The singer had dug his spurs into the orbed chair, the Band not registering the questions which roared from his body. Khchechteeyh tentatively curled forward, the expressions ranging from pride to abhorrence on the aliens gathered making fragile her song.

“We, are not to be formites any longer? We are to become as you?”

The styled dishware clinked as the Dame set it down, hard.

“Humanites perpetually believe themselves solely capable of advanced thought.” Skthveraachk’s thinkers were still processing, but conclusions were already being drawn, offered to both alien and familiar kin. “Obfuscating simple truths into unfitting words. Citizen of the Sovereignty: loyalty only to the empire, adherence to Sovereignty law and creeds, act only to its benefit, refuse all faiths but in the Emperor, serve until death. As if this differs significantly from what we currently are.”

The Herald’s aide paused to drink from his glass, and the Hathan too, previously keeping his stillness, had seized from the table one of the receptacles to fill with a fluid hurriedly poured down his throat.

“Meaningless.” The singer did not use the Band, digging clawmarks into his seat. “All of it. What use is a species capable of singing untruth in ever second note? Emperor lies to his entire colony, and these thinker castes cover it up.”

“Untruth to humanites is relative.” Ghllencheechlak, rolling mandibles repeatedly over one another, thrummed slow response. The singer did not harmonize.

“Truth is truth. Lie is lie.”

“To us. Sky can only be sky, yellow only yellow. Our language is direct. Singular. Humanites offer one note, and claim it contains six different meanings.”

“Emperor did not lie.” Skthveraachk felt her hairs bristle, briefly. “Formites approached for aid? Truth. Formites are fractured people? Truth. The Skthehrnaatch represents our people? False, but not lie.”

“Impossible contradiction.”

“Implication.” So quickly did Ghllencheechlak unify beneath the communal understanding. “Skthveraachk-Colony sings of humanite need for unity, the same as formite. Humanite Queen says representative of our kind sought aid. This is untrue? Humanite Queen says they were misled, that communication was still uncertain. Sing that our people were used, decieved? Humanites defend our ways too different, misunderstandings inevitable. Truths, simply omitting their entirety.”

“Such is power your stupidity has granted them, Skthehrnaatch Queen.” Skthveraachk glowered with angled frame at her sibling. “Justification was required. You eagerly provided. Now truth is whatever they require it to be.”

“Stupidity? Dismissed.” The wounded Queen had recovered from trauma and shock with alacrity. Remaining beneath its humanite’s hand, but no longer silent when called on. “Coming of the star-sent silenced the discord. Birthed the Founders. They come again. You rage against inevitability, contort around it. I wail great sadness for you. Serving eagerly brings elevation, as we have been elevated. If resistance is impossible, obedience is the only logic. I have ensured their freedom to alter us? Good. May it bring us unity.”

“If supplication to superior will is only unity you seek, you should have given your colony to the first invader setting leg into your lands, lushlander.” The Queenless spat a globule of pus from its abdomen to the flooring, the nearby sentinels trying and failing to hide disgust.

“Found no colony deserving of obedience until now. We will be citizen star-sent. Now others will obey us.”

“We cannot sing untruth.” Despite hesitance, the waifish red Queen again sought clarity amidst the confusion. “But you admit to us falsehoods. Wrongness. You do not fear we will share this?”

Superiority. Not smugness, not quite, but a surety came from the aide which faltered, briefly, the Khchechteeyh.

Cleaned, at least visually, of Aphoma’s expulsion, the male of the Second House seemed to at last jolt into animation.

Khchechteeyh had gone completely silent, the regard of the Aide not so much as twitching her hairs. It was Skthveraachk now who felt her legs itching from the inside as the Aide turned on her, a closed smile stretching his flesh.

