Tassin sensed Sabre glance at her when she took his hand. She knew he regarded her as a foolish young girl, and hanging onto him only confirmed that, but she did not care anymore. In this den of monsters, she was not going to be parted from him. This was the end of their journey, she was sure. The monster-queen would kill them, but at least she would be with him at the end. Years of weapons' training and close combat had callused his hand, yet it was a lifeline she clung to, drawing strength from him.
Tassin trotted to keep up with his long strides. The ugly monster led them towards the busy thoroughfare and turned left, passing under a sun slug. Other skifgar glanced at her and Sabre, and prickles of nervous tension marched up her spine as they passed a warrior. Fear coiled in the pit of her stomach like a cold snake, and her hand grew damp in Sabre's warm clasp.
"Sabre?"
He glanced at her, his silver eyes flat. "What?"
"If they... you know, try to turn us into... cattle, would you...?" Her eyes stung, and she gulped. "Would you...?" She could not say it, but his eyes froze.
"Kill you?"
She nodded.
"It won't come to that."
"You don't know that! What if they won't listen to you? What if they only regard us as animals?" She knew he was tired of her 'what ifs', but life was full of them.
He sighed. "I can talk to them, so they can't regard us as animals."
"You don't know how they think. They might find a talking animal offensive. What would people do if a cow suddenly spoke to them?"
"I doubt they'd kill it. They'd probably keep it as a novelty."
"That's all right for you, but I can't speak their language," she said.
"Stop it. I've told Garchish you're a queen. They'll respect that. Their society is based on status, which they're born to. They won't dare make a queen into a wooden-head, even an alien one."
Tassin glanced around, her heart pounding. The tunnel had broadened and brightened, and monsters thronged it, many of them warriors. Their guide headed for a wide, brightly lighted side tunnel. Two warriors guarded it, their grey hides striped and spotted with red. This was evidently the tunnel that led to the queen's chambers, and Tassin fought a strong urge to run away. The warriors stepped into their guide's path, and it stopped, lowering its head. The three conversed in hisses, and the warriors peered at the humans, hissed at the worker, then stepped aside. Their guide entered the tunnel, Sabre close behind it. Tassin tugged at his hand.
"Sabre, will you do it? If everything goes wrong. Will you?"
Inwardly she cringed at the flash of pity in his eyes, mixed with the unidentifiable emotion she had glimpsed before, but again it was gone too quickly, his eyes turning cool and unreadable.
"Yes."
She shivered at the hard monosyllable and the visions it conjured up. How would he do it? Smash her skull? Break her neck? Would it hurt?
"How -?"
"Don't ask me how I'll do it," he growled. "It isn't going to happen. I just wanted to shut you up, okay?"
"But -"
"Stop it! There's no use forecasting doom and death before it happens. We'll get the sword and go home. If everything goes wrong, as you so nicely put it, I'll make sure... I'll take care of you, painlessly, okay?"
A lump blocked her throat, and she nodded. Terror knotted her stomach and froze her heart, cold sweat sheened her skin. Her legs had turned to rubber, and she stumbled after him, clinging to his hand. A spurt of defiance stiffened her spine as the tunnel opened out into a massive chamber that resembled an amphitheatre. Warriors thronged its perimeter in rows, squatting on their haunches, their blade arms coiled. The air reverberated with subdued hissing, and long necks weaved above the mass of lumpy, gaudily-striped and spotted bodies.
The warriors bore the colours of their rank, the back rows filled with red-marked beasts, then rows filled with red and blue, then red blue and green, while the front rows were marked with gold as well. Their skifgar guide lowered itself to its knees and crawled forward. If not for Sabre's solid presence, Tassin would have collapsed from sheer terror. Animosity charged the air, and the sullen red eyes of hundreds of skifgar bored into her. She swallowed bile. Never had she been so afraid, yet Sabre raised his chin and glared back without fear. She berated herself for her cowardice and straightened.
