The Hive

by Orson Scott Card

  “You cannot kill me,” said Maja. “After all that I have done for you, all that I have given you.”

  “You sadden me, Maja. You have been a good wife. In Somalia we could have planted and had children and lived as one.”

  “We still can,” said Maja. “This war will end. We need not stay out here in the frozen Black. And you need not wait for children. There is one already inside me.”

  Khalid stiffened and glanced down at her abdomen.

  “I was waiting for the right time to tell you,” said Maja. “I thought you would be angry, that you might not want a child, that you might order me to end it.” Her expression hardened. “Then you go and take these other wives. The wives of dogs. Why shame me so?”

  “You are lying,” said Khalid.

  “I am not lying,” she said, still angry. “I have not had my woman’s cycle for two months now. Kill me and you also kill your own child.”

  Khalid stood. She was not lying. Maja was not one to lie, and he had seen the face of liars countless times before among his men and victims. There was a child inside her. His child. A boy perhaps. To carry his name, to be strong like his father.

  And yet … Maja was the cause of it all. She had given the boulder only the slightest of nudges, but it rolled down the mountain all the same, gaining momentum and strength and crushing everything in its path. Who was to blame? The boulder? Or the one who had unleashed it on the world?

  Khalid reached down and powered up his slaser. It hummed with energy in his hand. The light on the side turned from red to green. He released the safety. She had fought for him, raided for him, killed for him. And now he would take her life. Wife and mother to his child.

  I am a monster, thought Khalid. Soulless. Killer of women, children, men, and now my own blood. That is why the words of prayer do not come. God does not hear the prayers of the devil himself. God does not acknowledge a demon king.

  He placed the end of the barrel against the back of her head. Her head bent forward slightly, surprised. But then she stiffened and became more erect. She would not cower from it. She would not plead. Not Maja. Khalid spread his feet shoulder-width to steady himself. He brought up his second hand and steadied the slaser. The trigger was tight against his finger. The squeeze would only need to be slight. Just a touch. An infant could do it.

  Infant.

  Not his infant. Because he would end that life now. His child who had pushed no boulder, started no mutiny, committed no crime.

  The men around him waited. To wait was weakness. And he was not weak. He was Khalid, the men of men, the father of fear.

  And the father of a dead child.

  His finger tightened on the trigger, but before he pulled it back, there was a sudden noise, like the bending of metal, and then the world shifted hard to the right. Khalid was thrown to the side so violently that the hold of his magnetic greaves was torn away. He spun away in space, slung off the tool deck and out into the yard, spinning uncontrollably, the slaser no longer in his hand. And he was not alone. Everyone who had been positioned on the tool deck had been thrown as well.

  The space station was moving, he realized. Something had struck the station. They were under attack. His body slammed into a beam, and pain exploded through his back. He ricocheted away but was able to grab another beam close by and stop himself.

  A man spun by him, screaming in pain, his arm broken and bent at a strange angle.

  It was the Fleet. Khalid was sure of it. They had tracked his ansible and killed its power and were coming for him. He had been a fool to take the device.

  He shouted orders. Everyone needed to get to the ship. But no one heard him. There was screaming and the ear-piercing sound of metal bending and large objects breaking and snapping, as if the entire space station were buckling under the pressure of a mighty force. Tools and broken piece of machines and debris were flying past him. The yard was breaking apart.

  Amid the chaos, there was a loud popping sound, like the firing of a gun. Khalid, clinging to a beam, looked upward and could see across the vast distance of the yard to the far opposite wall, past the ship segment under construction, past the beams and bots and lifts and welding arms and all the gear that filled the shipyard. And there on the opposite wall, a piece of the ceiling was floating away from where something had cut it free and pushed it inward. For a brief moment, Khalid feared that the Fleet had cut a hole in the hull and exposed the entire room to the vacuum of space and in an instant they would all be sucked toward the hole, striking the beams and bots and obstructions along the way, breaking their bodies again and again until they finally reached the hole where space was waiting.

