Damia's Children

by Anne McCaffrey

  Rojer gave her credit for that on the way home, with ten braces apiece of avians, rabbits, and scurriers which had the most delicious flesh if you caught them young enough. Rojer had. He relented enough to take an easier if longer route back but he made that seem deliberate, rather than considerate, because that track passed by stands of edible greens and bushes of early plummie-fleshed rindfruits. They arrived home late afternoon laden down with provender for the next three days—inless they had unexpected guests.

  Although the miners’ representatives, Yugin and Mexalgo, had come to collect copies of the tape, hey left after the most cursory of visits but pro- use thanks. They couldn’t wait to view the tape and see the enemy, they said, and on hearing that, Zara ran from the room, stifling sobs. The miners did not notice, being on their way to the door.

  Zara! Easy, sis, Rojer called. I’ll help her, Mother, he added and followed her.

  She was in Laria’s old room, having moved out of the one she had shared with her two younger isters. Rojer noticed that neither of his ’Dinis accompanied him.

  No, Rojer, leave it! she said in a voice that was broken by her mental anguish.

  Sis, would it help if I told you I thought the queen looked lonely and sad, as well as beautiful?

  But you were there! You watched! And you said nothing?

  He entered the room and saw her, tear-streaked face, rebellious expression, facing him in an attitude of defense.

  “Aw now, Zara,” he said tenderly but she held up one hand to restrain him.

  “Don’t you dare ‘aw now Zara’ me,” and she sniffed back tears. “I got enough of that from Mother. She just won’t ‘see’ or ‘feel’ what I’m going through. And if you come out with some male gibberish about the time of month, I swear I’ll lash you!”

  Rojer hadn’t any such platitudes in mind and he wasn’t alarmed by her threat though it was one of the first he’d ever heard her make. She was the gentlest of his sisters and usually self-effacing and acquiescent: hardly surprising amid seven other strong sibling personalities. Rojer perched on one edge of her worktop and folded his arms, subtly projecting affection and reassurance.

  “And don’t try that either,” she said, rubbing tears away.

  “You know, you look more like Grandmother Rowan than any of us.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t try misdirection either, Rojer Lyon!”

  “I’m not, actually,” he said in a brisker voice, “but I had breakfast with Grandmother just this morning so I can see the resemblance very clearly. You are more like her than Laria or Morag. You haven’t seen Grandmother in a while but you’d be he last one to see the likeness. I wonder if Dad would.”

  But Zara was not going to be distracted. “She’d want to kill the queen, too, wouldn’t she?”

  “Grandmother’s not . . .” and Rojer shrugged, “pacific at any time, you know that,” and he grinned. He got an ironic shrug from his sister. But I’m not talking about Grandmother’s reaction to the queen, only how much you look like her. By the way, there is a group of Humans who feel that we should at least make an attempt to understand the Hiver viewpoint.”

  “But you don’t think much of them,” she reported angrily defiant, irritably pushing back her own silver wing of hair.

  “I didn’t say that and I don’t even project it, sis. But I did want to tell you that you’re not the only one to have different perceptions. I . . .” and Rojer jabbed a thumb into his breast bone, “. . . thought she was beautiful, too.” He couldn’t quite admit that he, too, had felt she was afraid.

  Zara narrowed her eyes. “Half Aurigae City wants her publicly . . . murdered . . . torn apart limb from limb. Did you know that?”

  “No, but it doesn’t surprise me, considering the source,” and Rojer smiled condescendingly. “Look, sis, I do respect your reactions, your feelings about the queen. I had them myself . . .”

  “But you hadn’t the guts to make them known!” Zara flashed back at him, her eyes glinting just like Grandmother Rowan’s had but with a different cause.

  “Oddly enough, not all the ’Dinis want her killed. They do want to . . .”

  “Probe, pry, and drive that poor creature mad, finding out how she works, how she produces her young. They’ve already killed half the larvae Thian found. Oh, I wish he hadn’t. Oh, how I wish he hadn’t!”

