Carapace (Aggressor Queen Book 1) Read online

  “She should be the one sharing with Nestra, not us,” Diane says. “At first I thought she could help with the gardening, but... wow.” Turning to Khara, she continues, “Girl, you are good!” Khara graces Diane with the most genuine smile I’ve ever seen from her. It’s nice to see.

  Diane gives Khara a few additional words to practice and the meeting breaks up, Diane and Tanner heading for privacy, Jan announcing she’s headed for a bar.

  “I’ll join you,” Bell says, surprising me. I expected him to stay, to welcome Khara, talk to her, charm her, try to put her more at ease. Or to talk to me about what’s troubling him. I glance at him and he’s looking at me. Despite his cheerful tone in offering to join Jan, his expression is grim. I cock my head, asking a question with the gesture. He shakes his head like he is disappointed in me and then flashes his eyes at Khara. Now I understand. I remember our last conversation about Khara, his warning she’s not to be trusted. I’ve had a change of heart – of mind, I correct myself – on the subject, but it’s clear he hasn’t.

  I’m not worried. He’ll see, in time. I’m right about her. I smile and his mouth stretches into a lopsided grin, chagrin evident but unable to maintain his seriousness. After a moment, his smile becomes sincere and he raises a hand to his forehead in a mock salute before turning to take Jan’s elbow to escort her from the room.

  Rex stays, grinning at Khara, until I tell him he should go home. He leaves drooping like a disappointed puppy.

  “Stay safe,” Khara says as he’s leaving, and Rex grins and blushes, taking the comment as encouragement of some kind.

  Khara looks at me and I am, for no rational reason, uncomfortable at being alone with her.

  “Do you know how to get back?” I ask.

  “I don’t think so,” she answers. Bell’s warning pops into my head and I can’t help thinking she’s saying this so I feel safe she couldn’t find her way back here again, a double agent playing her part.

  No. I’m right about Khara.

  I lead her through the darkness to a street near the dorm where I met her yesterday and, with nothing more than a long glance at each other, we part ways.

  All the way to Tamerak’s home I think how much better Khara looks than when I first found her. How the lamplight glowed on her loose curls and youthful skin as I left her. Khara is beautiful – intense, scared, strong, . . . and beautiful – and I can’t seem to keep myself from noticing the fact.

  CHAPTER 25

  KHARA

  I’m wearing gardener’s overalls like Diane and Tanner. We approach the small guard shack that leads to the queen’s private garden, but I’m not as nervous as I was a couple of weeks ago when we first tried this. The ant-guard seems to have accepted there are now three humans working in the queen’s garden.

  Nestra’s not in the garden, so I work alongside Diane, pulling weeds and raking. They haven’t allowed me to trim hedges and trees, or to move and replant certain plants, since mistakes would be spotted and might cost the two of them their lives. I’m satisfied with the monotonous work they’ve assigned me. It lulls my mind and body.

  Diane leaves me to speak to Tanner. I can’t hear the words, but don’t imagine they’re about anything important. I think they can’t go long between speaking, touching, kissing, and whatever the current conversation, it’s just an excuse to be together. I glance toward them, and yes, Diane is looking up into Tanner’s face while her hand brushes up and down his chest and stomach. She doesn’t seem aware of the contact. It’s a need she’s fulfilling. Tanner’s hand rests on Diane’s shoulder. They smile. They kiss. As Diane turns to rejoin me, their hands each trail along the outstretched arm of the other, sliding from elbows toward wrists, from wrists across palms, until their fingers part. Tanner darts toward Diane, catches her hand and spins her back for another quick kiss. They laugh.

  In the days since I have been watching them, I admit to a growing fascination. I’ve spent so long hating the idea of anyone touching me, cringing at the thought of a living creature contacting my skin. Even the odd street dogs that rub against passing legs, that humans stop to pet and feed – ugh. But days with Diane and Tanner – it’s almost one name for one entity, Diane-and-Tanner – have awakened the notion in me not all touch would be bad. They take – and give – comfort with their small touches, caresses. I don’t yet have the imagination that’ll allow me to picture flesh against my flesh, but I admit to at least allowing the idea to intrigue me.

