He had never lied.

At the least, the Aadarsh had never committed a statement to song which Ckhehnvraahll could prove false. Skthveraachk was not watching the worming body of her sister ahead, and only one of her eyes had been allocated to noting the Hathan beside her. Hands behind his back, faced forward, orifice thinned and set to a line; the only other humanite besides the marked ambers who had remained in the stomach of the earth. The rest, she set on the Imperial Herald. His posture that was somehow at ease despite its straightness, the smile that never shone white from the curve of his features, the cut of the woven but hard wear he adorned both as comfort and with the regality the Queen had once borne her own horned allomyrite armor. Another piece of Ckhehnvraahll was being taken into herself, the few thousand each bearing their own instruction, own image, meaningless until arranged into the honeycomb that made vision clear. Some formed a concerto, allowing the pale mender to lead with voice a fond reconnection. A few took to improper touches and scrapings on the menials they passed, who transmitted shivering pleasure to the colony entire, messaged affection from beyond the sky. But most recited, without fanfare or panoply, what the vassal had learned. And the lesser Queen, who had spent a hundred and more measures beneath an artificial thass dome constructed as gift for her and security for the humanite guests, had learned that the Aadarsh had never, not once, lied.

Her lands and reserves had been hunted in ignorance and necessity, the mass needed to preserve the life of her superior Queen. Truth. The attacks which had ravaged Ktcvahnaah and forever crushed the sound of Chkervthnaakt beneath a roar of death were made in error, and not to be repeated without cause. Truth. The Sovereignty needed soldiers in their war, yes, but there was so much more they wanted of her species. Songs did not crescendo to their peaks immediately, and worlds did not begin lush and verdant. Even this was a truth, as the memories and legends of the Founders whispered from the dawning of history. How the mass had once been scarce before the creation of the reserves, how colonies devoured one another in an endless chain to remain alive under colder skies and crueler times. Worlds were found barren, and only through patience of thousands, tens of thousands, tens of tens of thousands of cycles did they begin to flourish. Humanites were not patient. They had seen a problem, and applied as they always did their technology to the task. Her species was needed to return control of these worlds to their rightful owner, the Emperor and his Sovereignty, but this was the storm to be followed by calm.

Imagine, the Aadarsh had sung with words which dripped with color and light, worlds bereft of life. Red, grey, untouched and untended. The humanites could mend the soil, fill the air with warmth, but it was formites who could assist in their truest role. To farm. To grow, to tend. Fields beyond sight, made green, filled with beasts for harvest and blooms for cultivation. Imagine drones who would no longer need buckle under weight or strain selves, and be taught only how to touch and tap at the blackrock consoles and upon the lighted buttons, producing without effort. A hundred measures spent learning how to speak like her people, and to use the words they all desired more than anything to hear. Imagine an end to the conflicts between colonies. Food for all. Work for all. Imagine the discord, silenced.

The Aadarsh had never once lied.

Every other humanite had lied.

Ckhehnvraahll had named him Aadarsh Who Had Been Blessed, that there would be a male amongst the Sovereignty who walked and tasted and led as a humanite, but smelled and sounded and sung as a formite. Skthveraachk watched him now, and beneath her tender hopes, felt the vines of suspicion crawl.

<”These … couplings. How often do they need to be repeated?”> Back from the past. Back from the outer. She was beside Hathan once again, behind the Aadarsh. Tapping her mandibles together, the Queen raised gaze to the eighteen nesting drones that had restrained the screeching pemphredonite; positioning, provoking, and keeping its jaws elevated away from the breeding queen’s neck as she took the creature within her abdomen.

“It will vary with the species, Aadarsh. Between inseminations, the pemphredonites need but half a bar to recuperate.” The removal of the stinger was a relief; more than one queen had been damaged during the thrashing resistance. Experience allowed for precision, and none of the nesting attendants slipped in their duties. Scents of warning, sounds of caution when one lost grip and another quickly filled the gap, but no danger signals which would send the others into a panic. “But once the seeding pouch is filled, the laying will no longer require a male’s involvement. It will be preserved until it needs be replaced.”

<”Biologically, it is enthralling. Do you expect the first generation, sorry, that is, clutch. Do you believe they will be successful?”>

“No.” The Herald turned, drawn from the scene by the abrupt response. Some of the ambers had taken to setting up the machinery the humanite superior had brought from his vessel, placing it around the chamber. But maintaining their distance from the breeding, and only after the devices had been sprayed so as not to alarm queen or attendants. “Even between formites, the Composer may tease you, and the traits desired will not manifest. Few colonies have managed successful integrations of new forms. It is said the last great war was ended not by the defeat at the Sands Made Orange, but truly by the pledge to share the breeding of spitters with all.”

