She opened the door to Edward’s study without knocking, only realising her mistake once she was well inside. There was a girl with him on the leather settee; his current mistress. Kirsten remembered the security file Jannike Dermot had provided: minor nobility, her father owned an estate and some kind of transport company. Pretty young thing, in her early twenties, with classic delicate bonework. Tall with very long legs; as they all invariably were with Edward. She stared at Kirsten in utter consternation, then frantically tried to adjust her evening dress to a more modest position. Not that she could achieve much modesty with so little fabric, Kirsten thought in amusement. The girl’s wine glass went flying from trembling fingers.

Kirsten frowned at that. The antique carpet was Turkish, a beautiful red and blue weave; she’d given it to Edward as a birthday present fifteen years ago.

“Ma’am,” the girl squeaked. “I . . . We . . .”

Kirsten merely gave her a mildly enquiring glance.

“Come along, my dear,” Edward said calmly. He took her arm and escorted her to the door. “Affairs of state. I’ll call you in the morning.” She managed a strangled whimper in response. A butler, responding to Edward’s datavise, appeared and gestured politely to the by-now thoroughly frightened and bewildered girl. Edward shut the study door behind her, and sighed.

Kirsten started laughing, then put her hand over her mouth. “Oh Edward, I’m sorry. I should have let you know I was coming.”

He spread his hands wide. “C’est la vie.”

“Poor thing looked terrified.” She knelt down and picked the wine glass up, dabbing at the carpet. “Look what she did. I’d better get a valet mechanoid, or it’ll stain.” She datavised the study’s processor.

“It’s a rather good Chablis, actually.” He picked the bottle out of its walnut cooler jacket. “Shame to waste it, would you like some?”

“Lovely, thank you. It has been a very bad day at the office.”

“Ah.” He went over to the cabinet and brought her a fresh glass.

Kirsten sniffed at the bouquet after he’d poured. “She was jolly gorgeous. Slightly young, though. Wicked of you.” She brushed at imaginary dust on his lapel. “Then again, I can see why she’s so obliging. You always did look rather splendid in uniform.”

Edward glanced down at his Royal Navy tunic. There were no Royal crests, just three discreet medal ribbons—earned long ago. “I’m just doing my bit. Though they are all depressingly young at the base. I think they regard me as some kind of mascot.”

“Oh poor Edward, the indignity. But not to worry, Zandra and Emmeline are terribly impressed.”

He sat on the leather settee and patted the cushion. “Come on, sit down and tell me what’s wrong.”

“Thank you.” She stepped round the small mechanoid that was sniffing at the wine stain, and sat beside him, welcoming his arm around her shoulders. The secret of a successful royal marriage: don’t have secrets. They were both intelligent people, which had allowed them to work out the grounds of a sustainable domestic arrangement a long time ago. In public and in private he was the perfect companion, a friend and confidant. All she required was loyalty, which he supplied admirably. In return he was free to gather whatever perks his position presented—and it wasn’t just girls; he was an avid art collector and bon viveur. They even still slept together occasionally.

“The Liberation is not progressing as well as could be,” he said. “That much is obvious. And the net is overloading with speculation.”

Kirsten sipped some of the chablis. “Progress is the key word, yes.” She told him about the decision she was faced with.

After she’d finished, he poured some more wine for himself before answering. “The serjeants developing advanced personalities? Humm. How intriguing. I wonder if they’ll refuse to go back into their habitat multiplicities when the campaign is over.”

“I have no idea; Acacia never ventured an opinion. And to be honest, that part is not my problem.”

“It might be if they all start applying for citizenship afterwards.”

“Oh God.” She snuggled up closer. “No. I’m not even going to consider that right now.”

“Wise lady. You want my opinion?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“You can’t ignore the serjeant situation. We are utterly dependent on them to liberate Mortonridge, and there’s a hell of a way to go yet.”

“A hundred and eighty thousand people de-possessed, seventeen thousand dead, so far; that leaves us with one-point-eight-million left to save.”

“Exactly. And we’re about to enter the phase which will see the heaviest fighting. If they keep advancing at their current rate, the front line will reach the first areas where the possessed are concentrated the day after tomorrow. If you slow them now, the serjeants are going to start taking heavy losses just before that. Not good. I’d say, keep things as they are until the front line hits those concentrations, then shift to General Hiltch’s outnumbering tactics.”

“That’s a very logical solution.” She stared at the wine. “If only all I had to consider were numbers. But they’re depending on me, Edward.”

“Who?”

“The people who’ve been possessed. Even locked away in their own bodies, they know the Liberation is coming now; a practical salvation from this obscenity. They have faith in me, they trust me to deliver them from this evil. And I have a duty to them. That duty is one of the few true burdens placed on the family by our people. Now I know there is a way of reducing the number of my subjects killed, I cannot in all conscience ignore it for tactical convenience. That would be a betrayal of trust, not to mention an abdication of duty.”

“The two impossibles for a Saldana.”

“Yes. We have had it easy for an awful long time, haven’t we?”

“Shall we say: moderately difficult.”

“Yet if I want to reduce the death rate, I’m going to have to ask the Edenists to take it on the chin for us. You know what bothers me most about that? People will expect it. I’m a Saldana, they’re Edenists. What could be simpler?”

“The serjeants aren’t quite Edenists.”

“We don’t know what the hell they are, not any more. Acacia was hedging her bets very thoroughly. If they’re worried enough to bring the problem to me, then it has to be a substantial factor. One I cannot discount from the humanist equation. Damn it, they were supposed to be automatons.”

“The Liberation is a very rushed venture. I’m sure if Jupiter’s geneticists had been given enough time to design a dedicated soldier construct then this would never have arisen. But we had to borrow from the Lord of Ruin. Look, General Hiltch was given overall command of the Liberation. Let him make the decision, it’s what he’s paid for.”

“Get thee behind me,” she muttered. “No, Edward, not this time. I’m the one who insisted on reducing the fatalities. It is my responsibility.”

“You’ll be setting a precedent.”

“Hardly one that’s likely to be repeated. All of us are sailing into new, and very stormy territory; that requires proper leadership. If I cannot provide that now, then the family will ultimately have failed. We have spent four hundred years engineering ourselves into this position of statesmanship, and I will not duck the issue when it really counts. It stinks of cowardice, and that is one thing I will never allow the Saldanas to stand accused of.”

He kissed her on the side of her head. “Well you know you have my support. If I could make one final observation. The personalities in the serjeants are all volunteers. They came here knowing what their probable fate would be. That purpose remains at their core. In that, they are like every pre-Twenty-first Century army; reluctant, frightened even, but committed. So give them the time they need to gather their nerve and resolution, and then use them for the purpose for which they were created: saving genuine human lives. If they are truly capable of emotion, then their only hope of gaining satisfaction will come from achieving that.”