  “Sis, you’re going off in all directions to no purpose at all,” Rojer said, becoming slightly exasperated by her capaciousness. “You’re not a Talent for nothing. There are more ways of doing things than blasting out left, right, and center. That’s not like you anyway. Get in touch with the other like-minded folk—I’ll help you there without Mom and Dad knowing. See what you can do to help change public opinion. It can be changed, you know. And you’d make a damn fine lobbyer. That way you can help the queen.”

  “She’ll never be released.” Zara was not about to be consoled. Rojer thought she was enjoying this wallow in sentiment. “She’ll die in that awful place, friendless, childless, alone, with her home all blown up . . .” Zara put her hands to her face, weeping desperately again.

  Despite “sensing” that she was working herself up, Rojer couldn’t stand his pretty sister in tears. He took her into his arms, and she leaned exhaustedly against him, crying more piteously than ever.

  I’ll take over, Rojer, his mother said as she came down the hall.

  No need, Mom. I can handle it. I’ll soothe her. You know I always could get her to sleep when she was a baby.

  Yes, you could, at that. There’s a strong affinity between the pair of you like . . . Damia broke off and Rojer knew she had been about to name Larak.

  There is, Mom, so let me use it now to calm her down.

  It took time, and it meant Rojer had to forgo the few free hours he had hoped to spend with the Hive pieces but Zara was more important. He consoled her with lavish affection, support, and understanding, until, spent with such an emotional storm, she fell asleep.

  * * *

  When she appeared the next morning, she was calm and her usual self-effacing self though there was a sadness in her eyes that wrenched Rojer’s heart.

  She’s over her menses, now, Damia said very privately to him. Thank you for calming her down. You’re a sweet boy as well as a clever one.

  Sweet? Rojer replied in disgust. Zara’s too tenderhearted for her own good.

  His mother continued, but not to him, to his father and on such a subject that Rojer was surprised to be included. Then he realized he wasn’t included: he was catching a private conversation he ought not to be able to “hear.” He’d’ve shielded had his mother not been discussing Zara with his father.

  She’s a dysfunctional Prime, Afra, Damia was saying with deep regret and distress. Father can’t expect her to do Tower service. She’d wilt under the stress. And with everyone knowing she’s a T-1, they’ll expect her to go to a Tower.

  Everyone is not your father, nor Gollee Gren who has a lot more to do with placing Talents these days than Jeff. Certainly we must inform Gollee of our anxiety and our assessment. Zara can be trained for other duties, less emotionally laden. She’s got good thrust . . .

  Erratic as her sympathies . . . His mother’s tone was peevish.

  Well, I’ll admit that I felt a pang of sympathy for the queen . . .

  YOU?

  Rojer was equally startled, and relieved.

  Yes, I. It’s an attitude that won’t endear me to many, but to be honest, Damia, and we have always been honest in our private thoughts, there was something pathetic about that queen! Pathetic, awkward, and . . . valiant, I think one could say.

  There was a long pause of silence. If one isn’t swayed by conditioning, his mother admitted slowly, and unfortunately, I am biased about Hivers—I can’t help it—one could call her brave to leave the pod. Of course, she had to, didn’t she? No oxygen, no food.

  Rojer nearly cheered to hear his mother admit this.

  I worry more about Zara’s ’Dinis, Dami
a went on. They do not understand her perversion . . .

  Not perverse surely, Damia. Wayward, or maybe deviant, but not perverse. She’s an extremely sensitive girl . . . I’ll work on reassuring her ’Dinis.

  Oh, I think they’ll pull round once they’re over the shock of hearing Zara defending the queen.

  I don’t think she’s defending the queen so much as empathizing with her. And she’s thrown up a very tight mental shield about her thoughts. We must allow her the privacy we always permit other Talents, Afra said.

  She’s not adult yet.

  But nearly. I seem to remember . . .

  Afra!

  There was such an intimacy in their minds that Rojer hastily closed off the intriguing conversation.

