He had never lied.

At the least, the Aadarsh had never committed a statement to song which Ckhehnvraahll could prove false. Skthveraachk was not watching the worming body of her sister ahead, and only one of her eyes had been allocated to noting the Hathan beside her. Hands behind his back, faced forward, orifice thinned and set to a line; the only other humanite besides the marked ambers who had remained in the stomach of the earth. The rest, she set on the Imperial Herald. His posture that was somehow at ease despite its straightness, the smile that never shone white from the curve of his features, the cut of the woven but hard wear he adorned both as comfort and with the regality the Queen had once borne her own horned allomyrite armor. Another piece of Ckhehnvraahll was being taken into herself, the few thousand each bearing their own instruction, own image, meaningless until arranged into the honeycomb that made vision clear. Some formed a concerto, allowing the pale mender to lead with voice a fond reconnection. A few took to improper touches and scrapings on the menials they passed, who transmitted shivering pleasure to the colony entire, messaged affection from beyond the sky. But most recited, without fanfare or panoply, what the vassal had learned. And the lesser Queen, who had spent a hundred and more measures beneath an artificial thass dome constructed as gift for her and security for the humanite guests, had learned that the Aadarsh had never, not once, lied.

Her lands and reserves had been hunted in ignorance and necessity, the mass needed to preserve the life of her superior Queen. Truth. The attacks which had ravaged Ktcvahnaah and forever crushed the sound of Chkervthnaakt beneath a roar of death were made in error, and not to be repeated without cause. Truth. The Sovereignty needed soldiers in their war, yes, but there was so much more they wanted of her species. Songs did not crescendo to their peaks immediately, and worlds did not begin lush and verdant. Even this was a truth, as the memories and legends of the Founders whispered from the dawning of history. How the mass had once been scarce before the creation of the reserves, how colonies devoured one another in an endless chain to remain alive under colder skies and crueler times. Worlds were found barren, and only through patience of thousands, tens of thousands, tens of tens of thousands of cycles did they begin to flourish. Humanites were not patient. They had seen a problem, and applied as they always did their technology to the task. Her species was needed to return control of these worlds to their rightful owner, the Emperor and his Sovereignty, but this was the storm to be followed by calm.

Imagine, the Aadarsh had sung with words which dripped with color and light, worlds bereft of life. Red, grey, untouched and untended. The humanites could mend the soil, fill the air with warmth, but it was formites who could assist in their truest role. To farm. To grow, to tend. Fields beyond sight, made green, filled with beasts for harvest and blooms for cultivation. Imagine drones who would no longer need buckle under weight or strain selves, and be taught only how to touch and tap at the blackrock consoles and upon the lighted buttons, producing without effort. A hundred measures spent learning how to speak like her people, and to use the words they all desired more than anything to hear. Imagine an end to the conflicts between colonies. Food for all. Work for all. Imagine the discord, silenced.

The Aadarsh had never once lied.

Every other humanite had lied.

Chkervthnaakt had named him Aadarsh Who Had Been Blessed, that there would be a male amongst the Sovereignty who walked and tasted and led as a humanite, but smelled and sounded and sung as a formite. Skthveraachk watched him now, and beneath her tender hopes, felt the vines of suspicion crawl.

Back from the past. Back from the outer. She was beside Hathan once again, behind the Aadarsh. Tapping her mandibles together, the Queen raised gaze to the eighteen nesting drones that had restrained the screeching pemphredonite; positioning, provoking, and keeping its jaws elevated away from the breeding queen’s neck as she took the creature within her abdomen.

“It will vary with the species, Aadarsh. Between inseminations, the pemphredonites need but half a bar to recuperate.” The removal of the stinger was a relief; more than one queen had been damaged during the thrashing resistance. Experience allowed for precision, and none of the nesting attendants slipped in their duties. Scents of warning, sounds of caution when one lost grip and another quickly filled the gap, but no danger signals which would send the others into a panic. “But once the seeding pouch is filled, the laying will no longer require a male’s involvement. It will be preserved until it needs be replaced.”

“No.” The Herald turned, drawn from the scene by the abrupt response. Some of the ambers had taken to setting up the machinery the humanite superior had brought from his vessel, placing it around the chamber. But maintaining their distance from the breeding, and only after the devices had been sprayed so as not to alarm queen or attendants. “Even between formites, the Composer may tease you, and the traits desired will not manifest. Few colonies have managed successful integrations of new forms. It is said the last great war was ended not by the defeat at the Sands Made Orange, but truly by the pledge to share the breeding of spitters with all.”

Hathan looked sideways, but something about his speed made Skthveraachk wonder if it was not more to avoid seeing how the pemphredonite was dragged lower as it beat wings against its binds and managed to stab a leg into the pulsing queen. Superficial damage to thorax. Unfortunate all the same.

