by Alex Lang
“Yes, why all the secrecy, demon?” Aloud, Yellow-Spot said, “She did. That’s what the meeting I just went to was about.”
“No, I mean, why doesn’t she give her blessings to the whole colony?”
“It’s at the gods’ request,” she lied. The gods, whether false or not, wouldn’t have approved either way. Yellow-Spot had seen first-hand the lengths the gods went through to control the colony, had overheard their conversations when they thought she wasn’t listening. They will decide the next Queen, and Yellow-Spot was supposed to be there to help facilitate the conversation. The gods did this, they said, because of The War Against The Gods another colony had started. Yellow-Spot had her doubts that war had even happened.
Sweet-Berries looked off into the distance, as if thinking. Finally she focused back on Yellow-Spot. “Okay. You said the other day we’ll meet tonight. It doesn’t make any sense to leave at night, but … I know, it’s the gods’ request.”
“Thanks, sister.”
“I can’t help but do something for my closest clutchsister.”
“That’s why this betrayal of trust hurts so much,” Yellow-Spot thought.
“But you’ll get away from these false gods!” the demon retorted. “You’ll be free, at last.”
“Free from what? I’m leading my sisters away from our colony, away from everything they love, away from the Queen’s { }. For what? To give a god her own Queen, even though you yourself do not believe them to be gods?” That must be their secret mission. The gods had somehow implanted this demon so that Yellow-Spot could fulfill a purpose whereby a new Queen was created. But the gods must be the ones providing the Queen. That didn’t quite make sense …
“Sister, you all right?” Sweet-Berries asked.
“Huh?”
“You look confused. Your color-face is green.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” she stammered, trying to stop thinking about the demon. “Let’s { }, shall we?”
The two { }, which only left Yellow-Spot more anguished.
Yellow-Spot helped out with repairs for the rest of the day, as she was a Builder. She tried to ignore the demon, even though it took on a ghostly form not only in her mind’s eye, but also in her visual field. When night fell, she only pretended to sleep in her cell. In the cell closest to her, Sweet-Berries’ scent tickled her nose, producing a low-level { } in Yellow-Spot, which only increased her anxiety over what she was about to do. When the time seemed right she got out of her cell but didn’t get her sisters immediately.
“What’re you waiting for?” the demon asked.
“I don’t want to do this!”
“Sister, what’s wrong?” Sweet-Berries got out of her cell.
“I’m … just frightened. I don’t know if I can handle any of it.”
“Yellow-Spot, the gods have chosen you. I know you’ll be an excellent leader. Just follow the gods’ directive and we’ll be rewarded. Okay?”
If she tried arguing, Sweet-Berries might think less of her. “Okay,” she said.
***
“You want me to give you a Drone in the middle of the night?” the Nurse asked, her hands sluggish from stupor. Yellow-Spot hadn’t seen this Nurse before.
“Yes. It’s the gods’ imperative.” Her hands felt numb, as if someone else was saying them.
The Nurse got out of her cell and looked past Yellow-Spot. She saw with her rear eyes Sweet-Berries giving the affirmative to her sister Nurse.
The Nurse didn’t bother lighting any candles. She stumbled around; perhaps the heat-light from surrounding bodies was not enough. After a few moments of looking, Yellow-Spot feared her Paste she’d deposited earlier had been thrown out. She thought about joining the search-she had a Paste-wax torch after all-but then the Nurse found the wax basket. “A strange request, but … Queen’s orders, gods’ orders.”
The Nurse gave Yellow-Spot a berry to make Paste. Again, Yellow-Spot cringed at its bitterness. After a short moment Yellow-Spot deposited the Paste into the basket, the Nurse stirred the two Paste batches, then licked it up. “Yes, I Taste only one person.” Her color-face looked brown, from disappointment, though Yellow-Spot couldn’t tell very well in the dim light. The Nurse walked toward the colony’s own Drones.
“Actually,” Yellow-Spot said, “could we get one of those?” She pointed to the section of Drones from other colonies. “The Queen never specified which Drone I could take.”
“Good. That’d be the best option.”
Yellow-Spot closed her eyes, hoping the ghostly demon would disappear. Instead, it appeared as an after-image behind her eyelids.
The nurse looked perplexed, but said, “I suppose it’s all the same, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Yellow-Spot said nervously.
The Nurse led the Drone out of its cell. It sniffed around and whimpered. Yellow-Spot grabbed its soft arm. Soft, like the gods’ skin, not the hard armor of a person’s.
Yellow-Spot and the Nurse briefly touched antennae to say goodbye; Yellow-Spot couldn’t stand too much { }. Yellow-Spot, Sweet-Berries, and Electric-Touch left, with the Drone in tow.
