It would live. Fortunately, unfortunately, those were labels to be applied later. For now, it was enough to be assured by the humanite corpse-men that they had stabilized the verger’s injuries. No amount of mockery and jeering laughter from the Solovyova was considered sufficient. No quantity of reprimands and chiding from the Hathan, once he had been informed of her activities, would satisfy the male. The next measure had been spent suffering both, and focusing the wholeness of Skthveraachk’s energies into assisting the raiders in their departure. To distract from humanites, and humanite wants and humanite things. The exchange had been peaceful thus far, and even now, as the Queen stood beneath the caverns within now far more silent nest, the approach of one of the Kh’a’jhick’jhick singers provoked no more than a cordial warning from her attendants and guardians. A polite shake of hairs, informing of a readiness to silence the interloper, but no desire to do so.

“The last of my siblings are departing. I have been directed to sing praise and appreciation for the assistance your colony has rendered.”

“To send you away without your stores of biomass would be akin to killing you ourselves. Violation of our agreement.” Emptying the chambers beneath where the corpses of prey, from natural beasts to slain formites, had been an arduous undertaking. Harder, still, to help them corral and remove the plethora of beasts the queenless ones had gathered and brought to the lands. Skthveraachk stood beside one of the oldest, and thus most lethargic, of the curculites still remaining. A lopsided curved shell filled with sweet sap before it, in which its curved snout rigidly and stubbornly sat as the Queen felt over its soft, pliable shell with her antennae. “And it has been, pleasant, to see how you tend your creatures. The methods you employ.”

“We had hoped to see more of your own. Surprising, how you struggle in bringing them so far, yet rely on them for so little.”

“It is their way.” Triangular feet flapped on the stone as the curculite shook itself, gibbering in momentary alarm as though only now realizing how surrounded it was. The singer reached out, tickled its graspers on the hairs sagging from the orbed creature’s stomach, and quickly it was back in its own world. Sugary sap and a warm cavern, its only concerns. “What do you believe they think of?”

“Think? The songless? They do not think. They are beasts.”

“They shiver when they are cold. Coo, when they are hungry. They prefer certain actions, dislike others. What must they think of your colony?” Tapping a soothing rhythm into the creature’s back, the Queen slowly knit her mandibles. “These beings who feed them, guide them, direct them, use them.”

“If they think at all, it is that they are pleased to be alive. Safe. Cared for by superior entities, living longer, better, than any of their kin in the wilds.”

“A small life, then.”

“A good life.” The singer stepped back as a pair of pale drones approached, rapidly scratching their legs to emit a vibrating pulse that brought the hairs of the curculite rigid. It scrabbled as they drove it with sound, ignoring its confused whistling while guiding it from the room. “To live, eat, reproduce and die old. What more could lesser beings wish for?”

“What more could a formite desire for their colony?”

“The two are not comparable. We were sung into being for a purpose. To make green this world, to cultivate and grow and nurture the other species. Or have you lushlanders forgotten, surrounded as you are by the fruits of ancient labors?”

“No.” The curculite faded away in sound and scent, lost amidst the fading trails from the drones which led it. “No, Skthveraachk-Colony does not forget purpose. Does not forget duty, to people, and to world.” The cavern was empty, now. Only rivulets of mass and water left flowing through trenches no longer supped on, pools of nectar there were none left to drink. The singer and she turned together, him humming intent to join the final departing clusters, her murmuring a desire to see the work finished. “Will you return? To the sopra deserts?”

“No. The isthmus is barred to us, if not in the physical world, then by the intangible one.”

“I do not comprehend. You are driven from your home?”

“Our home is lost. We cannot be sent from a place which no longer exists.” Their claws rung out each hollow step through the mound, the spiral ramped ascent twisting them to walk on walls rather than floors. “The desert grows cold in voice. The colonies, no longer singing of the Composer. They say a new being has come. A new God, to sit alongside the Composer as the celestial choir changes. They say the queenless colonies must leave the old ways, as we did once before. We will not.” The snap of the singer’s jaws was tight, of a quiet resolve. “We will find lands untouched by the new. Where we will continue our role, and grow lush the soil under the Composer’s gaze.”

“This, new God.” She felt her vents dry, felt the weight of her body as their spurs hooked into the walls together. “What is it called?”

