Arach

by C. M. Simpson

  The queen stopped and, when she faced Delight, her expression was tight.

  “Scan, then. My warriors have not reported keeping prisoners,” She stopped. “Although we have been out of contact, so if prisoners were taken, I would not know. I can assure you, however, that we will not be interrogating them. Such activities do not usually produce reliable results, even with our abilities. The arach have similar capabilities, and ways of protecting their minds against it.”

  Delight paused, although I could see she had yet another question she wanted to ask. So, too, could the queen.

  “What else do you wish to know, Agent Delight?”

  Delight blushed, and then looked into the queen’s face.

  “What do you do with the arach you take?”

  “I use them to build warriors better adapted for killing them.”

  Delight swallowed, clearly looking for the words for what she wanted to ask next. The queen twitched her antennae, and huffed a very human-like sigh.

  “I use them as living incubators for my young, and the young of my strongest warriors.”

  She laid a hand on the shoulder of her nearest guard, and waited for Delight to respond. When she didn’t, the queen continued.

  “Any prisoners from the raid on the settlement will be transported to the hive, where they await our pleasure.”

  Delight paled, but the queen wasn’t done.

  “This is the fate of all surviving arach from the Shady Marie”—and I watched as Mack’s eyebrows rose in surprise—“and the station. This is the sentence given to those who try to take my world. It is the sentence of all who betray K’Kavor. Is that understood?”

  Delight swallowed twice, and nodded, biting her lower lip. The queen pivoted on her heel, and stalked towards the door. When she reached it, she paused, her hand on the frame.

  “And can your Odyssey stomach it?”

  Delight’s response held no hesitation.

  “Yes, your Majesty. Odyssey has no jurisdiction over the laws of your world, and will abide by them.”

  The queen looked back.

  “It is essential, Agent, if we are to have the kinds of vespis warriors we need to defeat this new swarm. The arach are like the seasons—and there will be no end to their attacks until the current swarm is wiped from the stars. Once we know their identity, we will promulgate that name. Larvae who are raised on arach flesh ingest the native aggression of an arach warrior, and develop the instincts most needed to combat them. We did the same when the humans invaded our home, and tried to use us as cattle.”

  Delight blanched, but she nodded, her expression a careful blank.

  “We understand, your Majesty.”

  The queen nodded.

  “That punishment is one reserved for only the worst criminals—murderers, traitors and those who prey on the weak, like parasites. We do not promulgate it, but we apply it without exception, is that not so, Foreman?”

  And Fabian nodded, vigorously, his knuckles white from gripping his laptop so tight. It made me wonder what he had been privy to that he had turned that particular shade of white. The queen turned her gaze towards me.

  “We rescued him from those seeking to traffic in human flesh and labor. As a child, he saw what he needed to, in order to know he was protected.”

  From the look on Fabian’s face, I wasn’t sure protected was the right word for what he was feeling, now.

  “We do not condone slavery, either,” Delight said, and Tekravzary shrugged.

  “What we do is not slavery; it is execution. Can your Odyssey live with that, or not?”

  “We can,” Delight said, “but let us offer assistance so that you do not need to rely on criminals as a means to raise your young.”

  “Speak with me when this battle is done,” Tekravzary said. “My people would appreciate the option—especially as we move to the stars. There are others who will not understand…”

  Now, there was an understatement, I thought, but the queen moved through the door, and I followed at T’Kit’s side.

  “Mack,” Tekravzary said, “I need you and Tens in the shuttle. Fabian, work with Odyssey to do what you can for the Shady Marie. Agent Delight, I look forward to Odyssey’s assistance, when you have done what is needed here. Fabian will tell you the appropriate means of contact.”

  And we were gone, leaving Delight in the conference room, while the queen commandeered the Sugarsides’ pinnace for the return journey to the orbital. I figured Delight had called ahead, or they’d never have let the queen and her entourage aboard. Even so, the cockpit stayed sealed for the short flight, and the pilot spoke via the intercom only to welcome us aboard, and to let us know when it was safe to disembark.

