by Davyne DeSye
It does not come.
Arms still open, I bring my head back to the upright position, trying to catch the scent of the humans over that of my own fear and the thick cloud of flavors remaining from the terrible battle with Queen Tal. I cannot. The two humans still have not moved from their positions. The other humans have completed their examination of the dead guards and move to the bodies of the humans. I focus upon the remains of Diane and Tanner and am again awash in pain and regret over the loss of my friends.
Worried Khara will perish from the blood lost from the wounds, I gesture to her feet. Will they understand me? My concern? With the flavors of the battle dissipating, I taste the revulsion and anger that flows from the two humans guarding me. Still, they do not approach. Still, they do not fire their weapons.
I cannot let Khara perish through inaction. Without moving my head, I search the room for the linens Khara used to stanch the flow of blood from her feet. I find them near the body of her bond-mate. I do not move to retrieve them, afraid of antagonizing or frightening the humans crouched nearby. Instead, I reach for one of the smaller bed cushions, my movements cautious. With a pincer, I tear the covering open and press Khara’s near foot through the opening and into the padding within. The wash of approval from the two humans gives me the courage to move more decisively in reaching for another cushion to apply to the other foot.
I am startled by loud sounds and gestures from the humans crouched near Khara’s bond-mate. They are surprised and happy – perhaps that he is not dead? I remind myself they cannot smell the dulling pall of death as I can.
Three of the figures attempt to lift the large human from the floor while another rushes to support the drooping head. I can help them. I want to help, if only for Khara.
“Ssssamuel,” I say, remembering the name my friend used when talking of her bond-mate. The two humans guarding me stiffen in their posture and raise their weapons. The other humans pause in their struggle with Samuel’s body and their faces all snap toward me. “Ssssamuel,” I repeat as I move one cautious step toward them. The humans helping Samuel stop all movement, but the two guards advance toward me. I am failing in my feeble attempt at communication. If I do not find some way of calming the humans, I will die, and Khara and Samuel may also die from their injuries. I decide to repeat the last human word Khara used before her collapse, the word that seemed to stop the humans from advancing toward me.
“Friend,” I say. I can taste a small measure of surprised relief from the humans nearest me. Anger dissipating. Flush with my small success, I repeat the word. I move toward Samuel, body posture submissive. “Ssssamuel,” I say again as I bend over the body. I lift the body easily from the arms of the humans. One of the humans speaks in anger and tries to reach around Samuel’s body to restrain me, but another holds the irate human from me. The scent of fear and concern billows toward me.
I place Samuel next to sister-friend Khara. I arrange their adjacent arms so their hands lie one atop the other. Conscious or not, they can engage in whatever level of sharing is possible to them. Having done all I can, I turn again to face the humans and open myself in submission.
The humans exchange several words. One of them bends to the bloody linens Khara left near Samuel and, using a knife, cuts them into several strips. Another human brings the strips to me and gestures at my still bleeding arm. I wish I could share my gratitude as I take the linens and bind my wound.
***
Much of the day has passed. Samuel and Khara have long since been taken from the room and only one guard remains, sometimes squatting near the door, sometimes pacing, always with gun at the ready. I crouch in the corner farthest from the door. I cannot see the queen where she rests in her bed pit, blocked from my sight by cushions. Determined to remain motionless, to give the guard no reason for action against me, I listen through the hours to the staccato bursts of gunfire that come in muffled bangs through the closed door.
A confused mix of emotions swirls through me as I think through what I have done this day – saved my bond-friend, lost my other friends, betrayed my queen, rejected evil. Guilt, pain, pride…
I escape into trance state in an effort to restore peace to my mind. My path shines and is navigated with ease and without the roiling poison that has so long choked me like a malignancy. Serenity is found and a lightness suffuses me. If not for concern over my bond-sister and her mate, if not for my fear of my fate, I could rise from the trance and fly through the air like the small creatures in the garden.
