Most venerable of colonies. Most revered of Founders. By the song of her mother, and her mother’s mother, and back until the First beheld the Composer and the One Voice became two became a million. She could feel antennae go limp as unfilled entrails draped across her crest, but Skthveraach didn’t care. Didn’t even care that she could still taste the tangy, raw base of lumbrite in the stew. Clasping her forelimbs around the drone, her mouth wide and extended to tube, she drank deep as the worker poured free its stomach. Glistening, melted strands of meat in smoothest broth of enzymes flowing from its mouth to hers. Bury a freshest cut of coleo and burn the feel of a hundred weavers cocooning her in silken sleep, after ten and more measures of choking down chunks of meat; this. This warmth of another body, this heat of fluid, this consistency just thicker than water and not quite of blood. This was the Composer’s own music.
“If Queen bursts, our deaths follow shortly. Thinker. Perform your role. Advise the Queen. Yes? Yes.” The mender had stood guard over the pile of biomass until three drones had been selected to test it, but partook with the same hungry fervor as the rest when she had deemed it safe. Those workers may have been used to their solid meals in their own cells, but not even the thinker could mask the way his antennae sagged and vents trembled when once more feasting from another. He still basked in the postal bliss of it, rolled onto his carapace with underside flipped shamelessly to air. A position she doubted was entirely coincidental, given how it allowed his head within a tengthlenth to her neck, one of his antennae feeling over the Band set about her.
“I do not believe it possible to willingly eat to the point of self-damage, Skthveraach mender. I also question why you have faintest acceptance in the truth, rather lack thereof, that the War Queen listens to anyone. Let alone me.” She took a swipe with her scythe for the upturned thinker, hoping to at least catch and gouge his carapace. When it glanced off the floor, his position became in her mind almost too convenient.
“You are a thinker. Your role is to advise. You refuse role? You grow disparate? Yes?”
“My role is to offer suggestions. There is no stipulation that states a Queen must heed my entirely sensible advice.” The pause was less of thought on the matter than of distracted rumination, and Skthveraach could feel the delicate tracing of his touch on the alien’s construction. Their living rocks, hardstone maybe, that could vibrate and pulse as though it were instilled with the breath of creation. “Queen. Endeavor to avoid dying. Or at least, see if you can convince the creatures to gift me one of these rings as well. Utterly fascinating. It has crystals which glow, and it vibrates against me. I should call the delver.”
“No sightings of interest.” Her scout had struggled at first but, after rebounding his momentum off a nearby cell, managed to situate himself atop one of the boxes. Vantage provided over the mass of their bodies and the rest of the room combined. They had not given him the pain, nor did they now despite the thinker fondling another of their creations. “Queen would listen to you clearer if you did not constantly contest her song. Or deliberately use incorrect designation. Skthveraach Queen. No other title.”
“I may sympathize when a true name is registered amongst the notes on high without our consent, but I also acknowledge the futility of struggling against that final choir.”
“Did not take you for one who hides behind the Composer when revealed.” Softened hairs on the scout did not twitch as he spoke, the music a jab without reinforced threat or actual anger. Still, there was a huffing from the wizened thinker as he rocked and rolled himself back onto five legs. Exertion masking indignation.
“One does not hide behind truth, one wields it like a spiked husk shield. Protection from the ignorant, and a skewer for them should they foolishly draw too near. Delver! Come here, I need you to confirm the material of this.”
“Command rescinded.” Skthveraach felt the drone’s stomach growing empty, but she did not cease her drinking even as flat hum was uttered to countermand the thinker. “I do not need my neck licked at. The information is not relevant at the moment, and we should not risk damaging the Band.”
“Queen eat! Queen happy! Queen eat!” Helpful chitters were uttered by the pair of attendants, and though Skthveraach did not want to admit it, their stroking and pressing near her own stomach made it feel as if she really might burst if she did not cease. At least she would die in rapturous joy. Retracting her tube, chanting a brief thanks for her meal to the gratefully panting and drained drone, the attendants snapped their attentions to wiping and cleaning her mandibles and mouth of the residual slime and grease. Out of her rightmost eye, she watched the crimson hulks in their enclosures awkwardly shove their own unprocessed meat through mouths. Trying to savor like her full abdomen the way they struggled, and trying to ignore the image of herself in measures before similarly degraded.
