The Deep Beyond: Cuckoo's Egg / Serpent's Reach

by C. J. Cherryh

  v

  Chairs moved; the group settled. A female azi, engineered for functions which had nothing to do with household labor, passed round the long table setting out drinks and beaming dutifully at each.

  Eron Thel patted her leg, whispered a dismissal— she was his, as was the summer house in the Altrin highlands— and ignored her familiar charms as she left, although more than one of the men regarded her retreat. He was pleased by this, pleased by the obvious attention of the others to their surroundings. The objects which decorated the meeting room were unique, gathered from worlds even outside the Reach, and met with gratifying admiration . . . nothing of awe; the envy of kinsmen in the Family was difficult to rouse, but they looked, and approved.

  Awe: that was for what entered the room now, the majat Warrior who took up guard by the door. That was power. Yls Ren-barant Del Hald, certain others . . . they were accustomed to the near presence of majat; so was Tel a Ruil, well-accustomed— but familiarity did not remove the dread of such a creature, the sense that with it, invisible, were countless others, the awareness of the hive.

  “Are you sure of the majat?” the Hald asked. “It remembers, even if it can’t understand.”

  “It carries messages only to its hive,” Eron said, “and its hive has some necessary part in this meeting, cousin, a very central part, as it happens.” He beckoned to it, gave a low whistle, and it came, sank down beside the table, towering among them, incapable of the chairs. It was a living recorder; it received messages; it contained one. “Red-hive,” Eron explained, “is standing guard at a number of critical posts, on these grounds and elsewhere. Incorruptible guards. Far better than ordinary security. Their desires are . . . not in rivalry with ours. Quite the contrary.” He opened the plastic-bound agenda before him, and the others anxiously did the same. They were a mixed group, his own comrades, and some of the older representatives, selected ones . . . thankful to have been exempted from the general purge . . . grateful— Eron laughed inwardly, while gazing solemnly at the page before him— to have been admitted to this private meeting, the place of power where Council decisions were to be pre-arranged. He folded both hands on the agenda, smiled and leaned forward with a confidential warmth: it was a skill of his, to persuade. He practiced it consciously, foreknowing agreement. He was handsome, with the inbred good looks of all the Kontrin; he looked thirty: the real answer was two centuries above that, and that was true of most present, save a few of the Halds. He had grace, a matter most Kontrin neglected, content with power; he knew the use of it, and by it moved others. He was spokesman for the inner circle, for Hald and Ren-barant and Ruil Meth-maren. He meant to be more than that.

  “Item one: widening the access permitted by the Pact. There has been too severe a restriction between ourselves and the hives.” He reached, horrifying some of the older representatives, and laid a hand on the Warrior’s thorax. It suffered this placidly, in waiting pose. “We have learned things earlier generations didn’t know. The old restrictions have served their purpose. They were protective; they prevented misunderstandings. But— both majat and humans have adjusted to close contact. New realities are upon us. New cooperations are possible. Red-hive in particular has been responsive to this feeling. They are interested in much closer cooperation. So are golds, through their medium.”

  “Azi.” The deep baritone harmonies of the Warrior vibrated even through the table surface. The elder faces at the end of the table were stark with dread. Eron watched them and not the Warrior, reckoning their every reaction. “We widen the hives,” the Warrior said. “We protect human hives, for payment in goods. We need more fields, irrigation, more food, more azi. You can give these things. Red-hive and Kontrin—” More air hissed into the chambers. “—are compatible. We group now without the translation computers. We have found understanding, identification, synthesis. We taste . . . mutual desire.”

