“Then what about Tschetter’s Jellies?” Kira asked. “The Knot of Minds?”

Stahl grunted. When he spoke again, his voice had acquired a brittle tone, as if he were guarding himself. “A batch of hunter-seekers was dispatched toward the meeting location.”

“To…?”

“Eliminate with extreme prejudice.”

Kira felt as if she’d been struck. She wasn’t the biggest fan of the League, but she’d never thought of it as being actively evil. “What the hell, Colonel? Why would—”

“It’s a political decision, Navárez. Out of our hands. It’s been determined that leaving any of their leadership alive, even if they’re rebels, is too great a risk for humanity. This isn’t a war, Navárez. This is extermination. Eradication. First we break the Jellies, and then we can focus on taking out these nightmares.”

“It’s been determined,” she said, spitting out the words with all the scorn she could muster. “Determined by who?”

“By the Premier himself.” A brief pause, then: “Sorry, Navárez. That’s the way it is.”

The colonel started to walk away, and Kira shouted after, “Yeah, well fuck the Premier and fuck you too!”

She stood there, breathing heavily, fists clenched by her sides. Only then did she notice that the Soft Blade—that she—was covered with spikes poking through her jumpsuit. Again her temper had gotten the better of her. “Bad, bad, bad,” she whispered, and she wasn’t sure if she meant herself or the League.

Calm but still filled with a cold, clinical anger, Kira sat cross-legged on the floor while she tried to think through the situation. In retrospect, it seemed apparent that Stahl didn’t approve of the Premier’s decision either. That Stahl would tell her the League’s plans meant something, although she wasn’t sure what. Maybe he wanted her forewarned for some reason.

That hardly mattered now. The League’s impending betrayal of the Knot of Minds was far more important than her own troubles. Finally they had a chance of peace (with the Jellies at least) and the Premier had to throw it away because he wasn’t willing to try. Was trying so great a risk, after all?

Frustration joined anger within Kira. She hadn’t even voted for the Premier—none of them had!—and he was going to set them at perpetual odds with the Jellies. Fear was driving them, she thought, not hope. And as events had taught her, fear was a poor guide indeed.

What was the Premier’s name? She couldn’t even recall. The League tended to shuffle through them like cards.

If only there was a way to warn the Knot of Minds. Maybe then some sort of alliance could be saved. Kira wondered if the Soft Blade could somehow contact the Jellies. But no, whatever signals the xeno could produce, they seemed to be indiscriminate, blasted forth to the whole of the galaxy. And luring even more Jellies and nightmares to Sol would hardly be helpful.

If she could somehow manage to break out, then—then what? Kira hadn’t seen the file of information Tschetter had given Akawe (and that the Darmstadt had copied over to the Wallfish), but she felt sure there had to be contact information in it: times, frequencies, and locations, that sort of thing. But she doubted that the UMC technicians would have left even a single copy of the file on the Wallfish’s computers, and Kira had no idea whether Gregorovich had bothered to memorize any of the information.