“Have you no thirst for knowledge within you now, Skthveraach Queen?” It was a mocking lament from the aged drone. The thinker trotted lethargically back to the center of the colony’s mass. Taking a seat once more near the delver, who had done little except fawn over the floor since his release. Even now, his claws scraped, chipped, tried to peel up layers with no success. “A few conversations with the creatures are enough to slake your thirst?”
“Queen’s decision valid. Creatures constructions, difficult to determine. Similar, in the Silent City; nothing so advanced, but many crafts we do not understand. Fiddle, experiment, accident, break only known copy.” The thinker cleaned his antennae with his one forelimb, agitation coloring both his body and music while the delver matched Skthveraach’s notes. “Jchlehaalhn-Colony never interfered when only one example present. Many copies, then, opportunity for tests and accidents. One copy, must leave alone, no matter how tantalizing.”
“Accident occurs, neck severed, Queen dies, yes? No. Queen dies, then we die, then colony dies. Sing advice which does not get Queen killed, thinker. Yes.”
“Perimeter movement.” The call from the scout thrummed in the air as his legs beat, and the few portions of flesh left were scarfed down to be stored in second stomachs. The music turned from sharing of thought to sharing of information, and the defensive ball was formed. More relaxed than previous, but all turned as they awaited scout. All feeling now the bellowing, deep roar from somewhere deeper in the nest. “Long wall to our left. Opening down center.” The sound made her body bounce, the vibrations causing the smallest of them like the attendants to hop in place as what was once solid barrier of grey rock and hardstone split like the cell doors. Parting, to let as rush the smell of the creatures beyond them.
<”Skthveraach Queen. May you sing well.”> None were nearby. Skthveraach threw head upwards and scanned the area, but the wall’s spreading had not even half completed. She signed request to her scout, but his response confirmed it; there were no creatures immediately present. <”I am above, in the *^&(* beyond. This is Hhahtheehn. The Band is capable of *^&(*/hearing over far distance. I am sorry I could not come in person.”> Her colony chittered in confusion as the Queen relayed the messages, trying as she had to see where the song originated. The thinker, meanwhile, trembled with the excitement of a queenlings first birthing as he made memory of every note sung. <”You do not need to respond. Request; advance through the opening/*^&(*.”>
“Hhahtheehn Queen, may our voices be formed in the light of purpose unified. Received.” She knew her colony was fragmented enough already, and that disturbing them more by speaking with and to unseen voices would serve no one. But before uttering order, she added as brief a statement as she could. “My shame in your injury and joy in your recovery.”
<”You acted without fault. As you told *^&(* Jhenaafhur, it was an accident, not a mistake. I need you to walk directly past it.”> Never would she harmonize the meanings in these strange twists the creatures made in music. Hhahtheehn’s forgiveness was clear, as direct from his legs as the Band would allow, and even if the greeting was juvenile, it had been formal. Respectful. Equal.
“Advance into the new space. Halt four lengths past the opening barrier.”
“Received.” Hairs brushed her leg as the drumming of claws began, the collective bodies moving in their circle formation. The edges dipping and waving as bodies attempted to fit together in best order, the occasional stutter in step. She tried not to let the errors disturb her focus.
<”Good. There is much we need to *^&(*. *^&(*. Lots we need to *^&(*-…halt a moment.”> Skthveraach ground to a stop as they passed through the ever widening entryway, and her colony lurched alongside her, a length before she had previously ordered them pause. The cavern had been an arched monument to the prowess of the creatures; as the lengthwise wall split itself, it revealed another of identical size. Of near identical construction. Long hardstone bars set into the ceiling, suspending all manner of odd shaped contraptions of inexplicable purpose. Figures, she could make out before her scout pointed to their existence, raised up ten and ten lengths again on ledges which jutted from the perfectly smoothed walls. Pale shells, mostly, though the odd spitter could be seen amongst them. Spitters, and a glorious blue hue behind reflective and foggy barrier on high. Beats were made faster within her core. This was important. This room would be important. <”Share information. There is much information we must speak/sing/share together, time-future. There will be difficulties in translations for *^&(* yet. But I need you to tolerate it. You are receiving me?”>
“Received.” Above was not the only difference. The room was sized the same, yes, but the contents were now what caught her colony’s attention. Pillars of white stone thrust up from the floor, cut squares scattered about the brightly lit interior that had a glow about them most unnatural. Like a forest of rocky trees and ridges, sculpted rather than naturally found. “Hold position. Hold formation.”
