She wiggled her whiskers the way gentles do when they’re pleased with themselves. I guess I was supposed to say, "Tremendous idea, I’ll do it." But the Admiralty wasn’t going to annoy influential people just on the request of a lowly Explorer Second Class — especially not an Explorer Second Class they intended to strand on some lonely outpost as soon as they caught him. Now that I thought about it, maybe it was kind of risky doing anything for these kids: if I attracted attention, people might come to snatch me in the middle of the night, and they wouldn’t just be recruiters for some factory that didn’t pay overtime.
On the other hand… when I’d married Queen Verity, I’d taken an oath to protect her people forever and ever. Verity’s reign was over, but "forever and ever" wasn’t.
"Sorry," I told Counselor, "we can’t look for help from the navy. So let’s think what else we can do…"
We kicked around ideas for an hour. Everyone got in on the act — even Hib Nib Pib. Usually workers just sit back and smile when other people are discussing plans, as if they already know the right answer and are just waiting for everyone else to reach the same conclusion… but maybe the smell of queen’s venom had stirred them enough that they just couldn’t keep quiet. All three workers actually got involved, tossing in suggestions and comments and nit-picks.
Too bad we never decided anything.
The ideas basically fell into two classes: big fancy schemes that would only work if I was a colossally important person (which I wasn’t); and small practical ways to resist the recruiters, which were already being done. For example, Hib suggested I should bring all the Mandasars together in a special shelter where they’d be safe from recruiters. But who would build the shelter? Me? The navy? The League? And who would protect us how, when we didn’t have money to pay for security guards or equipment? On the other hand, if we were talking about making our own special shelters, and protecting ourselves… weren’t the Mandasars doing that right now? There in the Hollen Marsh and elsewhere? They’d banded together all on their own, without needing me as a figurehead. What more could I do? If they were looking for a great military leader to improve their organization or tactics, I was the last person to put in charge.
Hib and the others didn’t understand that. No matter how much I told them I wasn’t generalissimo material, they thought I was just being modest.
So the talk went around and around, the kids thrashing through the pros and cons, while I listened… and listened… and kept on listening till it dawned on me I’d stopped taking anything in. I was watching the way their mouths moved as they spoke. The bobbing of their whiskers. The spike at the end of Zeeleepull’s snout as it swished through the air.
I’m dizzy, I thought. I’ve gone all dizzy. It was the kind of dizziness that seems absolutely fascinating, so you start rotating your neck slowly just to feel the world blur: to see exactly how much you can control the spaciness inside your skull…
Someone gave me a shake. Counselor was holding onto my shoulders with her upper arms and saying, "Are you all right?" — really loud as if she’d already asked the question a whole bunch of times.
"I’m sick," I said. "The little eyeballs poisoned me." Which struck me as funny, so I laughed and laughed… way too hard. The dizziness whooshed down over me like ice water, starting cold at the roots of my hair and draining bleak down my face. I remember thinking, This isn’t regal at all. Then, very unregally, I passed out.
It was hard to tell when I was awake and when I wasn’t. Sometimes I thought I was dreaming about a little Mandasar girl with her arms wrapped around my neck and both of us crying; but sometimes I had the idea maybe Counselor was the one holding me, and she was trying to keep me down on a bed pallet as I thrashed about half-crazy. It all blended together, so confused and light-headed that I couldn’t tell the borderline between dream and delirium.
Still… Counselor, the real Counselor, was a deep gentle brown. The little girl who came weeping into my hallucinations was a bright queenly yellow. "Oh Father Prince," she whispered, "wake and save us all — Please, please wake."
Which had to be Counselor talking, or one of her hive-mates. Someone so naive, she thought I was smart enough to save people.
When I woke for real, the dining room was dark and quiet. I just lay there woozy for a while, trying to collect my thoughts. The Mandasar kids had left me on my own… but probably they were lying close by in the next room. If I made the slightest noise, they’d come running to tend their "prince."
Not that I’d acted like a prince so far. All I’d done was rough up Zeeleepull, tell the others why I couldn’t help against the recruiters, then pass out on their dining-room floor. Pretty pathetically awful, even by my normal useless-dummy standards.
But at least the kids hadn’t tossed me out of the house. I was lying almost exactly where I’d fallen — they’d just shifted me onto a dining pallet. When I reached out, I could touch the table… with its big glossy picture of Queen Wisdom…
That reminded me of the water bowl, the one I’d used for splashing Counselor’s face. My mouth was dust-dry, probably because I’d been sweating buckets while I was unconscious. (You don’t want to know how soaked and sodden my clothes were.) I sat up and edged my way over to the table, hoping maybe the kids had left the bowl full overnight. On Troyen, a lot of families did that in case someone wanted a drink.
The bowl was still there, but flipped upside down. The glossy table surface had puddles everywhere, as if someone had knocked the bowl over and not bothered to mop up the wet.
Odd.
The room was almost coal-mine black, just a tiny bit of starshine coming through the ceiling; the kids had adjusted the environment dome so a wee patch of roof was transparent like a skylight. I could just barely see the outlines of things close up… nothing distinct, nothing that would tell me what was wrong.
"House-soul, attend," I whispered. "Can you give me some light?"
Nothing happened: the dome’s computer didn’t want to take commands from me. No big surprise; why would the kids reprogram their house so I could boss it around? But in a lot of homes, the computer lets anyone turn on the lights. Most house-souls have a set of instructions considered safe to obey, even from strangers. Flushing the toilet. Telling what time it is. Letting you wash your hands. But maybe the Mandasars were so worried about recruiters, they’d adjusted their system to "total noncooperation" mode.
I leaned against the table, wondering what to do. One thing about venom poisoning: both times after the delirium broke, I felt pretty good. Relatively speaking, anyway — I was thirsty and hungry, and not even Queen Verity would think I smelled delicious, but I was strong enough to stand without wobbling too much. After being unconscious so long, I felt wide-awake too. The polite thing might be to go back to bed till the Mandasars got up in the morning, but at the moment I wasn’t sleepy.
What to do? If I wandered around in the dark, I’d probably break something. On the other hand… I thought about that knocked-over water bowl. There must be plenty of harmless explanations, but it still made me edgy.