The journey back, under a night sky speckled with stars, was quieter but electrified by the conversation they had had. The night air, cooler, carried the smell of damp earth, nocturnal vegetation, and the constant song of insects. The lanterns of the carts swayed, casting dancing shadows on the path.

  Inside the cart, Tassi broke the silence, her voice a whisper in the dark.

  "Thank you, Carlos. Truly. For trusting me to explain. And for... for doing what you did. Giving away the knowledge. I didn't expect that."

  "Neither did I expect to make that decision," he admitted, observing the silhouettes of the trees against the starry sky. "But I thought: what's the point of winning the battle against hunger only within our borders, if the world outside continues to die from it? And if one day our republic falls... at least let that idea survive." He paused. "Besides, we won't need that agricultural trump card for negotiating. We need it to grow, to become strong on our own."

  Specter, who had until then maintained his habitual silence, spoke, his grave voice cutting through the night like a blade.

  "President, with all due respect, I think it was a tactical mistake to accept that agreement so easily. Even as a facade. It gives them a sense of victory, of control." He paused, choosing his words. "And taking White Sand... in weeks or months... is a mad endeavor. The path is long, full of fortified villages, estates with hired guns. The governor will be alerted at the first movement. It will be a long siege, a bloodbath, if we succeed."

  Carlos nodded, his serious face intermittently illuminated by the flickering lantern light.

  "You're right. It's a risky plan. Extremely high risk. That's why... I have a Plan B."

  "Plan B?" asked Tassi, leaning forward, her face appearing and disappearing in the shadows.

  Carlos said nothing. He merely pointed with his chin back to the east, where a faint glow on the horizon marked the location of the Holy City of Santa Maria, its night lights a tempting glimmer.

  "A port city..." murmured Specter, understanding dawning with a cold blow that seemed to lower the temperature around him. "Already connected to the Mata da On?a by trails our scouts know... and soon by a concrete road wide enough to march an army."

  "Exactly," confirmed Carlos, his voice impassive, his eyes fixed on that distant light. "Defenses known. Layout studied through trade. A ruler... understanding. It would be quick. Almost clean."

  Tassi rose from her seat, the cart swaying with the abrupt movement.

  "You're going to betray the Popess?! Our greatest—our only—true ally out there?!"

  "You'll turn the Catholic Church into our mortal enemy!" Specter completed, his voice rarely so emotional, almost a hiss. "They are not like the Portuguese, Carlos! They annihilate heresies. They have divine warriors that make ours look like children playing. They have resources that cross continents. They have an authority that makes kings tremble. It's suicide!"

  "I won't betray Paula," interrupted Carlos, his voice sharp and low, but laden with an iron determination that silenced them both. "I will warn her weeks in advance. In fact, that's why I mentioned that to her, so she could start thinking about it. I will also give time for her and her loyal followers, her books, her instruments, to evacuate to a safe place. I will leave the city intact for her." He paused, gauging the impact of his next words. "I think what she wants most in life is not a title or a city, but a laboratory. A quiet place, far from the suffocating politics of Alba, where she can research in peace. I can give that to her. Somewhere else."

  He turned to face the darkness ahead, as if seeing the ships that did not yet exist.

  "As for becoming enemies of the Church... yes, they have power. Divine warriors. Ships. Gold. But those warriors would have to cross the Atlantic Ocean. They would have to land on a coast that we would control. And I think ships equipped with soul cannons—steel cannons that we designed and built—should be a rather... convincing deterrent. The pope may have divine authority, but even a cardinal sinks if his ship is hit below the waterline."

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "But..." Tassi and Specter began together, the protest sprouting from fear and loyalty.

  "This is just Plan B," Carlos finalized, his voice taking on a tone of unshakable resolution, the voice of the man who crossed worlds and would not fear burning bridges in this one. "Plan A is still to take White Sand. Concentrate our forces, our technology, our surprise, in a quick and decisive strike. And I don't think that's impossible. We have weapons they can't even conceive of. We have a discipline that colonial militias don't know."