<”Good. I sung to you of danger, before. Approaching us. That danger remains, and is nearer now. I *^&(* you answers before, and I will keep my truth in this. There are two… colonies/groups/nests/masses/bodies/.”> The slew of concepts flooded from single ringing note, the Band at her neck practically buzzing with noise not quite music. <”One wishes you killed. You, your colony, all colonies. They are not my enemy, but they are my designation hostile. I do not want death to *^&(* to you.”>
“Skthveraach Queen, you have gone still.”
“The creatures, Hhahtheehn Queen, sings.” She did not have attention for the thinker. He, meanwhile, had no intention of being ignored. “It is knowledge for me. I do not wish to disturb the colony.”
“The Band allows you to hear songs and music from the creatures in instruments we cannot fathom. It is truth. This information will assist all of us, and must be shared.” The Queen felt the rumbling of the bodies and disquiet within the drones especially, the notion of sound-beyond-sound and words above notes sewing confusion. But Hhahtheehn was speaking again. She could not let her focus be split. Begrudgingly, she gripped tight the arm of one of the twins and briskly played out the exchange thus far, letting it flow from her as the male continued against her throat.
<”The other wishes you kept alive. They wish to provide *^&(* and biomass, to prove you can be helpful. But they are smaller/weaker. *^&(*. They need to see you are strong. Fast. Intelligent. You have helped with that already, and now I need you to do more for us. The best you can do, understand?”> The help the creatures’ Queen thanked was help Skthveraach could not recall providing. The recitation of tale was patched and broken. Message was yet made true enough to understand, however. Two colonies, or collections of colonies. Enemies, and allies. One bringing death, one bringing life. They required her. The cost of failure was fields alight, bodies torn and nests unmade in beats.
“Received.”
<”Good.”>
“How long remains until the danger arrives?”
<”Less than half of how long you have already been kept here.”> Five measures? Four? More than she had expected, fewer than she had hoped. The Hhahtheehn spoke to her as equal. It would tolerate questions. When there was time for them, she would prioritize and have list readied.
“Acknowledged. We, I, am readied.”
<”I am here, and watching. I’ll be giving it/this/the Band to Jhenaafhur now. Follow her instructions. It shouldn’t be too hard for you.”> A scratching noise, a shifting of bodies she could only barely make out above her. A stillness, as much as the slow breathing of the nest could be still beneath her claws. Claws which flexed, curled and uncurled, as scenarios ran through her mind.
“Hypothesis, thinker?”
“It is not random. There is a role they wish us to perform, colony or species, but wish to determine if we are qualified for it. Will know more when I see what this room is purposed for. I will construct an order of necessity for the colony’s numbers.”
“Reminder to put yourself below the Queen, thinker.” The scout was not settled into the center mass of the squirming forms, but circled the outline. Straying five, sometimes ten lengths away before returning and sketching a growing map of the room’s topography.
“Directly below, thank you, Skthveraach scout. Fourteen positions above you.”
<”Hello Skthveraach! It’s me again.”> When a new speaker took power over the Band, the volume, the timbre, was just slightly shifted. Far from the intricacies of the colony’s own still, yet enough to differentiate. The Pod’s was a yellow that burned uncomfortably against a more silent background. <”We’re going to start *^&(* easy and simple, nothing *^&(*. Think of these like *^&(*, or *^&(*.”>
“Repeat last. This room, for tests? Learning and teaching?”
<”Tests, *^&(*, exactly. The goal is to do whatever is asked as quickly/speed as possible.”> Variable objective or target. Accuracy and speed paramount. All other concerns secondary. She relayed the information, and felt the scent markers within her begin to churn. <”Do you need a *^&(* to explain to your colony?”>
“Unnecessary. I already have. Begin when ready.”
<”Oh. *^&(*, ok, *^&(*…”> Claws flexed quicker. She elevated her breathing rate. One of the twins signalled concern, but she silenced it. Drones around her began to mimic the preparations, but it was slow. So slow. <”Ok, first *^&(*. Have *^&(*/individual reach the floating light. And, go.”>
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A ping of noise, high pitched and awful. The scout, of course, saw it first; the hovering green flash atop one of the solitary pillars, ten lengths high. Skthveraach, the largest among them, could reach for two if she stretched on all four back legs. Speed and accuracy. Move.