  But there was no mad rush of air, no pull of the vacuum, meaning the Fleet had created a seal around their point of entry, a docking tube perhaps, and cut a hole in the station to give themselves a place of entry. And he was right, because a moment later bodies poured through the hole and into the yard, launching downward in a mob, just as Khalid and his men had done so many times before when raiding. Twenty bodies, forty, fifty.

  But they were not, Khalid realized, the bodies of men.

  They were Formics, with jar weapons in their hands, rushing toward him like a wave, like a mass of insects swarming into a hive.

  Khalid was shouting orders again. “To the ship! Move!” He did not wait to see if they followed. He launched downward, aiming for the bottom tool deck. If he could reach the door, he could get to the corridor. The Formics’ ship was above him. His ship was below. He could make it. Men were following him. Some flew faster than him. Others fired upward with their slasers. Khalid could not see if they hit anything. His eyes were focused completely on the tool deck below, racing up to meet him. He realized too late that he got the angle wrong. He tried rotating midflight, but that only made it worse. He landed sloppily and crashed into the tool deck, his shoulder striking a metal box. He felt his collar-bone snap and screamed in agony. He spun and rolled and finally came to a stop. His left arm was dead and limp at his side. Blood from a gash in his head was oozing into his hair. His right hand touched it and his hand came back red.

  He looked upward. The swarm of Formics was dividing as individual Formics split off and landed on beams and bots and other obstructions in the room. Then they launched downward again, not as a chaotic mob like Khalid’s pirates would have done, but in an orderly and coordinated manner, like a swift and lethal dance.

  “Come on,” said a man. “Get up.”

  Khalid had not even known the man was there. A member of the crew. Bedjanzi was his name. He pulled on Khalid’s left arm, and Khalid cried out in pain.

  Something struck the man in the chest and he stopped, frozen, and stared at it. It was a doily, fired from the Formic jar weapons. The web-shaped organism glowed with a blue bioluminescence and was covered completely by a thick translucent gel adhesive. Bedjanzi grabbed at the sticky substance on his chest, perhaps in an effort to pull it off and throw it to the side. But the motion only stuck his hand to his chest, like tar. A second later the doily exploded and Bedjanzi along with it.

  Khalid was thrown backward from the blast. He slammed into a metal tool chest and again the pain at his broken collarbone was like a hatchet buried in his shoulder.

  Khalid’s face was wet, and his ears were ringing. There was screaming, but it seemed distant now, at the end of a long tunnel. There were more explosions, too, but Khalid couldn’t make sense of it anymore. He felt as if he were falling, not physically, but in his mind, spinning inward, the world going dark and silent.

  Hands grabbed him, and the pain in his shoulder ripped at him again. The hands turned him over, and Khalid realized that they were not human hands.

  A Formic was over him, two hands pressing Khalid hard against the floor of the tool deck, holding him in place. The other hands wiped Khalid’s face. The blood was not all his own. The Formic’s hands were coarse and hard and covered in fur.

  The Formic had brought Khalid back from whatever mental precipice
he was falling from, but now he was too terrified to scream. The Formic’s face came in closer, inches from his own, as if searching for a message written behind Khalid’s eyes.

  There were screams elsewhere in the yard. Men screaming like children. The Formics were grabbing them, Khalid knew, just as they had grabbed him.

  Two more Formics came and joined the one holding Khalid, making it three before him now, all of them staring at him as if he were a fish they were considering keeping or throwing back. One of the Formics pulled a rope from a pouch at his hip. They wrapped the rope around Khalid’s wrists, but it was not rope, he realized. It was a living thing. A worm, long and black and strong as rope. It coiled around his hands and squeezed like a python, binding him. Horrified, Khalid bit his bottom lip so as not to scream. Another worm went around his ankles. A third went around his chest, pinning his arms to his side. And when this worm tightened, Khalid did scream, for the movement had further separated his broken collarbone.

  Why were they binding him? Why were they not killing him?

