“Tension exceeding thresholds! The cords will snap!”

“Collapse the not-lung!”

“Received!” Two menials at the portal to the encased cylinder set at the rear of the jagged cavern went flying as the air roared like the Composer’s own voice, their hooks unable to remain latched under the rush forward and billow back. Chkervthnaakt did his best, through the tremors of excitement and missing limb, to adequately perform the dance needed to express his want. Watching as the masses of bodies reformed to fill the gaps, and mender rushed to the dazed fallen.

“Crafters, see? Crafters, know! It is to be sung, to be recorded! Entrance to the dome must be blocked, to trap the wind!”

“Air is not a solid, it cannot be gripped. Air is a solid, it can be reflected and strike and be channeled. Wrong. Error. Information conflicts.”

“Sound can be bounced. Music, echoed. Foundational concept is questioned. Thinkers will consider implications.” Or, they would, once space was free in the current tasking. A backlog had already formed from the questions, requests, considerations, as theory piled atop practice. Air, like a stream of water, could be redirected when the force behind it was sufficient and site of impact was curved. How? Unknown. Why? Unknown. Unrelated to current work. Accept and continue. “Fuel status?”

“Six bundles consumed. Fourteen remaining.” Pain signals. Death warnings. The rush of air across the crackling bundles of unusable palmidia stalks brought ash and embers into the cavern, but with a flaring roar, a worker’s toss of their bundle into the newly built dome sent flames billowing out. Engulfing, searing, and sending it shrieking from the fiery mouth. Triage importance drew the mender from the dazed drones, treating the flaming sparks upon the menial as the colony would those infernos born of the sky’s lightning back on Kayyhaitch; slapping, striking, and beating the flickering crimson until it was dead.

“Grand invention, yes!? Harness the sky, yes!? Yes! Incredible, innovative, revolutionary! Have removed humanites from the process entirely, now we may burn down our own nests!”

“Delver arrives with hardstone in mere beats! Mistakes, accidents, acceptable. More air! More heat!” Collectively, those on the handles stacked and climbed, the ovoid bag of fibres and canvas inflating from half a length in height to near four. As one, the menials attached to cords and ropes pulled as it reached its fullest swell, forcing back down the sack as air was sent streaming from the nozzle of hollow fungal root affixed to its end. The kindling crackled, the fire grew in the dome of clay and mud they had built, and a line of a hundred workers fanned both heads and sheets of scrapped metal to usher the smoke through winding tunnels, and out of the nest. The fundamentals were the same, the concepts identical to what the Parker-Corporal had demonstrated. To the ideas he had delivered, let spill, all while the thinker had been held in rapture and raptness, those mere bars ago in the chamber which did not exist.

A simple question. Neither particularly interesting, nor relevant, but the Corporal was not a thinker. Jennifer, as well, seated with legs folded and fingers ever dancing across the pad as every move and sound a formite made was recorded for analysis, was hardly a thinker. As ever, when a humanite believed itself in possession of truth, however, it was Jennifer who responded before Chkervthnaakt could respond to the male’s query.

He was no longer bound to the floor; there was no need for it. Seated on his own chair, the male narrowed his gaze upon the Pod, the brightness of her words not reaching him.

“Half correct, Jennifer-thinker.” That, he uttered aloud. ‘As usual’, he kept within the confines of his own mind. “We identified the nature of your vessel, of the Palamedes, rather quickly after being freed from our cells. Metalwork, as you call it, is not foreign to us. We but lack the number of stomachs your own species has access to, innumerable as you are.” He had been satisfied, then, with the shocked look upon the female. A shock he had assumed to be borne of a sufficient cowing of pride.

“Humanites have many strange customs and practices. Conversations with you have guided me to the belief that, regardless of how poor our position amongst the Sovereignty, it remains the best of possible outcomes.” There was a pang of guilt upon the Parker’s features, but the comment was not argued. “Our usefulness made the Empire overlook our innate predilections. I fear had your Coalition found our world, aggression may have been initially avoided, but would they have accepted our cannibalism? Our slavery? Our breeding rites, our desiccation of the young of rival colonies before they could pupate?”