  Diane smiles at me as she returns to my assigned patch of garden, leans toward me, and asks, “How’s it going?” She’s not leaning toward me to whisper, but seems to use the brief proximity to show closeness and friendship.

  “Fine,” I answer. I like Diane. I suppose she is a friend. Strange thought.

  An hour later, Nestra enters the garden and I’m startled as I am each time at its size. For several minutes, Nestra sits under the large oak it likes. Diane and Tanner move toward each other and wait at some distance from Nestra, out of sight of the ant-guards that always escort Nestra to the garden. Twice I’ve joined Diane and Tanner in “sharing” with Nestra. This time I’ll meet with Nestra alone.

  Nestra approaches them, taking a meandering path through the garden to reach them, and they talk. Diane and Tanner each have a hand on one of the ant’s lower arms. They’re explaining the danger of not keeping up with the gardening. They’re suggesting I’m not needed for the gardening and I’m willing to share alone. A small, insecure part of me wonders if Nestra will find this satisfactory. I believe Nestra would rather have Diane or Tanner if restricted to sharing with only one of us. I’d rather not touch this huge ant again, although it’s proven to be as Diane and Tanner described and not like Ilnok.

  I no longer shiver when the moment of contact comes. I no longer wish for the patch Samuel has asked me not to wear when I’m with Nestra – not that he needed to.

  The three approach me where I wait.

  “Nestra understands,” Diane says to me in the ant language. “Nestra is concerned for us.” Diane still holds the arm of the ant. She looks up toward the ant. “Nestra does not wish to endanger us.”

  “No,” rasps the ant.

  Diane and Tanner release Nestra and return to their work. The giant and I continue to stand where they left us. The extreme height of this one is intimidating, far outside the normal variations I’ve seen.

  “Will you share, hive brother?” Nestra asks.

  “I will share,” I answer. I can’t make myself put a hand on its arm – his, I correct myself, hive brother – as he leads me to a part of the garden farther from his ant-guards. We settle in the trimmed grass near a high back wall covered with fuchsia and white bougainvillea blossoms. We’re facing each other, me sitting Indian-style, and Nestra sitting in the complex equivalent. Our legs almost touch.

  Nestra looks to the flowered vines and says, “It is beautiful.” He doesn’t reach to touch me, doesn’t force the sharing on me.

  “Yes,” I answer, turning toward the wall. A lizard runs a horizontal path along the wall behind the vines as I watch.

  I can’t put this off any longer. I’m here to establish trust and gain information. I can’t do that if I’m reluctant to share.

  With a deep breath and a suppressed shudder, I reach both hands toward Nestra’s two lower arms. Contact.

  “Your fear is less,” Nestra says.

  “Yes,” I answer. “You are my friend. Hive brother.”

  “You still have distaste,” Nestra answers.

  “It is not for you,” I answer. “You are my friend.”

  “Your master is sick,” Nestra says, and I almost laugh with the immensity of the understatement.

  “Yes,” I say. I can’t suppress a shiver thinking of Ilnok.

  “I am your friend,” Nestra says. “I am your friend,” then repeats it a third time. His chanted words come with a feeling of comfort, soothing my trembling.

  “Thank you,” I say, and I’m thanking him both for hi
s words and the feeling that accompanied them, although the feeling was my own.

  “You taste. Diane and Tanner do not taste,” Nestra says. “I share, you taste.” Nestra’s antennae dance toward me.

  I don’t understand what he’s saying, so I don’t answer.

  Again, Nestra says, “I am your friend,” and again I’m soothed by the words. I close my eyes as Nestra repeats his words, and – distinctly, this time – comfort washes over me.

  “You are . . . .” I don’t know how to phrase what I want to say. “You are . . . giving comfort!” I say.

  “Yes. I share. You taste,” Nestra answers.

  I’m speechless. I think back to the times I’ve thought I understood the gist of Ilnok’s conversations with his associates.

  “You are surprised,” Nestra says.