***
I walk the halls of the palace, human guards before and behind me. My new-won tranquility abandons me by degrees. I am sickened at the evidence of battle as I move past many dead, my kind as well as humans. The ugly mingling of the two colors of blood smears the hallway where the bodies have been dragged to the side. I am filled with sorrow at the unnecessary loss of so many lives – unnecessary, but for the sickness of the queen.
We enter the throne room. One side of this vast room houses a great pile of dead brothers. I turn my eyes from this horrific vision and toward the more hopeful sight of living brothers bunched under loose guard at the far side of the room. As I approach, I taste more relief than terror.
Have these brothers been spared? My own hope rises as an antidote to my sadness and fear. A small brother approaches me as we near this group.
“Fatchk,” he says, and opens himself to me.
“Nestra,” I answer, opening in my turn. I am certain he can taste the sour yellow-green of my questioning thoughts.
“I am friend to the humans,” Fatchk explains, “as, I know, are you.” I taste the soft gold of admiration across the small space between us and am surprised and buoyed by this. “I am assisting the humans in separating the infected from the healthy.”
A human speaks to Fatchk and he answers in their language. I envy and admire his talent. After a short conversation, I taste Fatchk’s consternation as the human takes my arm. Two other humans gesture with guns as I am pulled from Fatchk toward the side of the room where so many of my people lie dead. Fear blossoms anew in me. Fatchk raises his voice to the humans and moves to stand in front of me before he addresses me in our language.
“I have promised to touch each of our people and to give the humans a determination of their illness – some can be helped, some are too poisoned. I have explained you are the queen’s Shame Receptor, and for this reason, I cannot touch you. They have decided that if you cannot be declared safe, you must die. I would not have this, but I cannot make them understand!” The flavor of Fatchk’s pain and frustration overwhelms me, strengthened and propelled as it is by his near panic.
I am saddened at my fate before I realize there is no need for Fatchk to be repulsed by what he believes he will taste on me. I am clean.
“Fatchk, you may do as the humans ask. You may touch me and make your determination.” The teal-violet shock of the brother’s reaction is almost palpable. I continue. “I am clean. You will not taste the queen’s Shame on me. The queen took all her Shame to her death, I assure you. Furthermore,” – this with a renewal of the rebellion which led to my battle against her – “the queen is no longer here to punish you or me for your breach of her decree.” When Fatchk does not answer, I say, “We must work together, brother, to help our human friends. We have much to atone.”
Fatchk lowers himself to his knees and opens before me, as if facing the queen. Again the soft gold of his admiration washes over me. He rises and comes to me, arms still open. I quiver with each step he takes in anticipation of touching, sharing – for the first time – with one of my own kind. When he is close enough to me, his arms gather around me, and after a slight hesitation, I bend and move mine to enclose him. I lower my head as he bends his head back. Mandibles open and our palpi come together.
Overwhelming, the sensations that wash over me! Visions of his interactions with humans, with other brothers; scents of secrecy, pride, admiration; taste of regret at his role in the deaths of so many
brothers, and acknowledgement of the necessity. As I reel under the beautiful assault, I conjure images/scents/flavors of my pain at the hands of the queen, of my loneliness, of my friendship with my own human bond-friends. I am as lost in the midst of this communion as I have ever been floating in trance state. I am unaware of the passage of time, yet fully aware of the flavor of understanding that passes between my brother and me.
I am disoriented when he releases me. My arms remain raised and curved. With my posture, I beg for another embrace. Fatchk backs from me and turns to the humans who stand waiting for his determination.
He speaks in their language and then translates for me. “This one is healthy,” he says. With a waft of affection, he continues.
“This one is the best of my people.”
CHAPTER 49
SAMUEL
I wake with a sharp intake of breath. I flush with a sense of panic and disaster as I remember… The hideous sight of huge, terrifying ants battling to the death, Diane and Tanner dead, blood smearing the floor and the bed, and Khara screaming, screaming.
