Mother lifted up Her head, mandibles clashing. While She considered, She brought half a dozen new lives into the world. Workers snatched these up and carried them away. Drones groomed Her, uttering soft, distressed pipings, that shrilled away into higher ranges.
“It is very dangerous;” Mother said. “Intervention violates the Pact. It adds confusions. And you have no translation computers. Without precise instruction, Warriors and humans cannot co-operate.”
“I can show them. They can work that way. I can guide them. Some know Kethiuy, don’t they? They’ve been there. And the others can follow them.”
Mother hesitated. Again the head rotated slightly. “You are tight, young queen, but I suspect you are right for the wrong reasons. All, all Warriors know Kethiuy. We do not fully understand how your thoughts proceed. But you can serve as nexus. Yes. Possible. Great risk, but possible.”
“I can’t yet. A few days, a few days, and then I’ll be able to try. I’ll need a gun, azi, Warriors. Then we can take Kethiuy back. Kethiuy’s azi will join the fight when they have orders. Revenge, Mother! And blue-hive can come and go is Kethiuy when they please.”
There was again long thought. Air sucked in, gusted out, sucked in again, and the songs of the attendants rose and fell, “I breed Warriors,” She said. “This aspect of the hive is needful in these circumstances.” While She spoke, She produced several eggs more. “I cannot breed azi. The azi will be irrevocable losses. There can be only one attempt on Kethiuy. Blue-hive has deceived red-hive concerning your presence here. Your death was reported. Warriors went out unMinded in this cause. But Warriors who go with you into Kethiuy cannot go unMinded; they could not then remember their mission or focus properly. There are reds full-circle of Kethiuy. Once you meet them and once blue-hive Warriors have fallen, you cannot retreat here. Taste will betray your existence here to red-hive and they will come here very quickly, for we have admitted a human to the inner hive, and there is strong sentiment against this practice. Therefore we will be fighting both here and there, which will require all our Warriors engaged at once. If we lose many Warriors in this action, we will face further attack from red-hive and others without sufficient time for new to hatch. Tell me, Kethiuy. queen, is this the best action? Perhaps you could find Drones and re-establish elsewhere with better prospect. You could produce Warriors of your own, young queen. You could buy azi. You could make a new hive.”
Raen looked up into the great moiré-patterned eyes, in which she existed only as a pattern of warmth. “Red-hive is breeding Warriors too, won’t that be so? If they’ve been expecting to attack Kethiuy, then they’ll have been breeding toward it for a long time. Years. What when they come farther than they have? You need Kethiuy in Sul-sept control. If you wait . . . if you wait, you won’t have time to breed enough Warriors, and red-hive—” She caught her breath, for she suddenly sensed what key to use, the essentially honest character of the blues. “Red-hive killed humans, killed Meth-marens, against the Pact. Ruil may have led them to it, but red-hive did it, they chose to do it. Do you want them for neighbours forever, Mother? And your Warriors—do they know the ways into Kethiuy that they can’t see? I do. I can get them inside, now. I can get Warriors inside. It doesn’t matter how many reds are guarding the doors if blues once get in. And I know I can get you that far.”
There was silence.
“Yes,” Mother said finally. “Yes.”
A haze flooded over Raen’s eyes, blurring greenish radiance and majat shadows, and the glitter of the Drones. She thought that she would fall, and she must not, must not show weakness before Mother, throwing all she had won in doubt. She touched the chelae, drew back, not knowing what rituals the majat observed with Her. None hindered her going. None seemed offended. She sought the tunnel out of the Chamber. The fungus-glow was like the retinal memory of light, and in this direction lay the dark, circles, holes in the light, into which she entered, losing suddenly all use of her eyes. The air hummed with Worker songs, the deeper songs of Warriors and the high voices of the Drones. She met bristly touches in the dark.