So no matter how much the Fasskisters depended on Troyen for trade, they just couldn’t stomach the idea of queens. In fact, they took every possible chance to rabble-rouse, preaching how a democratically elected parliament — or a republic or an oligarchy or technocracy or even a random selection of two hundred people from the Unshummin census database — could run the planet better than High Queen Verity and the three lower queens.

This stirred up trouble… not a lot at first, because Mandasars pretty well ignored what the Fasskisters said, but as time went on, the Fasskisters learned how to play on the natural discontents of the people. Whenever anything went wrong for the Mandasars — a deal falling through, a tissue graft that didn’t hold, natural disasters, or even just at the end of a long slogging workday — you might find a Fasskister there, whispering how the queen was to blame.

Naturally, it made the queens furious. Several times they expelled the worst of the troublemakers, but that was bad for business. Not only did it sour trade with the Fasskisters, but it upset other races too: Troyen wasn’t "alien-friendly." So mostly the queens had to let it go — grumble to themselves as they kept their claws tight shut and their stingers tucked away.

But they still hated it. In the end, they approached a third party to see if anyone could get the Fasskisters to back off.

Enter a small diplomatic mission, headed by Samantha York of the Outward Fleet.

First day on the job: an official reception in the Great Hall of Verity’s palace in Unshummin city. It was a huge space, three stories high with mezzanine galleries, and long enough to hold an Olympic javelin throw… but no artificial lights at all. Instead, the place was filled with Weeshi, a bioengineered insect that was like a firefly with no flicker. Little glass dishes of sugar water were hung overhead to feed the Weeshi, so light tended to concentrate around the dishes; but there were still plenty of Weeshi just flitting about on their own — like tiny roving stars glittering in every direction.

In honor of us navy folks, the room was swathed in a turquoisy blue that Verity had designated the caste color of Homo sapiens. (Mandasars felt sincere pity that humans didn’t have a set color scheme — we were all different skin tones, not to mention shades of eyes and hair — so Verity insisted on giving us official title to that turquoisy blue. That way, we wouldn’t feel all bashful and inadequate among people who had a real caste color.)

I didn’t look so bad in turquoisy blue. Sam, of course, looked fabulous… especially since she was wearing the color in a slinky evening gown with one skintight sleeve and the other arm bare. Sam had our outfits made before we left New Earth; and I can’t tell you how snippish other diplomats got, that no one else was told about dressing in that color. They were all stuck with a bunch of ugly shapeless jumpsuits made by Mandasar tailors. (The tailors knew that Homo sapiens had two arms, two legs, and a head, but that was pretty much the limit of their familiarity with the human form.)

Since it was our first official function, my sister kept me close to make sure I didn’t get into trouble; but I couldn’t really tell what she thought I might do. Go dance in the fountains that were spritzing up turquoisy blue water? Munch on the turquoisy blue floral arrangements? Climb the turquoisy blue draperies that had been hung on the walls and the ceiling and the stair-ramps, so that the whole place looked like a sea grotto lined with velveteen?

No — I knew how to behave in public. It was the Fasskisters who needed a lesson in manners… because they came dressed as hive-queens.

You may have noticed I haven’t described what a Fasskister looks like. There’s a reason for that: even today, I’ve never seen one in the flesh. Whenever they go out among other species — and maybe even on their homeworld, for all I know — they always ride inside custom-made robots. Really. When they visit New Earth, they show up in android thingies, pretty humanish-looking except they have big chests the size of beer barrels. Those chests are basically cockpits; the Fasskister sits inside and drives the machine, making the legs walk and the arms move and the mouth chatter away on the bad points of royalty. You never see the Fasskister itself, just its robot housing.

Of course, lots of folks speculate on what Fasskisters look like. The species has to be pretty small to fit inside those chests… the size of an otter or a big barn cat. Most diplomats on our mission believed Fasskisters were nothing but great big brains: the rest of their bodies withered up shortly after birth, and their robot shells provided everything necessary to keep the brains alive. Samantha thought this theory was too tame — that the old brain-in-a-box cliche was melodramatic hooey, and the truth was probably a lot stranger and more interesting — but neither she nor anyone else could say for certain.

One thing everybody knew was that Fasskisters could change robot bodies whenever they wanted; and on that first night of our mission to Troyen, all the Fasskisters came in identical mock-ups of a Mandasar queen — each full-size and sulphur yellow, with four working claws, bright green venom sacs, and a brain hump even bigger than Verity’s. As if that weren’t bad enough, they all came reeking of royal pheromone… which none of us humans could smell, but which practically paralyzed every Mandasar but the high queen. Royal pheromone is a special scent queens can produce at will. One whiff is enough to reduce other Mandasars to trembling wrecks — barely able to think straight, and pathetically eager to do whatever the queen tells them. Like an obedience drug you inhale. It takes a heck of a lot of self-control for any Mandasar to resist it, and most don’t even try. After all, why would you disobey your rightful ruler?

Verity hardly ever used the pheromone herself; she thought it was beneath her dignity, doping her subjects into submission. Almost no one in the palace had ever smelled the stuff before, till the Fasskisters doused themselves like it was cheap perfume. Heaven knows how the Fasskisters reproduced the pheromone — maybe a secret team of nanites hung around Verity till she produced some, after which the nanites carried a sample home for analysis. However they did it, the Fasskisters had obviously worked out the formula to perfection… because every last warrior, worker, and gentle dropped belly down and groveled as the Fasskisters pranced into the hall.

Every voice fell quiet. No sound but the babble of fountains and the slow thud of feet as the Fasskisters came forward. The six of them stepped over each prostrate body in their way, walking up to the silver dais that Verity used as a throne. I had no experience reading Mandasar facial expressions back then, but any fool could see the queen was almost homicidally furious. Any second, I could imagine her saying, To hell with sentience and the League of Peoples, these Fasskister fucks are going down.

That’s when Samantha stepped forward, straight in front of the Fasskisters, between them and the throne. I stayed right at Sam’s side, determined to protect my sister for the full second and a half it would take the queen to kill me. The two of us stood bang in the middle, with six elephant-sized robots to our right, and a seething Verity, just as big and up on a meter-high dais, to our left. I felt small and surrounded, outnumbered and overshadowed… so it was a darned good thing I had absolute confidence Sam would fix everything with a few clever words.

"My job," she said, "is to get people to talk. When people aren’t ready to talk…" She turned toward the Fasskisters. "When they just want to piss everybody off and deliberately cause scenes…" Sam reached into her handbag. "Then you need a way to catch their attention."