“Khara!” I shout, trying to rise from the surface on which I lie. A heavy weight descends on me and I kick and punch against the various forces attempting to restrain me. It takes a moment before my mind registers that the grunts and exclamations that follow my blows are human utterances.
A voice I recognize says, “Cool your jets, damn it!” I stop my flailing to see Jan lying crosswise atop me and Eli at my feet. “That hurt, you big lummox,” Jan says. Her head is twisted to look at me and her mouth is bent in a wry grin.
“Jan! Eli!” I say with a huff of relief. Then, “Where’s Khara?” My head snaps to either side of me as, in my mind’s eye, I picture the nightmarish room in which I last saw her. I’m in a smaller room now, lying on a cot. Khara is not here.
Jan stands and, with tentative fingers, rubs her face where I must have struck her. “She’s fine,” she says.
“I didn’t ask how she was. I asked where she was.” Jan looks surprised at my tone, maybe a little hurt. I close my eyes, release a long breath, open my eyes again. Putting a hand on Jan’s, I say, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bark. I just really need to see her.”
Jan breaks into a smile, bends and gives me a quick peck on the cheek. “Yeah, I know,” she says.
Eli steps toward me with a glowing smile and a huge hand extended toward me. I take his hand and he pulls me to a sitting position. In his characteristic soft-voiced rumble he says, “She’s just down the hall. She’s getting patched up.”
“What happened?” I ask. “How long have I been out?”
Jan pulls my pillow into her lap and sits next to me. “You were out for a good thirty minutes after we found you. Queen Bitch knocked you for loop. Nestra and Khara did some whomp-ass on the queen – who is now very dead – and then just as we busted in, Khara passed out. She’s fine!” Her last statement is in response to the panicked snap of my head in her direction. She pats me on the leg. “In all honesty, we were more worried about you. I told you not to do anything stupid!” Jan punches me in the shoulder. By the force of her blow, I know it’s not all good-humored – there is some anger there amongst the playfulness. “Then this big damned ant tries to pick you up. Completely freaked me out and I was ready to take it on single-handed . . . .”
“Yeah, she was,” interrupts Eli under his breath.
“But, turns out it was Nestra who, according to your buddy, Fatchk, is just as good as Khara said.” Jan’s face clouds and she drops her chin to her chest. “Diane and Tanner are dead,” she finishes.
“I know,” I say as my mind flashes to my memories of entering the room. I shake my head and swallow hard. They were good kids. I’ll miss them. “At least they’re together, which is all they ever wanted,” I say. This doesn’t help alleviate my sense of loss.
“Yeah, somehow in this rotten world, they found love,” Jan says.
Love.
“I want to see Khara,” I say. Even if she never forgives me, I have to see her, make sure she’s okay.
“She was just as worried about you as you are about her,” Jan says, and I don’t think I’ve heard more welcome words in my life. “Eli had to carry her to get her out of here.” Then grabbing my hand and pulling me from the cot, she says, “How’re you doing? Dizzy?”
I shake my head. “I’m fine.”
“Come on. We’ll take you there. You could use some patching up anyway.”
***
We – humans – have won our planet back, and without much of a war. I can hardly accept this fact as reality, but it seems all Fatchk told me about the “true nature” of the ants is genuine. With Nestra, Fatchk, and others of their ilk working to rid us of any infected ants left, my greatest challenge is with my own people, with humans. I can’t blame humans for their anger and fear of the ants, but at the same time, I can’t condone the outright slaughter that’s been going on.
Not that I was at all upset to discover Ilnok had been killed. Khara neither, and even though she loves Nestra and the other gentle ants, I can’t help wondering if she wishes she could have done the job.
