Carapace (Aggressor Queen Book 1) Page 4

  I cannot change that they treat me as someone diseased. And so I am. I carry the queen’s sickness within me.

  The wave of twitches, smaller this time, washes over me again. My antennae again sweep through the open scents of the garden. Mellowed, I pull my supplies from their sack and move through the small ritual of arranging the canvas, the colors, the scents, before relaxing, head thrown back, eyes not-quite-focused on the sun-sparkles that dance through the leaves above me.

  I wait for the moment when inspiration will lay a color-scent-flavor picture in my mind which my fingers and pincers can only crudely recreate. It is this odd process of translation from the uncapturable illumination to its two-dimensional depiction that fascinates me and draws me over and over to the canvas.

  I allow my mind to enter the state of free association which I find akin to the madness of dreams. I am always happy to discover something new and surprising within myself in the process. My turbulent thoughts mix with my transcendent relaxation until flashes of image coalesce into a dark pattern of patches with thin shimmering web-like strands waving, diaphanous, in a fragrant darkness.

  Ah, a perfect representation of my mood.

  In the center floats a warm bead – a golden dewdrop – shining like the web strands, and somehow floating in their grasp.

  This I cannot name, this golden beckoning bead. I recognize the darkness of my guilt, of the queen’s Shame, and the shining lines of my own peacefulness that make the background. The image settles upon me with a surety that allows me to begin the translation to canvas.

  When I can name the tempting dewdrop, I will have named this work. And with the tingle of pleasure that accompanies painting, I dash my lower pincers into the paints and began mixing shades and flavors on the palette into the bruised color of my inner self.

  As I paint, I enjoy the garden: the colors, the scents, the textures, the mere knowledge I can walk amongst the trees and bushes and flowers without trailing an escort. I caress the canvas for a time with paint-laden pincers, then find myself staring, foggy-eyed, into a colorful patch of dancing flowers, petals bunched together so closely that the blossom resembles a ball.

  I return to another dab of paint and the press against the canvas. My pleasure is tainted by the unhappy coincidence that the human gardeners move into my field of vision so often today. As I sit, I am entranced by the slight movement of large white flowers upon a bush of deep green, waxy leaves. I am relishing their heavy fragrance as it moves over me on the breeze when the humans move again into view.

  With a rasping sigh, I lift my arm and ready myself to continue my painting – I am adding the delicate, shining web-lines (with their flavor-scent of serenity) over the dark background with the sharp tip of one pincer – when something about the humans catches my attention. For the first time, I focus on them.

  Soft light-colored bodies, naked of any armor, I find them as vulgar and inappropriate as an unsheathed sex organ. I watch the humans as one bends to clip and shape a small bush, and the other, close at hand, digs weeds from around the base of the same shrub. Disgusted, ready to turn back to my painting, I register what the humans do between each movement of clipping and digging, register the touching that must have attracted my attention.

  The humans are . . . no. No, I’m anthropomorphizing. But now I cannot stop watching. As the one human stands from its digging to move around the other, it brings the back of a dirty hand to the cheek of the other human. As the clipping human moves the sheers from one hand to the other, the hands of the two clasp for a moment. Then, digging, clipping, clipping, clipping. Then again, a brush of a touch, shoulder to shoulder – and now, spectacularly – mouth brushing against cheek. Clipping, clipping, digging, clipping.

  Sharing. With an exquisite ache in my abdomen, and a shortness of breath, I stand. And yet, it is not possible, all our studies say they cannot . . .

  I cannot take my eyes from the gardeners, who do not speak to one another, who do not often look at one another, but find a way, within the confines of their chores, to share.

  I am standing mere feet from the closer of the two humans, looking into the softness of its liquid eyes, with no recollection of having moved across the lawn. The humans stop mid-motion and look at me, obviously startled. I can smell their sudden fear. The digger stands and the clipper backs to stand with the digger.