***
Pain exploded and Yellow-Spot startled awake.
The open sky hung above, with trees framing it. Where was she? The short night walk away from the colony. Setting up camp in the surrounding forest.
Now, noises everywhere. God noises. Yellow-Spot smelled the stink of pain on her. Her
pain.
“She’s hurt,” Sweet-Berries said.
“What’s going on?” Electric-Touch too smelled of fear and pain.
“Can you move?” Sweet-Berries asked.
“Yes.”
Yellow-Spot got up wobbly. She was blind. Not totally, but pain throbbed where one of her rear eyes had seen.
“Come on, sisters,” Sweet-Berries said. “Downhill.”
The three stumbled down the hillside. Trees parted, making room for them. In her pain haze Yellow-Spot couldn’t mind her feet too well, as she tripped a few times over the trees’ root-legs. It was only with Sweet-Berries’ vigilance that she managed to stay up.
Sound continued to roar around Yellow-Spot. She managed to realize much of it was god-speak, but she still needed concentration to understand. Tree leaves popped and disintegrated as they were hit by the gods’ hard projectile nuggets. Thunder sounded as the gods discharged their stick weapons-"guns” the gods called them in their sound language. Her vision spun, dizzy from the loss of one eye’s sight. And through all this, the pain, oh, the constant pain. Yellow-Spot prayed to the gods-the true gods-but only the demon appeared, looking more distinct than ever. “I need to stop.”
Sweet-Berries guided them behind a large tree, making sure its lower fronds would give them adequate cover. If it moved, they’d have to move with it.
“Give me a berry,” Sweet-Berries said to Electric-Touch.
“Where’s the Drone?” Yellow-Spot asked, smelling new fear coming from her body.
“Never mind. We need to attend to you. Electric-Touch, that berry.”
“No!” Yellow-Spot started to move, then saw the dumb thing ambling down the hill, following the three sisters’ scent trail.
When it was clear Yellow-Spot wouldn’t give up without a struggle, Sweet-Berries got out from the tree’s cover and grabbed the Drone to pull it into the tree-frond hideout.
Electric-Touch reached up out of the frond cover to the lowest tree branch, which lowered to aid in her reach. Just as she grabbed it, one of those hard nuggets hit her hand. She dropped the fruit and more pain filled the small enclosure. Electric-Touch stared at her hand,
stunned and uncomprehending. Yellow-Spot was only vaguely aware of Sweet-Berries scrambling to get the berry.
Yellow-Spot hit Electric-Touch’s antennae with her own. She felt the { } coursing through her, and Electric-Touch seemed to calm down.
Pleasure jabbed into Yellow-Spot and, in the midst of { } with Electric-Touch, she didn’t at first know where it was coming from.
The dull ache was abating. She felt a warm tingle at the injury site. Only when she pulled away from the { } with Electric-Touch did it become clear that Sweet-Berries had applied Paste to the wound. Now that pain was no longer at the fore, the blind hole in her vision was even more evident. But it also meant she could now concentrate on what the gods were saying.
Yellow-Spot had to concentrate, but she could make out the words. “… surrender, Bee-Fuckers!”
The word “bee” hung in Yellow-Spot’s mind. A god had once shown Yellow-Spot a “bee” on the god’s magic window. Yellow and black, it looked nothing like a person. And tiny. In fact, the god said, the picture on the magic window was bigger than an actual bee.
“Then why call us bees?” Yellow-Spot had asked.
The god paused, probably translating Yellow-Spot’s visual language into the god’s spoken one. Then the god said, “It’s just a name.”
“It’s not a name of respect,” the demon had said.
Presently Yellow-Spot looked between the fronds to see two gods about ten body-lengths from her. Halfway between them and her appeared the demon. Now its body took on a blue color, as if it was growing fur.
One of the gods was lying down; she was covered in red liquid. God-blood. The other stood, with its “gun” pointed somewhere Yellow-Spot couldn’t readily see. She’d labeled the god an “it” because it was like a Drone, only intelligent like its Queen partner.
“Only animals have Drones and Queens that are alike,” the demon said.
Yellow-Spot looked at her sisters, certain they’d give some indication they’d seen the demon. They did not.
“We destroyed your copter,” said a god Yellow-Spot couldn’t see. She must’ve missed part of the conversation.
“And that’s reason for surrender?” said the intelligent Drone. “More like reason for war!”
“You provoked it with the copter flight,” the unseen god said.
“That flight was routine. We’ve done it before to assess the progress of the Von Neumanns.”
“Ha! Unlikely story. Von Neumann machines by definition don’t need supervision: they reproduce and build on their own.” The god came out of its tree cover and charged toward the other. It held out its “gun” and the thunder of fire discharge sounded.