“Yes. With what was learned previous, accounting for differences in this male, I wish and think to see one successful offspring within the first three hundred thousand. When the spawn is paired to the next queen, viability will raise once more. In three generations, perhaps two cycles, the colony may once more be the first to control the air. Naturally, control the air.” The pride that had been welling upwards settled at the addendum. The remembrance of the last encounter. “Without the aid of constructions of hardstone metals.”

He was done here. She could tell before he even made voice of it. Most of the ambers did not cease their own labors when he stepped back and away, and there was no small amount of concern present in leaving them in the nursery. Aadarsh saw her stillness. His nod, reassuring. She followed in silence, but only after making an order that soldiers be moved from slumber to a closer station nearby. Hathan followed them out. Menials were directed to the surface, and to keep to a humanite’s pace to ensure Aadarsh could follow even as he spoke.

“Your physical structure is weak. It is mildly surprising, but using your intelligence to overcome such obstacles seems to have succeeded where your bodies have failed.”

The glow from above was meager, and Hathan occasionally stumbled. The Herald showed no such difficulty. When they passed near the larder, the scent of palmidia still wafting freshly cut, Aadarsh sniffed and gestured.

“I do not understand how this is possible.” Skthveraachk could have, perhaps should have, assigned a drone to this task. Her gaster dragged heavily still, despite the bulk having lessened greatly in the past measures, and rigid legs strained from the activity. But a drone might have relayed such information incorrectly. Adjusted, to better fit what was possible. She needed to hear it from the source, with her own body and crest. “Biomass poisons, or it does not. It is exceedingly rare for one colony to be unable to ingest what another regularly consumes. How would such a population survive?”

He made noises that were not quite a laugh, but were greater than an inward rumble. Even the Hathan seemed humored, for the first time, by the conversation. Grinning, though closing his lips when he caught Skthveraachk looking.

“That it would not be a thing done on my world.” She was surprised to be asked directly. Was the male seeking a particular answer? It was irrelevant. Skthveraachk was asked, and would not weaken her reply. “It would be wasted effort. Wasted energy. Your species places unhealthy importance on your individual members. Needed, perhaps, given each of you must function as both individual and colony, but if one in a hundred colonies could not ingest palmidia, it is likely that colony would simply die.”

A truer laugh this time. Fourth layer. Third.

“You refused to permit females with the sickness from becoming birthing queens?”

Jacket and bodyweave clung to the male as he raised a hand, making some strange manner of wave over his head. Skthveraachk began to raise a foreleg to mimic, but a quick shake of Hathan’s head stilled her as they followed.

The upward slope was growing shallower. In the distance, she heard the creak of the wooden lift reaching the surface. Her breath was shorter. Pain was good. The walk was doing her good. Herald’s half-eye backwards brought a quick continuation from the Commander.

The break from conversation gave the Queen time to ruminate, and pass along the data. Thinkers clung to the edges of her thoughts, ready, eager, to be assigned to any passing curiosity. More than one, however, suggested pressing as the silence replaced sound. And the Queen, feeling a cold breeze run across her shell from openings ahead, agreed.

“To strengthen your species is a good. It is right. If this decision improved you, why was it initially fought?”

It was not an answer to her question, but a tactic commonly employed when answer was seen as too difficult to encapsulate. Hairs shivering, her claws clenched as she allowed to Herald to dictate the tempo of their song.

“I place my colony in danger here, at risk of death, for the sake of my species. I was ready to die to your kind for the sake of my species. My colony is my life, and I would do anything for its preservation. And, I would sacrifice it willingly if needed for the preservation of my people. Choir before voice. Chorus before solo.”

Skthveraachk did not answer. Clenched her mandibles. Chose not to answer. They emerged, together, out under the cerulean dome to the beat of the brickworkers and trundling carts and groaning lifts. Clicks came from the rod beneath the Herald’s head-holes as he inhaled through the paired openings, and looked to the alto. To what lay beyond, unseen, as the realization crawled up and out of the Queen’s stomach like fetid, unprocessed bile.

“The Coalition.” Caution. Care. Information previous, merely data. Information now, posing direct benefit to the humanite sharing it. Caution, care; listen, but do not internalize. Thinkers to standby, recall previous conversations. “Why does this come now? Your enemies are my enemies. The Sovereignty is superior, and I will fight what and where I am directed. None have seen fit to share with me the purpose of this conflict. Now, you say it is because they fight that which improves your species? This does not parse.”

They came to a halt in that frigid air, and the sun for once was less a danger than it was a welcome heat flaring down upon them. It did not penetrate deep through her carapace. Not nearly as deep as the colder chemicals that had begun to pump.

“I do not see a danger in giving my people the means to better kill your enemies, be it your devices or your knowledge. Unless you do not trust our pledge to assist you.”

The damage could not have been done better even if the Herald had picked up a lancer and held down the trigger. And for some reason, it did not even flicker the level control in his face.

“You accuse us of frenzy?” Her claws were uncurling. Her scythes were shivering in their sleeves. Hathan did not move from her, indeed he moved closer. She had to look to him twice to confirm that the translator had not broken, but the dark concern he wore like veil of smoke was confirmation enough. “My colony has bled and died for the Sovereignty. We have travelled across the sky for you. We could not oppose you even if we wished it.”