“Confusion? You sung of it yourself. We heard the call made, when our soldiers met with yours.” Rotating his head, the singer gazed back down the now nearly vertical passageway. “’Emperor’, they call him. The light where the Composer is sound.”

“Not a God.” Her music was straight, sure, and forceful. “Not like the Composer. He breathes, he walks, he can be seen by eye and heard on shell. Powerful. Perhaps unstoppable. But not a God.”

“If he has touched these lands, we will not stay. We will go faderise, further across the plains and away from the mountains. To places even older than the deserts. We will work there, and sing to the Composer in peace.” A sadness touched her heart as they emerged both into the great rounded passage through the nest, through the mountains themselves. It should have been dark, but light poured in from either end. From holes carved at angles in the rock above, so shafts of light could pierce in and illuminate the names of a thousand colonies. The images of their Queens, of their daughters and sons, the patches of silk or occasional broken crest tucked into the designs, talismans and waystones left by beings who had been silent a hundred cycles before Skthveraachk Queen was born.

“There may be no place left untouched by him, soon.”

“So sing the queenless colonies who already chant praises to the new dawn. To the Blessed Light which shines from the island called ‘Errth’. But the world is vast. They cannot cover all of it.”

“I hope it is so.” It would not be. Hope was a mercy, knowledge and truth, cruelty. There was no reason to be cruel. They would learn, eventually. “Avoid the coastline, if you can. My vassal-colony holds sway there, and interlopers are not permitted. His own…creatures,” Skthveraachk tapped back towards the mountain roads. “Like mine, brook no interference. The situation now allows me to permit you life. Interfere past where the amber hills slope low, where the scolopendrites nest in tidal pools, and you will find no such kindness. They will kill you.” He sung comprehension, but the Queen snapped one of her legs forward. Seizing the male, forcing his stillness, and his fullness of regard even as a surprised chatter slipped his hairs. “They will kill you. Your entire colony. Do not tempt their wrath, and never give them reason to do you harm.”

“Your vassal? No. You sing of your songless.” He shook. Both to free himself, and with a restrained fear the male managed to control before it spurt from his abdomen. “They are not songless. Are they. They are what the colonies whisper has come. Ancient foe. Webs in darkness.”

“Star-sent. Yes.” She felt the ripple pass through her, the music made not of her own colony, but the other. A few of their observers had remained on cliffs above her encampment. As one, now, they withdrew in a rush. Scurrying into the tunnels, and past the Queen’s own force. “Not the same as the Mother and her children. They do not consume. But they change. And what they cannot change, they eradicate. Leave them be, and they will treat you the same.” For a time. How long? None could know. Light at last overtook them as they emerged from the opposite side of the valley. The grey spires and sloping hills, rapidly fading away into the lands beneath. An endless field, forests and plains, stretched as far as the eye could see. A world of flatness, of beauty, and of a holy calm. Amidst the rows of pale formites, carrying their mass and filled with water for the journey, the singer clambered up onto an unoccupied curculite, as how many others rode their own, or sat in balls stretched over larger horned beasts.

“Your words are dark, but better to receive them now than be skewered by them later.”

“Your colony is strong. I will offer hymns, that the Composer sees fit to grant you respite from the trials he has placed before you.”

“Isthmus unbarred, Skthveraachk Queen.” His legs curled around the curculite’s end, his gaster tucked up beneath its underside while mandibles gently pressed atop its head. He was to depart. Prepared, to depart. But as the last cluster of the raiders began their descent, the ripple again passed through them. Arrived, in resonance, at the singer. The message received, he halted, only so long enough to turn his antennae on the Queen, and tap them atop her crest. “You are not of Cktahnckleevhen. If you seek to free this passage, you must seek to travel through it.”

“To the alto.” They had revealed their own plans. The Queen, truthfully, offered her own. “To the Triumvirate. The world is changing, and they must be told. They must be prepared.”

“They sing that the world changes only here, in the sopra valleys and deserts and nests. Beyond those carrying the Founder’s legacy, they sing instead that it is ending. The lands of the Triumvirate may still be safe, but we hear the music of many colonies fleeing the lands further alto.” Only two districts lay in that direction, above the wide expanse of Skthveraachk’s own. She could not fathom the caution the singer recited, but saw in his eyes and hairs the emphatic truth of it. “Beware the mountains on the far side of the plains. There is no music there any longer. Only a voice, demanding adherence, or annihilation.” His antennae withdrew. With a chitter, and a smack of his gaster on the curculite’s end, the singer clung tightly as the jittery creature flapped its feet in scuttling speed, skittering off to join the rest of the departing force. They stretched in a great white like down the gentler slopes, down into the trees and the curving paths vanishing beneath. Leaving the Queen, and her children alone once more. Alone, save for the ever-present pings on her visor and Band.

