The Garden - Melissa Scott [51]
"I think you'll enjoy this."
"I'm sure." Privately, Janeway was much less certain, but she was not going to reveal that to either the Kirse or Revek.
Adamant gestured, and the tables lifted themselves, their dozens of hands rising in a flurry of movement to secure the dishes they carried. Slowly at first, then faster, the tables began to walk away, the benches scurrying after. Their legs made an odd metallic scuffling on the pebbled walkway. Adamant ignored
them, and nodded to a different path. "If you'll come with me, Captain?"
Once again, Janeway fell into step at the Kirse's side as they started down the new path. She could hear the rest of the away team behind her, the sound of their feet on the stones and the occasional murmur of voices, guessed-hoped-that they were being as cautious as she herself was. Beside her feet, along the edges of the path, lights flickered to life, paler than the chains of light that had illuminated their dinner, and she glanced curiously at them. They looked almost like bioluminescence, had that peculiar blue tint to them, and she wondered just how much of the Kirse technology was organic. Certainly the tables seemed to follow an animal design, however mechanical they had looked.
They turned a bend in the path, and light flared ahead of them, blue-white and bright as a full moon. In the center of a sudden clearing stood a silver frame, shaped vaguely like a harp, though the metal was ridged and knobbed like bone or bamboo. In that frame hung a glowing mass, seeming in the darkness as bright as the warp core, and on its face crawled a thousand fainter lights. She caught her breath at the sight, and tasted honey in the wind.
"Our sweet," Adamant said, and she thought there was a distinct note of pride in his voice. "Please, Captain, help yourself."
Janeway hesitated, caught between diplomatic imperatives, but common sense won out this time. "I've never seen anything like this. Tell me about it."
Adamant blinked, looking faintly disconcerted, but answered without seeming to take offense. "These are-Thilo tells me it's called honey. The hive is here to finish the meals."
"On Earth," Janeway said carefully, "the insects
that make honey object to our taking it, and they have a fairly effective defense when annoyed. I take it that your honey-makers don't object?"
"They're bred both to make far more than their needs," Adamant answered, "and to be without aggressive defense." For an instant, his face seemed to cloud, but then the expression vanished. "It can be a problem, though more for them than for me. But please, help yourself." He stepped forward then, into the circle of light cast by-was it the insects, Janeway wondered, or the hive itself? Despite his assurances, she braced herself, more than half expecting to hear the angry drone of wings, but the insects seemed to ignore him. He extended a long finger, probed carefully, and then snapped a corner from the hive. He held it out to her, and Janeway took it, the glow fading even as she watched. A single insect still clung to the piece of comb, its blue-lit abdomen pulsing gently, and she peered curiously at it. It looked almost as silver as the hive frame-was it metal? she wondered suddenly-but before she could look more closely, it spread its wings and soared back to join the others.
The rest of the away team was helping itself, each coached by one of the Kirse, and Janeway took a cautious taste. The thick liquid wasn't as sweet as terrestrial honey, had a pleasantly bitter overtone, and Revek nodded to her.
"You can eat the comb, too."
"It's very good," Janeway answered, and Chakotay moved up to stand at her side.
"When I was a very young boy, we used to go on honey raids. This kind of bee would have been much easier to deal with."
The other wingless Kirse, Chakotay's dinner companion-Keyward, Janeway remembered- moved up with him, and gave her a nod of greeting
before turning