“Move. Escalation. Nesting drones retrieve.” She felt the ground shudder as they eighteen moved together, half tripping over one another, but all surging towards the base of the pillar. The formation breaking as the Queen pushed ahead of the massing, warning for the rest to give clearance. Could she topple the rock? What was its makeup? Would that be faster than ascending? Unknown. Worth a try. Her head lowered and claws prepared to grip, waiting until the tower loomed before she dug down and shifted weight, slamming length into the base of the white spire. Something cracked. She felt it give against her. Shouts from above did not translate, some of the watching pale shells grabbing the tubes and rods of their ledges for support. Hollow-sounding on impact, hard framework but the central while areas between were fragile. But it did not fall. Information. Logged.
The first bodies were on her before she had even fully adjusted her position to diagonal strut instead, bracing into floor and tower. The thinker, the mender, the two oldest and thus largest of the drones were the next to clamber atop her and lock themselves leg to leg, mandible around tower and claws intertwining. She regulated her air, even as claws hooked themselves up around her carapace and next to her vents to form the triangular mesh for the next layer. Weight piled on, the Queen forming foundation, as the next layer of drones ascended in line. The topmost threw mandibles wide to latch against the pillar and extended rearmost legs down. The next held forward, gripped under, and extended below. Chain formed. Bodies stacked. Each layer gave greater vantage. Each row of bodies provided holds. It was awkward and steep, but they had only eighteen. It was the angle needed.
“Shift weight. Left.”
“Received.” One of the upper drones had adopted poor grip and begun to sway. The warning was passed down the constructing tower, and rippled the clasped forms as they counterbalanced the error. Skthveraach dug the points of her mandibles harsher into the pillar and felt it crack beneath her pressure. Poor form. Shoddy cooperation. The mistake was paid with nearly eight full beats before the pattering of the small, plate-shaped body of the attendant was felt skittering up the formed ramp. Legs tapping over the final drone’s head just as it lowered to bite top of the pillar, forelimbs swiping the air to take hold of the orb.
“Queen error! Confusion! No object present? Confus-“
<”*^&(*, Skthveraach, very good, excellent!”> Through the nesting drone’s eyes, she saw the glowing light pop out of existence. Felt the shock and panic radiate downward, and quickly beat out a drumming melody to reassure the skittish twin. Do not question. Floating orbs were possible. Vanished when reached. Objective was to reach, not seize. Information. <”Alright, next are five lights scattered *^&(* the area. As soon as you-“>
“Locate and touch lights. Retrieval unnecessary. Mark path. Gathering formation.” Upper layer peeled off first, disassembling the ramp from top to bottom. Those who struck the ground first were the first to disperse, and lowered their gasters to the ground as fluid was tapped free of their bodies. Gathering was an engrained behavior, all colonies could understand it, all could obey it. Spread out, leave a trail to follow, find the biomass, return it. In this case, the trail would mark where drones had already searched. By the time the mender and thinker rolled clear of her body and the Queen was free to move, three of five had already been located on half-raised platforms. Hidden behind pillars. Every direction bore a trail of activity. She chose the path with the fewest followers, and rushed along it while tapping her own markers behind. Two drones went right at the first fork in the mess of cubes and rectangles, one left. She went left. One drone went left at the second fork. She went right. A call went up that the fourth had been located on a three-length tall stand. The thinker had organized impromptu ladder. Good. Crevices, cracks, a false landscape of disparate terrain. It was fascinating, even in her search. Like hiking some hidden corner of the world she had never even heard of. And there, the last light. A glistening pebble suspended beneath a fallen ‘log’ of white and silver. Even a cursory look told the Queen her body, even at its peak shape, would be too large to fit. What she wouldn’t give for a scentcrafter, peel it.
“Alert! Located. Alert! My position. Alert! Cannot reach. Alert!” She dropped her thorax and head low to the floor, low enough to feel its coolness on her plates while gaster and rearmost leg pair was thrust directly into the air. Beating out the warning as she huffed at the difficulty of the unfamiliar position, mimicking her knowledge of scouts as her pounding brought forth spray. She had no scentcrafter, no ‘come here now but there is no danger worry not’ blend stored away. Skthveraach settled for a standard alarm signal, and suffered in silence the drawback of drones arriving quickly, readied for combat. “No danger.”
