“Shall we?” She asked.
Adamarus took her arm.
“Hey!”
They both turned. A big man walked up to them. “Fuck off pal, she’s with me.” He was slurring his words and obviously drunk.
Dash tried to say something, but the marine grabbed her other arm and yanked her away from Adamarus.
Adamarus snapped, “Let her go.” Adamarus had his hood and sunglasses on so the marine in civvies didn’t recognize him.
The marine sucker punched Adamarus in the jaw which knocked him down. His glasses and hood flew off.
The man’s eyes went wide as he recognized the Admiral. “Oh shit!” He seemed to do a quick little dance then turned and ran.
---
Everyone was finally in hiber-sleep and, the time had come.
Adamarus looked at the relative clock.
Over a million normal years had passed in normal space, 5,413 years had passed on the ship, and the crew had been out of hiber-sleep for 39 experienced years
The six of them were alone sealed in the bridge everyone else was asleep.
They had all asked Adamarus what had happened to his face. He used the old favorite, I ran into an open hatch. Hatches didn’t open like that on Nemesis, but no one said anything. They all knew. The news had spread like wildfire throughout Nemesis.
Then it began, and the bruise on Adamarus’ face was forgotten.
Adamarus, Radin and the three other crew members watched with wide eyes as the horrific process unfolded.
There was simply no way to calculate how many would die. Adamarus guessed this was going to cause him to completely lose count of the number of deaths he was responsible for causing. Perhaps not such a bad thing. The number of lives it would save was vastly more. However, that knowledge was logic, not emotion. Also, that tally was in the distant future and didn’t seem to help.
When it was over, they got Nemesis back on course and modified the logs to show a course correction made to avoid a clump of dark matter. Then they got back into their hibernation pods like nothing had happened.
---
Lt. Dora Feather had been out of hiber-sleep for two weeks when she caught Adamarus in the corridor.
“Sir,” she began nervously—she did not know Adamarus that well, “do you ski?”
The question caught Adamarus off guard, “Ski?”
“Most people ski at Brady Pass on Mount Howie, but I hear the best skiing is on the north side of Mount Burnwall,” she blabbed nervously.
“Mount Burnwall, the volcano?”
“This is its dormant period. So?”
“So…what?”
“You want to go? A couple of other skiers and I are going for three days.”
Adamarus was taken back but definitely interested, “When?”
“We’re planning on leaving day after tomorrow.”
Adamarus made a snap decision, “I think I can clear my schedule for three days.”
However, the trip wound up being delayed for a few days. No one had been to the Atrium in decades (experienced-time) and bees had built hives all around the entryway. These bees were two-inches long. Luckily two bee keepers were available, and with suited helpers, they moved the six hives into the forest some distance away.
The trip was to the opposite side of the Atrium, 176-miles and took a total of three and a half hours.
They took 4x4s for 18-miles from the entrance to Howie Station on the Howie Dawn River. There they got a speedboat and zoomed down the winding Howie Dawn past Needle Mountain and all the way to The Lowland Sea, a trip of 60 miles which took them 90 minutes. Then, across the sea 16-miles to the unmanned station on the Island where they had secured the use of one of the two emergency shuttles there.
As the crow flies it was just 82-miles to the very basic resort on the side of Mount Burnwall so, it took only an hour.
It was still before noon, so they started a fire and ate lunch.
Then they hit the slopes. The soft pack was perfect, the air cold, fresh and clean. The view was fantastic. All of the Atrium stretched out before them.
Dora was a far better skier then Adamarus, but he managed to keep up. After an afternoon on the slopes they returned to the relative comfort of Station Island.
All three days went basically like the first day.
Once back at the entrance Adamarus entered the code specifying the large door so they could pull the vehicles in. Then he closed the doors.
None of them saw the half-dozen bees watching.
---
Because Nemesis was moving so fast, far more cosmic rays passed through the ship, therefore there were more mutations. This meant that evolution moved faster. This was not always a good thing, but for one particular strain of bees, it was.
In the 7,218 ship years these bees lived and died in the Atrium, they had gotten both smarter and larger—they were now three inches long. All female worker bees now had dance-names they called each other by. They had an advanced social order and females took female partners whom they just hung with.
Her dance-name was d-bet and several odd events would propel her into becoming the first historically famous bee. The first bee to have her own queen-dance to be passed down by each new queen to each new generation of bees.
The first event happened on a beautiful summer day. The smell of grass was in the air and it was a windless day, almost hot but not quite.
d-bet and her partner d-mer had filled their pollen sacks and were about to head back to the hive when the ground started shaking which made the flowers shake. She flew up and looked around and saw to her horror that a herd of bison was stampeding towards them.
Both bees instinctively flew towards the safety of the trees, but the bison were coming too quickly. They were forced to fly up and get above the charging herd and just barely made it.
But dirt, rocks, and twigs were flying through the air and a root hit d-mer and she went down into the stampede.
