The Ashes of Worlds - Kevin J. Anderson [42]
“Perhaps I have said too much. Thank you for the information about the Klikiss translation system.” He abruptly switched off the images and pocketed the screen, embarrassed. As if dispensing a well-deserved reward, he added before he left the stateroom, “We should get back in a few days. Not so long after all.”
“Not so long . . . ?” Jora’h said through clenched teeth. Time had already stretched out to a wintry infinity.
After Diente left, Jora’h’s knees gave out, and he collapsed onto his bed.
A few more days. He did not know how he could bear it.
Days . . .
* * *
27
Margaret Colicos
When the new breedex finally summoned Margaret into its hive fortress, she determined that she would have her answers. For so long she had watched the insect creatures slaughtering rival domates, wiping out rather than incorporating the defeated subhives. At last, though, the Klikiss had stopped ignoring her, and she hoped to learn why this hive mind was so different from all the others . . . so much more vicious.
Margaret considered running to the trapezoidal frame of the main transportal. Before the hive mind guessed what she intended to do, she could punch any coordinate tile and simply leave. But the transportal network went only to other Klikiss planets, and any gateway would just take her to another insect-infested world. She was better off here.
No, she would stay here and take her chances with the Llaro breedex. Though this one seemed more bloodthirsty than any of the others, it had intentionally kept Margaret safe. Therefore, the breedex must want something from her, if only she could understand what it was. She had no reason to be afraid. The Klikiss had kept her alive this long.
From outside, the hall of the breedex appeared tall and lumpy with twisted candlewax towers on either side. Spiny warriors ushered Margaret into the dark opening of the central structure, and she went willingly. With their razor-edged serrated limbs, the Klikiss could have chopped her to pieces in an instant . . . but they could have done that at any time over the past several years. She knew they wouldn’t harm her — not yet, at least.
Margaret was still a scientist and had spent many years with Louis studying the ancient ruins of the supposedly extinct race. She knew the Klikiss as well as any human could know an alien species. She straightened her shoulders and kept pace with the armored creatures along winding corridors like the chambers in a spiral seashell. The closeness of the numerous Klikiss intensified the smells that reminded her of sour bile, rotten eggs, decaying fish, and old sweat, a symphony of pheromones and chemical signals.
Her warrior escort guided her into a buzzing, humming central grotto filled with horrors. The heads of more than a hundred vanquished domates lay stacked like trophies. In the middle of the chamber, beside the grisly trophies, lay a stirring heap composed of millions of squirming, shifting bodies. She had seen the breedex before, but she did not look forward to this encounter.
Margaret stopped. The stench made it hard for her to breathe as the Llaro hive mind formed itself into a structure that could face her. The myriad mound began to move as hundreds of thousands of components assembled like the pixels of a broad and complex image. As the shape began to grow definite, Margaret realized that something else was different from the previous incarnations of the Klikiss hive minds.
Not only the warriors, but hundreds of large workers, diggers, and other sub-breeds stood together like worshippers in a church. The background noise became more than just the incessant rustling of limbs and wings and shell casings. She heard a clacking of mandibles, a buzzing of chitin plates being rubbed together to create musical sounds. It became recognizable as a language.
In her years among the Klikiss, Margaret had developed a rudimentary ability to communicate with the creatures. She comprehended some of their tones and chirps, and could make similar noises herself. Now, however, the background