“Confirmed, Colonel Solovyova.”

“It is. Cktahncklaavhen comes as she is called, though doubtful that she comes herself.” The murals truly were beautiful. Crude, yes, compared to her memories of the halls of the Remembering and let alone to those created by the humanites. But she could smell the anticipation in a young male queenling as he made the journey for the first time, on the small wadded ball of sealant and silk he had left in one of the crevices. The fatigued gladness of a Queen a hundred cycles her elder, knowing the war would likely make this her final journey, on the fragment of shell that had been shaped into a miniature crest. Memories. History. Preserved, all around her. Perhaps she could bring Hathan here? The male did appreciate art, after all, even if he lacked the senses to understand. “The force. What is its size?”

“I suggest a reorientation of the column. That you bring your vehicles and troops further up the mountain, to the front of the nest. Elevation will allow for a greater intimidating effect.”

“That we are aiding them does not make them allies. But I do not foresee combat, if that is your concern. I have been practicing your methods with greater and greater efficacy. I am, excited, to learn if my preparation in this has been adequate.”

“My plans do not fail, Colonel Solovyova. You should know this by now.”

“The same as it did on the first battlefield we joined, Colonel. Only, of a greater scale.” Running her claw down the looming wall, the slow movement of the shafts of light pointed her back towards the valley. It was banter, posturing. A few thousand soldiers of her own, a few thousand opponents. She was a Queen of tens, of near hundreds of thousands now. Skthveraachk had no desire to even imagine what the appearance of the entirety of her available forces mobilized to one task would now look like. Equally, no desire to lose even these few she had brought with her. The criticality of her role was hummed all around her as she left the tunnel, the chill of the funneled peaks and clouded sun once more piercing her shell. There was little warmth to be found in either movement, or in the descent, and every few steps the Queen found herself scanning eyes across the terrain, searching for a shadow that walked. Without success. Expectedly. She traveled past humanites and positioned soldiers both, until she reached the very base of the column. Scratches and gouges visible on the brownstone armor and thinner shields the warriors carried, from their encounter with the tunneling lumbrites.

“Bivouac. Two layers.”

“Received.”

“Direct untasked thinkers, crafters, menders, scentcrafters, attendants and scouts to the interior.” The crafter was redundancy. There was abjectly no need of it on such an operation. But as a policy, she’d started ensuring at least one was present no matter where she went. It was never certain where a new piece of humanite technology would emerge, and sometimes there was only breaths to examine and see comprehension in the devices. The crafter sung receipt of the order. Having long since finished recording the image of the AV lance’s interior it had examined following the verger’s duel to one of the thinkers, now only assisting in the tasks of menials. “Defensive screen around bivouac. Loose.” She wanted it secure. Imposing, but secure. Something that sung and stunk of self-assuredness, an aroma she bid the scentcrafters work in to the aromas they let fill the interior of the growing mesh of bodies. Legs and claws locked, the living structure was ready long before the first Cktahncklaavhen scouts met with Skthveraachk’s rear observers. Before the detachment the Queen had sent rejoined the column, only two of their number lost in the journey, to and fro. The other colony had sent a thinker, and Skthveraachk bid it join her within the bivouac. Her own presence, assuaging whatever distant doubts the other colony might have for its own safety. The heavy, synchronized march of claws continued to reverberate up the mountainside as the thinker crawled herself within, folding her unsheathed scythes.

“Skthveraachk-Colony. May none ever dare to doubt the power of your resolve.”

“Cktahncklaavhen-Colony. May the wisdom in this shared victory overshadow any individual glory.”

“Your messengers were received. Their injuries, tended to.” Apologies came to the Queen from the rejoined drones, their path having run afoul of scavengers at the site of the raider’s defeat.

“I sing warm thanks. That Cktahncklaavhen-Colony without hesitation my children bodes well for this exchange. Compassion to allies. An extolled virtue.”

