The spacious and tiered chamber would come to be known as one of the marvels of their species. Chkervthnaakt knew such as truth. Felt it. Admired it. Loathed it. He did not understand what methods, what humanite magic mixed with formite knowledge had been utilized to create the ceiling which was not so much domed as it was like looking up at the great lattice shields which covered the sky above. Flat angular segments, some smooth, some with wide holes bored into foundational stone, fit and meshed together to form a curve which was flowing and rigid simultaneously. Hollow arcades, like those in Guir, dripping downwards without crease or sign the pillars had been assembled; that they simply grew from ground and sunk from ceiling. But it was only a halften’s aesthetic; no, the true majesty of that delver’s innovation, coupled with his sky-taken thinker’s coordination, was the sonorous emittances the sounding tubes. Those thinned and rippled tunnels no larger than a limb, through pillars and walls and ceiling of the thinker’s conclave. Their concameration of cognition. It was as beautiful. And it was not his. And he hated it for that.
“It is crisis.” Fear as much as anger reverberated, the thinker who had bellowed from its divot within the third ring angling its voice to be amplified by the tubes. “Colony must purge six thousand menials, immediately.”
“Agreed.”
“Refused.”
“Agreed.”
“Agreed.”
“Refused! Emphatically!” The aged formite thinker commanded a change in the narrative of the music, its own voice striking like ten legs on hollowed chitin. “The Collapse beneath Hollowcore. The Great Walking across the Shallow Sea. Skthveraachk has endured worse. Skthveraachk will endure this.”
“Unequitable.” His hewn sixth limb twitched as the wave of disapproval gusted from his left, funneled like a thrusting scythe into the center of the conclave. “Disasters which cut us to fractions. Parts from the whole. The whole now rejects the parts.” Scratches made to the stone orbs, upon which most thinkers sat curled, echoed the sentiment. “One scentcrafter may unify eight hundred, a thousand on the battlefield if heeding teachings of memory. One scentcrafter can do only half as much within the colony. The Queen loses scentcrafters, takes six more from the nest. Now we demand one scentcrafter unify nine hundred below ground? Impossible.”
“Deviance is guaranteed. Frenzy is likely. Purges, now, to preserve harmony in the choir.”
“Deviance is not frenzy.” At last, she spoke. Young. Still bearing that glistening in her carapace from her pupation, and a lack of an adulthood molt. Timid in tone, but confident enough in volume. Crystals along the raised rail-divider tingled with her voice, sat upon bulbous stone growth the same as all the others, yet immediately drawing attention. Chkervthnaakt scribbled graspers along his underside as he, too, looked to the juvenile Queen-to-be. The sole queenling within the rings of thinkers, trying to carry on the thought now that she momentarily held the conclave. “Distinction is critical. Frenzies will occur. Frenzied will be recycled. But deviance can be tolerated.”
“Unacceptable.”
“Permit the thought.” His song sparked, flashed a hue of vivid amber in anger, as another tried to end the consideration before seeing through its possibilities. Opposing thinker ran a claw across its vents, and the collected fluid was flung in a mist towards the bowled center of the chamber. A fanning of head ensuring all within tasted the shock and disgust carried upon it.
“Forbid the thought! Too many changes, too quickly. Colony struggles to adjust to the newness of reality as is. Permitting even greater deviance, in a time of upheaval? Invites disaster!”
“Invites adaptation!” Emboldened, Chkervthnaakt liked to imagine, by his own brief addition to the growing din, the queenling blew and panted to disperse the indignation amidst the chitters of the collective. “New methods. New tools. New masters. New world. Change is necessary. A lack of scentcrafters, a lack of control, but not a lack of direction. The nest is not a battleground, singular control is not required.”
“Refused.”
“Agreed.”
“Agreed,” He ensured to let his priority rating tint the timbre of the tone. Ensured those near were reminded of the importance afforded him. “Greater flexibility for drones, more varied results in their approaches. Mistakes, necessity, stress will encourage new solutions. Successful solutions will be adopted.”
“Refused. Refused. Refused. Successful solutions, desirable. Failed solutions, catastrophic. Dangers outweigh benefits. What if a drone harms a humanite? What if a menial steals materials? What if a scout wanders and is captured? Position of the colony within Sovereignty remains tenuous. Now is not the time for experimentation.”
“The time for experimentation is when progress is needed. Progress is needed now.”
