"Why would Dad care?" I asked.

"Because you know things, Edward. And you are things. I’m sure you don’t understand what’s going on, but if you ever got home and told Vincence everything you’ve seen… well, Vincence has brains."

"Unlike us," Tobit muttered.

"Don’t pout," Sam told him. "The average Technocracy citizen is simply less capable than humans once were. The Admiralty has statistics to prove it; four hundred years ago, when the navy began testing recruits, they scored much higher in almost every area. All nine indices of intelligence… psychological maturity… emotional stability… you name it. Homo sapiens as a species has gone into decline, and nobody knows why. Maybe our pampered lifestyles. Maybe too many people with inferior genes, surviving and having children. Maybe some environmental factor was present on Old Earth but not where we live now. Navy researchers are quietly trying to figure out what’s gone wrong, but the diminishment is undeniable, especially on Technocracy core worlds. Four centuries ago, idiots like Prope on Jacaranda wouldn’t have been allowed to command a rowboat; now she’s the best captain the navy can find. Isn’t that appalling?"

Samantha paused for us to comment… but she didn’t wait too long. Sam loved making speeches, especially to a captive audience. "So what to do? The civilian governments are gutless incompetents; they lost control of the fleet ages ago, and don’t even realize it. As long as there’s no interruption in imports of Divian champagne, they don’t give a damn what the navy does. Same with most of the navy itself. Captain Prope is the rule, not the exception."

"Not in the Explorer Corps," Festina answered. Her voice was quiet, but tough as iron.

"I wouldn’t know," Samantha replied with a breezy wave of her hand. "Explorers have nothing to do with anything. All I’m sure of is the Technocracy suffers a major shortage of brainpower. It’s time for new management to take the situation in hand."

"Meaning you," I said.

She smiled. "Old Japanese proverb: Who will do the harsh things? Those who can."

Kaisho growled. "In defense of my ancestors, they were talking about shouldering difficult responsibilities. Not acting like a bitch because you can get away with it."

"I know what they meant," Sam said, "and I mean the same thing. People in the Technocracy are no longer able to govern themselves. Someone more gifted has to take charge. So my father and I intend to create the best leaders humanity has ever seen."

"Yeah, yeah," Festina replied in a bored tone. "Super-kids, able to fabricate pheromones, linked into a communal mind, blah, blah, blah. Sounds like a VR game I played when I was six."

Sam couldn’t keep her eyes from widening in surprise; I think she truly believed no one was smart enough to see through her plan. But Festina was still talking. "Let’s get back to the present, can we? You have the armies, we have the hostage. What are we going to do?"

"Why should I care about your hostage?" Sam asked. "If he’s stupid enough to get himself caught…"

"Um," I said, "I think you have a soft spot for stupid people, Sam. Especially ones you brought up yourself. You raised this clone from a baby, didn’t you? He was born just before the war started. So the instant I left Troyen, you got a baby Edward substitute; and you had the fun of playing mother to me all over again, just like when we were kids."

Sam stared at me. "Did you think of that all by yourself, Edward?"

"Yes. I’ve also thought of who this guy actually is. He was produced on Troyen, twenty-one years ago, which means he couldn’t have been cloned from Dad — by then, Dad was way too non-sentient to leave New Earth. So where did the DNA come from? Either from me or from you: we’ve both got Dad’s DNA too. Except Festina says it’s not healthy to clone a clone; it’s better to go the old sperm and ovum route. Am I right, Sam?"

"Edward," she said, "I’ve never seen you like this."

"No, you haven’t," I agreed. "But I’m right, aren’t I? This man is our son: you and me together. Gashwan could have got the sperm from me when I was delirious from Coughing Jaundice. You donated the egg, and the fertilized result was planted into a surrogate… but he’s still our child, isn’t he, Sam, even if he was put together in a test tube."

My sister’s eyes had turned glittering sharp. "Brother dear, when did you get so smart?"

About the same time you made me a father, I almost answered. But I didn’t say anything out loud. I was too busy mulling over the effects of hive-queen venom.

What happened when a gentle changed into a queen? She got stronger, she got bigger… and she got smarter. Gashwan might have dumbed down my original DNA, but the venom mutated me, just like venom mutates a Mandasar girl. For all I know, Gashwan may have deliberately designed my brain to kick into high gear when it got hit with venom — just to make things interesting.

However it happened, the venom gradually stopped me from being stupid. It was scary and hard to admit… but it was the truth. I’d stopped being stupid. Nobody could tell the difference while I was all sick and poisoned, but by the night Sam killed Verity…"

Yet again I remembered kneeling in Verity’s chambers, smelling the blood on the floor, knowing it was fake… me seeing in a flash of insight that everything had been a setup, and that my sister was a horrible murdering butcher. I understood it all; I even understood that I must have got smarter, because the old Edward would never have figured out any of the awful stuff that had happened. The old Edward had been slow but happy, with a kind, beautiful sister who never did bad things to people.

It hurt to be smart. Understanding what really happened in the world just made you sick to your stomach.

So I turned that part of me off: just put it to sleep. I don’t know how I did it — you couldn’t call it a conscious decision — but something in my head had become so clever, it knew how to hide away my excess intelligence so I wouldn’t have to suffer. I packed up the memories too… just forgot them all. Like a completely separate person I didn’t want to be.

For twenty years, I went back to dumb old Edward. I might have stayed dumb forever… except I got dosed with a new shot of venom. That woke something inside of me — the seeds of memories, plus that separate person I’d set aside so long ago. Who was the spirit that kept possessing me? The spirit was me too: the brainy part of me, who saw I needed to be smart again. Bit by bit, Smart Me worked to join back up with Slow Me. I couldn’t tell if the process was finished, but accepting my responsibility as king had sure closed a lot of the gap.

There were still a lot of questions to answer… like why the clever half of my brain had smashed the Sperm-tail anchor and marooned us all on Troyen. Why trap us in a war zone? What kind of scheme had it worked out with Prope? Was Smart Me so keen on a showdown with Sam that it cut off our only escape route, leaving us no choice but to play this out to the end?

No way to tell. A lot of my brainy half’s thoughts were still out of touch. Nothing to do but keep going and hope I was suddenly smart enough to deal with whatever happened.

But I didn’t say any of this out loud. The last thing I wanted was Sam taking me seriously. Let her keep underestimating me, the way she always had. That might give me a tactical advantage.

In the back of my mind, some old-Edward part of my soul felt a twinge of sadness: how I was already scheming, using deceit to get the better of my own sister. The stakes were too high to do anything else… but I knew why, twenty years ago, I’d decided I didn’t want to be smart.

Sam waited a few more moments for me to say something. When I kept my mouth shut, she sighed. "Well, brother, it seems I’ve exhausted your supply of banter. Anyone else want to join the conversation? How about you with the knife — Festina Ramos, right? My father told me you were coming to cause trouble. Do you really think I care whether you slit that man’s throat?"