The Captain, the newly named Hathan, had provided needless reminder to appear surprised when she met with the Herald. Was it deception? Without a doubt; she was not surprised when the Aadarsh warmly repeated, paraphrased, what he had just been overheard sharing with the other humanite. Deception was a foundational aspect to the alien’s communication, their conflicts, their comradery, and she focused on manually hardening and rattling her hairs when the Queen was told she would be divorced from the war effort. On clapping her antennae together in emitted pleasured laughter when he made a joke. But, was it falsehood? Was she lying?

“You are certain the Coalition is crushed on this world?”

Skthveraachk nodded as though she understood, hearing again the strange turn of phrase for ‘certainty’.

“Then I shall go where I am bid, and follow where the Sovereignty Queen leads. That I am beckoned back to my world is a joy which will ring in memories past and future.”

Stood about the opposing side of the boards, the desk, the object meant to both provide utility and demonstrate authority, the Herald turned to gaze out the elongated windows. This was not what had been discussed with the Hathan. Or, had it been implicit? Not said to her. Not a lie.

“I have seen the images from your worlds. I have seen the technologies, the peoples, here on Dracan. I have been aided with texts and stories from your histories, studied the lessons therein. You have promised much to my people, and have not as of yet failed to deliver.”

He spoke the word slow, for her translator and Band to pick meaning from.

“Our species are not so unfamiliar that I am incapable of identifying imbalanced priorities within the colony, be that a true colony or colony of one.” Her music was kept light and conversational. The Queen hid the alarm at the sudden turn in topic, the potential danger. “I am certain the Hathan did not hold anger over such. I have felt, at times, similar.”

“My respect for this decision and request,” It was not meant to be a request. The Queen knew that. But, thanks to the Hathan, she knew now too the goal behind this move. And if her pleasure was their priority, the power was not in their scythes. “Is without scent of dissent. The Earth is your home. The Sovereignty is now my home, as well. But Kayyhaitch is the world of my birth. I fight for my people, and for my species; if you desire me to reaffirm the reasons for my involvement in this conflict, please, return me to them.” Her silvery limbs were folded tightly, her reared stance letting her antennae scrape the ceiling when they moved too briskly. All were crunched ever closer her form as the Aadarsh turned to her. The scope of her vision allowing her to catch the edge of displeasure on his face before it was masked by a smile.

“In time. And as the wonders of the Empire spread to my own world, I foresee many formites making pilgrimage to these distant stars. But I have been at war for near a cycle, now. Leaving Dracan, only to visit these new fields, is not what is needed. Not what is wanted. Not what would please my colony in its learning.” She thought, perhaps, it would be too obvious. Thankful, then, when whatever flicker of suspicion the Herald may have had was quickly smothered beneath those beaming features.

“Among the soldiers? The citizens?” Surprise was flowing in her tone. “We were told to avoid them, when possible, in Guir. Their music, though reserved, was thick with fear when we marched the streets.”

His arm swept out, back to the elevated window overlooking that great central walk now gleaming only with the banners and images of the conquerors. The thinkers would begin to call for her replacement if she was not willing.

“Unfettered access. Oversight, but no halting nor dissuasion of experience or questions?” Longing for home had existed since arriving on the planet. This, though, was too valuable to pass over. Longing had been tolerated for hundredmeasures; it could be tolerated for not even tens more. “The Hathan, and others, to be permitted joining in these activities?”

Gifts. Offerings. Things which would have perhaps at once been denied, now given freely in exchange for her loyalty. The Queen bowed, consenting, and the Herald tipped his head in response. Yet, as the trailing ends of his song stuck with her, and for once knowing the strength of her position in their exchange, Skthveraachk clicked mandibles twice together.

