Serpent's Reach

by C. J. Cherryh

  “About sixteen days of it,” he said. “About time for Council to get a message from the Meth-maren. We can last that long. They’ll do something. Until then, we last it out. We’ve comfort enough to do that.”

  The hammering stopped upstairs.

  “They’re through up there,” Hela Dain said. “They’ll be sealing us in now.”

  Then glass splintered, far above.

  And someone screamed.

  The lights were out. 117-789-5457 sat tucked in the corner on her mat, mental null. The lights had been out what subjectively seemed long, and the temperature was up. Sounds reached her, but none were ordinary. She knew a little unease at this, wondering if food would come soon, and water, for water no longer came from the tap, and it always had, whatever cubicle she had occupied.

  Always the lights had been above, and the air had been tolerable.

  But now there was nothing.

  Sounds. Sounds without meaning. The quick patter of soft feet. 117-789-5457 untucked and looked up. There was a strange glow in the blackness, blue lights, that wove and bobbed above, not on the catwalks, but on the very rims of the cells. Faces, blue-lighted; naked bodies; wild unkempt hair; these folk squatted on the rim of her own cell, stared down, grinning.

  Hands beckoned. Eyes danced in the lights. “Come,” they said, voices overlapping. “Come. We help. Come, azi.”

  She rose, for they reached hands to her, and one leaned down very far, helped by the others, caught her hands and drew her, by all their efforts, up.

  117-789-5457 looked about her, balancing on the wall, held by strong, thin hands. Lights wove and bobbed everywhere. Laughter echoed in the silent place. Out of all the cells, azi were drawn.

  “Take all azi, young, old, yess,” one laughed, and danced away. “Come, come, come, come.”

  117-789-5457 followed, along the walls, for she had never refused an order. She smiled, for that seemed the way to please these who ordered her.

  “There’s fire in the city,” the voice from downworld continued thinly, azi-calm, and Leo K14-756-4806 listened without looking, taking deeply to heart his instructions, which placed him in charge of station command. Morn depended on him. He listened, and did not waver, although he was distressed for what he heard.

  Regarding his own men he could not tell: they kept their masks, that being Morn’s general instruction; and he could not read their reactions to the voice from the shuttle, that brought them ill news. But there was wavering certainly in the ranks of the captive betas, and of the guard-azi who belonged to the station, who stood under levelled rifles, along with the betas.

  “We must restore power,” the head beta appealed to him. “The city must have it.”

  “The fires are in every quarter,” the impartial voice continued. “We’ve had no contact with Morn since he entered the terminal. What shall we do, Leo?”

  “Wait for orders,” Leo looked about the centre, at betas and station azi. No one moved. The betas did not dare and the station azi would not, lacking instruction.

  “This is Moriah,” another azi voice broke in. “We’re getting nothing from city communications any longer. Everything’s in complete chaos.”

  “Just stand by your posts,” Leo said. There was nothing else to say. He paced back across the command centre, arms folded, looked constantly at the betas, challenging them to advance any more ideas of their own.

  They did not.

  Warriors were back, great bodies shifting through all the rooms of the house, shrilling and booming signals that hurt the ears. Jim ventured the stairs to the turning, met some coming down and flung himself aside, for the Warriors were in haste, and had no inclination to speak. Pol’s oath erupted out of the blue-lit depths.

  “They’re running,” the Kontrin said.

  “Max,” Jim pleaded, at the edge of panic. “Max—”

  Max came; all the azi followed, bringing Pol, scrambling up the stairs against the spiny flood of majat down them. Furniture crashed throughout the house, the press of too many bodies. The house boiled with them; the dark rooms hummed with distress and anger.

  And the glow of fires shone through the back windows, distant ruddy smoke billowing up.

  “They’re blind in fire,” Pol said. “Some betas have figured one way to fight them.”

  “Windows,” Max said. “Stations.”

  Azi moved, each rifleman to a window.

  “Your blues are beaten,” Pol said above the hum of majat-voices. “I’d suggest we get out of here.”

