The ivid emissary led them down the hill into the weird cityscape of towering, smooth, funnel-shaped buildings. Some of them were wider at the top and some at the bottom, and once they were among them, it felt like they were underground again because it became impossible to see beyond one or two of the structures. Meanwhile, ivid walked everywhere, always moving with purpose, sometimes carrying things from rocks to plants to glittering gemstones.
Many of the ivid in the city were clothed in shimmering robes like those of the emissary, while others wore nothing but their chitin. Stationed at nearly every building, Victor saw the members of the guardian caste with their metallic carapaces. As they walked, Valla cleared her throat and asked, “Do you have a name?”
“This one does not,” the emissary replied almost immediately.
“A title?” she pressed.
“No, but you may think of this one as a spokesperson or . . .”
“Emissary?” Victor provided, hoping to keep thinking of the strange insectoid as he had been.
“This term seems adequate.” The emissary led them between identical-seeming buildings, walking in the center of the road between the lines of ivid traffic that marched in either direction. None of the insects looked at them, and certainly none spoke. Though they never uttered any words or even sounds, the air was filled with the steady background hum made up of tens of thousands of ivid breathing, clicking their mandibles, and tapping their hard feet against the resin-coated roadways. It was loud enough to make Victor feel like he was in a machine shop. They walked for probably half an hour before the emissary directed them to the oval opening of one of the stone towers.
The arched entryway was large enough for one of the guardians to hunch within it while leaving room for Lesh and Victor to pass through behind their guide. The guardian didn’t even look at them, and it made Victor wonder if the hive’s awareness, the entity talking to them through the emissary, was able to control the insects on an individual level or if the emissary was emitting some kind of pheromone to keep the ivid around them placid.
The inside of the tower was much as Victor had imagined it—smooth walls, no furnishings, and round tunnels leading in every direction. The ivid emissary took them on a winding path, past many identical openings, and finally stopped in a round room with soft, silken cushions lining the far wall. They looked like they were made of the same material as the emissary’s robes. The ivid turned and gestured with one of its four arms at Victor. “Please wait here, companions, while this one takes this individual to see our queen. He will be returned before the sun crosses the sky twice.”
“Two days?” Valla’s voice conveyed her alarm as she looked at Victor.
“The brooding center is quite distant.”
Lesh frowned, looking around at the bare room. “We must stay within this chamber?”
Valla added her objection, “How will we gauge the time? We cannot see the sun!” Victor supposed she had a point—even if she took a clock or watch from her storage devices, they had no idea how long an ivid day was. How long would it take for the sun to “cross the sky?”
“This one can amend this.” The emissary stepped past Valla over to the smooth wall and rested a hand against the stone. Victor felt a violent surge of Energy, pure and potent. Then the stone began to swirl like liquid, receding from the ivid’s touch and forming a smooth, four-foot-wide tunnel that stretched upward for nearly twenty feet until the pale, yellow sky was exposed. “Will the individual companions require sustenance or waste receptacles?”
Victor spoke up on his companions’ behalf, “A room to wash up and a toilet would be nice.” The emissary didn’t respond but touched its hand to the wall again, and Victor felt the familiar surge of potent Energy. A door-sized opening opposite the window appeared, and Victor watched as a tunnel expanded beyond it, rounding a gentle curve. He couldn’t see what transpired after that, but he heard the weird liquid sound of shifting stone and, moments later, the faint trickle of water flowing into some sort of basin.
“Please inspect the accommodations and ensure there is nothing else required.”
“Thank you, Emissary,” Valla said. Then, she took Victor’s hand and tugged him toward the new exit. “Please allow me to speak to my companion privately as we inspect your work.”
The emissary stared at her from its strange, faintly shimmering black eyes and, after a pregnant pause, said, “Privacy is an interesting concept. We will endeavor not to hear your vocalizations.”
