Two mornings later a frantic call from Zara reached them as they left the Tower. Damia nodded once at Afra and Rojer and they all `ported into the main room.
Oh, look! Just look! She’s laying! Zara cried, frantically gesturing at the screen. Morag, Ewain and Kaltia erupted from their rooms and thundered down the steps. For once, Damia didn’t reprimand them.
The Queen had propped herself up on all frontal limbs, her bulb half-hidden in the mound of shavings which seemed to heave and enlarge.
`Can’t they allow her any privacy!’ Zara demanded, her eyes vivid with her angry protest.
`We can’t see anything, Zara,’ Ewain said, flopping down in the nearest chair with a disgusted expression on his face. `And we watch the Coonies and the Darbuls when they give birth. What’s wrong with watching her?’ `Ewain’s right, you know, Zara,’ Afra said placidly, `we see nothing of the process itself: merely the result of eggs.’ But he cast a look at his daughter, adding, Your sensitivity is commendable if unnecessary, Zara. Insectoids do not share human feelings of embarrassment. In her Hive, helpers and attendants would be swarming over her at such a time. Privacy is probably a hardship for her.
Rojer knew he wasn’t supposed to hear that private remark and he shook his head, wondering why he was getting all these unexpected confidences. But Zara plainly had only extrapolated what she might feel during the birth process, and not the spedes’ differences. She gradually subsided.
`Biology Teach’s doing a special on orthopterus, on account of the Queen,’ Ewain said casually, eyes glued to the steady rise of the shaving-topped mound. `It said insects lay enormous quantities of eggs at a time. They’ll be bursting out of the bedding any moment now.’ They did, shiny white covered pearls, hundreds of them. `Wonder what variety she’s laying now?’ Ewain continued conversationally. `She must’ve been pregnant – er whatever Hivers get egg-full? – before her ship was wrecked. There wasn’t anything else in the pod with her.’ `Some insects eat the male after mating,’ Morag said, casting a quick glance at her sister. `Maybe that’s what caused all the scrabbling we heard in the pod…’ `That is quite enough, Morag,’ Afra said firmly `But, Dad, Biology Teach said we got to observe the Queen for our project,’ Morag protested, her voice almost the whine her parents deplored in her.
`Then observe, but keep your comments for your class hour.’ Morag obeyed. After such a putdown from her father, Rojer knew she wouldn’t dare provoke Zara any further. Anyway, Zara seemed oblivious to Morag’s taunting, for her gaze was glued to the screen, her expressive face tender. Her `Dinis were seated close beside her but they apparently were not picking up on her emotions. Rojer made a tentative probe at her but she was shielded so tightly he doubted that either of his parents could have `heard’ her thoughts and feelings just then.
It did take the Queen hours to finish her laying.
Rojer left when he got bored and spent an hour with Xexo, trying to build on his Beijing success.
There were new pieces. The KLTL had calculated the point at which the Hive ship was probably hit, and quartered the area. Rojer wondered if that had been Thian’s bright idea for it had produced quite a lot of flotsam and jetsam: some of it too twisted or melted to be useful, but each fragment, splinter and scrap was gathered up. There were some big sections of hull, warped and melted but the art of reconstruction might be able to render the original from the remainder.
Neither Xexo nor Rojer was as interested in the bigger pieces as the smaller ones that had remained intact, easier to match and piece together.
These newest pieces Xexo and Rojer first sorted into the appropriate subdivisions where the most likely matches were possible.
`If only this one didn’t have that little hooky edge,’ Rojer said, having vainly tried to mate two very likely looking bits.
`Hooky place?’ Xexo flipped the bit he’d been fiddling with to Rojer.
`That’s it! That fits a treat!’ Rojer said, crowing with delight.
Xexo rushed around the table to see and grimaced.