Serpent's Reach

by C. J. Cherryh

  “If I believed any of it”

  Pol made another of his elaborate gestures of offence. “I protest. I shall go back to my ship and wait until you think things over in a clearer mind. Someone else will come, mark me.”

  “Ah, I don’t doubt that much. And help would be convenient. But likewise I remember the front porch at Kethiuy. You knew. You knew when you were talking to me. Didn’t you?”

  A profound sobriety came on Pol’s face. He lowered his eyes, raised them steadily. “I knew, yes. And I left, with the rest of the Halds, before the attack. Revenge, Meth-maren, involving another generation. It had nothing to do with you.”

  “Now it does.”

  He had no answer for that. Neither did he flinch.

  “This one’s mine,” she said. “I always had profound respect for your intelligence, Pol Hald. You were in Hald councils before I was born. You were alive when the Meth-marens split, Sul from Ruil. You have contacts I don’t. You’ve access to Cerdin. You’ve been staying alive and embarrassing Council twice my whole lifespan. You knew, back in Kethiuy. You’re telling me now that you don’t figure precisely what’s in others’ minds?”

  Pol drew a long breath, nodded slowly, looking down. “The plan was, you understand, to break out of the Reach. That was Thel’s idea. To build. To breed. And it’s all here on Istra, isn’t it? You’ve put it together for yourself.”

  “Enough to take it apart.”

  “They’ll kill you for sure. They’ll drag Moth down and kill you before they let you expose their operation.”

  “Their.”

  “Their. I’m not in favour. I go my own way. As you do. I’ll run when the time comes. I’ll stay, while the mood takes me. Only you won’t have that luxury. Is it worth this much, your vendetta?”

  “It’s beyond argument.”

  He looked at Warrior, stared into the faceted eyes, glanced back with a faint touch of revulsion. “Hive-masters. It’s that, isn’t it? Ruil Meth-maren tried to use the hives. And Thel wanted to use them. Look where that took us.”

  “No one,” she said, “uses the hives. Hive-master was a Ruil word. Sul never used it And Thon’s still playing that dangerous game. Are red-hivers out again on Cerdin?”

  “They make gifts to all the old contacts.”

  Warrior’s palps flicked nervously. “Pact,” it said.

  Pol glanced that way in apprehension.

  “Do you not understand the danger?” Raen asked hint “The hives don’t have anything to gain…nothing Hald could want out of the exchange.”

  “Azi,” Pol said. “They ask for more azi. For more land. More grain.”

  “Hives grow,” said Warrior. “Hives here—grow.”

  Raen looked on Warrior. Truth. It was clear truth. It fit with all the knowledge elsewhere gathered.

  “Don’t you understand?” she appealed to Pol. “Doesn’t Council? Who talked first of this expansion? Thel, Ruil…or red-hive?”

  “Thel claimed unique partnership, claimed that even Drones could be brought into partnership with humans.”

  Her heart beat very fast. She laid her hand on one of Warrior’s auditory palps, stroked it gently, gently. “O Pol. Don’t they realise? Drones are the Memory. Humans can’t touch that.”

  Pol shrugged, and yet his dark eyes were quick with worry. “The Meth-marens are dead. The hive-masters are dead, all but you. And Council doesn’t have access to you, does it? Moth’s kept saying that you were important”

  “I’m flattered,” she said hoarsely. “Hive-masters. Ruil deluded themselves. They were never hive-masters. They listened to the hives. Get out of here. Take your ship. Tell them they’re all mad. I’ll give you reasons enough to tell them.”

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t live to get there. And they wouldn’t listen. Can’t. It’s gone too far. Moth will be dead by the time I could get there. Eight days, message-time or ship-time, at quickest. I couldn’t—couldn’t get there in time.”

  “And someone’s on his way here.”

  “There’s no way not.”

  Pol was talking clear sense. She continued to soothe Warrior, aware it was recording, aware of the nervous tremor of the palp against her hand. She felt it calm at last. “There are extensions of ITAK on the other continent. Are there blues with the other city, Warrior?”

  “Yess. All hives, red, gold, green, blue. New-port”

  “Same-Mind, Warrior?”

