Macroscope

He/it played the brush over the fur of her thorax, some electrical interaction making the pelt brighten and fluff out with each pass. Groton let the task continue while he explored his situation internally. There ought to be an explanation somewhere, a mind belonging to this body—

There was. As easily as his intention to search had come, the object was realized.

He was the Drone: consort to the Queen. He was expected to do nothing other than cater to the whims of his mistress. In return, he received respect and the best of all physical things — so long as he retained her favor.

“Fetch a new brush,” she said. She did not explain what objection she had to this one. Why should she? The Drone did not need to know. He needed only to obey.

He was in the hall and swinging toward the supply depot before he could assert himself. Perhaps it was just as well; what could his human mind have done except aggravate an untenable situation?

“One static brush for the Queen,” he snapped at the clerk, his own mandibles clicking as he addressed the inferior. This was the first worker he had seen: an apparently neuter creature, similar in outline to himself but only two-thirds his size.

The worker affected not to hear him, going about its ruminating without a pause. This was unprecedented contempt — yet there was nothing he could do. He was a Drone going out of favor, and the workers knew it. Soon he would be cast off entirely, and the neuters would have the sadistic pleasure of ignoring him while he starved to death. He was unable to provide for himself, if the workers did not make food available; he and the Queen were royalty, requiring service for life. His body tensed in hopeless fury.

Groton-human viewed the situation more dispassionately. He saw that it was conditioning, not physical capability, that made the Drone dependent. He did not appreciate the insult either, but realized that there was a more practical danger. If he delayed unduly in fulfilling this mission, the Queen’s short temper would vent itself upon him immediately — as this insolent worker hoped. The creature was maliciously hastening his demise.

It had not been like this a year ago, he remembered with the Drone’s mind. Then, flush with the Queen’s favor, he had been an object of virtual worship. The neuters had gone out of their way to do him little favors. It had seemed that he had complete control of the situation.

Fond illusion! He saw himself now as the vehicle he was, to be used by both Queen and workers, possessing no personal value to either apart from convenience. An ambulatory reservoir of egg-fertilizer. He had known it would inevitably come to this, for all Queens were fickle — but, dronelike, he had refused to accept it for himself.

Groton did not consider himself to be a man of violence, but the emotion of the despised being that was the Drone affected the more analytical human mind, and brought forth an atypical response. Atypical for both beings. The Drone was a creature of emotion, as befitted the royal consort; Groton was a man of action. The combination converted impotency to potency, perhaps in more than figurative terms.

He swung the two side arms over the counter and caught the worker by the shoulders. He lifted, and the light creature dangled in the air.

Groton held it there for a moment, letting it feel the great physical strength of the Drone — a strength that could crush it easily. No words were necessary. The worker’s cud drooled from its mouth in its astonishment and shock. The Drone had done the unthinkable: it had acted for itself. It would hardly be more astonishing for a neuter to impregnate the Queen.

He set it down, and in a moment he had the brush and was returning to his mistress. It would be a long time before that worker allowed its courtesy to slip again — and the message would spread.

Expectations of this drone’s downfall were premature.

Unfortunately, setting back one predacious worker did not alter the fundamental situation. The Queen was tiring of him, and unless he acted to preserve himself in her esteem, his fate was assured. A simple demonstration of muscle was sufficient to faze a simple worker — but not the Queen.

The Drone body and mind quivered with reaction and fear. The act it had just participated in was plainly beyond its nature, and it did not yet realize what agency was responsible. Once possessed of a fine intellect, it had largely succumbed to apathy, protecting itself from injury by ignoring it. Even the momentary surges of emotion were generally well disciplined, externally.

Groton calmed it, discovering that it reacted as subserviently to his control as to that of the Queen. But now it knew — and he felt its mixed elation and alarm.

If he had to occupy another creature’s body, this one had been an obvious choice. The Drone had a good physique, a position of enormous potential influence — and very little genuine will-power. Yet that did not explain why he, Harold Groton, had been selected to enter this picture. How had his quest for information about the nature of galactic civilization been diverted into such a cha

Probably some answers were in the Drone’s mind — but it would be a tedious chore digging them out and organizing the information for his own comprehension. There was a hundred times the store of facts he needed — relevant only to the Drone’s life, not his own.

The Queen glanced at him with a single eye to hint at her displeasure at his slight tardiness, but did not make an issue of it. He had performed within tolerance — this time.

The communication screen came alive before he finished the grooming. “Mistress,” the pictured neuter said respectfully, keeping its third eye lidded in respect for royalty.

“Crisis already?” the Queen demanded.

“A Felk battlemoon has materialized four twis distant.”

Groton felt the reaction of his host. A twi was a unit of spatial measurement equivalent to about eighty-five light-seconds. The Felks — enemies — were within six light-minutes.

“So soon! So close!” the Queen exclaimed angrily. “How did they know?”

But she did not wait for an answer. Obviously there had been a leak, and the Felks had followed this expedition in. They could not have traced it in space so rapidly, since this would require years by lightspeed observation.

The Queen was already traveling down the hall at a pace that pressed even the trailing Drone hard. She was a magnificent specimen of life, large and sleek and strong, one who had been not merely born to command, but evolved for it.

The supervisory workers were already assembled in the royal hall. “Show me your deployment,” the Queen snapped, having no need of query or courtesy.

A sphere of light appeared, bright dots within it. A map of space, Groton realized, that covered a volume half a light-hour in diameter. A sun, several planets, and two free moons showed within it: the Queen’s battlemoon and the Felks’.

A sun? No, the Drone memory corrected him: that was merely the identifier for their point of focus, the scheduled location of the station. There was no sun within two light-years.

The magnification increased in response to an imperative gesture by the Queen, and the pattern of ships appeared. The Queen’s moon was englobed by dreadnoughts — but already similar armor was emerging from the enemy moon.

“What kind of disposition is that?” the Queen demanded. “They will penetrate it in hours.”

“Our tactician was lost in the last engagement,” the leading officer-worker reminded her carefully. “We did not pause to pick up a replacement.”

“Naturally not. I would not tolerate an alien in my hive. Where is the next tactician-egg? Hasn’t it been hatched yet?”

Almost, the Queen reminded Groton of someone. Would her next expostulation be against the need to take care of every detail herself?