Strength was drawn from inside me and put in my legs. The next step I took pulled me off my feet and flung me at the soldier. I instantly covered the distance between us. My opponent was still processing the sensory information he had collected when I entered his range for a close encounter. He panicked. My mandible inched closer to his chest, just a bit more and I would have stabbed him… killed him. Sight focused on him, his chest, the hair growing on his black skeleton, the warps and rends hidden under the hair—

Do it! The voice told me. Stab him! Kill him!

The thrill left me drained and dizzy. I woke up from it and turned my head left, pulling my mandible along. I was late in the sense that I couldn’t stop the serrated tip of my mandible from carving him another bleeding trench on his thorax —this one leading from the middle of his puffed up chest to the edge and beyond— but was barely early enough to not stab him dead in the center of his chest.

We collided. I fell to his left and he went to the ground in shock.

By Queens bloated buxom —he defeated a soldier! The aged warrior commented as the audience erupted in scents and alarm.

My body grew slugging and heavy. My sight darkened.

Did I win? Finally,

Dazed, I sensed movement next to me. The soldier was getting up. I turned and saw him coming at me for real this time, mandibles moving to snap and separate my head from my chest.

But then a cloud engulfed us and I lost sight of him. Not just him —I lost sight of everyone. It was not pheromones, but poison, a misty, constraining version of it that didn’t burn or hurt, but paralyzed instead. I tried to get up, but couldn’t. I felt lashed to the ground, unable to move.

The effect lasted for an unknown length of time before slowly fading, returning me the senses it had stolen. I woke up and sprung to my feet ready to defend myself, or face the soldier if it came to it. There was no need for that, however. The soldier was sprawled on the ground, head down, antenna sluggish and feet folded underneath his body. The princess was beside him, disinfecting the wound I had given him. She had cleaned and patched it up and was in the process of finishing the aid.

I could have killed him. I didn’t feel well.

I saw the aged warrior riding on the backs of four brawny soldiers. They stopped beside me. You surprised us there at the end. She scented. Are you happy about the win?

No. I replied.

So what do you want to do?

I don’t know.

Well, think about it and come back when you do know.

She transmitted her orders to the soldiers and they started toward the princess and her patient, where they stopped to pick up the injured soldier and away they went into the crowd. I lost her to a mess of intermixing motional blurs.

The princess took off without me then stopped and looked back. Her antennae waved, impatient, and waiting. I filled my body with strong breath and followed her out of the glowing cavernous chamber, up the slope and back into the civil part of the city where the soldiers were disciplined and workers tamed.

The familiar heat and relative calm of the chambers and the tunnels worked as a panacea for my lost senses. I started thinking again, in droves. My excitement and worry were drowned by blame, but disappointment and shame won in the end. I almost killed someone from my own colony. Sure, it happened in the heat of the moment, but I was in the wrong and there was no denying that.

I was still lost in thoughts when I felt a tap on my head. We were on the threshold of the elevator shaft. The same one I had been afraid of traveling through. History was repeating itself.

What are you thinking about? Princess said.

Nothing,

Are you sure? She pushed. You are dragging your feet and walking slower than a snail. You are gathering quite some attention, even more than me. And the fact that we came out from the forty-first floor and still carry the odor of fungus is not helping either.

I took a carefree sniff and learned that we did indeed smell of that nefarious stuff. The scent seemed even more profound now that we were not among the slaves and the mercenaries.

I’m sorry for causing you trouble.

You are no trouble —unless, of course, your antenna has finally broken down. In that case, I can only send you back. You might even have a great future, now that you have been acknowledged by them.

That came suddenly as a bee’s drone and shocked me senseless. Huh? NO! I’m fine. See? I quickly tapped my feet on the ground, even my lame leg, which moved awkwardly at best. And twirled my antennae and swung them around, moving them between the states of flexibility and erection to show that they were in perfect health. I’m fine.

I didn’t figure out what she was doing until she leaked a trace amount of amusing bafflement. That’s when she tried to explain and her farce broke down completely.

That’s al-alright. I-I ‘don’t’ thi-nk you ‘pregnant’ are fine ‘and dumb’. The scent was such a jumbled mix of chemicals that it was mostly incoherent, but I understood her intent.

She was making fun of me.

Very funny, I said and stopped making a fool of myself.

Don’t stop! Show me the tap dance again. It was very … invigorating. She had spasms and even contortions. I even felt for a moment that she was dying. It was fortunately not the case. She had only lost control of her body, she told me with complete seriousness like it was supposed to make me less nervous.

It took her a while to get going, and when she did we walked side by side, together.

We had a conversation on the way to the thirty-first floor. The topic ranged from her hope for the city and plans to fortify it further.

She wanted to cover the tower in twigs and skewers the kind of which she said were found in the west, protecting the veins of a glamorous flower that smelled of sweetness in its freshest state. She also wanted to make a trade pact with the bees; she just hadn’t thought of the right kind of object to offer for their delicious honey. Daring of all was her idea to train enormous beetles for transportation of soldiers, conquering the sky as well as the land.

I felt my heart racing by simply listening to her ideas and hoped they would remain as ideas at best. There was no need for sky faring ants. We had enough enemies already.

Like this, we reached our destination, the thirty-first floor, where we parted. The thirty-first floor was another military encampment, one to keep the royal females safe. The soldiers there too stared at us in bewilderment. A worker who smelled of fungus with a lame leg and the scent of royalty, and a princess who was a size too short for her caste and carried no wings on her back; we were an odd pair.

She wanted to sleep, even asked me to join her in her burrow. How could I? The soldiers were quick to erect their antennae and point their mandibles at me. I took the clue and bid her farewell.

I didn’t know about her, a fertile female of the royal caste, but I, a worker, didn’t need rest anyway. I had only ever taken minute naps between eating and working to ensure a consistent state of energy level. I was not comfortable with the concept of cutting myself off from the world for a long interval of time. That’s not how workers lived.

So I told her and she was taken back. The soldiers eased their aggression at my counter. I was just happy they didn’t pick me up and send me to the Looney bin out of jealousy.

I thought everyone slept. Even Mother sleeps at night. So why don’t you? She asked.

What could I say? We just don’t.

Bidding her farewell, I was turning when I felt her antennae rub my head. You did well today. I’m proud of you. She said and was gone by the time I turned.

I felt nostalgic.

That single moment changed our relationship for good.

I vibrated my antennae and read the scent signature she had given me: Royal guard of TinbuJi, 799th princess, 6th generation, 1st lay. This worker belongs to me.

The knowledge that someone depended on me helped me relax. I felt tired. So I found a lonely corner near the elevator shaft and lay still to sleep. There I slipped into partial hibernation and learned the benefits of sleeping without a care in the world.