I am still bedridden, awaiting surgery. There is not much else for me to do while I’m trapped here. So I start my day by taking the little faintly glowing vial and reading its label. It isn’t anything I recognize immediately, which leads me to believe that it must be something that has origins here on Earth, and not of Troo manufacture.

The humans were so good at cataloging everything they did on their mass communication networks that were so heavily used before we arrived. I know that they are much less used now, and I know that this is entirely out of concern for subterfuge that would come from surveillance by our own agents. But I somehow doubt that we have gleaned much of use from the data.

Thankfully, my tablet has a connection to this network. I am able to search for the name of the mysterious substance in the vial and come up with several hits. One is a chemical found in fireflies that makes them light up at night. Another is a study on the toxicity of said fireflies to lizards. And a third is a listing of this toxin on a page that lists nothing but ways to kill Troo.

I have been targeted for execution by an utterly incompetent assassin.

I do not know what to do with this information.

I do know that I do not want to make it easy for him. But my options are extremely limited while I am attached to the IV and barely feeling stable. The medications working to prevent infection and reduce swelling to make it possible to attempt surgical repair make my head feel heavy and my reactions slow.

The best I can manage right now is to stow the tiny little bottle of poison under the blanket and close to my body. He was so intimidated just to talk to me, maybe this second slight difficulty will buy me more time.

With sleepy claws, I pick up the tablet again and awaken the drones. Checking the status of each in turn is not a difficult task. And at this time of morning many are still in need of the sun to complete their power charge. A quick status check will verify that they are ready to use.

The first three I check are powered down.

The fourth wakes in a place that is absolutely not where I would have placed it. Mercutioodon has apparently borrowed one of my drones for his own personal use. It wakes with its camera pointed across his desk. Right this very moment, he is engaged in personal hygiene tasks that would be most impolite to watch. I consider turning the drone around so that its camera is not pointed directly into the burgundy feathers down his spinal ridge. But would it be more rude to leave the camera where it is or to alert him to what I have inadvertently witnessed.

My friend is missing more feathers that I had been aware of. I do not usually view him in the nude. The damage to his missing leg extends further up the hip than I knew, and the stark white scars leave empty tracks through his feathers like you only see on the elderly or people with severe mental illnesses.

I decide that letting him know he has been seen is more polite than living with the lie. I turn the drone around.

Unfortunately, the drones still have no audio reception, so I have to wait and hope that he has figured out a way to communicate with this thing that I have not intuited yet. Does he know the rudimentary sign language that reconnaissance teams use in the field? That would certainly be a great help in this case.

Without any auditory cues, I have to wait. The wait feels longer than it is. The drones cannot hear but they are not at all quiet when they move.

Mercutioodon picks up the drone and turns it back around when he is ready. He waves cheerfully at the camera to attract my attention. The humans have frequently joked in my hearing that our vision is based on movement after all. They’re not entirely correct, but it certainly does not hurt.

He has apparently been preparing for this task. My friend holds up a large sheet of paper and a marker.

“I know where you are,” he writes in large block print. The camera is easily able to pick up much finer detail than this, but I do not think he is anywhere as familiar with their technical limitations as am I. “July is on her way to Trooaris.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

I flip through my cameras to see if any of them are well positioned to find her. There is nothing obvious. I flip back to Mercutioodon. “She is going to frame him for her death.” I recall that there is no indication visible externally from the drone as to whether I am watching through it or not. It’s entirely possible I missed something.

“Be there.” Mercutioodon points urgently to the paper. I realize that he’s trying to get me to take action. I don’t know what action and I am terrified because of it. There is not a single thing I can think of to do from this bed. I am at a loss.

The obvious thing to do is to find her first. That, at least, I can do from this terribly confining bed.

I flick through my drones until I find one in town. I don’t have any idea for where she might be or how she might be trying to get to Trooaris’s territory at all. All I know is that I need to find her.

It takes an hour, but I find the most unlikely thing. The town is silent, not a single person is outside as they are all at work either out of town in the fields or inside the fading buildings. I cannot find anyone.

And then like a bolt of lightning, there she is. The drone is deaf, but it watches in silence while she walks alone in the street. Her dark hair floats loose around her delicate face. Wet streaks down her soft cheeks mark the lines where tears have dampened her face, collecting dust in their traces. She holds a single suitcase, and walks with a determined pace.

The drone’s vantage point is high enough to follow her down the street. I swap to a second drone. I know that if I get two of them nearby I could be able to interpret vibrations from glass into sound and hear what she has to say. None of the rest are particularly close, and that is a terrible failure on my part to have successfully anticipated this need.

I trigger an emergency recall on two of the remaining drones. That will at least get them here to me in the field hospital. I know that I must be closer to her destination than the drones are to her location. This will make it easier to keep track of her in the long term and prevent my mistake from being repeated.

The first drone briefly loses sight of her while I am engaged with the others. I did not anticipate that she would head for the lakeside park instead of following the road around the water’s edge. When I catch sight of her again I realize that she is approaching a boat.

I move the drone ahead of her and place it on the side of the boat, close to the water’s edge. The drone clings with the little hooks on its clawed feet to the outboard motor. I can use this one’s location pings to get a second drone to her.

But before I can, the medication fails to complete its work again. I feel entirely drained. Lying on my hospital bed, I can feel the throbbing pain returning to my face. Every tiny movement of my head brings searing fire to the injury and it is all I can do to sit perfectly still and accept my fate.

“I’m told you are something of a troublemaker.” The doctor chooses this very inopportune moment to reappear. I suspect her timing has something to do with the medication’s effective duration, and try not to read into her words what is not there.

“The man you arrived with has requested asylum.”

That honestly surprises me. I had completely forgotten about Mercutioodon’s human. What was his name? Something about a knife?

I open my eye and look directly at her. The doctor’s dark brown feathers lay casually flat against her skin. She appears unperturbed and casually looks over the vital signs displayed on the various instruments in the room.

“Would you know why someone might think that asylum could be requested here?”

I try to shake my head, but the room spins. The painkillers have failed completely now. A monitor peeps a warning chime as my heart rate climbs.

“He requested it on your behalf as well.”

I squeeze my good eye shut and hold still. The only sound that escapes from me is a high pitched keen of agony. Whether that is emotional or purely physical pain is up for debate.

Something colder than ice floods my arm through the IV tube. It numbs my limb thoroughly and I find that I can no longer feel the weight of the tablet on my hand. The sensation spreads slowly and my skin chills. My heart rate decreases and I feel the stupor of frigid weather invade my mind.

For a moment I wonder if this is how I die.

And then a heating pad flicks to life across my chest. The warmth brings with it the exquisite sensation of relief from the horrendous pain.

“Your prince has granted his request for asylum. It is possible that he will grant your request as well.”

Your prince? Not our prince? I am concerned anew.

“See that you do not cause additional trouble for him.”

The painkillers have side effects. And the first among those is fatigue. I slip out of consciousness once more.