by Davyne DeSye
Dev’ro finishes his report but does not leave the chamber. I vacillate between deepening and lightening my trance with an uneasiness that tastes bitter with danger. With this newfound knowledge the queen conducts business during these sessions – and in private sessions such as this one – I do not know what to expect, and fear the queen will taste my uneasiness.
The trickling off of the flood coming from the queen comes again and realize this same lessening had come before the queen broke from me last time. Bracing myself to remember to keep my palpus extruded, I lighten my trance to listen. The queen breaks from me.
“It seems the end is almost here,” the queen purrs and, through our connection, I can feel her pleasure rising.
“No more than another lunar period before enough brothers hatch. We can dispense with the final the humans then,” Dev’ro answers.
The blood lust that rises in the queen at the thought of wholesale slaughter makes me want to curl in upon myself, but I do not move my limbs from their awkward angles, do not shudder as I wish, do not draw my palpus in. Only a small part of this continent still contains humans, but I thought – given the queen’s proclivities – she would save these alive. I think of the comfort I took from the humans I shared with – especially the human Khara – and used the memory of that comfort to calm myself. I refuse to focus on the thought of those humans gone.
“We will no longer be . . . inaccurate . . . when we report to home planet that this planet which is so perfect for colonization contains no intelligent life,” Dev’ro says, with the rasp of a laugh. “Although I will miss my pets.” Again the rasp of laughter.
I contain my surprise at the mention of the home planet none of us have ever seen – since all but the queen and the crew of the ship have been hatched either in orbit around, or on this planet.
“I would make a gift of yours for you to keep, if it were not so dangerous to leave any alive,” answers the queen, and again, the blood lust that rises within her threatens to sicken me. As much as the queen enjoys her daily ritual torture of the soft unfortunate creatures, the prospect of unrestrained slaughter excites her even more. I deepen my trance to relieve my queasiness, as well as my mounting confusion and fear. While she will not likely react to the queasiness, fear will alert the queen to my wakefulness. The realization of this fact causes me to flee even deeper into the trance. Deeper, deeper, until I have almost achieved the unconscious state normal to downloading in the past. I am not aware when the queen fastens again except through the sudden renewed flood of blackness washing through me. I am not aware when Dev’ro leaves the chamber.
I float back into awareness at the queen’s command. She is as subdued as she always is since I started stealing her strength, but she also exudes a satisfaction that is frightening. I push the swirling information I have learned – that the humans, as a race, have not long to live and a deception of home planet is involved – into the back of my mind and hope to be dismissed to cleanse myself and think. I push myself up from my reclined position. I refuse to focus on the queen while waiting for the words of dismissal. I balance on trembling legs and clear my mind, waiting for the blessed words.
“Come,” the queen says. I am startled and jerk my attention to the queen, fearful she has detected something.
“The throne room,” says the queen. “I am tired, but I must, and you will stay with me. I will need you again.”
I almost sigh with relief at the mundane order. The queen has detected nothing. “Yes, Majesty,” I say, and hope yet again my anxiety is not detectable. I hope my practice of separating myself from the queen will now help me isolate and suppress my inner turmoil.
***
As usual, I stand to the side and behind the throne. While I never focus on the business of the court because it does not interest me, this time I deliberately unfocus in an effort to maintain a light trance which will keep me from sorting my thoughts into their frightening constituents and keep me from exuding my fear and confusion.
The audience comes to an end. The queen has raged at more than one courtier, but this is ordinary now and I expect it of every audience. As the queen becomes more unstable, the frequency of her rages increases, and the reasons for the rage are more obscure. I cannot concentrate on pitying any of the courtiers today. In my opinion, most are as twisted as the queen.
Dev’ro leads the queue of courtiers toward the queen as they sort themselves into order according to their current ranking. I rouse myself. Queen Tal raises herself from the throne with obvious effort and moves to the front of the dais for the dismissal of the small gathering.
The queen’s exhaustion is showing.