“Alarm signal?” The first to reach her had scythes extended and claws erected fully.
“No danger. Light located. Acquire.”
“Too large. Impossible.”
“Alarm signal?” The second nearly collided with the first, but skidded to halt in time to prevent full collision.
“No danger.” Wasteful. Irritating. “Light located. Acquire.”
“Received.” Pulling claws back up and retracting the scythes the drone had too brought out in preparation for a fight, the space beneath fallen log was shoved against. Wormed into. Wiggled through and pushed past, burrowing into the gap with short wheezes and cricks of effort.
“Alarm signal?”
“No danger.” It was a query and response the Queen was forced to repeat out another fourteen times as forms arrived, one after another, to gather about the artificial and false clearing. The ‘ping’ erupted after the sixth or seventh exchange, her scout giving an amused chitter in response to the annoyance the Queen wore as drone finally got in reach of the light. Slow. Sloppy.
<”Recorded, Skthveraach, good.”> No bodies to read emotion from, and the songs were as always impassionate and base. Skthveraach could only hope these were excited responses. <”Alright, next above/occurring.”>
They ran the length of the room. They formed bridges hung above spires too far to reach or climb. They nearly trampled a drone who had fallen en route to a light hung with no blocks or grips nearby, and so selected him as the one to be hurled by fifty conjoined legs up into the air to contact the objective. The Pod wished a line of smallest to largest, and the discus-backed attendants cheered as the drones with their varied carapaces of browns and whites and even the blue of the delver’s scarred body formed up around the scout. Ending with the grizzled thinker, the lanky mender, and then Skthveraach herself. Then the Pod asked the order be reversed, and without breaking the line, both ends pivoted around the motionless, silent and emptied spitter to swap the place of Queen and attendants. For what felt like a measure they ran, and for every success, a failure stung at Skthveraach’s harmony. A drone faltered. A clasp of grasper was missed. Commands unfamiliar made some pause, and others run opposite to her intent. All were gasping, and froze in place to conserve energy when a test ended.
<”Excellent, Skthveraach. Take a *^&(*, I’ll be back in just a *^&(*.”>
“Thinker?” She did not regret that meal. Not in the slightest. From the give in her stomach, the Queen guessed more than half had already been consumed to power the frantic movements that had been demanded of them. “Progress report?”
“I am not capable of dual role, Queen.” Labored breathing made the slats of the thinker’s vents wet with exude. His one forelimb stroking repeatedly across his eyes to wipe and clean their surface from small flakes of molt. “I cannot perform as a menial and also process hypothesis.”
“Then give best estimation.”
“They suffer from frenzy, they face challenges of a terrain I have never seen nor heard of in my life, or they require slaves.”
“Repeat and expand on third estimation.” She saved her breath and movements and kept to the songs of combat and movement. Quick, to the point, without beauty of form but with beauty in function. “No strength in taking slaves you can kill by the thousand.”
“It is still possible they require slaves. Workers. Laborers. I am unsure of their number or colony size, but these tests seem designed to measure cohesion and strength in body. Counter-argument; creatures who can build spaces such as we are in do not lack for power or labor. May be supplemental. Best estimation at this moment.”
“Factor in a willingness to expose their Queen to harm or death. Factor in no scents of jelly present. Factor in military power of their soldiers. Reassess.”
“Received.” The male was too tired to argue, and Skthveraach was too tired to be glad of it. She felt the legs of the twins weakly but dutifully massaging her own sore limbs, trying to conserve their resources while still serving role. The rest did not fare much better. Too long spent in rigid containers, fed, but deprived of motion, and led to miscalculations of ability from all within her colony. They were weaker than they had ever been in their lives; in body, and in unity of voice.
<”How are you doing, Skthveraach?”>
“No issues.” She made the response immediate. Making sign to the others that they should make ready once again. Some responded with concern. Most rose, however slowly. All had been made aware of the stakes for failure. They were to help the Hhahtheehn Colony. They were to protect the colony, and the species.
<”We had planned to *^&(* through these over the next few/some *^&(*, but you’ve covered over most information we needed. If you can wait a moment, Hhahtheehn wants to sing/speak to you.”>
“Acknowledged.”