  “Yes!” I answer.

  “You are questioning,” Nestra says. It’s as if he’s showing me what he can taste on me.

  I take a deep breath, try to calm my bizarre excitement.

  “I have questions,” I say.

  “Ask,” Nestra says. Again, the wash of comfort. It doesn’t seem to course through me from where my hands touch Nestra, nor do I smell or taste anything, as Nestra often refers to the process.

  “You talk, you communicate this way,” I say. I’m establishing what Nestra has already told us.

  “Yes.”

  “Why with humans? You say Diane and Tanner do not taste. Why do you share with humans? Do you share with other humans?” The questions tumble over one another.

  Nestra chitters with laughter, and it doesn’t sound the same as when Ilnok and his companions laugh. It is delighted, although directed at me.

  I smile and realize as I do I’ve never smiled in the presence of an ant before.

  “You are my friends,” Nestra says, sober again. Guilt washes over me, and I assume it is my own guilt for the duplicity of my relationship with Nestra, before I realize it comes from him.

  “You feel guilty?” I ask. “Why?” I blurt before thinking that maybe I shouldn’t ask this question.

  “I am not permitted to share with my kind,” Nestra answers. I’m sad for him. Or is that sadness from Nestra again?

  “Why not? I thought this is how your kind communicates,” I say. I’m confused.

  “The queen has ordered this,” Nestra answers. Before I can ask if this is some sort of punishment – it’s clearly distressing to Nestra – he continues. “I am Shame Receptor. No one must taste this.”

  Shame Receptor. I remember this was part of the message I carried to Samuel.

  “You never share?” I ask. I’m incredulous. This expanded communication is fascinating and speeds understanding, and it seems to me being forbidden would be crippling to a species that uses it – like being deaf or blind.

  “I share with you. I share with Diane. I share with Tanner,” Nestra answers, and again I’m awash in guilt.

  “Why do you feel guilty?” A small spark of fear ignites as I wonder if maybe Nestra is being as duplicitous as we are.

  “I am your friend,” Nestra answers, and douses my fear in the wash of something warmer.

  “Why do you feel guilt?” I ask again.

  “It is wrong. But I desire to share. I desire to share very much,” Nestra answers, and this time I’m rinsed with the familiar feeling of addiction . . . the desire for the patch, the knowledge that it’s wrong for me to lose myself in it – the ache for it – and the near impossibility of resisting that desire. Almost I release Nestra’s arm to reach for a patch in my pocket. I stop myself and press my fingers harder against his arms.

  “I understand,” I say. And then with a very real desire to comfort Nestra, I say with true emotion, “I am your friend.”

  A sigh gurgles out of Nestra and he leans his head back in the posture of subservience I have so often assumed with Ilnok. I find this inappropriate – that an ant should assume such a posture with me – then remind myself this is slave mentality, and discard the notion. Nestra is complimenting me with his trust. In that instant, I vow to keep his trust. I hope he tastes this, too.

  “Hive brother,” I say, and for moments we sit together, saying nothing more. I close my eyes feeling better than I have since before the invasion.

  Nestra says a word I don’t understand. I’m bathed in a feeling of confidence shared.

  “I do not understand this word,” and I repeat the word in his language.

  Nestra repeats the word. Then: “Not brother. Not male.”

  “I thought all your kind were male except the queen,” I answer. “All brothers.”

  “I am like the queen, but changed,” answers Nestra.

  “You can breed?” I ask. I’m not sure what this information will do for us, but I’m sure Samuel will be surprised and eager to hear it.

  “No. The queen changed my egg. I am sister, but not queen,” Nestra answers. “A brother could not accept the queen’s Shame.”

  I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what this means.

  “I am a sister,” I say. “I am female.”

  “You are sister . . . ,” Nestra sighs. Comfort, friendship, security wash over me. “This is why you taste. This is why we share,” Nestra says.

  “No,” I answer. “Diane is also sister.” It can’t be that I’m female.

  Nestra says nothing for some time. If his – her! – mind is anything like mine, the new information we’ve exchanged is swirling in small eddies, looking for a place to settle.