“With finality in my music and great humility at the benevolence portrayed here, there is one other request I would make…”

It had not taken long for her to return to her attendants, and Hathan, waiting outside. For the command to be passed through link and comms, alien and formite, and to be met with the same surprise, trepidation and yet trembling excitement. It had taken only slightly longer for the Herald, the Hathan, and for soldiers usually reticent to offer their listings and suggestions. Thinkers broke down assignments, dispatched the Banded across the city, marshalled the colony into clusters; from but one or two, to tens upon tens of bodies. Suites of false-light. The rooftop gardens. Places of challenge, of cooperation, to watch or to engage. The Hathan had at first tried to convince Skthveraachk Queen herself to join him within the chambers of a great pillar of a nest, at a place where the memories of old were played out in confined booths and on screens, and humanites followed the ancient music in recitation and song. As with almost all the locales of the city, however, it was quickly realized that the spaces meant for humanites did not accommodate one such as the Queen’s own form. That, and the power had yet to be returned to the particular habitation nest. Though she had been forced to journey up, halfway up the near sixty-layered construction reaching into the sky by elevator usually regulated to materials and cargo and waste, it had been an opened balcony Skthveraachk had settled upon. Suspended, thirty, forty lengths above the ground, overlooking a smaller plateau of greenery and artificial groundwork the aliens had constructed on the roof of another blocky pillar. Seated, as best the Queen was able, on bodies of her children while the Hathan in his blued uniform reclined easily in a fitting chair, and Solovyova in a hunched lean stabbed a finger towards the Queen.

Ambers did not so much as twitch at the shout, nor at the male’s laugh which followed as they kept to the corners of the exterior room. Despite the numerous tables and stands, the richly colored front from behind which strange and exotic scents emanated, the place of sustenance and rest had been scarcely populated even before their arrival. When Queen had emerged, and harsh word from one of the Sentinel ambers had silenced a shriek of surprise from a female humanite, the other occupants had almost all quickly drifted and vanished into halls and passages. Only two of the tens of tables remaining filled, and one was with unarmored but uniformed black-clad soldiers.

“Die here?” Skthveraachk ran her claws across her shell, unconsciously feeling still for areas of chitin softer than others. It always felt so different after a molt, so fragile. Her question, too, seeing the Solovyova drop her weight and folding arms back into the creaking chair which, fitting the Captain, seemed too small for the Colonel. “I have listened as you have sung. Know, that this was your home before the war. With the Prescott.”

There was no hesitance in the gripping made for her flask of sustaining liquids.

“As have I. And I know the pain it has caused me. What it may have caused you, and would cause you.” Hathan looked to her, a sideways kind of regard. The Queen merely chittered as the mandibles of her attendants nibbled and clicked along her legs, easing their tension. “The only pain I know to be greater than being taken from your home, would be the pain in being forced to fight those once of your voice.” There was no reply, no vocal agreement. Only the pause taken in unsealing the lid of the cylinder, the downward scowl into its contents.

“It is only breathtaking to your kind, I find the air on your worlds equally thin. Kayyhaitch is perfection for us.” Colonel snorted. Hathan-Captain, twisting his lips up, tapped fingers against the surface of the rounded table, and a breeze from the opened balcony as a pair of wyverns raced by fluttered the edges of his outer shell.

“Curse your dialects.” Replaying the word on the translator with antennae as graspers pulled out her tap-pad, the Band thrummed as it restated possible interpretations. “Every second word of your…’tongue’,” She used the secondary meaning. “Carries with it a note entirely disparate from its core semblance. Group them together, and there is yet another meaning all together. Little wonder your species flakes from the cohesive mass; none of you likely understand what the other is saying half the time.”

Her hairs had gone rigid in alarm, and the assurance from Solovyova, crude as Skthveraachk was gathering it to be, allowed her at least a breath of relief while the Colonel took a quick drink.

Skthveraachk tapped antennae softly together, listening, the atmosphere easy and the words flowing free. The gap in conversation, the first true break, brought about a female of the species from behind front of the display. While her smile was fixed and statuesque as Queen’s own shell, the cast of her eyes and careful positioning kept her shadowed from Skthveraachk’s regard.

Hathan smiled, with teeth, to reassure. It did not seem to work.

Hathan-Captain made a noise within the hollow of his skull, and the Solovyova grunted back with a shake of her flask.