The herd passed quickly and d-bet hurriedly flew down to find her. The ground was trampled and a wasteland but d-bet heard d-mer buzzing for help. She located her and was horrified to find she was under a rock. d-bet tried with all her might to lift the rock, but it was too heavy to move. She tried pulling and pushing to no avail.
d-mer was going into a panic and would sting something and give her life away if she didn’t do something soon.
d-bet needed more bees to help lift the rock. She flew up to look for any of her sisters but could see nor hear none. She looked down again and noticed a stick propped up by a rock, one end in the air, the other end under the rock d-mer was caught under.
d-mer was really starting to panic.
d-bet flew higher, but, still she could not see nor hear any of her hive or any other for that matter. She was tired out from avoiding the stampede and trying to lift the rock. She flew down and landed on the stick with one end in the air to gather her wits and… the stick lowered. She looked down at the rock and the rock had lifted enough for d-mer to squeeze out.
However, it was too late for d-mer. She had panicked and had stung the dirt and had given her life away. d-mer held her as the life passed from her. She died in d-bet’s arms.
d-mer stayed with her for a while remembering their times together. After the sadness passed a bit, d-bet tried sitting on the stick again. She watched as magically the rock she couldn’t even move using all her strength rose into the air.
When she got back to the hive, she deposited her pollen then went to the main chamber. She danced with great enthusiasm about how she had lifted an unliftable rock using a stick. No one believed her.
The next morning a dozen sisters went with d-bet to see the magic. d-bet found the stick as well as d-mer’s body.
First, she had d-lin, a giant of a bee twice the size of anyone else, try to lift the rock. She could not. Then d-bet had all the bees including d-lin try to lift the rock. They could barely move it.
So, d-bet, showing off with just a bit of flair,
flew up, and landed on the end of the stick. The large stone rocked a little bit but it did not lift. Not at all.
The bees scorned and made fun of d-bet. The giant named d-lin butted d-bet in the face. d-bet went down stunned and lay on the ground not far from her dead partner d-mer. While she lay there, the other bees went away still buzzing her with scorn.
d-bet couldn’t figure out why it worked yesterday but not today.
Finally, she regained her senses and flew off to gather her share of pollen for the day.
She missed d-mer.
That evening when she was done, she passed near the rock again and decided to try it once more. To her surprise, it worked. She repeated it over and over again. It worked every time. Why? What was the difference?
The sun was setting. It hadn’t taken long to get here this morning but now, weighted down with pollen, it would take her longer to get back.
What was the difference?
She began the trek back to the hive.
Well, one difference was it would take her longer to get back.
Why?
What was the difference?
The difference was the sacks on her hind legs were filled with wet, compressed pollen.
When she got back, she deposited her pollen and went to the main chamber to dance today’s discovery. But, no one wanted to hear her and d-lin once again butted d-bet. This time it was almost a killing blow. d-bet went down injured. Bees walked over her for hours.
The next day d-bet found she could make her pollen run. She was thinking though. Thinking about the stick, the rock and the pollen.
As she filled her sacks, she felt more than anything, the storm that was approaching.
She paused at one flower and noticed a bird diving down on some pray. She watched the drama play out. The bird dove but the flower hopper it was after grabbed a branch with its hind legs and yanked down just the bird was about to pluck it from the flower. The bird missed and the flower hopper took off.
d-bet was so interested in the technique she had just seen that she didn’t notice that the flower hopper was coming right at her.
d-bet was about to fly away when she saw that the bird was swooping in for another try just behind the flower hopper. She froze for a second. The flower hopper hit her, the bird hit them both and all hit the ground which happened to be a sandstone rock.
d-bet was being pushed backwards her stinger grinding against the rock. The sandstone ground at her stinger and ripped away the backward barb.
The three separated and d-bet was tossed under a bush. She lay there, once again injured. After a time, she bent and looked at her stinger. Where the backward barb had been was a red mark on the stinger, like two lines crossing each other. She slowly got her legs under her and decided she was okay.
A raindrop fell and thunder sounded.
She needed to get back.
Lightning flashed and thunder roared, but luckily the drops were spaced far apart. If she got wet, she could not fly.
Finally, she saw the tree that held her hive and started toward it.
That’s when lightning hit her tree and the tree blew apart.
The explosion blew her back. She recovered and looked. Her tree was scattered across the ground on fire. She rushed to the tree even though parts of it were burning. The branches were scattered everywhere across the ground. The other bees were swarming above the destroyed tree.
Their buzzing came to her, “Where is the queen?”
She was closer to the ground and smelled the sweet scent of honey. This led her to the hive, but it had burst open, and honey was all over the fallen branches and the ground.
Then she heard the queen calling for help. She swooped closer to the ground and the destroyed hive and saw the queen. She was trapped in honey and twisted branches. The only way out was blocked by a rock.
A rock?
She swooped upward and buzzed, “Queen needs help.”
The first one to respond was the giant d-lin. Good d-bet thought.
d-lin dove down knocking d-bet away then flew down to the queen. d-bet recovered and flew up to get more help.
When she returned with six other bees, it was raining harder but fortunately what remained of the tree sheltered them. She could see that d-lin could not move the rock. They all jumped in to help, but they could not budge the rock.
A rock?
She immediately looked for a stick and there one was. Just like before.
