When the vehicle or insect carrying Victor and the emissary descended to the immense pyramid’s base, depositing the glass carriage to the smooth sandstone ground, it settled with an almost delicate series of clinks. Then a dark shadow moved away, and Victor craned his neck, looking through the translucent ceiling to see a great shape rapidly climbing into the air, its precise form obscured by the streamers of bright sunlight filtering through thick, white cumulus clouds. “Was that one of those giant beetles?”
“This is an accurate description.” The emissary strode toward one of the glass walls, and with a pop and tinkle, their conveyance burst into billions of silvery motes of Energy. Victor stumbled briefly as he fell several inches to the sandstone, and when he straightened and looked around, he saw no sign of the vessel that had transported them to the planet’s surface. From his current vantage, the trees surrounding the pyramid looked like skyscrapers, and if it weren’t for the clearing around the structure, he was sure he wouldn’t be able to see the sky through their thick canopy. He turned to the pyramid and saw that the emissary was several paces away already but had turned to regard him.
“I’m coming.” Victor followed him toward an opening in the pyramid—a yawning passage that could easily allow a dozen passenger planes to fly through it at once. As they approached and its scale became apparent, and the pyramid’s heights grew too distant to see, he said, “Why is the pyramid so damn big? Do you have, um, children that need an opening that size?”
“This pyramid houses our young in their millions before they move off to other facilities. Every eleven of our days, a brood must pass through the nineteen stages of this structure.” The emissary spoke almost off-handedly, but Victor's mind reeled at the idea, trying to imagine the hordes of ivid children as they hurried through their mysterious stages.
Of course, he voiced the most disturbing of his thoughts, “How can your queen lay so many damn eggs? Is she gigantic?”
“The queen is similar in size to your titanic form. Fear not for her health, for while her eggs are great in number, they are tiny, and their production does not overly tax her.”
“Huh.” Victor watched the streams of ivid moving down avenues lined with trees, into and out of the pyramid, and flying in endless streams from the heights. After they’d walked for a while and were still quite far from the great opening, he asked, “Why no wings for your emissary?”
“This one has wings, though you cannot currently see them. Our journey is short, however, traveler. The queen will see you in one of her gardens.”
“The queen has gardens?” Victor’s imagined idea of an insect queen laying eggs in a massive underground nest began to crumble.
“Please be patient, individual. This one will save explanations for the queen.”
“All right.” Victor grew quiet and let his eyes explore as they walked. To his surprise, they didn’t enter the pyramid but took a side path that led toward the distant corner of the structure. As they progressed, he found many such side paths meandered up and down stairs, into walled-off sections of the grounds, and even down into steeply sloping tunnels. From the air, the grounds had seemed flat, covered in stone, and simply there to provide a clearing for the pyramid. “This is different than I’d imagined. It’s . . . pretty.”
“We appreciate your complimentary language. The queen has particular aesthetics.” The emissary led him around a high, sandstone wall, then through a red crystal gate that swung open noiselessly. Victor found himself standing in a garden of tall hedgerows bedecked in immense purple and red flowers. He couldn’t see far in any direction because of the enormity of the hedges, but what he could see was something out of a fantasy, for it wasn’t simply the flowers and perfect hedges, but the attendant ivid that drew his eyes.
They wore shimmering silvery robes, not unlike the emissary’s, and carried delicate, crystalline clippers, but more than that, they hardly looked insectoid. Unlike the emissary’s robes, theirs were hooded and veiled, and their hands were covered in gloves of the same material. If Victor saw those strange, silent gardeners elsewhere, he’d assume they were just ordinary people under those garments, not members of a bizarre, alien insect species. The emissary pointed to one of the clipper-bearing, hooded ivid. “These are attendants to the queen. She will be nearby.”
