Thank heavens it wasn’t real glass; things got nasty enough with blunt chips of plastic flying in all directions. I wrapped my arms around my head as the Larry sliced a ragged ring around me — deeper and deeper into the cube’s wall, a circumference of shredded plastic, like a buzz saw cutting out a hole in a patch of ice… till I felt something shift under me and shouted, "Stop!" into the remote control. For a heartbeat I stayed lying there, on an untouched circle of glass surrounded by a slashed area cut almost all the way through. Then my weight finished the job: with a noise halfway between a rip and a crack, my whole chunk of wall broke free and plunged, like a glass plate with me in the middle. I tucked, rolled, and kicked — the tuck and roll to save myself with a breakfall, the kick to aim the huge chunk of plummeting glass straight at Sam.
It was quiet as I got to my feet — no sound but the whistle of the Larry hovering far overhead. The glass walls around me cut off almost all noise from the outside world.
The cube was still flying, and stable as stone underfoot: just as happy to float on its side as right way up. That was a lucky break — I didn’t know how to operate this thing, and the pilot hadn’t been wearing any safety straps when the cube tipped. She’d fallen almost as heavily as Innocence, and gentles aren’t built to take damage. Her body lay crumpled at the far end of the cube, her shell split wide open all along the spine. Puffy brown skin pushed up through the break, the way meat sometimes does when you crack open a lobster. I didn’t know if she was alive or dead, but I concentrated a moment and produced the worker pheromone that’s supposed to dull pain. Maybe it would help. Sam groaned. She lay under the slab of heavy glass like a lab specimen on display. At the last second she must have seen the slab coming, because she’d thrown up her arms to protect her face.
It may have helped her face, but it sure didn’t help her arms.
I tried to heave the glass off her, but it was way too heavy to lift — several hundred kilos at least. It took all my strength just to slide it to one side; I tried not to hurt Sam again, but I could see there wasn’t much left to hurt.
Sam’s eyes flickered open. "Edward?" she whispered.
"Yes."
"I think you got me."
"You were going to kill Innocence."
"Was I?" She let her head slump, as if holding it up took too much effort. "How do you know Innocence wasn’t in cahoots with me all along? My troops will tell you she’s been giving them orders for the past few months."
"But you drugged her… and rigged her up so your words came out of her mouth."
"That’s what I said," Sam whispered. "But how can you know if it’s true? I could’ve been lying."
"Or you could be lying now. One last chance for you to cause trouble."
"Always a possibility." She coughed… very lightly, but a bead of blood dribbled out the side of her mouth. "Neither of us got very good brain chemicals, did we? Even now, I’m trying to think of ways to trick you into giving me the gun." "Who would you shoot?" I asked. "Me? Innocence? Yourself?"
"Yes," she said, with a weak grin. "In that order."
She coughed again. The sound had a choking gurgle to it. "Kiss me," she whispered. "Kiss me good night."
I wondered if she had some hidden weapon she could kill me with if I got close, or perhaps some suicide pill she’d pop into my mouth instead of her own. No sign of anything like that; no smell either. She must have guessed what I was thinking, because she said, "Do you really think I’m that evil?"
"Yes."
"You’re right. But kiss me anyway."
I knelt beside her and leaned forward, only intending a little peck on the cheek. But she turned her head at the last moment to meet my lips with hers, and she reached up to hold me — hold me with her crushed broken arms. It must have hurt hideously but she didn’t even wince. For a long moment, there was only her mouth pressed desperately against mine, my sad, scared sister…
Then she became the second woman to die kissing me. I’d barely known either of them.
45
FINDING INNOCENCE
Something went CLONK above my head. Looking up, I saw Festina had heaved out a grapnel attached to a rope and caught it on the hole in the cube’s glass. As usual, the Explorer Corps had come prepared for any contingency… even for snagging a floating cube and hauling it closer to the palace. It took everybody up there to get the cube moving — all five Mandasars as well as the Explorers — but centimeter by centimeter, they began dragging me in.
I couldn’t help them, so I went to check on Innocence. The glass slab had missed her, but she’d hit real hard when the cube rolled. All eight of her legs looked broken and a tiny ooze of blood had begun seeping through a crack in her tail. Still, she was breathing pretty evenly. Like I said, queens are tough.
Her eyes were shut as I approached… but the moment I came within grabbing range, the eyes snapped open and one of her front claws whipped toward me, I dodged and slapped it aside, which shows how badly the fall had hurt her — under normal conditions, humans just aren’t strong enough to block a queen’s pincer.
Then again, maybe Innocence had pulled her attack at the last instant.
"My apologies, Little Father," she said in a soft voice, "but I didn’t know it was you. You smell exactly like your sister." "My sister’s dead," I told her.
"Good. Then you won’t smell alike much longer."
Um.
"How badly are you hurt?" I asked.
"I’ll live," Innocence replied. "I hope."
"Don’t worry," I told her, "there are good doctors in the palace infirmary…"
"Later," Innocence said. "First, I have to call off Samantha’s troops."
"Oh. Right."
I thought that would be an easy job, considering we were in the command cube with that fancy sound system for talking long-distance; but we hadn’t heard a peep from outside since I’d dropped in. Worried, I looked through the glass wall, trying to see the parabolic dish… but the only bit left was the dish’s metal support stand. The rest had been shredded to shrapnel by a barrage of razor flechettes.
Oops.
Still, there must be some other way for Innocence to speak to the Black Army — maybe the palace had working broadcast systems. Even just a big megaphone.
Except that Sam’s soldiers were used to hearing Sam’s voice come out of Innocence’s mouth. If Innocence spoke in her normal voice, her troops would think it was a trick… that we’d captured their beloved queen and were projecting our own words through her. The black warriors would go screamingly berserk, killing everybody in the palace till Innocence was "rescued."
Oops again.
With a thud, the glass cube bumped against the palace wall. Immediately, Festina hopped across from the parapet; I could see the soles of her boots walking cautiously across the glass ceiling above me. "Are you all right?" she shouted down.
"Some are, some aren’t," I answered… not looking toward my sister. "Our biggest problem now is the Black Army," I said. "No way to call them off."
"Just fucking wonderful," Festina muttered. "Can we use this cube to get the hell out of here?"
"Maybe — it’s still in the air. Do we have any decent pilots?"
Festina turned and yelled, "Tobit! Get your ass over here."
His gravelly voice shouted back, "What now?"
"You like flying alien aircraft," Festina said. "See what you can do with this one."
"Oh goody," he grumbled. "My favorite type of airplane: anti-aerodynamic and totally made of glass. Who the hell keeps building these things?"
It took a minute to lower a rope and have Tobit shinny down into the cube… which he did pretty well, considering that "bum arm" he talked about. Getting him up to the pilot’s console was a lot more work, but eventually I helped him clamber to the command couch. As he strapped himself in sideways, he yelled, "The dials are labeled in Fasskister Basic!"