My heart was pounding as I listened to the Larry laughing just a few paces away. If it wanted to come after us, there was nothing to stop it from chopping the admiral and me to gobbets; Larries could fly upward of eighty kilometers an hour, way faster than a human could run. I decided if it started toward us, I’d hit my Mayday implant and take to my heels, hoping the signal would draw the Larry after me. It might give the admiral a chance to get away.

But when I looked over at Festina, propped up behind another tree, she had her fingers resting lightly on her own wrist implant. Planning exactly the same thing, to sacrifice herself for me.

I didn’t want to think what my dad would say if I let an admiral die in my place. When I was little, Dad called me "Jetsam," saying I’d be the first thing he threw out if he ever had to lighten his ship. It made me mad, how something like that flashed through my mind at a time like this. But I really had no choice — given the trade-off between Admiral Ramos and me, I had to trigger my Mayday first. So I did.

A high-pitched squeal filled the air: my Mayday sounding on the admiral’s implant. Except that my implant was squealing too — Festina must have set off her own Mayday at the same instant.

Both of us playing the self-sacrifice sweepstakes. It would have made me smile… if I wasn’t sure I was going to be sliced to ribbons.

But the Larry wasn’t moving. Maydays or not, it remained out in the clearing, spinning in place on top of the warrior’s pureed carcass. Why wasn’t it coming after our signals? Had it used all its ammunition digging out through the poor warrior’s body? Or was it confused because it had two separate Maydays, and didn’t know whether to come after Festina or me?

I held my breath and started to count the seconds. As I reached twenty-three, the Larry suddenly lifted into the air and swooshed away above the trees, heading back toward the canal. A trick to draw us out? I counted another thirty as the hyena laughter receded… and then only let myself move because the admiral called, "Edward, are you all right?"

"Sure."

We both turned off our Maydays and eased out of our hiding places — where we’d cowered while a brave warrior gave his life for people he didn’t know. Looking at the blood-spattered grass, I told myself the poor kid might have died happy, knowing it was a warrior’s most honorable death: killed in righteous battle, protecting others. In the last millisecond before he was shredded, he might have felt… what, fulfilled? Validated? Triumphant?

But he was still dead. And I’d never even learned his name.

Admiral Ramos walked stiffly into the clearing. She paused over the remains of her Bumbler… but the little machine looked like it had been whacked a thousand times with a meat cleaver. Another casualty of the flechette barrage. Festina nudged the mechanical remains with her toe, then ground the debris angrily under her heel.

Fragments of circuit boards went crunch. I didn’t like listening to the sound, so I asked, "Why did the Larry leave?"

The admiral shook her head in the darkness. "Who knows?" Slowly, she walked over scattered scraps of the warrior’s body and knelt beside the largest piece of carcass. "Thanks," she said, laying her hand lightly on the boy’s blood-drenched shell. "Thanks, whoever you were." Then in a soft gentle voice: "That’s what ‘expendable’ means."

It was a thing Explorers said to each other when somebody died — like a little prayer. I’d never heard an admiral use it before. Most of the admirals I’d met were the sort to say, "Good riddance."

Festina stood up again. "I’d better follow the Larry," she said. "See where it’s going. With luck, the bad guys will come to fetch it, and I can see who they are."

"Then let’s go," I told her.

She gave me a look. "This isn’t really your business, Edward…" She stopped. "You wouldn’t be Edward York, would you? The Explorer who married the Mandasar high queen?"

"Um. Yes. That’s me." I didn’t think the outside world had heard about that, but admirals must be pretty well informed.

Festina let her breath come out in a whoosh. "Sometime real soon, you’ll have to tell me how you’re mixed up in this… but for now, tag along with me. If I leave you alone, the wrong people might find you."

I wondered who she thought were the wrong people. Recruiters? Captain Prope? Battle-mad Mandasars? But I didn’t ask, and the admiral didn’t explain. She just waved for me to follow as she headed into the trees.

The Larry was no longer in sight, but the laughter still rattled through the forest, occasionally hitting a note that made the trees buzz with resonance. We plunged after the cackling as fast as we could, thrashing through the undergrowth on a general downhill slant, back toward the canal.

Soon we reached an area where the brush was trampled flat. A lot of warriors had stormed past this way — maybe the whole militia. They must have heard the Larry too; they’d swum across the water, then started to search the woods, trying to figure out what was making the howl.

I winced — the warriors’ trail led in the same direction as the Larry’s laughter. Were they following it, or was it following them?

With the undergrowth all squashed, Festina and I could move through the woods more quickly, angling downhill toward the Larry’s cackle. Laughter wasn’t the only thing on the night breeze; I could smell the crusty burning-wood whiff of Musk B as thick as the smoke from a forest fire. It was the odor of disaster waiting to happen — a whole pack of warriors aching to crush recruiter bones, and a single Laughing Larry that could hover high overhead, spraying down death.

Half a minute later, we were closing in on the hyena chatter… and also on the choking musk. Up ahead, a bright light suddenly beamed from the sky, reflecting crimson off the shells of two dozen warriors gathered in a marshy clearing. The warriors had drawn into a wide ring, circling the edge of the open area. In the middle stood a human man, and straight over his head the Laughing Larry hovered in the air like a gold-glinting sun. The light came from higher in the night sky where a skimmer floated, searchlights in its belly and a rope ladder dangling down to ground level.

Festina put her hand on my arm and held me back out of the light. No one in the clearing noticed us; the man in the center had his gaze glued on the warriors, and they were too busy eyeing the Larry. One of the Mandasars must have recognized the gold ball as a weapon and told the others to keep back.

"It’s a standoff," Festina whispered. "That man’s right in the Larry’s eye. You know about that?"

I nodded. Straight under a Larry’s spin-axis, there’s a spot that isn’t covered by any firing slits. Stand there, and it’s like the eye of a hurricane — things get destroyed all around you, but you’re safe. Larries are intentionally built that way; I’d once seen an underground advertisement showing a smug business exec walking down the street with a Larry over his head, while thugs fled out of his path. THE ULTIMATE IN PROTECTION, the ad said. SLAUGHTER EVERYTHING AROUND YOU FOR A 50-METER RADIUS, THEN WAIT FOR THE BLOOD TO STOP DRIPPING. Just one problem for the man in the middle: to escape with his skin intact, he had to climb the ladder up to the skimmer. The easiest way to do that was clambering past the Larry; but that meant leaving the safety of the eye. For a few seconds, he’d be smack in the Larry’s kill zone… and during those moments when he couldn’t let the Larry fire, the Mandasars would race forward and shake him off the ladder. He’d be dead by the time he hit the ground — not from the fall, but from dozens of claws lopping him into giblets.

I could see one other way for the man to try his escape: ordering the Larry to rise with him as he climbed, always keeping a meter or so above his head. Staying safe in the weapon’s eye, he wouldn’t have to worry about it shooting him… but there was still the problem of the Larry shooting the ladder. It was a skimmer’s standard emergency rope ladder, if the warriors charged forward and the man told the Larry to let loose, a razor storm of flechettes would slice clean through the rope. Once again, he’d fall straight into the warriors’ waiting claws.