03 Alive

Waves of electromagnetic energy dispersed as they journeyed from sun towards planet. Fierce solar winds whose fury sought and ripped particles from atmospheric molecules. Scattered electrons fled and spawned a grand geomagnetic-storm.

Gasses fled from the planet where the atmosphere was thinnest. Radiation seeped, bypassing thinned holes of the north-hemisphere and warmed the black plains of the north.

Sentinels watched, spires recorded events, data strobed relay to relay. Meteorological and atmospheric workings, condensed, iterated, and strobed faster than bacterial division. Such slight variances were missed by the Dauver's observations. Signalers continued and diligently watched. Spires recorded further events, these too were missed. All as was meant to be.

Soft bands of colors celebrated and danced with the winds along the Black Land's sky. They danced to the stars song, they turned and shifted step by fractions of degrees. This was enough. Warm winds galavanted and forced down surrounding sub-zero air. Hot and cold fought struggled and converged. Snow, ice, and thunderstorms boiled, churning from Enkyall's northern pole.

The world-storm sank and spread south. Now a thin band, it marauded and held the world just above its equator. The northernmost 2 of the 11 prime spires fell to the unannounced storms. What damage was not done by the lightning and sickling winds, the fall of these pillars of stone and light completed.

Spires grew to such heights after hundreds of orbits. With chains of data interrupted, the sentinels would need to compensate for the loss. Patterns changed, and the dauver were left unprepared for the storm.

For dozens of orbits, the assault raged from the storm and thunder blustered heralding small changes. It was a grand orchestration, a complex calculation, all made for a single event. He would sacrifice a small member of his creation. It was relay-hive its sole purpose, negligible, was in transmitting data from an island territory off the main continent. The subtropical placement meant that it had not been made ready or aware of the storm's proclamation.

The cold-blooded dauver normally coordinated prepared for hibernation. Livestock would be culled, and larvae migrated for the seasons. Only then would they enter into a normally a month-long hibernation. Judgment was passed, the dauver slept, and the small warmblooded livestock were all left to their own devices.

* * *

It was cold and strange. The normal hum of the dome couldn’t be heard. Sixteen woke shivering in the comb cell. He slid out of the octagonal hole and saw others too had woken without the normal morning chirrup. Still, their duties needed to be completed.

Kesit Domi formed 4 units, each unit was formed of 4 columns of 12. The herd quickly ordered themselves from the youngest in the left and eldest in the right column. Each column was left to their tasks. The young left to climb and harvest Kutta nuts, the adults checked the cells for their deceased.

There was only one corpse today. He helped drag out Seventeen. The cadaver had been only few seasons older than him. He knew that Seventeen and had been ill recently, the cold must have finished it. The younger kesit lifted the corpse to his shoulder and followed the elderly. The rest of the adults went to pull all of the crops. This storm would kill off all the plants. Resignation was visible on many of the elder's faces.

The Dauver generally maintained a constant population of his kin, but during droughts or flooding, they’d eaten as much as half of his kind. He felt fear as he carried his burden through the hall. The elders were just barely ahead of him. Bare feet softly pattered in a soft staccato rhythm. Raspy fluid-filled breathing and coughs reverberated off of the walls.

The hive was wrong, the ambiance was missing constant hum. There were no steady clicks and trills. He made his way to the knackery. This one died of illness and would be no good towards filling the stores. He’d have to remove the bones for drying and compost the meat.

Sixteen turned off, out of the hall to an open plot of land. Normally, there were harvesters, but none were here. It was beyond strange. Still, he had a job to maintain.

Carefully he used the sharpened moltings of a hunter. Precise hands cut out bones rubbing them down with sand until there was no flesh left on them, he cut up the flesh and mixed it with the sand and dirt in the composting pile, and left the bones out to be dried and crushed to bonemeal.

