Though the landings had been timed to coincide with the hottest bar of the rise, every breath from every lung, formite or humanite, came as a misting cloud. Rising from the massed formations of warriors roused from torpor for the arrival, from the spitters who struggled against their nature and need to flee back into moistened warmth of the nest’s embrace, from the hundreds of scentcrafters who scuttled in the gaps between lines to spread the harmony, and from Skthveraachk Queen’s unadorned form itself. Settled, but not restive, on all legs beside the two ranked lines of Sovereignty officers.

The Commander, the Lieutenant, their support; even the former Solovyova-Major had landed on almost empty Wyvern some bars earlier, and now stood alongside the Queen upon the lain bricks coating the caldera’s floor. Or, as close to alongside as the semicircle of ambers would permit. Unmarked. Pungent and dour. Thankfully, Pod and her own amber were absent. Eighteen scentcrafters had been assigned just to the perimeter of this, their Delegation of Dracan, to keep the indignation and anger of the insult at bay as it was. Awaiting the dark blots in sanguine sky to make the final descent to stonework landing platforms Skthveraachk had only started, and finished, measures ago. Two lines of waiting humanites, and two hundred odd soldiers arranged in square formations. They flinched with every crescendo of the drumbeats being played out by the twenty thousand of her children and colony on the backs of their siblings, the roll of sound made as though to guide the transports’ descent. The Lieutenant barked air to clear fluid from throat. ‘Coughed’, came the helpful clarification from two thinkers at once.

A visible stiffening passed through the officers present, the shift in their shadows casting light on the newest golden stub set to the veridian of the now Solovyova-Lieutenantcolonel’s shell. Hands within the folds of her fibre-woven skin, the stocky frame of the female did not budge.

Hathan’s words were like the sounds of the fields and forests of the homeworld her scentcrafters had transitioned to, meant to calm. The still-Lieutenant snapped the bones of her mouth together while the no-longer Major merely flashed hers.

“Breathing on this world is a tenuous proposition, no matter your location, Solovyova-Lieutenantcolonel.” Skthveraachk needed practice with the new designation, and confirmation that the Band worked still despite the furious shivering the Queen adopted for warmth. The smaller drones on raised tiers, tenlength above the rippling masses of chitinous black where they gripped string and sack, had been given cloaks of hide and flax weave. But there were not enough for all. And given the other humanites’ reaction to their repurposed dead, Skthveraachk had no intention of offending the Aadarsh. Cold could be suffered. “It is taught to me that an elevation in rank coincides with value and survival importance as well. You should celebrate you proven vitalness to your people.”

Three block transports, their designation something the Queen had caught in passing but never recorded, grew ever larger in the sky. What was once tinted blue became clear as the quadrants of shield blocking the descent deactivated, and the stiffness within the humanite ranks became more precise. More practiced. Uniform in action and posture and look. The drumroll and formite music was perfect, but Skthveraachk could not suppress the tickle of admiration she felt in the humanites. To be synchronized was natural for her. For them, it was a choice of individuals to become a collective.

Yes. Admiration in the uniformity, and pleasure in that squeezing the Lieutenant made of her face. Skthveraachk’s enjoyment, the learned and admittedly forced relaxation despite being surrounded by unmarked troops, made much of easing the colony’s emotions. They were ready. They were eager. When the red dust blew, and the powerful hums of the glowing rings within wings were but lengths off the landing platform, the Hathan nodded to the side of the settling vessel.

“T-H-E. The. Identifier. H. E. N. This would be ‘hen’ first?” The other transports were of the Palamedes, but this onyx and obsidian craft bore the spikes and spires of shielding. Rather than the smooth and unobstructed hulls of the two ‘touching downward’ on adjoining landing platforms. Golden lettering, humanite symbols, wound in flowing curves as the machine delicately settled its massive frame on the pad, sending wonderfully heated air across all those nearby. “Hen-grown?”

A distant thinker shook in irritation, his input overruled by the consensus that had been proven wrong.

“It spats of meaninglessness. So, I would presume it to be a name.” It was not a joke. The Commander laughed anyways, though covered himself in silence when the engines cut out. Skthveraachk reached back with both legs to hold forelegs of an attendant, confirming the readiness of the colony. Only six out of thousands were identified as unresponsive in the cold. They were shuttled back below ground, and replaced. Ramp unrolled, peeling away from the hull with seams that had not existed breaths ago. Four amber and red plated guards first, with poles and standards of false-light which flapped as though the breeze actually touched them. And then, in his pressed-black shell and silver rod between nostrils and covering of fabric lengths upon his head. The Aadarsh.