“Thank you.” Valla pulled Victor through the opening, and though she didn’t say he couldn’t come, Lesh sighed and sat down on one of the silky cushions. Once they’d rounded the corner, Victor saw that the emissary had created a spacious and practical bathroom. There were three fountains in an oval space—one shaped like a bath, one like a sink, and one obviously meant to serve as a toilet. The bath-like basin steamed faintly, making it clear that the water was warm. Valla sighed, looking around the room. “Whatever ‘memories’ it took from those the hive has slain seem to have provided it with the knowledge for making a restroom.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Valla faced Victor, taking his wrists in her cool fingers, concern digging a furrow between her eyes. “What will you do? Are you really going to give this hive your seed?”
“Can you think of another option? I guess we could ask to leave and try to find another way to help Edeya.”
“What if it wants to . . . copulate with you?”
“With a giant insect?” Victor tried to keep his voice pitched low, but some incredulity entered his tone.
“It created that emissary to speak with us. What if it creates a . . . concubine for you?”
“Um, not happening, Valla.” Victor couldn’t imagine the insect hive mind creating anything he’d be willing to have sex with, but even if he could, it didn’t feel right putting Valla through that. “Look, it’s embarrassing enough trying to imagine giving these insects some of my ‘seed,’ you know.”
“I could offer to come along. To . . . help.” She grinned a little mischievously, and Victor chuckled.
“I’m glad you can find some humor in this.”
Her smile faded, and her eyes narrowed as she said, her tone deadly serious, “You understand what it might mean to give a hive like this your genetic material? It’s evident that these ivid have gone through some massive changes since Erd Van last sent explorers here. What might they do with a sample of your Quinametzin heritage?”
“I don’t know. It seems kind of far-fetched that they could even use it. There’s no way insects and titans were meant to mate. I think they’ll need to do a lot with my . . . sample before it’s of any use to them. Maybe they just want to study it. Shit, I don’t know, Valla. Can you imagine those giant guardians with titan blood? Maybe I should refuse just for the sake of the universe.”
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She sighed and shook her head. “As much as I want you to be careful, as much as I’d like to find a way around this situation, I’m reminded that the universe is vast. I can’t imagine these ivid are the only hive species to reach this level of ascendancy. We know there are worlds where dragons reign. We know there are places where people like Tes are commonplace. You felt the powerful beings striding through the heights of Sojourn. I don’t think a sample of your seed given to these insects will upset the balance of the universe.” Her eyes narrowed further, and she grew quiet as her expression became decidedly pensive.
“What else?” Victor prodded.
“What if . . . what if it’s not looking to do research but to create children? What if it’s curious about individuality and wants to make offspring that can think for themselves? Do you want children sprung from your . . .”
“Valla!” Victor cried, then more softly, “Valla, Valla, Valla.” He pulled her close, gripping her behind the shoulders and peering down into her eyes. He had half a mind to reduce his height further to more easily hold her close, but he didn’t want to interrupt his train of thought. “Anything this hive creates will not be a child of mine. It might have some of my DNA, but come on! I can’t imagine a more alien species. Nothing it grows will be anything like me and certainly won’t need me to take a role in its life.” He laughed, imagining a half-insect, long-lost child coming to collect some overdue child support. Valla didn’t say anything, so he pressed on, “I’ll talk to this queen or, if she can’t speak, the emissary and try to get some reassurances.”
“Promise? Promise you’ll walk away if it doesn’t sound tenable?”
“Promise.”
“Well, let’s get you going. The sooner you leave, the sooner you’ll be back, and the sooner we can leave this strange place.” She spoke softly, and though her words said she was ready to head back to the emissary, her face said another. Victor stared at her eyes, the big silvery-teal irises, the soft, feathery eyebrows, and all he wanted was to hold her close and get away from all this bullshit. It felt like he was always going from one emergency to another, and he was fucking sick of it.
