They came out of the Sperm-tail in a whoosh, spat onto the parapet through the tiny tail tip and suddenly exploding to full size. One of the Larries smacked against the parapet wall with a metallic clang; the other two bounced against the stone floor, then flipped over the outer wall, where they dropped almost all the way to the ground before stopping their fall. They spun down there, howling as loud as banshees… as if they were furiously angry and screaming for someone to kill.

The man nearly went over the side too. He shot out of the Sperm-tail and landed unbalanced on his feet, staggering forward out of control till he lurched over the stomach-high wall. I barely managed to catch him by the tail of his vest. It was a leather one, exactly like Mr. Clear Chest had worn on Celestia.

As I pulled him back to more solid footing, Festina wheeled around, ripping her connection away from the anchor. Her right fist caught the man hard in the jaw; he seemed so dizzy from the Sperm-tail ride, he didn’t see the punch coming. The impact nearly sent him over the wall again, but I kept hold of his vest and hauled him in. That brought him back into range for Festina to hit him with a left in the solar plexus and a knife-hand to the side of the neck. He slumped unconscious, his limp body staying upright only because of my grip on his vest. Gingerly, I lowered him to the ground, keeping a wary eye on Festina.

"Um," I began to say… but behind Festina’s back, the anchor box shot up a stream of sparks that hissed and fizzed in the darkness. When she’d torn herself free, some circuit must have shorted out. With the anchor discombobulated, the Sperm-tail snapped loose and whipped past our faces, making a beeline for the other anchor, somewhere in the middle of the Black Army.

Dade howled, "No!" A moment later, he spun to face Festina. "Do you know what you did? You ruined our chance to escape! They told me you were crazy, but…" He clamped his mouth shut.

Festina only sighed. "Dade," she said, "that wasn’t our Sperm-tail: it came from some other ship. Jacaranda sure as hell wasn’t carrying Laughing Larries… and I would have noticed a crew member who looks so much like Edward." She shook her head. "There must have been a second ship in this system. When we arrived, it hid behind an asteroid or something; but as soon as Jacaranda left, the ship came straight to Troyen. Obviously, this pretty fellow didn’t want to miss the final offensive. In so much of a hurry, he forgot to make sure his Sperm-tail had landed on the right anchor."

"But…" It was obvious Dade still wanted to blame someone. "You didn’t have to rip away from the anchor and break it. You didn’t have to hit the guy."

"No?" Festina knelt beside the clear-chest man and patted him down. At his hip, she found a holster holding a standard-issue navy stun-pistol: very bad if the man had been given enough time to start shooting. Even worse, Festina opened a zipped inner pocket of the leather vest and pulled out a palm-sized electrical doodad — a control box of some kind.

She held it for Dade to see. "Command module for those Laughing Larries," she said. "Voice-activated. He didn’t even have to pull it from his pocket; all he had to do was shout. One word, and his three nasty pets would have sliced us to ribbons."

Dade stared, his eyes growing wide. He whispered, "How did you know?"

Festina shook her head in despair. "I didn’t know, Dade — I made a snap judgment, based on inadequate facts. That’s what Explorers do. Sometimes you’re right, sometimes you’re wrong. Sometimes it doesn’t matter, sometimes it’s life and death. You never know till it’s over… and often, not even then."

Slowly she got to her feet. Tobit took the controller from her. "Let me have a look at this," he said. "If I’m lucky, I can hot-wire the voice-recognition circuits, so it obeys one of us instead of sleeping beauty there."

"No need," Festina told him. She took the box back and held it out to me, like a microphone I should speak into. "Edward, say, ‘Rise two meters.’ "

I did. The three Larries that’d just come down the Sperm-tail whirled themselves up a couple meters higher. I swallowed hard, but Festina only shrugged. "Clones. You and this guy look the same, so I figured you’d sound the same too. At least close enough to fool a simple-minded voice-recognition system." She tossed the controller to me. "Congratulations, King Edward. You’ve got three killing machines. I’m curious as hell what you’ll do with them,"

Giving me the controller was a test: I knew that. Festina wanted to see if I’d go crazy or something. I think she still was inclined to trust me, but considering how I’d smashed that anchor, she couldn’t be sure I was on the side of the angels. If I’d tried to talk to the Larries, maybe she would have punched me just like the guy on the ground… or shot me with her stunner. She’d turned a titch away from me, so I couldn’t see either her holster or her gun hand.

But none of that mattered — I had no intention of using the Larries for anything. I came close to throwing the controller off the parapet, so I wouldn’t be tempted… and so the spirit that sometimes possessed me couldn’t use the Larries either. Instead, I just handed the little gizmo back to Festina, "You keep it," I said. "If you need the Larries to do something, I’ll give them your orders; but I don’t want my own army."

"Lousy instincts for a king," she muttered. But she took the controller and tucked it into a pouch on her belt. Glancing down at our new Mr. Clear Chest, she asked, "What do your instincts say about him?"

"Um… maybe shoot him with your stunner, just to make sure?"

She looked like she was considering it, but Dade spoke first. "If you shoot him, he’ll be out for six hours. Suppose we need to interrogate him or something."

Festina looked at the boy. "Interrogate him? What about?"

"I don’t know," Dade answered, not meeting her eyes. "But it’d be nice to have the option. And maybe we could use him as a hostage… if he’s important to York’s sister."

"You think my sister would care?" I asked.

"She might," Festina admitted. She knelt beside the unconscious man. From a pouch in her belt, she pulled a coil of copper wire (probably for making electrical repairs to her suit) and began trussing our prisoner’s hands behind his back. "Dade," she said, "if you’re so interested in this guy, you’re in charge of him. No matter what else happens, don’t take your eyes off him. Shout when he wakes up. Can you do that?"

"Yes," Dade answered, sounding all huffy with indignation. Festina didn’t comment; instead she turned to me.

"This fellow is a clone of your father, right? Or possibly of you yourself."

"Since I’m a clone of my father, there’s no difference."

"There’s a difference, If nothing else, your father’s fully human; you have that pinch of Mandasar. I suspect this fellow has Mandasar genes too — all the better to produce babies with your sister."

That made me gulp. "Babies? But that’s, umm…"

"Incest?" she suggested. "Absolutely. But it still produces healthier offspring than cloning the clones of a clone. How old was your father when you were produced? Sixty, something like that? So your own genes were sixty years old the moment you were conceived. YouthBoost can compensate to some extent, but sorry, Edward, you don’t have the hundred-and-sixty-year life expectancy of a normal human. A hundred and twenty, tops. And if we cloned you, your progeny might not make it to eighty.

"So," she went on, "since your sister wants to generate a dynasty of superkids, it’s best to avoid more cloning and just use the old-fashioned approach. A mummy and daddy love each other very much… and they mass-produce fertilized ova which are farmed out to surrogate mothers all over the Technocracy." Festina gave a rueful grin. "Your Samantha is the mother, and I’ll bet this fellow is the father."