“Your progress is conflict.” The accusation was unabashed, and brough Chkervthnaakt off his seat and to four legs before vitriol had a chance to complete a full rotation of the chamber. Gaze torn from the lower queenling who had taken to staring back at him with a spasming of her fatter gaster, and turned to the thinker on highest level. Furthest from the central basin, yet somehow managing to have its dissenting melody polluting the nearly established truth. “Progress, undeniable. Progress, all around us. Thinkers who must not share their thoughts with the colony. Partitions of knowledge. Skthveraachk deviates even from the divine balance. Skthveraachk will be, Skthveraachk is, Skthveraachk has always been. Now Skthveraachk is ‘formite’. Now, formite becomes more humanite.”
“Good!” The hisses and chitters raised in volume around him, but the thinker maintained his rear. Letting those present themselves see the newly fashioned straps, loops, pockets on his underside and bindings upon his back. “Formite was nothing! Formite is nothing! Formite exists because humanite allows it! Deviate, change, do away with formite; it is no longer of value!”
“Refused!”
“Agreed!”
“Agreed.”
“Refused!”
“Skthveraachk Queen does not agree with this.” The queenling fought to steer the tempo, stomping claws as she struck forelegs against her base. Sounds, smells, even sights as other reared aggressively in response to the perceived threat. Those nearest her low position composed themselves. Those opposite, could not. Chkervthnaakt’s mandibles gnashed together, locked, but the juvenile female once more let two of her eyes stray in his direction. “Skthveraachk Queen does not disagree with this. Survival, paramount. Survivability as formites, impossible. Change; mandatory, necessary. We must no longer be formite. But,” He swiveled, tried to stride tall on four legs, but fell to his fifth as he ascended the curved wall and made for nearest exit portal. Climbing over supporters, dissenters, moderates all. “We must not become as disparate as the humanite. We must guard against their love of the individual. We must maintain our harmony, and preserve the colony even as we shed the molt and grow anew.” Consensus. Fear of the future and desire of the new blended to one. He felt her eyes, the queenling, on him still, and he ignored them all the way to the lip of the tunnel before flashing back a quick, supporting furl of his antennae. She had her mother’s goals. She also had the curiosity and eagerness of a juvenile not yet inured to the chorus of the many. The pallor of black almost muted to grey in the queenling’s face turned high at his recognition, but was lost as the bodies around them both began to depart, the matter settled. For now.
“Should not seek to provoke the other thinkers so. Reinforces your otherness. Your…independence, with your tasking.” Chkervthnaakt did not stop. Not for them. Not for the female thinker half mounted atop his delver’s side as he strode past their audible silhouettes in the darkness. If their need was important, they would follow. He walked. They followed. He snapped at the air, and quickened his pace. “I sing of peace and joy, however. I am one of many whose vents pump rivers of excitement awaiting the cycle, the measure, where your work can again be shared.”
“I am proceeding now to such work. You can understand why I am hastened in my movements, given the necessity to balance the critical nature of my discoveries with placating the cowardly who would see such halted.” It was as much a soliloquy as the opening of a conversational melody. Brevity no longer required, conciseness giving way to emotion. Emotions of indignation. Resentment. Was she mocking him? “You praise my future work, but your own work is already known. That chamber is marvelous. Unique. Resonant.”
“Took advantage of crystal abundance located during mining. Thinker assisted with logistics. I provided experience with construction. End result, acceptable, if unfinished.” The delver of the Palamedes’ internals touched and stroked his carapace as the trio scuttled. Brushing past the other angled bodies, receiving and occasionally relaying messages for deeper within the nest. “The meaning of your words is bright. The tone with which you sing is dark. You are upset?”
“I had expected, after our cooperation previous, to be called upon for such things. I would have leant expertise if asked in the matter of the worker shortage. I had many suggestions for improvements in your constructions. No requests have come.”
“I have been assigned to these tasks.” Female’s voice was oh-so ringing with its hollow beauty. “Permanent reallocation of priority. Artistry is admittedly of limited importance, but this nest is the first of a new world. Preparations, far in advance, must be readied for its greatness. A testament to what our race may achieve with minimal humanite aid. They place much value in that which is both functional, and aesthetically pleasing.”
“They place value in all manner of practicality, and all manner of insanity. I am amused by your belief that you, thinker, understand what humanites value despite your limited interactions with them.”
“I do not receive the composition of your anger.” Delver, once more, tapped upon Chkervthnaakt’s shell. Rife with uncertainty, confusion, and in his confusion an anger for the disruption Chkervthnaakt had caused his harmony. “You chose your tasking. You chose to prioritize an understanding of the humanites. Labor was required for issues which did not pertain, and so, you were not interested. Skthveraachk thinker, was. Skthveraachk thinker and I solved these problems, and Skthveraachk-Colony benefited. You are of Skthveraachk-Colony. You benefited.”