I wonder if this is as evident to any of the courtiers. For once, I cannot bring myself to feel guilty about the theft that leaves the queen less than powerful before these diseased flatterers.
Starting with Dev’ro, one by one the queen touches the courtiers in the ritual of dismissal. After the queen touches Dev’ro, he steps aside to allow the others to move toward the queen. Each of the remaining courtiers leaves the throne room as soon as they are dismissed. I do not doubt several are happy to be escaping with their lives.
A brother four from the end of the line touches the queen. The queen, instead of gesturing toward the rear of the room as she has for each of the others, jerks her arm up and closes her powerful top pincer on the throat of the brother. Yellow body fluid starts to ooze down the front of the headless courtier before the body crashes to the floor. I am the only one present who utters a sound, and it is a barely suppressed scrape of surprise.
Dev’ro steps forward and gestures to the guards for the removal of the body. The three remaining courtiers do not move or otherwise appear to react until the body has been dragged to one side. Then, each after the other approaches the queen with every appearance of confidence and, as though nothing has interrupted the ritual, accepts the queen’s dismissal and leaves the room. None move with unusual haste, although I am sure each wants, with my same desperation, to be quit of the queen’s attention.
Dev’ro slides to the queen’s side. The movement is a question in itself, but I can also smell the strong sour green-yellow flavor of the query. Dev’ro has been as surprised as I am at the execution.
“Traitor,” the queen hisses. Then, “Traitor!” she roars. After a brief moment of stentorian breathing, the queen says, “Dev’ro, he reeked of treachery. In my own court.”
Dev’ro does not react despite the cacophonous rolling screech which follows her words.
Once the queen has quieted, though her breath puffs and rasps, Dev’ro says, “I had heard a rumor of treachery.” He pauses, and then continues, “But I could not believe such a thing could occur.”
I do not know what response Dev’ro was hoping for, but it cannot have been the response he receives. The queen’s head snaps around, both eyes fix on Dev’ro, and her pincer flies to his throat. I am sure the fluids of a second body will soon join the smeared fluids of the first. I wish I could close flaps over my eyes as the humans often do to obscure their vision. But the queen’s pincer does not close.
Without dislodging the queen’s pincer from his throat, Dev’ro leans his head back and opens his arms in total subservience. He says, “I am your servant, Majesty.”
For the space of several breaths, neither moves. Then the queen lowers her pincer.
“I wish to hear of such rumors in the future,” hisses the queen.
Dev’ro maintains his subservient posture, but answers, “Of course, Majesty. It now seems they have credence. As your most trusted servant,” – I wonder if this is still true – “I will take care of it.”
“And kill every brother in that traitor’s hive. Today.” The queen whirls away from Dev’ro even before he answers, “Yes, Majesty.”
I have started to follow her when she, without turning, yells, “You are dismissed, Nestra!” and disappears into the antechamber behind the throne.
Dev’ro stands looking at me before leaving
the throne room. His mouth is pinched into his usual frightening smile, but I know he cannot be as confident as he appears. I am sure if I was nearer Dev’ro, I would taste the unmistakable aroma of humiliation and fear.
As I move down the corridor toward my quarters, I realize the queen will be even more dangerous after today, seeing treachery in every gesture, every scent. With my new knowledge and the resultant confusion, I might not live much longer than the pitiable humans left on the planet. If that long.
CHAPTER 27
QUEEN TAL
Another long day and I remain reclined on the cushions after dismissing Nestra from the latest session in my bed-pit. I watch as she creeps from the room, looking old and tired in her careful, pathetic, weak movements. She is full – I know – from the latest downloading session. The sight of her is disgusting.
If I had any strength, I would leap up and kill her right now.
The thought is followed by an involuntary, weary sigh. I should rise instead of allowing the brothers moving at the edges of the room to see me still languid after the session. Even so, I do enjoy the constant perfume of their fear as they work to avoid my notice. I snap a pincer toward a brother who passes too near me and inhale the delicious aroma of his reaction. A grin splits my face. I am too tired to move.