The Pod grew animate. Excited. Her mouth had split wide in a grin. The Coalition Corporal had taken to quiet reflection. Chkervthnaakt could have simply let the thought lay, as the humanites said, but he had felt antennae quivering, even then, in curiosity. In potential.

He’d requisitioned one of Skthveraachk delver’s own melters, though the damned male’s bonded thinker protested heavily. He hadn’t needed to get the queen involved, his priority was weight enough, but both had been sure to remind that any loss of material would hamper greatly the work for which the stomachs were reserved. Some new armor prototype, decorations perhaps; irrelevant. Laden, bloated in gaster but frail in body, it was escorted down to the chamber. Confusion was natural, but the scent of the Corporal and familiarity of the Pod put it well enough at ease as the mold was set out. Clay, now; they had always used hollowed stones in his former colony, but the new innovations were already appearing in all castes and roles. Corporal kept his distance, yet the Pod practically shoved her face into the indents as spitter guards assisted in tipping the spindly and malnourished melter to an angle. The tube shakily extended as, with spasms and clenching, contents of the drone’s stomach began to leak down.

“Several forms of hardstone…metal, if you prefer, are simpler to locate. In the stories of the Silent City, it is told many thousands of stomachs were set to the task of purifying and casting.” Pinkish and orange, the dribbling fluid and goo dripped and slithered into the square, delicately modeled by claw to form a perfectly smooth indented oval. Something which could be set into crest of a ceremonial crown, filled with tasteful pap that would be licked clean even as the hardstone provided soft curves to pleasure and guide the tongue. “Obviously none living who may sing of it have seen such, but it is said even that the entrance to the City is made of pure onyx hardstones, tens of lengths tall and who knows how many lengths thick.”

Small amounts of disgust. Heavy amounts of wonder. Chkervthnaakt had stroked his foreleg across his antennae with earned pride and confirmation.

“Extremely. Melters are selected from those with the most aggressive juices, but even then, they must eat excessive amounts before taking in the hardstone, as they will be unable to feed until the process is concluded.” Wracking, trembling, the hoisted melter vomited and spewed with practiced precision, the fluids never let splatter from the fall to the mold. “Stone, dirt, can be broken down and passed through us. Brownstone, like this, will only soften and reach a near liquid state while in the stomach. It is an excruciating process, difficult, but successful.”

A simple question. It was all the Corporal had ever offered; simple, easy, childish questions. Chkervthnaakt was of the want that, when next the clutches hatched, he would request several uneducated menials to not be fed the jelly, just so they could ask as this humanite did. He had laughed, while the Pod had shot upright.

“Heat? Leaving such in the sun does nothing but make it difficult to hold. Fire is a hazard; it is not permitted to exist near the nests, even if it could somehow be captured as your species births it.”

The Pod had only been hesitant then, fawning still over the metal as the air made more solid and hard the puddle once the melter’s stomach had been emptied. He had not even seized upon the reason why, then, as he ordered strips of palmidia transported to the outer passage, disregarding the curiosity of demanding resources be dumped in the middle of a tunnel. But when the humanite had taken up the debris, used a rock from the floor to hew a channel into one of the stalks, Jennifer’s need for involvement had brought her into a crouch nearby.

Stiffening, there was a snort of dismissal, and the Parker had waved off the interrogative question with standard answer.

th Dracan Garrison, 81-99…”> The humanite had paused. His features, momentarily, cloudy and misted.

”81-992-48-7, Parker-Corporal. Please continue.”

Verbal jab. Ignored. The melter had been escorted back, dazed, to the colony. The spitters, silent, at the tunnel. Chkervthnaakt took in every detail, every motion made, as the male began to rub briskly the end of one stick through the channel built in the other.

His Band did not stutter once at the terminology’s translation.

Though she scowled, the easy smirk the Corporal wore, caught by the outer pair of the thinker’s eyes, mocked more than it judged.

She had looked to him; he had only eyes for the stick, the rapid rubbing, and for the faint trails of smoke that had begun to waft from the end, now building black flakes.