  "We have a motive—survival—that turns ordinary men into heroes," Carlos completed, clenching his fist on his knee. "And we have something that neither Orsini, nor the governor, nor the pope himself can buy: the certainty that we have nowhere to retreat to."

  The silence that followed was different. It was no longer shock, but absorption. The brutal weight of Carlos's logic settled over them like the night itself.

  Tassi leaned back on the rough wooden bench, her eyes lost in the darkness that swallowed the path behind them. We have nowhere to retreat to, echoed in her mind. It was true. The quilombo was no longer a hiding place. It was a declared nation. A raised flag. And flags attract cannons.

  "And Paula?" asked Tassi, her voice more restrained now. "Do you really think she will stay on our side, after... after everything you implied? By practically saying her Church is a cancer?"

  Carlos let out a long sigh, which mingled with the creak of the wheels.

  "I don't expect her to stay on our side. I expect her to stay on the side of the survival of her work. On the side of the possibility of continuing her research without a cardinal breathing down her neck." He looked at her. "Today, I gave her a choice between two futures. In one, she is a disposable tool of Alba. In the other... she is the founder of a new science. Scientists, deep down, are builders. And I offered her the chance to build something that will outlive her, instead of just serving something that will consume her."

  Specter spoke again, his tone now more analytical, that of a strategist processing variables.

  "So the warning you gave her... wasn't about our military plans. It was a test. To see if she prioritizes the institution... or the work."

  "Exactly," confirmed Carlos, a slight smile of approval touching his lips. "If she runs to Orsini tomorrow, we'll know that, deep down, she is just another pawn on the church's board. But if she stays quiet, if she thinks, if she starts questioning... then we have a true ally. Not out of loyalty to us, but out of loyalty to the pursuit of knowledge itself."

  The cart passed over a deeper ditch, throwing everyone to the side. The jolt seemed to shake the reasoning.

  "And if she fails your test?" insisted Tassi, the pragmatist. "If she denounces our plans for White Sand?"

  "Then we accelerate the schedule," replied Carlos without hesitation. "And Plan B stops being a contingency. It becomes the order of the day. Because if she betrays us, it means the Holy City has become an enemy base in our rear. And that... is unacceptable."

  The coldness of the declaration hung in the air. It wasn't cruelty. It was the stripped-down arithmetic of war. The cart continued on its way, each sway seeming to take them deeper into uncertainty, further from the innocence the quilombo might still have held.

  Specter nodded slowly, finally seeming convinced—or at least, resigned to the president's inexorable logic.

  "So we monitor. The messengers. The carrier pigeons. The travelers leaving Santa Maria. Any sign that our 'agreement' with Orsini has been communicated to someone who could act against us."

  "That," said Carlos. "And we prepare. For both scenarios. For the battle at White Sand... and for the possibility of having to turn our weapons east, towards the city that welcomed us today with cautious smiles."

  The rest of the journey passed in thoughtful silence. The stars turned slowly above, indifferent witnesses to the plans of men and women vying for a piece of a vast world. Carlos looked back one last time. The glow of Santa Maria had already disappeared behind the hills and the curtain of night.

  He had not lied to Paula. He had offered a choice. But he also had not told the whole truth. Because the deepest truth was this: in the struggle for the survival of his dream—the Republic, a place where people like him, like Tassi, like all who had been discarded could breathe free—all cities, holy or not, were pawns. And he, Carlos, the man from another world, was learning to play the most dangerous game of all: the game of thrones, altars, and cannons.

  The forest welcomed them back, its familiar smells of damp earth, rotting leaves, and precarious freedom enveloping the convoy. They were returning home. But now they carried with them an extra secret, a dark plan, and the fragile hope that a scientist Popess, in her tower of knowledge, would choose to build the future instead of preserving the past.

  The fate of the Republic, Carlos realized as he looked at the first huts of the mocambo emerging in the darkness, would not be decided only on the battlefields. It would also be decided in the silent corridors of a cathedral, in the conflicted heart of a woman divided between faith and reason, between loyalty and freedom.

  The game had only just begun.