I am never tired. I am strong!
Still I do not rise.
I am never tired, comes the thought again as I raise myself to two arms, except after my sessions with Nestra.
This connection comes with a burst of fury that provides an energy of its own. The sudden power propels me from the bed cushions, and I leap on the nearest brother, expending my murderous rage in a furious ripping, slashing, and tearing which leaves fluid and body parts strewn around the room. The rich perfume from the remaining brothers thickens. With the combination of the intoxicating aroma and the pleasure of the kill, I am almost recovered.
After a brief pause during which I direct a vicious grin at the remaining brothers – Let them worry they are next! – ecstatic in my bloody release, the brothers begin removing the delightful, gruesome scraps.
The soft whirring of applause sounds from the entrance to the bedchamber. I spin to see Dev’ro, mirroring my smile with a twisted smile of his own. Then he bends, head back, and says, “I am here, as requested, Majesty.”
Fury again courses through me as I scent Dev’ro and realize he, too, revels in my bloody performance. I want to jealously guard the pleasure for myself. I want fear surrounding and smothering me, not this smile. For a heady moment I picture adding his fluids to those gracing the walls of my room, and I stride toward him. Then the scent of his own blood lust and confidence reaches me and I feel the pleasant flush of being in the presence of a similar, hungrily destructive soul. I am tempted to turn and devour another brother, this time for his pleasure as well as mine. Weariness washes over me at the thought.
Damn Nestra!
“Come,” I say, and move past Dev’ro into the corridor.
As we stride toward the throne room, Dev’ro walking to my rear, I turn and say, “Order a new Shame Receptor prepared for me. I will come to the breeding room and start it after this audience. Nestra has outlived her usefulness.”
The flavor/scent of understanding and obedience which wafts toward me is strong enough that no response from Dev’ro is necessary. It comes to me with a taste of his pleasure which must be caused by imaging how I will dispose of Nestra. Perhaps I will let him watch.
In just a matter of weeks, I will have a new Shame Receptor and again will be strong. I vow never to keep a Shame Receptor as long as I have kept this one. Perhaps the weakness in them is contagious.
I am so pleased with my decision that I want to kill something. Celebrate.
Later. When I am not so tired.
CHAPTER 28
KHARA
I’m hurrying to make the meeting. The session with Ilnok was blessedly short although this does leave me in the now-unusual position of trying to navigate the streets in patch-induced stupor as the one patch I use for the sessions hasn’t worn off yet. I shouldn’t go in my condition – covered with fluids, reeking of my own pungent sweat, exhausted and stoned. But I look forward to my meetings with Nestra as salve to Ilnok’s version of “sharing.” I need to make this meeting to find out if anything has changed before I join Diane and Tanner in the garden later.
In my meandering path streetside, it seems less crowded with humans than usual, and with far larger clots of ants.
I stop outside a bar and I’m sure I can smell whiskey and beer through the open door. I can’t go in. I won’t allow myself, although it smells of home. I shake my head in an effort to clear it, but the faces that move past me blend together. In the aggregate features, I see despair.
When I look up again, I’m lost, buildings tilting, street twisting. I hope I can find my way to the meeting. I hope I’m not being followed. I have to stop and clear my head. In the blur and gray-brown-gray fog of my surroundings, I’m being careless. It’s better that I miss the meeting. I need to eat.
I sit on a cement stoop that grinds at my ass bones through the thin cloth of my pants. I push Mexican rice and bits of chicken into my mouth with my hand. Watching and waiting, I measure the slow return of my awareness for over an hour. I feel better with the solidity of food where earlier only sweetmead filled me, and then was emptied from me. My head is clearing. I look at my surroundings again.
I’m not far from the street I should be on, but I would never have found the meeting through my haze. I move through pedestrians again aware of their sparsity, if only because I don’t need to twist and step to avoid them. I’m late, but I hope my friends aren’t gone.