Flickering sparks of red. Alerts and fear from the spitters as the scent and sight of grey and green smoke began to rise out of the stick. Grabbing a bundle of scrap flora, tipping the blackened specks out of the grooved plank’s hollow, ragged humanite had bent low and blown. Sparks became embers. Embers, a blaze. No magic or power unknown, no secret technology or item only the humanites had access to. Sticks. Rocks. And knowledge. That beautiful, powerful word to which he had been born uplifted; superior to all other castes and perhaps even Queen itself. As the spitters had shrieked, and Chkervthnaakt himself had instinctively scampered back from the ignited stick which the Corporal waved over its head mirthfully, he had spurted pap in both fear and bliss. Knowledge. Only knowledge separated them. And it was his role, his duty, his life, to bridge that great gap. He had gotten to work, immediately.

“Delver arrives! Hardstone, placed atop and within the kiln!”

“Skthveraachk thinker, lessen heat, it will scald the delver!”

“Refused!” The Pod had been reserved. The Corporal, not at all. Formites had always used acid. Humanites never had such option. Fire, the male had sung, weakened all. Their beams and lances, only an extreme example. Heat did not just melt shell and chitin and weapon, but softened. Weakened hardstone, weakened rock. The interior of the hastily constructed domed kiln itself was warping under the fire, and they would need practice with thicker methods. “More heat! More fire!”

“Thinker understands need. Thinker understands risk. Trust in thinker.” The delver’s female thinker was always the voice and song of caution, of fear, of calculated steps. Perhaps it was why she made such a coupling with the delver who had seen the Silent City, who knew how far their species had fallen since the days of harmony and oneness. The Pod, set at the back of the room, could have corrected their errors and mistakes with a word. She would not. Her goal was the study of their failings. It was an unsuitable partnership. “Hardstone, within the dome.”

“Delver, withdraw. Soldier, advance. Strike center. Full force!” Supplemental thinkers, enamored, had been adding their own touches to the process. As the delver hurried away once the load of green and orange metals was placed, mined from the planet itself, drones rushed to his side and spewed water from their second stomachs. Dousing the male, as though he too had been burning. Interesting. Consider later. Focus now on the soldier, clutching the plank with rounded stone affixed with sealant and goo to the end, pushing through pain and fear of the roaring flames erupting even not from the top of the dome where metal mesh taken from a fallen tank provided platform for the hardstone. Digging four legs into the clay, raising the tool, and striking down with all the force it could muster. A ringing the likes of which none had heard resonated through the cavern.

“Again!” Clanging force. Brownstone was ever a softer thing, and the purest finds were malleable even when touched by claw. This, though, this hard rock of diluted green, would need be melted in stomachs for tenmeasures to be useful.

“Again!” Striking fury. The sound rung out through cavern and tunnel, the vibrations felt throughout the room. Had the Corporal lied? No, no, it was beyond him now. Not something the thinker could prove, but something he knew within his core. Their goals were aligned. Their purposes, synchronous. Not-lung bellow was compressed, air struck the inferno and sent it leaping up the dome’s inside, and the thinker called and called.

“Again!” Strike. “Again!” Clang. “Again!” Crunch. With powerful blow, rock on stone, a fragment of the brownstone was shattered from the mass. Watching through the soldier’s eyes, he witnessed the dents and impacts on the now less-solid chunk. Breaking. Melting. Outside of any stomach. Outside of any acid. It was proven. It was possible. It was new.

“Success!”

“Celebration!”

“Skthveraachk thinker, momentous! Incredible!”

“Accepted. It is. And I am.” It was not a usual response. For a moment, there was confusion from the collection of higher castes, but Chkervthnaakt was already beyond the experiment. Proven truth. Implications, new, to consider. “Skthveraachk thinker, will you take over here?”

“Thinker does not wish to continue!? Discovery of cycles! Melters may no longer be needed! Entire caste, eliminated, redesignated!”

“Continue testing. Adjust. Consider new possibilities. Success has opened new pathways and notes to my composition, and I must pursue them.” His success. His victory. Let the lesser thinkers play with the results, it mattered not. Most were already chittering through the link to one another, exploring the knowledge. He ignored the curiosity of the female thinker, the surprise and subtle sorrow of the delver at his sudden departure, and the accusatory smells sent wafting his way from the mender, still within the pit. The queen herself sent a congratulatory clacking of mandibles, but he had eyes only for the Pod. And beyond her, deeper, to the source of knowledge which made all things possible.