“I benefitted from the result, not from the process of finding the solution! The memories will not sing of me!”
“Your discontent is irrational. The colony benefitted. Why do you resent that it was not you who found the solution?” Chkervthnaakt beat his legs into the tunnel wall, preparing a response to the delver’s question, but found his own music stammered. Unsure in its response. The trio’s exit into the central sloped shaft of the nest was well-timed, as when the thinker ground to a halt under the weight of the question, those behind them were able to continue their journeys unabated. Crawling around him. Over him. Burying him under a stream of black and red and grey, smothered into the song once more. The colony was all. The colony was him. An individual was not a colony. Why did it matter? It did not matter. Then why did it hurt? The female thinker and his delver both were feeling him with concern, searching for some manner of damage or distress. He forced the emotion down, down, beneath the spurs of his claws and into the very ground itself. Performed spasms, as the wounded did, to drive away their touches and attempts to aid. Female pulled one of his antennae down between her jaws, licked and cleaned its length, making the invitation physical as it was audible.
“Sorrow and regret fall from me. Distress was not the intent, but joy! Skthveraachk delver, I, and my other half have determined to join our voice and songs, and make our last notes as one.” The rock denied him, the soil refused to contain the feelings he shoved downward, and it ruptured upward like the impact of a hundred lances. Delver chirped embarrassment and happiness. Thinker clasped at his antennae warmly. And sung with pride as she stole yet more from him. “Cooperation these last tenmeasures has solidified belief that the Composer has written us as parts incomplete. I am joined to another thinker, but found always imperfection in the cohesion. Skthveraachk delver is the bonding that seals these cracks. We will regain our wholeness. It is planned for three measures from now. Will you lend your voice to us in the union?”
“Yes.” Such offers were not refused. The deepening of bonds was a joyous thing, a blessed thing. It made the collective greater, it decimated the discord. His body sung yes. His core and mind screamed an unholy ‘no’. “Yes. It is congratulated, that you have located the missing stanzas and notes of your composition. I will lend my voice when you rejoin yourselves into single being.” Her tongue on his antennae was abhorrent, the contact which should have bonded them instead causing revulsion to roll through the length of his body.
“Your voice trembles and legs contort. Do you require a mender?”
“No.” He was suffocating. The tunnels, angled or circular, were suddenly claustrophobic. The bodies scurrying atop and around him, threatening to crush and overwhelm. Chkervthnaakt pulled so abruptly that the other thinker barely had time to release her grip of his antenna, lest it be torn free. “I must return to my tasking. May your claws carry you to your destinations unfalteringly.” Something was wrong. With the colony? With him? It was so loud here, so frantic. His delver no longer, merely the delver, was lost with the female under a wash of bodies as the male let himself be carried with the tide to the lift. Riding it to the bottom, pushing and shoving to break free of the crowds, the traffic, the others. He did not want others. Why? Madness. Passing messages, relaying information. Skthveraachk … Chkervthnaakt, tried to form thoughts, but his voice was lost among the colony, tried to rationalize the feelings, but was met with only confusion in passing drones. There was a tunnel which did not exist, and as he threw himself inside its awning mouth, like the snapping of jaws about neck, the noise was gone. The link, severed. Alone. Lost. He returned to his five claws, and though the breath he took was cold, it was without the scent of any menial, any drone, any soldier. Alone. At peace. Down the tunnel, past the pair of spitters who merely gnawed recognition at his unscheduled presence, and out into the sanctum of his purpose.
<”Well…this is a surprise.”> ‘Cross-legged’, that was how the humanites described the mangled, folded position. An adjustment that was more comfortable, less likely to result in atrophy and pain for the captive. <”I’m not losing track of the days, am I? Where’s the white one, and-?”>
“Shut up. Silence!” One other voice. He could tolerate one voice beyond his own, but not now. Chkervthnaakt kept himself on five legs, and began to stride circles around the creature. “It is nonsense. These things you have spoken of, these drives. They are irrational compulsions based on equally irrational end-states!”
<”Ok?”> The humanite’s voice bore none of the emotional weight of his own kind, but the thinker knew it to be consideration. Heard the freed neck swivel, its inner-skeleton pulling on muscles and creaking with motion. <”Am I supposed to be quiet here, or was that a question? You seem upset, did something upset you, bug?”>
“We are born!” Thunderous, his leg came down in a stomp. “We grow, and we join the chorus. The colony sings to us, teaches us, learns us our place and role. The performance of the role is all there is, it is all there is! The hauler hauls, the mender mends, the thinker thinks. By our work the colony continues, the collective endures, and when we die, it is only the death of the separate, of the solitary. No more a loss than the shedding of a molt, and cutting of a spur, the loss of a limb at worst. Those who excel have their teachings internalized, remembered, added to the memories. Those who falter are forgotten, irrelevant. There is nothing else! There is no ‘after’!”
