A droning intruded on her attention. She looked about, and up. Aircraft passing were not unusual: Kethiuy lake was a convenient marker for anyone sight-navigating to the northern estates.
But these were low, two of them, and coming in.
Visitors. Her spirits soared. No comp this afternoon. She veered from the lab-ward course and strode off down the slope with its rocks and thread-bushes, tacking from one to the other point of the steep face with reckless abandon, reckoning of entertainments and a general cancellation of lessons.
Something skittered back in the hedge. She came to an instant halt and set her hand on her pistol: no fear of beasts, but of men, of anything that would skulk and hide.
Majat.
She picked out the shadowed form in the slatted leaves, perplexed to find it there. It was motionless in its guardstance, half again as tall as she; faceted eyes flickered with the slightest of turns of its head. Almost she called to it, reckoning it some Worker strayed from the labs down below: sometimes their eyes betrayed them and, muddled with lab-chemicals, they lost their direction. But it should not have strayed this far.
The head turned farther, squaring to her: no Worker . . . she saw that clearly. The jaws were massive, the head armoured.
She could not see its emblems, to what hive it belonged, and human eyes could not see its colour. It hunched down, an assemblage of projecting points and leathery limbs, in the latticed play of sun and shade . . . a Warrior, and not to be approached. Sometimes Warriors came, to look down on Kethiuy for whatever their blind eyes could perceive, and then departed, keeping their own secrets. She wished she could see the badges: it might be any of the four hives, while it was only gentle blues and greens who dealt with Kethiuy—the trade of reds and golds channelled through greens. A red or gold was enormously dangerous.
Nor was it alone. Others rose up, slowly, slowly, three, four. Fear knotted in her belly—which was irrational, she insisted to herself: in all Kethiuy’s history, no majat had harmed any within the valley.
“You’re on Kethiuy land,” she said, lifting the hand that identified her to their eyes. “Go back. Go back.”
It stared a moment, then backed: badgeless, she saw in her amazement. It lowered its body in token of agreement; she hoped that was its intent. She stood her ground, alert for any shift, any diversion. Her heart was pounding. Never in the labs had she been alone with them, and the sight of this huge Warrior and its fellows moving to her order was incredible to her.
“Hive-master,” it hissed, and sidled off through the brush with sudden and blinding speed. Its companions joined it in retreat.
Hive-master. The bitterness penetrated even majat voice.
Hive-friends, the majat in the labs were always wont to say, touching with delicacy, bowing with seeming sincerity.
Down the hill a beating of engines announced a landing; Raen still waited, scanning the hedges all about before she started away. Never turn your back on one; she had heard it all her life, even from those who worked closest with the hives: majat moved too quickly, and a scratch even from a Worker was dangerous.
She edged backward, judged it finally safe to look away and to start to run . . . but she looked now and again over her shoulder.
And the aircraft were on the ground, the circular washes of air flattening the grasses near the gates, next the lakeshore.
A bell rang, advising all the House that strangers had come. Raen cast a last look back, funding the majat had fled entirely, and jogged along toward the landing spot.
The colours on the aircraft were red striped with green, which were the colours of the House of Then, friends of Sul-sept of the Meth-marens. Men and women were disembarking as the engines died down; the gates were open and Meth-marens were coming out to meet the visitors, most without sunsuits, so abrupt was this arrival and so welcome were any of Then.
The cloaks on the foremost were Thon; and there was the white and yellow of Yalt among them, likewise welcome. But then from the aircraft came visitors in the red-circled black of Hald; and Meth-maren blue, with black border, not Sul-sept white.