“Begin the song. Cluster seven, line one, rear. Cluster eight, line one, rear. Cluster seven, line two, rear. Cluster eight, line two, rear.” The orders were made in the same space of time. The effects, equally instant. Flanking either side of the path between transport and delegation, the ambers thrust their lances upwards and angled. And behind them, in time to the steps taken by implacable guard and the humanite who had been named Blessed, line of fifty soldiers rose to four legs and turned their scythes inward. Forelegs folded across their chest, denying violence and declaring peace. Puffs of fluid erupted from gasters shoved high, filling the air with the scent of lands across the sky and space. Voices rose to join them, telling the story of the Third Meeting between Hhelhnveectch and Sthlehnvaarhn. And above them all, warmed by cloaks, drones reared and raised over their heads the grooves of metal on corded string. Spinning them high, wind rushing through the slots, to produce a sound no formite could hope to. An accident, discovered during the testing of slings and weapons, now something so cherished it could only belong here and now to welcome this humanite who strode with closed smile, smelling not of salt and copper, but of the Slough Queen herself. Drumbeats on carapace, voices calling, bodies standing row after row as the male advanced, and the droning buzz of the instruments being spun from every rise of the caldera. Anthem and praise, it continued even as the lighted standards parted to bring the frheernut-skinned humanite directly before their congregation. Skthveraachk rose to four legs, crossed her legs, and bowed her head. Hathan, Solovyova, most of the others saluted. A few, the Lieutenant among them, dropped instead to the ground. Supported on one leg, while the other stretched behind them. Unusual. New.

The salute was maintained as Hathan spoke, shouted practically to be heard over the din of formites in song, and those who had taken to their squished legs did not rise. Solovyova had been lax in her stance before. She was not so now.

Had Skthveraachk not just been told it was a lie, there would have been not a single indication to her of its wrongness. Her stomachs contracted and churned.

The last phrase brought a cupping of the man’s bare fingers against his fastened shell jacket, spoken specifically to those lowered. They rose as straightened fingers fell away from the heads of those standing, and when Skthveraachk was about to sing her own piece, once as he had before, it was the humanite who moved first his arms in ‘x’ across his chest.

“Aadarsh of the Imperial Sovereignty, may you fly ever cradled in steel through the cold sky.” It was a new greeting. A humanite greeting. And when he bowed forward his features, to the scowl of some of the others present, she knew it to be a good greeting. “You have mastered much of our music in so short a time. You give voice to my name with beautiful inflection.”

Aadarsh’s arms uncrossed, but he kept his hands before him. Fingers curled in, as though mimicking the furl of claws he did not possess.

“In but a few more birthing cycles from all queens, we will reach our hundredth thousand.” She began to lower her own forelegs, but found herself caught as the browned humanite offered forward an arm. Seeing, for the first time, how thick and rigid hairs extended from a black chitinous band worn across the length of his right limb. Out of a lifetime’s practice, Skthveraachk brought her own down in response. Only to be barred by the ambers around her. The smile vanished from Aadarsh as she promptly rescinded, and a flinch ran the length of the warrior caste who had been selected to stand about the line. No harm. No threat. Ease. At ease.

They obeyed, immediately, so quickly that Skthveraachk was still catching her breath when their lances withdrew and Aadarsh offered his arm again. He caught the meaning in her stillness with the precision of a foraging mantite.

The Commander echoed the word, but it was the freshly righted Lieutenant who answered.

Those in blue traded and offered one another only looks at the Herald’s words. Solovyova tried, and failed, to hide a thin smile. The ambers, however, did not trade so much as a word. They split apart, strode away, their expressions hidden. Rich and flowing, the scent of Ckhehnvraahll fell like the soothing rain from Aadarsh and his guard instead, and the peace it brought the Queen was something not even their new instruments could give sound to. She hoped all the damned ambers wore the same grimace the Lieutenant now had splayed on meaty cheeks.

“I would not protest.” True statement. Incomplete statement. Necessary statement.

His eyes were lost to her, and granted to the blue shelled lesser. Skthveraachk herself was still not fully versed in humanite communication. The thinker who was assured her this was not a question that expected an answer. Now, the humanites flinched. Aadarsh did not, not even when that armored piece of chitin he wore was extended and the Queen met it with a stroke of her own. Hair to hair, though more gingerly than she would meet one of her own. Especially after what had occurred the last time. It was stiff, and he moved the dead hairs of the almost decorative chitin without meaning, but the contact was welcome.