<”You’d love hearing about all our own wars that got ended by one side agreeing to *^&*/join their families together.”> Hathan looked sideways, but something about his speed made Skthveraachk wonder if it was not more to avoid seeing how the pemphredonite was dragged lower as it beat wings against its binds and managed to stab a leg into the pulsing queen. Superficial damage to thorax. Unfortunate all the same.

<”You must be confident enough if you are willing to take one of your queens away from producing new drones, to attempt this, though.”>

“Yes. With what was learned previous, accounting for differences in this male, I wish and think to see one successful offspring within the first three hundred thousand. When the spawn is paired to the next queen, viability will raise once more. In three generations, perhaps two cycles, the colony may once more be the first to control the air. Naturally, control the air.” The pride that had been welling upwards settled at the addendum. The remembrance of the last encounter. “Without the aid of constructions of hardstone metals.”

<”And the failures will be recycled back into the population. Expedient, and *^&**^&* efficient.”> He was done here. She could tell before he even made voice of it. Most of the ambers did not cease their own labors when he stepped back and away, and there was no small amount of concern present in leaving them in the nursery. Aadarsh saw her stillness. His nod, reassuring. She followed in silence, but only after making an order that soldiers be moved from slumber to a closer station nearby. <”It’s one aspect of your kind I have come to admire most. We have a word of our own for this, you know. Add to the translator; ‘eugenics’.”> Hathan followed them out. Menials were directed to the surface, and to keep to a humanite’s pace to ensure Aadarsh could follow even as he spoke. <”The elimination of unsuitable, weaker aspects from our bodies for the benefit of the future. Your species engages in it naturally, without reservation. Making your scouts see further ahead, making your warriors stronger and larger. Humans managed to reach space and sail the stars before we ever fully and truly committed ourselves to it.”>

“Your physical structure is weak. It is mildly surprising, but using your intelligence to overcome such obstacles seems to have succeeded where your bodies have failed.”

<”We’ve had our share of *^&*/frenzied who thought they could make our race perfect, I assure you, but they were disposed of before doing real harm by saner minds. Still, the things we tolerated.”> The glow from above was meager, and Hathan occasionally stumbled. The Herald showed no such difficulty. When they passed near the larder, the scent of palmidia still wafting freshly cut, Aadarsh sniffed and gestured. <”Palmidia; it is a staple of your diet. On Earth, there was a type of *^&*/sprout we used often in our own meals. A problem, for a time, given near two-percent of our planet’s entire population would choke, suffocate, or die if they came into contact with it.”>

“I do not understand how this is possible.” Skthveraachk could have, perhaps should have, assigned a drone to this task. Her gaster dragged heavily still, despite the bulk having lessened greatly in the past measures, and rigid legs strained from the activity. But a drone might have relayed such information incorrectly. Adjusted, to better fit what was possible. She needed to hear it from the source, with her own body and crest. “Biomass poisons, or it does not. It is exceedingly rare for one colony to be unable to ingest what another regularly consumes. How would such a population survive?”

<”Because we ensured they would.”> He made noises that were not quite a laugh, but were greater than an inward rumble. Even the Hathan seemed humored, for the first time, by the conversation. Grinning, though closing his lips when he caught Skthveraachk looking. <”Painstakingly separated the foods so they would never come in contact, labeled and warned of every possible contamination, segregated the meals of those who could ingest the sprout and those who couldn’t and prepared medicines and treatments in case an error was made. What do you make of that?”>

“That it would not be a thing done on my world.” She was surprised to be asked directly. Was the male seeking a particular answer? It was irrelevant. Skthveraachk was asked, and would not weaken her reply. “It would be wasted effort. Wasted energy. Your species places unhealthy importance on your individual members. Needed, perhaps, given each of you must function as both individual and colony, but if one in a hundred colonies could not ingest palmidia, it is likely that colony would simply die.”

<”The cruelty of the natural world is within your species, Skthveraachk Queen.”> A truer laugh this time. Fourth layer. Third. <”We did not let them die, no. But when order at last came to our world, we did at last take steps to rectify the problem. For the complication that led these humans to grow sick, die, was one we found was almost always passed into their children. So, the labeling continued, the warnings kept, and any who were found to possess the defect were forbidden from procreating.”>

“You refused to permit females with the sickness from becoming birthing queens?”