<”It’s no wonder we could never force your kind to retreat, to back down. Bunch of death-worshipping aliens who think of nothing but how to serve. I imagine you and the Soffs get along real, real well.”>
“Do you believe yourself irreplaceable?” The eighth loop of the room ended with the thinker’s mandibles digging into the humanite, one to each boney growth where limb met torso, and the oozing of fluids from extended tube as it thrust forward to strike the male’s neck. “Do you think sardonicism and wit will endear you to me, humanite? We have spoken for hundred measures, ‘months’, and in that time, my colony has built monuments. Wonders. Battled, won. What have I to show for my efforts?” The humanite was shaking, but defiance was written clear beneath the bushel of soft hairs protruding from its face. “Talk of divine beings hidden in the sky-beyond-space, insistence of the superiority of the one over the many, Gods and Heavens and Paradises which come only to the deserving, to those who suffer and endure through torments put here to test each of us.”
<”I’ve got no illusions, bug. I’m only alive because you’re curious, and that won’t last forever.”> Pointed tips of his jaws did not draw blood from the thin canvas sack of flesh containing the creature’s innards, but the clench of the thing’s teeth and glare upward betrayed the pain felt all the same. <”You ask why I fight? Because I believe in what I’m fighting for, and hate what I’m fighting against. You ask why I’m not scared of dying here? Because I have faith that it’ll be for a reason, and rewarded at the end. If you don’t like the answers, then kill me and get it over with.”>
“It does not matter, you peelable alien fool!” Releasing his grip on the humanite, the thinker reared back so his sole foreleg could try and brush the furious irritation from his eyes and skull. Stiff hairs combing his skeleton in frantic motions. “Individuals, single entities, fail all the time. Die, all the time. It is their purpose, it is our purpose, to live, act, and die for the sake of the group. Pride can be found in excellence, in the performing of that duty, but what does it matter if it is your suffering, your success, your achievement?” The image of the humanite blurred. Went soft at its edges. The music, echoing off the walls and returning to Chkervthnaakt as though world were repeating the very same questions. “So long as the colony is served, the species advanced, all take share of the success. There should be no competition as you have fostered it, no conflict over such trivialities.”
<”No, no, you don’t get to scribe off parchment the entire core of what it means to be sentient. Sapient. I’m not having it.”> Scowling now, heartrate steadying even as it stayed elevated in honest opinion, the humanite squinted in the dark to try and make out the thinker. <”No creature, not even aliens, could exist without competition and struggle. If a species was nothing but ‘lay back, let it happen’, they’d be crushed before ever wriggling out of the *^&* pool. You’re not going to stand there and tell me your kind doesn’t wage war, you’re too damn good at it.”>
“Wars for resources, territory! The discord shattered us, turned what was one into six, and what was six into hundreds. We compete for biomass, yes, but no colony would destroy a reserve and the mass it contains. We fight, but we seek to exterminate only those who threaten the species as a whole. The stronger colony survives, propagates, unites. To fight for ideology, to war over disagreement, it is beyond self-destructive. The stronger idea survives. The weaker, dies. It is natural. It is right. It does not require assistance.”
<”Maybe not. But maybe determining who, what, which idea and which culture and which people deserve to live isn’t something which should be left to chance. To the ticking of time and the number of those saying ‘this is the way the world works, now’. Animals fight for food. Animals fight for territory. Fighting for what’s right, for the soul of your people? Maybe it’s self-destructive, and dark, and ugly, but I’d rather die starving and naked and burnt and a GOOD MAN,”> Notes spilled in a stew. <“Than live, fat and healthy, under monsters.”> There was a pungent sharpness coming from the tunnel. A scent of discolored worry and stress within the greater nest so present that it even infiltrated here, in this private sanctuary. Here, where an insane alien spouted wrongness that was so twisted in its logic, that it looped back into something… resembling, cohesion. The thinker did not reply. Brought, instead, his still wettened antenna low between his mandibles to clean the remnant spittle the female had left behind. <”Everyone tries, bug. Everyone wants what’s best for their people… species. Even the Soffs think what they’re doing is right, fucked as it is. But it isn’t everything. And it isn’t enough. Sometimes doing what’s right, means you gotta hurt others. Even those you care about. Even your own people. Or are your kind beyond that, too?”> His tube curled and licked fervently at the bent antenna, his four eyes staring down at the shape of the man. <”R'you so goddamned alien that you don’t even know what it is to feel hurt, really hurt, by the people you want nothing more than to help?”>
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“Goodness…is subjective. Rightness, is subjective. The survival of the colony is the absolute priority, and in it, there is no difference between what is right and what is necessary. It is the sole and universal truth.”
