tapped containers of the special beverage theybrewed for their own use, and were inviting all passers-by to pause anddrink.
"Your people are here somewhere," said Qanya. Her eyes on Dworn weretroubled. "Over there to the south, I think I saw some beetles parked.Do you want to visit them?"
Dworn sighed. "Your people are here too."
"I know."
* * * * *
Neither of them moved. They stood silent, their thoughts the same; in alittle while now, the Peace of the Drone would be over, and all thiscelebrating crowd would grow warily quiet, would climb back into theirvarious fighting machines, close the hatches and man the guns and creepaway in their separate directions. The world would go its way again, aworld in which there was no place left for the two of them....
Dworn blotted the image from his mind's eye and bent to kiss Qanya oncemore, while the Peace lasted.
A voice called, "Dworn!" A familiar voice--one that couldn't be real,that must be a trick of his ears.
He turned. A little way off stood a small group of people watching them,and in the forefront was a stalwart man of fifty, in the green garmentof a beetle with a golden scarab blazoned on his chest--
"_Father!_" Dworn gasped unbelieving.
They grasped one another's hands and looked into one another's eyes.Dworn was only dimly aware of the others looking on--among them thehard-faced Spider Mother, and the grizzled chief scorpion whose cohortshad struck the decisive blow in the battle.
Yold smiled with a quizzically raised eyebrow. "You thought I was dead,no doubt? You came on the spot where we were attacked and you saw--"
Dworn nodded and gulped. "I couldn't have been mistaken. I saw yourmachine there, wrecked.... And now I've lost mine." His voice trailedoff miserably.
His father gave him a penetrating look. "I see. You're supposing thatmeans everything is over."
"Doesn't it?"
The chief smiled again. "When you departed for your wanderyear, you werestill a boy, though you'd learned your lessons and your beetletraditions well.... But now you're a man. We don't tell boyseverything."
Dworn stared at his father, while understanding dawned like a gloryupon him. To live again, the life he'd thought lost--
"So far as I could learn, your beetle was disabled through no fault ofyour own. In fact, by what these strangers tell me--" Yold noddedtowards the Spider Mother and the scorpion chief--"you've provedyourself worthy indeed, over and above the customary testing. Of course,there will be the formality of a rebirth ceremony--which I have toundergo, too, so we can both do so together."
Dworn couldn't speak. Once again he had to remind himself that a beetlewarrior didn't weep--not even tears of joy.
Then the Spider Mother spoke up, her voice brittle and metallic. "Thegirl will naturally be returned to us. After this business, I am goingto have to take pains to restore discipline in the Family."
Dworn saw Qanya's desolate face, took one step to the girl's side andput a shielding arm around her. He felt Qanya trembling, and glared atthe Spider Mother's implacable face.
"I won't go back!" Qanya cried vehemently. "I'll die first! I neverwanted to be a spider, anyway!"
"And I," growled Dworn, "won't let you take her. I won't let her go--"his face was pale, but he went on resolutely--"even if it means I can'treturn to my own people."
The beetle chief surveyed the two young people gravely, then turned toconfront the old woman. He said, "I don't see that you have any furtherclaim on the girl. According to our customs, she too can be'reborn'--this time into the beetle horde, as one of my people--and myson's."
The head scorpion, looking on, nodded approval and grinned encouraginglyat Dworn.
The Spider Mother and the chief exchanged a long, stony look--on eitherside, the look of a ruler used to command.
"It would be too bad," said Yold softly, "to mar the Peace. But mywarriors are within call, and...."
The Spider Mother turned away and spat. "Have it your way. Who wantsweaklings in the Family!"
The chief glanced sidelong at Dworn and Qanya, and saw that they werewholly absorbed in one another. With an open-handed gesture he invitedthe Spider Mother to follow him.
"Shall we go, then," he suggested politely, "and--while the Peace stillreigns--find out whether the pill-bugs' beverage is all they claim itis?"
THE END
World of the Drone Page 13