"But if you used to be an Explorer," I said, "and now you’re an admiral, couldn’t you sort of be the admiral in charge of the Explorer Corps?"
She turned to me and smiled. Another nice, real smile. And pretty, too. Even with just the starlight, I could see the splotch on her face, but I was getting used to it. It wasn’t so bad, especially when her eyes were so alive… and the way she moved, very easy and graceful, sure on her feet. I even liked her voice — it was sweet and kind, without the teeniest bit of talking down to me. Just for a second, I wondered if she ever put perfume in her hair; then I nearly smacked my own face for being so stupid.
Thank heavens Festina couldn’t read my mind the way Kaisho seemed to. Still smiling, the admiral sat down on a small stone outjut in the middle of the clearing and patted the rock beside her, like I should sit too. She was just being friendly, I knew that; ready to have a talk with a fellow Explorer. Feeling shy and awkward, I took a seat but made darned sure I wasn’t so close I might accidentally brush against her.
"Edward," she murmured quietly, "I’m never going to be the admiral in charge of the Explorer Corps. Like I said, that job goes to the council president — Admiral Vincence. Vincence would never surrender a shred of his power to someone else… which means he won’t let anyone take over the Explorers, even if he doesn’t give a damn about the corps."
She sighed and stared out into the darkness. "The High Council is like that, Edward. Admirals lower on the totem pole are mostly decent competent professionals: the ones who make sure ships are where they’re supposed to be with the supplies they need. But the bastards who claw their way to the top — and stay there for decade after decade — sometimes I think they’re all clones of a single Machiavellian bastard who seized power four hundred… what’s wrong?"
I’d nearly jumped to my feet and run off into the night. Talk about clones always did that to me — flooding me with guilt. "Sorry," I said, trying not to sound like a terrible liar, "I just saw a shadow… like a wolf or something."
"There are no wolves on Celestia," she answered. "The planet’s still in its Devonian period; the only native life-forms on land are insects." Festina rolled to her feet. "Maybe we’d better look around, in case the recruiters have come back."
"No, no," I said, "it was nothing. Just a shadow. A tree moving in the wind. Sorry."
She peered off into the woods for another moment, then slowly sat down. "Where was I?" she asked.
"Um." I remembered very clearly but didn’t want to remind her. "You were talking about admirals, but I’m not sure why."
"Oh. Well." She thought for a moment. "You asked how that recruiter got hold of navy equipment. I was getting around to that." She eased back onto her elbows, staring idly up at the stars. "For the past twenty years, the High Council has taken a great interest in Celestia. And when I say great interest, I mean on the order of eighteen percent interest per annum."
"Money?"
"Money. The Admiralty funded a lot of people to come to Celestia two decades ago, and they’ve been reaping dividends ever since. Solid returns on investment." She glanced at me. "Does that surprise you?"
"Um. No." When Sam described how Dad had sneaked twenty million humans onto Celestia, she hadn’t described all the financial arrangements; but of course the Admiralty would have worked out some way to take a percentage of whatever the settlers earned.
"So," Festina went on, "members of the High Council have a strong incentive to ensure that Celestian business stays profitable. Lately, the biggest profits have been coming from…"
She looked at me as if she was sure I could finish the sentence. "From recruiting Mandasars?" I guessed.
"That’s right," she nodded. "Cheap blue-collar workers, brilliant white-collar workers, and fanatic security guards to keep everybody in line."
"So the High Council is on the recruiters’ side?" I asked, outraged.
"The recruiters put money in the High Council’s pockets, but I doubt if they’re backed by the council as a whole. My guess is the recruiters are sponsored by a single admiral."
"Who?"
"I don’t know," Festina replied. "But it’s someone who’s decided to equip the recruiters with navy gear."
"That’s awful!" I said.
"Business as usual for High Council admirals," she sighed. "But that’s not the worst part." I didn’t want to hear the worst part. But I swallowed and said, "Tell me."
She didn’t speak for a moment; she was staring up at the stars over her head. "There it is," she said suddenly. "See that constellation that looks like a big X? Second star from the middle on the upper right arm — that’s Troyen’s sun."
I looked up quickly. The X was easy enough to see; but the star she’d pointed out was nothing special. Somehow I thought it should be brighter than any other object in the sky, not an ordinary little pinpoint like everything else. I lay on my back beside Festina to get a better look.
"Edward," she said softly, "why did someone order Willow to transport a queen from Troyen to Celestia?"
"I don’t know." My voice sounded distant in my own ears; I was staring up at the star, wanting to feel some connection with it. That was Troyen. The closest thing I had to a home. But my heart didn’t beat a millisecond faster. Nothing.
"It’s getting harder for the recruiters to find more victims," Festina murmured. Her voice was quiet, right there on the ground beside me. "Mandasar communities like this one have organized for their own protection: militias, sentry patrols, security systems. And the Mandasars are starting to find sympathetic ears among humans and other races on Celestia: people who will lobby politicians or raise a stink in the media. So the recruiter press gangs have found it harder and harder to meet their quotas."
She lifted up on one elbow and looked down at me. "Now think, Edward. How would that change if the recruiters had a queen on their side?"
"You mean… Willow was bringing the queen to help the recruiters?"
"Willow was following orders from someone in the High Council — no one else would dare send a ship to a planet that’s having a war. And someone in the High Council is probably channeling navy equipment to the recruiters. Odds are it’s the same person."
I thought about that a second. "If this bad admiral gave orders to Willow, wouldn’t there be records or something? I mean, if it’s an official order…"
My voice trailed off as Festina shook her head. "Sorry, Edward," she told me. "Our navy computer systems are so full of back doors and secret access codes and intentional security loopholes…" She sighed. "An inner-circle admiral can issue instructions, then erase any trace that it happened. I’ll check, of course, just in case someone got sloppy covering up tracks; but in all likelihood, not even the admirals on the High Council can figure out which of them sent Willow to Troyen."
"But you’re sure," I said, "that Willow was bringing that queen for the recruiters?"
"That’s my guess," Festina answered. Her face was dark with shadows. "Now tell me: what would happen if the recruiters had a queen working with them?"
I winced. Mandasars have fanatically strong instincts to follow a queen’s orders. Even if the queen said something ridiculous like, "Surrender to the recruiters," a good chunk of the population would start thinking, "If a queen wants us recruited, maybe that’s the way things should be. Maybe we just don’t understand, and it’s selfish trying to stay the way we are." More likely though, the queen wouldn’t be so blatant. The recruiters would use her to trick a few kids at a time, luring warriors into traps, thinning out numbers gradually, till the hives weren’t strong enough to defend themselves. These kids were so innocent, one queen could make suckers of them all. Look how eagerly the warriors listened to me, just because I smelled of week-old venom and once had a fancy title.