Serpent's Reach

She checked the gun, clipped it again to her belt beneath her cloak. “Majat hibernate in flight,” she told him. “They shed when they wake. The skin’s still soft. Instinct—inevitably drives them for daylight when they’ve shed; the gravitational arrangement on this ship, you see, the upper decks…no attack, just natural behaviour. Best just to let it wander. It’s slightly deaf in this state; the auditory palps are soft…eyes none too keen either. Not to be trifled with. I’m going out to see to it. You can stay here if you like. Not many folk care to be around them.”

“Do you want me to come?”

It was not enthusiasm, but willingness. She detected no panic, and nodded. “If you’ll make no move without advice. The hazard is minor.”

“You and the majat—are together?”

“A hazard of my company. I warned you. Their vicinity affects some people. I hope you’re immune.”

She opened the door and went out into the corridor, where the lights were still red.

Jim followed before the door shut. “Lock it,” she said, pleased that he had come. “Always lock things behind me.”

The sweat of fear was already glistening on his face, but he punched the lock into operation and stayed with her as she headed down the corridor.

iii

Corridor 50 was next the lifts and the emergency shafts. Raen reckoned well enough how a blind majat could have arrived on fifth level: tu

And it was there, huddled against a section-door at the farther end of the corridor, a tall hulk of folded limbs and fantastical chitinous protuberances. It glistened in the red light, slick with new skin, bewildered by the barriers that had closed before it.

“Quite blind to most of its surroundings,” she said to Jim, and the majat’s palps were not all that soft. It caught sound and turned, mandibles moving in great agitation. It was a Warrior, hatchling-naked and weaponless.

“Stand here by the corner,” Raen said to Jim. “Step round it if it turns ugly. Never try a long run: no human can outrace a Warrior. Its vision, you see, is entirely thermal, and dependent on contrasts of heat; put something cold and solid between yourself and it, and it’s lost you. It doesn’t see this corridor in anything like our vision: it sees us, maybe…or places where metal is warmed by underlying machinery, or by the touch of a band. Never touch a wall or a surface with your bare skin if you’re trying to elude one. And they not only detect scent: they read it.”

The auditory palps still moved, perceiving sound, but at this range, perhaps, unable to distinguish it. Seated, it suddenly heaved itself up on two leathery legs, towering against the overhead. It boomed a warning note.

Raen walked forward slowly, flung back her cloak, held up both her hands, backs outward.

Air sucked in, an audible gust.

“Kontrin,” it said in deep harmonies. “Blue-hive Kontrin.”

“Blue-hive Warrior.” She spoke distinctly, a little loudly, for its sake.

“Yes,” it sighed, blowing air from its chambers. “Yess.” Auditory palps swept decisively forward, like a human relaxing to listen. It lowered its erect body, forelimbs tucked, the whole eloquent of vast relief, trust. There was pathos in the action, sense-deprived as the Warrior was. Something welled up in her, a feeling she had pursued from world to world and not captured until now.

“I knew that a blue had taken this ship;” she said. “I came.”

It started forward in evident intent to touch, stopped abruptly. Air pulsed in and out, thumping with the force of its expulsion. The sound became words. “Other. Other. Other.”

She realised the fix of its dimmed vision and looked back, where Jim waited by the corner.

“Only an azi, Warrior. Mine, my-hive. Don’t be concerned for it.”

It hesitated, then stalked up to her, bowed itself, seeking touch. She lifted both her hands to its scent-patches. It absorbed this. Then it bowed further, and in a gesture very like a human kiss, opened its mandibles wide and touched the false chelae to her lips. The venomed spike was very close, the jaws gaping on either side. The wrong taste would snap them shut on reflex, and unlike another Warrior, she had no chitinous defense but the sleeve-armour. Yet the taste was sweet; it gently received taste from her.

“No resolution,” it said. “From? From?”

“Cerdin,” she said. “Once.”

“Queen.” The analysis proceeded in its body, and it drew back, mandibles clashing in distress. “I taste familiarity. I taste danger.”

“I am Raen a Sul. Raen a Sul hant Meth-maren.”

It went rigid. Even the mandibles ceased to move. A Warrior alone, it comprehended only Warrior-memories whatever the complexities its body night carry for others to read.

“Danger,” it concluded helplessly. Auditory pales swung forward and back. “Recently waked.” It gave warning of its own disorganisation, still trusting, but it retreated. The mandibles began to work again in visible distress.

“Warrior, you have reached Istra. Is this not the place for which blue-hive intended you?”

“Yesss.” It scuttled farther back from her, into the corner next the door. “Forbidden. Forbidden. Forbidden.”

She stayed where she was. Warriors were often laconic and disjointed in conversation, but this one seemed mortally confused. It crouched down, limbs tucked; and cornered, it might spring at the least advance. “Warrior,” she said, “I have helped you. If I were not aboard, this ship might have been—stopped. An accident might have happened to you-unit in your sleep. This was not the case. Before you were hatched, I was in blue-hive Cerdin, within the hive. You are Kalind blue, but is there no memory in Kalind, of Meth-marens? Before you left Cerdin, you knew us, Meth-maren-hive, hive-friends. There was a hill, a lake by a place called Kethiuy. We spoke—for all human hives.”

“Warrior,” it reminded her; it could not be expected to Remember. But the auditory pains were strained forward, and the mandibles worked rapidly. “Meth-maren hive. Meth-maren. Meth-maren. Kethiuy. Hive-friends. First-humans, Meth-marens. Yessss. Warrior-memory holds Meth-marens.”

“Yes,” she said. She held out her hands, offering touch, should it accept. There was no queen to advise Warrior., no Drones to Remember for it: she had it snared, almost, almost, and tried not to betray the anxiety in her. It had no means to know how other blues had eluded bar. It was going to Istra, as blues had attempted other worlds; but this one, this sending would get through. Shesaw to it, though blue-hive elsewhere had fleet her and met disaster, had voyaged and never wakened, or perished in ambush. This one lived, at the one world where she had a chance of protecting it.

As the one world where there was no one of the Family to stop her or forbid her access to the hives.

“Warrior. You were sent to Istra, True?”

“True.”

“Our purposes coincide, it may be. Tell me. Why have you come here? What message do you carry?”

It held its silence, thinking, perhaps. It was a new generation, this Warrior; eighteen years was the time of a new generation for its kind…all across the Reach, a new generation of blue-hive, quiet within its separate hills—blues withdrawn, while greens came to the labs managed by Thons, performed as always, abided by the Pact under Thon direction.

Until last year.

“Why have you come?” Raen asked.

It eased forward again, wary. The fix of her head was not toward her, but beyond. It turned the head then, rotating it on its circular joints. “Azi. Meth-maren azi.”

It wanted touch. Majat called it Grouping, the need to be emotionally sure of others. Jim remained where she had left him, red-dyed in the light. “My azi,” Raen confirmed, her heart beating rapidly. “Jim. Jim, come to me, slowly.”

He could break and run. She stood in Warrior’s way, and perhaps, only perhaps she could restrain Warrior from the kill if Jim set him off. But Jim left his corner and came, stopped at yet a little distance, as if suddenly paralysed. Warrior shifted forward, the matter of three strides that Raen could not match, and leaned over him.