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this up. To keep your scientists and leaders in the dark while I saturated your water with certain perception-altering agents. And the mind twister…first, I had to steal the basic technology from the Mercurials. Then I had to adapt it to Terran atmospheric conditions. I practically had to reinvent the science from scratch, but I didn’t know that would be necessary until after I’d already been put on Mercurial official enemy lists. I tried apologizing for the misunderstanding, but they didn’t want to hear it.”
    The colonel said, “I don’t understand.”
    “No, of course you don’t. You’re a soldier. You shoot things, and I’m sure you’re very good at your job. Unfortunately, my choice of invasion didn’t give you anything to shoot at. And I apologize for that. I considered even giving you a little bit of a war. Just something to make you feel as if you had a chance. But that would’ve been a farce, a silly little dance. In the end, we’d still end up here.”
    “Are you saying you’ve brainwashed us?”
    “In a manner of speaking. I actually used a multipronged approach. Very technical. You’d find the details uninteresting. Mind twisters secretly built into various innocuous buildings, seeding the global water supply with rapidly replicating microbes with aggression-suppressing qualities, some subliminal messaging here, a few world leaders replaced with robotic duplicates there. And some other things I’d rather not get into right now.”
    “Our president’s a robot?”
    “Yours? No. Though most of your legislative branch is. And the mayors of Scranton and Sheboygan. Don’t ask why I needed Scranton and Sheboygan. It’s complicated. Still, they’re better off than Portugal. I had to place the entire population in stasis. The whole country is just one big holographic projection at this point.”
    “That’s impossible.”
    “Have you recently touched any Portuguese national?” I asked. “Not in the last fifteen years, I can assure you.”
    “We’d notice.”
    “If you did, that’d be some substandard mental reprogramming. Let’s not even call it brainwashing. Let’s call it, oh I don’t know, something less aggressive. We’ll figure it out later.”
    “I’m sure you’ll come up with something great,” he replied with a smile.
    “You’re too kind. But returning to the brainwashing thing, are you absolutely positive you’d know?”
    “Yes. I’m positive.” But a moment later, he wasn’t so certain. “What do you think?”
    “I think it’s nothing to trouble yourself about.”
    “You’re probably right.”
    “Colonel, could you have someone contact the U.N. and tell them I’ll be along shortly. I’d appreciate it if you had them prepare some kind of coronation ceremony. Nothing too fancy. I don’t want to make a fuss.”
    He saluted. This time, there was no hesitation. “Yes, sir.”
    “Oh, and have them throw up some banners. Something pithy.” I spread my hands in the air and gazed at an imaginary slogan. “‘ Welcome Emperor Mollusk, Warlord of Terra.’ Or is that too much?”
    “No, it’s perfect.”
    I tapped my dome. “Seems too much. Well, we can always hammer out the details later.” I turned the colonel back toward his troops, boarded the saucer, and waved to the Terran forces gathered around me. Smiling, they waved back. The colonel had the biggest grin of all.

4
    The Atlantese sent a craft to pick up their soldiers. They offered to act as an escort (for a nominal surcharge), but I didn’t need one.
    Zala’s guard, who had arrived too late to do any good against the Atlantese assault, insisted on coming along as backup. As long as I got to take my own saucer, I decided not to argue. Someone was out to kill me, and while I’d never been one to hide behind bodyguards, I didn’t see the harm.
    My craft was mostly cargo bay and weapon systems. The cockpit didn’t even have a chair because, for all practical purposes, I was either sitting in an