  “I will not hurt you,” I stammer, before remembering the humans will not understand my speech. Lowering my antennae and pincers, I open my arms, and do not otherwise move, hoping my subservient motionlessness will communicate my pacifism to these inferior animals.

  One human moves to clasp the other’s hand. The contact between them is a shock that leaves me shivering. They bow and back away, move around the low shrubbery until several small bushes stand between us. They stare with their jelly eyes. Their rejection is a weight on my chest.

  Even these repulsive creatures have what I cannot have. I wrap my four arms around my torso to quell the ache there and moan. At the sound, the humans drop their tools. They wrap their arms around each other – I almost cannot bear the sight – and continue to back away from me and out the back gate until I am alone in the garden.

  Heavy, hurting, I return to my painting. The pain within fires me with energy for outpouring, and before long, I have dashed a bold golden dewdrop into the center of the painting. With yellows and browns, I give it depth, until its visual richness makes me lust for a taste. As I trim the gold with a thin bead of red, I recognize it. I have seen this in the fugue state I enter for downloading.

  ‘Tal’s Strength.’ I name my painting aloud, and shiver with a violent spasm.

  I know now why the golden dewdrop is so tantalizing to me. Queen Tal: You have something I need if I am to keep living.

  Strength.

  CHAPTER 8

  SAMUEL

  I wake with the knowledge it’s four forty-five in the morning, within minutes of the time I awoke yesterday, and the day before that, and again before that. It’s impossible to gauge the hour by any daylight, because the room in which Tamerak’s bed-pit is located is windowless, and always red-dark.

  Tamerak breathes lightly in trance-state. Soon, he’ll rise from his semi-seated position against the edge of the bed-pit, and we’ll begin our morning ritual of cleansing and eating before heading to the factory. I’m like a beloved dog to Tamerak: well-trained, worthy of affection. I imagine to myself Tamerak has come to rely upon me to some degree, but I never let these imaginings convince me I’m indispensable. As with a dog, if I appear rabid or otherwise unreliable, Tamerak will put me down. I’m careful to remain dependable and affectionate.

  This puts me on the same level as the bodyslaves who whore themselves to the ants even though Tamerak does not expect physical intimacy from me. I know – were Tamerak to ask – I’d perform whatever physical acts requested to continue my life in this position of relative safety. And I think he knows it, too.

  I help Tamerak scrape himself of the evening’s waste excretions. I prepare his predigested and regurgitated pap for a morning meal. Neither of these tasks nauseates me. I’ve become accustomed to my degradations, and suffer them willingly. In exchange for the price I pay, Tamerak trusts me to some degree, and indulges me with kindness in a world where trust and kindness are rarities. My obedience has purchased me security, ephemeral though it may be.

  I’m impatient to get to the factory this morning, as I know how much we have to try to steal in less than a week. I’m sick with the knowledge that in our haste, there’ll likely be a price to pay. Thankfully, while this factory is ostensibly producing parts for the machines that are tearing up roads outside the city and getting the land ready for the agriculture of ant-style plants, there are several parts that we can use in restoring our vehicles.

  Once there, I get busy with the books, looking over production figures, planning shifts and schedules, and accounting for any changes made necessary by new directives from the queen. It’s my job, and Tamera
k leaves me to it, trusting me, as always, to get the most from the humans that work for him. Tamerak is the factory’s contact with the outside, the liaison to the world of ants, and I’m his inside man. Things run with smooth efficiency in Tamerak’s factory.

  I force myself to review my assigned parts in my mind before I attempt to discern what I can get from our factory. I have to consider which parts we’ve stolen in the recent past, and who works on the production of the various parts – factors that will turn mere mistake or coincidence in to a pattern recognizable by our captors.

  I always tend toward the side of caution, but can’t with our newest parts list. Our position must be precarious, given this latest push – and if our position is so precarious, then I have to take risks. I’ve long believed our time of extinction was approaching. Better now to risk much and lose a few than to lose it all. Lose the war, our lives, our planet.