<”As you would understand it, yes.”> Jacket and bodyweave clung to the male as he raised a hand, making some strange manner of wave over his head. Skthveraachk began to raise a foreleg to mimic, but a quick shake of Hathan’s head stilled her as they followed. <”Oh there were arguments, protests, even *^&**^&*/captures. Our Sovereignty was in its infancy then, after all, and our harmony was new. But within the first generation, the defect’s presence in our population was cut by sixty percent. By the second, another sixty. By the third, while we retained a measure of preparedness for it, the warnings and caution was gone. By the fifth, it was almost unheard of for a human to suffer sudden choking or death. Now? I have never heard a tale of ‘death by *^&**^&*’ in my life.”>

<”Had a *^&**^&* who had a reaction when she was young, actually.”> The upward slope was growing shallower. In the distance, she heard the creak of the wooden lift reaching the surface. Her breath was shorter. Pain was good. The walk was doing her good. <”Parent/birthing queen accidentally mixed some of her rations in with the infant’s. They usually outgrow it, I hear, even when it does pop upwards. She did, at least. All grown/developed, now.”> Herald’s half-eye backwards brought a quick continuation from the Commander. <”Oh they still submitted the report, of course, made sure she was on the list. Better to be safe rather than sorry in cases like that.”>

<”Most certainly. Does she plan on applying for adoptive parenthood *^&*/permission now, Commander? If there was ever a time to almost be guaranteed acceptance, it is now.”>

<”I haven’t spoken to that part of my *^&*/nest/*^&* since cycles before my deployment, sir. I hope so. She always regretted never being able to have any herself.”> The break from conversation gave the Queen time to ruminate, and pass along the data. Thinkers clung to the edges of her thoughts, ready, eager, to be assigned to any passing curiosity. More than one, however, suggested pressing as the silence replaced sound. And the Queen, feeling a cold breeze run across her shell from openings ahead, agreed.

“To strengthen your species is a good. It is right. If this decision improved you, why was it initially fought?”

<”Which, to you Skthveraachk, takes priority? The success of your colony, or the success of your species?”> It was not an answer to her question, but a tactic commonly employed when answer was seen as too difficult to encapsulate. Hairs shivering, her claws clenched as she allowed to Herald to dictate the tempo of their song.

Stolen story; please report.

“I place my colony in danger here, at risk of death, for the sake of my species. I was ready to die to your kind for the sake of my species. My colony is my life, and I would do anything for its preservation. And, I would sacrifice it willingly if needed for the preservation of my people. Choir before voice. Chorus before solo.”

<”That is something you should not, and cannot, take as a complete/*^&* truth. I do not believe you would find that sentiment shared even amongst every colony of your world. Do you?”> Skthveraachk did not answer. Clenched her mandibles. Chose not to answer. <”You will not find it common amongst my people either. Not nearly as common as it should be. We made great strides towards it, towards such an ideology. Such defect was not the only one cured. It was not even the first. We cured not just bodies, but minds, nests, colonies, beliefs, worlds, and every time, the voices fighting against it grew quieter and quieter. So quiet, that we thought them gone entirely. But, as you have seen, they are not gone. Not gone at all.”> They emerged, together, out under the cerulean dome to the beat of the brickworkers and trundling carts and groaning lifts. Clicks came from the rod beneath the Herald’s head-holes as he inhaled through the paired openings, and looked to the alto. To what lay beyond, unseen, as the realization crawled up and out of the Queen’s stomach like fetid, unprocessed bile.

“The Coalition.” Caution. Care. Information previous, merely data. Information now, posing direct benefit to the humanite sharing it. Caution, care; listen, but do not internalize. Thinkers to standby, recall previous conversations. “Why does this come now? Your enemies are my enemies. The Sovereignty is superior, and I will fight what and where I am directed. None have seen fit to share with me the purpose of this conflict. Now, you say it is because they fight that which improves your species? This does not parse.”

<”You have not been informed because it was deemed unnecessary. Moreso, that it was determined to be dangerous, the same as why you are denied access to our technologies, weapons, inventions.”> They came to a halt in that frigid air, and the sun for once was less a danger than it was a welcome heat flaring down upon them. It did not penetrate deep through her carapace. Not nearly as deep as the colder chemicals that had begun to pump.

“I do not see a danger in giving my people the means to better kill your enemies, be it your devices or your knowledge. Unless you do not trust our pledge to assist you.”

