"Wondering where we are?" Kaisho whispered. Either she’d read my mind, or noticed me staring at the trees painted on the wall. "It’s Festina’s old ship," she said. "The Jacaranda."

Jacarandal Where Prope was captain? With orders to dump me someplace forgettable? For a second, I wondered if this had all been a giant trick, a way to make me disappear. If they’d decided they couldn’t just kidnap me because the Mandasars would make a fuss, why not engineer an excuse for taking me away? Pretend I was going on an important mission, wait a while, then tell the kids on Celestia, "Sorry, your poor Teelu had an accident on Troyen, and he’s never coming back."

My father would have considered it a neat strategy — get the results you want without causing a public hubbub. But Festina was a different sort of admiral, wasn’t she? Someone who’d be honest with a fellow Explorer?

"You don’t look so good," Kaisho whispered. "What’s wrong?"

"Twenty-four hours ago, the Jacaranda’s captain had orders to get rid of me. Do you think anything’s changed since then?" "Yes," Kaisho said. "Festina has taken charge. She’s commandeered the ship using an admiral’s Powers of Emergency — pursuing the vital interests of the Outward Fleet. Which means she’s bailing the council’s ass out of hot water. Basically, if Festina thinks the top dogs have screwed up so badly they’re risking a League crackdown, she has the authority to do anything to put things right."

"The other admirals don’t mind?"

"The other admirals practically chew out their own livers, but they can’t stop her. The League of Peoples demands that our navy behave in a sentient manner. That doesn’t mean acting good or moral or decent in human terms; your average high admiral is a loathsome criminal bastard." She looked straight at me. "As you well know, little Jetsam."

My father’s not-so-pet name for me. Which meant the Balrog knew exactly who I was. Not that Kaisho seemed to care; she went straight back to telling me what was what.

"The point is," Kaisho said, "the High Council has to obey the letter of the League’s law… and that includes policing themselves for non-sentient behavior. Last night, Festina contacted Admiral Vincence and said, ‘I have reason to believe an inner-circle admiral has condoned cold-blooded murder, and I require the immediate services of a ship to investigate the matter.’ In such a situation, the council simply can’t stand in her way. If they block her or silence her or even try to slow her down, it’s deliberately abetting a possible non-sentient."

Kaisho shrugged. "The most the council can do is work their tails off to prove Festina wrong. If they conscientiously look into the matter and decide her fears are unfounded, they can pull the plug on her. Maybe even demote her or throw her out of the service. But until that happens, they have to let her follow her conscience… and they even have to cooperate with her. Festina wants a ship? She gets the closest one available. Jacaranda. And to hell with any previous orders that get in the way." She turned her head toward the pink-tinted window high above us. "Isn’t that right, Captain?"

There was a three-second silence. Then a voice came over the transport bay’s speakers: a voice I’d heard before. "My orders are to cooperate with Admiral Ramos for the duration of the emergency," Captain Prope said frostily. "If those orders cease to be operative, I can’t speculate what new instructions I might receive. Or what old instructions might be reactivated."

In other words, I could still get chucked onto an uninhabited planet if Festina got overruled. I was thinking about that when Hib came flying through the Sperm-tail.

One by one, the Mandasars came up the tube, each in his, her, or its special way.

The workers enjoyed it. They buzzed excitedly among themselves, probably comparing how much they loved getting turned inside out and pulled through a tube five hundred klicks long. (I couldn’t tell for sure what they said; they were speaking their own personal patois, made from English and Troyenese, plus words that were likely invented out of the blue. Workers who are raised together always develop private languages that no one else can understand. It drives warriors and gentles crazy.)

Counselor couldn’t decide what to make of her trip up the tube. It obviously disturbed the heck out of her, but she wanted to see it as a religious experience: zipping through a universe where her carapace bent like rubber. Gentles have a sort of mystic fear of getting their shells stripped off. If a gentle loses a sizable chunk of armor through disease or injury, she’s considered "blessed by the stars" and treated as a prophet… the terrifying kind of prophet who’s nine-tenths crazy and one-tenth cosmic bliss. (The Troyenese word for "blessed," ullee, also means "naked" and "dangerous.") So when Counselor got herself twisted every which way, as if her husk had turned to taffy… well, she must have felt scarily, vulnerably open to the Five Gods. I think she believed they’d planted some great revelation inside her, if only she searched her soul hard enough.

No such spark of divine truth for Zeeleepull — he just hated the sensation, pure and simple. A split second after he hit the landing pad, he launched into a long tirade of Mandasar cursing… and on those words, his accent was perfect. Next thing you know, he’d ripped open the landing pad and there was jelly slurped all over the transport bay. Zeeleepull got real huffy about it being an accident — his claws had spiked through the rubber bag when he landed, and it wasn’t his fault how the Sperm-tail spat him out. Me, I think he might have given the bag a deliberate snip during his blue-streak tantrum; but considering Zeeleepull’s temper, I kept my opinion to myself.

Festina was the only one left on Celestia… and now instead of a nice soft landing pad, she had a wobbly blob of cold wet jelly to smack into. Not a dignified entrance for an admiral, getting buried and glopped up with goo. I hurried forward to clean things, trying to push the slop back into the torn bag; but Kaisho told me not to bother. "Wait," she said. "You underestimate our noble leader."

"But she’s going to fly straight into the—"

"No," Kaisho promised. "Not with Prope watching."

And she didn’t. The rest of us had come out of the Sperm-tail like people shot from a cannon, no control at all; but Festina emerged like a gymnast nailing a perfect dismount. Two feet slammed on the floor without the tiniest stumble: Festina Ramos, standing straight and calm and balanced, well short of the guck that trembled with the thunk of her impact.

She lifted her eyes to the pinkish window at the back of the transport bay. "Captain Prope," she said evenly. "Admiral on the deck."

"Yes, Admiral," came back Prope’s voice. I couldn’t see the captain, but I could tell she was gritting her teeth.

The entry mouth of the transport bay irised shut. Moments later, a door in the back wall opened and Phylar Tobit thudded forward, pouchy face beaming. He was half a second away from giving Festina a bear hug when Prope’s voice snapped over the speakers. "Explorer Tobit! At attention for greeting an admiral."

Tobit didn’t exactly stop, but he slowed down. Then he did a passable job of faking a trip — catching his right foot behind his left leg — so he could tumble into Festina anyway, wrapping his arms around her shoulders as if to break his fall. She laughed and whispered, "Happy birthday, you dirty old man," before giving him a light kiss on the cheek. "Never the kisses for aliens," Zeeleepull muttered.

I tried to give him a peck on the forehead, but he ducked.

Over the next hour, we got settled in. The two Explorers, Tobit and Benjamin, showed us to our rooms; Captain Prope and an oily lieutenant named Harque put in a token appearance ("Welcome to Jacaranda, always an honor to host an admiral, a consort, and a sentient parasite…"), but the captain and lieutenant disappeared again almost immediately. ("Needed on the bridge, have to get started for Troyen.") After they were gone, I think Festina murmured, "Good riddance," but I might have misheard.