trouble with my mom because most of what the women, and guys, wore was pretty not there, and what was there was skin tight.”
“Kris liked them too. I helped her figure out new places to hide the books from her mother.”
Kris turned to the OOD. “Bring those Iteeche aboard.”
Two minutes later some very dismayed porters were trying to decide which to react to the most, their new body covering or the new sedan chair they were expected to carry. Nelly hadn’t actually copied any trademarked character. Still, they now sported full body tattoos blending bright red, green, blue, yellow and black with bold symbols from old Earth’s heraldry.
Jack took the time to have Major Puller order up the two ready alert platoons from the Intrepid. Three minutes later, they double timed it onto the pier, dress Red and Blues immaculate; the additional load out of ammunition pouches, even bandoliers for grenadiers, was hardly noticeable. Half of the P. Royal’s waiting Marines platoons were also dismissed to make a quick run to the armory. They returned loaded with not only enough extra pouches for themselves, but also for their comrades who had stayed alertly on guard.
Kris studied all the revised preparations for a walk to the Emperor, and decided it was good. Ready, she let Gunny close the hatch for both of them and with two Marine platoons in front and another two aft, properly reinforced with both forensic and electronic surveillance elements, they were off.
The ride was smooth; Kris ordered the convoy to a trot. They had a ferry to catch and they’d used up most of the extra cushion Kris had included in their schedule. Their two chairs quickly caught up with Ron’s own chair and his escort of a dozen Iteeche Marines, two headsmen and a snake charmer who had a smaller sedan chair of his own carried by only two Iteeche in crimson tattoos.
Ron called to have an Iteeche Marine lower the grill between him and Kris. She made hers to vanish away.
“Those are not the chairs that were sent for you.” He glanced fore and aft. “Those are certainly not the porters from the Imperial palace.”
“Were chairs sent for me from the Imperial Palace?” Kris asked. “The ones that arrived looked like these,” and Nelly created a hologram between them of the ones left behind.
“No, those are not what His Worshipfulness sent to carry you into His August Presence. It is a great honor to be carried all the way to within his sight. It would have been a major insult for you to have ridden in those.”
“I’m glad you’re here to warn me,” Kris said.
“Do you know what happened to the original chairs?” Ron asked.
“What you see is what arrived.”
Ron nodded his head, a negative that Kris had to adjust to. “This is bad. We would have had to correct the error. That would have taken time. We would have missed our ferry ride down and you arriving late to the Imperial invitation would have been cause for someone to make a formal apology. Likely either me or my chooser.”
Kris added all that had happened this morning and did not like what it totaled out to. “I take it that there are some who do not approve of a human meeting with the Emperor. Are all those wanting to cause trouble counted among the ranks of the rebels or are there other oars in this water?”
“Many fins, too many of them swimming in different directions,” Ron told her.
Kris thought on that as they covered the distance to the end of the quay. There they were further delayed. It seemed the guard had orders to allow no humans out and somehow the Imperial invitation had not been logged.
It was a good thing that Ron was with Kris. He demanded exit for himself and his entire party. His axe men scowled and the snake bowl’s lid got rattled.
Suddenly the exit guards were backing out of Ron’s way as quickly as they could without tumbling over each other. Ron quickly moved out, Kris and Jack right behind him, but Kris urged her porters to trot up to beside her favorite Iteeche.
“What do you want to bet me that the ferry leaves early?” Kris asked Ron.
Four Iteeche Marines and a whole platoon of US Marines double timed it off, with one axe man in the lead and the crimson snake charmer pulling up the rear.
“Nelly, take a note. Check the ranks of the Marines and Sailors for bodybuilders who know how to wield long pole axes. Also, put in an order to Wardhaven for a couple of cobras or rattlesnakes and someone who knows how to take care of them.”
“You think you can get away with it?” Jack asked on net.
“I’ll have to check with Ron and Roth, but I definitely want Nelly to remind me about this next time we’re together. Certainly I rate four, maybe even eight axes. Three, maybe four, snake bowls. Nothing beats a try but a failure.”
“Just remember, Kris,” Nelly said. “You told the merchants that asking permission was a much better idea than asking forgiveness.”
“I remember, Nelly. Oh, do I remember,” Kris said as they hurried up to the space elevator station.