"Of course," Dad went on, "what Temperance really wanted was to infect the orbital with those damned Balrog spores… but Willow’s captain didn’t know that. His orders were to get Temperance off the planet any way he could, so he just went along. Unfortunately, the queen got to the orbital, stayed barely an hour, then demanded to be taken back to Troyen. Once she’d escaped from the siege at Unshummin, Temperance wanted to go home, get dropped somewhere far from Samantha’s army, and start building her own forces again."

"Which," Festina said, "was definitely not something you and Sam wanted."

"Definitely not," Dad agreed. "Willow’s captain took the queen back aboard, then locked the hold door on her, and headed for Celestia anyway."

I thought about how Temperance had tried to bash through the wall of the hold. Battering herself bloody, knowing that when Willow crossed the line, the League would execute her for all the people she’d killed during the war. As for the crew who’d basically kidnapped her and dragged her into space against her will… it was pretty clear why the League killed them too. They weren’t such nice people.

But there was still one thing I didn’t understand. I asked, "Why, Dad? Why really? If this was just about making supergrandchildren, you could have done that without bloodshed. Sam didn’t kill Verity till after I’d finished my transformation; at that point, you’d run through your test case, you had all the data… so why murder the queen? And why set up the recruiters, when Celestia has nothing to do with either Troyen or the Technocracy? You could have got your dynasty of superkids without destroying a single life."

Dad took a long time to answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was so soft I almost couldn’t hear him through the glass. "Jetsam," he said, using his cruel old nickname for me, "have you ever really seen the Mandasars in action?"

"What do you mean?"

"I came to Troyen a century ago," he told me, "and even then it was clear Mandasars were special. Stronger than humans… more rationally organized… smarter. Your average gentle scores twenty percent higher than a corresponding Homo sapiens, on all nine intelligence scales. And that was just in peacetime. In war… Christ Almighty, compared to Troyen, the Technocracy is so pathetically weak, I sometimes want to puke. We’re lazy and venal, like Imperial Rome at its most decadent; but the League of Peoples make sure that barbarians never come banging on our gates. That’s a crime against evolution. Mandasar society is the most efficient war machine I’ve ever seen, and it’s a travesty they can’t run right over us."

"They aren’t war machines," I objected. "Troyen stayed at peace two hundred years before Sam got everybody riled up."

"Two hundred sterile years," Dad replied, "unnaturally imposed when Queen Wisdom sucked up to the League of Peoples. She was the one who forced warriors and gentles and workers to live together, poisoning each other with their own pheromones, diluting what they should be…"

"And what they should be is separate from each other?" I asked. "The way your recruiters ripped apart families into single-caste slave camps and brainwashed them—"

"Like hell I brainwashed them!" Dad interrupted. "They were brainwashed before. I returned them to their true strength. You think it’s an accident that when they’re segregated, the gentles become brilliant tacticians, the warriors become unstoppable soldiers, and the workers become uncomplaining servants? Open your eyes, boy — it’s not an accident, it’s what nature intended. Evolution made Mandasars into perfect infantry, perfect strategists, perfect civilian support… with an iron-willed queen at the top to dictate what everyone else should be doing. That’s the natural state of the Mandasar world, Jetsam: a crystal-clear division of duty."

"No," Festina said quietly, "that’s only one natural state of the Mandasar world. Evolution also provided the other paradigm: castes mingling with each other, their pheromones balancing each other’s personalities. Less aggressive warriors, less slavish workers, less tunnel-visioned gentles. Not as ruthlessly efficient, but a way of life where everyone has more breathing space."

"A way of life where everyone is weak," my father sneered. "Easy prey the moment some other Mandasar tribe goes onto a segregated military footing."

Festina said, "Really? If turning militaristic was always stronger, wouldn’t evolution get rid of the other possibility after a while? But Mandasar pheromones are tuned to make both ways of life possible: segregated and unified. Historically, I’m sure Mandasars sometimes needed to abandon everything else and gear up for war… but they also had to be prepared for peace. Otherwise, what would they do when they’d defeated all their available enemies?"

"There are always more enemies," my father replied dismissively.

"Maybe," Festina admitted, "if you go out and look for them. But to do that, you have to invent the peaceful art of boat-building. And navigation. And cartography. And systems of government that hold your empire together when your queen is too far away to make every decision for you." She shook her head. "Success in war always leads to the demands of peace, Admiral. Suppose tens of thousands of years ago, the Mandasars did have a subspecies one hundred percent devoted to fighting; that breed didn’t survive, did it? Either they killed each other in some prehistoric Armageddon, or they starved to death because the workers became too bored and stupid to plant crops properly. Modern Mandasars — Mandasar sapiens — came out on top because they weren’t one-trick ponies."

She peered up intently at the glass-chested man on the battlements. "Glorify war if you want, Admiral York. A lot of people do, especially since the League has made armed conflict so rare. When no one’s seen combat for a long time, some folks get the idea they’re missing a primal source of energy. But fighting is only part of the story for any species, and the other parts are just as important."

"Other parts only become important after the fighting stops," my father retorted. "Kill or be killed, Ramos; that’s the fundamental issue, and everything else comes after, if you can spare the time. Don’t go writing poetry until you’re sitting on your enemies’ bones."

He waved his hand out beyond us, toward the approaching Black Army. They’d reached the last canal now, the one surrounding the palace like a moat. Soon they’d be driving their way across, breaching the palisade and storming onto the palace grounds. My father smiled. "This is what it always comes down to, Ramos. Naked aggression: might against might. You can rhapsodize about art and science and anything else you think is a great accomplishment, but nature doesn’t respect that superficial crap. Death is the one reality our universe truly acknowledges. That’s why Sam and I chose to start a war; I’ve devoted myself to life’s one overwhelming imperative."

"Killing those who threaten you?" Festina asked. "Yes."

"Eliminating those who are dangerous to you?"

"Right."

"The strong subjugate the weak?"

"Correct." He lifted his foot, then set it down on Plebon’s face again. "You have ten seconds to surrender or I’ll show you how ugly war can be."

"I may have ten seconds," Festina answered coldly, "but you don’t. You’re a dangerous non-sentient, threatening to kill a sentient being… and any nearby sentients have an absolute duty to stop you. You’re also a pompous jerk-off, Admiral, extolling the joys of conquest but failing to grasp the most important law of all: no matter how tough you are, there’s always someone who can beat the living shit out of you." She clapped her hands once, sharp and loud. "Balrog!"

Like fire belching from a furnace, plumes of glowing red erupted from the stairwell. Crimson smoke, thick as a wall, exploded outward to sweep over my father and Dade, so fast the two men were coated with spores before they could react.