Chapter Four
Lok-Nih rotated her head and rippled her spines. “Bring me a data terminal.” She waved a limb and flared her breathing flaps. “Then leave. All of you.”
“Including me?” Suh-Joh asked. This was most unusual.
“Yes,” Lok-Nih said. “Now.”
“Yes, blessed Hive-Mother.” Suh-Joh rushed to comply, then hurried from the hall to an alcove, which had a terminal. She drew the privacy curtain and traced the files Lok-Nih called up. Odd, she thought. It’s only history. Lok-Nih was spending time on the records of how the Hives lived long ago.
Suh-Joh preferred science and technology, even though the priests of the Spirit-of-the-Mother discouraged study of those subjects, especially for anything that could be used for war.
Yet war was all their society now knew.
Lok-Nih summoned Suh-Joh at mid-day. “Prepare me a meal. I want a feast.” Feasts were usually reserved for celebrating the Day of the Mother.
“Yes, blessed Hive-Mother,” Suh-Joh said.
“Music. I want to hear the Symphony of Summer.”
“Immediately, blessed Hive-Mother.” Suh-Joh scurried out.
After the senior food attendant arrived to learn her specific wishes and preferences, they left.
The music servant aroused the insects.
The go-lik insects started their gentle wail, an almost hypnotic, undulating sound heard during the warm days of the crop season. The purple maa-li flies began to click their mandibles and provide a counterpoint to the droning tempo. More tiny creatures joined the chorus with their clipped wings adding a high-pitched hum until the Symphony of Summer filled the great hall with its rich and complex sound.
As Lok-Nih listened to the music, she tickled her paat-kli. The tiny creature chirped with pleasure and stretched its head from its shell, presenting more of itself to her touch. Satisfied, it resumed grazing on her wrinkled flesh.
The senior food attendant and two unripened females arranged the meal on an eating platform. It was a platter of red, green, and brown food items adorned with a spicy yellow puree made from stinging naad-luu insects. When the senior food attendant finished the last detail of arranging the food, she touched her head to the ground before Lok-Nih. “Your food is ready, blessed Hive-Mother.”
“Stop the music and leave.” Lok-Nih selected a lightly braised dak-li, cracked its shell, dipped it in the sauce, and sucked out its pale green flesh. She spat the shell to the floor and laughed at the antics of the naat-jii as they scurried to it, looking for something to eat. The spicy puree brought water to her eyes. “Good.” She ate in a slow, methodical fashion. Finished, she pushed away from the eating platform, stretched, and discharged a movement of small fecal pellets. As the pellets hit the floor, naat-jii scrambled after them.
Lok-Nih heaved her bulk to her favorite resting-rock, a smooth mound of pink granite, polished from generations of use. Her armored exoskeleton clicked as each plate slid over the rock as she spread her four rear hind limbs on it. The rows of breathing flaps along her torso opened and closed in a regular fashion. The hall grew quiet, still.
She stared at the holograph of her favorite Chosen-Male. “Zak-Joh,” she said in a quiet voice. “Give me the strength to do what I must now do. I need your strength now more than ever.” She closed her eyes and settled lower on the resting-rock. Soon the only sound in the great hall was the sigh of the ventilation system.
“Priests,” she called. “Bring me the priests. I want absolution. I must make my peace with the Spirit-of-the-Mother.”
“Suh-Joh, come here.” Lok-Nih waved her wrinkled fore limb and pointed to the place of honor before her resting-rock. Attendants twittered formless concern. She rippled her breathing flaps. The hall became quiet.
Suh-Joh hesitated. It was rare for an unripened female to be so honored. She also knew that position was sometimes used for executions.
What is she up to? Fear slowed her limbs.
“Well?” Lok-Nih’s voice echoed in the hall.
“At once, blessed Hive-Mother.” Suh-Joh crawled into position. “Hoo-Lii.” She bent to the posture of submission, presenting vulnerable openings in the plate-like armor of her hide. “What is your wish, blessed Hive-Mother?”
“Hoo-Lii. Come closer, I want to talk to you, daughter of mine from the seed of Zak-Joh. It’s time I told you how I feel.”
“As you wish, blessed Hive-Mother.”
“You’ve grown more like him. You make me proud.”
“You honor me in ways I don’t deserve.”