She heard the queen panicking and flew down to her and buzzed, “Do not worry my queen. And do not give away your life. I can save you.”
“How?” the queen asked.
“Watch,” and d-bet flew up and landed at the end of the branch wedged under the rock. The rock lifted and the queen was able to work her way out as all the other astounded bees gaped at d-bet.
But d-bet wasn’t paying attention to this, she had just seen something that terrified all bees. Part of the bark had moved. The lightning strike combined with the smell of all that honey had caused the normally slow moving and stealthy Honey Sucker to give itself away. It was sucking down honey with abandon inches away from the queen and coming at her.
The queen was covered with honey and couldn’t move fast enough to get out of the way.
d-bet did what any bee would do to protect her queen. She flew down to the queen and buzzed, “Don’t worry my queen,” and turned and flew right at the approaching Honey Sucker. Then she gave her life away by stinging the Honey Sucker on the soft inner flesh it was exposing to eat the honey. One sting was all it took, the Honey Sucker started turning black and dying.
The queen and all the bees had watched d-bet give her life away. d-bet had crawled off to die. But… d-bet didn’t die. Her stinger did not lodge within the Honey Sucker because it no longer had a backward barb. She had pulled it back out and was fine.
She went to the queen to help the other bees clean the queen off, but the queen pulled her aside, “How did you save me?”
“Something I discovered called leverage.”
“And how did you sting the Honey Sucker and live.”
“Something I discovered called sanding,” and she turned and showed the queen her stinger. Instead of a backward pointing barb, a red cross went down the stinger. It had splayed ends and looked distinctive.
The queen was shocked. She had never seen nor heard of such things. “d-bet, you must show others how these things work and, yes, we must make a dream dance… your dream-dance to pass this down.”
The giant d-lin watched and listened in shock getting angrier and angrier. d-lin could not have said why she was mad but she was ready to pop.
The queen danced to all her bees, “Before anything else, we must survive the rain, dry off then swarm! Our scouts must find us a new home and there is much to do.”
d-bet flew off to begin the swarm and the process of finding a new hive.
The giant d-lin could no longer contain herself. She flew after d-bet.
The queen watched this with alarm and ordered the sisters around her to go to d-bet’s aid.
However, d-bet knew d-lin was coming for her. But what she also knew was that she needed to pick the place. She swung into the downed tree and found a branch, turned and grabbed on with her hind legs.
d-bet saw d-lin coming.
When d-lin flew in, and saw d-bet she slowed and hovered.
This wasn’t working d-bet saw. Then she knew what must be done. She had to make the giant mad. d-bet buzzed, “The queen loves me and hates you.”
d-lin charged.
d-bet pulled down and d-lin flew right past and head first into the rough bark of the limb behind d-bet. d-lin tumbled to the ground dead.
Word spread that d-bet had killed d-lin and a legend was born.
After a new hive was found, the queen added d-bet’s dance to her sacred dream dances and d-bet’s name became known to all. Her name would be the source for the bee saying ‘Only d-bet knows why.’
---
; Nemesis was in abyssal space between galactic groups. Everyone would go into hibernation again and, again, Whitehall didn’t like it.
As he was lowered into the pod, he again saw Adamarus, Radin, Dora Feather, Victor Lamar, and Mark Silva still awake. Everyone else asleep. What bothered him about that. And why did he think of President Wicker and now that he thought about it, Bradford Donnelly too?
Just as sleep closed in Whitehall realized that those were the same people who had attended Bug’s secret meeting before leaving the Iceis star system.
---
At 16,240 years in the bee’s evolution, things took a strange turn. Violent interactions with marauding pollen wasps had just begun and some bee hives had been attacked and wiped out by the pollen wasps.
Again, it was an accident of circumstance, the bee hive was within a hollow tree, and the entrance was about ten feet up the trunk. Inside the honey cones extended to a point about five-inches under the entrance and, the bark and wood protecting the honey at this point, was rotten.
In addition, setting more dominoes in a row, a Honey Sucker had been creeping up the tree toward the hive entrance and was inches below the entrance.
It was a cool fall day, the smell of winter in the air, when finally, the last piece fell into place at just the right moment.
Pollen wasps attacked the hive.
The Honey Sucker moved to attack the bee hive at the same time. But when it moved the rotted bark and wood fell inward and the Honey Sucker found itself able to eat honey without exposing its soft inner parts to the bees.
The bees, quickly learning that they had no chance against the wasps in the air, retreated to the hive using the entrance just above the Honey Sucker. They would defend against the wasps as the wasps attempted to enter the hive. The only problem was the wasps outnumbered them and they would just keep coming.
Meanwhile, the Honey Sucker had eaten all the honey within reach. But the smell was so strong. It began attacking the bees again with its tentacles, but it was not killing bees this time… it was killing wasps. It didn’t know the difference.
With the Honey Sucker just outside the entrance killing wasps, the bees just had to sit back and watch. When at last the wasps retreated, the bees had to keep the Honey Sucker fed for it to remain dormant. However, if the wasps attack again, stop feeding it, and it protected the entrance.
Odyssey (The Spiral Slayers Book 3) Page 10