The photo blossomed with scarlet dots: thousands of them, maybe millions, covering the whole city outside the fire zone. They didn’t just block the radius roads; they were everywhere, hunkered down along the canals, at the bridges, inside buildings, sealing off every possible exit.

A vast red deluge of firepower… and our Explorers were trapped at ground zero.

33

APPRAISING THE RISKS

"Are you sure?" Dade asked Kaisho. "I mean… the sensors are just picking up heat sources right? Ones that match the Mandasar profile. So how can you tell the difference between one set of soldiers and another? How can you tell they’re soldiers at all? Those people outside the perimeter could just be civilians."

Kaisho gave a soft chuckle. "Next picture, ship-soul." As if she’d expected him to ask precisely that question and had already set up an answer.

The screen image split into halves, both sides showing Mandasar warriors. The warriors on the left were tucked under an urban camo awning, but the perspective came down at enough of an angle that we could see the front parts of their bodies. They all had black patches painted on their shells at the upper shoulders, like blobby epaulettes; for weapons they held wooden crossbows with big ugly arrows whose heads were nasty enough to penetrate Mandasar armor.

The warriors on the right half of the picture had crossbows too, and sharp steel tips attached to their claws. No epaulettes, black or otherwise. This group was slinking along the edge of a street, keeping well into the sunset shadows.

"The ones with black markings," Kaisho said, "are outside the perimeter. The unmarked ones are inside. And before you ask, Mr. Dade, no, I haven’t checked every warrior on both sides… but I’ve looked at enough to be confident of my sampling. The army of the black has surrounded a much smaller force based in the palace. Both sides are holding their positions rather than trying to kill each other."

"A cease-fire?" Festina suggested. "Perhaps their leaders are trying to work out a surrender."

"I suspect the palace army doesn’t have a leader," Kaisho replied. "Let me suggest a scenario."

"Oh good," Tobit muttered. "Someone thinks she can explain this mess."

Kaisho nodded, her hair bouncing slightly over her face. "Willow was supposed to find a queen. Where would the Explorers look first? Queens could be practically anywhere on the entire planet. Do you start going to every army camp your sensors pick up, asking, ‘Excuse me, do you have a queen here?’ Or do you go to a known position that’s almost certain to have a queen in residence?"

"Unshummin palace," Festina said.

"Exactly. It’s easy to find, and you can be sure some queen must have claimed it for her own. That’s where Willow went first; and they found a queen who was pantingly eager to go to Celestia, because she happened to be in deep shit: encircled and besieged by the Black Army.

"I see it going like this," Kaisho continued. "Willow sends Plebon and Olympia Mell to arrange things with the queen. The queen, of course, claims she’s perfectly sentient and has never done an evil deed in her life. The Explorers believe the queen is lying; so they decide that when Willow leaves, they’ll stay behind. Never mind that the palace is surrounded — better to take their chances with the Black Shoulders than be killed for sure by the League."

"And that’s how they got stuck," Tobit said, nodding. "They must have thrown in their lot with the palace guards — got the queen to put in a good word for them before she left. They’re not in immediate danger, but they’re still bottled up by the Black Army and waiting for the ax to fall."

"Except that nobody’s swinging axes," Festina pointed out. "Which is damned strange. How long has it been since Willow took away the queen? Three and a half weeks? With the queen gone, the palace guards have nothing to fight for; so why not surrender? And if the guards are too stubborn to give in, why hasn’t the Black Army overrun the place? They certainly have the numbers to crush the defenders. So what’s everybody waiting for?"

"Us," I said quietly. "They’ve been waiting for us."

Captain Prope sat up sharply in her chair. "Us?" she murmured. "Yes… us. We’re the missing ingredient they’ve been waiting for." Her face had an I-knew-it-had-to-be-about-me expression… as if everything in the universe made sense once you saw it as part of Prope’s own story.

Festina gave the captain an exasperated look, then turned to me. "How would they know we were coming, Edward? Even if it was common knowledge Willow left Explorers down there, no one would expect us to attempt a rescue. The Admiralty has an ironclad policy never to remove anyone from a war planet till the fighting stops. Complete quarantine. Our group can go down there because I think it’s necessary for the fleet’s sentience… but under normal circumstances, the navy would leave those Explorers to rot."

I couldn’t argue with her, but I knew I was right. Sam told me Temperance was the last holdout against the new high queen. Temperance must have been occupying the palace, and Samantha was advisor to the queen on the other side. Now my sister was telling the Black Epaulettes, "Wait. Don’t attack. Wait."

Sam expected I’d use Dad’s access code and order a navy ship to fly me to Troyen. Then I was supposed to land and join her in the high queen’s palace. Her very words: "in the high queen’s palace." Except that the palace was the one place Sam’s side didn’t control.

So what would happen if me and Festina and the rest tried to land at the palace as directed? The Black Army would go crazy. They’d see the Sperm-tail flutter out of the sky, and they’d think offworlders were coming to help Temperance’s side — summoned by Temperance herself, who was last seen leaving on a Technocracy ship. The black troops would spring to the attack, hoping to overrun the palace before we offworlders had a chance to get settled; and in the ensuing fight, with battle musk as thick as smoke in a burning house, every human in the area would be slaughtered. The attacking soldiers wouldn’t hesitate a second. They’d shred our whole group in the belief we were outside mercenaries trying to meddle in Mandasar affairs.

Isn’t that how it would go? We’d all be killed. And it would get written off as an accident of war, a sad, sad tragedy. The new high queen would apologize to the Technocracy, with all the grief in the world: "What a terrible shame. Let’s establish channels of communication so this never happens again." The Admiralty would say yes, while breathing their own sigh of relief — with Festina and me out of the way, the mess with Willow would be hushed up. Soon, the recruiters on Celestia would start operating again; maybe they’d even start a branch office on Troyen.

In the end, everybody would be happy. Except those of us who were dead.

I told myself there had to be something I didn’t understand. My sister would never draw me into a deliberate massacre. She must have some other scheme I just wasn’t smart enough to figure out.

But I had a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach, and it wouldn’t go away.

"Do we go down or not?" Dade asked. He was looking at Festina. Everyone on the bridge was watching her — even the regular crew who were supposed to keep their eyes on their monitors.

"We’ll try it," Festina said at last, "but just a quick in and out. Five minutes, tops… and let’s hope the people we’re looking for are right where their signal came from."

Tobit had put on a poker face. "The second we send down our Sperm-tail," he said, "both armies will kick up a god-awful ruckus. They’ll each think the other side is trying something sneaky."