<”Even if it is necessary for the few to oppose the many?”> Danger. <”Even if doing what is right makes you an enemy of your own kind, has them call you traitor and pagan and dissenter and criminal?”> Dangerous query. Looping logic. Justification for otherness. For individuality. For fr-
“Skthveraachk thinker.” Fear and alarm signals spurted from his gaster at the song, and he realized only now in his whirling reorientation how his scythe had unconsciously extended. How taut his legs had become. The mender, remaining in the opening, hissed in alarm and reared as well, scythes out to meet his challenge. “You sing of violence?!”
“Skthveraachk mender! I-…no, my eyes turn to the sun and are blinded, your silhouette confounding my senses.” The humanite was readying to speak again, and Chkervthnaakt stabbed the rocky soil beside it to cut any words short. Violence returning his composure. Reminding him who was in charge of this exchange. Lungs filled, vents flared, music came easier. “Was learning much, enthusiastically sharing with our captive. Your appearance caused me alarm, I did not identify your scent on approach-“
“Irrelevant.” The interruption was succinct, surprising. Anger brewing within him, until he noted the fear in the pale mender’s jar-laden body. “There is an intruder in the nest.”
“Designation hostile? Has the smell of this humanite escaped into the general population?”
“Negative. The Pod has entered the nest. Alone.” Incomprehension. “The Pod is on the sixth layer. The Pod is descending. The Pod is heading for this location.” Comprehension. Comprehension. Then, panic. A quick signing to the spitters, and only slightly less-quickened scramble for the tunnel, pushing his way past the wan female. All thoughts of wrongness, rightness, lost in the black. Survival. Now, there was only survival. He needed the link.
“How did Jennifer learn of this location?”
“Unknown.”
“How long until it arrives?”
“Two beats, at most.”
“Inconceivable.” There was no shorter word to adequately fill the gap. It would take a beat just to reach the main tunnel branch. “How did the Pod become so familiar with the layout of the nest?”
“Unknown.”
“What has she told the Sovereignty? Do any others know she is present? What is her intention?”
“Unknown. Unknown. Unknown. Thinker.” The fear was as real in the mender as it was within himself. “We must inform the colony. If there is retribution, they must be prepared.”
“Our tasking is priority. We cannot share information of this location or the captive. Queen’s directive.”
“Protection of the colony supersedes all directives.”
“Agreed.” Time. Time they did not have and yet he needed more than anything. “I have interacted with the Pod the most of us two.”
“I have all relevant information and memories. It is immaterial.”
“To the humanites, it matters. She will view you as more a stranger than I. I will meet the Pod. You will begin alerting the soldiers.”
“We cannot combat the Sovereignty. We cannot combat their ships.”
“Yes. But we may be able to stop the Pod, to limit the damage and retribution. I will determine what is known and how to proceed. Go.”
“Received.” They were harmonized, synchronized, perfectly in sync, until the moment her leg left his and the mender went at a sprint through to the central passage. Squirting repeated priority signals as the masses of bodies spread and parted for her as one mind. That pungent and harsh smell permeated, sunk lower, and only now did Chkervthnaakt truly remember it. He unmarked, unnatural mechanical and metal tones covering the shell and coat of the humanite thinker/crafter/Queen. He emerged from the passageway. He turned, and saw the beam of light floating behind and illuminating in front of the stalking humanite. Mask across her mouth, eyes sharp and without their usual wetness. Hands as fists at her sides. He reared, folded his scythe, and bowed lower than he ever had before.
“Jennifer thinker, may your f-“
<”Get out of the way, thinker.”>
“I am not attempting to block your passage, I am here to greet your presence and inquire after it.” She pushed against his right side, and for just a moment, his eyes gave to his mind the sight of his scythe, only tenthlength extended, puncturing through the unarmored inner-skeleton of her skull. He could do it. It would take a breath. There was a small tearing of fabric as her woven shell caught on his hairs, and the formite scuttled back a step lest the meat below be injured. Hurrying after the female as she strode into the tunnel that was not there. “The lowest levels of the nest are unsuitable for your species, I can accompany you back to more comfortable depths?”
