“You and the majat—are together?”
“A hazard of my company. I warned you. Their vicinity affects some people. I hope you’re immune.”
She opened the door and went out into the corridor, where the lights were still red.
Jim followed before the door shut. “Lock it,” she said, pleased that he had come. “Always lock things behind me.”
The sweat of fear was already glistening on his face, but he punched the lock into operation and stayed with her as she headed down the corridor.
iii
Corridor 50 was next the lifts and the emergency shafts. Raen reckoned well enough how a blind majat could have arrived on fifth level: tunnels were natural for it.
And it was there, huddled against a section-door at the farther end of the corridor, a tall hulk of folded limbs and fantastical chitinous protuberances. It glistened in the red light, slick with new skin, bewildered by the barriers that had closed before it.
“Quite blind to most of its surroundings,” she said to Jim, and the majat’s palps were not all that soft. It caught sound and turned, mandibles moving in great agitation. It was a Warrior, hatchling-naked and weaponless.
“Stand here by the corner,” Raen said to Jim. “Step round it if it turns ugly. Never try a long run: no human can outrace a Warrior. Its vision, you see, is entirely thermal, and dependent on contrasts of heat; put something cold and solid between yourself and it, and it’s lost you. It doesn’t see this corridor in anything like our vision: it sees us, maybe . . . or places where metal is warmed by underlying machinery, or by the touch of a band. Never touch a wall or a surface with your bare skin if you’re trying to elude one. And they not only detect scent: they read it.”
The auditory palps still moved, perceiving sound, but at this range, perhaps, unable to distinguish it. Seated, it suddenly heaved itself up on two leathery legs, towering against the overhead. It boomed a warning note.
Raen walked forward slowly, flung back her cloak, held up both her hands, backs outward.
Air sucked in, an audible gust.
“Kontrin, ” it said in deep harmonies. “Blue-hive Kontrin.”
“Blue-hive Warrior.” She spoke distinctly, a little loudly, for its sake.
“Yes,” it sighed, blowing air from its chambers. “Yess.” Auditory palps swept decisively forward, like a human relaxing to listen. It lowered its erect body, forelimbs tucked, the whole eloquent of vast relief, trust. There was pathos in the action, sense-deprived as the Warrior was. Something welled up in her, a feeling she had pursued from world to world and not captured until now.
“I knew that a blue had taken this ship;” she said. “I came.”
It started forward in evident intent to touch, stopped abruptly. Air pulsed in and out, thumping with the force of its expulsion. The sound became words. “Other. Other. Other.”
She realised the fix of its dimmed vision and looked back, where Jim waited by the corner.
“Only an azi, Warrior. Mine, my-hive. Don’t be concerned for it.”
It hesitated, then stalked up to her, bowed itself, seeking touch. She lifted both her hands to its scent-patches. It absorbed this. Then it bowed further, and in a gesture very like a human kiss, opened its mandibles wide and touched the false chelae to her lips. The venomed spike was very close, the jaws gaping on either side. The wrong taste would snap them shut on reflex, and unlike another Warrior, she had no chitinous defense but the sleeve-armour. Yet the taste was sweet; it gently received taste from her.
“No resolution,” it said. “From? From?”
“Cerdin,” she said. “Once.”
“Queen.” The analysis proceeded in its body, and it drew back, mandibles clashing in distress. “I taste familiarity. I taste danger.”
“I am Raen a Sul. Raen a Sul hant Meth-maren.”
It went rigid. Even the mandibles ceased to move. A Warrior alone, it comprehended only Warrior-memories whatever the complexities its body night carry for others to read.
“Danger,” it concluded helplessly. Auditory pales swung forward and back. “Recently waked.” It gave warning of its own disorganisation, still trusting, but it retreated. The mandibles began to work again in visible distress.
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