  “Same-Mind.”

  “No queen.”

  “Warriorss. Workerss. From this-Hill.”

  She looked at Pol. “Suppose that I trusted you. Suppose that I asked you to do me a small favour. Have you your own staff?”

  “Twelve azi. The ship is mine. My entire estate. I’m mobile. In these times it seems wise.”

  “I haven’t an establishment on the other continent.”

  “You plan to take me out of the way.”

  “You can take West and be sure of the situation there in the matter of a day or two.”

  “You may not have that much time. They’ll stop you. I mean that”

  “Then it’s wise that I cultivate you, isn’t it? If they pull my authorisations you’ll still have yours, won’t you, Pol Hald?”

  “You have a dazzling mutability. You’d rely on me?”

  “One does what one must.”

  “You’d have my neck in the jaws with no compunction, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’m figuring you started from innerworlds first and farthest out. So there’s a little time yet. You can do me that small service and still have time to run. And I’d run far, Pol. I would, in your place.”

  All posing fell aside. He stared at her. “I’ve told you something. I wish I understood the extent of it.”

  “The Halds should have asked my help. Or Moth should have. If they’d asked, I might have come.” She gave Warrior’s auditory palp a light brush, and Warrior turned its head, reacted in slight pleasure. “It’s good to see you, Pol. I’d not say that of any of the rest of the Family, I assure you. My old acquaintances no longer interest me. The Family…no longer interests me. I’ve found here what you’ve been searching for all your life.”

  “And what do you take that to be, Raen a Sul?”

  “The Edge. That which limits us”

  “You don’t have Ros Hald’s ambitions.”

  She laughed, which was no laughter. “Mine are yours. To push until it gives. Here’s the stopping-place. Beware red-hive. You understand me?”

  “You have disquieted me.”

  “You never liked peace”

  “What shall I look for in West?”

  “Guard-azi. Buy up those you can. Ship them to East, to the Labour Registry. Arms as well.”

  “You’re planning civil war.”

  She smiled again. “Tell the estate-holders in West…and ITAK there…to prepare for storm.”

  “How can I, when I don’t know what you have in mind?”

  “It’s your choice. Go or stay”

  “I know my choices, youngster.”

  “You’d better get yourself clear of this house, in any case. There’ll be blue-hive thick about here in a little while, and that hand of yours is no guarantee of friendship. Get out of Newhope, in either direction you choose.”

  He put on a long face. “I’d thought of dinner, alas; and more things after.”

  “Later, Pol Hald. I confess you tempt me.”

  A twinkle danced in his eye, a favourite pose. “Then I’m not without hope. Alas, you’ve your azi for consolation, and I’m not without my own. Sad, is it not?”

  “The time will come.”

  He bowed his head.

  “You know my call number. It never changes.”

  “You know mine.”

  “Betas on Istra,” she said, “have played the same dangerous game as Hald and Thon. Red-hive gives them gifts. I’ll warrant red-hive walks where it will in West.”

  “I’ve no skill with majat.”

  “Keep it that
way. Refuse to be approached. Shoot on the least excuse.”

  “Hazard,” Warrior broke in, coming to life again. “Green-hive Drone, take care: danger. Red-hive kills humans, many, many, many. You are not green-hive Mind. No synthesis. None.”

  “What’s it saying?” Pol asked. “I can never make sense of them.”

  “Perfect sense. It knows you’re naïve of majat, and it warns you that without hive-friendship, green-hive chitin is no protection to you, even from greens. Red-hive and even greens have learned to kill intelligences. Red-hive has learned to make agreements with minds-that-die, and no longer has trouble with death. What’s more…they’ve learned to lie. Consider the hive-Mind, Pol; consider that those who lie to majat have to be unMinded. But they can lie to humans without it…a profound discovery. Red-hive has gone as far from morality as majat can go. Hald and Thel and Thon helped…or otherwise. Get. out of here. You’ve not much time. Be careful at the port. Are you armed?”

  He moved his hands delicately. “Of course.”

  She offered her hand, warily; he took it, with a wry smile.