<”I know what you have down here.”> Knowledge, affirmed. He, not she, saw a pair of drones position behind them at the passageway’s entrance, unsure, but ordered to wait. Ordered to relay. He adjusted the tapping of his claws, and confirmed; she knew. <”What, who, whatever. And I thought ‘It’s alright, it's just a new opportunity, a chance to see how they react’, and I was ok with that.”> Bitterness in voice, bitterness in smell. There was a weapon in her right hand, the balled fist curled around what appeared to be some manner of miniaturized lance. <”It started fine, it started great! But now? These Emperor-forsaken nutjobs just can’t help themselves. They just can’t. First contact with alien life? Yeah, lets tell them all about the utopia awaiting them, if they just sign themselves over to the *^&* of Christ and *^&* and *^&**^&* and God.”>
“You are in a state of extreme agitation, Jennifer thinker, as I will admit I am as well. I am afraid I understand only half of what you are sharing. The humanite down here,” Careful. Skirt the edges. Truth. Truth. “Was located, dying, on a battlefield. We relocated him here, and sought to explore the knowledge he possessed once he was stabilized.”
<”I’m well aware what was done here, thinker, I’ve been listening for months now!”> Lie. Lie? Possibility. His head lowered, his arm remain folded, and the Pod did not seem to even notice now how close his mandibles were to her back as she strode in the halo of light towards the end of the tunnel.
“How is this possible, Jennifer thinker? I do not think this is a lie, not from you,” Careful. Everything now was critical. Chkervthnaakt wracked his brain, brought forth alone every detail, every aspect of humanite minds he knew. Humanites were individual colonies. Disregard traits of other humanites. Focus on the Pod. History? Lack of focus. Intelligence, but undirected. Pride in accomplishments. Pride. Go. “Not when you have been unfailingly honest with Skthveraachk-Colony. You have made mistakes, but never intentionally harmed us.” True. Enough. Response was provoked. Steps were stalled, as the humanite spun about.
<”I’ve never hurt you! Intentionally, or otherwise! Everything I’ve done has been for your kind, trying to understand, trying to stop YOU from hurting others! I’m the one who built those damn collars/bands, did you forget?”> She did not even flinch as she reached to grab around the length of his Band, and his tapping of claws only intensified as the information was fed back. <”You think the Sovereignty would let you have them if they didn’t monitor every single one? There’s entire *^&*, tracking, recording, everywhere you go and everything you say!”> Process. Process, quickly. Composer, he could have used another five thinkers, but there were not five thinkers. There was only him.
“If they have known of this place for hundredmeasures, the Sovereignty would have acted.” If the Pod had heard him threaten her life, as he just had, she should not be so comfortable. It was partitioned. Like the sanctum, the prison. It was known. But only by some. “They would have interceded. Unless they were not informed, unless the information was not relayed to them.” Her grip rescinded from his Band. Correct deduction, but it pushed the female away instead of towards him, and her stride for the room resumed.
<”Yeah. Because if they knew about this, thinker, Skthveraachk…I don’t know what to call you anymore, after last time. If they knew, they’d kill him. And you, and *^&*/chalice knows how many others, and they’d come in here and station guards and ruin all the observation we’re trying to manage and details of your species we’re trying to-…*^&**^&*.”> Thinker could smell spitters, and spitters could smell the humanite. He sprayed a puff of signalling marker; designation, not-hostile. But not ally. Not this measure. Not yet. <”They don’t know. I made sure they didn’t see the logs/recordings, wouldn’t find them, at least, not yet. I’m not so naïve to think you’d be above hurting me, thinker, I’ve seen it a lot here. I never thought you’d be able to torture a human, but here we are. So I’m not going to tell anyone, no, but I’m not letting this continue either. You understand me?”>
“Received. Rejected. You cannot kill him.” The end was there. Just there. If she entered that room, if she passed that threshold, the thinker knew it was over. No more answers. No more truths on which they could rely, question. One route of knowledge, from the Sovereignty, all that would remain.
<”It’ll be quick, and then…then, you just, bury the body here, somewhere, doesn’t matter where.”>
“He is needed. He is critical.”
<”Why? Why, damnit, why did Pri do this?!”> Blessed voices of the memories, she stopped. He could make out the shape of the humanite still sat in the room, but she came to a stop again as she once more fixed eyes upon him. Furious. Indignant. Hurt. Famili…ar? <”I’ve always been there, I was the one who spoke with her, with you all, first! If you had questions, if you wanted to learn about us, all you had to do was ask me! You DID ask me, for days, weeks! Then suddenly, nothing.”> The lance came up. Pointed, not at him, but down the hall. <”She’d rather take a prisoner of the enemy, interrogate him, than speak to me! Why, thinker? What have I done to her that’s so fucking unforgivable that I’ve lost everything I put into this mission!?”> She viewed him as separate. He adopted the part.