  The Formics grabbed him roughly and unceremoniously tossed him back the way they had come, slinging him into the air like a sack of grain thrown onto a truck. Khalid screamed again, despite himself. He spun through the air, bound, helpless, unable to stop or catch himself. But he didn’t need to, he realized, because a Formic on a beam above him was waiting to catch him. The strong Formic hands stopped his momentum, spun him, and threw him upward again. They were positioned in a line, like a firemen’s bucket brigade, throwing him from one Formic to another, passing him up the chain like cargo. He spun and screamed as he moved up the chain. They’re taking me into their ship, he realized. They will eat me in their ship.

  Then, at the top, where the Formics had cut a hole in the side of the yard, a pair of Formics caught him, rotated him, and tossed him up through the hole and into darkness.

  CHAPTER 16

  Superstructure

  To: robert.hoebeck%captain@ifcom.gov/fleetcom/vandalorum

  From: maria.espinosa.rivera%lieutenant@ifcom.gov/fleetcom/vandalorum

  Subject: What Victor Delgado saw

  * * *

  Dear Captain Hoebeck,

  I recognize that I am breaking protocol by emailing you directly rather than my immediate commanding officer, but I have already pursued those channels and was informed that you would be unconcerned with matters not directly affecting the specific mission in which we are engaged. However, since I firmly believe that the intelligence I have received is of critical importance to the Fleet and should be shared with CentCom immediately, I am setting protocol aside and will suffer the consequences.

  Victor Delgado has evidence to suggest that the Formics are building a structure of enormous size out beyond the Belt. Please see the attached animation and documents. He and I would appreciate a few minutes of your time to discuss this matter further and seek your permission to send this data via laserline to the Polemarch on the Revenor, so that an immediate message via quad may be sent to CentCom and the Hegemon.

  Sincerely,

  Lieutenant Maria Rivera

  International Fleet Nurse Corps

  To: maria.espinosa.rivera%lieutenant@ifcom.gov/fleetcom/vandalorum

  From: robert.hoebeck%captain@ifcom.gov/fleetcom/vandalorum

  Subject: Re: What Victor Delgado saw

  * * *

  This is an automatic response. You are not authorized to send communications directly to [officer’s name here]. Please see your immediate commanding officer to resolve any concerns.

  Respectfully,

  International Fleet Office of Communications

  * * *

  Victor was anchored to a seat in the medical-wing break room, across from Lieutenant Rivera. “The captain didn’t even read your email?”

  “Doesn’t look like it,” said Rivera. She tucked her tablet back into the front pocket of her nursing bib.

  “This is laughable,” said Victor. “Is the entire International Fleet like this?”

  “You mean mired in bureaucracy and stupid communication policies? I’m hoping this ship is the exception and not the norm, but I doubt it.”

  “I know this is going to sound radical and dangerously unorthodox,” said Victor, “but when we asteroid miners needed to communicate with the captain of our ship, we simply went and spoke to her.”

  “That’s because there’s no formal hierarchy of authority on an asteroid-mining ship,” said Rivera. “You’re a family. The military’s different. You don’t break chain of command here. That’s the one unpardonable sin. I took an enormous risk sending him that email. If Captain Hoebeck had read it, and if word had gotten back to my direct CO that I went around him, I would have been castigated because every person up my chain of command from me to Hoebeck would think I had betrayed them. These people take that very seriously.”

  “I didn’t realize you were taking that kind of risk,” said Victor. “I don’t understand the culture. I shouldn’t have asked you to send it.”

  “I chose to send it,” said Lieutenant Rivera. “It needed to be done. But it doesn’t matter, because it obviously didn’t get us anywhere. So now what? How do we get this intelligence to the Fleet?”

  “I still don’t see why I can’t go straight to the helm and ask to see the captain. You have a chain of command you have to respect. I get that, but when does common sense prevail?”

  “You can’t reach the helm,” said Rivera. “It’s on Deck Three, which is inaccessible to little folk like you and me. Senior officers only.”

  “Inaccessible how?”