  “I’ll give you West,” he said, letting go her hand. “Is that all you want?”

  She grinned. “I’ll be content with that.” And soberly: “Keep within reach of your ship, Pol. It’s life.”

  He took his leave, let himself out. In a moment she heard a car start and ease down the drive. She went to housecomp to open the gate, did so, picked him up briefly on remote. He cleared the gate and she closed it.

  Warrior came, hovered at her shoulder. “This-unit heard things of other hives. Redsss. Trouble.”

  “This-unit is concerned, Warrior. This-unit begins to think that the hives know more than you’ve told me.”

  It drew back, jaws clicking. “Red-hive. Red-hive is—” It gave a booming and shrill of majat language. “No human word, Kontrin-queen. Long, long this red-hive, gold-hive—” Again the combination of sound, discord. “Red-hive is full of human-words: push-push-eggs-more-more.”

  “Expansion. They want expansion. Growth.”

  Warrior tried to assimilate that. It surely knew the words; they did not satisfy it.

  “Synthesis,” it said finally. “Red-hive messengers come. Many, many. Red-hive—easy, easy that messengers come. Kontrin permit Goldss, yes. Greens, sometimes. Many, many, no blues.”

  “I know. But Kalind blue reached you. What did it tell you?”

  “Kethiuy-queen…many, many, many messengers, reds, golds, greens. No blues. Blues have rested, not part of push-push-push. No synthesis. Now blue messenger. We taste Cerdin-Mind.”

  “Warrior. What was the message?”

  “Revenge,” Warrior said, which was the essence of Kalind blue. And suddenly auditory palps flicked left. “Hear. Others.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t hear, Warrior. Human range is small.”

  It was listening. “Blues, they say. Blues. They are coming. Many-many. Goodbye, Kethiuy-queen.”

  And it fled.

  iii

  The sun was almost below the horizon; it was no longer necessary to wear cloaks or sunsuits or to fear for the eyes. And the garden was alive with majat.

  Raen kept Jim by her, constantly, and Max and Merry as well, not trusting the nervous Warriors. She walked the garden, making sure that Warriors saw their presence clearly, to realise that they justly belonged there.

  And suddenly others were there, rag-muffled figures, swarming over the back garden wall among the Warriors; and other majat accompanied them, smaller, with smaller jaws: Workers, a horde of them.

  Ragged human figures came to her and sought touch with febrile hands and eyes visored even at dusk, and their movements were strange, nervous. One and several others unmasked, sought mouth-touch with Jim and Max and Merry end danced away from their vicinity when Raen bade them go.

  “What are they?” Jim asked, horror in his voice.

  “Don’t worry for them,” Raen said. “They belong to the majat. They have majat habits.” And seeing how all three azi reacted to their majat counterparts: “Blue-hive azi, go in, go inside the building, seek low-level and settle there.”

  “Yes,” they said together, song-toned, and with that mad-blind fix of hive-azi stares. They scampered off, to seek the basement of the house, the dark places where they would be most at home.

  Workers set to work without asking, began to pry up stones with their jaws, began to dig, through the pavings, into the moist earth.

  And suddenly there was a buzz from the front gate.

  Raen swore, waded off through the crowd of Warriors, beckoning Jim and Max and Merry to come with her. “Warrior,” she shouted at the nearest. “Keep all majat out of sight behind the house. No enemies. No danger. Just stay here.” And to Max and Merry: “Get down by the gate. I imagine that’s the new azi coming in. You’re in charge of them. See they don’t wander loose. Get them in strict order and check them off against the invoice, by numbers, visually.”

  They hurried off at a run. She went inside with Jim as her shadow, unsealed the gate from the comp center when she saw the trucks by remote: they bore the Labour Registry designation. She kept watching, while the trucks disgorged azi and supplies, while Merry and Max called off numbers and ranged the men in groups of ten. The men stood; the boxes formed a square in the front garden. As each truck emptied, it pulled out, and when the last vehicle cleared the gate, Raen closed it and set the alarm again.

