Festina patted me on the shoulder, then looked at the others. "Anything else?" she asked.
Prope opened her mouth to speak… but even she was careful not to meet anyone else’s eyes. "It’s my duty," the captain said, "to make official note of your analysis, Admiral. This landing may spark two hostile factions into battling each other; if that happens, the death count is bound to be enormous." She paused and made sure we were all listening — the normal bridge crew as well as us visitors. "It could be argued this landing constitutes a non-sentient act, since it runs the risk of provoking murder on a massive scale. The Outward Fleet will not force any of you to participate in the mission against your conscience."
I wondered if Willow’s captain had said the same to his crew. He might have — navy regs require starship commanders to recognize dicey situations and call them accordingly. But at the moment, I figured Prope wasn’t thinking about ethics so much as covering her butt… hoping this speech would get her off the hook with the League of Peoples. Even if the League killed the rest of us the next time we crossed the line, perhaps they’d let Prope pass because she’d spoken the right words. "Oh yes, I warned them it wasn’t smart…"
"Thank you, Captain," Festina said stiffly. "You’re perfectly correct. Anyone who considers this landing improper is encouraged to stay on the ship." She glanced at the screen again: the soldiers had flattened themselves in darkening shadows as the sun continued to set. "It’ll be full night down there in thirty minutes," she said. "We’ll begin suiting up then. If some of you don’t show up at the robing chambers, I won’t send anyone looking for you."
She nodded to nobody in particular and quietly left the bridge. For a long time, none of the rest of us moved.
34
WAITING IN THE TRANSPORT BAY
We all showed up. In the little anteroom in front of Jacaranda’s four robing chambers, everyone I thought might come, did: Tobit, Dade, Kaisho, Counselor, Zeeleepull, Hib Nib Pib. And me, of course. I can’t say I’d thought long and hard about the morals of what we were doing. Mostly I’d been busy on the bridge. With a bit of persuasion (talk, not pheromones), I’d convinced Prope to let me record the message that would be broadcast when we landed: telling everyone I was the Little Father Without Blame, just coming down to Unshummin to pick up some friends. It wasn’t what you’d call a slick performance, especially not for something that would be heard all over the planet, on every radio band, looping again and again and again; but I didn’t think it was totally awful.
Besides, good or bad wasn’t the point. The point was to persuade Mandasars not to worry about a Sperm-tail coming in… and secretly to tell my sister I’d come back to Troyen. I didn’t know what effect I wanted that to have; maybe just to see what Sam would do.
All kinds of terrible suspicions lurked in the back of my mind. I needed to give Sam the chance to prove me wrong.
Back at the robing chambers, Festina was last to arrive. She tried not to smile too hard when she found the rest of us waiting. "Well," she said, "an embarrassment of volunteers." She gestured toward the four robing chambers. "Four seats, four Explorers. Me, Tobit, Dade, and York. The rest of you stay on Jacaranda, and I don’t want any bitching."
She got bitching anyway. Kaisho and the Mandasars argued and argued and argued why they should go with us… but anybody could see it was crazy to let them tag along. Kaisho was in a wheelchair — a wheelchair that could hover, but one that moved as slow as a constipated snail. If we wanted to get down and back in five minutes, we couldn’t afford her slowing us up.
No way for the Mandasars to come either. The whole city would reek of battle musk, even before our arrival got the troops heated up. One whiff would make Counselor and the workers freeze with terror. As for Zeeleepull, he could handle the musk (even if it put him in the mood for a fight), but he’d cause plenty of trouble if we met any palace guards. With an all-human party, we might convince the guards we were just there to pick up our friends — especially with Plebon and Olympia Mell to vouch for us. But if we had a Mandasar warrior along, one with a strange accent and no knowledge of palace-guard passwords, we’d be ten times more likely to get arrested as spies.
Zeeleepull and the others weren’t keen on listening to such logic. I’d warned them they might not be allowed to land but they still got all huffy, asking why I’d spent so much time teaching them how to act on Troyen when they’d never get to set foot on the planet. Eventually, Festina had to pull rank on them. She told them they could consider themselves reserves, in case the landing party called for help… but they simply weren’t going down in the first shot with us real Explorers.
Yes. Festina called me a real Explorer. After thirty-five years wearing the black uniform, I was finally going to earn it.
Tobit tried to usher me into a robing chamber, but I said, "Sorry. I’d better not."
"For Christ’s sake, York," Tobit snapped, "Troyen might have been a nice cozy planet when you lived there, but it’s been at war for twenty years. Nobody has a clue what kinds of gas and germs and shit they’ve been tossing at each other. Sure, they lost most of their tech base right at the beginning… but they still managed to preserve those Balrog spores they used on the Fasskisters, didn’t they? Who knows what other nasty crap they managed to collect while they were the top dogs of medical research? The only way to protect yourself is wearing a tightsuit."
"But, um… um…"
"He must not be sealed up," Counselor said. "It’s important for the palace guards to know he is Teelu. They must be able to see him. And smell him."
She turned and looked directly at Festina… as if they’d talked about me recently and decided some things between themselves. I guess that shouldn’t have been surprising; if Festina had begun to suspect stuff about me and pheromones, she’d go straight to someone who could smell the scents I put out. Now Festina put her hand on Tobit’s shoulder, and said, "Let it go, Phylar. Edward can do more for us if he’s not closed off in an airtight cocoon."
"I can do more without the tightsuit too," Dade said. "They’re really hard to move in and you can’t—"
"In your dreams, junior," Tobit interrupted. "If you don’t shut up, we’ll make you wear two."
Fifteen minutes later, we stood in the transport bay — Tobit, Dade, and Festina in fully sealed tightsuits, me in a light "impact suit"… which was basically an Explorer uniform with elbow pads.
My face and hands felt itchy from getting doused with camouflage nano: smart little color-changing bugs, programmed to match general background shades and to break up my silhouette so I’d be hard to recognize as human when standing in shadows. My uniform was covered with the same stuff; so were the tightsuits. Even in the brightly lit transport bay, the other three Explorers were easy to overlook. At one point, I was listening to Festina run over last-minute details with Tobit, and suddenly realized Dade was standing right beside me, listening too. When he wasn’t moving, my eye seemed to slip straight past him without noticing he was there. Down on the ground where darkness had fallen, we’d be nine-tenths invisible.
Too bad invisible didn’t mean undetectable. My nose was picking up a nostril-gouging chemical smell from all the suits; Mandasars would know something strange was close by, even if we were completely lost in shadows. Then again, if they couldn’t see to aim their crossbows, maybe the camo wasn’t a total loss.
Festina turned to the rear of the transport bay and called up to the control console, "Do you have the message to broadcast?"