“What’s it saying?” Pol asked. “I can never make sense of them.”
“Perfect sense. It knows you’re naive of majat, and it warns you that without hive-friendship, green-hive chitin is no protection to you, even from greens. Red-hive and even greens have learned to kill intelligences. Red-hive has learned to make agreements with minds-that-die, and no longer has trouble with death. What’s more . . . they’ve learned to lie. Consider the hive-Mind, Pol; consider that those who lie to majat have to be unMinded. But they can lie to humans without it . . . a profound discovery. Red-hive has gone as far from morality as majat can go. Hald and Thel and Thon helped . . . or otherwise. Get. out of here. You’ve not much time. Be careful at the port. Are you armed?”
He moved his hands delicately. “Of course.”
She offered her hand, warily; he took it, with a wry smile.
“I’ll give you West,” he said, letting go her hand. “Is that all you want?”
She grinned. “I’ll be content with that.” And soberly: “Keep within reach of your ship, Pol. It’s life.”
He took his leave, let himself out. In a moment she heard a car start and ease down the drive. She went to housecomp to open the gate, did so, picked him up briefly on remote. He cleared the gate and she closed it.
Warrior came, hovered at her shoulder. “This-unit heard things of other hives. Redsss. Trouble.”
“This-unit is concerned, Warrior. This-unit begins to think that the hives know more than you’ve told me.”
It drew back, jaws clicking. “Red-hive. Red-hive is—” It gave a booming and shrill of majat language. “No human word, Kontrin-queen. Long, long this red-hive, gold-hive—” Again the combination of sound, discord. “Red-hive is full of human-words: push-push-eggs-more-more.”
“Expansion. They want expansion. Growth.”
Warrior tried to assimilate that. It surely knew the words; they did not satisfy it.
“Synthesis,” it said finally. “Red-hive messengers come. “Many, many. Red-hive—easy, easy that messengers come. Kontrin permit Goldss, yes. Greens, sometimes. Many, many, no blues.”
“I know. But Kalind blue reached you. What did it tell you?”
“Kethiuy-queen . . . many, many, many messengers, reds, golds, greens. No blues. Blues have rested, not part of push-push-push. No synthesis. Now blue messenger. We taste Cerdin-Mind.”
“Warrior. What was the message?”
“Revenge,” Warrior said, which was the essence of Kalind blue. And suddenly auditory palps flicked left. “Hear. Others.”
She shook her head. “I can’t hear, Warrior. Human range is small.”
It was listening. “Blues, they say. Blues. They are coming. Many-many. Goodbye, Kethiuy-queen.”
And it fled.
iii
The sun was almost below the horizon; it was no longer necessary to wear cloaks or sunsuits or to fear for the eyes. And the garden was alive with majat.
Raen kept Jim by her, constantly, and Max and Merry as well, not trusting the nervous Warriors. She walked the garden, making sure that Warriors saw their presence clearly, to realise that they justly belonged there.
And suddenly others were there, rag-muffled figures, swarming over the back garden wall among the Warriors; and other majat accompanied them, smaller, with smaller jaws: Workers, a horde of them.
Ragged human figures came to her and sought touch with febrile hands and eyes visored even at dusk, and their movements were strange, nervous. One and several others unmasked, sought mouth-touch with Jim and Max and Merry end danced away from their vicinity when Raen bade them go.
“What are they?” Jim asked, horror in his voice.
“Don’t worry for them,” Raen said. “They belong to the majat. They have majat habits.” And seeing how all three azi reacted to their majat counterparts: “Blue-hive azi, go in, go inside the building, seek low-level and settle there.”
“Yes,” they said together, song-toned, and with that mad-blind fix of hive-azi stares. They scampered off, to seek the basement of the house, the dark places where they would be most at home.
Workers set to work without asking, began to pry up stones with their jaws, began to dig, through the pavings, into the moist earth.
And suddenly there was a buzz from the front gate.
Raen swore, waded off through the crowd of Warriors, beckoning Jim and Max and Merry to come with her. “Warrior,” she shouted at the nearest. “Keep all majat out of sight behind the house. No enemies. No danger. Just stay here.” And to Max and Merry: “Get down by the gate. I imagine that’s the new azi coming in. You’re in charge of them. See they don’t wander loose. Get them in strict order and check them off against the invoice, by numbers, visually.”