  At my normal time for checking production, I descend the stairs to the floor. I stop at Jan’s workbench, touch her on the shoulder as I comment on her efficiency. I touch the huge, dark-skinned, quiet Eli, at the bench nearest Jan’s. Without comment. I stop and touch Steve, Davey, Debbie, and Sturm. With each touch, I am sending a message: I need one. Today you must, without preplanning, try to take one. Whether it be piston, bolt, washer. I need one. Each person knows they’ll be on their own – no preplanned distraction, no prearranged pass-off. I need one. Get me one if you can.

  I haven’t often used this method of gathering parts because of the risk on the individual thief of being caught with the part. The sentence is death. And I’ve never called on more than one. Today, I tap eight. I know some won’t get an opportunity; I pray none will be discovered. I also know each will make their best effort. We know what we fight for.

  I’m careful as I walk amongst my people to also touch those who are not active in the rebellion, like Stella, who is too old, too scared. She’s lost everyone important, except a grandson. She hopes to stay alive long enough to make sure he’s taken care of and hopes to buy his continued life through her own obedience. She won’t join us. Death is forever on her shoulder, and weighs too heavily for her to see that death rides us all. I can’t fault her. There are many here like her, young and old, hoping to ride through the storm. They don’t buy into our brand of pessimism, our doomsday opinion that humans won’t weather this fatal storm. I sometimes touch these. They take the touch as comfort – human flesh to human flesh – a form of communion we all crave. And these touches buy our people a measure of safety as well: if anyone is watching, they won’t see it as the signal it represents among the rebels. It’s a shame with my rebels, this touch isn’t comfort but an assignment that comes with the metallic taste of fear.

  There are also those on the floor – humans – who would betray us for some small favor from the ants. It sickens me our own kind would betray us for some ephemeral special treatment. Extra food or credits, or perhaps a more comfortable sleep space. But we’ve always had these pathetic creatures among us. I try to shake them off. And I refuse to touch them, to give them even that small comfort. I damn them all to hell and hope fervently that that hell is worse than the one I now occupy.

  Done with rounds, I trudge with heavy heart back up the metal stairs to the catwalk and look back over the floor. My people. Even the wretched traitors are my people. I console myself that the risk and burden I just placed on a few will – I hope – benefit all.

  I force myself back to my desk to continue looking through accounts and requisition requests, to work as though nothing were being risked. Force myself not to stand on the catwalk watching. I take my second break of the day as the first, walking amongst the workers on the floor, urging speed where necessary, expressing gratitude at efficiency. Same as any other day.

  When the workday is done, I stand with Tamerak and two other ant-guards as the workers file out past us, random workers searched as they leave. I grit my teeth as Sturm is searched, but the search is cursory. Nothing’s found. This means either Sturm hasn’t managed to steal a part, or that he’s gotten lucky. I stand, as always, with my hands clasped behind my back, to all outward appearances, uninterested in the process. Two more workers file past without being searched. Then Davey. He’s the youngest of my people in this factory, and one of the most fervent. The ant-guards stop and search him. Pat him down, ask him to remove his shirt and shoes. This isn’t unusual. Davey says nothing, which also isn’t unusual.

  “Open mouth,” one ant-guard intones. It’s obvious he’s not one of the ants who is fluent in our language. Most of the guards aren’t. Not that it matters if they are.

  Davey doesn’t listen. I can see now, from the way he holds his jaw, this is how he has chosen to smuggle his part. To give him credit, though fear is now apparent on his face, he doesn’t look at me, to me.

  “Open mouth,” the ant says again as the other hits Davey in the gut.

  Davey grunts around the part in his mouth – a gear too big to swallow. At the second blow to his stomach, he opens his mouth and the gear falls, spit-covered, to the ground.

  “What?” the ant asks. I bend to retrieve the part. I don’t hesitate to hand the gear to the guard, although I know Davey will now die and his death won’t even buy us this gear we need. My heart aches for this young boy even though I know there’s nothing I can do. Nothing whatsoever, other than choose to die with him.

