by Davyne DeSye
“Well, well . . . ,” says the queen. “It appears you care for these creatures, Nestra.” The queen’s mandibles open and close, making several small clicking sounds in the otherwise quiet room. “It will actually hurt you if I kill another, won’t it?”
“Majesty,” I croak, begging. “They are bond-friends to me.” I am unsure whether this admission will help or put the humans in greater danger, but I can think of no other way to plead for their lives. “They are no danger to you or . . . .”
Diane bends and whispers something to Tanner, kisses his blood-spattered cheek, and pushes herself to her feet. Khara whispers something at Diane in the human language as Diane steps over Tanner’s outstretched arm toward the queen. I am amazed to notice I can no longer taste fear from Diane as she raises her arms toward the queen, palms held before her dripping with Tanner’s blood.
“You do not fear me?” the queen roars and raises an open pincer to Diane’s throat. Again I scream – “No!” – but Diane does not flinch or move other than to close her eyelids. The only scent of fear is that emanating from Khara and from me. The queen tilts her head at the small human standing before her, then closes the pincer and rips out the soft throat.
I wail, and fall to my knees as Diane’s small body crumples forward into the queen. The queen catches the slack body before it can reach the floor and flings it at me. I dodge the flying body. It sails through the air like a limp rag with odd flailing limbs, and lands with a dull crunch against the wall at the far edge of the room.
I can still taste the warm purple-blue passion with which Diane has gone to her death. Again I wail, head thrown back, which adds a grating rasp to the end of my keening lament.
When I lower my head, the queen is standing over me, hungrily tasting my pain, lower arms questing closer for the intimacy of sharing.
“Majesty, I beg you,” I say, in a voice almost a whisper, rich with pleading. The queen presses her slim fingers to my shoulders and I hear a sharp intake of breath from her as she throws her own head back and revels in the taste of my anguish.
Khara has not moved from her position crouched near Tanner’s splayed knees. She is watching the queen and me, while tears roll down her splotched face. As I share my pain with the queen and try to avoid feeling her sick pleasure, I long for my friend and try not to long for her, knowing the queen will taste this as well.
The queen sighs and lowers her head, wicked smile directed at me. With fingers still resting on my shoulders, the queen looks toward Khara and asks in warm, almost loving tones, “Shall I kill this one too?” She opens the pincer of her upper arm, and then snaps it shut over my head.
I can feel my terror for Khara rising in me, but before I can answer or even think what to answer, she continues, “Or shall I toy with it first?” My shock mingles with the flavor of my surprise as I realize that having the queen merely kill my friend will be a far kinder fate.
“Yesss. Just as I thought,” says the queen, and releases her grasp of me. Turning toward Khara, the queen says, “You will be my toy for a while.”
Believing Khara cannot understand our language, the queen follows this statement with a short statement in the human language. “You. Come. Here.” Her mandibles click with the effort of the human words.
Khara stands up. “I understand your language,” she says. “I will be your toy, Majesty.”
The queen’s startled laughter chirrups through the room. “How splendid, Nestra! It is no wonder you enjoyed this creature.” Again, delighted laughter fills the room.
“What is it you wish of me, Majesty?” Khara asks.
While I admire the strength and audacity of my sister-friend Khara, I shake with horror as I realize Khara thinks to buy time by allowing the queen to use her as her master does.
No! You don’t understand!
I want to shriek a warning, shriek my pain, but clamp down on my self-control, determined to be as strong as Khara is proving herself to be. I console myself with the knowledge the queen will not let me outlive Khara by long and this agony will soon come to an end.
“Join me here,” the queen says to Khara as she leaps to the bed cushions, her excitement broadcasting to me through her gestures and her scent.
Khara moves toward the bed-pit, then reaches into her pants pocket and extracts something small, which she holds in her fist. “May I use this, Majesty?” Khara asks.
“What is it, creature?” asks the queen, purring in her pleasure.
“It is a drug, Majesty. It will comfort me and allow me to last much longer as your toy. My comfort will be your pleasure.”