“The ignorance of the Sovereignty is forgiven now, as it has been until now, Aadarsh Who Has Been Blessed.” He was a humanite. But brushing together, leg to leg, Skthveraachk began to understand why he had been named so. And why she felt a sudden pull to explain what she would normally need not. “No offense is meant. By the presence of my soldiers.” Their contact broke, and his toothless smile returned. “They are not here to threaten nor intimidate. I have seen thrice now how your greaters and leaders are met by those of warrior castes. I wished to extend this same courtesy, and to show you the progress that has been made here.”

The recited tale from thousands approached its second stanza, and tirelessly did the musicians with their rods and strings whirl the sounding-sticks overhead.

“They are anything but. The biomass you bring is sorely needed. Our farms are not yet flourishing, and defects are present in all clutches.” He expressed sorrow through his looks and eyes, and like when the Hathan made such looks as he did even now on the periphery of her vision, the Queen believed it honest. She did not wish for the emotion to cloud the clear rise. The second transport’s landed and subsequent opening from beyond the amassed lines sent explosions of joy like red flame through the colony. Bringing forth the pale white bodies who were embraced and helped to breathe as new formites joined in to the chorus. “But you reunite us with more of Ckhehnvraahll-Colony as well! Already they sing to us of your contributions. They recite your exchanges, your words. I will spend long listening to them tell all since your arrival on my world.”

A tug at lips, a subtle shimmer in eyes as warmth returned to them. He signalled. Not a physical signal, at least not one that meant anything; a mere touch to his wrist is what she would have seen tenmeasures ago, but not notified Skthveraachk of the complex and unseen workings of a message being sent. Possibly to his guards beside him. Possibly a thousand lengths away and into sky and space. In reality, it was an in-between, and the smells and sounds from within the breast of the squared black ship told of the presence long before sight confirmed it. Their wings had been bound, and cuts of red-orange lines were discernable on their husks to the closest soldiers as translucent cubes were rolled by wheel on carts a thousand times sleeker and more refined than Skthveraachk’s own. When the ambers steering each made to halt, it took little more than a gesture from Aadarsh for Skthveraachk to order drones to surround and inspect the delivery. Even the stingers had been removed with remarkable precision, in ways no formite could achieve without killing the creatures.

Pemphredonites. Two of them, both males. Struggling only limply, their heartrates slow and lacking energy to power the hollow tubes of their wingbraces, but. Pemphredonites all the same. She had ordered the digging of new brooding chambers, and had their designs planned, before ever stiffening her hairs to reply to the blessed man.

“You…know of our usage? Ckhehnvraahll has shared with you our discovery?” This was more than trust. This was an acceptance her vassal would show only to the worthy. “The brooding queen who had produced successful clutch was lost to us when Ktcvahnaah took my lands and nests, and there was no time, no ability to capture more before the departure. It was an opportunity far from my thoughts until now.”

Hathan, as the rest, had been standing patiently. Stoically, almost, after the snapping sounds Aadarsh had inflicted. The touching and tapping of drones broken through the ranks of ambers, touching and feeling the clear boxes as their drivers barely reacted to the surrounding contact, put those not of Aadarsh’s retinue on a greater alert however. Healthy and fertile, the drones confirmed it one after the other. Skthveraachk could no longer tell if she trembled from the cold, or in anticipation. So much that she almost did not notice how, instead of answering, the Herald seemed to be awaiting something. Her leave? Her consent? The nod as she tentatively questioned stunned her; her permission.

They all shared the same colony, but each was a colony to themselves. Their Emperor knew. But not all his subordinates did. And she could choose to keep it that way. With the cant of head, Aadarsh gifted a power to her she had only ever been on the receiving end of with these aliens. Oh how she took a moment to bask in it, before consenting. No lies between her and the Hathan. It was their accord and promise.

“For many cycles my colony labored and labored in trying to integrate this species with ourselves. To adopt its strength and power. It took sixty thousand births for the first success; even knowing the correct ratios of nutrients used, it may take sixty thousand more. But you saw their result in our first battle. The destruction they brought to your Wyverns. They were to be a weapon which would solidify my colony in the memories forever. They will be again.” Calm. Refocus and prioritize. The temperature out here was pain even for her kind, and pemphredonites were far less suited to it. Protect. Safeguard. She made a show of opening her arms back to the nearest nest entrance. “May they be carried below?”