It was a quarter day and there was still no humming, no harvester to collect any of the matured compost piles. Sixteen left to aid in the harvesting. Maybe if they were diligent enough there would be enough in stock to let them spare the adults and just eat the elderly. At the fields, Sixteen stopped. There was no harvester here. There was always at least one. It would be there to ensure the workers didn't consume the crop and carry off any injured to the slaughterhouse.

Their labor continued. Each domi nervously looked side to side over their shoulders. At every self preceived mistake they would flinch at imagined blows. Still, they were efficient, they were diligent, they would do their duty, and survive.

* * *

Once the harvest was stored each domi grabbed their allotted handful and left. Not one of their taskmasters had been seen.

Sixteen and the other adults left for the elders to clean remains from the nurseries. Strange noises could be heard as they approached.

There were odd hoarse warbles loud thuds, ripping and banging. Sixteen and the rest slowed their approach. Their tread softened cautiously. There were 48 elders still. This would have been ponderous on its own, but what most confused the adults was that 3 of the harvesters lay still on the floor. There had been a fourth but it had been dismembered.

Ligaments had been pulled from carapaces. Elders could be heard singing at each other in delight. Sixteen had known that as one approached a certain number of cycles they were reassigned. They were to be feed and selected at random for consumption. This was not done privately but rather the elder would be dismantled in front of the others.

Some elders had been known to break and cease to fill their purpose as their expiration approached. These too were consumed.

It seemed that all had succumbed to some insanity and began killing their masters. Sixteen knew they would all be culled and replaced with new stock.

But he stopped and looked. The 3 harvesters did not move. There were no warning chirrups, there was not a swarm of hunters. Other adults joined in with the elders using the claws of the already well past dead harvester to cut into the rest. The elders trilled and warbled that strange noise. Sixteen realized it was an imitation of the harvesters and drones when they fed. A mockery, a delight. He soon joined in.

* * *

The orderly hive fell into disarray. A single day had passed and kesit domi had explored the hive in full. They broke and drank the eggs, butchered the larva and strung entrails across the halls in merriment.

Sixteen had thought they had reached the peak of madness until they had found the female chambers. Then truly, madness ensued.

The lone kesit wandered, still holding a long claw in his hand. He searched, not knowing what it was he was searching for, but moved further into the hive. The hall seemed to continue endlessly.

Kesit had no words and little sense of identity, but still, they had a will to live. When forced to labor to preserve themselves, they did. When slaughtered, they did so quietly, so the next generation could continue. Now, when all constraints and reservations were removed they flourished. They had been hunters and harvesters before this. Though generations removed, their instinct had not yet been bred out of them.

They would kill the competing predators. Sixteen did not think of these things, he could not, he was beast of labor, one that had reverted to his feral state when opportunity most granted. Regardless he was all of these things despite not understanding the concept.

* * *

A sweet scent wafted warmly though the hall. Sixteen felt the breeze it came in on and followed it in a trance. The smell warmed his chest and lightened his limbs.

There was no notice of passing into the light. He didn’t notice the snow drifting down or how it didn’t chill him. Sixteen didn’t notice the sleeping 8 sleeping guardians. He didn’t because he saw tall thin stalks of the Spiricoso spiraling high twice his height.

Small thin leaves with jagged edges whirled slowly from the bottom growing in length and width toward the top of the plant. It was a splendorous array of colors, as they shifted from the weight of the snow and wind. Colors bent and rippled from pale green to rich reds, purples, yellows, and greens. Dense sticky flowers twisting and bunching with crystallized oils and dwarfed leaves continued to reflect light and draw him closer.

Sixteen climbed till he reached the first small handful. Fingers grasped enough for 10 of the Dauver, and consuming as much would cause death even in the queen. But as many of the other things 16 missed, he didn’t notice the deep hazel eyes watching him. As of now, he couldn’t.

Sixteen was just a beast, but soon a beast would dream, and a beast who dreams is no longer a beast but is instead, alive.