“Many times, Jennifer.” She turned with him, the smell of her marking bringing those who had gathered along the outer ring of the cavern to spread and part, letting the pair pass. “Have I ever told you how much I would prefer you simply delivering the information needed, as your Coalition foe has done?”

Had she noticed the way his blunted scythe had begun to twitch in its sheathe, reared up to walk upright as the humanites did through the tunnel?

“I presume a ‘fisch’ to be some manner of mass for your species. But the meaning is not literal, is it?” She shook her head behind him, and after a moment’s thought, the thinker gave small clacking of amused antennae. “Not quite a parable, but greater than an idiom. Deliverance of a good provides, but does nothing but build reliance. Tutelage of a skill ensures self-sufficiency. Amusing, that you use this saying to justify the hiding of knowledge.”

There was no reason to inform her. Indeed, there was a strange bliss in remembering he did not need to share, did not need to sing of what he knew, or suspected. But at the same moment, the touch of challenge in the humanite’s voice was unmistakable. Time still available to them as they hurried back towards the private chamber through ever widening tunnels now more trapezoid than triangle. He considered keeping his silence. Until the notion that such would color his music as weak, stupid, occurred to him. And despite the likely future absence of the Pod, he rebelled against the thought of her believing herself his superior.

“I believe there is a force we have not quantified existing within the song.”

“It was the intention, before interruption.” Already, back in the forging cavern, agreement was being reached that some manner of basin would be needed to hold the melted hardstone. “We eat. Mass is taken in, waste expelled, and we become capable of movement. This was simple truth, until it was realized the same is applied to your machinery. Fuel in, power and ability, out. Movement and material are all that is required to give birth to fire, which in turn, consumes kindling, and can be channeled now it seems into manipulation of that which is meant to be solid and untransmutable. Power? Life-force? Energy? Unknown.” Yes. Yes, yes, see how she flinched. How she slowed, how her mouth widened and pad was shaking from how quickly she input her discoveries and realizations. How much could be discerned from the aliens, once it was understood what cues to look for. “But whatever this force, this power, it can be transferred from one thing to another. Living, unliving. How much of your technology, I wonder, is merely the application of focusing this power into outputs you find favorable? Intriguing. And exciting. We are fortunate.”

“The Queen is the colony entire. Her preoccupation is survival. I, however, am capable of regarding this ‘big picture’ you have repeatedly espoused, and find in it many favorable truths in this unfavorable situation. To discover all we have, naturally; how many hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of cycles might it have taken us? How many did it take you?” His jaws clattered as they snapped and opened repeatedly, flecking bits of keratin into the walls. “Your successes teach us, provide us context. We need not slowly crawl from one truth to another, but see instead wide array of possibilities which compliment one another. That it is possible to fly. Possible to dig faster and deeper than any claw, to burn and melt, to speak over distances impossible. Possible. Possible. And we need only discover the rules, the laws, the truths, which make it so. We are fortunate. Our species will serve yours, but beneath, we shall advance to be greater than we ever could have been on our own.” Not just a slave, or some primitive bug from a primitive world. He felt the humanite pause, and turned, radiating with the superiority he felt in that moment. A pride which sunk beneath confusion, as the Jennifer puckered her lips in that way she had of expressing displeasure.

This was not a compliment. This was not a good thing, even as words flattered.

“Again we tread these trails of scent? I had thought the markings to be clear. He provides intelligence, insight into our enemies-“

Careless. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“Jennifer-thinker, I assure and promise you that I would never seek to undermine the limitations you have placed upon our exchanges, circumventing you by seeking answers from this male.” A small euphoria erupted from him at the blatant falsehood, but the fear signals he was putting out overpowered them, regardless of the reassuring smile the Pod gave.

“All science is risk, you have sung so yourself. When there is still so much to be extracted, must we really deliver harm upon this humanite simply out of fear?” He had been careless. Wrapped in a cocoon of learning and research, he had forgotten himself the inquisitive nature of the Pod. Of all humanites. They could be fooled. But they were not stupid. Jennifer-thinker smiled, her green eyes bright in the dark.

She laughed. Chkervthnaakt clapped his antennae, pretending to laugh as well, as she liked. Too soon. He wasn’t ready. Could they ever be ready? Protests prepared to fling from his lungs when the Pod’s pad went active. The front shifting in picture until another humanite could be seen through the translucent back, looking up with frustration.