  Jim shook his head fiercely, strode up the hall to look out the open door, where dark shapes Scurried about. the front garden. “They’re not running, not all of them. They’re still going to hold this place.”

  Max cast a look too, and at him. “I’d suggest we get out there, work ourselves into cover in the rocks. Harder to dislodge us that way.”

  “I can’t say.” Jim swallowed heavily. “Do it. I don’t think walls can stop them.”

  “Want advice?”

  Jim looked about, back to the wall, at Pol Hald. The gaunt Kontrin stood between his guards, without threat.

  “I’ve some interest in the management of this,” Pol said. “The man’s right; but occupy those windows with vantage, front and back for screening fire if you need it. And get your own Warriors behind you; your men can’t tell blues from reds in the dark.”

  “It’s sense,” Max said.

  A sound began…started with the feeling of pressure in the ears, so that many pressed their hands to them; and then became pain, a shrilling that grated in the bones.

  It was all around them. The Warriors in the house retreated into a knot, grouping, booming to each other in panic.

  “Warrior!” Jim cried. “Stay!”

  They clicked and shrilled in reply, flicking palps this way and that, and majat-azi who had come with them scampered from their vicinity, faces stark with fright. Jim started forward.

  “No,” Pol exclaimed, reached out to grip his arm. “No, blast it, you’re not Meth-maren. Stay back from them.”

  That too was good advice. He retreated outside with Max, settled in the. rocks with a Kontrin of Hald beside them, and shook his head to clear his ears, pressure that would not go away.

  We’re going to die, he thought, and panicked entirely, for it was a born-man thought, a born-man fear: the tapes had done it to him, prepared him only for this, this sick dread. Max’s face was calm. The Kontrin gave him a twisted smile, as if he had read his mind, and mocked him in the fear they shared.

  Sound rose about them, madness.

  vii

  The truck jolted, badly. Raen caught at the door, rubbed her blurred eyes, looked askance at the azi who, however indifferent a driver, kept the pace, tailing Merry.

  “How’s the fuel holding?” she asked, leaning to see. It was reserve tank, half full. They were still all right.

  And the odometer: ten kilometres from their goal. The lights of the city should have been visible, but she expected none. She folded her arms and sat regarding the sweep of the horizon, finding yet no sight of their goal, nothing in the faint glimmering of dawn, which began to fade the stars.

  But there were no stars northward.

  She sat up, her heart beating hard against her ribs. She had slept. There was no drowsiness in her now.

  “Merry,” she said into the com. “Merry. Are you awake up there?”

  “Sera?”

  “Smoke. Smoke over the city.”

  “Yes. I see it, sera.”

  “We’re going to pass. Turn’s coming up. Stand by. Go round him, Will. We’ve a little space yet.”

  Five kilometres. The truck accelerated; Merry dropped back. Four. She started watching on the right, closely, wondering in agony about the accuracy of the maps.

  The kilometres ticked off. “Slow down,” she said. The driver eased down. There was a stake with an illegible number, a spur, a mere eroded place off the paved road, but trucks had passed it: crushed weeds showed in
the dawning.

  “Take it,” she said. The driver did so, eased them onto it, carefully, while the truck swayed and lurched and weeds whispered against the doors.

  They were blind in this place. She would have given much then for Warrior’s sight and hearing. Turn after turn took them out of sight of the road, and the only comfort was Merry’s vehicle showing in the mirror by her window.

  A turning, a descent of the road, a brief climb around the curve of a hill: a weathered cluster of buildings showed before them, a desolate place…but someone had been cutting weeds.

  Itavvy, she thought, prosperity on your house.

  Doors opened; men came out, sunsuited, rifles levelled, to meet the trucks. Beside her, Will reached for his own rifle. She gathered up hers, opened the door.

  “Isan Tel,” she said. “Come code 579-4645-687.”

  One man nodded to the others, his rifle lifted out of the line of fire; other weapons were turned away. Sunmasks and visors came off. There were several among them female; several of more clerical look than guard-type, some unarmed.

  “I’m your contract,” she said. “I can’t clear it on comp; you know that. Ask your azi-in-charge: did you not find orders in comp to keep to these buildings and fight only majat that attacked you?”

