Zeeleepull leapt in front of her, his pincers wide and ready. "Back, you," he snarled. He looked more mad at himself than at Kaisho, because he’d let her sneak up on our backs.

"Dearest boy," Kaisho whispered to him from behind her veil of hair, "you might stop me, but not my colleagues." She waved a lazy hand at the spores all around her. They gleamed on the surface of the ramp like a burning red carpet — not advancing but thickening, as if more and more of them were climbing up from below, accumulating layer after layer of alien fuzz.

Zeeleepull didn’t flinch. Mandasar warriors have a crazy fondness for doomed last stands. "Back," he said again, and made a snipping gesture with his claws. "Smelly un-hume."

Kaisho chuckled. "Easy, my dashing innocent. We aren’t here to swallow you up… just for a little justice."

Festina straightened to her full height. "Justice against whom? Mr. Glass Chest here?"

"Amongst others," Kaisho said.

"Because the Balrog doesn’t appreciate being used."

"That’s right."

Festina snorted. "Some aliens can dish it out but they just can’t take it. The damned Balrog had no moral qualms enslaving the woman you once were, Kaish — twisting your mind and body for its own mossy convenience — but heaven forbid a human ever takes advantage of a single fuzzy spore. Not that I’m defending our glass-chested clone here, but don’t you see the irony?"

Kaisho lowered her head. "I’m not enslaved," she whispered. "Not quite. But I’m bound close enough to the Balrog to feel the suffering of the spore in that man’s stomach. Can you imagine the humiliation — the degradation — of being imprisoned like an animal, forced to transmit bestial human thoughts every second of the day? Barely kept alive by glimpses of sunshine and the cast-off waste of a human’s gut? Used as a debased go-between, a conduit for sordid schemes of violence and domination…"

Her voice broke into a sob. A real sob, out loud. When she spoke again, it was a normal human voice — no whispering, no taunting, just a genuine person talking. "Festina… all of you… I know you think the Balrog is evil. You see it as a threat because you imagine some terrible parasite eating you, stealing your soul. But it’s not like that. It’s… beautiful. Just beautiful. It’s wise, and honest, and gentle, and caring; I love it with all my heart. Of course I’m scared how I’m changing, and I have my moments of doubt… but I love this creature inside of me. I do. Because it’s so much more holy than anything I ever dreamed possible."

She tossed her head defiantly, flicking the hair away from her face. Her mouth was a fierce line, and her eyes blazed with reflected red light from the moss as she stared at each one of us — daring us to argue. "Think how this bastard is using the spores he’s captured. There are three of them linked together: Admiral York on New Earth; this clone here; and that recruiter on Celestia… who’s another York clone, an earlier model without the fancy DNA. He had his features changed with plastic surgery so he wouldn’t be immediately recognized by people using the recruiters’ services, but it’s still the same old Alexander York, Three versions of the same man, touching mind-to-mind, thoughts kept perfectly in synch so they’re effectively the same person."

Kaisho gestured to the man at my feet. "This is your father, Edward — body and brain. The cloned zygote was planted in a surrogate mother right here on Troyen, and born a few weeks before the war started; that glass thing was installed in the baby’s stomach a little while later. From that day on, the child’s brain was so dominated by transmitted thoughts, the infant had no chance of developing a separate identity. He is Alexander York: helping Samantha on Troyen, leading the recruiters on Celestia, playing Admiralty politics back on New Earth. A man with blood on his hands in three separate star systems, and the League can’t touch him because he never physically crosses the line.

"Now," Kaisho went on, her voice still choking on tears, "can you imagine how it pains the Balrog to be caught up in this? Every day, Admiral York commits murder and war, using sentient creatures like disposable means to repugnant ends. Can you imagine how the Balrog feels, melded to such a putrescent mind? The entire Balrog race is in agony. I’m in agony, and I’m not holy, I’m just a lower animal out of my depth."

"Kaisho." Festina’s voice was soft, more tender than I’d ever heard it before. "Please don’t cry. Please. What does the Balrog want?"

"To free itself, of course. To detach itself from that awful man."

"And to punish him?"

Kaisho met Festina’s gaze for a moment, eye to eye. Then she reached up and fluffed her hair back over her face, hiding once more behind her natural veil. Her voice dropped down to the old familiar whisper: back to speaking for the Balrog instead of herself. "If someone doesn’t do something, he’ll keep playing the same tricks. He has more spores — commandeered from the navy hospital that examined me."

Festina contemplated the unconscious man at her feet. "Suppose we take him to Gashwan for surgery. Have the gadget removed from his gut."

"We get the gadget," Kaisho said immediately.

"Of course," Festina agreed. "As for the man himself… if he’s committed crimes, and I don’t doubt that he has, we’ll turn him over for a proper trial. Considering that the Balrog has heard York’s every thought for the past few decades, it won’t be hard getting a conviction."

"Yes it will," Kaisho said. "Where is he going to get a proper trial? Even if Jacaranda rescued us this very moment, you couldn’t take this man back to the Technocracy. He’s a dangerous non-sentient creature; if you try to move him out of this system, the League will kill you as well as him. And if he stays on Troyen, he’ll be acquitted by the new High Queen Samantha." Kaisho shook her head. "Sorry, Festina dear, but you can’t arrange any ‘proper trial’ — you’ll never find a suitable legal authority."

"There is one," Counselor said. "There’s Teelu."

Silence for a moment. Then the other Mandasars nodded enthusiastically, ignoring that I was waving my hands no, no, no. "I’m not a legal authority," I protested.

"You’re as legal as your sister," Festina said, "and you suffered through the venom treatments before she did. When it comes to being royal, you’ve got seniority."

Tobit grunted. "Not to mention you’re older than she is."

"Just ten minutes!" I objected.

"They tell me you were the high queen’s consort," Plebon put in. "That makes you the last surviving member of the old regime."

"I was just a glorified bodyguard!"

Festina took me by the sleeve and pulled me close, pressing her helmet against my ear so I could hear her whisper. The smooth plastic visor was surprisingly warm where it touched my skin. "Edward," she said in a low voice, "if you don’t say you’ll do something, the Balrog may take the law into its own hands. That’s a precedent we want to discourage." She drew in a breath. "I’m not asking you to pass judgment on the spot. Just agree you’re the closest thing we have to lawful authority, and that you’ll consider all the issues at an appropriate time."

I turned to look at her: those grave eyes of hers were inches away but half-lost in the shadows inside her helmet. My lips almost touched her visor… probably the closest I’d ever get to kissing her.

Silly ideas can go through your head at the strangest times.

I stepped back from her, faster than I meant to. Everyone was watching me — even the Balrog. Its red glow focused on me like a scarlet spotlight: not shining brightly, but making me feel conspicuous.

Suddenly, another silly idea went through my head: that all this talk of trials was pure moonshine, especially in our current circumstances. We weren’t going to convene a court out here on the ramparts while enemy troops were charging the palace. But somehow, Kaisho had wangled us all into thinking about it, and I was half a second away from saying, "Okay, I’ll declare myself in charge here." Which meant I’d be claiming the throne. Was that what the Balrog really wanted? How much of the past few weeks was a big Balrog plan? If you let your imagination take over, you could start believing the Balrog had brought about this whole expedition to Troyen, just to rescue the single solitary spore inside this guy’s stomach. But if that were true, I was so far out of the game I didn’t have a chance of understanding what was really going on: who was good, who was bad, what was planned, what was sheer dumb accident. Better just to do the right thing as best I understood it, and hope that was good enough.