Two sun-slugs circled the roof, constantly renewing the glowing slime. In front of the packed rows of high-ranking warriors was an area of polished resin floor. Translucent pillars flanked a row of shallow, curving steps, and four gaudily-marked warriors stood beside them. Faint lines of silver gleamed amongst their gold, red, green and blue markings. Resin curtains hung behind the dais, which the yellow slime on the wall beyond lighted with a soft golden glow. The queen sat in the centre of the dais, no larger than her warriors, yet quite different.
Her skin was a solid mass of gold and silver stripes and spots, and, whereas warriors and workers had undeveloped knobs, she had long, delicate spikes. Two sets of blade arms coiled beneath her fragile hand arms, and her dagger-tipped tail was far longer than her warriors'. She rested on a sloping ramp, forelegs dangling, hind legs bunched. Bright green eyes blazed in her dished, seahorse face, and white hair ran from her chin, along the underside of her jaw and neck onto her chest.
The worker skifgar stopped and lowered its head to the ground when one of the four brightly marked warriors approached. After a short, hissed exchange, the worker backed away. Sabre stepped aside, tugging Tassin out of the way as Garchish retreated. She tried not to cower when the warrior turned to Sabre, its gleaming, razor-edged blades within reach.
The skifgar queen's attention was riveted to a red and white-striped creature with an amazing number of legs that cavorted before her, at times revealing a row of square white teeth in a ludicrous grin. Its spherical, furry body bounced about like a ball, thin legs waving. Tassin wondered if this was the entertainment or an entrée.
Sabre studied the warrior, whose expressionless eyes raked Tassin. Luckily she was watching the furry creature, and did not notice. Garchish had told this warrior who they were, yet she showed Tassin no respect.
Sabre hissed, "Is it not proper to show respect to an invader-queen?"
The practice he had gained with Garchish had improved his pronunciation vastly, and there was little wrong with his speech now. The warrior glanced at him, then bobbed her head at Tassin. A token sign of respect, which Tassin did not notice. Sabre glared at the trendil.
"We wish to speak to your kin-mother-queen."
"She is busy." The warrior's blade arms twitched. "You will speak to me."
Remembering Garchish's words, Sabre shook his head. "No. I will speak to your kin-mother-queen."
"You are only a warrior. A wooden-head warrior, at that. You do not have the status to demand an audience with kin-mother-queen."
"But my kin-mother-queen does," Sabre said.
"Yet she does not speak. She looks like a wooden-head to me."
Sabre glanced at Tassin, who was engrossed in the animal clown's antics. He restrained himself from digging her in the ribs and faced her.
"Tassin."
She turned to him, glancing at the looming warrior, and he was glad it was unable to read human expressions. He said, "Pay attention. Act like you're giving me an order. Shout if you can. We have to draw the queen's attention."
She shivered, her eyes darting to the warrior again, and licked her lips. "Why?" It was almost a whisper, and Sabre groaned inwardly.
"Because we have to impress her, or we'll end up in the larder. Stop being a damn coward and pull yourself together. You're acting like a spineless twit! Do you want to die? I thought you were supposed to be a warrior queen, not a snivelling, frightened little girl!"
Sabre spoke in a respectful, hushed tone, but his words were meant to make her angry, and, as he hoped, rage flared in her eyes. He knew it was not just his words that inspired it. Her fear angered her, for Tassin was no coward. She was tired of being afraid. She wanted to g
o home, and his insults turned her fear into fury.
Her hand lashed out, catching him across the cheek in a stinging slap, which he did not try to avoid. He dropped to one knee and bowed his head, watching the trendil's reaction.
"How dare you?" she cried in ringing tones. "I'm not afraid of a bunch of stupid, lumpy monsters!" She advanced on the warrior, shaking a fist at her. "Get down on your knees, animal! I'm a queen, and you'll show me respect!"
Sabre hissed a modified translation into the stunned silence that followed her ringing tirade. To his relief, the warrior backed away and lowered her head. Tassin glared at the trendil.
"I'm sick to death of all this damned sneaking around and political mumbo jumbo! I want that damned sword, and I want to go home! I don't want to die in this stinking, slug-infested, slime-riddled cesspit! And what you've done to those people is shameful! They're not damned animals..."