“I just want to do that—be done with this bullshit, so I can spend some time with you, doing what we fucking want to do without having to solve some goddamn crisis. If this is what it takes, me giving these asshole bugs some of my pinché leche, then I’m going to do it.” His voice had grown hoarse with emotion, and when he heard the expletives flowing from his tongue like the old days, he chuckled and shook his head. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for expressing how we both feel.” She grabbed the sides of his head and pulled him down so she could kiss him squarely on the mouth. It was a hungry kiss, hot and full of carnal intent, and Victor almost lost it right there. She wouldn’t allow that, though, laughing and pushing him off as he tried to push her back toward the bathing fountain. “Come on, now. Get going—time for this when we’re done with this hive.” Victor calmed himself, nodded, and, as they turned to walk back to Lesh and the emissary, she snickered. “Really? Milk?”
Victor groaned. “It’s slang . . . and it’s Spanish in my head.”
“Your language?” Victor had spoken to her about Spanish and English and how strange it was to have all of his words translated the same by the System.
“My dad’s language.” They’d also talked about their childhoods a few times, and she knew what he meant. She knew he’d never been fluent in his father’s language and that it had been one of the many factors giving him a chip on his shoulder when he was younger. He couldn’t get into it right then, anyway; they were already back to the “waiting” room. “Ready?” he asked the impassive insect man, still standing where he’d been when he and Valla had left.
“This one will guide you now.” It started walking for the hallway they’d come through, but before he followed it, Victor looked at Lesh.
“You good?”
He nodded, rumbling, “I will take this opportunity to meditate, cultivate, and expand my breath Core. Valla and I will be well. Be wary and wise, Lord Victor.”
“I will.” Victor nodded, then squeezed Valla’s hand again before letting go. Her jaw fairly trembled with her desire to say something, but she clamped her lips into a tight line and watched him, unblinking, as he turned and followed the insect into the oval tunnel. When he caught up to his ivid guide, he asked, “Well, Emissary, can I ask if you have a gender?”
It didn’t hesitate to answer, “This one is non-gendered.”
Victor followed it quietly until they exited the building and started meandering through the city again. Then, he decided to try to get some of his many questions answered. “When you met us deep underground, and we walked through the misty opening, was that a portal? Are we very far from the world where we met?”
“We met at the aperture to the hive world. We are not far from the world where we met but within it.”
“I don’t understand. How can a sky and sun exist within a planet? Are those illusions to make your hive more comfortable?”
“The hive world exists within its own universe, young individual, a universe of our devising.” That simple statement carried so many underlying messages that Victor found himself dumbstruck, pondering them all. This hive was creating a universe? Is that what it meant by “our devising?” If they could do that, if they could somehow manufacture worlds and suns . . . Victor couldn’t wrap his head around it. It couldn’t be that. How could any being create a sun? They were too damned massive. Even the System had called volcanos “sleeping gods.” What would it label a sun? What would it label a species that could create a sun?
“Do you create all of the things in this universe? Did you create the sun?”
“We do not create these things; we find them and bridge our universe to the space where the things we covet exist, encapsulating them.”
“You coveted the sun?”
“The hive world required heat and light. We found a sun to match our needs and brought it and its planets into our universe. Now we have heat and light and the resources of five planets.”
“Did those planets have life?”
“Two, yes. Very plentiful resources.”
Victor chewed on those words for a while, stunned by the idea that a species of insect could simply snatch a solar system out of its universe and bring it into its own. What was this universe? Was it a gigantic pocket dimension within the planet where the hive originated? Was it even really inside the planet, or was that simply where the “aperture” was? The train of thought brought another question to mind. “Why do you keep that aperture open? Why do you still have a hive on the planet where we met?”
“The answer to such a question is not easily explained to one not of the hive.”
Victor tried a different approach, “What about the System? Are you part of it?”
“We know of the System from the memories of individuals who have joined the hive. This entity has no connection to us.” Victor could have guessed as much; if the System were present in the hive, surely it would have translated the insects’ native language.
