“Of course, Praetor Gunztar,” Waverly said, tightly.

“Very good,” Gunztar said, barreling through before Waverly could launch into anything further. “I have news. Some of it is good. Some of it is less so.”

“All right,” Waverly said.

“The good news—the greatnews—is that leaders of both factions agree that no one was responsible for the killing of the king, except for the king himself,” Gunztar said. “It was well-known the king was a heavy drinker and that he would often stroll in his private garden at night. The most obvious explanation is that the king was drunk, collapsed into the kingsflower planter, and the plant pulled him under. When he awoke, he tried to escape and followed the tunnel to his death. The garden was part of his private residence and he was a bachelor; no one looked for him until his staff went to wake him in the morning.”

“Didn’t anyone at the time think to look inside the plant?” Abumwe asked.

“They did, of course,” Gunztar said. “But it was not until much later, when more obvious places were searched. And by that time, there was no trace of the king. It seems that he may have wandered down the tunnel by that time and was either dead or too injured by the fall into the cave to call for help. The bones show his spine was shattered in several places, consistent with a fall.”

Wilson, who remembered Tuffy chewing on at least a couple of other bones aside from the rib, kept quiet.

“This is good news because one continual sticking point between the factions has been finding some way to finesse the disappearance of the king,” Gunztar said. “The question of blame and responsibility are still sore subjects. Or were. Now they no longer are. During our discussions, the head of the pro-king faction provisionally apologized for blaming the agitators for killing the king. The head of the agitator faction provisionally expressed sorrow at the death of the king. As long as it sticks, the job here has become substantially easier.”

“Wow,” Wilson said. “And here I thought that the disappearance of the king was just a convenient excuse already warring factions were using to go after each other.”

“Of course not,” Gunztar said, turning toward Wilson and thereby missing the flush that drove itself up Waverly’s neck and face. “To be certain, the factions were ready to fight. But our civil war would not have lasted so long, nor have been so bloody, had one side not accused the other of regicide. And so the Icheloe owe you a particular debt of thanks, Lieutenant Wilson, for what you have done for us today.”

“If you thank anyone, you should thank Ambassador Waverly, Praetor Gunztar,” Wilson said. “Without her, I would never have found your lost king. After all, she is the one who brought Tuffy.”

“Yes, of course,” Gunztar said, bowing in the Icheloe way to Ambassador Waverly. She, still furious at Wilson and yet also aware of how he had just transferred credit for the praise to her, nodded mutely. “And that, I’m afraid, brings us to our bad news.”

“What’s the bad news?” Waverly said.

“It’s about Tuffy,” Gunztar said. “The crown is attached to him.”

“Yes,” Waverly said. “It’s tangled in his hair. We’ll get it out. We’ll trim his hair down if we have to.”

“It’s not that simple,” Gunztar said. “You can’t get it off him because it’s tangled in his hair. You can’t get it off him because microscopic fibers have come off the crown and physically attached themselves to him, binding the crown to his physical body.”

“What?” Waverly said.

“The crown is permanently attached to Tuffy,” Gunztar said. “The scans our medical scientists did when he was brought back to the surface show it.”

“How could that possibly happen?” Abumwe asked.

“The crown is a very important symbol of the king,” Gunztar said. “Once taken up, it was supposed to never be taken off.” He pointed to a set of ridges on his own head. “The crown is designed to sit on the head of the king in such a way that it need never be removed. To assure that it never is, it is made with nanobiotic strands on the inside surface, tuned to graft to the genetic signature of the king. The crown is also sensitive to the electrical signals produced by life. It only comes off at death, when all brain and body activity are quiet.”

“How did it get attached to Tuffy?” Waverly said. “He obviously has no genetic relation to your king.”

“It’s a mystery to us as much as you,” Gunztar said.

“Hmmmm,” Wilson said.

“What is it, Wilson?” Abumwe said.

“How much of this genetic material would need to be present for the crown to register it?” Wilson said.

“You’d have to ask our scientists,” Gunztar said. “Why?”

Wilson motioned to Tuffy, who had dozed off. “When I found him, he was chewing on one of the king’s bones,” he said. “He’d been in and around that skeleton for at least an hour. More than enough time to get some of the king’s genetic material all over him. If the crown wasn’t programmed well, it might have registered the genetic material, registered electrical signals from Tuffy being alive and decided, ‘Well, close enough.’”

“So we give Tuffy a bath, wash off all the king’s, uh, dust, and the crown lets go,” Schmidt said. “Right?”

Wilson looked over at Gunztar, who offered up a negative gesture. “No. Only death will cause the crown to let go,” he said. He turned to Ambassador Waverly. “And the council, I’m afraid, is adamant that the crown must be removed.”

Waverly looked blankly at Gunztar for the ten seconds or so it took for what the praetor said to sink in. Wilson glanced over to Schmidt and Abumwe as if to say, Here it comes.

“You want to kill my dog?!”Waverly exclaimed to Gunztar.

Gunztar immediately threw up his hands. “We don’t wantto kill Tuffy,” he said, quickly. “But you must understand, my friend. The crown is an object of truly immense historical, political and social value. It is no exaggeration to say that it is one of the most iconic and significant objects we Icheloe have. It’s been missing for generations. Its importance to us is incalculable. And your dogis wearing it.”

“It’s not hisfault,” Waverly said.

“I agree, of course,” Gunztar said. “But ultimately that is neither here nor there. The council is unanimous that the crown must not stay on your dog.” He pointed out the window, toward the chittering masses gathered in front of the palace. “The reactionaries we have at the gate don’t represent our people at large, but there are enough of them to cause trouble. If they were to find out a petwore the crown of the disappeared king, the riots would last for days. And I would be lying to you if I said there weren’t those on the council who didn’t find the fact Tuffy wears the crown deeply insulting. One of them even began calling him ‘the Dog King.’ And not in an affectionate way.”

“You’re saying Tuffy wearing the crown is jeopardizing our diplomatic mission,” Abumwe said.

“Not yet,” Gunztar said. “The fact that you found the disappeared king far outweighs the issue of the crown, for now. But the longer it takes for it to be returned to us, the more questions the negotiating council will begin to have about it. Make no mistake that eventually it will jeopardize your mission, and your standing. And the standing of the Colonial Union.”

“Philippa,” Abumwe said, to Waverly.

Waverly said nothing, looked at them all and then went over to Tuffy, who was by this time on his back, paws adorably in the air, snoring lightly. Waverly sat next to her dog, picked him up, waking him in the process, and began sobbing into his little back. The dog craned his head back and heroically tried to lick the head of his owner, hitting only air instead.

“Oh, come on,” Wilson said, after roughly thirty seconds of awkward silence from everyone in the room except Ambassador Waverly, who continued sobbing. “I feel like I’m twelve and being made to reread the last couple chapters of Old Yeller.”