  “That’s truth,” a man said, quiet voice, quiet manner, minding her of Jim. Faces all about took on a look of great relief, as if their entire world had suddenly settled into order: it had asked much of them until now, that azi alone hold the place. She saw their eyes fixed on her, with that deep calm that did not belong in the situation: contract-loyalty.

  “The hives are moving,” she said. “Have you had trouble here?”

  The manager-azi lifted an arm toward the south, the open fields. “Majat came in. We took a few. They went back again.”

  She indicated the north-east. “Nothing from that direction.”

  “No, sera.”

  She nodded. “You’re on blue-hive’s doorstep; but they’re not human-killers. The others were golds, more than likely. You’ve already done your proper service, sitting here, guarding blue-hive. I have your contract. We go further now, but only azi that won’t freeze or panic.”

  Their calm was disturbed by talk of blue-hive. She saw the ripple of dismay, turned and waved at Merry. “Out! We’re going afoot from here. Any who’ll come, any who are able.”

  Her own azi climbed out, none hesitating, with rifles and what gear they had; weary as they were, she looked on them with some hope. “We’re going to fight for a hive,” she said. “For blue-hive, our own, back in the city. We have to go among them; into it, if we can. Stay, if that’s too much for you.”

  She started walking…knew Merry, at least, would join her. He was there, at once, and hardly slower, the others, filthy, sorry-looking men; she looked back, and not one had stayed. The Tel estate azi were on their heels, plain by their clean clothing and their energy. In the rear, the managers and the domestics trailed along, perhaps reckoning now they were safer not to be left in the deserted buildings.

  They climbed, pushing aside the high weeds, finding trails overgrown and forgotten in the hills. “Majat trails,” she said to Merry. “Abandoned ones.”

  “Blue-hive?”

  “Better be.”

  Something urged at her hearing. She kept her eyes to the high rocks, the folds of the land.

  A majat warning boomed out. She spun left; rifles jerked about, hovered unfired on the person of a Warrior, testament to azi discipline. She turned her fist to it, that stood against the sky.

  “Meth-maren,” it intoned.

  “Warrior, you’re too far for my eyes. Come closer.”

  It shifted forward, a blue beyond doubt. Others appeared out of the rocks, jaws clicking with excitement.

  “Here are azi of my-hive,” she said. “They’ve held the valley till now; now they’ll fight where needed.”

  It lowered itself, offered touch and taste, and she took and gave it, moving carefully lest some new azi take alarm. “Good, good,” it pronounced then. “Mother sends. Come, come quick, Kethiuy-queen. Bring, bring, bring.”

  She looked back; none who followed had fled; none offered to go back now. Warrior danced with impatience and she touched Merry’s arm and started after it, following the devious ways it led, over stone and through brush.

  Suddenly the hive gaped before them, a dark pit, seeming void of defense; but Warriors materialised out of the weeds, the stones of the hills, boiled out from the darkness. She hesitated not at all, hearing their guide boom a response to them; and one Warrior touched her—by that move, one who knew her personally.

  “Warrior?” she asked it.

  “This-unit guides. Come. Come, bring azi.”

  Blue lights bobbed in the pit. She went without question toward them, Merry beside her, others close at her heels. The darkness enveloped them, and majat-azi scampered just ahead, wretched creatures who no longer laughed, but stumbled and faltered with exhaustion. Blue light ran chaotically over the walls, showing them the way. Warrior-song shrilled in the dark.

  And the majat-azi touched her, urged her on, breathlessly, faster and faster. “Mother,” they cried, “Mother, Mother, Mother.”

  Raen gasped for air and kept moving, stumbling on the uneven floor, catching herself against the rough walls.

  All at once the blue lights were not sufficient. Vast darkness breathed about them, and they streamed along the midst of it. A great pale form loomed ahead, that dragged itself painfully before them, huge, filling all the tunnel.

  It was Mother, who moved.