“Granted! Grant-“ Danger. Warning. Humanites within the brooding chambers and nurseries, acceptable. Humanites on the lowest levels, stumbling upon the chamber that could not be known, unacceptable. Cease digging of new chambers on layer twelve. Move to layer six. Layer five. Risk to nursery, tolerable. They must be kept away from the depths. “-ed, without reservation. Their breeding shall commence as soon as space is constructed. I will inform Hathan-Commander, who will inform you.” Joyous rise. Rapturous rise. Rise, sonnet, rise. She did not care there were unmarked blue shells beside her, she did not mind the chill any longer. Praise to this humanite who arrived like the Composer’s own mercy, and stood there awaiting her response, not demanding it, and no shifting about with those red faces and sideways looks the rest of the officership made. “This exchange is unequal. You must request something further to balance the giving.”

“These are things done in exchange for our lives and food. These are things of the Sovereignty. You are an individual. Your individualness has aided us. It must be returned.” He laughed. She clacked her antennae, and the air snapped as hundreds of others did the same. It had not been a joke, yet she was glad for the noise. It had not been a joke, and though he wore a similar smile, Hathan was not laughing this time.

“A Returning will be called for immediately.”

Questions, questions upon questions. Was it even possible for humanites to participate? It must be. Should this frighten her? Perhaps. It did not. Caution was advised from several. They had tasted of his music once before on the Palamedes, they had drank and been made drunk off it, distracted from the danger. But this was different. This felt different. He spoke with their antennae, he touched with their legs, he smelled as they smelled. The Hathan made a ‘cough’ of his own, and stepped forward from his place in line.

It seemed to the Queen the Commander had intended refusal. If such was true, it was an intent wiped away like clawprints in the sand with a wave of Aadarsh’s hand. He saluted. Others got control over their faces once more, and bowed. Orders were relayed, tasks assigned, and for the first time in tenmeasures without feeling the presence of ambers suffocatingly arround her, they walked all as one from the continued arrivals and unloading of transports. Many within the caldera, and many more to the Sovereignty’s own pads high on the cliff’s face. Skthveraachk left it all to the thinkers, and her eyes were all set to the one Ckhehnvraahll had named blessed as they descended to the dark of the soil and stone.

It took almost no time at all for the humanites to lay out their lights, their stands, to arrange stocky seating which was as much unfolded and built on the spot as it was placed. It took less time for the soldiers to be dismissed back to their chambers, and for the mass to be pulled from the larders and stocks preserved by placement. The last Returning had been tens of measures ago, back after the dead had been collected following the attack on Guir, and it had been a quick undertaking. Bereft of true ritual or importance in the slew of more pressing issues that had surrounded them. The great recital entered the fourth stanza as the humanites seated themselves, as representatives from the thinkers and crafters and delvers and menders and all the castes high and low amassed within the dining hall. The troughs here were a joy, not placed as many were, but carved out as part of the room itself during the construction. They would not be used, but their clawholds and curves were an added layer of ornamentation. Drones entered the room with second stomachs full and sloshing, but as had been requested in their journey down, set an untouched gaster entire before Queen and conglomeration of humanites. More than one made odd thrusts and noises with their throats, politely and kindly covering their mouths.

“For your benefit, Aadarsh Who Has Been Blessed.” She was thankful for the warning. When two smaller humanites set to peeling off the plating from the severed gaster, and a third at strange amalgamation of durametals and wire pressed indent to send blue fire spurting from nothing, it allowed for mere fascination in place of fear. Drones took their places before each caste, one to one, and began to speak the names. “We first identify those who have fallen. Their roles, their accomplishments. Skthveraachk worker, daughter of Skthveraachk queen, sixth clutch, life lived without failure, died to the cold during water hauling. Skthveraachk worker, daughter of Skthveraachk queen, fifth clutch, life lived without failure, died to a fall during construction of the elevator lift. Skthveraachk soldier, son of Skthveraachk queenling, sixth clutch, killed two humanites during the battle to take the caldera, died willingly to remove injuries from his cluster.” She continued, recanting each as quickly as could be managed with sound alone. A strange smell was interrupting the recital, and it was quickly identified as a burning of flesh and meat. The humanites were willingly setting alight the mass. Waste? Insult? No, no, peace. Small traces of danger signalling and instinctive revile at the smells were suppressed. The Aadarsh nodded after each name. The Hathan sat stock-still. The Lieutenant was rubbing fingers at her head, at the internal bone, bent forward and breathing shakily.

“Skthveraachk worker.” The thoughtful question brought a chitter to her mandibles. “He is yours as well. Son of Skthveraachk Queen, my third clutch. His life was lived without failure, returned to me willingly to travel from our homeworld, and died to nothing here on Dracan.”

One of the officers mumbled confusion from the table, staring down at the severed and carved leaking abdomen, and Aadarsh emitted soft rumbles of his own in response.