Again the room fills with the queen’s laughter.
“Please!” answers the queen, then turning to me, she says again, “Delightful!”
I still kneel, frozen, not knowing how to help my friend, not able to stand what I know I am about to see. I watch as Khara slaps a hand to her throat.
Khara stands for a long moment, perhaps allowing the drug to begin its effect on her, perhaps buying more precious minutes of life. The scent of her fear is still strong. The queen allows several minutes to pass before her patience lapses and she bellows, “Come!”
Khara removes her clothing and moves with languid motions toward the bed cushions. She crawls toward Queen Tal, rolls over, and lies on her back, eyes closed, very near the queen.
The queen opens a pincer and places the open pincer over Khara’s neck, pinning her head to the bed cushions, but does not close the pincer. With a cruel smile directed toward me she says, “Come here, Nestra. I wish to enjoy your reactions close at hand.” When I do not move, the queen bellows, “Come!”
I jerk myself to my feet and approach the queen. I expect a pungent odor of fear as I approach Khara; instead her terror is now muted by her drug. I should kill Khara now and save my friend the pain that is to come, but I do not have the strength to take my friend’s life.
I am weak.
I lower myself to the bed cushions on the other side of the queen from Khara.
As soon as I settle myself, the queen reaches with a small lower pincer toward Khara’s foot, and after placing the pincer to ensure taking only the smallest appendage, clips the appendage from Khara’s foot. Khara gasps and jerks her leg up, knee bending up to her chest, arms flailing. A bright spray of blood splashes over Khara’s stomach and other leg, as well as onto the queen’s torso. Several small drops fall on me and I can taste Khara’s fear swell and blossom despite her drug. I moan and thrash as though the queen had cut a portion of my foot as well.
The queen does not hesitate, but with a lower arm, holds Khara’s bent leg in place, knee pushed to chest, and clips the next appendage from Khara’s foot. This time Khara does not gasp, but screams, long and loud. I scream with her.
“I never thought of making you a part of my little play sessions,” says the queen, when I have stopped screaming and Khara’s scream has reduced itself to small moans escaping between weak gasps. “This is wonderful!” The queen raises her head to look at the barbed ceiling and seems to swoon.
Then she grasps Khara’s other leg, and again starting with the smallest appendage, clips it off. Khara’s scream lasts longer this time, and her fear billows off her in gross, nauseating waves. The queen reaches to retrieve one of the small pieces of bloody bone and flesh, wipes it across one mandible, and then flings it across the room. Khara thrashes and rocks until blood blooms on the side of her neck where the queen’s pincer holds her pinned. Blood from her feet soaks the bed cushions and decorates much of Khara’s body in a grotesque pattern of large and small blotches of red.
“Majesty!” I roar, hoping even as I pull at the queen’s arm which holds Khara’s head to the bed cushions that the queen will just hurry and finish the job, close the pincer at Khara’s throat and kill her.
I am confused when the queen releases Khara. Khara rolls away from the queen, and with two small groans grabs fistfuls of linens and jams them against her bleeding feet to stanch the flow of the bright red
blood.
The queen turns to me and says, “Yes, Nestra, dear?” Gloating pleasure rasps her voice, even through the warmth of her words.
You are sicker than I knew. This is wrong! Can you not feel that?! But I do not speak aloud.
“You wanted my attention, Nestra, dear?” The queen speaks in a soft, warm voice, as if to a dear friend. Still I can think of nothing to say.
“Ah, perhaps you fear for your queen. Perhaps a downloading session is in order?” The queen purrs the words at me.
Teal-violet shock.
I cannot do this right now!
As she moves into position above me, the queen jerks her head toward Khara, who still sits hunched, clutching linens to her bloody feet.
“You can’t escape,” she snarls, all the warmth gone from her tone.
Khara continues rocking and moaning to herself, giving no sign she has heard the queen or even recognizes her surroundings.
Just as the queen begins extruding her palpus toward me, she whispers, all softness and warmth again, “Don’t worry, Nestra, dear. This will be your last time.”