  That was awe. Eron saw it and smiled, a grim, taut smile, that melted into a friendlier one. “The power of the hives. Kontrin power, cousins. Human space shuts us out. Kontrin policy has limited our growth, limited our numbers, limited beta generation growth, limited the breeding of their azi. Colonized worlds throughout the Reach are fixed at the level of population reached four centuries ago. Our whole philosophy has been containment within the Reach. We have all acquiesced in a situation which was arranged for us . . . in the theory that humans and majat can’t cooperate. But we can. We don’t have to exist within these limits. We don’t have to go on living under these restrictions. Item number one in the program before you is essential: widening access permitted by the Pact. Your affirmative vote is vastly important. Majat will be willing to assist us on more than the Worker level. We already have Warriors accessible to our direction, at this moment; and possibly, possibly, my dear cousins— Drones. The key to the biologic computer that is the hive. That kind of cooperation, humans working directly with what has made the hives unaided by machines . . . capable of the most complex order of operations. That kind of power, joined to our own: majat holistic comprehension, joined to human senses, human imagination, human insights. A new order. We aren’t talking now about remaining bound by old limits. We don’t have to settle for containment any longer.”

  No one moved. Eyes were fixed on him, naked, full of speculations.

  No, more than speculation: it was fact; they had made it fact. This, here, in this room, was the reality of the Council. Decisions were being shaped here, and no one objected— no one, staring into the glittering eyes of the red Warrior— objected. At this end of the long table, in the hands of the Thels, the Meth-marens, the Ren-barants and the Halds . . . rested authority; and the others would go into the Council hall and vote as they were told, fearing for themselves what had been wrought elsewhere.

  And perhaps . . . perhaps conceiving ambitions of their own. The old order had been stagnant, centuries without change; change confronted them. Possibilities confronted them. Some would want a share of that.

  “Second item,” Eron said, not needing to look down. “A proposal for expansion of the azi breeding programs. The farms on Istra . . . have applied for expansion of their industry, repeatedly denied under the old regime. The proposal before Council grants that license . . . with compensations for past denials. The facilities on Istra and elsewhere can be quadrupled, an eighteen-year program of expansion easily correlated with the majat’s eighteen-year cycle of increase. The hives can be paid . . . in azi; and the population of the Reach can be readjusted.

  “Third item, cousins: authorization to beta governments for a ten percent increase in birth permits. The supervisory levels of industry and agriculture must increase in proportion to other increases.

  “Fourth: licensing of Kontrin births pegged to the same ten percent. There has already been attrition; there may be more.

  “Fifth: formal dissolution of certain septs and allotment of their Colors and privileges to other septs within those Houses. This merely regularizes certain changes already made.”

  There was laughter from the left side of the room, against the wall, where some of the younger generation sat. Eron looked, as many did. It was Pol Hald who extended his long legs and smirked to himself, ignoring his great-uncle’s scowl.

  “Questions?” Eron asked, trying to recapture the attention of those at the table. “Debate?”

  There was none offered.

  “We trust,” Tel a Ruil said, “in your votes. Votes will be remembered.”

  Meth-maren arrogance. Eron scanned faces for reactions, as vexed in Ruil’s bald threat as he had been in Pol’s mistimed laughter. The elders took both in silence.

  Glass smashed, rattled across the tiled floor. Eron looked rage at Pol Hald, who was poised in the careful act, hand open, his drink streamered across the floor. Eron started to his feet, thought better of it, and was grateful for the timely hand of Yls Ren-barant, urging him otherwise; and for Del Hald, who heaved his own bulk about
from the table to rebuke his grandnephew.

  Meth-marens and Halds: that hate was old and deep, and lately aggravated. Pol’s act was that of a clown, a mime, pricking at Family pomposities, more actor than the azi-per-formers. The poised hand flourished a retraction, buried itself beneath a folded arm. Sorry, the lips shaped, elaborate mockery.

  Tel Ruil was hard-breathing, face flushed. Ren-barant calmed him too, a slight touch, a warning. Tand Hald and Pol’s cousin Morn both looked aside, embarrassed and wishing to disassociate themselves. Eron scanned the lot of them, smiled in his best manner, leaned back. Tel a Ruil relaxed with a similar effort. The small knot of oldest Houses at the end of the table was a skittish group, apt to bolt; those faces did not relax.

