It was dry and very cold… not water steam at all, but some other chemical. Cold enough that real water ice was forming on the street under our feet; I could see my footprints in the frost as I walked forward. I could also see footprints, real human footprints, of someone who’d come out of the building sometime not so long ago — if it’d been more than a minute or two, the footprints would have got frosted over again.
I turned to Sam. The steam was already icing her hair with frost. "Did you see anyone come out of the building before I got here?"
She shook her head. "No. Why?"
I just shrugged. Someone else could investigate this whole business later on, someone smarter than me. Dumb old Edward shouldn’t put on airs, thinking he’d found a Big Important Clue. Better just to stick to what I was good at: blundering into trouble.
Close to the hole, it was possible to see a little way forward through the steam — nothing distinct, just some bright light inside, and a shadow moving in front of it. The clanging noises were still going on, and something that sounded like ripping. "Maybe you should stay out here," I told Sam. "It might not be safe."
"Then it’s not safe for you either," she answered.
"I’ll just—"
She grabbed my arm and yanked me back. "Fasskister!" she shouted.
Coming forward through the steam was something big and yellow, backlit by the light inside. For a moment, I thought it was a Fasskister, dressed in one of those queen-shaped robots. The thing had a jerky movement, not like the walk of a real queen… but then I started to wonder how a real queen would walk if she was cold and stiff from years in cryogenic storage.
I pulled Sam to one side, out of the steam, out of the path of a queen who might be mad at the way she’d been woken up.
The queen came slowly out onto the pavement, ice still coating much of her shell. Any lesser creature wouldn’t have been able to move; but it takes more than a layer of ice to stop a full-fledged Mandasar hive-queen. She was young, she was strong, she was a flaming saffron yellow far brighter than middle-aged Verity… and she was spitting with rage.
"Sissen su?" she hissed. Who did this?
"It might have been Fasskisters," Sam answered in Mandasar, "but we have no definite—"
"Fasskisters!" the queen roared. "Alien saboteurs?"
"We don’t know that," said a Myriapod back in the crowd. "Troyen has several factions who have resorted to violence in the past…"
"And the high queen permits this?" the young queen asked. "Is she an utter fool?" "Verity’s real smart," I said. "Things are just kind of complicated."
"No," the queen snapped, glaring at me. "Things are very simple. Someone has committed an act of wanton destruction, right outside the high queen’s palace… and all I see are outsiders come to leer at the chaos. Where is the queen herself?"
"Um," I said in a weak voice. "She’s visiting Fortitude in Therol."
"Leaving a vacuum in leadership here at home. Ridiculous! Appalling! How could she let this planet get so out of hand?" The queen took a deep breath. "Clearly, this Queen Verity is unfit to rule. It’s my duty to set things right."
The young queen smashed her claws together the way queens do when declaring an edict — kind of like a human clapping hands imperiously. The action knocked off chunks of ice that had collected on her claws; chips of snow flew in all directions, spraying over Sam and me. By the time I’d wiped my eyes clear, the queen was stomping off into the darkness, leaving a trail of meltwater.
"Um," I said. Which was when another queen staggered her way out of the steam, her face fuzzy white with frost. "Sissen su?" she growled.
Twelve queens in all — every one that’d been sitting in cryosleep, dreaming of claiming a throne. None of them was interested in waiting a single instant longer, now that they were free. They all had the same reaction as the first one: Verity was doing a lousy job, and it was up to them to fix everything. After a while, it got kind of funny, listening to them say the same things. "It’s my duty to set things right."
Even then, I knew better than to laugh.
The unfrozen queens didn’t hang around Unshummin. Within hours they were spread all over the planet and within days, each had claimed a group of soldiers to protect herself: well-equipped soldiers from existing armies, won over by pheromones and promises and charisma. Remember that the Fasskisters had spent years on their whispering campaign, preaching how Verity and the lower queens were doing a lousy job running the planet. When a new bunch of queens came along as a fresh alternative, a lot of folks were keen to give them a try.
As for Verity… that’s when she finally lost heart. In public, she was still the tough old queen, in control and able to face down all opposition; but at night, she’d just sit in her private chambers, staring at the wall. Sometimes I sat with her; sometimes Sam did; sometimes the queen wanted to be alone.
A month after the mess at the Cryogenic Center, I got summoned to the queen’s bedroom. Sam was already there, plus a shy little Mandasar girl I’d seen around the palace now and then — one of Verity’s many children, which kind of made her my stepdaughter. I’d tried to keep track of all the kids’ names, but with Verity laying an egg every twelve weeks it got tricky to remember after a while. I thought this girl was called Listener, with the hidden name Yeerlevin; but Verity introduced her as Innocence.
That was the kind of name only given to queens. Which pretty much told me what was going on. It would soon be that week in spring when Verity’s venom cycle started. In previous years, the high queen had always been too busy to nurse a successor; now, she was going to do it, because she might not have another chance. My sister and Verity wanted Innocence to be a big secret. With twelve outlaw queens already terrorizing the countryside, people might not appreciate Verity mothering up another contender for power. If word got out, a lot of folks would also take it as a sign Verity didn’t expect to live too much longer… which was absolutely true, but it would still wreck public confidence. Finally, if the other queens heard about little Innocence, they’d see her as a perfect target for kidnapping, holding hostage, all that stuff — not just now, but for a long time to come, till the girl could take care of herself. She was only six; after a year of nursing with Verity, Innocence might brighten from gentle brown to royal yellow, but she’d still just be a seven-year-old with a lot of growing to do.
So Sam and I were going to be the girl’s glashpodin: like godparents, charged with taking care of her in secret till she came of age. The job would start immediately. For one thing, Sam had to assemble a team of doctors to take care of Innocence through the year-long transformation — doctors who could be counted on not to blab, and who could also deal with any complications that might crop up while the little girl changed. Becoming a queen wasn’t always an easy process; in fact, the poor kid could easily stay sick and bleary through the whole thing.
As it happened, I was the one who got sick and bleary. The very day Innocence began to nurse, I caught the Coughing Jaundice.
If you want to know how I caught the disease, I had no idea at the time. There was a kind of embarrassing ceremony in the royal chambers at midnight — Sam and me standing there as witnesses, while Verity asked the Four-Clawed Goddess for blessing; then poor little Innocence, terrified out of her mind, took a tiny tiny sip of venom from both of Verity’s stingers… after which, a horde of doctors descended on the child, taking blood tests, sputum samples, and heaven knows what else. Innocence stayed snuggled up with her mother for the night, I went back to my room alone, for fear a maidservant might get curious where I’d been so late…