The ambers did not move nearer. Aadarsh did not back away as the tips of her scythes began to emerge, even as the Queen struggled to maintain control of her body. She breathed, deep, and tasted the sea. Two scentcrafters had hurried to her distress, and were filling the air with fragrance.

“Many would!” Most likely. “Most assuredly, many would reach to take hold of claws extended from above.” Many would not. “Some would refuse, of course,” Would she? “And I would … be willing to continue my aid. If I believed it would assist my people in achieving unity of purpose.” She looked again to the Hathan. Wondered, briefly, if the Band was removed and the painrock smashed from existence and his ships not be known to hover overhead, if... He smiled at her, stretched and thin. She terminated the thought process. “I do not know for certain, Aadarsh-Herald.”

The rises were growing longer now, but it would be only a few bars now before the sun sank to the beyond. Labor reports, tabulated progress, was already being collected for the measure. Her scythes sank back into their sheathes fully, and her lungs beat to the time of her heart.

“I am familiar with the notion of a half-truth.” She felt Hathan adjust beside her, not comfortably. “I am experienced with the concepts of information withheld, until one is deemed ‘suited’ for it. It is the cause of much strife. Much rage, which could have been avoided.”

Another clench of claw. Instantly, she was turned from the Herald. Immediately, she was faced to the Hathan. Unreared, her head at his level, her body bathed in soothing scents and pheromones that kept the anger at tenlengths. His surprise was genuine, the way he quickly scanned between the Herald and her own body. This was not prepared. He was not prepared. The Hathan had lied, and sworn to her never to lie again.

“I will accept your answer. I must know the validity of this, the reason.” Would it help her succeed? She was unsure. To know her opposition’s tactics, tools, this was what she first cared for. The Commander was hesitating, processing, and each beat which passed them by empty was another beat he had to adjust, omit, prepare his statements for truths colored by intent. The gift Hathan had given was meant to be a secret, a thing that was true but unshared with others. Mandibles ground together as she puckered her feeding tube, took a breath, and tried. “One … cannot have true victory, unless they know both the enemy and themselves. I know myself. Please, tell me of the enemy.” Was it enough? Too much? Something was in the Herald’s face that was not there before, out of the very corner of her eye. The Hathan, too, had shifted. But when he spoke again, the delivery was sure. And it was, as she could best tell accompanied by the minds of a hundred thinkers, true.

The right hand.

“I remember, Hathan. I do not know what power could threaten the life of a planet, but I believe your kind capable of it. So,” They were back on the bridge of the Palamedes, remembering that view of the stars for the first time. Stars she had now soared past. “Your species changed itself?”

The laugh was without joy. She listened. Tried to listen. The logic was sound, the reasoning sensible, but the scale. The scale was unfathomable. Eight of the thinkers cut themselves from the link, to process in silence. The Band blipped confusion. It was ignored. She understood the intent, if not the word. The Herald looked on, not interrupting, as rapt as the Queen herself.

Fingers to his head, rubbing. His breaths, offbeat, trying to steady and recollect.

Skthveraachk had thought there would be a bolt from the sky, a crash of thunder. Something. Anything. It was just her, and it was just Hathan.

“Frenzy.” Her music was hollow. She tried to muster color into it, and found nothing but greys. “You describe frenzy.”

The Herald silenced the man, but she would have gone on regardless.

“When the unity is tested, when the one is separated from the whole. We sing as one, together, from our first note to our last, from our births until our deaths. Our roles are served, our lives are joined in the great chorus. When a drone is lost, but not killed. When it is taken from its Queen, its nest, even its caste, even a menial can become…” Her guts were ice even discussing it. Caution. Care. Humanites could lie. Accepted. But this was not some invention of humanite creation. She knew these words. She knew this danger. She knew this fear. “They can become something other. A nesting drone questions their role. A soldier ceases to wish for combat. Queens become odd, in their minds and actions. When the song is disrupted, and the harmony is shattered, there is no longer unity. There is the Discord, the first and primal failure. The time before time, cursed and dark, when drone fought drone. When menial refused the Queen, when all were disparate and the star-sent feasted on our flesh. Before the Founders. Before the Song. The chaos primordial.” Had a part of her hoped that the Coalition would prove different? Better? It could still. It could be a redemption unknown.

Aadarsh stepped nearer, near enough that not only could the Queen lay claw on him should she wish it, but he could do the same to her. A request was being made for her attention, from a chamber that did not exist far beneath them. She refused it. It came again, but this time, with information attached. The drones delivering it shuddered as they relayed, word for word. ‘No indication of falsehood. Information coincides with discoveries’. What discoveries? Not for her to know. It was possible the Coalition was the greatest frenzy the Composer had ever written. She hissed her breath in a misting fog.

“If the Coalition is frenzied, they must be exterminated, entirely.”