  Eron relaxed entirely, and kept smiling, all cordiality. “We’ve begun a smooth transition. That has its difficulties, to be sure, but the advantages of keeping to a quiet schedule are obvious. There is the absolute necessity of keeping a calm face toward the betas and toward the Outside. You understand that. You understand what benefits there are for all of us. We have energies that are only grief to us, so long as we’re pent within these outmoded limits. Those talents can be of service. Is there any debate on agenda issues?

  “Are we agreed without it, then?”

  Heads nodded, even those at the end of the table.

  “Why don’t we,” Eron suggested then, “move on into the bar, and handle this in a more . . . informal atmosphere. Take your drinks with you if you like. We’ll talk there . . . about issues.”

  There was a relieved muttering, ready agreement. The air held a slightly easier feeling, and chairs went back, men and women moving out in twos and threes, talking in low voices— avoiding the majat Warrior, whose head rotated slightly, betraying life.

  Eron cast an urgent scowl at Del Hald, and a grimmer one at Pol and his two companions, who tarried in the seats against the wall, no more anxious to quit the room than their elders. Ros Hald and his several daughters delayed too, the whole clutch of Halds banded for defense.

  But Del wilted under Eron’s steady gaze, turned to Pol as he rose and caught at Pol’s arm. Pol evaded his hand, cast his great-uncle a mocking look . . . son of a third niece to Del and Ros, was Pol: orphan from early years, Del’s fosterling, and willing enough to put Del in command of Hald— but Del could not control him, had never controlled him. Pol was an irritant the Family bore and generally laughed at, for his irritation was to the Halds as often as any . . . and others enjoyed that.

  Pol rose, with his cousins.

  “The essence of humor,” said Eron coldly, “is subtlety.”

  “Why, then, you are very serious, cousin.” And seizing young Tand by the arm, Pol left for the bar, self-pleased, laughing. Morn followed in their wake, his grim face once turned back to Eron with no pleasure at all.

  Eron expelled a short breath and looked on Del. The eldest Hald’s lips were set in a thin line. “He’s a hazard,” Eron said. “Someone has to make sure of him. He can do us hurt.”

  “He should go somewhere,” Yls said softly to Del, “where he can find full occupation for his humor. Meron, perhaps. Wouldn’t that satisfy him?”

  “He goes,” the Hald said in a thin voice. “Morn goes with him. I understand you.”

  “A temporary matter,” Eron said, and clapped his hand to the Hald’s shoulder, pressed it as they walked toward the bar, Ros and his daughters trailing them. “My affection for the fellow. You understand. I don’t want trouble right now. We can’t afford it. Older heads have to manage this.”

  And when matters were more settled, Eron thought, Pol might come to some distant and inconspicuous end. Pol’s wit was not all turned to humor . . . a child of the last great purge, Pol a Ren hant Hald, and participant in a more recent one, when Meth-marens had done some little damage. Pol Hald and Morn: Pol whose jokes were infamous, and Morn who never laughed— they were both quite apt to treacheries.

  Eron thought this, and smiled his engaging smile, among others who held their drinks and smiled most earnestly . . . anxious folk, appropriately grateful to be invited here, admitted to the society of power.

  With the Halds and the Meth-marens, the Ren-barants and other key elders here, with Thon and Yalt decimated, and their bloc decimated . . . this gathering and the blocs they represented constituted the majority, not only of raw power on Cerdin, but of votes to sway all the Reach.

  vi

  “Night,” said a Worker.

  Raen had sensed it. She had learned the movements and rhythms of the hive which said that this was so: the increase of the traffic coming in, the subtle shifts of air-currents, the different songs. Inside the hive, the blackness was always the same. She had wished a piece of the fungus to provide light, and Workers had brought it, establishing it on the wall of the chamber that was hers. By this she proved to herself that her eyes still functioned, and gave them limits against which to work. But that was only for comfort. She had learned to see with touch, with the variations of the constant song of the hive; and to understand majat vision. Beautiful, beautiful, they called her, entranced with the colors of her warmth. You are the colors of all the hives, the attendants told her, blue and green and gold and red, ever-changing; but your limb is always blue-hive.