“Initial worries of confusion, put away. We see so many of your colony survived the battle unscathed. It is as you have sung? Claws-On-Slopes is ours again?”

“The invaders have been dispatched.” Truth. “Claws-On-Slopes is mine.” Bobbing her head, Skthveraachk fanned the scents of her authority forward. “Yours, when you sing confirmation of our agreement.”

“There is no argument nor challenge. When Skthveraachk-Colony returns Claws-On-Slope to us, never again shall they be forced to deliver tribute for passage. Forever, until the death of song, shall Cktahncklaavhen-Colony remember the service performed by newest of friends and allies.”

“It is accepted, and Skthveraachk-Colony anticipates many long seasons and cycles of cooperation.” A beat. An inhale. A preparation, in body and mind. The Queen let her head drift back, her raised body on a throne of her children slowly turning to allow her attendants their calming taps on her core. “But Cktahncklaavhen-Colony is mistaken. A small mistake, accident, in the memory of thinker and Queen. Our agreement, to never again charge for passage.” The thinker, her antennae twitching while soldiers began to enter and link with her, twisted skull sideways. “Not for Skthveraachk-Colony. Or Ckhehnvraahll-Colony, or Hhehnstaachlk or Shlthvelhneekch or any. No longer will the passage alto be barred. Such is our agreement.”

“Unacceptable. Unmistakable! This was not our agreement!” Rearing up the alarm spurted by the thinker was matched by the angered temperament now flooding from her. “Queen has frenzied!”

“Freedom.” Thinkers brought the notes sung back to the fore of her mind, her voice adopting the exact volume and tempo it had held in the lesser colony’s nest. “To travel the pass without tax or payment. Agreement, that Cktahnckleevhen-Colony will no longer demand tribute for its usage.”

“For Skthveraachk-Colony, and Skthveraachk Queen alone! The understanding was obvious!”

“The understanding was…” Her claws, curled, relaxed and tightened twice over. “Implied. That Cktahnckleevhen-Colony mistook our intent is regrettable, but I assure you. In cooperating with my colony, and those that have sworn vassalage to me, the loss of this former resource will be replaced with only grander opportunities.”

“Frenzied! Duplicitous! Deliberate misleading of pure intent and agreement! Refused! Restated, refused!” The soldiers around the thinker began to rattle, their scythes growing long. The entire bivouac shook in warning, and though the Queen’s scythes remained sheathed, more then eighty others grew long in their place.

“Agreement was sworn. Fairly accepted. Skthveraachk-Colony has recovered your nest. If you will not sing acceptance of arrangement, it is you who are frenzied. We need not return Claws-On-Slopes if you do not intend to fulfill your role.”

“Your actions are not those of unifier! They are of crawling darkness and treachery! Cktahnckleevhen-Colony will take Claws-On-Slope from you!”

“We are of six thousand and more.”

“We are of eight and then some! And you are trapped, surrounded, elevated on this mountain! We will call our other nests, we will bring further reinforcements-!”

“Such is wise. A force half our size held this nest, and you will struggle to dislodge us from it. But I invite you to try. For as long as you remain here, the army entering your lands from the sopra moves unchallenged.” Ever calm, the Queen let her mandibles clack slowly together. “Raids have left your nests neglected and weak. My children will start with your outer most biomass nests, and proceed to your breeding nests last.”

“Impossibility.” Frenzied, sung Cktahnckleevhen-Colony. But even they could not deny the surety with which Skthveraachk sung. The scents of absolute truth filling the air around them. “Your messengers only just arrived. No other Skthveraachk drones were spotted. Would take four, five measures to gather and march another army on our borders, even if commands were to be sent this breath.”

“Commands were sent the moment I left your Queen’s chambers.” She could almost smell the blood thickening and slowing within the thinker, the calculations the other colony was running leading them to the same inevitable conclusion Skthveraachk had drawn measures ago. “I had hoped they would be unnecessary, but I feared you would hesitate in fulfilling your role in our arrangement. Had hoped we could part here as friends, but feared you would require encouragement. I sing sadness my fears were louder than my hopes.”

“Impossibility. Things that should not be.” The thinker clung to the old. Skthveraachk had already used mercy this measure. She had little left for those seeking to obstruct her purpose. Placing a claw against her band, the Queen ensured the sound would travel throughout the bivouac as she let her chorus grow.

