“Queen-threat,” a Warrior ventured.
The Drones sang otherwise, Remembering. The Mother of Cerdin blue-hive lived in Kalind blue’s message. There was a song that was Kethiuy, and death, abundant death, the beginning of changes, premature.
“Meth-maren,” Mother recalled, feeding into the Mind. “First-human. Hive-friend.”
Then the message possessed Her, and She poured into the Drones a deep and abiding anger. The Mind reached. Its parts were far-flung, scattered across the invisible gulfs of stars, of time, which had never been of significance. The space existed. Time existed. There was no synthesis possible.
The Drones moved, laved Mother with their palps, increasingly disturbed. They rotated leftward, and Mother also moved, drawing from Warriors and Foragers far-ranging on the surface—orienting to the rising sun, not alpha, but beta Hydri, beholding this in the darkness of the Hill.
The Drones searched Memory, rotated farther, seeking resolution. Full circle they came, locked again on the Istran sun. Workers reoriented; Warriors moved.
The circling began again, slow and ponderous. Seldom did Mother move at all. Now twice more the entire hive shifted prime direction, and settled.
A Warrior felt Mother’s summons and sought touch. It lacked into Mother’s chemistry and quivered its entire length, in the strength of the message it felt. It turned and ran, breaking froth the Dance.
A Worker approached, received taste, and likewise fled, frantically contacting others as it went.
The Dance fragmented. Workers and Warriors scattered in a frenzy in all directions.
The Drones continued to sing, a broken song, and dissonant. Mother produced no egg. A strange fluid poured from Her mandibles, and the Workers gathered it and passed to the egg-tenders, who sang together in consternation.
ii
The house-comp’s memory held a flood of messages: those from the Dain-Prossertys, who had lost no time; anxious inquiries from the ITAK board in general; from ISPAK, a courteous erecting and regrets that she had not stayed in the station: from the police, a requested list of casualties and next of kin; from forward ITAK businesses, offers of services and gifts.
Raen dealt with some of them: a formal message of condolences to the next-of-kin, with authorisation for funeral expenses and the sum of ten thousand credits to each bereaved, to be handled through ITAK; to the board, general salutations; to the Dain-Prossertys a suggestion that any particular license they desired might be favourably considered, and suggesting discretion in the matter.
She ordered printout of further messages and ignored what might be incoming for the time, choosing a leisurely breakfast with Jim, the while Max and Merry ate in the azi quarters, and Warrior enjoyed a liquid delicacy in the garden—barely visible, Warrior’s post, a shady nook amongst the rocks and spiky plants, a surprise for any intruders.
A little time she reckoned she might spend in resting; but postponing meetings with ITAK had hazard, for these folk might act irrationally if they grew too nervous.
There was also the chance that elements of the Family had agents here: more than possible, even that there could have been someone to precede her. In the Jewel’s slow voyage there was time for that.
She toyed with the idea of sending Council a salutation from Istra, after two decades of silence and obedience. The hubris of it struck her humour.
But Moth needed no straws added to the weight under which she already tottered. Raen found it not in her present interest to add anything to the instabilities, to aggravate the little tremors which were beginning to ran through the Reach. Kontrin could act against her on Istra; but they would not like to, would shudder at the idea of pursuing a feud in the witness of betas, and very much more so here at the window on Outside. No, she thought, there would be for her only the delicate matter of assassination . . . and Moth, as every would act on the side of inaction, entropy personified.
No such message would go, she decided, finishing her morning tea. Let them discover the extent of their problem. For herself—she had them; and they had yet to discover it . . . had a place whereon to stand, and, she thought to herself, a curiosity colder and more remote than all her enemies’ ambition: to comprehend this little hall of yam the while she pulled it apart.