  Who heaved Herself along the tunnel prepared for Her vast bulk. The walls echoed with Her breathing. About Her were small majat who glittered with jewels; and before Her moved a dark heaving flood of bodies, dotted with azi-lights.

  Majat-language boomed and shrilled in the tunnel, deafening. And, terrible in its volume, came Her voice, which vibrated in the earth.

  Raen gathered herself and passed beside that great body, moving faster than ever Mother could. There was room, barely, that she and the men with her could avoid the sweep of Mother’s limbs, that struggled with even thrusts to drive Her vast body along, at every rumbling intake of Her breath.

  “I am here!” Raen cried.

  “Kethiuy-queen,” She answered. The great head did not turn, could not; Mother remained fixed upon Her goal.

  “Am I welcome, Mother? Where are you going?”

  “I go,” Mother said simply, and the earth quivered with the moving of Her. Air sucked in-again. “I go. Haste. Haste, young queen.”

  Anxiety overwhelmed her. She increased her pace, moving now among the Drones, whose chittering voices hurt her ears.

  Then the Workers, all that vast horde, azi scattered among them; and the strange-jawed egg-tenders, leaving their work, precious eggs abandoned.

  She looked back. Mother had almost vanished in the shadows. She saw Merry’s bruised face in the faint blue glow, felt the touch of his hand.

  “We’re going north,” she said, comprehension suddenly coming on her, the Workers who had plied the basement, the preparation of a way.

  “To fight for them?” Merry asked hoarsely, and glanced back himself, for there were men who still followed. Perhaps they all did; strung out through the tunnel, it was no longer possible to see. Perhaps some collapsed in withdrawal, gone mad from fear; or perhaps training held, and they had no sensible dread.

  “I belong,” she said, “where this merges.”

  “Where, sera?”

  “Home,” she said.

  viii

  A horde of steps approached the steel doors, a surge of panicked voices. Moth stirred, lifted her head, although to do so took more strength than she had left to spend on them, who troubled her sleeping and merged with dreams.

  “Moth!” A voice came out of the turmoil. She knew this one too, old Moran, and fear trembled in that sound. “Moth! Thon is gone—gone. The hive-masters couldn’t hold them. They’r
e in the City. Everywhere—”

  She touched her microphone, braced before her on the console, beside the wine bottle and her gun. “Then lock your own doors, Moran. Follow my example.”

  “We need the codes. Moth, do something.”

  She grinned, her head bobbing slightly with weakness. “But haven’t you figured it out yet, Moran? I am.”

  “The city’s in wreckage,” the voice from Moriah said. “Leo, Leo, we’ve still had no contact with him. There were majat here. Even they’ve left, moved elsewhere. He should have been in contact by now.”

  “Hold the ships,” Leo repeated, and looked up at the other azi, his own and the station’s. They were exhausted. There had been no food, no off-shift. He thought that he ought to send for something to eat. He was not sure that he had appetite for it.

  The betas sat in a knot over to the side of the door. One of them had become ill, holding his heart. He was an older beta. They fed him medicines and he seemed to have recovered somewhat; this was of no concern, for he was not a necessary beta. None were, individually.

  “Call the galley,” Leo said to one of the others. “Have food brought up here.”

  The beta rose, came, moved very carefully while he was at the corn board. He spoke precisely the request and retreated again among his fellows. Leo stood watching them.

  Moriah and the shuttle called again, on the quarter hour; and again.

  Then a light flashed at the door, and a cart arrived from the galleys, redolent with food and drink. Azi brought it, unloaded it, bent to unload the lower tray.

  Suddenly a gun was in one azi hand and a bolt flew for comp, raked it. Leo fired, and the azi spun back against the doorway, slid down. Others froze in dismay, died so.

  Lights flickered. Sirens started sounding, lights all over the board flaring red.

  “He’s a plant,” one said, bending over the azi who had fired. He wiped with his thumb at the too-bright tattoo. “A ringer.”

  The sirens multiplied. The betas rushed to the boards and worked at them frantically, and Leo hesitated from one threat to the other, null-mind pressing at him. “Get away!” he shouted at the betas. One of his men fired, and a beta died at the main board, slumped over it.