“My child,” Lok-Nih said. “You remind me of Zak-Joh when I first met him.” Her eyes closed. “I too, was thin, and none of my connective skin showed. Yes, there’s a lot about you that reminds me of when I was your age.”
“Blessed Hive-Mother, you flatter me. I’m not worthy.”
“Please, grant me the right to judge my get. By the grace of the Mother, I’ve done enough of it, and some of those I’ve judged are no longer with us.”
Yes, Suh-Joh thought. You found them unfit and fed them to the food-insects without hesitation. Fear made her flex lower in the posture of abasement. “I’m just an unripened female and destined to remain that way. I’ll always be a lowly servant, if it pleases you.”
Lok-Nih leaned forward and touched Suh-Joh with one of her long quills. It was a formal acknowledgment of her abasement. “Perhaps. Do you know what I liked about Zak-Joh?”
“No, blessed Hive-Mother.” Suh-Joh raised her head to a more comfortable position and swiveled it to watch Lok-Nih.
“He was my equal.”
“How could he be your equal?” Suh-Joh straightened slightly and held her breath momentarily. “He was but a Chosen-Male, good only for fighting and fertilizing.”
“My child, in this, you’re wrong. He had a brilliant mind hidden within a humble shell. He saw the truth clearly. He had the ability to solve spiny problems. His words rang true and clear, convincing even the most intractable Hive-Mother of the wisdom of his ways. He did things of which I only dared to dream. Do you understand what I mean?”
“You mean that he solved the problem of the Disobedient when the Hive-Mothers could not?”
“Yes. Still using computers to read history as well as watch others, eh?” Lok-Nih lowered her head and stared from a pair of unblinking eyes almost buried behind folds of fat-filled flesh. “Zak-Joh did much to unite the Hives against the Disobedient.”
“Yes, blessed Hive-Mother.” Fear rippled through Suh-Joh. Does she know? Did I leave tracks in her files?
“Tell me, how many of our unripened ones read history? Or secretly study the sciences contained in our archives? Or tap into the terminals of others? Well, answer me that?”
The cold mandible of fear gripped Suh-Joh. “Oh, blessed Hive-Mother, please forgive me.” She crouched lower. She knows. I’m done for. “I mean no harm. I’ve never neglected my duties.”
“My child, my child. You’re so like Zak-Joh that I feel his presence. You’ve inherited his keen mind and humble ways. I sense your ability to see things clearly. Come here, nearer to me.” Lok-Nih pointed. “Perhaps your scent will bring back the feeling of those glorious times when Zak-Joh and I were together, when we overcame the threat to the Way-of-the-Mother.” Her breathing flaps opened slowly in unison.
Suh-Joh winced and looked at the ground. She could only bring herself so close before fear stopped her.
“Here, next to me.” Lok-Nih beckoned with her wrinkled digit to indicate the base of the resting-rock.
Suh-Joh moved closer, reluctant to touch her. Up close, she saw how loosely the skin hung from Lok-Nih’s bloated shape.
Lok-Nih opened her breathing flaps and sniffed. “Tell me, Suh-Joh, do you ever dream?” She closed her eyes and exhaled.
“I once dreamed …” Suh-Joh looked at the floor.
“Yes?”
“I wanted to be a Hive-Mother, but that is not possible.”
“Why not?”
“No Hive wants me.” Especially after you are gone, she thought.
“Come, my child.” Lok-Nih motioned her to come closer. “This,” she said to no one. “Is even better than I could have wished.”
Suh-Joh hesitated before moving within the reach of Lok-Nih’s mating cloak. She flinched when a quill or two found their way between the plates of her skin to prickle her delicate connective membranes. But they penetrated no further. She relaxed slightly; the quills did not have their deadly sting. She could smell the pheromones associated with sex on Lok-Nih’s mating-flap.
That too, she thought, is forbidden to an unripened one such as me.
“I used to have many dreams. Now I’m old and my time has passed. Zak-Joh and I once shared a dream long ago. It has long haunted me.” Lok-Nih paused and her breathing flaps flared in unison. “Now you shall fulfill it for us. You know I must soon choose a successor? One who will kill me so I may join the Spirit-of-the-Mother, is that not right?”