By now Sabre was having trouble fabricating a suitable translation. Tassin seemed to have tapped into a font of deep, heartfelt emotion that he could not reveal to the trendils. He crawled to her and tugged at her dress, as if asking her forgiveness.
"For Pete’s sake shut up! That's enough!"
The Queen looked at him, her eyes sparkling with rage, mouth open to vent the next chapter of her spleen. She sagged and reached for him, but he pushed her away and rose to his feet, as if that had been the signal. Gripping her arm to steady her and hold her away, he scanned the chamber.
A pin dropping would have sounded like a thunderclap. The animal clown had paused in mid-gambol, half of its legs in the air, to stare at them with bulging baby-blue eyes. The trendil queen's icy green gaze was fixed on Tassin, and the warrior retreated. Sabre tried to remember how he had translated Tassin's words. It had had a lot to do with proper respect and demanding to speak to the queen, but a few 'damns' had slipped into the mess, since it was hard to improvise.
The animal clown lowered its legs to the floor and crept away. The trendil queen had stiffened in her languid pose, and a pair of blade arms uncoiled. Her face was incapable of expression, but there was a wealth of it in her words.
"An invader-queen in my hive? A wooden-head queen? Why was I not told?" Her hiss filled the silence with venom, reminding Sabre of a pit of snakes poked with a stick, and he realised that the trendil queen was not a nice person. A gold and silver blade arm beckoned.
"Come closer, invader-queen."
Her gesture and words held a wealth of menace, and Sabre's heart sank. He tugged Tassin forward, translating while he walked. She clung to him with a trembling hand, her eyes filled with fearful defiance. As he stopped before the trendil queen, Sabre sank to one knee and bowed his head. Her cold eyes flicked over him and impaled Tassin.
"What are you doing in my hive, wooden-head queen? Do you wish to rule the meat animals in their pen?"
A wave of hissing issued from the packed lines of warriors behind them, and the cyber failed to translate it. Sabre prodded for a translation, and it obliged with 'ha ha ha'. So, trendils could laugh.
He raised his head. "Hive-queen. I must speak for my kin-mother-queen. She does not speak your tongue." He paused as her cold eyes drifted to him. "We come in search of a metal... object that came with us, but that we have lost. Do you know where it is?"
"Yes."
The alien queen sounded bored, and Sabre hurried on, "I know you don't wish us in your hive, and we don't want to be here. The metal object brought us here by accident. It's our tool. If you return it we will leave, and not bother you further."
The matriarch seemed to swell. "You! You who tried to wipe us out! You dare to ask a favour of me!"
"No, I -"
The trendil queen hissed, "You came to our world in your metal ships and walked amongst us as if you owned the planet. We did not offer you harm, yet you drove us away with bright weapons, and killed many. We tried to speak to you, but you would not listen. You cleared our land, cut our forests, slaughtered our meat animals. You spread your ugliness in your wake. Metal boxes, rock paths that suffocated the ground, metal webs that cut and hurt, evil smoke that spoilt the air.
"Still we offered you no harm, yet you killed any warrior or worker you found. We moved away, but you came after us in metal birds that roared, hunted us like prey animals. Then you found the city of a sister-queen, and you destroyed it with fire and light. Twenty-five thousand workers, eleven thousand warriors, and a queen. We felt their deaths, every one, and when our sister-queen died, it was war.
"How easily you perished! Without your metal birds and fire, you sliced like fat grubs, and you were good to eat. Since you had killed our meat beasts, we brought you within the hive to breed for food. But you made trouble, so we made you stupid, and harmless. You lost the war, man-thing. We killed your warriors, but we never found a queen. When you were defeated, you killed our world.
"You made many flashes of light and thunder, and everything died, animals, trees, and our people above the ground. You did not know we lived below, did you? We survived, man-thing, on your brothers' flesh. The surface of our world is now a death trap for any who set foot there. Now you come to us asking for our help, when before you never even spoke to us! What jest is this?"