When I enter the back room of the small bar, only Samuel and Bell are there. I’ve missed the meeting. Samuel raises an eyebrow and gathers in my sorry appearance with a practiced eye. He says nothing. His face is tight with worry. I wonder what new crap has come up.
“My dearest Khara. Please take my seat.” Bell jumps from his chair and offers it to me. It isn’t necessary. There’s another chair.
Bell is being so much more pleasant to me now – not like he was when I first joined the rebellion. Then, he was always watching me, waiting for I-don’t-know-what. Now, he treats me with the same charm he uses on everybody else. Even so, I don’t like Bell. For some strange reason, he reminds me of Ilnok.
“Diane and Tanner will be back in an hour. Can you be ready to go with them?” Samuel asks. He is asking if I can be washed by then. The softness of his eyes doesn’t condemn my condition, but I shouldn’t go to the garden like this.
I nod and drop into the offered chair next to Samuel, and Bell pulls another to my other side. I rest my head on the table for a moment before I ask, “Anything new?”
“Electronics factory, State Street,” Samuel says. His thick lips stretch tight and his forehead furrows between his eyes. “The humans were taken from it two days ago. Mid-shift. None have been seen again. The three that were with us who were at the factory haven’t reported in.”
I’m confused. Why would the ants close a factory? I wait.
“It’s staffed with bloody ants now,” finishes Bell. “Like they don’t bloody need us anymore.” His words indicate concern but his manner doesn’t. It’s one of the things I don’t like about Bell. He’s too damned cheerful all the time.
Now I understand Samuel’s concern. I put my hand over his as it rests on the scarred brown tabletop. It’s how I would share with Nestra, comfort her. I realize, as my hand rests on Samuel’s warm hand and callused knuckles that I don’t need to pull away. Samuel looks at me, startled but seeming appreciative. He doesn’t pull away. I can comfort Samuel this way, too. This pleases me.
Bell says, “We’ll get them. We’ll beat the ants.”
When I look toward Bell he’s watching my hand rest on Samuel’s. Then he looks at me and mimics my gesture, putting his hand on my free hand. I jerk my hand away and stand up from the table.
“Don’t touch me,” I say. I keep my voice low, and pray the venom isn’t obvious. I don’t say this because I don’t like to be touched, but because I don’t want to be touched by Bell. There is something about his suavity that just rubs me the wrong way.
Bell raises his hands to the sides of his head, palms forward, as though I’m pointing a gun at him. He smiles, chin ducked and head cocked to one side, trying to look charming, I guess.
“He didn’t mean anything, Khara,” says Samuel.
“Certainly not, dear lady. I simply forgot myself.” He lowers his hands and holds out one for a handshake, then remembers and pulls it back toward his chest. “Would you allow me to make it up to you? Perhaps dinner...?”
I’m such an ass. Bell is a good guy.
“Sorry, Bell. Just touchy.” I try to smile but I’m not as good at that as he is. “You don’t need to make it up to me. My fault totally.”
“Very well,” he answers with one of his signature bows that only involves the head and shoulders. “My invitation remains open.” As he walks toward the door, he says, “Got to run, Mate.” Just as he’s passing through the door, he turns and looks at me. His face is blank. Not angry, not smiling. When Samuel looks up, Bell’s teeth flash at us in a brilliant smile. He says, “I wish a good evening to you both.”
Something happened there. Something. But I can’t put my finger on what.
***
I wait for Nestra in our usual meeting place, at the back of the garden near the flower and vine covered wall. I’m sitting cross-legged, leaning back on my arms, enjoying the coolness of the shade. I should be helping Diane and Tanner, but I’m tired and they’re patient with me. I’m watching them through the trees. They meet for a brief kiss and for a moment, I imagine the comfort of that same warmth on my lips. I’m startled my imagination has progressed this far. I stand, deciding to join them, if only to distract myself from this confusing thought with the monotony of weeding or digging in the cleanliness of warm rich-smelling soil.
