The Ashes of Worlds - Kevin J. Anderson [203]
The tractor beam drew them into a cavernous opening within the core mass of the swarmship. The shuttle dropped heavily onto the floor inside a vaulted, slick-walled landing bay, and more than a hundred Klikiss warriors marched out to meet them.
Once the ship came to a rest, Margaret went to the shuttle’s hatch, unsealed it, and casually stepped out among the Klikiss. She called over her shoulder, “Mr. Chairman, you have to see the breedex. Come.”
She looked annoyingly calm before the monstrous insects, and Basil did not like someone else taking the initiative. He instructed the pilot to remain inside to protect the craft (if such a thing were possible) and followed Margaret through the hatch, with Anton close behind him. The chamber’s stale but breathable air was filled with a bitter alkaline stench.
The spiny chitinous bodies looked like armored tanks. The ones Margaret identified as domates had silvery armor slashed with black stripes; their faces were mosaics of small bony plates that shifted into skeletal, almost-human visages.
He faced the nearest domate — one with a horned head-crest — as if he were addressing a formal ambassador. “I am the Chairman of the Terran Hanseatic League. I have an appointment to meet with your breedex.”
Margaret said in a quiet voice, “They have no individuality. When you speak to any of them, you are speaking to the breedex. The hive mind is listening to all of our conversations.”
“Then why didn’t they just send an emissary to us?” Basil grumbled.
Margaret cocked her head at him. “Because the impact isn’t the same. Follow me.”
The towering domates and spiny warriors guided them with a swift and clicking gait along strangely intestinal corridors. Basil saw so many Klikiss crowding the passages that he felt certain the hive mind had no intention of letting them out of this hellish place.
When they finally reached a central chamber, Basil stared at a festering, shifting horror of mucus, broken pieces of slaughtered Klikiss, bits of debris, shiny pieces of metal, shattered glass, and grubs . . . many, many grubs. He reeled, and his ears rang with a constant deafening buzz that penetrated to subsonic levels, making his bones vibrate. All of his schemes, negotiating skills, and confidence wilted in an instant.
He had never felt so out of his depth.
Margaret stepped close to the edge of the horrific mass. “This is the One Breedex.” She seemed less certain now. “It’s . . . different from anything I’ve seen before.”
Basil’s legs had locked up, but he forced himself to move closer. His voice was husky. He had never felt so overwhelmed. “I am Chairman Basil Wenceslas. I believe we have diplomatic matters to discuss?”
Margaret remained close, and she called down into the buzzing, shifting mass with a hint of hope in her voice. “Are you still there, Davlin? Any part of you? Speak to us.”
On the shuttle flight, Margaret had tried to convince him that Davlin’s personality and memories had come to live inside the hive mind. Basil found the whole idea preposterous.
The squirming, separated pieces of the hive mind shifted like clay being squeezed by a sculptor’s hands until it formed a towering face that resembled the Klikiss. Then the features flickered, softened, became familiar. He stared at it in awe as the rough face loomed up out of the mass of the shifting hive mind. “It . . . does look like Davlin.”
“So, some part of him is still there, even after the last massive fissioning.” She sounded relieved.
“I know you, Chairman Wenceslas.” The lips of the giant sculpture moved, but the voice came from everywhere. “Know your enemy.”
So many things had already fallen apart, but this bizarre turn of events was no stranger than the rest. Basil clung to the knowledge that the breedex had called for him by name. Even though he saw little of the man who had served him for years as a “specialist in obscure details,” he knew that Davlin must remember him.
“And I know you, Davlin. You were my greatest expert, and I’m sure you remember your loyalties.