  “They’ll not like the majat at all,” Raen said. “Jim, go find one of the quieter Warriors and ask it to come to the front of the house with you—alone. Better they see one before they see all of them”

  He nodded and went. Raen put the outside lights on and went out the front door, walked out into the midst of the orderly groups, two hundred six men, by tens.

  Max and Merry were checking numbers as she had said, a process the brighter lights made easier. Each was read, not by the stencil on the coveralls, but by the tattoo on the shoulder; and each man passed was directed into military order over by the portico. Neat, precise, the team of Max and Merry; and the two hundred were minds precisely like theirs…all too precisely, having come from the same tapes.

  Every figure stiffened, looked houseward. Raen glanced and saw Jim with his unlikely shadow slow-stepping along in close company. “There are many such here,” Raen said before panic could take hold. “I hold your contracts. I tell you that you’re very safe with these particular majat. They’ll help you in your duties, which are to protect this house. Understood?”

  Each head inclined, the fix of their eyes now on her. Two hundred men. In the group were many who were duplicates, twin, triplet, quadruplet sets, alike even to age. There were two more Maxes and another Merry. They could accept. They would accept her and the majat as they would accept anything which held their contracts. It was their psych-set. Like Max and Merry, they fought only when they were directed, only when their contract-holder identified an enemy. But for their own lives, they would scarcely put up resistance. Did not. Until things were clear to them, they were docile. Warrior exercised curiosity about them, stalked down near them. They bore this: their contract-holder was present to instruct them if instructions were to be given.

  Guard-function.

  Specificity, Itavvy had called it.

  “Warrior,” she said, “come.” And when it had joined her, with Jim shadowing it, she soothed it with a touch and kept it by her, an act of mercy.

  The process continued. But by one man both Max and Merry delayed, looked closely at the mark, disputed. “Sera,” Max called.

  The man bolted. Warrior moved. “No!” Raen yelled, but Warrior was deaf to that, auditory palps laid back, a blur of motion. Azi scattered.

  But it was Max and Merry who had the fugitive; Raen raced through the chaotic midst, calmed the anxious Warrior. Jim stayed with her. Other azi stayed about, sober-faced, stunned, perhaps, that one of their number had done violence.

  The azi in Max’s grip stopped fighting, g
azed past Raen’s shoulder and surely understood what he had narrowly escaped. He was a man like the others, shave-headed, grey clad, a number stencilled on his coverall; but Merry pulled back the cloth from his shoulder and showed the tattoo as if there were something amiss.

  “It’s too dark, sera,” Merry said. “Papers say twenty-nine, but the mark’s bright.”

  The man’s eyes shifted back to Raen, a face rigid with terror.

  Such things had been done…a beta highly bribed, Promised protection. “I’d believe a fluke of the dye,” Raen said softly. “But not an azi who’d break and run. Who sent you?”

  He gave no answer, but wrenched to free himself.

  “Not an assassin,” Raen said, though the hate in that face gave her pause to think so. “Betas don’t go for that. Or—” she added, for the expression was nigh to madness, “maybe not beta at all. Are you?”

  “He’s little,” Merry said, “for guard-type.”

  That was so too.

  A smile took her, sudden surety. “Outsider. One of Tallen’s folk.”

  It hit to the mark. The pale eyes shifted from hers.

  “O man,” she said softly. “To go to that extent…or did you know what you were getting into when you set that mark on yourself?”

  There was no more resistance, none. In that moment she felt a touch of pity, seeing the young Outsider’s desperation. Twenty-nine. He did not look that.

  “What’s your name?” she asked him.

  “Tom Mundy.”

  “You are Tallen’s. Easier with him, Max. I doubt he’s here to do murder. I rather well think he realises he’s made a mistake. And I wonder if we haven’t swept up something utterly by chance. Haven’t we, Tom Mundy?”

  “Let me go.”

  “Let him go, Max. But,” she added at once as the young Outsider braced himself for escape, “you’ll not make it across the City like that, Tom Mundy.”

  He looked as if he were on the brink of madness. Some shred of sense held him to listen.

  “I’ll send you to Tallen,” she said, “without asking you a thing. But if you’d like a drink and a place to sit down, while my people finish checking things out, it would be more convenient for us.”