Deephive had always been a strange direction for space ants to settle. Ants had learned to dig down for rocks. Without the sun to drive the chemical processes in their greenhouses, space ant ecology lacked. Natural airflow tentatively transferred gasses with upper regions, but that airflow was too small. There was free oxygen embedded in the ice, but it was too diffuse. Aside from the occasional rock, there was only ice and water, or poisons down below.

But then their workers tracked in chemosynthetic bacteria into the deep farms, and their gardens adapted. Then a new queen tried to form a colony down there.

Through the natural tug of their moon with its gas giant, the ice shell, the water, and the iron core all flexed and bent. Radiation from their sun and gas giant hit Overwater’s ice, and the silent the energies separated water into oxygen and hydrogen. The oxygen combined, the hydrogen floated off, then oxygenated layers of ice were slowly pushed down. Bacteria on the walls ate through the ice, releasing the oxygen.

The water in the interstitial lakes was far from sterile. Space Ants, ever the diggers and explorers, submerged, inflated, and walked on the ceilings of the lakes. There, they found a thin harvest of bacterial flakes; microorganisms, which adapted over a billion orbits, had exploited the melt-refreeze-remelt process. Now they were added to the space ant menagerie, and that was how the ecology of Deephive took root.

But one day, Deephive disappeared.

Runno, the drone, Primordina, and the squad had reached the bottom of the tunnel shaft. Below them, they only felt hard ice.

Several warriors chirped their legs, but the sound frequency did little to penetrate the wall.

Runno chewed at the sides of the tunnel bottom. After a few moments, he gave up. There was no sign the tunnel was anything other than a dead end.

Where Deephive? Primordina asked.

Unknown. He replied. He then went up and around the walls, looking for any scent.

Where Deephive? She asked again.

Farther. Was all he could say.

Drones frequently went from one colony to another, but down here they were confined to walking instead of jumping or soaring. He had made the round trip twice, so there and back four times. Legions of workers had helped keep the shifting tunnels open. But they had all disappeared. The ice sheered the shaft from the other end.

Runno put his head in contact with the ice and kicked the wall.

He backed up and told Primordina to do the same.

She passed the message back up.

One, two, three, kick!

The tiny reverberations went through the ice, and although space ants are not great at hearing, minuscule inner hairs amplified the vibrations for their nervous system.

Runno climbed back up. He repositioned his head along the wall about two bodylengths up. Then he kicked the wall again. Others began to follow.

Here. He commanded. Chew. His antenna tapped out to Primordina.

She wondered if he meant her. She couldn’t remember the last time in her royal chamber she had to use her mandibles. Sure, her jaws had to dispatch the odd disloyal ant now and then, that was the danger of hybridization with other ant species, but she was not a digger. Chew. Primordina passed on the command back to the soldiers behind her.

They were more than eager to follow orders and opened up the tunnel. A blast of air hit them. It had an acrid, almost toxic smell and feel to it. Primordina held her breath.

The hiss of air lessened, and the entrance became wide enough for Runno to descend. Down the tunnel, she heard him tap on the walls and the ghostly muffled echoes filled the space behind him.

The soldiers chewed until the opening was wide enough for her to fit.

The first trio of soldiers went through before Primordina tried to crawl in, but the entrance needed adjustment. Primordina finally used her mandibles to chew and crush the ice, and finally entered.

The tunnel was wide enough for only one soldier at a time, positively claustrophobic to the old queen used to a spacious royal chamber.

They continued down until the first soldier bumped into Runno. He was waiting.

The halt continued until the ant behind her bumped into Primordina’s gastor. She felt its antenna tap a command like ‘move’, which was not something she could comply with.

Ready? The words were passed up the line and Yes returned down.

Primordina followed the butt in front of her for ages until the tunnel widened. The walls also became less rough, becoming more smooth for each length they descended. The line of ants moved slower to be more surefooted. Upside down, they walked one length out for every length down.

The air was almost sticky with moisture. It felt heavier, like more pressure, and looked warmer, so it held more moisture.

The soldiers stopped chirruping their legs as the chamber felt too large to hear anything from the far wall. In their tight tunnels and small chambers of their natural hives, or the airless space in orbits, they never had the selective pressure to hear long distances, sensing mostly taps and seismic thumps. It felt like outer space again.

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Eventually, the platoon came to a nearly flat ceiling. With six legs, the ants were perfectly fine to walk upside down, but their claws still needed something to hook into. But this was perfectly smooth. Nothing here was made by six legs. Even if one ignored the titanic size of the chamber, the surface lacked all the rough chewing of ants.

They stopped as Runno felt around the ice.

Chirrup. They all heard from someone behind. Then a stressed chirrup, chirrup! The sound descended—a soldier had slipped.

A tap came from behind. Primordina tried to turn around. Fallen, a soldier, communicated with her. Primordina crawled to Runno. She tapped her antenna on him, trying to get his attention. There was an anxiety in his greeting. She communicated the other message and asked. How far? She inquired.

Here. Was all he said. His step counting method had long since failed him, but he could conclude nothing else. They should have reached Deephive by now. All that was around them was this huge, slick-walled chamber. The fallen soldier’s descending chirrups reinforced the scale.

The air continued to be breathable, but strange gusts pushed the hairs on their bodies.

Primordina looked out into the black. Wafts of air glowed faintly in infrared, but the accuracy of their vision was more contrast dependent, and she could not be sure. Queens could see the temperature of their eggs, but they were mostly splotches. She imagined sparks of something in ultraviolet, but it was weakly interacting neutrinos which finally hit.