“We have learned that upon knowing the full extent of one’s self, and knowing the full truth of one’s enemy, there need be no fear in the result of a hundred battles. Adopting your tactics was a necessity for victory.” The Detlaff was a mixture of unhappy and uncertain, the Aide keeping fresh that frozen smile. It was a small gout of tingling laughter from the Celeste which ended the held stare of both, her hand removing from her pet Queen.

Mistake? Impropriety? Queen hurried on the focus of her armed soldiers to the Hathan so she herself needed not look from the Aide, worry that she had erred filling her.

Back straight, the human did not dither in his directness.

Huffing out, the portly alien preached with thump of its balled fist against the table. For the first time, a soft glow of sympathy was cradled within Skthveraachk, watching the singer again excrete droplets of malcontent at its humanite’s outburst. If the Aide had intended to further delve the subject, such desire was lost as a grasper swatted the air.

Skthveraachk got the sense it would not just be Queens who would be silenced in such a case. A flashing of her gaster to the air was made twice in shudder. The others had caught the subtext, the bassline chords as well, and did not contend. Pads were tapped. Motions from the Aide lowered lights on the deck somewhat, though each rise the Queen found herself more used to the harsh shine, and rather than emitters of false-light, the screens previously showing the starry sky swapped to those of terrain. The flat of the world, which the Aide turned in his seat to watch and direct along with all those present.

Sand. Incredible swathes of it. Past what could only be the terrestrial bridge, linking the greater landmass to the wilds of the Queenless Colonies, the area was highlighted and numbered. The Queenless singer let out a small breath, relief upon its crest and core. Its home. Fear suddenly took Skthveraachk’s heart. A realization, seeing the breadth of the lands for the first time, that her assignment could be a world away from all she had known. The strip which lit itself stretched from near the most alto reaches down to the edge of the land bridge, following the faderise coast for tens of thousands of lengths. The mountains, the valleys; she quickly tried to identify the landmarks from the stories, to place her own former lands and colony. Efforts were lost as the map suddenly enlarged, moving across the breadth of the continent to the furthest alto reaches.

Facial vent scrunched, but surprisingly, Khchechteeyh gently fanned her antennae towards the male to garner his attention.

“Peace, valued Walter. The cold prohibits life beyond the line, and so do the colonies there cluster tightly to enjoy the protection the border brings. Nests thrive in multitudes beneath the surface. Your talents will be of utmost use.” What was more surprising? That the shy red sought to soothe, or that the alien truly seemed to accept the explanation. Indicating no further complaints, the Aide scrolled the map back. The central green of the valleys and forests, the temple-laden coastline of the risefade, the indented bay where the first of cities had been erected.

“Protest uttered!” Skthveraachk had only thought it. Her sibling was the one to sing it, vocalize, as the smaller female shot up onto four legs, nearly blocking view of the Celeste. “Honored aide to more honored Herald, it was sung that the realms of the Triumvirate and Remembrance were to be given to me, my efforts and service to your kind rewarded!”

“What mockery is this noise? Rewarded? Given?” The vaulted ceilings of the subterranean city, the paths of set stone ground smooth beneath the claws of a million pilgrims each cycle. Skthveraachk pictured the Aphoma strutting into the hall before the daises of the three thrones, and near shattered her antennae in laughter. “You? The Triumverate are tenthlengths beneath the Founders, perhaps a single length beneath the Composer. They do not grant audience; they do not give allegiance nor favor. You, crawl before them and demand obedience?”

“I was promised!” Skthveraachk’s jeering hilarity only incensed the other Queen, the very tips of her scythes emerging from thick folded sheathes. “Deal was struck, accord reached! My nest,”

“Nest! In the singular!”

“My nest! It lies within this fourth district, adheres to the Triumverate’s doctrines! You cannot-“

Better suited! Her laughter was wild, frantic. Oh, yes, she was indeed going home. Where was Hollowcore? Down in that sopra range of mountains in the colored lines, an area of her planet that was home to hundreds, hundreds of nests? This was not Tarasque, this was a thousand Tarasques at once! Better suited! th.”> A square the quarter the size of Skthveraachk’s own. Weep in voice for the yet tens of nests such area contained all the same, to be heralded into the future by this weakling.