The brief spurt of shock that flows through me is overtaken by resignation, and even thankfulness, and then the queen’s palpus is on my own and the black flood begins. I float toward the half-trance state that will allow me to retain sanity in the midst of the poisonous flow. That part of my mind that remains my own wonders at my effort. Wonders at my desire to continue living or to maintain my sanity. But the desire is there. A sudden anger grows in me as the selfish, normally suppressed part of me comes to the fore – anger that I risk my sanity and my life for this queen, who should, by all rights, perish by her own black bile.
Without any conscious decision, I find myself facing the golden dewdrop of the queen’s strength. Without guilt, I taste of the dewdrop – not a small nipping lap at the beautiful golden liquid, but a strong draft, plunging myself into the dewdrop, soaking up and sucking at it with a ravening ferocity. Feeling radiant and renewed, I act on my anger and do the unthinkable: I deflect the Shame into the queen, sending the Shame back up the same channel from which it floods into me. The sharpness of my anger punches through, and I feel the exhilaration of being emptied of the poison, instead of filled. Gathering even more strength from the queen, I push and push until the last of the poison leaves my body, and with it, the last of my sharp black anger.
With the shock of my sudden cleanliness, I break the half-trance. The queen thrashes above me, wild, striking me over and over, pincers opening and closing with a violence I have never seen. I roll from the bed cushions and realize the only reason I am not now dead is because the queen is not in control of her body, and she cannot direct her blows. The queen’s own mandibles slice closed over her retracting palpus, drawing blood.
Fear/regret/excitement/shock thrill through me. I am at a loss what to do.
“Guards!” I yell.
“GUAAAARDS!” roars the queen in a terrifying parody of my shout. I cannot determine if the queen even knows what she yelled. Still her arms and legs thrash and kick, still her pincers and mandibles open and snap closed.
Two guards rush into the room, pause, scenting shock and fear into the already thick atmosphere of the room, and then rush to the queen. Both guards bend to restrain the flailing limbs as I back away and move around the bed cushions to where a wide-eyed Khara sits. She flinches when one of the queen’s limbs dashes in her direction. I lift Khara in my arms and move her over to the lounge, careful that the linens she clasps to her feet travel with us. I pour love and comfort into Khara, wishing I could also transfer the strength I now hold within me into my dear human sister.
I turn at a rasping strangled sound from one of the guards to discover that the queen, in her thrashing and pinching, has managed to land a deathblow to one of them. The other guard redoubles his efforts to restrain the queen, but after another moment of dodging kicks and pincers, stands back, releasing the one limb he has pinioned. With a scream the queen lurches and closes a pincer on his neck, removing his head with the violence of her motion. His body clatters to the floor, legs bent and embracing his own head. And still the queen thrashes as Khara and I watch, horrified.
“NESSSS . . . ,” the queen roars, but cannot finish my name as her mandibles clack together in jerking spasms. I turn my attention back to Khara and while keeping watch on the queen, again try to fill Khara with the flow of my comfort and friendship. Soon the queen thrashes with less violence, her body perhaps tiring from its violent spasms.
I embrace Khara, all the while transferring as much comfort and love as I can into her and try to think of what to do next. I wonder why no other guards have come to the room to investigate the commotion.
Perhaps I can take Khara to safety?
I disentangle myself from Khara, and leave her to peer out the door and down the corridor. Before I can reach the open doorway, Khara screams again, and I spin to see the queen lurching, jerking, twisting across the floor, almost to Khara, pincers reaching, snapping, as Khara scrambles to move off the other side of the lounge.
I leap for the queen.
CHAPTER 46
SAMUEL
My leg throbs as I lurch across the street, and then down a wide, short alley toward the back entrance to the enclosed garden. The sharp tack-tack of my walking stick striking the cement batters against my ears as I try to force myself to move faster. My pants below my wound are stuck to my leg by a warm fluid. I refuse to look down. I don’t want to acknowledge the fluid is my own blood.
I have no plan, other than to do what I can to save my friends, to save Khara.
