Meae awoke from her birth-trance to find a hatch-mother standing nearby, washing her hands in a basin. When the hatch-mother saw she was awake, she smiled reassuringly and reached with a left arm for the large towel hanging by the wall.

"Congratulations, young-mother. Two eggs, though one did turn out runt. Still, for your first time, two could have been difficult. You handled it very well."

Meae smiled in response, leaning back on her pillow with exhausted relief. "Thank you, elder-mother," she said weakly. However well her elder claimed she was, Meae felt more tired then she had ever felt before. Being a mother seemed a lot more tiring then tending the orchards.

The hatch-mother gestured with one of her four hands at where Meae's two eggs lay in their special padded tray. Indeed, one did look smaller and rather wrinkled compared to its twin, and Meae felt a little stab of shame for producing it.

"What happens now?" she asked, looking back at the hatch-mother.

"We can, of course, take your egg to the hatch nursery, and take care of it for you until maturity. However, this is your first, and you may always choose to take the egg home and tend it yourself. Young-mothers always seem to enjoy raising their first daughter on their own, before the process becomes tedious. But you are under no obligation to do so - it is simply an option."

Meae immediately knew she wanted to take her little daughter-to-be home. Hatchlets were so adorable, and she hardly ever had reason to be near them. Then she hesitated, looking again at the shameful runty egg.

"And this one, it's truly a dead-egg?"

The hatch-mother shrugged. "No, not dead, just runt. It may and probably would hatch, but the little daughter would be weak and feeble, and the hive cannot support weak daughters."

"But... it could be a daughter," Meae protested. "It might live."

"Even if you did nurse the egg to maturity," the hatch-mother said patiently, "it would then be thrust into our world weaker then others, unable to work and provide, and a mother cannot provide for a daughter after she reaches the age of maturity. And First Mother knows the runt would be no use in child-bearing. It is more merciful to simply burn the egg now, trust me."

A cold feeling settled into Meae's chest. She looked at the eggs for a long, long moment.

"Elder-mother, I want to take home the runt egg."

"No, young-mother, that isn't a wise decision. You will only have to watch the child die later in life when she can no longer keep up with the hive."

"I want to call upon my Mother's Right to keep one of the eggs of my clutch to raise myself, and I choose the runt egg," Meae said firmly. "That is my decision to make, and I have made it."

The hatch-mother sighed deeply, but nodded her head. "It is your right, but I fear you have made a poor decision, young one. The runt egg you shall have. We will let you know when the healthy egg hatches, but you have given up that child for this one." She gestured at the small, wrinkled egg. "I pray to the First Mother you don't end up regretting this, young-mother."

~

Meae returned to her chamber with the runt egg carefully held against her chest. She had longed for this moment ever since her maturity rite, and it hardly mattered to her that it was a small, deformed little thing. She had born two eggs, and she wasn't prepared to let the hatchery tenders throw one of them into the fires.

It was hardly alive yet, but it would be. And that, Meae thought, was more then enough reason.

Her chamber, a simple hole in the walls of a hive grand chamber, had always seemed a little large for herself alone, but now she saw why all living-chambers were made this size. Common mothers only ever had one daughter living with them at a time, and the chamber was just the right size for two to sleep and interact. She laid the egg down on the second bench bed, then dug under the bed for the storage containers she hadn't looked in since she got the chamber years ago.

All the things she would need to raise her egg, save food. Blankets and a pillow, a wash basin, the guide for egg tending and hatchlet raising... all manner of miscellaneous items that would, she knew, be vital to the caring for her little one.

"This will be just perfect," she whispered to the egg, tucking it into the smallest of the blankets and picking up the guide. "Just you wait, little one. I am going to do my very best to raise you up strong and as capable as anyone.

"You'll survive, I know you will."

~ ~

The great orchards lay outside the hive, and stretched for as far as the eye could see. Meae worked alongside her hive-sisters, as she had since she was half-raised, but now every few minutes saw her looking up to eye the distant hive, and worry.

Her little Deim would be at lessons still, under the watchful eye of a teaching-mother, but... the teaching-mothers were not particularly understanding of her little daughter's weaknesses. Nor were the other hatchlet children. And so Meae looked to the hive frequently and thought of her daughter, and her hive-sisters shook their heads at one another in knowing ruefulness.

It's only a matter of time, they whispered. If Meae does have a runt for a daughter... she will learn a mother's sorrow sooner then is good for her.

Not that they knew, or understood. Even those who raised their own daughters in the same cycle as Meae had normal daughters. They thought she should have taken the healthy egg, let the hatch-mothers do what they would with the runt.