  The guard takes the part with one pincer, hands me his pistol-shaped laser gun – or whatever the mechanism is – with the other and says to me, “Shoot human.”

  My breath stops in my chest and my heart beat pulses in my face, my fingers.

  This is unusual. This is my own test. I know in that split second that if I don’t shoot Davey, the guard will shoot us both. Do I choose to die with Davey in a fruitless, brave gesture?

  I don’t hesitate, although my mind is filled with a silent scream. I pull Davey out of the line, put the gun to his forehead and push the contact trigger. Davey falls backward, with a neat black hole in his forehead. I hand the pistol back to the guard. I can’t act on the anger that courses through me. I can’t allow myself to shake, or vomit, or weep. I wish in that moment I’d turned the gun on myself.

  No one screams. No one moves. I know none of my people blames me. I blame myself. I put Davey in this danger today.

  The guard pulls the next person in line forward, Jan, and searches her with unusual thoroughness. Clothes off, boots off, mouth open. Short hair inspected. I can’t breathe.

  Nothing is found.

  The rest of the line files through, some searched in cursory fashion, some not, as though nothing extraordinary has occurred. No one looks to where Davey lies, even after the pool of blood from his head grows and spreads to where we stand. Blood soaks the soles of my boots. Bloody footprints lead out of the factory.

  No one else is caught.

  I stop twice on the way back to Tamerak’s house to vomit. I can’t wipe Davey’s eyes from my mind. Davey’s surprised eyes, and the third eye I opened in the middle of his forehead. Tamerak rubs me with his pincer after the second time but says nothing. I’m relieved he doesn’t question me regarding the incident. Of course, his loyal pet would know nothing of the smuggling.

  CHAPTER 9

  NESTRA

  I cock my head to one side and watch as my high left pincer twitches open and closed. The twitch has worsened since yesterday. Without moving my head, I rotate my focus to watch each of my three remaining pincers. The slim delicate fingers beneath my lower pincers show no sign the tremors have started in any of my other forelimbs. Without looking, I can feel the tremors in my legs.

  I have been unable to ignore the symptoms of physical disintegration since falling three days ago in the hall outside my quarters. Of course, the escort made no move to assist me. I had been sure I had stumbled over something. Pulling myself to my feet, I searched for the obstacle, only to find the hallway clear of anything that might have tripped me. I questioned the guards.


  “What did I trip on? Did you see it?” Still searching the ground.

  “No, M’Nestra,” spoken in unison.

  I felt foolish when, after another moment of bending and searching, I had sniffed at the guards, tasting their surety of my madness emanating from their pores and evident in their clenched mandibles. I noted their stiff torsos, the rotation of their heads, one eye turned toward me.

  I straightened, and led them down the hallway at a brisk pace, only to trip again moments later. This time, I recognized my own dragging leg as the culprit, and recovered my balance before falling. I slowed my pace after that, careful to concentrate on lifting each leg and placing it before me. It was the next day I noticed an odd blind spot in my right eye as if certain facets had died. And now the tremors.

  I am dying.

  I know my condition is not yet irreversible. With proper nourishment and rest, time enough to rebuild my strength, I can recover from this sudden onset of Shame-induced decrepitude.

  But I also know my queen. The queen’s appetite for killing and torture is increasing. She easily kills humans and almost as easily kills our people. At the rate with which the queen is disposing of humans, I wonder how long her courtiers will continue supplying her with their own well-trained pets. I have already noticed a decline in the quality being supplied, but my own knowledge of the pets – and their use – is limited. Deliberately. I shudder as I recall the queen’s many uses for humans – always involving their blood, and often their deaths. The queen must appreciate the mild suffocation which comes with having her pores covered with their sticky red fluid. Must also appreciate the flavor. It is a flavor I have no interest in discovering.

  I am dying.