“Oh, blessed Hive-Mother, you’re not old.” Suh-Joh flattened her small quills, for this was a dangerous topic. “You bring forth young each time you choose to breed—”
“My dear daughter, the whole Hive knows deformed ilk came forth the last time I bred. My day has passed. A successor must send me on my way, and soon. Does not the Way-of-the-Mother demand it?” She rippled her quills.
Silence filled the great hall.
Suh-Joh hesitated. “Yes, it is the Way.”
“My dear child, you’re the best of my offspring from Zak-Joh, of those I gave his name. Thanks to the Spirit-of-the-Mother, you’ve turned out to be more like him than any of the others. You have the best of both of us.” Air whistled through her breathing flaps. “I’ve chosen you to succeed me.”
“What?” Suh-Joh wanted to flee. This conversation sounded like the forbidden subject of ripening between relatives. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You will be my Hive-Daughter.”
“That cannot be.” Suh-Joh stopped breathing. She felt her spines rise to a defensive position. She could not believe what she had heard. “I’m your true daughter. It is not allowed.” She held her breath.
“I shall ripen you. You will succeed me.”
“No, you can’t. That’s a perversion.” Suh-Joh felt her breathing flaps snap closed in unison. “It’s against the Way,” she whispered. “It would violate everything in which we believe. I’d be an abomination.”
“You are mistaken.” Lok-Nih spoke in the voice of one accustomed to obedience. “It is but a custom to seek a daughter from another Hive. It is our way we preserve genetic diversity. During the time of the great dynastic families, Hive-Daughters succeeded their Hive-Mothers. I believe it was a better strategy.”
“It was abandoned because it was wrong.”
“Not true.”
“It’s against the Way-of-the-Mother.”
“Again, you are mistaken. During the time when Chosen-Males could move about freely, Hive-Mothers sought out the strongest and added their gift to the Hive’s gene pool. And they ripened their best daughters. That was the golden age of Hool. That was when we made all our great advances. That was a time of peace and wealth.”
“Wasn’t it stopped because it violated the Way?”
“No. We grew too many. Competition for food and resources grew fierce. Heretics came forth who polarized our society. War became our way of life. The indiscriminate use of weapons poisoned much of the surface of our world. And now Chosen-Males only visit another hive to kill or be killed.”
“You mean the only reason new mothers are sought from Hives other than their own is genetic diversity?” In spite of her revulsion at Lok-Nih’s proposal, Suh-Joh took a deep breath. This was new to her.
“Yes.” Lok-Nih gestured toward the holographic terminal. “Read the files I posted—I know you have already taken at least one look. Did not war stop travel between the Hives? When the Chosen-Males were no longer free to travel, open access to the gene pool disappeared. That’s why new Hive-Mothers are seized from outside of the Hive, to maintain genetic diversity.”
“But that’s the custom, the Way—”
“Yes, yes, I know, but it’s just custom,” Lok-Nih said. “It’s a failure. Zak-Joh showed me through genetic analysis we are inbreeding ourselves to death. You’re going to change that. It is time to go back to the old strategy. He believed the time for this is long overdue. You will be our tool.”
“Me? No, no, not me, please.”
“Yes, you.”
“The other Hives will join together and destroy me.” The vision of being ripened by her own mother made her want to withdraw within her shell. It was like being forced to perform an unspeakable act. She assumed the posture of abasement flat against the ground. “They’ll kill me. I’ll deserve to die.”
“Bah. My Hive is the strongest on Hool. Believe me, its strength will shape the opinions of the other Hive-Mothers. You must seek out Chosen-Males from other Hives for breeding. It is the only way to arrest our genetic decline.”
Lok-Nih took a deep breath. “Suh-Joh, my dear Suh-Joh, you’re truly special. I shall ripen you. You will be the Hive-Mother that replaces me. You’re the answer that Zak-Joh foresaw.”
“No, no, no. You cannot.” Suh-Joh’s voice echoed throughout the great hall. “I won’t be your experiment.” As she tried to back away, Lok-Nih hooked her quills into Suh-Joh’s flesh and pulled her back.
“Yes, you will,” Lok-Nih’s voice rang loud in the great hall. “You will be my Hive-daughter.”
“Ah.” Suh-Joh winced from the pain. “No, I won’t, it’s—”
“You will.” Lok-Nih squeezed her.