<”Skthveraach Queen. This is very helpful. Your communication and *^&(*/harmony is *^&(* fascinating to us.”>
“It was not… especially challenging.” Even to Hhahtheehn, especially to Hhahtheehn, the Queen did not wish to admit how her heart pounded and vents seeped. The tests were not challenging, should not be challenging, and that they struggled as much as they had was contemptable.
<”I want you to know, if you do not understand what I am about to ask you, you *^&(* to tell me. It is important, to me, that you comprehend fully what I sing.”> There was a pause for her reply. She did not make one. Repetition was rudeness to her people. She had come to understand it was gravitas to theirs. And the Hhahtheehn repeated himself again. <”If you do not comprehend, ask for better words. And if you refuse this request, it is not wrong/bad. There will be no *^&(*, no punishment.”>
“Acknowledged, Hhahtheehn Queen.” Concern. Care. The Hhahtheehn did not wish to cause harm. If it was asked, even if she could not grasp at the reason, it was for a great purpose.
<”We have a creature here. From… the world. We do not know what you name it. *^&(*, larger than you, a hard shell, scythes like yours, a long/big gaster.”> The possibilities were several. Beasts as large as a Queen, able to defend themselves with scythe? A cleopite maybe. Mantites would be too huge, and such description did not fit the more dangerous hunt targets. <”We are able to stop it whenever we wish, make it freeze or even kill it, but we would like to see your colony fight/kill it. Is this possible?”>
“It is dangerous. This will assist in showing your designation hostile not-enemies we are strong?”
<”Yes. We have seen you fight in large numbers, but this will prove to them you are capable in smaller collectives as well. That is important. It is something we’ll need.”>
“Scythes,” She held her forelimb up to demonstrate. “My size, larger. Tough, hard shell. A large ending gaster.”
<”Yes.”> A cleopite, or some kind of lucanite at worst. Tough to take down, but their size made their danger deceptive. A lesser Queen may balk at the notion, but Skthveraach had hunted greater with raids only three times this size. It would be a struggle, but it was achievable. Speed and accuracy, all other concerns secondary.
“Acceptable. Release it. I am ready.” She had spent some of her danger pheromones already, but there were plenty left in reserve. The spitter would not be able to assist in its role, but could at least function as half a soldier. The attendants would do little. Fourteen drones, half a soldier and a Queen. It was achievable. She began to murmur a battle hymn. “Cleopites prefer to hunker. Burrow. Once they are tipped, it is over. Will need distraction from front and strongest leveraging side.” A far wall was splitting, and she made chittering guidance to the scout. Directing him up, with his immediate compliance, to the best available vantage point on a nearby low pillar. Some of the drones shifted nervously, but she drummed the hymn firmer. “Avoid the jaws. It is slow, but lurches quickly. Bait, then retreat quickly. Scout?”
“Composer, do not make this my song.”
Her vision went red as her scout’s bottom was thrust into the air, and he emptied every alert signal he had into dispersal. Saturating the entire colony with the alarmed warning. Every claw was sharpened and extended; every scythe thrust out to their fullest. This was wrong. Another drone clambered up to form a link and pass the information lower, her scout’s uttered prayer silenced as he scratched furiously in drawing. Skthveraach needed only the first reciting to know the creatures’ mistake. Accident? Frenzy? She did not dedicate thought to it. Every drop of food in her was preserved for the coming combat. It would not be enough.
It did not have scythes. It had pincers, two scythes which snapped and cut together with bladed precision. It did not have a hard shell. Hard shell? What were the creatures even comparing it to? It had no shell, only a thinner carapace that could be pierced with relative ease. The difficulty in hunting had never been piercing, but in getting close enough to pierce. Because if you made it past the pincers, you would not make it past the tail. Tail. Not gaster. No fat bulb hanging from its back, but a curved and arched tail that spurred at end into puncturing needle which dripped toxin and spat filth. If its stab did not kill, its poison did. It was not a cleopite. It was a daughter of the chelicerites. It was a descendent of the star-sent. It was two lengths, six legged, crawling its way through the constructed forest of glowing lights, and that it was an infant only meant that it would likely need two bites to tear through a drone rather than one.
It was a chaerilite. And they, Skthveraach Colony, had just volunteered to be killed by it.