“Skthveraachk Queen Magistrate, Palamedes. Connect me to a Banded within my force at grid, C4-55-88.” The pad hidden behind her body and controlled by menial provided the data. The visor across her eyes provided the sight. And as the Band crackled receipt, she heard the song of a thinker, amidst the cacophony of voices joined to it. “Location?”

“We wait at Cktahnckleevhen-Colony’s borders, as instructed.”

“Prepare advance. Invasion and nest seizure. Arrange column ten wide, assign raiding clusters to advance one hundred lengths ahead of main force.”

“Impossible! Impossible! Impossible!” The thinker was practically weeping, the soldiers around it searching in vain for the method, messenger, whatever was allowing the Queen to communicate instantaneously over such distance. “Trickery! Frenzy! This cannot be!”

“It is. Your Queen sung that majority of your defenses waited at her sopra border, guarding against incursion. Skthveraachk thinker, advance along border until defenders are located. Attack and destroy. Once consumed, proceed to nearest nests. Will dispatch reinforcements now, arrival in two measures. Eight thousand soldiers suitable?” Letting her eyes burn into the thinker, the Queen’s scythes did not so much as twitch in their sheathes. “Ten thousand?”

“Cease!”

“Twelve?”

“Cease, Skthveraachk Queen! Agreement accepted! No more tribute demanded, from any colony! Queen will agree, Queen must agree!”

“Skthveraachk Queen Magistrate.” Creaking forward, her shell contorting to fit the turning posture, Skthveraachk tapped her Band again. “Stand by for orders, Skthveraachk thinker. I am Skthveraachk Queen Magistrate of Skthveraachk-Colony, of Kayyhaitch’s 4th District, and of the Imperial Sovereignty of Earth. Our deal has been reneged upon by you, and now, we establish a new agreement. Your nest will be returned, for Skthveraachk upholds our pledges even as you break yours. But eight-hundred Skthveraachk soldiers will remain with your menials, to provide protection of this vital passage. Then, all the soldiers you have brought, and us together, thinker, will return to your Queen. To discuss our new understanding, our persisting friendship, and your inclusion to the growing alliance of colonies. Rejoice, thinker, rejoice for Cktahnckleevhen.” Warnings were sent to Solovyova, assurances as well as suggestions that her humanite soldiers be more guarded as they returned to Hollowcore. “Together, as sworn, the shared victory this measure will be but the first of our cooperation. Our new unity. Prepare your forces for departure. We must share this news with your Queen.”

The thinker relaxed only when the Queen made a show of calling her second army to rest. Not about to withdraw them, no, but they had served purpose. It would be challenge for even an established, unbloodied colony to fight forces both within and without their borders. Impossibility, for a Queen that had so brazenly advertised her troop movements and plans. Regret, that they could not have met as friends. Preferable, to be both loved and feared. But when forced to choose between them, the humanites knew there was only one safe choice. The march back to Cktahnckleevhen’s breeding nest took all of another measure and bars of the next rise, but the negotiations upon reaching the colony were as brief as they were fruitful. When Skthveraachk called for wyverns to secure her and the more elevated castes of the column, and found herself in short order stepping back out onto familiar pads of springy black texture, her first song was to the thinkers charged with her military oversight.

“Forces return from expedition. Cktahnckleevhen accepts rulership of Skthveraachk. Prepare to receive twenty-one thousand soldier caste. Scent, incorporate into colony, disperse amongst other forces, and dispatch protection to new borders.”

“Received. Queen is welcomed home.”

“Queen is glad to be home.” Reports in an endless stream flowed to her, but under the warm sun and far gentler breeze than she had known in measures, it was almost relaxing to once again be queried from so many directions. Simple issues, supply issues, resource shortages and a need for oversight on new construction projects. The weight of the past measures fell from her as though a humanite’s uniform, the darkness in her mind held at bay as a pair of Ckhehnvraahll’s menders rushed to join her entourage. Checking the Queen repeatedly for new injuries, and uttering joyful relief when not a scratch was found. Her bonded sent affectionate, though not distracting, touches through her children, and the attendants of Skthveraachk kept always close to the weightier female happily obliged the pattering caresses their Queen directed be delivered. But she could not relax too greatly in it. The warnings of the raiders sat troubled upon her, as did the walking shadow. Both needed address. Both required intervention of the aliens. “Locate Captain Devries.”

