“Oh, that’s right, Colonel,” he confirmed eagerly. “Her Majesty won’t make a move without my say-so. I―”
“You’re a liar,” I reminded him. “Minnie knows what a treacherous skunk you are―even if she doesn’t know you were behind the revolt in the first place. She wouldn’t trust you to supervise the garbage disposal. Speaking of which, I’m considering what to do with you.”
“Oh, just let me go now, and I’ll overlook this incident,” he gushed. “After all, you didn’t know―”
I cut that off with another jab to his short ribs.
Hsp told me Her Majesty’s personal suite was just down the corridor, and we went there, prodding old Gus along with us.
“She’ll kill me,” he was telling me, as if that were a consideration that would stop me in my tracks.
“Nonsense,” I told him. “If Minnie has a flaw as a sovereign, it’s that she’s too kind-hearted.”
“Not her!” Gus gulped. “It’s that big red-headed she-devil!”
“The Ylokk don’t have red hair,” I corrected.
He brushed that off. “I’m not talking about a rat,” he corrected me. “You said yourself she had a new human advisor! This damn female showed up here at the palace just a few days ago, just when I was ready to cinch my position. In another hour I’d have been in control of all palace functions, nothing in or out without my order―but then this dame comes along. Seems she’d been demanding to see Her Majesty―and had ‘inflicted grievous bodily injury’ on anyone that laid a hand on her, so…”
By then we were at the sanctum sanctorum, and before Hsp could use his master-key in the door, it opened, and someone tall and red-haired stepped out and into my arms.