  My throat tingles, and the red glow of my monitor splashes across Nestra’s shiny black shell. I jerk my hands from Nestra’s arms, panic coursing through me as if I’ve been caught here by Ilnok. As if he knows where I am.

  Nestra raises her arms toward me. “Share,” she says.

  “I have to go,” I say, planning the route to Dominique’s in my mind.

  “Share,” Nestra says again.

  I put my hands on her arms, impatient to go so I don’t anger Ilnok. Comfort bathes me again. Even through my impatience, my muscles relax. I sigh.

  “Remember comfort,” Nestra says.

  “I will. Thank you,” I answer.

  We stand and move toward where Diane and Tanner work.

  Tanner sees the glow of my monitor and says, “We can go now, no problem.” We don’t know how the guard will react if just one of us leaves the garden. I pull my collar high over my monitor so the guard won’t question why a human with an owner is in the garden.

  “Come again soon, sister,” says Nestra.

  Diane looks a question at me, and I whisper in English, “sister.” She looks startled, but knows I don’t have the time for explanations.

  “Sister Diane,” says Nestra. “Brother Tanner.” Diane’s eyebrows rise.

  “Sister Nestra,” I say, and hear a small sound of choked surprise from Diane. “Friend Nestra.”

  We leave the garden, and Diane and Tanner accompany me to a sweetmead vendor near Dominique’s.

  “Be safe,” Tanner says as I order the sweetmead. His face is full of concern.

  “Let’s talk soon!” Diane says before the two of them move into the crowd.

  It’s not until I’m raising the sweetmead to my mouth that I realize I can still feel the warmth of Tanner’s hand on the back of my own.

  I hadn’t even realized he’d touched me. How strange.

  CHAPTER 26

  NESTRA

  The small antechamber off the throne room is darkened. I am aware of this fact despite my trance state as I accept the poisonous Shame from the queen. The queen has become so erratic in her behavior over the last lunar period that I, in fear for myself, have adopted the habit of not descending into the full depth of the trance that keeps me safe during downloading. It is a measure of the queen’s increased insanity that I fear the queen more than the poisons that invade my body.

  I lap at the shimmering globe of the queen’s strength, little tastes only, and concentrate the dew-like glow toward streng
thening the wall between my own sanity and the filth that courses into my body. I turn my thoughts away from any kind of measurement of how much more of the queen’s strength this small diversion requires. Having already succumbed to taking from the queen during every session to maintain my own health, the small addition required to compensate for the lightness of the trance seems insignificant.

  I would not have registered the scratch at the door to the antechamber but for the internal fire of the queen’s explosive rage that follows it. The queen does not disconnect from me to respond.

  After a second scratch, a brother enters, and – this surprises me – the queen’s rage abates instead of erupting at the unpermitted entry. I lighten the level of trance even further in my curiosity, until I recognize the identification of Dev’ro in the queen’s chemistry. I deepen the level of trance again at the sudden weakening of the wall within me as the flood threatens to overwhelm me. I am aware Dev’ro reports something to the queen, but am not aware of the contents. I can sense the report pleases the queen.

  Without warning, the queen breaks from me. It is only the now heightened level of the trance that keeps me from drawing my palpus back in surprise.

  “Do it,” orders the queen, and then, without focusing on me, extrudes her palpus and connects again.

  I do not know if this is a normal occurrence during downloading sessions, as I have always been at such a deep trance level only the queen’s purposeful withdrawal and dismissal revives me to consciousness. I do recall there have been downloading sessions that ended with a brother present who had not been present at the beginning, or a brother missing who had been in the presence of the queen when downloading started. I have also had downloading sessions in the throne room with courtiers present, although not often. Through the dim swirl roiling inside me, I wonder how much business of the court has occurred without my knowledge or understanding during these sessions. I chant a level lower to hide the budding fear that rises in me at the thought that, had I not deepened my trance just before the queen disconnected, I might have given myself away by retracting my palpus. It is clear the queen expected she could break and speak and reattach without awakening me.