“It…” Gaster shook and shuddered. Frame of the lesser leant forward. The Aphoma’s humanite did not make single motion, neither to aid nor restrain, golden eyes seeming to grow and shrink their colored band. Looking through the formite, directly into Skthveraachk. “Is, accepted. Of course. I follow whatever Sovereignty decrees.”

Her laughter slowed. Began to fade away like the light of the rise. That could not be it. That could not, truly, be all of it. The Aphoma was unhappy, but the other Queens would not have traded places with Skthveraachk even for a place directly aside the Composer’s stand in the choir. That could not be all of it. Hathan, his posture as he rose from his seat and smiled to her in an effort of support broadcasting ignorance of what had just transpired, solidified her fears. Sentinels were herding them to the doors. As though injected once more with the alien’s numbing medications, a drifting though was to protest. To educate. To shout at the madness of it. It would not help, indeed it would only weaken her role. Crown raised. Soldiers, ordered and ranked. Her drones provided vanguard, her body brought up the rear, the other Queens nestled in between with the Aphoma in dead center, furthest from either end of Skthveraachk’s being. No celebrations, no cries of relief. The burden was weighted on each of them, and none could help the sag which came to limbs, four legs or six. They descended the ramp from the dimmed observation deck, together. Moving without any speed for the rows upon rows of tables, empty of usual occupants, and the five black bodies of waiting attendants to the Herald, stone-carved smiles upon their imperfectly perfect features.

“I will prepare what assistance I can, Skthveraachk Queen.” Ghllencheechlak mingled his aroma with that of the vessel, sharing in the alliance of purpose. “I am unsure of how you wish to proceed, but my humanite was quite certain already of my area of control. I intend to utilize the aliens’ technology to impress upon our kind the value of cooperation. Once the route is secure, perhaps such can bring aid to you as well.”

“Gifts and trinkets, baubles to them, revolutionizing magic to us.” Queenless signed from ahead in the column, his voice made muffled by the awkwardness of translating thrice over through the array of disparate colonies. “Purchase and trade your loyalties for luxuries. My own star-sent sings that their kind possess great powers capable of making verdant even the most barren landscape. For whatever an alien’s truth is worth.”

“It is truth.” Skthveraachk’s song was hollow as her mandibles. “I have seen it. Machines and buildings pouring forth smoke. It is a power they use on many planets, to make them liveable.”

“So says he. Boastful. That they were building better worlds even before the Empire arose. While we are denied their advanced technologies, he offered research into the old ‘companies’ which pursued the task.”

“It would be beautiful thing. To turn the deserts into lands like those in the alto.”

“I need no such assistance or offerings!” Skthehrnaatch thrust her core high, despite the pain it obviously caused. Staying on four legs, like all but the Queenless had adopted in their walk. “Reliance upon these others betrays your unsuitability, Skthveraachk Queen. I will unify my district long before yours, and show better aptness. They will enlarge my territory.”

“You sing as though you have been gifted nests from on high. You are overseer. You are but the vassal of greater colony.” Ghllencheechlak may have had the energy to debate the fool, but Skthveraachk did not. The thing would be devoured by its own colony long before it had the wherewithal to listen.

“The star-sent are glorious utilitarians. They are only for results. When such are provided, they will not care for how it is achieved. The weight you all carry is mockery. We will be the strongest colonies upon Kayyhaitch.”

“It will not matter when all are united once again.”

“It will in the deciding of whom to unite beneath.” Passionate displeasure was thrown back and forth between the trio, so that when a scraping brush came to Skthveraachk’s side, she at first assumed it must be of her own drones relaying another message. To look aside, and see the red Queen Khchechteeyh herself having drifted from the column to infringe in the larger’s space offput even one who had fought tanks with claws. Sharing in her scent, soldiers only noticed the intrusion as Skthveraachk did, but their instinctive closing to protect the Queen was halted as the more frail female enacted submitting bobs, using touch to eliminate any misconception or mistranslation.