They turned left, past one of the giant conical towers, and, for the first time in the ivid city, the horizon opened up ahead of them. Victor was looking down a long, straight stretch of road toward an enormous, open area shaped like a hexagon. At its center, on a platform the size of a city block, sat a gigantic beetle with two gas-filled membranes straining against cable-like tendons attached to its back. The membranes were shaped like oblong balloons and looked, from Victor’s vantage, to be five or ten times the size of the hot air balloons he’d seen on TV. “What is that thing?”
“That will serve as this one’s transport to the brooding planet.”
“Brooding planet?”
“Yes, this one will guide you to the queen’s residence within the hive world.”
“That balloon beetle is going to take us to another planet? In less than a day?”
“In less than a day for this planet, yes.”
Victor frowned, worried something had been lost in translation. He tried to think of a way to get the answer he wanted out of the emissary. “Can you search your memories for terms my kind use to describe time? For instance, everyone in the System-controlled part of the universe knows what a day or week means. There’s a standard. Can you . . .”
“This one apologizes. We have accessed memories that make your meaning clear. Our journey to the brooding planet will take two of your months.”
“Goddammit. Can you somehow communicate to my companions how long this is going to take? It sounds like we’ll be gone longer than they expected.”
They were walking quickly, the emissary having no trouble setting a pace that had Victor striding with the entire length of his legs. As they descended the sloping road, the beetle’s size became more and more impressive. It was roughly as big as one of the gigantic mine dump trucks Victor had seen on a school field trip. He could still remember how unbelievable it had seemed when he’d stood near one of the tires—taller than three adults standing on each other's shoulders. Nowadays, such scale wasn’t as impressive, obviously, but the beetle was still something else. They’d closed half the distance before the emissary finally responded.
“We have altered another of our children for speech. It will relay your situation to your companions.”
“Ah, shit. Is that what you did for this emissary?”
“This one was created when you were approaching the aperture.”
“Then how did it get here? You said the ‘brooding planet’ was a month’s journey.”
“This one’s Energy reserves and tolerances are much greater than our other children's. We sent it between space.”
“Between . . .” Did it mean it teleported? “Can you not do the same for me? Do we really have to ride that beetle for two months?”
The emissary stopped walking for the first time and turned to regard Victor. “We do not believe you will survive such transport.” It turned and, once again, continued toward the beetle. Victor hated the idea that he’d lose so much time and that Valla and Lesh were essentially in prison while they waited for him, but he couldn’t think of a way around it. Realizing that, realizing he couldn’t even grasp the concept of how it had transported its emissary “between space,” he tried one more angle.
“You seem to have great knowledge about universes and worlds and space. Can you not think of a method to transport me that wouldn’t be fatal? There are those far more fragile than I who can teleport great distances.” Again, the emissary didn’t answer immediately, and Victor watched the beetle as they continued toward it. It was black with rather beautiful, curlicued orange patterns on its carapace. Its legs were probably fifty feet long, and the pincer-like mandibles jutting from its jaw looked like they could slice a city bus in half. Now that they were closer, he could see the shimmering, iridescent quality of the air bladders and wondered what kind of gas was in them. Frowning, he studied the beetle for some sort of structure, wondering how they were supposed to ride it . . .
“We have considered your question. The primary difficulty lies in the density of Energy and space around the brooding planet. The forces required for instant traversal of that space would separate your molecules. We will, instead, transport you to a waiting transport beetle outside the dense space.” The emissary stopped and turned to face him. “Are you prepared for the journey? This method will shorten transit duration by more than ninety-eight percent.”
“Yes! Yes, let’s do that.” Victor nodded enthusiastically.
“Very well. Please grasp this one’s appendage, and it will initiate the transfer.” It held out one of its four, three-fingered hands, and Victor reached down to grasp it. He’d expected it to be hard, but the chitin was strangely springy and tactile, and the three digits grasped the side of his much larger palm firmly. Then, with a surge of Energy so strong it took the wind out of his lungs and drained the blood from his brain, the world exploded into light, and Victor ceased to exist.