“Waiting for Queen on thirty-third layer.”

“Waiting?” Surprise shook her soft hairs. “How long? What purpose?”

“Less than a bar. Requested Queen be notified upon her arrival.”

“Then why was Queen not notified!”

“Queen is notified.” Clamping her mandibles, reprimands were made throughout the link. The thinker, who had assigned the Captain’s request so low a priority, viciously rebuked. Riding the elevator down two layers, and hurrying in her cluster of bodies to the seated figure on one of the many placed benches that had become common on the upper layers. Respite, for their workers and soldiers both, without any guardians or amber sentinels present.

“Hathan-Captain!” His attention was immediate. His rise, quick, and almost relieved. He likely did not even see her mandibles fly wide, hear the near inaudible screech she emitted in shock. Smiling a smile that was right and perfect, on a face that was now anything but.

“What has happened to you?!” She tried not to interrupt. Tried to be patient. But her eyes could not leave him, her confusion upsetting and rattling all the drones within lengths of her. His smile barely twitched, his own confusion apparent.

“Your eyes, Hathan-Captain!” The smile, perfect. The face, the same. But gone were the infinitely pooled blues, like ocean and sky. Gone. Stolen. Replaced, instead, by the cold golden hues of Arbiter and Herald. “They have taken your eyes!”

He was worried. She was worrying him. Force the breathing, direct the drones to slap her core until her heartrate was stable. His laugh was shaky, not timid, but almost embarrassed.

“Necessary? That it be…so, yellow?”

Gold turned red. Red became hazel. Green, azure, black and gold again. Unsettling did not even begin to describe it. Pad beneath his arm, the male flexed a gloved hand.

“To frighten your enemies?”

“Important. I understand. This is a good thing. You have been recognized for your contributions, and I am gladdened for such.”

Ah, this is what the Lieutenant had meant. Skthveraachk tried to force her voice back into pleasant humming.

“A brief startlement, nothing more.”

“It will take some adjusting to.”

“Your eyes were beautiful because they were your own, Hathan-Captain.” His lids closed and slid open again. Her hairs, rattling, remained soft. Only when his silence lengthened, and the thinkers recited back what she had said, did Skthveraachk feel her vents flapping in her exhales, and her gaster beat down against the ground. “Band confused my intent.” Lie. For a greater purpose, acceptable, excusable. His face was pulled at a strange angle, and there was an unpleasant redness just at the base of his neck. Composer take her shell. “Captain’s blue colors were appealing. More appealing than gold. Opinion rendered. Received?”

“Yes!” Lower your volume, fool! Be glad distraction was offered! “Yes, concerns. Worries. Fears? No, but, there is something strange happening in the alto. If not in one of the other districts, then near enough that they should be aware of it.”

“Trouble? No, the Hathan should not concern himself.” Steadier. More controlled once again. Tasting his air with her antennae, the Queen bobbed her head. “New territory was secured. Attacking colony, driven away. More additions to the district. Peacefully acquired, as Captain Hathan prefers.”

“Colony was shown the benefits of Sovereignty loyalty.” Skthveraachk kept her voice pleasant, forcing the memory of how Cktahnckleevhen had begged, at last, for reprieve. How she had thanked with hate and sorrow both the magnanimous kindness Skthveraachk showed in allowing her to live. “They were pleased to join your number. But it was not they who sung fear of the far alto. Raiders. Invaders, sent away, but not before warning was delivered. A warning I believe enough to wish examination.”

“District 3.” Asking, requesting any kind of boon from the Aphoma was anathema to everything the Queen believed. Even if the fallen sister knew anything of the uttered events, she would not share it willingly. “I have already sworn aid to Khchechteeyh-Colony in advancing their technology to match my own, but it may prove even more useful a visit. With the pass opened, and so many colonies beneath me, us,” A hurried correction. “Now, I believe the Triumvirate will accept my presence. It will take many measures to march a suitable force to impress them, and while the column travels, I could seek out information from Khchechteeyh and also petition her support when singing of which colonies I represent to the three.”

He asked as though he were unsure why it would be. The Queen did not know, either.

“Of course not. It will be welcomed. We will converse and learn more of eachother.”

He adjusted his cap.