From our best guess, there are only about thirty million humans left on Earth, and all of us are pretty near here. After wiping out the other half of the world at the beginning of the invasion, the queen had been tightening the noose closer and closer around where we are now. Surprisingly, we have discovered caches of humans across this continent that had been protected and hidden by groups of uninfected ants – more proof that Fatchk’s characterization of his people was accurate – but no more than a couple of thousand at a time. We are searching for other caches of humans, and hope to find more, but there are still too few of us left. Without Nestra, Fatchk and the other ants who helped us, we’d be gone.
Since the war, our thirty millions have wiped out three times as many ants. Of course, it helps when the ants don’t fight back. Fatchk is taking greater and greater numbers of the uninfected to spread the chemical message of surrender. He says that most of the ants on the other continents are uninfected – all but the few highest in the hierarchy who regularly came here to met with the queen.
Nestra set up a sort of rehab center for those ants who weren’t poisoned beyond redemption. She and others are flooding those ants with the “good” chemistries that, according to Nestra and Fatchk, are natural to their species. She’s hinted that this process would work faster if she took the infection from them, but I don’t blame her for not agreeing to go that far.
Now, with the coordinated effort of so many ants working with us and for us, our effort to rebuild and take back our cities is going faster than any of us could have expected.
As an added blessing, Khara has forgiven me. We no longer hide our relationship and our feelings for each other. This has led to Khara being the butt of Jan’s jokes about Khara’s initial don’t-touch-me attitude, but Khara takes them well. She and Jan are good friends now. Khara spends her daytime hours split between me and Nestra, acting as translator for us both, while trying to teach us both the other language.
Now that we can see daylight, the question remains what to do about the ants. Khara tells me they have started a new queen growing or fermenting or whatever it is they do. I haven’t told any other humans yet. I have my own fears about a new queen and don’t imagine this news will be well met. I can see that with the devastatingly reduced human population, the help the ants provide is essential, but the consensus of my fellow humans seems to be that they must leave our planet – dead or alive. I can’t blame them. And yet . . . .
CHAPTER 50
KHARA
The conference room is small – it’ll seem smaller still with Nestra in it. The table in the center of the room is tiny, only a four-foot round oak table, with four chairs around it. Three of the chairs match, but the fourth is huge. Samuel is in the chair beside me.
The table reminds me of the Ethan Allen kitchen table in my mother’s breakfast nook, but unlike the table
of my memory, this one is shiny and smooth instead of care-worn and notched with years of abuse from my brother and me. As I relax in this moment of quiet waiting, my mind conjures images of my family gathered for dinner, of my brother and me playing cards. It’s been a long time since I’ve had any memory of my family other than the day of their deaths.
Afternoon sunlight slants through the two high windows highlighting floating dust motes. I’m canted sideways to the table, with my bandaged feet resting on a small stool to the side of my chair, my head thrown back in luxurious leisure.
My eyes fall to Samuel as he puts his large hand on my shin. I wiggle my remaining toes at him, the bandage performing a small wave, and then wince.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” he says. His voice is warm with concern and affection, and a small intimate smile curls his lips. I gaze at him in a dreamlike stupor and consider leaning up to kiss him, but I’m too comfortable.
We’re waiting for Nestra. I’ve spent a lot of time with Nestra since the death of the queen and the almost easy success of the short battle that followed, but for this meeting she sent a messenger with a rather stilted request for a conference. Samuel insisted on coming, which didn’t bother me in the least.
Outside the door are human guards, which I think unnecessary, but which Samuel insists are needed for Nestra’s protection. The wholesale slaughter of aliens in this city has trickled to almost nothing but killings do still happen. Even so, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to kill my gentle friend.
The door opens and Nestra enters, a small brother coming in behind her.
“Fatchk!” Samuel stands and limps to his comrade and friend. Fatchk opens his arms and throws his head back, and Samuel does the same, each showing the other mutual respect. “Fatchk!” Samuel says again, and I can hear his smile in his enthusiastic repetition. Samuel throws his arms around Fatchk between the alien’s upper and lower arms and pounds him on the back. “I’m glad to see you back from your travels, friend.”