  Her hand, covered with blue-hive chitin: they were endlessly fascinated by that, which was a secret toward which majat had contributed. Kontrin genetic science and majat biochemistry . . . the two in complement had spawned all the life of the Reach. Majat were capable of analyses and syntheses of enormous range and sensitivity, capable of sampling and altering substances as naturally as humans flexed limbs, a partnership invaluable to Kontrin labs. But the hive, she realized, the hive had never directly participated. The majat Workers who came into the labs to stay were always isolated from Workers of the hive, lest their chemical muddle impress the hive and disturb it. They never returned, but clung forlornly to human company and direction, dependent on it, patterned to the few humans who dared touch them: seldom resting, sleepless, they would work until their energy burned them out. Afterward, humans must dispose of the corpses: no majat would.

  My being here is a danger to the Mind, she thought suddenly, with a deep pang of conscience. Maybe my coming here has done what they’ve always feared, shifted their chemistry and affected them. Perhaps I’ve trapped them.

  There were azi, human Workers . . . the majat lived closely with those, unaffected by chemical disturbance.

  Are they? she wondered; and then, more terrifyingly: Am I?

  The song deafened, quivered in the marrow of the bones. Mother began it, and the Workers carried it, and the Warriors added their own baritone counterpoint, alien to their own species, the killer portion of the partitioned hive-mind. Drones sang but rarely . . . or perhaps, like much of majat language, the Drone songs were seldom in human range.

  Raen rose, walked, tested the strength of her limbs. They had given her cloth of majat spinning, gossamer, the pale web of egg-sheaths. She did not wear it, for it disturbed them that she muted her colors, and nakedness no longer disturbed her. But she considered it now.

  “I am ready,” she decided. Workers touched her and scurried off, bearing that message.

  A Warrior arrived. She informed it directly of her plans, and it hurried off.

  Soon came the azi . . . humans, marginally so, though majat did not reckon them as such. Lab-bred, sterile, though with the outward attributes of gender, they served the hives as the Workers did, with hands more agile and wits more suited to dealing with humans, the new appurtenances the hives had taken on when they began to associate with humans, a new and necessary fragment of the hive-mind. Betas made them, and sold them to other betas . . . and to Kontrin, who sold them to the hives, short-lived clones of beta cells.

  They came, bearing blue lights hardly brighter than the illusory fungus, and gathered about her, perhaps bewildered by the chitin on her
hand, the realization that she was Kontrin, though naked as they, and within the hive. They were not bred fighters, these particular azi, but they were clever and quick, bright-eyed and anxious to serve. They were much prized by majat and must know their worth in the hive, but they were a little mad. Azi who dwelled among majat tended to be.

  “We’re going outside,” Raen told them. “You’ll carry weapons and take my orders.”

  “Yes,” they said, voices overlapping, song-toned, inflectionless as those of the majat. There was a certain horror in these strangest of the azi. They came here younger than azi were generally sold; they acquired majat habits. They touched her, confirming her in their minds. She returned the touches, and gathered up the clothing she had been given. She wrapped it round and tied it here and there. It had a strange feel, light as it was, the reminder of a world and a life outside.

  A Warrior came then, sat down, glittering in the azi-lights, chitinous head and powerful jaws a fantasy of jewel-shards. It offered her a pistol. It carried weapons of its own, besides the array nature had provided it: these items too majat prized, status for Warriors . . . empty symbols: humans had believed so. Raen took up the offered gun, found it shaped to a human hand. The cold, heavy object quickly warmed to her grip, and she took keen pleasure in the solidity of it: power, power to make Ruil pay.

  “Azi-weapon,” Warrior said. “Shall we arm azi?”