According to the Fasskisters, the nanites were designed "to protect the Mandasars from themselves." In a way, that was even true — because of the Swarm, the Mandasars didn’t have a chance to nuke themselves to oblivion.

The microscopic robots ate plastics, particularly those used to insulate electrical wires, to build circuit boards, and to act as glue or sealants. Within a week, much of Troyen’s technological base had literally fallen apart… including all computers, the power grid, and most communication systems. The nanites also shut down nuclear weapons, nerve-gas missiles, and a bunch of labs where clever Mandasar doctors were studying alien organisms for their germ-warfare potential; the Beneficent Swarm even wrecked important chunks of military planes, tanks, and submarines. The Fasskisters could honestly say they’d saved the Mandasars from a war of total extinction.

On the other hand, you can kill a lot of people with spears and crossbows. For twenty years, that’s exactly what the Mandasars did.

Laughter. People were laughing. I came to myself and realized I was at the captain’s table on Jacaranda, still possessed by the spirit that kept shoving me out of my body. Whatever the spirit just said must have been hysterically funny… the way Prope giggled into her hand and Festina’s eyes glistened. Even Kaisho, face hidden by hair, was chuckling. I guess higher organisms aren’t immune to being disarmed by the occasional joke.

I wished I knew what’d just come out of my mouth. For the past little while — I don’t know how long — I’d fallen out of touch with what I’d been saying. Blanked out in my own thoughts, of Innocence, of Sam, of the night everybody died.

Had I told about that? I didn’t know.

Prope, Festina, and Kaisho just kept laughing… but when I glanced to my right, Lieutenant Harque didn’t look nearly so chuckly. Yes, he was smiling; but it was the strained sort of smile people wear when they don’t have a choice. I wondered whether I’d made a joke at his expense. I didn’t think so — if the others were laughing because I’d teased him, they’d glance his way from time to time, just to catch the look on his face. So far as I could see, all three women acted like he wasn’t even there. As if I was the only man at the table worth listening to.

Which explained why Harque looked so sour.

Slowly the laughter eased away. Prope’s eyes remained shiny — beaming straight at me, glimmery bright. I couldn’t mistake the look… and I was returning it, strong and clear, like electricity passing between us. Terrified, I fought the thing that wanted to lock me with the captain in that heart-pounding gaze. Sometime in the past hour, while I wasn’t paying attention, the spirit possessing me had built upon Prope’s light little flirtations and made them bloom into…

Into…

No, With a burst of willpower, I grabbed back control of my body and forced myself to lower my eyes. Maybe if I shied off, I could undo the effects of wooing the captain… and of wooing Festina and Kaisho too, by the look of them. All three women simmered with the same gush of attraction, as if my wit and my charm had dazzled them all.

Scared and ashamed, I turned away from the table. Would it be so bad if I just muttered, "Excuse me," and ran to my cabin? Rude, yes, but would it be so bad?

My eyes swept over the Mandasars at the next table. The five of them were shaking, shuddering like a group attack of epilepsy. Their nostrils had flared wide, inhaling to the very bottom of their lungs.

Only one thing could make Mandasars react that way. Somehow, undetectable to human noses, the air must be filled with the pure piercing scent of royal pheromone.

27

WATCHING FESTINA PUNCH

I was still staring at the Mandasars when someone at a nearby table gasped. "Are they sick?"

"No," I said. "Not sick."

More crew members were looking now: standing up to see over other people’s heads, and muttering, "What idiot brought diseased lobsters aboard a navy ship?" Things escalated to a general kerfuffle, with Veresian getting called, and nervous folks running out, and Prope glaring at Festina for exposing everyone to contagious aliens, and Festina asking me what could be wrong, and me saying I didn’t know when I knew full well, except where the pheromone was coming from. Eventually, the captain cleared the lounge "to give the doctor room to work." I wanted to stick around to make sure the Mandasars were okay; but Prope took me by the arm and walked me to my cabin, all of a sudden starting to talk in a giddy girlish voice you wouldn’t expect from a starship captain. Half the time, I couldn’t even follow what she said — I was getting sleepier by the minute thanks to space lag, being shifted off my body’s day/night cycle.

Now, I had a giddy woman on my arm; and I suspected she’d be in my bed soon, unless I somehow cooled her off. I didn’t want to make her mad, considering we were stuck on Jacaranda the next few weeks… but I sure didn’t want to sleep with her either. Barely a day ago, Prope was ready to dump me somewhere awful — and she might still do it if she got orders from the High Council. Some people might like rumpling the sheets with a ruthless cut-your-throat woman, but me, I had more gentle standards.

So I wasn’t in the mood to get lovey-dovey. It surprised me she was so keen for it: I mean, a lot of women like how I look, and Prope might have been thinking, "His father’s an admiral," but even so, the captain was acting awfully loose and loopy. As if she was drunk or something… except I couldn’t smell any alcohol on her. The way she was clinging right on my arm, I could smell a lot of other things — shampoo in her hair, soap behind her ears, chocolate mousse on her breath, sweat where her shoulder and hip pressed against me — but not a drop of booze.

Maybe she was just the sort of person who could make herself passionate whenever she wanted: turn it on, turn it off, like the diplomats I’d known on Troyen. Heaven knows, Sam was a master of whipping up whatever emotions she wanted… the same as a hive-queen could pump out pheromones at will, whether she wanted to scare people, or get them to listen, or even to make them love her.

I wondered what kind of pheromones could make the captain not love me.

When we reached my room, Prope didn’t even slow down: right through the door and on into the cabin, never letting me go. I think she intended to drag me straight to the bed… and she might have, if I hadn’t caught a strong whiff of something that reminded me of buttered toast. The smell was more than a smell — it had the feel of toast too, steamy hot, with a gritty, crumbly texture. Don’t ask me how an odor can have a texture; but the sensation was so strong, I drew back sharply in surprise.

My stopping caught Prope off guard. She was kind of jerked back by her grip on my arm — her momentum wasn’t nearly as strong as my inertia when I wanted to stand still. I stopped… listened… sniffed. Prope kept tugging on my elbow, not really hard but persistent, like a kid who wants to pull Dad into the candy store; but I kept smelling that buttered toast and wondering what it was.

"Edward," Prope said in a not-very-patient voice, "what’s wrong?"

"Do you smell it?"

"Smell what?"

"Buttered toast."

Prope gave a polite sniff, but she was just humoring me. "I don’t smell a thing," she said. Then she gave a coy flick of her eyelids. "Do you want to know what I’d like to smell?"

"Um." I thought, What the heck has gotten into her? But I didn’t say it out loud; I was still looking around the room, trying to figure out where the smell came from. The closet? No. The desk? The bed?

Suddenly, something clicked inside my half-asleep brain. "Ship-soul," I said, "lights ninety-five percent dim."