"And that’s how they got stuck," Tobit said, nodding. "They must have thrown in their lot with the palace guards — got the queen to put in a good word for them before she left. They’re not in immediate danger, but they’re still bottled up by the Black Army and waiting for the ax to fall."
"Except that nobody’s swinging axes," Festina pointed out. "Which is damned strange. How long has it been since Willow took away the queen? Three and a half weeks? With the queen gone, the palace guards have nothing to fight for; so why not surrender? And if the guards are too stubborn to give in, why hasn’t the Black Army overrun the place? They certainly have the numbers to crush the defenders. So what’s everybody waiting for?"
"Us," I said quietly. "They’ve been waiting for us."
Captain Prope sat up sharply in her chair. "Us?" she murmured. "Yes… us. We’re the missing ingredient they’ve been waiting for." Her face had an I-knew-it-had-to-be-about-me expression… as if everything in the universe made sense once you saw it as part of Prope’s own story.
Festina gave the captain an exasperated look, then turned to me. "How would they know we were coming, Edward? Even if it was common knowledge Willow left Explorers down there, no one would expect us to attempt a rescue. The Admiralty has an ironclad policy never to remove anyone from a war planet till the fighting stops. Complete quarantine. Our group can go down there because I think it’s necessary for the fleet’s sentience… but under normal circumstances, the navy would leave those Explorers to rot."
I couldn’t argue with her, but I knew I was right. Sam told me Temperance was the last holdout against the new high queen. Temperance must have been occupying the palace, and Samantha was advisor to the queen on the other side. Now my sister was telling the Black Epaulettes, "Wait. Don’t attack. Wait."
Sam expected I’d use Dad’s access code and order a navy ship to fly me to Troyen. Then I was supposed to land and join her in the high queen’s palace. Her very words: "in the high queen’s palace." Except that the palace was the one place Sam’s side didn’t control.
So what would happen if me and Festina and the rest tried to land at the palace as directed? The Black Army would go crazy. They’d see the Sperm-tail flutter out of the sky, and they’d think offworlders were coming to help Temperance’s side — summoned by Temperance herself, who was last seen leaving on a Technocracy ship. The black troops would spring to the attack, hoping to overrun the palace before we offworlders had a chance to get settled; and in the ensuing fight, with battle musk as thick as smoke in a burning house, every human in the area would be slaughtered. The attacking soldiers wouldn’t hesitate a second. They’d shred our whole group in the belief we were outside mercenaries trying to meddle in Mandasar affairs.
Isn’t that how it would go? We’d all be killed. And it would get written off as an accident of war, a sad, sad tragedy. The new high queen would apologize to the Technocracy, with all the grief in the world: "What a terrible shame. Let’s establish channels of communication so this never happens again." The Admiralty would say yes, while breathing their own sigh of relief — with Festina and me out of the way, the mess with Willow would be hushed up. Soon, the recruiters on Celestia would start operating again; maybe they’d even start a branch office on Troyen.
In the end, everybody would be happy. Except those of us who were dead.
I told myself there had to be something I didn’t understand. My sister would never draw me into a deliberate massacre. She must have some other scheme I just wasn’t smart enough to figure out.
But I had a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach, and it wouldn’t go away.
"Do we go down or not?" Dade asked. He was looking at Festina. Everyone on the bridge was watching her — even the regular crew who were supposed to keep their eyes on their monitors.
"We’ll try it," Festina said at last, "but just a quick in and out. Five minutes, tops… and let’s hope the people we’re looking for are right where their signal came from."
Tobit had put on a poker face. "The second we send down our Sperm-tail," he said, "both armies will kick up a god-awful ruckus. They’ll each think the other side is trying something sneaky."
"I know," Festina sighed. "Captain" — she turned to Prope—"as soon as we go down, I’d like Jacaranda to broadcast a message on all radio bands, saying we’re a neutral party just retrieving a group of noncombatants. Peaceful and not allied with any faction."
"They’ll never believe it," Prope said. "It’s exactly the sort of ruse a group of invaders would try." (Prope sure seemed to have thought a lot about lies dishonest people might tell.)
"Even so," Festina told her, "we have to deliver the message. For the sake of sentience."
She glanced at the vidscreen. It still showed the two pictures side by side, Black Epaulettes and the palace guards, waiting uneasily. "When we go in," Festina said, "jittery soldiers are going to react from sheer nervous tension. We can hope they have enough discipline not to get carried away, but there’s no guarantee. If we can do anything to avoid triggering an all-out battle, we have to try. I admit the radio message is a weak idea — God knows, all their radios may have been eaten by Fasskister nanites. If anyone has a better suggestion, I’m happy to listen."
She looked around the room. No one spoke. Finally, Dade cleared his throat. "Uh… does it really matter?’
"What do you mean?" Festina asked.
"These guys," he said, waving at the soldiers on the vidscreen. "They’ve all been at war, killing each other, right? That makes ’em non-sentient. Even the people who aren’t on the front lines, the cooks and the baggage handlers and all — if they’re helping the armies, they’re knowingly abetting non-sentient activities, which makes them non-sentient too. So from the League’s point of view, why does it matter what happens to anybody in Unshummin? I don’t want those people to die, but if we do set off one bunch of non-sentients fighting another, the great and glorious League shouldn’t give a damn."
"Jesus, Benny," Tobit groaned, "it’s the first fucking rule of Exploration, always assume everything is sentient till proven otherwise."
"But it’s been proven otherwise," Dade said. "For twenty years, the armies have demonstrated just how non-sentient they are. Aren’t we justified in assuming—" "That there are no children in the palace?" I asked. "That while Queen Temperance lived there, she didn’t keep laying eggs every twelve weeks? That there aren’t other kids from all the warriors and gentles who’ve been thrown together with each other? That there isn’t a single Mandasar in the palace who just ran there for protection when the Black Army showed up? That there aren’t warriors and gentles and workers on both sides who firmly believe everything they’ve done was purely for the defense of their families, and others who may have been bloodthirsty once but now want peace more devoutly, more sentiently than any of us powder-puffs who’ve never gone through two decades of war? Is that what we’re justified in assuming?"
Dade blushed and lowered his gaze… while I pretty well did the same thing. I’d never spoken like that before; I half thought I was possessed again, and kind of stupidly, I tried to wiggle my fingers just to make sure I was still in control. They wiggled — the words had come from me. Just a part of me I didn’t know I had.