“Humanites hold pride in the scope of their roles. I will be honored to assist you in adding a new title to your name.” His laugh was deep and resonating. Her own, light and tapping. Only one spot of darkness remained, requiring the illumination of truth. Trying to find the notes, realizing it would sound absurd no matter their arrangement, the Queen dropped her volume and quickened her tempo. A small stumble forced on the humanite as her attendants tugged him nearer. “Captain Hathan. Forgive the peculiarity of my question, but. Have you seen, in your rounds and activities at my nest…a phantom?”

The flatness, at odds with his usual professionalism, would have been amusing under any other circumstance. She persisted.

“It walks like a formite, but only sometimes. Sometimes it goes up on two, or four, legs, and drapes its limbs over its head. It would smell like us, but not quite. Look like us, but not exactly.” A normal humanite would have dismissed her. A sane formite, even, would have suggested she allot more bars for rest. The Hathan stared across to her, thinking, silent. When he at last spoke, his voice was as low as her own, and his cap tipped low.

“Deepest appreciations.” Her exhale fluttered out the male’s jacket. “It is, disconcerting, to feel watched in one’s own nest. Watched by beings unknown.” She was quick to clarify once more. “I know the mechanical eyes and cameras you install are for all our safety, and your own research. Even still.”

“Does that mean I am capable of refusing?” Guilt panged his features, the unintentional jab striking harder than she had ever intended. Hurriedly, she brought her forelegs up, crossing them upon her chest. “Do not be afeared. It is pleasure as much as duty to serve Sovereignty, Captain Hathan. I know the requests made are for purpose, and do not begrudge them.” Half-truths bordering lies. But for his sake. It was not wrong. “And I have request of you, for once! Access required to certain humanite sites.”

“Non-critical infrastructure. Disposal areas. Sundry storage. Mess halls.” Innocently, her goal was slipped into the list. “Reports from Dracan indicate much is usable in the items you cast off or consider waste. Would request my drones be given access to such areas to search for recyclable goods.”

“My forgiveness! Pain is the last thing I wish inflicted upon you for the aid you have rendered.”

His glove waved her off.

“A great thinker of your memories! Necessary study referenced in multiple other texts. Objectivity and recording methods pertaining to scientific process and discovery, greatly informative and properly critical of the rudimentary systems your kind used to build consensus in formative eras.” She’d hoped the subject would engage. Instead, the pulled smile seemed forced and overly polite. Skthveraachk had bored the male. Failure was still opportunity to learn, and she bid the thinkers tally both successful and unsuccessful subjects to find, as the Malika had suggested, their most common of interests. “I have kept you overlong. I must prepare for the arrival of additional troops. For this departure to District 3.”

The comment was hurriedly amended, as though listeners were around every corner. Perhaps they were.

“He was, is, interesting specimen of your kind. Despite misgivings, I, think I would enjoy singing with him again some rise. I know my bonded, at least, would praise the opportunity to once more meet He-Who-Has-Been-Blessed.” The captain chuckled. Raised the gloved palm, and laid it upon the flat of her skull. Attendants at first bristled, but the familiar and ever-present scent calmed them immediately. Skthveraachk was not so lucky, and kept stalk-still, fearful that even a too strong exhale could accidentally cleave the humanite in half.

Contact was dropped. Her breath, still held, waited until the captain had strode back to the elevator to release in a rush. Initial tally was completed. Verdict was clear. The subjects around which both humanite and formite had shared the greatest joy was, indeed, food. She should invite him to partake in the next consumption of aged formite when it passed. The Queen had no idea he had enjoyed the last event so greatly. Once more coated in her children, her body was sent for the lower chambers, for a purging and cleansing after measures spent on the road. But through the link, there was a mission she needed supervise. A task for only the most experienced in humanite culture among her children. A scouting probe was assembled by the time she was off the elevator. Dispatched, by the time she had been lowered into the pool of water, multitudes of tongues and hairs and moss working at her sodden body. She let the darkness of the room overtake her, her eyes out beneath the shining sun. Into the shade, where helmeted scout and an arrangement of menials had gathered.

“Roles clear?”

“Roles clear.”

“Disavow knowledge if questioned.”

“Will be questioned?”

“Only if caught. Do not be caught.”

“Should silence self if caught?”

“Unnecessary!” The Queen’s own call interrupted the exchange, and was final word on the subject. “Infiltrate. Obtain. Escape.”