“The Queen does not…trust you, Jennifer.” Truth. “You have shown repeated emotional decisions, caused her pain, caused her fear, caused the death of her colony.” Truth. “She does not understand you, a thinker who acts a crafter or crafter who plays at being a thinker-“
<”I’m a laughing *^&* back on Earth. Did you know that? I’m a joke to them, to the ‘thinkers’ who are being called in to handle your people. Every mistaken translation, every cultural overlook, every subtext, they’re picking it all apart and telling me ‘you did your best, now let the real professionals take over’.”> Spindly appendages curled tighter around the loop which would activate the weapon, and the thinker combatted the urge to ease away from the growing threat. His body wished to run. But with each word, something pulled him nearer. <”I was nobody before we found K-H-13, then I was the one who broke the code, figured out the harmonics, built a friggin’, tank, for your Queen, and still. Still. Still. I’m…”> Overlooked. <”Just…”> Ignored. <”Still…”>
“Unappreciated.” A humanite word. A humanite sensibility. Colonies were allies. Colonies were thanked. Colonies negotiated, traded, exchanged, spoke. The pod looked to him. Not to Skthveraachk-Colony. Not to the Queen. Requests, prompts for further relay came from the main tunnel from whence they came, but he ceased his reports. There was no link here. There was Jennifer. And there was Chkervthnaakt. And Chkervthnaakt, in that single, beautiful moment, finally understood. “What do you want, Jennifer?”
<”I…don’t understand the question, I’m sorry, I’m-“> There was wetness at the portals of her eyes, the kind that came when under a deep physical pain. She was not injured, physically. The pain was not of the body, and the wetness was not only of a body’s hurt. <”You mean, the Sovereignty?”>
“The Sovereignty is the colony. It is the collective. Skthveraachk is the colony. Sovereignty wants control, dominion, a returning of its people and territory and the deaths of all others. Skthveraachk wants survival, control that has been taken from it, to become what is needed to excel in the newness of reality.” Deviance was not frenzy. Deviance was not frenzy. The spitters listened but did not comprehend. The link was severed. Him, and her. Formite. Humanite. One breath in. No more out. “I…want.” Deviance was not frenzy. “I want…to be remembered.” The individual could excel. The individual contributed, part, but separate.
<”Everyone does.”> Her gun was lowered, hanging back at the side of the female’s robes and uniform. <”Everyone wants that.”>
“My kind does not. But I do.” No breath came out. “I want the memories to sing of me, like they sing of the Founders, of the Triumverate, of the primordial chaos. That it was I who learned of the humanites. That it was I who discovered what it meant to be one. Not Skthveraachk-Colony. No colony can understand an individual. Only an individual can. And I want…it to be me.” The colored, illuminated and green-stalk alien eyes shone up to him. They were circular, grotesque, spread too wide and seeped fluid. They were not of him. He saw, all the same, himself within them.
<”I want that. Too.”> The gun trembled. <”I want to show them, thinker. I want to show those fancy *^&**^&* who are staying in heated offices a hundred layers/floors above ground on Earth that they’re nothing but *^&**^&*. Picking at my work. MY work.”> Lies? Truth? Irrelevant. Irrelevant. The Pod believed it. If she believed it, it was useful. Truth was no longer absolute. It was subjective. <”Tearing it apart and telling me I’m no longer needed. Even on K-H-13, thinkers are having difficulty fully understanding your rituals, your religion, your governmental structure. Your kind takes these things are hard facts, that everyone should understand. They don’t know how to share them.”>
“I know how to share them. I believe. If I am incorrect, I then know that I could adapt them into words you understand.” She wanted this. He wanted that. There was harmony. There was cohesion in their solitude. “You must leave the Coalition soldier alive.”
<”Wh-, no,”> The Pod tried to shake off the immaterial bindings. <”When he was just, talking about humanity, I could listen and copy your answers, it was fine. If he starts talking religion, if he convinces you, warps your thinking, it would be catastrophic.”>
“He has taught me how to parse the ideas of individuality. As you have.” Pride. Feed it. The thinker lowered and chittered his mandibles together, their clacking like the splintering of bone. “When you came to me in the encampment outside Guir, I said you had taught us nothing, only informed us. I was correct. You have taught Skthveraachk-Colony nothing. But it seems you have taught me.” Truth? Lie? Subjective. She was smiling. The thinker saw it in her disgusting eyes. “And now, I will assist in teaching you. You will help me, as you have already been helping. You will keep this humanite secret."
