“You were overwhelmed with messages you couldn’t untangle.” Dower leaned closer. “What was it like?”

Abil thought back. “I wanted to stay there, sir. To be with them. To be like them.” He shuddered. “I let you down.”

“There’s no shame, tar. I don’t think you’re going to make a corporal, though; command isn’t for you.” Dower’s metal Eyes glistened. “You weren’t betrayed by fear. You were betrayed by your curiosity—perhaps imagination. You had to know what it was like in there, didn’t you? And for that you risked your life, and the lives of your unit.”

Abil tried to sit up. “Sir, I—”

“Take it easy.” Dower pushed him back, gently, to his bed. “I told you, there’s no shame. I’ve been watching you. It’s one of the responsibilities of command, tar. You have to test those under you, all the time, test and assess. Because the only way the Expansion is going to prosper is if we make the best use of our resources. And I don’t believe the best use of you is to stick you down a hole in charge of a bunch of grunts.” Dower leaned closer. “Have you ever considered working for the Commission for Historical Truth?”

A vision of chill intellects and severe black robes filled Abil’s mind. “The Commission, sir? Me?”

Dower laughed. “Just think about it . . . Ah. We’re about to leave orbit.”

Abil could sense the subtle inertial shift, as if he was in a huge elevator, rising from the frozen planet.

Dower snapped her fingers, and a Virtual of the Target materialized between their faces. Slowly turning, bathed in simulated light, the planet was like a toy, sparkling white, laced here and there by black ridges of true rock, stubborn mountain chains resisting the ice. Starships circled it like flies.

Dower reached out to touch one dimpled feature.

The view expanded, to reveal a broad, walled plain. Abil realized he was looking down on the warren he had visited. Around the mountain peak, great cracks had been cut into the ground. Drones were being shepherded out of the warren by the mop-up squads. The drones filed toward the bellies of freighters that had settled from space, down onto the ice, to swallow them up. The drones looked bewildered, and they milled to and fro. Here and there one or two broke lines, and even lunged at the troopers. The silent spark of weapons cut them down.

For every live drone that came walking to the surface, Abil saw, a dozen carcasses were hauled out.

Dower saw his expression. “There were probably a billion drones in that one hive alone. A billion. We’ll be lucky to ship out more than a hundred thousand.”

“A hundred thousand—is that all, sir?”