The Emperor stood tall. “This is my duty. The Utopians are one of the wonders of the human race, and since that race is mine to guard and guide, I will protect its wonders. Utopia will strike out and found new colonies, new worlds, as many have before them, and MASONS will link those colonies into our Empire.”

Achilles’s glance, at once playful and accusing, passed across me to silent Aldrin. “Have you had a secret alliance with each of us,” he pointed to himself and Caesar, “all this time without telling the other?”

Aldrin’s lips parted, but Caesar cut in too fast. “My arrangement with them is not an alliance.”

“What, then?”

“My own policy, unilateral and unreciprocated.”

Utopia’s nod confirmed.

“Then what do you intend the Utopians to do in the war?” Achilles asked.

“Nothing,” Caesar answered at once. “They’re uninvolved, neither guilty nor victim in the O.S. scandal, the assassination plot, the land mess, the set-set mania, any of it. Let them stay uninvolved.”

“Even though they’d make such valuable allies?” Achilles tested.

“I’d rather see them home safe than beside me on a battlefield,” MASON replied.

“Do you really mean that? You’ll really let them stay out of the war?” I knew why Achilles doubted. He himself had tried so hard to stay away from Troy, donning women’s robes to hide among the maidens, but the Achaean chieftains would not let this best of fighters live in peace, and sent crafty Odysseus to expose him.

Death scowled. “If they ask for aid it will be theirs, but I think it will be enough if I make sure everyone in the war realizes, as I do, how much more terrible it would be if Utopia, and what Utopia can unleash, got involved. Let them help Kosala if they wish, with food and doctors, but no more.”

Achilles nodded. “Like priests, then. In the wilds of war, a wise man will hurl even an infant from a parapet to keep it from growing up to seek revenge, but, if he hopes for any future worth living in, he still honors the gods and spares their priests.”

Utopia stepped forward at last, taking a friendly equidistance between the two commanders. “This is a dangerous time for us to be thought of as priests.”

Goddess-born Achilles drew a long breath. “True.”

“It is a dangerous time for you to be thought of at all,” Death added. “I saw pictures from Esperanza City, when Jehovah’s Utopian guards uncloaked. I know Esperanza is half yours, but still, I’d rather no one saw you siding with Jehovah. Or with me. Or with anyone. I’ve seen both flags in most Hive’s colors but not mine, and not yet yours. Make sure it stays that way.”