Sabre kept his head bowed while she vented her wrath, holding onto Tassin when she would have retreated from the vicious hisses. The story did not surprise him. The universe was filled with planets on which mankind had made similar mistakes. Humans were famous for their arrogance, yet seldom had they underestimated an alien intelligence as much as this one. Turning to Tassin, he outlined the story the trendil queen had told him. She looked shocked, and he prodded her.
"Say something. She expects commands to come from you. I'm just an interpreter."
"I... I don't know what to say. If she blames us for that, we're doomed."
Sabre turned to the trendil queen. "Hive-queen -"
"Your speech is brief," she interrupted. "But then, you already knew the story, of course."
"No. That was not my kin-mother-queen's hive."
The ranks of warriors behind them hissed, and the trendil queen waited for it to die down. "You lie. The invader-queen was never found. It must be her."
Sabre turned to Tassin again. "She doesn't believe me. I told her those people aren't ours. Say something."
"I don't know what to say. Why can't she just give us the damned sword?"
Sabre faced the alien queen. "We come from another land. My kin-mother-queen is not the invader-queen. If she was, we would not have come to you for help."
The warriors behind them hissed again, and the trendil queen weaved her neck in evident annoyance. "I don't care if she is that queen. She is the same kind. You are man-things; our enemy!"
Sabre longed to stand up, but remained on one knee, looking up at Tassin. "She's not happy. Trouble is, they hate people. They certainly don't want to help us. Say something."
"Well it's people who are keeping them alive now, isn't it? Without them, they would be extinct. Anyway, why don't you tell them about the sword?"
Sabre turned to the alien queen. "Hive-queen, you live on man-thing's flesh now. They pay for their crime, but the metal tool you have is dangerous. It could harm you if we don't take it away."
The trendil queen leant forward. "How is it dangerous?"
"It is a man-thing's weapon. It can make thunder and light, and kill your entire hive."
"So why do you want it?"
Sabre glanced up at Tassin, then turned back to the alien queen. "We will take it back to our land, where we will use it to fight our enemies, who are also man-things."
The hive-queen did not seem to notice that Tassin had not spoken. Her blade arms coiled and uncoiled, revealing her tension. The razor-sharp blades made a slithering noise as they rubbed against her leathery skin, and her head weaved to and fro. "Very well. You can take the metal tool, but I still have the right to challenge the invader-queen. She will fight me."
Sabre's heart sank. He was sure Tassin
could hardly beat off a friendly dog with a stick. The thought of her trying to fight this four-metre tall bony monstrosity with scythe arms was a joke. The hissed laughter from the warriors behind him confirmed that they thought so too. The alien queen wanted revenge, pure and simple, and did not care about fair play. Tassin waited for a translation, and he told her that he would have to fight one of the warriors, receiving the expected horrified reaction. Before she could protest, he faced the hive-queen again.
"We are from different cultures, different peoples. You demand a blood debt battle between queens. We have different traditions. We know blood debt, but our queens don't fight. They appoint a warrior. If we must accept your challenge, then we ask that it be on our terms."
The trendil queen lowered her head to regard him with wintry eyes. "You? We all know how puny you man-things are in battle. It makes little difference whether it's you or she who dies, so long as one lives to remove the metal tool from our hive."
"Then you accept?"
"Yes."
"Which warrior do you choose?"
The alien queen swept the assembly with a gimlet eye, which came to rest on the warrior that had spoken to them at the door. "She."
Sabre turned to Tassin. "Go and wait by that pillar. You'll be safe, whether I win or lose. The queen wants the sword taken away."
"No! You can't fight one of these monsters!" She clung to his arm as he regained his feet, his knee aching.
"I must." He held her away, aware that every eye was upon them. "Don't make a scene, and don't argue. I should win. Cybers are pitted against aliens all the time. They usually win. If I don't, you can make the sword take you back. Don't argue!"
Tassin closed her mouth with a snap and glanced at their audience. Her mulish expression clashed with the shimmer of tears in her eyes, and she swallowed hard. "Good luck."
The Cyber Chronicles 03: The Core Page 18