"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.
Yes, a queen would be a godsend to the recruiters… if she felt like cooperating with them. "But why would a queen do it?" I asked. "Why would she help humans do bad things to her own kind?"
"Maybe just to get off Troyen," Festina said. "Suppose a queen was doing badly in the war — surrounded by enemies, low on troops and supplies. Then Willow shows up with a proposition: free passage to Celestia and a chance to start fresh on a new planet. All she has to do is help the recruiters a bit. Would the queen take the deal?"
"Yes," I said. "Then double-cross the recruiters as soon as she got the chance."
"They wouldn’t give her the chance," Festina told me. "They’d keep a gun to her head the rest of her life. Except the League killed her and the whole of Willow before any of that could happen."
Festina eased off her elbow and rolled onto her back again — side by side with me in the darkness, staring up at Troyen’s sun. "That’s what makes me think it’s just one admiral, rather than the whole council. The council are power-mad sleazebags, but they aren’t collectively stupid. Transporting a queen from one star system to another? When the queen had been waging a war for twenty years? That’s an insane risk. The League was almost sure to consider the queen a dangerous non-sentient… so any fool could see they’d kill her and the Willow’s crew. If the council jointly agreed to give Willow its orders, then the council would be branded non-sentient too. Next thing you know, the League might ground our whole navy till the admirals were thrown out on their asses. That’s a very real threat, and the inner circle knows it."
She shook her head. "No, Edward, our noble leaders have a finely honed sense of self-preservation; they’d never go far enough to bring the League down on their heads. But a single admiral might — if he or she had a big stake, keeping the recruiters in business."
"Which admiral?" I asked.
"I don’t know. One who can’t leave New Earth anymore — he or she is definitely non-sentient. But that doesn’t narrow down the possibilities. None of the high admirals leave New Earth; they’re all afraid of people conspiring against them while they’re gone."
"So you can’t even make a guess who it is?" I was up on my elbow now, leaning in over her. Her eyes opened wider, maybe surprised I was so concerned who it might be. She just stared at me for a moment…
…and that’s when I realized I was lying beside an admiral, a young woman admiral, a very pretty young woman admiral, in the middle of a forest, in the middle of the night. More than lying beside her, I was practically on top of her, for heaven’s sake.
That’s also when Zeeleepull walked into the clearing. "Oh, you humes! Always the sex, sex, sex."
19 FIGURING OUT WHO DID WHAT
I bounded to my feet, afraid my face was burning as red as Kaisho’s legs. Festina didn’t look bothered at all; with an impish little smile, she actually held out her hand for me to help her up.
She didn’t need help getting up — she probably could have done a backflip straight to her feet. But she’d reached out her hand, and I had no choice except taking it. Her skin felt so warm against mine… I had to force myself not to give her a huge yank up, jerking her arm out of its socket or tossing her halfway across the clearing. But I went very easy: pulled her up, then let go of her hand fast. She smiled again, amused by my flusterment. "Thank you," she said, then turned to Zeeleepull. "Yes?"
Zeeleepull’s ears were twitching in the Mandasar version of a you-randy-old-humans laugh. But all he said was, "Tracked serial numbers Kaisho has. Come. Come."
Festina gave me a look — a mischievous sort of look, and for a second I thought she might try to fluster me more, by taking my arm or something. But I guess she decided teasing me would be mean. She told Zeeleepull, "All right. Let’s see what Kaisho’s got." Then the three of us walked back in silence, little puffbally things going pop under our feet.
While we were gone, Kaisho had rearranged her hair. Now it completely covered her face, not the tiniest gap down the middle; in fact, she’d grabbed the long straight strands that’d been hanging down her back and flipped them up over her forehead, so they covered her nose, chin, throat, all the way to her chest. I didn’t know how she could see a thing… but as we trudged up to her, she said, "Festina dear, you’re looking amused."
"Enjoying the fresh night air," Festina replied. "What have you found?"