“Humanites permit us contact through screens and devices. You will be added to network, I am certain.”

“My humanite has already exchanged with me a pad. It is not sufficient for nuanced communication.”

“But it is what we have and must use.” To be comforted, at least in part, by the lesser was an oddity. Khchechteeyh, perhaps sensing the unease, chittered while her scentcrafters combed their hairs with an aroma of damp soil and missed home. “I request songs and memories from Dracan, of my drone within your colony. We have lived with humanites for near cycle now, but you have lived as them. Not they amongst us, but you amongst them. If you would teach, we would learn.”

“Debt has not been forgotten. When time is found, our memories shall be exchanged, for the benefit of us both.”

“For the benefit of us all.” The adjustment to her notes was small, but significant. And though the reared Queen came only to Skthveraachk’s scythe joints, it was the greater who angled head down, not the other who gazed up. “Ghllencheechlak-Colony remained neutral, until your presence. Queenless entered room as hostile, left as impartial. You wear crest of fallen Queen. Felled allomyrite. You combat the star-sent with music and scythe both.”

“I do what is necessary. For our people. For our species.” Embarrassment at the smell of affection began to fill her. Fortunate, that the smaller Queen seemed not to notice.

“It is heard. It is accepted. It is thanked. Hesitant was my Colony in this congregation. Alliance meaningless over such distances between us, yet. May we find commonality in cause.” Curious. Consideration. The Queen shared a touch of legs, Khchechteeyh splitting to her own thinkers just as the tables were reached. Five humanites, five formites. Naturally did each drift away, their varying entourages encircling or positioning near. Skthveraachk sought some manner of recognition in the suited alien, but it was to their kind as replaceable as her own menials. Bearing a single rectangle of skin, or hide, which was laid before her.

“Accepted?” Stood, but craning to see, the offered item was sought to be inspected. Only for the humanite to quickly hover a hand above it, blocking the reach of a drone’s tongue.

Her silence sung ‘proceed’.

“Skthveraachk Queen will be given protections and authority of the Sovereignty. Skthveraachk thinker, or Skthveraachk queen, or Skthveraachk drone, will not.” Expected stupidity, but still beneficial. There was no dissent in the colony; protection for the Queen was protection for the collective. Humanites being unable to fire upon her or utilize the painrock implant was an unmitigated benefit.

“Rules cannot govern what cannot be enforced. You have methods of observing dreams and minds?” The humanite stretched its face, shone its teeth. It was not a smile, for there was no more emotion there than in a carving, or act.

“Received.” It was a strange material. The drone’s tongue had retracted, but the humanite made no effort to stop the Queen as she carefully ran a blunted grasper along the surface. Feeling the thin sheet crinkle and lift.

The Queen was looked over.

“We share in something similar. Jelly and sealant is used in conjunction with scent-markers appropriate to-“

The false smile had not so much as twitched. It was less infuriating than it was simply unnerving. Cylinder. Like those used for pads, sometimes. The Queen kept focus on the humanite as it demonstrated how to drag and use the thing, but her attention was truly through the eyes of her thinkers. Watching as, from the ramp, the representatives of the Houses and others exited the previously sealed room. Only the male of holiness attempting to make conversation, largely ignored as the other three made their way down. Four, total, besides the amber guards. Not five. The Hathan was missing. Realization had no sooner struck than her Band activated, vibrating in ways only formites would register.

The Aide. The Hathan. Her colony was wild with preparations, military and social, arguing and debating and processing that which the Queen could not yet address, but all gave a pause as the music reached first one, then the next, and the next. Threat. Potential risk. Foolish humanite, again he chanced at discovery!

