Serpent's Reach

“Take me to Mother,” she said.

The song grew harsh and ominous. “Queen-threat,” one translated. Others took up the words.

They feared for Mother. That was understandable: she was female, and of females, the hive held only one. They continued to groom her, wishing to feed her, to placate her. She turned from their offerings, distressing them further. She was in pain and her legs trembled under her. The burn on her side had opened in the exertion of rising. They tended this, keeping it moist, and she could not fend them from it. The touches on raw flesh were familiar agony. She had time to reckon what might come of an intruding female, that there would be no welcome: she refused to think it. Mother must control all that happened here. Mother had tolerated her this far.

Then Worker must have returned; she reckoned so from the commotion that had broken out in the direction of the principal draft. “Bring,” a voice fluted, human language, of courtesy. “Mother permits.”

Raen went toward the voice, guided by delicate touches of bristling forelimbs, feeling to one side and the other in the blackness, following the currents of moving air. The tu

The tu

Shefilled the Chamber. Raen hung in the grip of the Workers, awed by the sight of Her, whose presence dominated the hive, whose mind was the centre of the Mind. Shewas the one, if there was any single individual in the hive, with whom they of Kethiuy had so long dealt…the legends of all her childhood, living and surrounded by the seething mass of Her Drones, a scene of fever-dreams, males glittering with the chitinous wealth of the hive.

Air stirred audibly, intaken.

“You are so small,” Mother said. Raen flinched, for the timbre of it made the very walls quiver, and vibrated in Race’s bones.

“You are beautiful,” Raen answered, and felt it. Tears started from her eyes…awe, and pain at once.

It pleased Mother. The auditory palps swept forward, Mother inclined Her great head and sought touch. The chelae drew her close. Mother tasted her team with a brush, of the palps.

“ Salt,” said Mother.

“Yes.”

“You are healed.”

“I will be, soon.”

The huge head rotated a few degrees on its circular jointing. “Scouts report Kethiuy closed to them. This has never happened since the hills have stood. We have killed a red-hive Worker on Kethiuy’s borders. Young queen, majat Workers do not enter an area until Warriors have secured it. We tasted it in traces of greens, of golds, recent in red-hive memory. Of humans. Of life fluids. Greens deal with golds and avoid us. Why?”

Raen shook her head, terrified. Her mind began to function in human terms. Majat were still in the valley, when the Pact dictated restrictions. Red-hive. Ruil’s allies. The whole Family might have risen against Ruil; it had not; it had agreed, and red-hive remained. She forgot the other questions, ignored logic. Reason could not be on her side. “I’ll take Kethiuy back again,” she said, knowing that it was mad. “I’ll get it back.”

“Revenge,” Mother said.

“Yes. Revenge. Yes.”

More air sighed into Mother’s reservoirs. “Since before humans were known, blue-hive has held this hill. Humans came, We majat killed the first. Then we understood. We under. stood stars and machines and humans. One Family at last we permitted, all, all, red-hive, blue, green, gold…one human ship to come among us, one human hive. One ship, which brought the eggs of other humans. We were deceived so. Yet we accepted this. We permit Kontrin-hive to trade and breed and build, instead of all other humans. We permit Kontrin. hive to keep order, and to keep all other humans out. So we have grown, majat hives and Kontrin. We have gained metals, and azi, and consciousness of things invisible; we have enlarged our hives and sent out new queens beneath other suns. Azi work for us with their human eyes and their human hands, and trade gives us food, much food. We can support more numbers than was so in many cycles. We have ridden Kontrin ships to Meron and to Andra and Kalind and Istra, making new extensions of the Mind. We have been pleased in this exchange. We have gained awareness far surpassing times before humans. Your hives have multiplied and prospered, and increased nourishment for ours. But suddenly you fragment yourselves, and now you fragment us. Suddenly there is division. Suddenly there is nest-war among humans; this has been before: we have seen. But now there is nest-war threatened among majat as it has not been since times before humans. We are confused. We reach out to gather the Mind and we have grown too wide; the worlds are too far and the ships are too slow to help us. We do not gain synthesis. We failed to foresee, and now we are blind. Aid me, Kethiuy-hive. Why are these things happening? What will happen now?”

Drones sang, and moved, a tide of life about Mother. The Drone voices shrilled, much of the song too high for human ears; sound drowned words, drowned thought, grated through bone.

“Mother!” Raen cried. “I don’t know. I don’t know. But whatever is going on in the Family, we can stop them, blue-hive could stop them!”

Air sighed. Mother heaved Herself lower, and breathed a bass note that made silence. “Kethiuy-queen, Kethiuy-queen—is it possible that our two species have overbred? What is the proper density of your population, young queen? Have you reached some critical level, which humans did not foresee? Or perhaps the equation for both our species is altered by some complex factors of our association. This should not have happened yet. We reach for synthesis and do not obtain it. Where is human synthesis? Have you the answer?”

“No.” Raen shivered in the battering sound of Mother’s voice, conscious of her own inexperience…of that of all men with majat. She reached in the utmost irreverence and touched the scent-patches below the compound eyes, imprinting herself as her kinsman would do with majat Workers, establishing friendship. Mother suffered this without anger, though the jaws might have closed at any instant, though the Drones were disturbed and disturbance ran through all the others. “Mother, Mother, listen to me. Kethiuy was blue-hive’s friend, we always were, and I need help. They’ve killed—everyone. Everyone but me. They think they’ve won. Ruil-sept has brought red-hive in with them. And do you think that Ruil will ever send them away again, or even that they know how? No, they’re not going away. Ever. Red-hive will always be in Kethiuy, in spur valley, and the Family isn’t going to stop them or they would have done something by now.”

“This seems an accurate estimation.”

“I can take it back. If blue-hive helped me, I could take it back again.”

Mother lifted up Her head, mandibles clashing. While She considered, She brought half a dozen new lives into the world. Workers snatched these up and carried them away. Drones groomed Her, uttering soft, distressed pipings, that shrilled away into higher ranges.