“Ah,” Victor nodded, unsure what else to say. He followed the emissary through the maze of hedgerows until he stepped through into a wide clearing dominated by a crystal fountain with fluted spouts that delicately dropped clear water into a basin filled with floating purple and red flower buds. The ground at the center of the clearing wasn’t tiled in sandstone like the rest of the area Victor had seen but covered in a well-manicured lawn. Reclining on that lawn was a being that had to be the ivid queen.
Her robes were made of silky material just like all the others Victor had seen, except for their color—rather than silver, they were golden. As the emissary had indicated, she was large, but not the gigantic, building-sized insect with a bulbous egg-laying appendage that science fiction movies had told Victor to expect. No, she was shaped very much like the other bipedal ivid. She had a crystal device in front of her, sitting on a small, delicate wooden table, and was busily shifting tiny levers and strings with her four delicate hands. Victor couldn’t see her face through her golden, diamond-studded veil, but he could see her eyes, and they were beautiful, if alien.
The ivid he’d met so far all had ten black eyes with an iridescent sheen. The queen’s were fully iridescent, shimmering in rainbow hues, with a silvery backlight that shone forth. More, there were only two of them, angular and inset beneath a hairless brow that was absent on the other insects. The emissary stopped walking as soon as they rounded the corner into the clearing, and it held two of its hands out, indicating that Victor should stop as well. “Please wait for the queen’s attention, individual.”
Victor nodded and stood still, looking around the clearing, slowly becoming aware of all the other ivid in the area. They stood like statues near the hedges, robed attendants, guardians with metallic carapaces, and another sort of warrior-ivid with twin crystalline blades crossed before their chests. Victor counted twenty-one altogether. When he turned his gaze inward, opening his inner eye, Victor saw that the ivid around him were all restraining prodigious auras. If he had to guess, he’d say the twenty-one attendants in that clearing were on par with the emissary in power. Still, when Victor tried to gaze at the queen with that inner eye, he found it akin to looking at the sun with his eyes, and he had to turn away quickly. The being before him was exceptional on a scale he couldn’t quite wrap his head around.
The queen didn’t look up, but a sharp, melodic voice, clear and natural, sounded in Victor’s head, “You may approach, outsider.” Immediately, the emissary’s hands dropped to its side, and it stepped away from Victor, clearing the path forward.
Victor nodded and started toward her. He was no longer altering his size, but he wasn’t berserk, so he felt rather puny approaching the enormous insectoid monarch. Her size was an insignificant factor, though, for within her raged the power of a being on the scale of deities. This was a being capable of moving worlds, capable of, as the emissary had mentioned, sparking suns.
“Your thoughts are inaccurate, outsider. While I am the focal point of their efforts, those powers belong to the hive. I am but a vessel for all of us.”
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“You’re an individual, though?”
“I am. In our evolution, we have seen the value of having some individuals in the hive. We see things from perspectives the hive could not fathom in its infancy.” After a slight pause, the voice resumed, “Ah, you wonder how clearly your thoughts unfold before me. Quite clearly. No, Victor, I do not intend to force you to mate with me. I will take the promised payment, and the gift of a dreaming egg will be yours. You are made uncomfortable by my intrusion . . . apologies, Victor. I will withdraw from your mind.”
Victor felt the weight of the alien mind pull away, and he sighed in relief, tension falling from his neck and spine. The queen had entered his thoughts so suddenly, and her presence had been so powerful that he’d almost been struck dumb, struggling to keep up with her one-sided conversation as he fought to contain his emotions. His prideful outrage was a tiny voice beside his relief, so he simply muttered, “Thank you.”
“Let us speak, Victor.” This time, the queen’s voice came from behind her veil, smooth and clear. “While listening to you and your companions, we endeavored to improve upon the vocal capabilities we granted our emissary. Does my voice please your ears?”
“Um, yes, it’s very clear.”
“If I hadn’t learned your name from listening to your conversations, I would have learned it when I rudely invaded your mind. My apologies. You may call me Crystal.”
“Crystal?”
“Yes. Until this moment, I did not have a name, but this one came to me during my brief exploration of your thoughts. You found our fountain to be beautiful, and that word stood out. Will it suit?”