  * * *

  That mental exchange was not the only one he inadvertently “overheard” in the next few days for there were ’pathed messages filtering in from all the Primes. Some of the messages Rojer would rather not have heard: others were curious and fascinating. Especially the badinage his mother enjoyed with her father, or her pithy remarks to her brother, Jeran, and her sister, Cera, both of them Towered Primes. Rojer now caught Laria’s reports from Clarf. Those he was glad Zara couldn’t hear.

  There was a faction on Clarf that mirrored the Aurigae City wish for summary execution as public as possible.

  He also caught all the reports from Heinlein Base. The queen had remained stationary for seventy-six hours, ignoring replenishments of the foods she had been seen to eat. Xenobiologists and xenozoologists were doing their best to be sure the offerings covered all nutritional requirements for they were certain she would be laying the eggs that strained her lower body to the point where striations or cracks were visible in the bulb of it.

  There had been several more failed attempts in laboratories within the Alliance to vitalize the larvae and their numbers were dwindling rapidly. That was when someone suggested that perhaps the remaining larvae should be sent to Heinlein Base in the hope that the queen could hatch them. Perhaps she required attendants for the egg-laying and, with these missing, she would be unable to function.

  Some of the larvae of each type were therefore ’ported into the Base, to see if their appearance would activate the queen. Men seemed to dominate the push to give the queen the larvae. Women seemed less inclined to sympathize with her condition. For apart from eating again, the queen had done nothing else, though her egg-filled bulb continued to expand.

  However, when the decision to give her some of the three types of larvae was implemented, Rojer got Zara off by herself to give her what he felt should be good news.

  “The least they can do,” was all Zara said in a disgusted tone, though, for the rest of the day, Rojer thought she was more cheerful. Certainly she was on hand to see a screening of the transfer. The scene was even more dramatic than the queen’s emergence.

  The queen rushed to the larvae, running her upper limbs across each sac, emitting a low hum. She deftly turned each larva so she could inspect all round, then she awkwardly swept a path to the nearest building. This, the experts said, had to be some sort of instinctive behavior for the paving had been brushed clear of any dust or grit when the Base was cleaned for her occupancy. She ran back to collect the day’s green offerings and piled them in the big entrance hall. When she’d done that, she patiently rolled each larva to its new site, with many pattings and turnings and hummings. The day’s efforts seemed to have exhausted her for she resumed the immobile post-prandial position, propped up by her hind limbs.

  Biologists and zoologists—including two eminent Human orthopterists—argued over what sort of “bedding” would suit her needs, and chose straw, wood shavings as well as several types of artificial chips, bits, and bobbles. A quantity of fine artificial “wax” and natural tallow were added to the offerings, in case she was more apiarian than insectoid. When she settled on the shavings, heaping them in mounds over the larvae, more were sent in. Rojer had a private smile for the things cousin Roddie had to do as the Observation Talent.

  Zara brightened at each new concession granted the “prisoner” and kept within viewing distance of the screen, waiting for the next development. Her mother let her because, as Damia privately admitted to Afra, she was more use in the house than in the Tower. Zara was certainly not the only one so involved in what happened at Heinlein Base. Queen watching had replaced piece-finding as a galactic pastime.

  * * *

  Two mornings later a frantic call from Zara reached them as they left the Tower. Damia nodded once at Afra and Rojer and they all ’ported into the main room.

  Oh, look! Just look! She’s laying! Zara cried, frantically gesturing at the screen. Morag, Ewain, and Kaltia erupted from their rooms and thundered down the steps. For once, Damia didn’t reprimand them.

  The queen had propped herself up on all frontal limbs, her bulb half hidden in the mound of shavings which seemed to heave and enlarge.

  “Can’t they allow her any privacy!” Zara demanded, her eyes vivid with her angry protest.

  “We can’t see anything, Zara,” Ewain said, flopping down in the nearest chair with a disgusted expression on his face. “And we watch the Coonies and the Darbuls when they give birth. What’s wrong with watching her?”