Deim, however, had more then proven her worth to Meae, whatever the others whispered. Nothing had given Meae more pleasure then sitting with her daughter on her knee, teaching her letters and numbers, telling her stories. And nothing gave her more pride then when Deim came back from a lesson with her black eyes bright, explaining happily how she had done this activity well, or answered that question for the teaching-mother.

Her little-daughter was waiting for her when she got back home from the orchards, scratching away at a slate with chalk. When she heard Meae she jumped up, ran to grab one of her legs, and dangled on it all the way to their table.

"Mother-mine, today we were learning about hive politics, and the Queen-Mother. Are you going to be a Queen-Mother some day?"

Meae put the rations she had earned from the day's work on the table, then bent to pick Deim up for a hug. She tickled her fingers along Deim's ridged back, making her giggle. "No progress with wings yet, little-daughter? Ah, but you are so curious and bold for a daughter with no wings. No, I have no intention of being a Queen-Mother. They are the mothers of the Hive-Father, and leader to us all. That is not what I want from life."

Deim wiggled excitedly. "Teaching-Mother Iile mentioned the Hive-Father, but she said that was going to be in a later lesson. Who is the Hive-Father, Mother? Is she like the Queen-Mother? A great leader?"

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Meae hmmed, putting her daughter down. She sat down on her bed and thought for a moment. "That's complicated, my dear little daughter. How to explain... the Hive-Father is not a she, firstly. It is... something almost like us, but it cannot move or speak or think like we do. It is very useless, except to help mothers have children like you. It is no leader, but we could not exist without it."

Deim cocked her head. "How do we get a Hive-Father, then? Do we grow it, like we do the orchard trees for food?"

"No, no, an elder-mother can give birth to a Hive-Father like they give birth to us, except that the Hive-Father is born stupid and useless. The hatch-mothers have to be very careful raising it, or it would die because it is incapable of looking after itself."

Deim's eyes flicked to the floor. "Oh. Like me, then?"

"You are not stupid," Meae corrected firmly, picking Deim up again. "Nor are you useless. You are more curious and eager to learn then any other little-daughter I know of, and you have a wonderful imagination."

"But I can't take care of myself," Deim protested. "That's what the others say; that I was born a runt and I won't be big and strong enough by my maturity rite to help the hive."

"That is nonsense. You will help the hive greatly, my dearest. In your own way."

And yet, as Deim brightened and hurried to the table for dinner, Meae's smile faded a little. Whatever she told her little-daughter... Deim was small, she was scrawny, and she was unusual. She didn't fit in with the others, and Meae's hive-sisters and the elder-mothers knew it. They would not be forgiving when Deim was supposed to take her oath as a mature worker and mother-potential of the hive, and was found lacking.

Meae's eyes fell over the scratches of chalk on the slate tablet, a rough picture of the teaching chamber Deim went to. Her determination returned.

Whatever happened, she would not let her precious little-daughter be killed for being weak. Whatever it took, she was determined that Deim should live out a full life... somehow.

~ ~ ~

Meae returned from the birthing-rooms tired and drained, and empty-handed. Another egg, a single one this time but a perfectly healthy one. She had given it over to the hatch-mothers without complaint.

Deim still needed her. She was almost half-raised, and soon she would begin learning to work the orchards. Meae wasn't ready to give her up yet for another egg, not when that healthy egg would live a perfectly normal childhood in the hands of the hatch-mothers.

She reached her chambers and immediately lay down to rest. Someone had brought a bottle of nectar and fruit for dinner, and Meae would be allowed another week of Mother's privileges before she had to go back to the orchards. For now, though, she was too weary to eat or drink anything. She just had to sleep.

She woke up to find Deim at the doorway of their chambers, tears streaming down her angular face. Meae sat up slowly, still a little achy, and motioned her daughter to come give her a hug.

"What is it, my precious little-daughter?" she asked gently, wrapping all four arms around her. "Did someone at lessons say something cruel?"

Deim sniffled, hiccuped. "You c-can't feel anything back there, can you, Mother? My wings still aren't coming it. I'm near halfway to my maturity rite, and my wings still... still haven't started coming in. And Eeja from Group Four is already learning to hover. The others s-say... they say I'm never getting my wings, that I'll be a h-hatchlet forever." She buried her head in Meae's shoulders. "They make fun of me, say I still smell of the hatchery and babies, and that's where I b-belong. Teaching-Mother w-wouldn't stop them! She kept looking at me like... like I was something n-nasty and... and... and useless!" The last words were nearly a wail, and Meae had no response at first. She just hugged Deim closer and tickled her back, like when she was just a hatchlet.

Finally, Deim got her hiccuping under control, and managed, "I... I don't smell like the hatchery, do I, Mother?"

Meae smiled, and took a deep breath.

And smelled the hatchery.