<”We don’t.”> The damage could not have been done better even if the Herald had picked up a lancer and held down the trigger. And for some reason, it did not even flicker the level control in his face. <”At least, many of our leaders don’t. They trust you are doing what you must to survive. Right now, that means assisting us.”>

“You accuse us of frenzy?” Her claws were uncurling. Her scythes were shivering in their sleeves. Hathan did not move from her, indeed he moved closer. She had to look to him twice to confirm that the translator had not broken, but the dark concern he wore like veil of smoke was confirmation enough. “My colony has bled and died for the Sovereignty. We have travelled across the sky for you. We could not oppose you even if we wished it.”

<”And what if you could?”> The ambers did not move nearer. Aadarsh did not back away as the tips of her scythes began to emerge, even as the Queen struggled to maintain control of her body. She breathed, deep, and tasted the sea. Two scentcrafters had hurried to her distress, and were filling the air with fragrance. <”I said I wanted your trust, Skthveraachk Queen, and that means I trust you in turn to be capable of hearing truth. Your species is incapable of lying, as far as we can tell, so answer me this; if you were in possession of ships as ours. Weapons, as ours. If the distance between us and you were not so insurmountable, would all of your species still be willing to ally and stand with/beside us?”>

“Many would!” Most likely. “Most assuredly, many would reach to take hold of claws extended from above.” Many would not. “Some would refuse, of course,” Would she? “And I would … be willing to continue my aid. If I believed it would assist my people in achieving unity of purpose.” She looked again to the Hathan. Wondered, briefly, if the Band was removed and the painrock smashed from existence and his ships not be known to hover overhead, if... He smiled at her, stretched and thin. She terminated the thought process. “I do not know for certain, Aadarsh-Herald.”

<”Neither does the Emperor. It is not something He wishes to test. Not just for our sake, but yours.”> The rises were growing longer now, but it would be only a few bars now before the sun sank to the beyond. Labor reports, tabulated progress, was already being collected for the measure. Her scythes sank back into their sheathes fully, and her lungs beat to the time of her heart. <”We learned ourselves the dangers of machinery and technology before we were ready for it. The same way knowledge, before one is prepared, can be its own manner of destruction.”>

“I am familiar with the notion of a half-truth.” She felt Hathan adjust beside her, not comfortably. “I am experienced with the concepts of information withheld, until one is deemed ‘suited’ for it. It is the cause of much strife. Much rage, which could have been avoided.”

<”Commander Devries did what he thought was best, and for what value it holds, I agree with his decisions.”> Another clench of claw. <”But I acknowledge that the time for such things has come, and gone. Your language has been studied, the concepts translated appropriately, and you, Skthveraachk Queen, have demonstrated both a willingness to serve and willingness to learn. I have advised honesty. I have been heeded. You ask why the Coalition fights, and why you must fight them? I will permit Commander Devries to answer in my place.”> Instantly, she was turned from the Herald. Immediately, she was faced to the Hathan. Unreared, her head at his level, her body bathed in soothing scents and pheromones that kept the anger at tenlengths. His surprise was genuine, the way he quickly scanned between the Herald and her own body. This was not prepared. He was not prepared. The Hathan had lied, and sworn to her never to lie again.

<”I’m not sure I can summarize an entire-“>

“I will accept your answer. I must know the validity of this, the reason.” Would it help her succeed? She was unsure. To know her opposition’s tactics, tools, this was what she first cared for. The Commander was hesitating, processing, and each beat which passed them by empty was another beat he had to adjust, omit, prepare his statements for truths colored by intent. The gift Hathan had given was meant to be a secret, a thing that was true but unshared with others. Mandibles ground together as she puckered her feeding tube, took a breath, and tried. “One … cannot have true victory, unless they know both the enemy and themselves. I know myself. Please, tell me of the enemy.” Was it enough? Too much? Something was in the Herald’s face that was not there before, out of the very corner of her eye. The Hathan, too, had shifted. But when he spoke again, the delivery was sure. And it was, as she could best tell accompanied by the minds of a hundred thinkers, true.

<”It came down to a single, critical disagreement. ‘What is more important?’ That, best as I can tell, is what the argument came from. On the one side, you have the Sovereignty.”> The right hand. <”You remember what I said, about how we created our harmony? Back in the beginning? When there was only Earth, before we became what we are today. Near nine billion humans, and nine billion different ideas on how things should be done. People fought. People killed. Eventually enough people fought and killed that the word itself was on the brink of dying too.”>

“I remember, Hathan. I do not know what power could threaten the life of a planet, but I believe your kind capable of it. So,” They were back on the bridge of the Palamedes, remembering that view of the stars for the first time. Stars she had now soared past. “Your species changed itself?”