Victor swallowed, nodding. “Yes, it’s a nice name.”
“I know our emissary told you that you’re the first individual to visit this planet. We find you intriguing, but I’d like you to know that these circumstances only came about through happenstance. Earlier visitors to our origin hive were more violent in their intrusion, and our more autonomous defenses saw their demise. Additionally, we’ve made many strides in recent years, and our . . . understanding of alien nature has become more comprehensive.”
“Is, um, have you always been the queen?”
“No, Victor. My life serves the hive, and so have the lives of the many queens before me. When the hive deems it necessary, I will be replaced. I believe I have much time to enjoy my gardens and my trivialities,” she gestured to the crystal device on the table before her, “before that happens.”
She smiled and laughed, a soft, delicate sound that didn’t seem right coming from an eighteen-foot-tall insect lady. “I listened to your conversation with the emissary. You know we are on the verge of great things. We do not believe in deities, but we believe in fate and the bonds of spirits on the ethereal plane, ties that are difficult to see but hard to miss once they’ve been exposed. You were meant to come here, and it is fortuitous that it happened at this hour. Soon, we will sever our connection to our origin world and be gone from the universe we once called home. Contact with us will be impossible for most beings. I am pleased that we will have your bloodline to study as we separate.”
“About that . . .” Victor cleared his throat and shuffled a little nervously. “What exactly are your intentions with my . . . bloodline.” He decided he was tired of talking about his “seed” and went with her choice of phrasing.
“You walk proudly with the blood of an elder race. There are those among the elder species who gained power enough to ascend beyond the mortal realms. While we toil to craft our own niche, our own pocket carved out of the void, we do so with the intent to continue our advancement, to move onto a higher plane. We hope that your bloodline will provide clues in that endeavor. It will be a millennia-long task, but one to which we are quite well attuned.”
“So, you’re not going to create a species of, um, titan-insects to take over the universe?”
Again, that trilling laugh sounded, and the queen shifted where she sat, lying down on her side in the grass, head propped up with one of her arms so she could more easily look Victor in the eyes. “Why would we trouble ourselves with your universe when we are creating our own? Our kind is not smitten with material things or the worship of lesser beings. We seek elevation and true enlightenment which cannot be found in the subjugation or destruction of others.”
“I hope that’s true. I hope you’re right, I mean. There are powerful people in the worlds I’ve visited who believe strength comes only through the conquering of others.”
“For a time, that seems true; the theft of Energy from others and the gathering of resources far and wide serve to provide advancement, but we are beyond that. We generate more Energy each second than the consumption of a hundred heroes like yourself could provide. No, we have determined that growth at the cost of destruction is no longer a wise course. You can see it wasn’t always so. Did you note the world of our origin hive? It shames me to say we killed it. Only our more instinctive children now live in its soil.”
“But you stole this whole solar system, right?”
“Yes. Again, we have learned lessons from each stage of our development. Such theft is no longer necessary; we have learned many secrets in the study of this star. Victor, do you know about stars? That they aren’t gods or fires but massive generators? I oversimplify—of course, they burn, so there is fire, but it’s only a side effect. I was newly born when we annexed these planets and our sun, and the revelations in my lifetime from its study have moved us forward so . . .” The queen stopped speaking and cocked her head sideways as though listening to something.
Her hypnotic, beautiful eyes stared into space for several long seconds, and Victor looked around nervously. None of the other ivid had moved. “Is, um, Queen Crystal, is everything all right?”
“Apologies, Victor. A matter of some import will soon require my attention. Shall we conclude our business so our emissary might guide you back to your companions and thence on your way?”
Victor swallowed, looking around the garden, very aware of all the ivid standing around. It wasn’t so much that he was embarrassed, but he wasn’t exactly sure he could even perform with everyone looking at him. How was she going to get his . . . sample? “Um, yeah. I mean, sure. How, exactly . . .”