The first Drone-god fell atop its dying Queen companion. The surviving god appeared from behind a tree and walked right up to its enemies. Its “gun” thundered several times as it pumped several nuggets into the surely already dead bodies. It said, “Fucking religious zealots. Can’t believe we share a planet with them.”
The god walked toward them, and Yellow-Spot feared the worst. Sweet-Berries attended to Electric-Touch’s injured hand, oblivious to any danger. The Drone was even more oblivious, sleeping at Yellow-Spot’s feet.
“I know I saw some bees around here. Come out, come out, wherever you are!” The god looked around, then pulled out a small round thing from the cord tied around its abdomen. It opened the round thing. A Queen’s Paste jar.
The Queen’s Scent wafted over to their hideout, and Yellow-Spot had the almost overwhelming urge to run toward it. “Stay put!” Yellow-Spot had developed a resistance to the false { }.
Electric-Touch said, “But the Queen-”
“That’s not the Queen. It’s just a container with the Queen’s Paste.” Yellow-Spot wrapped an antenna around one of Sweet-Berries’, but she couldn’t reach Electric-Touch to create any { }.
“But she’s a god.”
“Can’t be, sister” Sweet-Berries said, her words slow, as if still processing the revelation. “She kills her own kind.”
“No. The gods’ reasons are mysterious and unfathomable. But I know she still loves me.”
Electric-Touch walked out of the hideout and toward the false god. Sweet-Berries tried to grab her sister, but Electric-Touch wiggled away.
The false god barely looked at Electric-Touch. It pointed its “gun” at her, it thundered, and Electric-Touch collapsed to the ground. The demon showed an angry rainbow of shock on her color-face; Yellow-Spot could almost recognize the monster.
A new desire came over Yellow-Spot: vengeance. This was a far greater challenge to resist than the false { }. Her legs quaked, and she held on to Sweet-Berries as hard as she could.
“Make the best { } you can,” the demon told Yellow-Spot. Only afterward did Yellow-Spot realize it’d been a mutual decision, not a command from the demon.
Sweet-Berries still held the berry she’d used to make the Paste salve. Yellow-Spot grabbed it to make her own Paste, the wild berry’s sharpness stinging her taste buds.
“Come out, come out. I know there’s more of you. I know how you fuckers hate to see your own kind dying.”
Yellow-Spot force-fed the Paste to Sweet-Berries, and produced as much Scent as she could. Sweet-Berries slumped and passed out. Yellow-Spot was surprised it’d even worked. She knew the Queen could do it, but now she knew she could too.
“No matter,” the false god said. “Maybe the honey’s causing me to see things. Speaking of which …” The false god walked over to Electric-Touch’s body and began pounding on her. No, it was more like squeezing her.
“Come on, you fuckin’ bee-cunt. Give me … There!” A little Paste squirted out of her dead sister’s mouth. “Like squeezing a toothpaste tube.” The false god stumbled to the ground, mewling and groaning. From personal experience Yellow-Spot knew the false god was experiencing the Paste’s effects.
Yellow-Spot debated with herself as to what to do. She wanted to be vigilant against this false god, yet it was so painful to see what it was doing and to be reminded about what had happened. When the false god began doing strange things to Electric-Touch’s corpse, she couldn’t take it. She closed her remaining eyes and tried to force out the world. Even with closed eyes the demon haunted her, becoming more real than ever.
***
Yellow-Spot woke to clear sky above. The frond hideout was gone. She sat up. The trees had moved. Or maybe she’d dreamt the nastiness of the false gods. Electric-Touch lay motionless where she’d fallen. No dream; the nightmare was real.
She stood, looking for danger, looking for the false god. Sweet-Berries lay on the ground but still breathing. Then there was the demon, five body-lengths away and as clear as can be.
“No,” Yellow-Spot said softly, the smell of fear becoming strong. The demon was her true enemy, not the gods.
Sweet-Berries opened her eyes and sat up. Probably she’d been woken by the smell of
fear.
The demon approached. Yellow-Spot quaked, sure somehow that the demon had been responsible for the current horrors. She ran down the hill. As the hill became steeper she turned to see the demon and Sweet-Berries following her.
She stumbled, fell, tumbled down the hill, antennae-tip over heels. When she stopped, she heard the roar of a river.
She stood. Something was wrong. Her leg hurt. She ignored the pain. It was pain or facing the demon.
She stepped into the river. It wasn’t that large, but with her leg hurt it was hard to get any decent footing.
Near the center the water was up almost to her mouth. She imagined the roiling water around her was a placid pond where she could see her reflection. She glanced back at the shore, thinking about turning around. The demon and Sweet-Berries were still following. The sight of the demon threw her off balance and the current swept her off her feet.