Staring down the length of table, Skthveraachk adjusted herself as the delay carried them to the conclusion. The formites on both sides of the troughs leaned forward, locking legs and opening mandibles wide as their tubes extended. The Queen lowered herself for her own, a soldier chosen so as not to cause unnecessary discomfort, and wrapped its flesh in her own as the slurry of meat and fluids flowed from it to her. Continuing, with some summarizing, as she drank.

“We then return them to the colony. Their song ended, their final note sung, their music joining in the great chorus alongside the Composer, and their mass returned to the colony. We commit them to the memories, and bid they remain with us until the Death of the Song.” Upon the ovals and circles, steaming sections of gaster were laid before each of the humanites. Most merely stared, or continued to keep a hold over their lips with hands in strange postures. Aadarsh popped two tablets no larger than pebbles through his own, and took up delicate tools with which to incise and separate the portion of meat set before him.

“I do not yet parse the true inflection in the meaning of this note and notion, ‘honor’, Aadarsh-Herald. But I thank your intent. That is understood.” Wet sounds, the smacking of tunnels and occasional spill of digestive fluid, provided the baser notes to the ensuing melodies continuing to fill the corridors and halls. Meat waited before each of the seated humanites, yet only the Aadarsh had begun to eat. Concern briefly filled the Queen as she fed, watching from her two left eyes as the others hesitated.

The Lieutenant thought her whisper could not be heard. Hathan touched his silvery device to the hunk of burnt and charred flesh, made brown by their inventions, and did not reply. Concern magnified, intensified, until Aadarsh himself threw his gaze from his mass down the line. And with a single motion, Solovyova pried a chunk from her receptacle, and downed it in one go. The rest watched, as though terrified she would keel over immediately. Not until a bulge traveled the length of her neck, and her own two pebbles were swallowed did the female utter a musing noise.

The noises from another officer seemed less pleasant as it abruptly stood, turning and striding out of the room with little more than a quick salute which Hathan was happy to return just as quickly. The Herald did not even look up from his meal, and as an amber rushed to follow the officer from the cavern, Skthveraachk watched afar through a menial’s eyes as the humanite emptied his own stomach to the floor before the amber could catch it in mouth. A juvenile mistake. It was always near impossible to suck up spilled mass from a flat floor’s surface. One by one, the others joined in eating the burnt meat with varying levels of discomfort. Silence taking them as all within the hall fed.

“Aadarsh-Herald, I am enthralled and joyful that your manners in our first meeting were not coincidence, and that you share in this Returning so willingly, but.” He set down his tools. The rolling, clenching motions of unseen teeth continued, but sought to end. The Queen had never shared a meal with the aliens, never even truly been in the presence of humanites in the processing of mass save catching glimpses of their soldiers swallowing down mixtures on the battlefield, and was for the first time struck with how awkward it must be to live with an inability to sing and eat at the same time. “It is not something I am accustomed to. Not a thing I overlook, or you do naturally. I have lived with humanites long enough now to know this.”

The translation from the band was garbled. Hathan had not fully ceased his mouth’s motions, the skin bloating out from one side, as he spoke. It looked absurd. Aadarsh set his hands down at his lap while the female Lieutenant tried, and failed, several times to place a cut of the flesh between her teeth.

Somehow, though both were smiling now at one another, it seemed less than what was usual.

“The Kchithik Reserve.” Aadarsh did not reply. He brought his hands up, clasped, and leant forward with a brace on the bones comprising the second joint of his arms. The humanite did not reply, but he listened intently as the sounds of Skthveraachk’s feeding encompassed the room. “The plains which were offered in the accord which ended the War of Ten Colonies. The Pod shows me the marvels of your Sovereignty and species. The Admiralty shows me the fear and the carnage and the death. Now you come to once more show me the Kchithik Reserve, teeming with life and mass. The promise of a better future.”

Looking back to her, the depths of his eyes were not the greens of the Hathan’s. They were the rare yellow, almost shimmering, and gleamed about the deepest black of central pit in which one felt like the stars themselves could be contained. The soldier conjoined to her signalled hesitance, her feeding slowed to a near dribble as Skthveraachk’s mind confronted the knowledge eye to eye. Its signal was ignored.

“Biomass. Technology. Progress. Safety. What else do you seek to offer?”

The Herald’s smile stretched until its corners very nearly reached the holes set to either side of head. The final stanza reached its conclusion. The song of Hhelhnveectch and Sthlehnvaarhn, of Queen and of Slave. She had thought it an appropriate tribute. As the Aadarsh spoke, part of her cried out in joy and relief. Deeper, and so quietly now that it was all but forgotten, another part simply cried.