“If you will permit me, I have the means to painlessly retrieve a small sample of the seed that lies within your sexual organs. I will not harm you, Victor.” She laughed softly, and Victor wished he could see her face behind the veil, wondering if she was smiling or if she could even smile. With that thought, he decided he was glad he couldn’t see; he’d rather imagine she had a nice mouth with friendly lips and not mandibles or something worse. “I know from the memories we have of outside individuals that this might be rather mortifying. Think of this as a business transaction, Victor. Just as I’ll soon have a sample of your material, you’ll be walking away with one of my very own eggs, a dreaming ivid fetus that has been nourished and kept alive with great care.”
“All right. You can collect it so long as you promise not to take one of my cojones.” Victor snorted, amused by his absurd turn of phrase.
The queen took him seriously. “Nothing of the sort.” She held out one of her golden gloved hands, and suddenly, a tiny crystal jar appeared on her palm. It was minuscule in her hand, but Victor could see it was small by any measure, not much larger than the sewing thimble his abuela used to wear on her thumb when she mended his torn jeans. “We are in agreement?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent.” Victor felt a pulse of Energy, experienced a slight sensation of warmth, and then the crystal jar flashed and disappeared. “That’s your half of the bargain. Now, please carefully accept the dreaming egg from our emissary. Please never send it into one of your crude storage devices; it would be torture.” As she spoke, Victor felt the emissary’s presence as it stepped beside him, and when he turned to face it, he saw that it held a blue, silk-wrapped bundle.
“Thank you,” he said, accepting it. He could feel the egg within, round, pliable, and warm, about the size of a soccer ball. He could feel the Energy pulsing steadily from it.
“I am pleased by you, Victor,” the queen said as he carefully cradled the egg in the crook of his elbow, tucking it against his chest. “May I give you a gift?”
Victor looked back at her and raised an eyebrow. “You’ve already been kind. I was very damn nervous about providing my, uh, sample. You made it painless.”
“Are you refusing further gifts, then?”
“Hey, if there aren’t any strings attached, I’m not going to turn down a gift.”
The queen nodded and gestured to the emissary, and it hurried away. “The emissary will fetch my gift for you. I am doing something the hive doesn’t understand—being impulsive. I have few individuals to interact with; the seven of us have important roles to fill, and our duties do not often allow for it. Impulsivity is something I’ve only recently begun to explore, but I must be cautious; worlds are at stake when it comes to my actions. This whim, the desire to gift you with something valuable, feels harmless, but I suppose there is some risk to you.”
“Risk?”
“My gift is potent and, outside our hive, something that would be nigh impossible to acquire. I’m giving you a sample of the royal jelly my attendants fed to me in order to make me a queen. It’s the same substance they will feed to my replacement. I do not feel it will threaten our hive at all to give you this small sample. You will take it away to your world, and soon, we will be separated from your universe. For this reason, I’m willing to risk the unknown effects it will have upon you. It will be up to you to decide if you are willing to take that same risk.”
“Ah . . .” Victor didn’t know how to respond. For once, his mouth, both the polite and impolite versions, was struck dumb.
“We have not fed this jelly to those not of the hive, but you have the constitution of an elder race, Victor. I believe you will survive and reap some benefits. Still, it would be wise to grow more powerful on your own first. Use this gift when you have encountered a ceiling with regard to your advancement.”
“All right. Well, thank you. I’m, um, honored, Queen Crys . . .”
“Simply call me Crystal. No one else in my life would do so.”
Victor looked into those weirdly alien, hypnotically beautiful eyes and smiled. She was a person, no matter how powerful and strange, and she was clearly very lonely. In a way, he wished he could spend more time with her, but in another way, he was ready to be away from that strange place. Still, his smile was genuine, and impulsively, he stepped forward, holding out his free hand. “Thank you, Crystal,” he said as the alien insect queen took his hand in hers, and he felt the spark of her power lurking beneath the flesh, enough power to destroy worlds.