“Water will be sufficient.”

“There is no reason to burden. The colony will taste and experience much these next few measures; I will learn then what is safest for my individual consumption.” A fragment of the truth. The second, was that these were not her kind. Defeated forces would be either consumed, enslaved or brought into the harmony immediately, but for a humanite? Their colors may have changed, but that fear was ever present. They did not trust her. She did not trust them.

The Captain called after the woman who, after the Queen’s order, was hurried in her retreat and shivering motion. Neither humanite seemed to notice.

“It is, surprising, how quickly activity returns to this place. The battle was but measures ago, yet Guir was still recovering when we left following the conflict.”

The Queen took a look through observer’s eyes out onto roofs, the walkways, the sounds of moving transports on rails between buildings. The link, unable to be formed by touch, maintained by network of elevated drones as they waved and danced in response.

“You think as a humanite thinks and see as one sees, Solovyova-Corporal.” Feeling the breeze again upon her shell, reading down on the extended pad as it began to pull up contents of her tomes and research, a request was made and relayed, and while she focused half of herself upon the exchange, the other was animated and pushed to its limits, information flooding. “I am missing nothing. Nothing at all.”

“Queen seeks confirmation.”

“Send confirmation. Queen seeks update?”

“No. Will compile data later.”

“Good.” The four thinkers were already taxed to their limits, and Skthveraachk rubbed claws over his skull to soothe the strained antennae thereon. “Possible mistake made in such branching focus. How many chambers are filled?”

“Six. Humanites claimed insufficient power to operate more at current time.” It was a strange formation, a central circular cavern suspended tens of lengths above the ground. The humanites, rather than burrow their nests beneath ground, had elected to grow them ever taller from the ground up. Rudimentary mapping had established the city, Tarasque, to be little more complicated than a grid of squares in perfect spacing, and the excited reports from the menials who had even now taken up occupation of the rail-transports which whizzed and rushed between the structures at great speeds indicated all such buildings could be reached without ever stepping foot to the true ground of the planet. This great shrine, this temple to the memories, had been an easy selection for many of the thinkers, and all four of them huddled now in its central reception, the linked bodies leading from each segmented viewing hollow tapping madly on their backs. “Should we reduce intake to four simultaneous viewings?”

“Refused. List of selected stories approved for us was twenty-two. Reducing intake to four, at one and eight-tenths bars each, will not allow us to record each before the fade and torpor.”

“Should have requested more Bands.”

“Make note. Continue transcribing.” No other humanites had been allowed entry, though besides the ambers, a few menials could be seen rushing between opened access points. Just to be sure nothing was overlooked, Skthveraachk sent a drone nearer to listen for new developments.

Disregarded. Unimportant. Skthveraachk thinker and Skthveraachk thinker both were handling the first three, and Skthveraachk thinker returned his fullest attention to the latter trio. It was an incredible display, of how beings impossibly leapt from side to side of the room, suspended in the air by false-light yet so believable it was near thought possible to touch them. Data and language, the tales and morals of legends like “The Star which Fell”, “Serene Warrior” and “Serene Warrior the Second of Retribution”, committed first to memory and then to the threads the weavers desperately pulled from their bodies. Twenty-two stories from the humanite’s histories and retellings; they would have much work ahead. Singing suddenly erupted from the second hollow, briefly jarring the communication.

“Issue?”

“Humanite music. Song within their story. Menials find fascinating, are attempting to recreate.”

“Enthralling. Context?”

“Excavation of hardstone being undertaken by humanite…humanoid, creatures.” The thinker, in a moment of overpowering curiosity, departed just for a moment from his own tasking and images of fiery eruptions, watching instead the seven squat and strangely colored figures. Their tools striking at cavern walls as their bizarre intonations and shrill tunes from puckered lips filled the tunnels. Raising forelegs, the menials watching matched their swaying to the strange beat, trying to copy the noises. “Rhythmic, if bizarre.”

“Humanite fascination with tunneling, despite living above-ground? Curious.”