Her own humanite, its importance now critically low. The white sheets flipped, turned, tens passing before arriving at a final chunk of symbols. An emptied space and line left at the base. A small square, barely raised above the leaflike peelings themselves, was indicated. The cylinder rattled in her graspers, awkwardly clutched in the three prongs. Intent was obvious. Incredibly obvious. But it was as the humanite said, the words ‘signature of applicant’ above the space. ‘Consents to all contained stipulations, agreements and terms within’ above that. ‘Possessed of free will and under no duress’, even higher. The drawing stick was laid aside. The unfabric sheets, flipped back. Suited humanite lowered a hand, shaking its hairy crest.

“Remove your digits or be parted from them.” Not even a twitch in its face as hand shot back. Could humanites paint smiles on their people, or was it a matter of moulding it out of meat? The Band continued to rattle as the Queen returned to the first in the leafsheets, reading of the first section. Of the abdication of all previously claimed ranks, titles, or office.

The Aide’s tone was musing. The Hathan must have showed unfamiliarity. The second sheet. The third. Each turn finding the cylinder in her graspers distorting greater and deeper as her grip hardened.

Laughter made the Queen jerk, and the humanite stood patiently nearby again tried to reach for the white squares.

“Section seven. ‘No citizen may hold claim to any territory, land, or allotment of any planet, or non-planetary construct made of materials from, any celestial body or object gathered within the systems claimed by the Imperial Sovereignty of Earth’.” Victory. Rapturous joy. For just a breath, the smile on the alien waned by tenthlengths. “In my understanding, Kayyhaitch is a planet. In my understanding, the system of Kayyhaitch belongs to the Sovereignty. In my understanding, I am agreeing that any nests I make, or have made, are not my nests.”

The suited blackness looked around, and Skthveraachk too realized that they were alone. Not wholly alone, no, the other attendants waited with their own black squares, concluded and marked, while the representatives and their formites had long since departed.

“As stated next. That ‘No citizen may possess mineral or organic wealth taken from territory claimed by the Imperial Sovereignty.’ I fear I recognize not some of these names, but, gold. Copper. Hardstones, it seems. That any such metals would need be turned over to the Sovereignty, and not utilized.”

“So my nests are not my nests, my mass is not my mass, my stone is not my stone, and my voice may only be utilized if it sings in accordance with your wills. Tell me, is the air in my lungs at least something I may keep, or can it be repossessed at will?” She had intended it to be a barb. The hesitation, the lack of an immediate refusal, was anything but comforting.

Vibrations of footsteps in time with the sounds of padding over the Band. Leaving her stilled and listening.

The tool in Skthveraachk’s grasper flew from it as though it were aflame. Attendant, staring without comprehension, showed no signs of knowledge as the Queen quickly scuttled back from the table, knocking over a bench in her wake of momentary panic. Eyes all around her scanned the surrounding, checking to see if the Aide had moved while legs flattened to the floor to feel for his breathing. Still within the observation deck. Except now, the Hathan’s heartbeat nearby had nearly tripled its speed.

Breath. Breath. Breath. Beat. Silence with only her own pounding core and the droning of the ship to assuage her. Some part of the colony had ordered soldiers in the hanger to prepare for combat, the threat leveled at the Queen enough to suggest potential engagement. She did not command them to ease.

Skthveraachk was gone in the first syllable, crumpled leafsheets still in her claw as the attendant shouted a protest from behind. Sixty strides saw her up the ramp. Another four to bring her inside. Moisture dotted the Hathan’s brow, like how he responded when in combat. The Aide, back to the pair, was looking out at screens once more showing the stars of her world’s sky, the fleet of ships in formation behind, below, before and beyond them. Guidance. Her soldiers and drones flooded in behind her, catching up.

“Direct us.”

“Defensive screen.”

“Received.”