"No, dearest," she said, then gestured at the wash basin under the table. "Wash up, we'll eat, and we'll talk. And I will hug you green and tell you what I saw in the orchard today."

Deim sniffed and nodded, turning to head for the table. Meae eyed her back as she went, looking in vain for the starting signs of young wings.

Nothing.

She took another breath, quietly sniffing the air again. It wasn't her - the smell of a Mother was very different from that of hatchlets and egglets. And yet... as Meae analyzed her daughter's smell, she realized it wasn't quite that of a young one, either. It did remind one of the hatchery, but...

Different.

Not different enough to confuse the other young in her lessons, but different enough that an adult could catch it. Not the Teaching-Mother, surrounded as Deim was by other young. It was truly frustrating, not knowing. She knew this smell, it was practically on the tip of her to--

Realization struck her like a collapsed tunnel.

She looked at Deim with new eyes, terrified eyes.

"By the First Mother's hidden name..." she whispered. "You're not my daughter at all. You're a little Hive-Father."

----------------------------------------

In the office of Branen Saxone - Interstellar Intermediary

"We hardly ever see any of your kind here at the embassy," Bran said smoothly, putting down a bowl of the native fruit in front of the alien at his desk. "Whatever can we do for you, ma'am?"

The Ysetto bug-woman nervously took one of the fruit, keeping her other three hands clasped tightly in front of her. "I wouldn't be here," she said slowly, her strong accent making his familiar language strange. "Except I know... I don't know where else to turn."

"What exactly is wrong? What are you running from?"

"My sisters, my mothers. The hive. I fear my hive."

"Why?"

The young woman fiddled with her fruit for a long moment before replying. "My daughter... no, no. That's not right. My... my..." She trailed off, obviously distressed, fumbling with her words. "M-my... not-daughter. She-- it is a Hive-Father, but not stupid. And I don't know what to do. If it was a normal Hive-Father, the elder-mothers would want me to fight the queen for control of the hive, but I don't want to be queen. And my daugh-- my..."

The poor woman was nearly in tears by now, visibly shaking from pent-up anguish. Bran reached out, concerned, to take one of her twitching grey-blue hands in his own.

"Ma'am, please, calm down. Do you mean your son?"

"S-son?" she asked, taking a long, hiccuping breath. "What is a son?"

"A male offspring," Bran said. "Your society doesn't even have a word for it, I think, but in my language we call our male children 'sons'. They're 'he', not 'it', and there's a whole range of words used to refer to them."

That, alone, seemed to calm her somewhat. To come so far from her hive, to turn to offworlders and aliens for aid, must have been terrifying for her, but now Bran saw something in her expression that suggested she was seeing hope again.

"Sons... son. My... my son."

"That's right. Now, ma'am, I want to help you, but you need to tell me how. Are you wanting to flee this planet with your son?"

"No!" she exclaimed. "Well, not me. Deim. She... I'm sorry, what was that word?"

"He."

"He. He can't stay among the sisters. I was the first to notice, but others will as... as he matures. And he is not like those brainless Hive-Fathers, either. Deim deserves a fate different then locked away forever. It is something I've never seen, or heard of, and it... terrifies me. And I'm its mother!"

"His mother. So you fear the other mothers will kill him if they find out?"

"... I am afraid I do. I distrust my hive-sisters."

Bran squeezed her hand comfortingly. "Don't be afraid, ma'am. I can get your son offworld, and through the embassy you should be able to keep in contact with both of us. Are you sure you wouldn't want to come as well? Any child would be scared of leaving their parent, and I know it's true the other way around as well."

"No, I can't. I promised an oath to the Hive, I cannot break it." She took another deep breath. "When can you take my Deim?"

Bran smiled. "Whenever you want, ma'am."

"I would say farewell, first."

"Right now, you mean?" asked Bran, surprised. This young alien had to be a stronger-willed mother then he suspected.

"Now. I need to return, and if Deim comes with me, the others may discover and turn on..."

"Him?"

"Your language baffles me. They might kill him, if... he returns to the hive." She rose from her chair, putting her unbitten fruit back onto his desk. "Deim is just in the other room. I didn't want he hearing this."

"Take as much time as you need. I have a departure in three days, and until then I can keep him well out of the reach of your hive, even if they become suspicious. Don't worry, he will be well looked after."

She pressed her hands together, four clasped above her heart. "How can I ever repay you?"

Bran shook his head with a smile. "Ma'am, I don't need any payment. You have no one else to turn to on this planet, and I have traveled with stranger folk before. Believe me, I will be just as happy to have your son as a travel mate as you will be to have him off-planet."

"You are most kind. Now... I must go say farewell to my son. And tell he what he really is..."