“Tune holds appeal.”

“Will recreate later. Continue recording.”

“Received.” Six stories completed. Sixteen remained. Much work. Much work ahead.

“Queen seeks confirmation.

“Send confirmation.”

“Soldier cautioned. Role is not oversight.”

“Received. Apologies.” The soothing patter of the female menial riding atop him dulled the briefest moment of anger, its reminder duly given. He was used to leading on the battlefield, but this was not a battlefield. A dedication to former battlefields, a tribute to the alien warriors of old. Thinkers wandered the halls and limitless tunnels, touched what they could and smelled what they were forbidden to touch. Screens, displaying the light-lies and falsehoods which sung truth, loomed over all or were condensed into smallest squares his own claws could barely touch. When he had requested a Band, he knew the Queen would not deny him; birthing males often received favor above others. And when he had joined the thinkers in their expedition to the Temples, like those of the Remembering back on Kayyhaitch, it had been with sole purpose. Purpose, now, he bid the female atop him assist in while the specialist castes throughout echoing and silent structure poked at screens to bring up messages, pictures, and recitations. “Skthveraachk menial-warrior. My graspers are not suited for fine work.”

“You are not suited for fine work. Move slower if we advance, or retreat. Nearly broke window.”

“Humanite spaces insufficient for travel. Very suitable for combat. Could execute every alien present in this location before they escaped.” Perhaps not the Ambers, armed as they were. But the positioned figures elsewhere, guiding the thinkers to or away from displays and touching pads seemed not even suited to be menials. A collective trilling went up from the formites as a screen the size of a wall lit up with a shelless and bared female riding a rivetted stone across the water, and Skthveraachk soldier turned away in disinterest. “Input information as I sing.”

“Received.”

“Humanite. Strong. Warrior.” Annoyed thinker preoccupied with the tasting of alien biomass received the request, and helped translate as the menial input the sigils to give his notes meaning. No information returned. “Remove humanite. Use…’human’.” Bringing, then, only a vast and exceedingly long list in response. “Disregard. Try, human. Warrior. Many kills.” Fewer names, then. Suggestions listed as ‘killers’, with numbers in the hundreds. Utterly forgotten, upon seeing names with numbers in the millions. “Refine. Human. Leaders. Kills.”

“Frightening! Humanites have possessed so many warriors? How can single colony kill a million other colonies, this Queen of Poles and Pots?”

“Replace. Follow previous signs. Input, G-E-N-G-H-I-S-K-H-A-N.” Images. Still. Moving. Weapons of metal and hardstone, the hosts of creatures flowing live rivers black on grassy fields. Though soundless, the screaming faces and slowly crawling text going still too quickly for otherwise occupied thinker to fully translate, recounting the deeds and triumphs the soldier could only imagine in his most vivid of torpor-dreams. But beneath the wonderous carnage, and the listings of tactics and histories held, there was a shape which drew him. Forms, powerful and grand and lethal, savage and yet beautiful in their deadly motion.

“Skthveraachk soldier? We continue?”

“Disregard. Remove all previous.” His scythes extended slow and sunk back into sheaths. A trembling enticement rippling in both of his stomachs. “Input new term. Use, ‘horse’. Search.”

“Queen seeks confirmation.”

“Does not trust us with individual decision, or has she already grown bored with humanite company?” Skthveraachk scout flexed and relaxed his hairs, pushing out and back on the canvas shell wrapped around his body, keeping reared as he walked so as to not drop or let slide away the lance slung around his abdomen. “Sending confirmation. Anything further?”

“No.” Requesting observer, settled on a platform twenty lengths above the ground, flashed another quick series of waves before turning its request to the next group. Skthveraachk breathed deep as he could, taking in the smells, the strange pungent odors which coated the thinned spaces between towering structures. Natural, and unnatural, each slosh of a puddle mixing with the smell of metal on the single amber which followed them, and the salty excretions falling from Bram’s brow.