<”We did. We came back from the very brink. A…very great man, an important man, unified billions. Made a promise that never again would humanity fall as we had. And even then,”> The laugh was without joy. <”Even then, people refused to go along with it. But there was no turning back from that point. They saw what had almost happened, saw what could happen again. Were willing to do anything, anything to stop it from happening again. So they took everyone who refused, everyone who dissented, everyone who fought, and they killed them. There would be no more alternative ways of living. No more hundreds of countries/colonies. No more differing beliefs on how things were run or who lived in the sky, none of it. Nine billion people became just over six. And those six became the Sovereignty.”> She listened. Tried to listen. The logic was sound, the reasoning sensible, but the scale. The scale was unfathomable. Eight of the thinkers cut themselves from the link, to process in silence. <”And they did such…big things. Svera you can’t even imagine it, the things they, we, achieved. We cured sicknesses, we fed everyone, we explored the stars, built great big … things, made huge discoveries. We found new planets, we made them habitable, we even tamed *^&*.”> The Band blipped confusion. It was ignored. She understood the intent, if not the word. The Herald looked on, not interrupting, as rapt as the Queen herself.

<”I don’t know if you can even really, truly, appreciate what I mean when I say we even stopped wars. Can you imagine that? For hundred and hundreds of cycles, at most, you’d have little conflicts and fights and *^&**^&*, but … maybe that’s why we didn’t see it coming. Didn’t realize how weak we were getting again.”> Fingers to his head, rubbing. His breaths, offbeat, trying to steady and recollect. <”The disagreement. Humans, Svera, are selfish. We’re selfish, and we’re stupid, and the Sovereignty exists to make sure we never hurt ourselves like we did before. But more and more, even after everything we achieved, there were those who looked to the past. Who saw how things used to be. The more planets we got, the more we grew, the more those disagreements started showing up again. ‘We’re smarter now, we’re better now, we won’t make the same mistakes’. Arguments, again. Dissent, again. They argued that things were different, and in doing so, showed just how much things were the same.”>

<”Species, or individual. That’s really all it came down to, in the end.”> Skthveraachk had thought there would be a bolt from the sky, a crash of thunder. Something. Anything. It was just her, and it was just Hathan. <”The Sovereignty believed, believes, that we all must be as one to survive. The Coalition believes that when you do that, when you put the many before the one, you stop being human. Whatever they think being human means.”>

“Frenzy.” Her music was hollow. She tried to muster color into it, and found nothing but greys. “You describe frenzy.”

<”I’m not trying to, sorry, I might be mistaking-“>

<”Let her continue, Commander.”> The Herald silenced the man, but she would have gone on regardless.

“When the unity is tested, when the one is separated from the whole. We sing as one, together, from our first note to our last, from our births until our deaths. Our roles are served, our lives are joined in the great chorus. When a drone is lost, but not killed. When it is taken from its Queen, its nest, even its caste, even a menial can become…” Her guts were ice even discussing it. Caution. Care. Humanites could lie. Accepted. But this was not some invention of humanite creation. She knew these words. She knew this danger. She knew this fear. “They can become something other. A nesting drone questions their role. A soldier ceases to wish for combat. Queens become odd, in their minds and actions. When the song is disrupted, and the harmony is shattered, there is no longer unity. There is the Discord, the first and primal failure. The time before time, cursed and dark, when drone fought drone. When menial refused the Queen, when all were disparate and the star-sent feasted on our flesh. Before the Founders. Before the Song. The chaos primordial.” Had a part of her hoped that the Coalition would prove different? Better? It could still. It could be a redemption unknown.

<”You understand clearly, Skthveraachk Queen. Or clearly enough to register the fear of the Sovereignty, the reason we fight.”> Aadarsh stepped nearer, near enough that not only could the Queen lay claw on him should she wish it, but he could do the same to her. <”The Sovereignty is order. The Sovereignty is unity. The Coalition frenzies from our collective, and fights not for the species, but for the sake of returning our people to their older realities. This is our enemy. This is your enemy.”> A request was being made for her attention, from a chamber that did not exist far beneath them. She refused it. It came again, but this time, with information attached. The drones delivering it shuddered as they relayed, word for word. ‘No indication of falsehood. Information coincides with discoveries’. What discoveries? Not for her to know. It was possible the Coalition was the greatest frenzy the Composer had ever written. She hissed her breath in a misting fog.

“If the Coalition is frenzied, they must be exterminated, entirely.”

<”That, more or less Skthveraachk Queen, is our intention.”>