I have an apology to deliver, teasing myself in Jan’s stead. I try to smile, but it can’t break through the pain-generated grimace stretching my mouth.
I can see the small guard booth across the street from where I stand. I pause, take a deep breath, try to ignore the throbbing in my thigh which pounds in time with my heart. My left foot feels swollen and warm and wet in my boot. As usual, there’s only one ant-guard in the booth. I glance up and down the short stretch of street. There are no other people or ants in sight. This bit of road behind the capitol complex never gets much traffic.
“Help me,” I yell, as I start hobbling toward the guard. I imagine the sight of me will convince the guard my plea is genuine, although he won’t care or attempt to assist me. “Help me,” I yell again, and feign stumbling. My pretence almost causes me to fall and I have trouble recovering. The guard doesn’t move, although I am certain he’s watching me.
As I step up the curb near the guard booth, I reach down and touch my leg below my wound. I bring my hand up and hold my palm toward the ant as I say, “Master, help me.” My palm is red with blood.
“You go,” says the ant. “You go.” He steps out of the booth to meet me on the wide sidewalk. He gestures toward the alley mouth from which I emerged. When I remain where I am, panting at him, he motions up and down the empty street, saying again, “You go.”
I sigh and take a small turning hop so I’m no longer facing the ant. I wait a moment before looking back. Satisfied I have understood him and am leaving, he turns back to re-enter the small booth. Gripping the walking stick in both hands, like a long bat, I take several quick, painful strides and swing at the ant’s head. His head snaps toward his shoulder and his rigid body tilts to one side, off balance, one leg off the ground. Before he can recover, I plunge my knife into the base of his skull, and up into his brain. The ant falls forward half into the booth. Keeping my grip on the knife, I’m pulled with him to the ground. My elbow smashes against the wooden doorway of the booth and the fingers of my hand tingle with the transmitted pain.
Pausing only to recover my breath and flex my hand and elbow, I retrieve my knife, now covered with the thick viscous yellow-white fluid of the ant’s blood. The pincer closest to me opens, and I jerk away from it, unsure whether this is a post-death reaction, or whether the ant is reviving despite my wound to its head.
I scramble backwar
d to retrieve my walking stick. The ant doesn’t move again. I consider poking at it, but I’ve done what I set out to do. I’ve gained entrance to the garden.
As I limp and stumble through the garden, I marvel at the small world Diane and Tanner have helped to create here, away from the heat and filth of the city. The surreal character of the sunlight dappling the paths and the slow-motion bobbing of flowers and branches makes me wonder if I’m becoming delirious.
How much blood have I lost?
I slow as I approach the open entrance to the building, lifting and placing my walking stick with care to avoid making any more noise than that of my limping shuffle against the stone. Hands cramping as I grip the handle of my knife with one and the walking stick with the other, I push my head around the edge of the entrance. I blink as my eyes adjust to the darker interior, hoping no one is approaching during my blindness. I can’t hear anything moving nearby.
As my vision adjusts, I am happy to see that no ants are in sight down the long corridor. Maybe this is because the garden is forbidden, or because no one wants to be near the queen.
I move inside. I forget for a second and my walking stick cracks loudly against the hard floor. I hold my breath then move back out to the garden, sit on a bench, and cut off the bottom of my right pant leg. I wrap the cloth around the bottom of my walking stick to muffle it. My left pant leg has a wide stripe of red from my upper thigh to the cuff. Not good. I remove my shirt and cut it into strips that I wrap around the outside of my pants over my wound, pursing my lips and chuffing at the pain. I don’t have time to do more.
Leaving my pack in the garden by the bench, I move to the entrance, and again wait for my eyes to adjust.
The noise hasn’t brought anyone to investigate.
I have no idea where the ants have taken Khara and Diane and Tanner. I can only search, hoping to find them without being seen. With the current passage clear before me, this seems possible. I can’t think beyond finding them. I hope they’re not in the main audience chamber, which I imagine packed full of ants and humans, as last I saw it.