Stock and upright, Vish marched with a mixture of neutrality and focused regard. Snapping head towards each sound made even as the roar of another passing transport above them rattled walls and bones.

“I was pleased to return the favor shown by invitation to the Poking Game. My request for your presence was welcomed, as I am pleased to see you have welcomed mine.”

The female who’s name was not Shiv, but who did not answer to any title but, trailed at the end of the group. The only one who seemed unbothered by the amber accompanying. Vish was pretending to be unbothered, and Bram was not pretending at all.

“Others were assigned the walkways, and I do not find interest in the idea of humanites, already clumsy in their movements, attempting to dance while simultaneously removing their shells. I am scout. My role is to search new areas.” A furred creature, like the one the scout had once caught on the outskirts of Guir, darted out across the shaded path. Skthveraachk tried to leap upon it, but it was gone through the grating of a passage before he had chance to seize the thing. “It was told there was nothing of interest or value in these places, that almost none walked them. Such is perfect.”

“This location is lit differently. It serves an alternate purpose?” Lighted display, scrolling from bottom to top, displayed letters the scout would need thinker to translate. Unlike the grates, gates, passages into the bases of structures around, there was a sense of polish to the front as the scout came to a halt, and when a shrill emittance sounded from Shiv’s lips, he knew the observation to be correct.

“Explain this term.” Perhaps he was imagining, or more accurately misinterpreting, but the unfamiliar word almost seemed to cause a physical discomfort in the amber, who came to a halt a distance further than usual from the others. “This is a role?”

Shiv supplied.

Information rapidly stacked, and as the slats of his vents clacked and spun, and seeing the visible distress, Bram was quick to intercede before Vish could continue.

Bones under flesh knocked upon the nearest wall.

Turning on Vish, Brom gestured back at the still scrolling sign.

A quick scan of the amber Sentinel confirmed it had made no motion to halt them thus far. And so, as the trio sought cohesion, the scout instead reached for the entrance. Tapping, scraping, trying to trigger the access point to no avail. Such brought quick end to the discussion.

Entrance bleeped happily. The previously red pad, turned green, and hissing bringing access as barrier slid away. If the aromas outside were strange, those within were of an unmistakable wonder. Warnings slowed his pace; eager curiosity of his role ensured it was only slowness, and not a full stop. Dipping inside, only distantly aware of how the three carefully followed, Skthveraachk found himself surrounded by devices both recognized and not. Ornaments without purpose, decorative, mixed on elevated platforms amidst old helmets, cracked tins the soldiers used for their biomass, and cups inscribed with unsymmetrical and winding patterns. And at the end of it all, in baggy shell of exuberant purple rather than the blacks of almost all citizens seen, the humanite shape leant back easily, unafraid.

Shaking his head, the drawings and designs which coated the alien’s features warped along with the skin.

The air was signed.

Skthveraachk had already taken up a flattened textile, marvelling at the sensation of it under his graspers. It tickled, like a field of soft grasses. Clattering chinking brought the scout whirling about so fast that his gaster knocked aside one of the stands. Shiv, with a thrust, caught the teetered thing before the strange cannister upon it could topple, but the humanite Verger merely continued to let fall the miniature colored disks from his side to the countertop.

Skthveraachk followed the humanite’s gaze, and touching upon his lance, removed it for the Verger’s inspection. An inspection the alien was eager to undertake.

“You are not of the Coalition. You are of the Sovereignty. You are not an enemy. Yes.” Satisfied, the scout continued. “We are forbidden most of your tools and lances. Coalition weapons are locked to us, and you. Spears, are useful.” Indicating the sharpened tip, antenna then traced to the upper tube. “And when gazed through, this device enhances greatly my sight. It has proved invaluable support.”

Layers upon layers the strange humanite wore, and all ruffled as it stood, departed, and returned with case. Letting lay and open, to reveal the dully colored and unflatteringly opaque lance within. Shiv’s laughter from behind rocked the standing objects.

Horking noises made again, the formite listened. The formite heard. But the formite drew ever nearer.