Jennifer laughed again, and the thinker’s antennae grew sore from how he repeatedly clacked them together in hollow emittance. His mind already churning more furiously than his stomachs, trying to appear as anything but as frantic as he felt.

Even the thinker could parse the jealousy. More than parse; he could empathize.

Smooshing one of her eyes closed, a signal of secret recognition to the thinker, a nod was given to the screen. Only once the screen was deactivated, and quick chuckle was made, did the mood return to its seriousness.

“It is as you say, Jennifer-thinker.” They weren’t ready. But there was no gain in arguing, either. The humanite had spoken, had turned, had already begun to depart. Left alone within the tunnel, a passing menial attempted to soothe and question his distress, reaching to pat and touch on his shell. Chkervthnaakt lashed with blunted scythe, striking and screeching to send the drone scurrying on in confusion, fear, and apologies. It was too soon. Far too soon. He resumed his journey, cursing Composer and their God alike, gaster smacking at the floor to puff out clouds of anger, and of fear, and of confusion, and of-

Of confusion, yes. A triple dosage of confusion, even, as the barely clothed Corporal stood at the entrance to the passageway which did not exist. Unmolested, unstopped, and unnoticed by the few menials scurrying past. The thinker opened the slats of his lungs, trying to breathe, but found himself unable to.

“What are you doing out here, Parker-Corporal?” And upon the hairy alien’s meaty features, a similar confusion was showed back. “Where are your guards?”

“You should not be here, no. Come, we will return to the chamber.” No resistance. No complaint. Guiding, grasper on back, the thinker steered the alien once more through the blackened tunnel, his antennae wild as they touched and felt up the body of the male. “Why did you come?”

He had not been. Back into the secluded cell of a chamber, at first expecting to see the spitters dead, or gone. But they still stood, still watched, still held resolute. Confusion turned to anger, and as the Parker returned to his seat, Chkervthnaakt rounded on the songless ones. Waving his foreleg over his head while singing only with scent and sight.

“Task! Prevent humanite from leaving room! Task failed! Explain!”

“Confusion. Humanite not attempt leave. No humanite in room. No humanite stopped.”

“Humanite present! Humanite, present!” The condemning repetition was lanced forward. Both spitters, now more alarmed than confused as the accusations of failure struck them, waved their antennae and thrust tongues to the air to taste.

“Unclear! No humanite. No humanite present. Task changed?” Feeling the air, the thinker chattered in irritation. The smell of the Parker had perhaps changed, slightly, but the outline was the same, the sounds, no different. Songless spitters were perhaps the wrong choice, always the imbecilic caste of half-silent half-breeds.

“Task unchanged. Task failed. Submit selves to recycling. Send two…” Menials? Composer mute it, what did it matter, menials and soldiers were growing more and more interchangeable. And it was an important task, after all. “Soldiers, from any layer above four.”

“Received. We sing sadness. Are faulty. Broken.”

“Remove self from colony. Do not corrupt our harmony with your failure.” He would need to remain here now, to educate the replacements and guard the male while the others headed for the larders to be reprocessed. Only for the briefest moments, after the guards had gone, did the thinker pause to consider how he was now alone, a single and crippled drone, against smaller but admittedly stronger alien. It was a concern tossed into the sky; the Parker was not designation hostile. Had not been, for a long time. Putting the issue away, he settled before the humanite to begin writing upon the floor, as was their custom, the humanite’s faded expression brightening near instantly as the exchange began.

“HOW MANY FORGES DO THE SOVEREIGNTY USE?”

“MANY. ENTIRE PLANET. MARS. SHIPS, WEAPONS, FUEL.” He was not surprised, if a touch burdened by the confirmation. “MANY SMALLER FACTORIES, MANY WORLDS. BUILDING DEDICATED TO SINGLE PRODUCTION. USE RESOURCES. CREATE WEAPONS.”

“COALITION DOES SAME?” A small amount of hesitation, but with the Pod out of the room, the reluctance was much shorter lived as the alien wiped at the dirt, then replied in writing.

“SIMILAR. COALITION, YOUNGER/NEWER. NO PRODUCTION PLANET. FEWER FACTORIES, BUT MORE RESOURCES. BETTER WEAPONS. BETTER SHIPS.”