“Begin the song.”

“As the humanites say, now is the time to ‘get some’.” They scurried past the growing quarry. Ignored the advanced elevator, in favor of ascending the cliff one after the other, spurs and claws on stone. When they breached the crest of the alien rise, they dispersed visually, joining menials who were hauling garbage and cleaning paths for the humanites. But their communication did not falter, as neither did their focus. One slipped through an airseal. Another followed. Scentmarkers were tapped into the carpet, warning those that followed to avoid the area. One was caught early, shooed away from the building’s interior. Another, trying to squeeze itself through an interior door, ended up stuck and calling for aid from the very humanites it was trying to avoid. But scout and triplet menials arrived at the sliding double-doors together. The wall-mounted readout indicating 15:50, plenty of beats until the room would be packed and crammed with alien bodies. They crawled in together, keeping low to the ground, low enough to fit beneath the suspended tables without jostling the chairs upturned on their surface. Sounds of metallic activity in the rear of the room, an expected obstacle. Like shadows themselves, the three menials flattened themselves to the wall behind a countertop access. Poking their heads up to peer through circular windows cut into the doors. They whistled their readiness at frequencies the humanites could not hear. Tightened their muscles. And when the scout called out, they dove into the room the moment the shapely male body had turned its back on them.

“Excuse me! Pardon interruption. I require your attention, if only for a brief period.”

White shell, but not a mender. White cap, but not a thinker. Arms folded over the counter, unnoticing of the black bodies skittering behind him.

“Permission granted by Captain Devries himself, and tasked by Skthveraachk Queen herself, to come and converse with…you. Yourself.” The scout, keeping his eyes forward, tried not to follow the path of its adopted siblings with his antennae. “Rather specifically, whomever was on duty in this location, but that appears to be you.”

“Expertise required!” The alien’s turn was denied. For it would reveal the opened container door, the perched formite bodies, and the rapid loading of boxes onto the largest of the three’s head. “Humanite’s role, unique. Unnamed in formite society, yet seemingly vital in that of the humanites.”

“Sounds painful. They should try marching on their feet instead. Claws would be even better.”

“I am making an expression now too, but it is difficult for your species to differentiate.” Piling the boxes higher, the menial teetered as it became weighed. “The question is important, however. Critically important, if my Queen is correct in her assertion. Your role is the preparation of biomass, its safe assembly and delivery, correct?”

“The items you assemble vary. Their contents, varied. Is there a method for each? A specific formula that may be applied? Or, in your practice and experience, can a single system be applied to every possible end result?”

The first formite, loaded. The second, nearly ready. The humanite began to turn, but stopped himself, tapping at his skull with the scooping utensil it carried.

“Sing your secrets to me, alien sage.”

“I cannot lie. I can strategically avoid the subject ever being brought up.”

The humanite leant forward. The scout creaked forward. Water dribbled off the Queen’s shell as her body slowly tipped nearer the attendant linking her to the colony. Two pillars of boxes shuffled their way towards the door behind the humanite as he smiled, the scout bobbing his head in deep understanding.

“The best, humanite, the best.” Raising one foreleg to the side of his helm, the scout gave one of their salutes, the humanite returning it with a smile. The swinging of the doors masked by the confused grunting as alien saw the opened container. Dual recon positioning cleared each hallway before the drones with their cargo sprinted down the lengths, and careful bodily placement blocked sight of the precious treasures when the quartet slipped the airseal and returned to the exterior. A valiant drone threw itself painfully into a transport vehicle when it threatened to turn a corner and discover the troupe, and under the cover of its pained clacking, their escape was finalized. Relief was breathed from the colony entire, and within the cover of the trees and shrubbery, the stolen biomass was examined. Marked for transport into the nest, but not before the symbols adorning its side were read out. For the thinkers, for posterity, and as orders for others to remember and locate. “Flour. Flower? Powder, baking. Sugar, salt, milk, butter…” Shock, and even after reading the label twice more, the final ingredient was clear. “Eggs?!” The scout shook with astonishment. A heavy cost. One the colony would weigh and decide on later, should the need arise. But if it was necessary, the sacrifice would be endured. The lives left unborn would be for greater purpose, the loss of future workers suffered for the sake of rarest biomass called for by this humanite delicacy. The Hathan’s pleasure and happiness would be achieved.

The pancakes would be obtained.