A trace of Lok-Nih’s venom penetrated her hide. Pain exploded through every nerve in Suh-Joh’s body. “Spirit-of-the-Mother. Save me,” she screamed. “I’m on fire.”
Lok-Nih’s beady eyes glittered brightly. “You’re strong, my daughter, in the willpower you’ll need to be a Hive-Mother. You shall do the things I was afraid to try.”
“Please,” Suh-Joh said. “Stop.” Her vision shrank to a single center, focused on the white-hot, searing pain. Death would be a mercy. Spirit-of-the-Mother, take me.
Lok-Nih stared at her. “The Way.” She nudged her quills deeper. “You will do it, won’t you?”
“Yes.” Suh-Joh moaned. “The Way.” She held her breathing flaps closed until she panted. “I’ll do it. Spirit-of-the-Mother, forgive me.”
“Soon, my darling, the pain shall go.” Lok-Nih’s voice held gentleness not often heard. “I’ll neutralize the toxin.”
Suh-Joh gasped as a cooling wave swept over her, extinguishing the fiery pain. “Oh, Spirit-of-the-Mother.” She sighed. “Thank you.”
Lok-Nih took a deep breath. Her wrinkled and worn visage softened. “My daughter, my darling daughter.” She raised her forelimb to stroke Suh-Joh tenderly. “Through you, Zak-Joh and I shall live forever.” Her voice carried a note of affection. “Hold still, my darling, it is time for the gift of the maturation hormones.”
Lok-Nih’s eyes grew bright and her body began to shake. “Closer.” She grabbed Suh-Joh and held her tightly.
Suh-Joh could feel Lok-Nih’s flabby body press against her, the largest of her quills probing into a tender part of her anatomy.
“Yes.” Lok-Nih breathed deeply. “It’s near, now.” She drove in the hormone-bearing quill.
Suh-Joh screamed as the hormones flooded her body.
Suh-Joh’s world disappeared into a kaleidoscopic array of colors. A roaring sound overwhelmed her; every sense was amplified. Her entire body shuddered. Every tiny spine on her body came alive and erect. She convulsed and ripped herself free from the flaccid grip of Lok-Nih’s mating cloak. Slowly, the great hall came back into focus.
It looked altogether different. It was sharper, clearer, and everything had its place.
I, Suh-Joh, am now a Hive-Mother.
Her tiny quills, stiff and erect, were newly potent with deadly venom. Something had happened that made her feel strong, powerful. She breathed deeply and rippled her quills, forcing several to penetrate the flesh of her mother’s skin between the plates on her neck.
Lok-Nih flinched. “That hurts.” She gasped and sagged as though deflated. Her body softened with relaxation; it had the tranquil appearance she got after she’d mated long and hard. “Suh-Joh.” She gasped. “Yes, my darling, you are so like him.”
“Who?” Suh-Joh drew close to hear her faint voice.
“Zak-Joh,” she spoke in soft voice that only Suh-Joh could hear. “I did the right thing. I brought you back. Your spirit will change Hool.”
“Spirit-of-the Mother,” Suh-Joh said. “She’s dying. I’ve killed her.” The enormity of what she had done, struck like a falling rock.
Lok-Nih looked old and smaller. Her mouth gaped open wide and her tongue protruded. She shook briefly, and air sighed out of her breathing flaps.
The twittering of the unripened female attendants in the alcoves of the great hall rose to a squeal.
Doubt and self-loathing filled Suh-Joh. Ignoring the attendants, she stared, afraid, into her mother’s blank eyes. Oh, Spirit-of-the-Mother, what have I done?
Lok-Nih’s body relaxed and out-gassed a sour smell of partially digested naad-luu insects, faint with spice.
Suh-Joh killed Lok-Nih’s paat-kli with a quick poke of a quill. If she didn’t, it would die from starvation because it would not rasp a single flake of skin from anyone else.
I killed my Hive-Mother. I must flee.
Suh-Joh glanced around, seeking a way out.
A column of Chosen-Male cohort leaders and priests entered the far end of the great hall.
Suh-Joh froze.
Somehow, she realized, the priests of the Spirit-of-the-Mother had been forewarned and brought Chosen-Male warriors. It will, she was sure, be only a moment before they kill me for the crimes of matricide and ripening with a relative.
The priests and warriors marched forward and silently formed a circle about Suh-Joh. Behind each priest stood a warrior.