Kris Longknife's Bloodhound, a novella by Mike Shepherd

also due to complete at the same time as the other two.
    “A small ship?” said a surprised shareholder.
    “Made of Smart Metal and with three small reactors when anyone worried about making a profit would have gone for one large one.”
    Honovi leaned back in his chair and eyed the ceiling.  When he spoke, it was soft and thoughtful.  “The Wasp almost wrecked herself trying to cloud dance for fuel.  Their tanks were just about bone dry by then and if they couldn’t get more reaction mass, they were not coming home.  Really bad time my sis got herself into.”
    “And a Smart Metal tender,” Taylor went on, “might be just what they’d need to refuel the big ships.”
    “Yep.  That pretty much settles it.  Those two oversize freighters are not headed for any planet’s space station.”
    “And the Mark XII rangefinders?” Taylor asked.
    “You really are asking me to slit your throat.”
    “Your father gave me crumbs to chase down Kris Longknife.  I found her, too late to stop her from invading your grandfather’s tower, but just in time to keep her from stepping off an elevator into a room full of Sarin gas.  I would prefer to solve this mystery in time for you to stop these ships from leaving human space.”
    The Member of Parliament nodded along with Taylor as he made his case.  When he finished, Honovi sighed.
    “You make a strong argument for yourself.”
    “I make the only case I can.”
    “Okay, it’s your funeral,” and he quickly told the special agent what he already had figured out.  “The Mark XII is the final argument that Grampa Al wants to go way off the reservation.  It’s the only system sensitive enough to spot what Nelly names ‘fuzzy jumps.’  You go through one of them just right and you’re guaranteed a long jump.”
    “And the small tender will refuel them when they are far from the proper facilities a freighter has come to need,” Taylor concluded.
    “Yep.  My grandpa is up to no good.  Way far away up to no good.”
    “Now the question is: when and where?  It would help if we knew who he was going to use to crew those ships and what he planned to take with him,” Taylor mused.
    “Who may be a function of how, which we know.  Kris has insisted on surrounding herself with a young bunch and Grampa Ray has gone along with her.  Or I should say her crews are young or very fit.  She tends to honk her ships around a lot, and I suspect this high rotation through a jump at high acceleration is bound to be hard on anyone who’s settled into a sedate middle age.”
    “So those with a beer-belly paunch need not apply?”
    Honovi nodded.
    “I’ll have to get a list of potential sailors and check them out for physical fitness.”
    “That would be my first cut,” the Member of Parliament agreed.
    “I’ll get back with you when I have something to report or need more information from you,” Taylor said coming to his feet, “but for now, I think it’s time for this man to take his holiday off to the fishing pier.”
    “You fish?”
    “Metaphorically, always.  As a matter of real hook, line and sinker, not nearly enough.”
    “Then good fishing to you.  I wish I could go along.  I don’t remember the last time I took a real holiday.  Father is a slave driver.”
    “And politics is a game without time-outs or decent rules,” Taylor said.
    “What I’d give for a referee or umpire.”
    On that shared laugh, they parted ways.
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 8
     
     
    Taylor actually got to spend time with his own children the next morning.  He let his wife sleep late and got them off to school himself.  After an even later morning breakfast with her, he made his way to the fishing pier. 
    He invited her to come, as he always did, and she declined, as she always did.  “If you catch anything, you clean it before you set foot inside this house.”
    At the pier, he rented a tackle box and reel from a small shop run by retirees.  They seemed to be more in