  “Think big door guarded by a marine holding a slaser rifle.”

  Victor laughed scornfully. “Captain Hoebeck intentionally keeps his crew from reaching him? The International Fleet makes no sense to me.”

  “Again, it’s all about chain of command,” said Rivera. “This is how it works. The guard is there to remind us that there’s a command structure that must be respected. Captain Hoebeck is in the highest position. We’re down here in slumville.”

  “I thought the military was supposed to homogenize us,” said Victor. “Isn’t that the point of the uniform? To convey that we’re all the same, that we can stand shoulder to shoulder and fight together as equals, regardless of where we came from?”

  “I can’t tell if you’re being naive or sarcastic,” said Rivera.

  “Naive, apparently,” said Victor.

  He sighed and rubbed at his eyes with the palms of his hands. “I don’t understand. The International Fleet spends a fortune to bring me here, at great risk to my own life, and yet the instant I show up, I’m isolated and ignored.”

  “You’re isolated and ignored because you’re still in recovery. Your body’s been through hell. It takes time to heal. You’re not ready for an assignment.”

  “The Polemarch didn’t ask for me,” said Victor. “That much is clear. Otherwise I would have gone to his ship, or, at the very least, he would have made inquiries since my arrival. He hasn’t. Why am I here?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” said Rivera. “It’s obvious from his behavior that our Captain Hoebeck didn’t ask for you either. He didn’t want to grab your zipship, and he hasn’t made any effort to check on you either. As far as he’s concerned, you’re an annoying inconvenience. Which means whoever did order you here is above Hoebeck. Someone higher up the chain. He only picked you up because a superior ordered him to do so. Now, there are dozens of ships out here with us on this mission, but only a handful of them have people above Hoebeck who could’ve initiated that order.”

  “Who specifically?”

  “Four people other than the Polemarch. A rear admiral. Two vice admirals. And Admiral Rheine.”

  “I don’t know any of those people,” said Victor. “Why would any of them order me here?”

  “I don’t think they did,” said Rivera. “And here’s why. If any of them had initiated the order to bring you here to the fleet from the Kuiper Belt, why did
n’t they order you to their own ship? Why send you to the Vandalorum? Captain Hoebeck doesn’t have a reputation for being especially accommodating. Quite the opposite, in fact. He’s known for being gruff, unapproachable, and sometimes cruel. He especially doesn’t like asteroid miners wearing the blue. That’s why you won’t find any space borns among his senior staff. This is the last place top brass would send you.”

  “You said the Vandalorum gives the best medical care,” said Victor. “Maybe they sent me here because they knew the flight would nearly kill me.”

  “Our medical facilities are good,” said Rivera, “but they’re no better than any of the other Fleet ships out here that are our size or bigger, of which there are many. And we’re certainly not the best. The Kennedy and Manchester have far superior medical facilities.”

  “You told me my doctor was the best in the Fleet.”

  “I say that to all my patients. It keeps their hopes high. And that’s good for their recovery. And I didn’t lie. Doctor Tokonata is an excellent doctor. But other ships have excellent doctors, too.”

  “Then I’m stumped,” said Victor. “If Captain Hoebeck didn’t order me here, and if none of the admirals or the Polemarch ordered me here, then who did?”

  “This is my theory,” said Rivera. “It has to be someone above all of them. Someone they couldn’t refuse. Maybe someone they don’t like taking orders from, but someone they must obey. So they followed the order to recover you, but in a small show of defiance, they sent you to the least accommodating captain in this fleet. It’s a slight of sorts to the person who gave the order without that person even knowing he was slighted.”

  “There’s only one person above the Polemarch,” said Victor. “And that’s the Hegemon of Earth.”

  “That’s the only explanation that makes sense to me,” said Rivera. “Ukko Jukes ordered you here. So here you are. And now you’re ignored because Fleet commanders don’t particularly like being micromanaged by the Hegemon. At least that’s what I’ve heard. There’s friction there. The Hegemon is frustrated with CentCom, and vice versa.”