"You didn’t know," I said.
"I knew enough," she snapped. "Kaisho has jerked us around time and again. I kept letting her do it, in the hope she’d go too far and we could justifiably whack her. But enough is enough." She tapped a button on her wrist, changing the channel on her radio. "Tobit, Dade: full paranoia mode."
Dade’s voice sounded in my ear, even though he was standing back at the stairwell. "I thought we already were in full paranoia mode."
Festina sighed and rolled her eyes. "What can you do with a kid like that?"
"Um," I said, "if you want I can keep an eye on—"
That’s when the cannons started firing.
A real soldier probably wouldn’t call them long-distance guns — they were shooting from the top of the palace toward that kill zone beyond Prosperity Water. Only about a kilometer; in artillery terms, that was practically point-blank range. But from where we were standing, the shells looked like they were zooming past us and heading way off in the distance before they blew up.
Of course, we didn’t stay standing too long.
I dropped flat to the roof. Festina did a dive, then rolled to her feet again, fists up… like it was some pure reflex to hit the dirt and come out fighting. A second later, she threw herself onto the roof again, cursing in a language I didn’t understand. Spanish, I guess. Considering how comfortable she was swearing in English, she must have been really mad this time.
Another boom of a cannon. While its thunder still echoed from nearby buildings, Dade’s voice came over my earphone. "It’s all right," he babbled excitedly, "they’re firing over our heads. Shelling the enemy."
"And what happens," Tobit growled, "when the enemy starts shelling back? If the guns are a few degrees too low, we’re bang in the line of fire. How do you think this building got wrecked in the first place?"
Good point. The front of the embassy could have got hit by a barrage intended for the palace — just a few hundred meters short, that’s all. How long ago would that have been? When the Black Army first surrounded Queen Temperance? Or back earlier in some other battle… maybe when Temperance herself grabbed the palace from whoever held it before her.
"What do we do?" Dade called over the radio. "Leave?"
"No," Tobit and Festina snapped in unison.
"We’re here to pick up fellow Explorers," Festina said a moment later. "We stay until we absolutely have to go."
"Yeah," Tobit put in. "We aren’t going to get another chance down here."
He was right. If the palace was firing, the Black Army must be attacking out on the defense perimeter — going for their final offensive. The moment they saw our Sperm-tail, someone must have called the attack.
Someone. Maybe Sam. Whose time of waiting was over.
In a few hours now, the war would end… right where it started, inside the high queen’s palace. There’d be fighting in the halls, just like the night Verity died — loyal palace guards without a queen, just trying to survive till the dawn. It made me feel guilty, realizing I was soon going to run off on them again. We’d pick up the other Explorers, or we’d decide they weren’t coming and hightail it back to Jacaranda. Either way, I was abandoning a lot of warriors, when I should be there with them, helping them, leading them…
Wait a minute — what the heck was going through my head? I was no leader.
The cannons fired again. I covered my ears and tried not to think.
Festina began to crawl on her belly back to Tobit and Dade. It didn’t look very graceful, her in that big fat tightsuit… but she moved surprisingly fast, and if you took your eyes off her the tiniest split second, she disappeared. That camo was good. I started to crawl too, then stopped. The Explorer’s backpack was still lying on the roof behind me; Festina hadn’t had a chance to look at it. I turned around, and slithered up to it, sniffing furiously.
It smelled of the same stuff as the tightsuit, plus the odor of a male human. No trace of female scent. Maybe Plebon had been here an hour ago to send the contact beep, but Olympia Mell hadn’t been with him.
Was that a bad sign? I couldn’t tell.
I sniffed at the knapsack again, not sure what I was looking for. Even if the pack was booby-trapped with some kind of bomb, I wouldn’t know what explosives smelled like. Anyway, there were a whole lot of odors jumbled together: Explorer stuff, like a radio transmitter, and food rations, and a Sperm anchor…
My fingers twitched. I didn’t make them do that. Uh-oh… getting possessed again.
I watched as my hands reached out and flipped open the pack. Nothing went boom. That was the good news. The bad news was my hand scrabbling into the mess of equipment and pulling out the little anchor box.
"Edward!" Festina called over my earphone. "What do you think you’re doing?"
The spirit that possessed me didn’t answer. It set the anchor down on the roof and flicked the activation switch.
I didn’t even see the Sperm-tail coming — it was somewhere behind my back, still flipping and flapping, swishing aimlessly across Unshummin and far out into the countryside, like some cat-toy bouncing on a string. One second it was a dozen kilometers away; the next instant, it had snapped into place against the anchor, plastered to the side of the little box with only the tip of its mouth hanging free.
Festina’s voice rang loud in my ear. "Turn off the anchor, Edward. Turn off the anchor!"
Too late. The Sperm-tail’s tiny mouth suddenly became a nozzle squirting out a crowd of newcomers: Counselor, Zeeleepull, Hib Nib Pib, exploding out of the tube, smacking down hard on the crystal-brick roof. I could feel the impact under my feet; it must have jarred the Mandasars to their very bones. Right behind them was Kaisho in her hoverchair, shooting forward, spinning sideways, almost flipping over in a somersault… till the chair’s stabilizers kicked in and pulled upright with a whine of engines.
They must have been waiting, I thought. They must have been right there in Jacaranda’s transport bay, all set to come through the moment the anchor came on.
How did they know what would happen? Had the spirit possessing me set this whole thing up?
But the spirit had one more trick to play. Before I could react, my own foot lifted high and smashed the anchor box under my heel.
Electronic guts spilled onto the bricks. The glittering Sperm-tail whipped away and disappeared from sight.
"Dade, quick, Dade!" Festina yelled. "The other anchor — turn it on."
"What?" the boy asked. "Why?"
"Turn on the fucking anchor!" Festina roared.
He’d set it down on the roof back near the stairwell. Dade threw himself across the bricks, bounced once on his tightsuit stomach, then landed within arm’s reach of the box. He slapped his hand on the switch… and nothing happened.
Nothing happened for a long time.
I lifted my head. The Sperm-tail was nowhere in sight.
"Ohhhh, fuck!" Tobit groaned. He skittered across the roof toward Dade, pulling his Bumbler with him. With the Bumbler’s scanner, he started a quick once-over of the anchor box… maybe checking for malfunctions.
Meanwhile, Zeeleepull struggled to straighten himself up to his usual height. He and his hive-mates looked winded from their landing — slapping down hard on the unforgiving roof. With all their weight, Mandasars fall a lot more heavily than humans. "Teelu," he gasped, "help how?"
"Help?" I asked. The spirit possessing me had quietly let go. "Help how who?"
"You, Teelu. Radioed you for help."
"I didn’t radio for help. I don’t even have a transmitter."