“And I cannot part with the stabbing tip of this lance. Nor the viewing tube.” Rubbing graspers over the surface, he hissed an instinctive warning as the humanite drew nearer, but was ignored as the alien instead began to press at the top and end of the weapon. Clicks both felt and heard as the tube and scythelike end were removed, only to be fixed upon the more ancient device with only a moments alteration. The scout felt aglow at the realization, and when the baggy form gestured again, there was no sense of regret as the useless device amidst groans of his fellows was passed over. The new tool held up, stroked, and prodded.

Yipping screech could be heard for tenlengths around as the sudden crack of energy sent beam into the ceiling, and the laughter and cries of concern which followed echoed down the lengths between buildings.

Skthveraachk Queen had not meant to jerk at the noise, the brief shock felt through the link. It was impulsive, a scant tenthlength’s tightening of her forelegs. It was enough to cause the female, who had just arrived, to fling herself back in alarm, and the splash of bowl’s contents across the Queen’s core was followed by swearing irritation as Solovyova pushed back, the white and opaque fluid filling her own glass dumped into the crease between the alien’s legs.

The Colonel’s shout brought moments smirk to the Captain, but such mirth was lost quickly. Skthveraachk had not looked in focus to the Solovyova, and had lurched better upright as hisses of warning and annoyance came from attendants now licking briskly at the puddle of fluid and sucking droplets from the Queen’s body. The female had fallen. Had balled herself. And as wetness began to bloom from her eyes, tapping feet rushed from the counter as a larger, still shaking female wrapped arm around the alien. Gazing upward, mouth aghast, bowing head repeatedly.

Hathan’s jaw was set, though it was not anger. The Queen had not felt any to begin with; now, she could only shake in response. Curled body, protected by another. A formite towering above. Scythes wet, ready to strike down, under the gaze of the shattered statue at town’s center, the streets red and slick and running and memory upon memory not from any thinker, but Queen’s own eyes, filling her. Breathe. Suffocating. Breathe. Smell the metal in the air. Breathe. She lowered her forelegs. The humanites, huddled, flinched and drew back. Tri-pronged grasper opened, offered, and was left in the opened air. She had done what she must, nothing more. It was not her music. It was not her core. Her voice would have screamed to another formite. Under the Band, the emittance was soft and level.

“Apology is not required. No harm has been done. My music seeks to be of peace, and my presence of serenity.” They did not dare touch her. She did not dare touch them. Solovyova, realizing, turned her scowl to darker shades and calls to mutters of discontent as she wiped at her leggings. And Hathan, with his ever knowing closeness, had instead focused on waving away the Sentinels who had already sought to begin advancing. “We are all children of the same Queen, now. We are all of Emperor and Empire. No harm will befall you, for my role is your protection. Harmony, now, until the end of song.” Translation was, likely, not perfect. And as the smaller, still shaking and sobbing, was helped up by the larger, neither accepted her offered limb. Not until they had fled in every meaning of the word but physical to the safety of the counter behind did the Queen replace her foreleg across her core, bidding the attendants finishing with her cleaning to right the bowl back on the table.

“It is good, Hathan-Captain. Your kind builds knowledge as much upon lies as truths. If they knew what I had done, what you had done, be it in the name of their security or no, would they dare even approach?” He had no answer. Neither did the Solovyova. The memory of the statue’s stare downward faded, but never vanished. “I believe I have ruined, unintentionally, the spirit of this gathering.”

Hathan did not add a note, but picking up his own drink, downed the hazel fluid to the half before uttering a coughing, exhaled, sighing laugh.

“Thank you for the notice. I will indulge in the meantime.” Bowl clutched in her graspers, she moved back to allow one of the drones to position itself, vomiting the contents of its second stomach into the receptacle. It had been many cycles since the Queen had fed from trough, but she was not one to insult the customs of the aliens, or their exchanges. As Hathan coughed again, and one of the ambers pointedly averted its gaze when her tube extended and began to suck up the frothing bubbles of deposited mass, it was Solovyova who gave strained laugh and clenched sniff in response.