  “Ewain’s right, you know, Zara,” Afra said placidly, “we see nothing of the process itself: merely the result of eggs.” But he cast a look at his daughter, adding, Your sensitivity is commendable if unnecessary, Zara. Insectoids do not share Human feelings of embarrassment. In her Hive helpers and attendants would be swarming over her at such a time. Privacy is probably a hardship for her.

  Rojer knew he wasn’t supposed to hear that private remark and he shook his head, wondering why he was getting all these unexpected confidences. But Zara plainly had only extrapolated what she might feel during the birth process, and not considered the species’ differences. She gradually subsided.

  “Biology Teach’s doing a special on orthopterus, on account of the queen,” Ewain said casually, eyes glued to the steady rise of the shaving-topped mound. “It said insects lay enormous quantities of eggs at a time. They’ll be bursting out of the bedding any moment now.” They did, shiny white covered pearls, hundreds of them. “Wonder what variety she’s laying now?” Ewain continued conversationally. “She must’ve been pregnant—er, whatever Hivers get—egg-full? before her ship was wrecked. There wasn’t anything else in the pod with her.”

  “Some insects eat the male after mating,” Morag said, casting a quick glance at her sister. “Maybe that’s what caused all the scrabbling we heard in the pod . . .”

  “That is quite enough, Morag,” Afra said firmly.

  “But, Dad, Biology Teach said we got to observe the queen for our project,” Morag protested, her voice almost the whine her parents deplored in her.

  “Then observe, but keep your comments for your class hour.”

  Morag obeyed. After such a putdown from her father, Rojer knew she wouldn’t dare provoke Zara any further. Anyway, Zara seemed oblivious to Morag’s taunting for her gaze was glued to the screen, her expressive face tender. Her ’Dinis were seated close beside her but they apparently were not picking up on her emotions. Rojer made a tentative probe at her but she was shielded so tightly he doubted that either of his parents could have “heard” her thoughts and feelings just then.

  It did take the queen hours to finish her laying. Rojer left when he got bored and spent an hour with Xexo, trying to build on his Beijing success.

  There were new pieces. The KLTL had calculated the point at which the Hive ship was probably hit and quartered the area. Rojer wondered if that had been Thian’s bright idea for it had produced quite a lot of flotsam and jetsam: some of it was too twisted or melted to be useful but each fragment, splinter, and scrap was gathered up. There were some big sections of hull, warped and melted, but the art of reconstruction might be able to render the original from the remainder.

  Neither Xexo or Rojer were as interested in
the bigger pieces as the smaller ones that had remained intact, easier to match and piece together. These newest pieces Xexo and Rojer first sorted into the appropriate subdivisions where the most likely matches were possible.

  “If only this one didn’t have that little hooky edge,” Rojer said, having vainly tried to mate two very likely looking bits.

  “Hooky place?” Xexo flipped the bit he’d been fiddling with to Rojer.

  “That’s it! That fits a treat!” Rojer said, crowing with delight. Xexo rushed around the table to see and grimaced.

  “And I handed it over to you!”

  “I give you leave to report it, though!” Rojer was quite willing to defer. Lately his name had come up in his parents’ conversations and he’d closed up, rather than hear them discuss him. They had such high standards, standards he might not be meeting. He wished he hadn’t become so acute a telepath.

  When Xexo returned from making that call, he was grinning from ear to ear. “Brace yourself for a surprise or two, lad,” he said but refused to explain. “Oh, it won’t hurt you to simmer a bit. This fit’s original, by the bye. I’m the first to report it. And I made it a joint discovery. Only fair, Roj. Now, let’s see if my hunch is right because I think we’ve got part of a gyroscope here. I know it sounds farfetched because gyroscopic drives are ancient history in engineering usage . . .”

  “Gyroscope, of course it is!” Rojer cried, reaching across the board for half a dozen shards and scraps which, with little fussing, came together into a whole ring. Xexo’s eyes bulged at the result.