“Around the Hathan. Not me.” She pulled herself alongside the male, so she could benefit partially from the arrangement of her drones as well, but her folded scythes angled to halfway block the man’s body. Feeling the air around him pump in time to his heart.

Words which were understood, but assembled to meaninglessness for the Queen, while the one called Berndsen tapped the side of his skull’s socket. The Hathan, at least, knew what was sung.

No sentinels. No guards. If it came to it, the single humanite could be taken before any call for help was made. She knew so. Then, he knew so. Then, he knew it made no difference. Even if he himself pulled forth a lance, what would action serve but to prolong the Hathan’s life a few more beats? Bars? Before teams arrived, before reinforcements were landed, before another ship entirely fired upon them? How many would die for a few bars of time? Unknown number of humanites. Thirty-six thousand, nine-hundred and twelve formites, exactly.

Slow. Deliberate. In music and motion both, in the way the aide returned to the desk. Sat at its center, within the cleared deck. It was a struggle to calm her chords and chorales to the same calmness.

“It is not preferred, but will be tolerated. The name. This, agreement. No.” It balled, the unfabric like leafsheets ripping along their centers. “I do not like it.”

So simple.

“This was what.” Raised in claw, the sheets were shook, but it was more than them. The room. The stalk-still Hathan. “You knew I would not tolerate the Aphoma. Knew none who could comprehend this rot would accept it.”

No. No, the Queen did not like that name from his lips.

“Every colony believes their methods are superior. Their interpretations of the memories, correct. Their application of the lessons, best suited.”

She searched the memories. There was no result. Her mandibles gnashed, once, and the Berndsen exhaled through its facial vents.

“I saw little but force on Dracan. You label them frenzied, execute and burn any who dissent.”

Taking up the neglected glass, it was tipped forward, indicative.

“Obedience at the end of a lance.”

“There was not a choice! Death, or defiance and then death. Death, or a death which might earn relief for others.”

Her scythes unconsciously began to extend. Do not. She desired it, craved it even, but the chant was repeated throughout the colony. Irrational. Frenzied. Do not. Do not. Fingers tapped. Her jaws were tight enough to crack.

“You insist at having cured rebellion while embroiled in rebellion. That you have solved dissent while calling on me to fight dissenters.”

“I have heard similar before, from Herald Aadarsh, even from the Hathan. The benefits you would bring, the good, the true. The only cost in the exchange being the loss of everything we once cared for, everything which guides us-“

“Peace. Unity.” The Hathan was steadying, and his growing return to proper colors allowed the Queen some tolerance for the Aide.

“We are…cultivators.” The word fit. “We farm. We grow. We nurture and reproduce and spread.”

Thinkers tabulated. Weighed. Objectified and processed the exchange before the male had chance to finish.

“Five hundred million voices silenced, the other five hundred million secure. Regrowth without interference would take approximately ten generations. Ten cycles to erase the harm for limitless gain. Yes. That would be acceptable trade.” Something shifted in the way Hathan stood aside her. She snapped her mandibles closed, the question a passing nonsense. “But you cannot promise this. None can.”

Setting his now emptied drink back down, there was a distance in the Berndsen’s shining eyes.

“They cannot be taught to surrender all that makes us what we are, Aide Berndson, even for that. Even if the freedoms I have enjoyed were to be applied to all, not all would accept.” Scythes retracted, the Queen sought to force out the notes to make herself heard. “There would need to be compromises, acceptance of our ways, our voices. The memories are what we are, the stories and songs guide us. Some can be surrendered, some could be forgiven, but not all.”

Leant back in seat, the subject was at odds with the visual ease. Eyes flickered.

Fists balled, the Hathan did not otherwise twitch in the surrounding cover of her children. Berndsen merely wafted a hand.

Fingers crossing once more, the Aide set his final sights on Skthveraachk. Queen, and colony. Glass clinked. Displays hummed. Smile was shone. Captain, and Skthveraachk, bowed shallowly.