It didn’t make me mad. It made me sick.

But Plebon had lifted his head. "Gashwan — you’re talking about an admiral named Alexander. Do you mean Alexander York?"

"Yes," Gashwan said, "Alexander York is Edward’s father." With a ghost of a smile, she added, "And I’m his mother."

Plebon turned to Festina. "Alexander York was the admiral who sent Willow here to Troyen. He wanted us to pick up a queen and take her to Celestia. York has some shady business deal with a group of people there, called ‘recruiters’…" Oof. I should have guessed — who else? who else? — but I was beginning to realize my greatest skill in life was denying the evil around me. My father was the one behind it all: Willow, the recruiters, the terrible inertia of my brain.

Festina said nothing, but nodded to herself… as if she’d suspected the truth for some time.

In the silence, a distant sound drifted up through the bleak stone corridors — possibly from outside, possibly somewhere in the castle.

Hyena laughter. Cackling and crazed.

"What’s that?" Gashwan asked.

"An old friend," Festina answered grimly. "His name is Larry."

Part 5 TAKING THE CROWN

39

BECOMING AN EXPLORER

"A Laughing Larry?" Dade blurted out. "There weren’t supposed to be any…" He closed his mouth sharply.

"There weren’t supposed to be advanced weapons on Troyen?" Tobit asked. "Looks like our navy researchers weren’t the only ones who got around the Fasskister Swarm."

"Don’t jump to conclusions!" Festina snapped. "Quick," she said to Gashwan, "who’s in charge here?"

"I am," Gashwan answered.

"In charge of the whole palace? The defense?"

Gashwan nodded. "Ever since Queen Temperance left."

"Willow took the queen away," Plebon put in. "To help the recruiters on Celestia control—"

"We figured that out," Festina said, then turned back to Gashwan. "The laughing sound comes from a killing machine… maybe more than one. Your arrows are useless, and your troops will be slaughtered. Surrender now before there’s a bloodbath." Gashwan patted Festina on the arm. "Dear child, I’m not a fool. I tried to surrender as soon as Temperance abandoned us. The Black Army refused."

"They wouldn’t let you give up peacefully?"

"They ignored my broadcasts and killed my envoys. The Black Queen doesn’t want capitulation — she wants to take the palace by force."

"Who is the Black Queen?" I asked. Knowing the answer.

"Your sister, of course," Gashwan said. "She started the war, and she’s about to end it."

I wished I could go all outraged: yelling, How could you say such a thing? But no. Sam had called herself an "advisor" to the Black Queen, but my sister had always been a leader, not a follower. And she’d led Troyen straight into this war. She’d been in a perfect position to incite hostilities, using diplomacy to pump up tensions rather than ease them. The footprints at the Cryogenic Center had been just her size. And Samantha had murdered Verity before faking her own death.

When war came, I could imagine her killing the fifteen queens one by one: getting on their good sides then murdering them, just as she did with Verity. She could have claimed to be a secret envoy from the Technocracy and promised navy support for the queen’s cause — that would be a quick route to royal favor. Then she’d betray the queen to some convenient enemy, or slit the royal throat personally when the time was right. It’d taken twenty years, but so what? And every time a queen died, Sam would try to keep control of the queen’s armies, giving orders to generals who still trusted her as the late queen’s closest ally.

Now, it was almost over — nothing to do except take the palace. In the process, she’d kill me because I was a loose end. She probably thought I was too stupid to figure out things on my own, but she didn’t want me talking to anybody else. Sam couldn’t afford that: my very existence was evidence against her.

"It’s me Sam wants," I said, "She’s afraid I know too much. If I give myself up, maybe she won’t kill anyone else."

"Dear boy," Gashwan replied, "I know too much too. A lot more than you do. But if we both give ourselves up, Samantha will worry we might have talked to someone or hidden a message somewhere. Besides, Edward, she can’t leave witnesses who’ll say you surrendered peacefully. You know she has to kill you and destroy your body. You know that, don’t you, dear?"

"Yes."

"And it will look suspicious if she does that to a voluntary prisoner. Your human friends will make a fuss. From Samantha’s perspective, it’s tidier if we all die accidentally in the heat of battle. Then she’ll lament the horrors of war, and make an apologetic donation to the fleet’s Memorial Fund."

Gashwan’s whiskers quivered with amusement… even admiration. She was truly tickled by the way Sam had worked things into a neat package — a mother’s pride at how clever her daughter turned out to be.

Festina snapped, "We’re wasting time. Plebon, can you find your way to the roof?" He nodded. "You want me to look for Larries?"

"And anything else you can see. Tobit, you and Dade go with him. Take a Bumbler and check what the Black Army is doing. Keep trying with the Sperm anchor too — maybe Prope will have an attack of conscience and come back for us."

"Prope?" Tobit snorted. "Conscience?"

"It’s a long shot," Festina admitted. "Try anyway." She put her gloved hand on the sleeve of his tightsuit and gave a little squeeze. "Get moving, you old sot."

"Right away, your magnificence." He gave her something that was nowhere near a salute, then grabbed Dade by the arm. "Come on, Benny, we’re off to fulfill the glorious Explorer tradition: getting our asses shot for no good reason."

"That’s what ‘expendable’ means," Dade replied.

Tobit cuffed him in the helmet. "Asshole — you say that after we die."

As Tobit, Dade, and Plebon hurried up a nearby ramp, Festina said, "All right — the rest of us need to get organized. Let’s get Kaisho to… Kaisho? Where the hell are you?" I looked around: lots of Mandasars, but no wheelchair. While we’d been distracted, Kaisho must have drifted quietly out of the lanternlight and vanished into the darkness. "Bloody hell," Festina glowered, "I knew there was a reason she ought to stay in the ship."

"Perhaps," Counselor suggested, "she wants to make contact with the moss at the front of the palace."

"She’s made contact already," Festina fumed. "Likely while she was still on Jacaranda — no one knows the range of the Balrog’s mental power, but there’s so much damned moss down here, it probably has the combined strength to talk with someone in orbit. Hell, it may have been able to contact Kaisho while she was still on Celestia; some experts think the Balrog is a single hive-mind, with instantaneous communication between every damned spore in the universe. Willpower stronger than the laws of physics. If that doesn’t scare the piss out of you, you haven’t thought about it long enough."

"But if she’s already talking to the other Balrogs," Counselor said, "why did she need to go off on her own?"

"Because the moss has an errand for her," Festina answered. "Something it can’t do for itself, while it’s stuck to the palace walls." She lifted her hand and pressed it to her helmet’s visor, as if she wanted to cover her eyes. "I really hate being manipulated," she growled. "Kaisho used me to bring her here. And so did you, Edward."

"My sister manipulated me," I told her.

"So did your father," Gashwaft put in, way too cheerily. "From the very start."

"To make Edward a king?" Counselor asked.

"Exactly," Gashwan smiled. "What a clever young girl you are."


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