<”It’s not the easiest thing, thinker. It’s, something I can keep up, but…”> It was not the danger she was concerned with. She did not smell of fluid excretion and stress. <”I want a *^&*/place. Here, in the nest.”>
“This can be arranged and agreed upon.”
<”And access,”> Her eyes were clearer now. Shining. Wanting. <”To everywhere. I won’t interfere, naturally, promise, but I don’t want to be filling out forms and requests and being *^&* down. You’ll tell them, I’m free to come and go?”>
“You will be permitted anywhere. Even here, to watch. Participate, perhaps, even. And you will walk freely within the nest, observe, and be taught in kind. You will assist me.” A deal between colonies. “I will assist you.”
<”What about Pri? Or, the others, won’t there be-“>
“The Queen has directed all dealings in this location remain segmented. Consent of the colony is not required.” Revealing, perhaps a bit too much, but the Pod needed to know he could provide. The Pod needed to believe. The Pod needed to trust. And she did. She did. “You will ensure the Coalition soldier does not lie or mislead with false-truths. With your cooperation, we will be protected from influences.”
<”I can do that. I can do that easily, yes, yes I could do that.”> Speech patterns, tempo, all quickening. The excitement once more returning to her timbre. <”Not to mention, I could help identify when he was simply lying to you. Stop you from buying in to his obvious tactics-“>
“Explain.” The humanite’s words cut apart his joy. She startled.
<”No offense, just, you’re not very good interrogators. Humans, soldiers especially, are trained to resist degrees of torture, and even when he’s not lying to you, that guy in there has been guiding the conversation in directions he wants, rather than what you want. There’s no proof of a God, any God, there’s six planets in the Coalition, technically, not five, uh.”> No more joy. No more pride. A hundred measures. Months. Trembles began to run his length. The Pod brought out her tap-pad, and the miniature lance was tugged up under the pit of her arm. <”You asked him once about tank operation, and he said something about using your mouth to turn the handles, which is just a straight lie-“> Thinker was careful to ensure his hairs remained down as he shoved Jennifer aside, and it was he, not she, who was first to enter the chamber. Barely noting the tapping of her footsteps behind as she followed the formite in. In, to the smirking, crude face of the male who had doubtlessly heard all.
“How many planets are within the Coalition’s control?”
<”Forty-two.”> His face did not twitch.
“How are your forces arranged before combat engagements?”
<”We all stand on our heads and sing *^&**^&* with eachother.”> His heartrate did not stutter.
<”You need to have a way to verify these things, thinker. He probably started with little lies, seeing what he could get away with, before simply sprinkling as much fiction as fact into his responses.”>
<”They finally send down someone who knows what they’re doing? I was getting tired of staring at giant *^&* all day anyways, though looking at a Soff *^&**^&*/clutchmother isn’t much improvement.”> Wasted. Wasted. Tenmeasure upon tenmeasure wasted. The male was grinning, and despite the blood of his feet and scarred flesh, there was no longer even a whiff of fear about him. The Pod scoffed.
<”If it were up to me, I’d put a bolt through your head and be done with it.”> Her voice trembled, but her convictions did not. <”Lucky for you my…friend/partner, here, wants you alive. Or, wanted you alive as of five minutes ago.”>
“How does one reach this ‘Heaven’ of yours?”
<”Second star to the right, and straight on till morning, you *^&*.”> Lie? Truth? He couldn’t tell. He couldn’t tell. Claw slashed forward, and raked across the creature’s chest with only enough control to ensure the draw of blood was shallow. The humanite screamed. The humanite laughed. Panted, shouted, as the thinker turned and marched from the room. <”Corporal Denis Parker, Sixth Dracan *^&**^&*, 81-992-48-7! Ask as often as you want, I’ll repeat it then! Fuck you! Fuck you, bug!”> Pained laughter followed just behind the Pod, her footsteps clacking on stone as she rushed after his bobbing gaster.
“It seems, Jennifer, I will need your aid in this endeavor far more than previously expected.”
<”Don’t feel bad about it. It took us hundreds of *^&* to get these things right, and I’m a bit happy to learn you, formites, aren’t good at lying.”>
“Yes. For that, I will rely on you and your species’ superior talent and affinity.” Forward and back. Progress and loss. The drones were repeating, again and again, demands for information. The link beckoned; thinker steadied himself, and began the partitions within his own mind. “I will inform the colony of your new role with us. Then, we will get to work.” Term used previously, identified, seemed suitable now. Now. And for now. “…Jennifer Friend.”