“COALITION STRONGER THAN SOVEREIGNTY?”

“DIFFICULT. COALITION WORLDS, NEWER. RICHER. MORE METALS, MORE WATER. SOVEREIGNTY = MANY MORE PEOPLE, NEED MORE RESOURCES TO LIVE.” Every conversation was illumination, every exchange, precious. A sadness filled him, thinking of the precious Parker dissected, disassembled and hidden amongst the skin and bone stores. “COALITION CAN FIGHT LONG. SOVEREIGNTY FIGHT SHORTER. FIGHT GOES TOO LONG, SOVEREIGNTY MUST STOP. COALITION WINS. GOAL.”

“UNSURE. SOVEREIGNTY, NEW WORLD. FORMITE WORLD, NEW/FRESH. MANY BENEFITS? MANY RESOURCES? CHANGES OUTCOME?”

“YES. DANGER. TO COALITION. TO FORMITE.” The fear was real in the Corporal’s eyes. “ALIEN RACE VALUABLE. PLANET, MORE VALUABLE. SPACE = LARGE, FULL OF METAL. BUT METAL = FAR. MOON. MINI-MOON. AS-TER-OID. COLLECT, RETURN, HARVEST.” The thinker struggled to imagine, but broke it down into smaller parts. Reserves, like on Kayyhaitch; places where biomass was allowed to grow, prosper, and be harvested. Similar concept, but applied instead to rocks, metals, whatever else the aliens used to create their society. Great distances between their nests, planets, and sites of value. “SLOW. MORE PEOPLE = MORE NEED. BIGGER MILITARY = MORE NEED. PLANET = BEST SOURCE. RICH PLANET, MUCH BENEFIT.”

“SOVEREIGNTY USE FORMITE, EXTRACT METAL-BIOMASS. FORMITE NECESSARY.”

“FORMITE IDEAL. PROBABLY WANTED. NOT NECESSARY. PREFERRED. CHOICE BETWEEN RESOURCE OR FORMITE, SOVEREIGNTY CHOOSE RESOURCE. WARNING.” Too valuable. Too precious. There was a want in the Parker’s eyes, now, a want that had only grown the more jelly the humanite had been fed. Chkervthnaakt had at first been skeptical. But now? It was not like the slaves Chkervthnaakt-Colony had taken, not the same binding sameness. He had to be careful, he had to be clever, but bit by bit, dedication had been fostered. Perhaps the male’s memory was not what it once was, his movements more lethargic and slower, but side effects were inevitable. As though to confirm more to himself than reinforce the idea in the other, Chkervthnaakt pleasantly ground his mandibles, his claw sliding through the dirt smoothly.

“IF SOVEREIGNTY HURT ON FORMITE WORLD, SOVEREIGNTY HURT ON ALL WORLDS. PARKER-CORPORAL CONTINUES TEACHING? PARKER-CORPORAL GIVES FORMITES KNOWLEDGE OF HOW TO HURT HUMANITES?”

“YES. WILL TEACH HOW TO HURT SOVEREIGNTY.”

“GOOD.” Too soon, too soon, too soon; the words repeated and repeated through the thinker’s mind, his body trembling with anticipation and trepidation all. It was unavoidable. It was necessary. It was unfathomably risky, but he had been clever. He had been careful, even through his mistakes. He had arranged, prepared, and planned for tenmeasures. It would be a loss, for certain, a sad end to potential gain, but frenzied or not, his role was the aid of the colony. Of the species. And if the cost was but a single humanite life, no matter how helpful that humanite had been, then it was a cost he would pay willingly. The humanite would die.

He patted and helpfully ran his antennae across the Parker’s head as the formite rose, briefly frozen in terror as his Band began to ping, but as vibrations filled the colony and alerts sounded that the aliens all throughout the Caldera had begun to shout, to celebrate, his worries of discovery vanished. Replaced, instead, by the Pod’s eager and boisterous voice directly through the translator.

“Jennifer-thinker, what is-“

The nest shook as the news fell upon them, and with forlorn look to the blissfully unaware Coalition soldier still gazing upwards expectantly, the thinker chittered as the sounds filled him.