One sense she was certain of was the faint quakes of ice. Most ice sounds did not attract space ant attention, but these were bigger. Distant bass sounds followed by rolling beats that grew louder. They had always been six-sure-footed, and their tiny minds did not dwell on the danger.

The soldiers grew restless and searched their immediate vicinity, but there was nothing. They were walking forty-five degrees upside-down with blank empty blackness on one side, and solid cold blackness on the other.

Runno kicked the ice and listened to the reply, hoping to discover a missing tunnel or any other sign of ants. His kick was weak, since he needed five claws firmly on the ice wall to even stay where he was.

Follow. He said.

Primordina passed the message on behind, and the platoon continued downslope.

She turned back around and followed the scent of Runno. Until the scent was no more. It was like he disappeared into thin air. She backed up for one moment, but realized she could not turn around and hung precariously on the side wall, unable to even place a foot.

Runno? Her antenna wiggled in the thin air.

There was another quake. Closer and they felt shaking. A soldier behind her fell onto her, then another, until Primordina lost her footing and fell into the darkness.

She felt the thick air rush around her, but the low gravity and air resistance kept her terminal velocity low. She crashed into a soldier, and writhed and twisted, trying to hold on, but they could not clutch each other. After the terror left her body, falling felt strangely fun. She floated down for many moments, unable to hear the sounds and vibrations of anything but air, and unable to see anything but black.

Boom. the ground rose up and hit her. She somersaulted, twisted, and bounced down a steep slope. Her claws squelched on the ice, trying to stop her. The sounds of the void changed suddenly. Echoes now returned instead of nothing. A tunnel! she thought and was comforted. Space Queens are more agoraphobic and she welcomed the return of walls, but these were still too smooth and she continued to slide. Finally, the tunnel bent up, and Primordina was dunked to a stop back-first into ice water.

The cold pierced her like a stinger. Her body tried to breathe, but water entered her spiracles. She dragged herself out of the water and coughed to clear her breathing tubes. She placed her feet out on each side of the wall and took stock of the situation. There were no sounds, not even the distant quakes. She groomed herself to get rid of the water.

Slowly, she shimmied up the slick tunnel. It took much effort, more than the old queen—possibly any queen—had exerted in her life. It had also never occurred to her that the uphill climb back to Overwater might be strenuous. At the very least, it gave her a purpose.

Sounds changed as she ascended. She heard the opening above. Finally! Hope filled her body as she pulled herself up. The slick floor was wavy enough to stand still. She listened to the surrounding blackness.

She also noticed the faint color of infrared out ahead of her—too indefinite to be an ant. It waved and wafted with ambiguity. Was she seeing things? Did she hit her head, or was this the ghosts of Deephive? Slowly, with great caution, she continued forward. The near-red intensified and confirmed she was not imagining things.

Chirrup. She turned her head to the left, then tried to rub her legs, but no sound came. She approached the noise and saw the firm heat signature of another ant.

Overwater, a soldier greeted her. This was not a survivor of Deephive, but one of her squad.

Overwater’s Queen, Primordina replied. Confused questions of where they were passed between, but neither could answer.

Chirrup. The warrior signaled again, and another sounded back. A distant chirrup joined the chorus.

Primordina went over to the ghostly infrared. It was not warm, but obvious enough. She looked down that shaft. It glowed more, but never hot, nor with increased definition.

Nine soldiers had solidified into a troop. They unified around her.

Where? It asked.

Down. She said, more like a question than a suggestion, but it seemed to be the only solution. She looked over at the ants, but did not find Runno.

The warmer shaft was an easier descent, as it was a large ramp with switchbacks. It was strangely ant-like in its design, but far too large for an ant tunnel.

Frequently, a soldier would sound off with a chirrup to sense the surroundings and attracted a tenth soldier. The path was becoming more nest-like. They were indeed in the widened tunnels and chambers of Deephive.

At an intersection, one soldier stumbled over something dead.

Primordina ran her antenna over the corpse. It seemed like an ant. There were legs and other recognizable parts, but the body segments seemed to have exploded. Plates of exoskeleton were blown open from inside as if the organs had become too large and violently tried to escape on their own accord. It seemed like a big-headed ant, though they could not be certain which piece was the head. She put her mouthparts on the body. It had a strange sulfuric taste.

Follow, she commanded, the troop. In a side chamber, they found more bodies. Tools and supplies surrounded the dead, which appeared to have dropped them where they stood.

The tunnel widened into a colossal chamber. Ahead, a faint glow of warmer water appeared. They walked up to an alien shore. Did Deephive have a lake? Perhaps tectonic movements had caused a catastrophic leak and everyant had been flushed only for pockets of gas to backfill the voids.

Chirrup, a soldier signaled. It echoed off the still water and the chamber’s ceiling.

Then Primordina saw a faint light in the water. It was blue and point-like. Then it flickered off. It was strangely alluring, and she almost walked toward the water, but as a queen is always approached, she reasoned it would come to her if it was of importance.

The lights flickered again, this time closer to the shore. There was a faint ripple before the glow dissipated. A soldier approached the water.

Chirrup! A reply came from the far shore.

Runno? Primordina thought. It was Runno, another soldier or some survivor of Deephive. Two of the soldiers went into the water, either to see if they could raft over this small pond, or were mesmerized by the light.

Churrip! Churrip! Churrip! The alarmed reply came again. Now Primordina could see other lights flickering under the water at the far shore. Hairs stood up on Primordina’s back. It was obvious there was some anxiety in the signals.

It wasn’t a greeting; it was a warning!