  Points to the queen, I thought, and hurried after her Majesty as she summoned Rohan and Askavor to join us for the trip planetside.

  20—Birth of a Planetary Nation

  The drop-ship fell away from the orbital in a long smooth arc, with Rohan at the controls. Tens had settled the boy in the pilot’s seat, and looked over his shoulder at Mack.

  “We could do with a second pilot on staff,” he said, and Mack had frowned.

  “I thought we were going to hire one.”

  Tens shrugged.

  “Why would we want to do that, when we already have one in training?”

  “He’ll need a new contract,” Mack said. “I’ll have Doc draw one up, and we’ll put him on the payroll.”

  The queen observed the exchange with interest.

  “Is he not too young?” she asked, but Mack shook his head.

  “If he’s old enough to do the job, he’s old enough to be paid for it.”

  “I take it that this is not customary among humans.”

  “No. Most humans insist their young undertake a full twelve year’s basic education, followed by several more of specialized training. We have allowed the boy to choose his own educational path, once he had the skills to develop it.” He cast a thoughtful glance at Rohan, and added, “It has been a double-edged sword.”

  The queen shrugged.

  “It is how our young are trained.”

  Well, there was no arguing with that. It made me curious as to how Odyssey were going to go about setting up the academy. Would they go traditional human, or…

  “They will establish our training center, according to our colony’s requirements, and the training will be open to human, weaver and vespis, alike. With the arach on the horizon, we can no longer let time heal the old wounds. Surgery will be required.”

  I was pretty sure Odyssey had no idea of what it had gotten itself into, and thought that was probably a good thing. If the queen had negotiated as hard a contract for the academy as she had for the repair docks and training facility, then K’Kavor would not suffer.

  Rohan took us into the atmosphere with as deft a hand as any I’d seen Case or Tens use. The kid had a natural talent for flight, and I wondered where he had picked it up from. As we got closer to the planet, Askavor shrank further and further back in the passenger compartment, growing increasingly uneasy, until, finally, he spoke.

  “My queen,” he began, and the queen seemed to notice him for the first time.

  “Askavor.”

  “I shall wait in the shuttle while you make your inspection—” but the queen let him get no further.

  “No, you shall not. I need the survivors to see you. I need them to understand that not all spider-kin are like the arach. If the weavers are to be kept safe in the coming war, then the humans must understand that there are some spiders that fight on their behalf. In fact, we will utilize Odyssey’s assistance to work towards that goal, and we will start here. You will be the first weaver IT instructor in the first blended community on K’Kavor.”

  Askavor rattled his mandibles in surprise, and then fell silent. The queen left him to digest this new information, and rose to ride out the landing in the cockpit, shifting from vespis to human form as she w
ent. And neither Mack, Tens, nor Rohan told her to take her seat for landing.

  Around us, the guard took their human forms as well, some positioning themselves near the cockpit, the rest waiting around us as Rohan flew. Once the boy had brought the craft down, the queen moved to the door.

  “Secure the craft here, boy. Negotiations will take the night, and you will be quartered with your hive mates, until they are done, or I need your services, once more.”

  “Yes, your Majesty.”

  I didn’t need to be told to stay with T’Kit. The queen’s earlier order had been clear enough. She would let me know when it was no longer in effect.

  We descended the ramp together: one vespis queen in human form; six vespis bodyguards, two in human form, and four shifting to full-vespis warriors; one weaver, flanked by bodyguards; a dog, and four humans from the stars, a child, a woman and two men. It would be interesting to see how we were remembered.

  The queen walked across the landing field to the edge of the town where I was surprised to see a large podium had been set up, and people already starting to gather. The growing crowd was silent as the settlers watched Queen Tekravzary ascend the steps, but there were cries of protest when she signaled Askavor to stand beside her.

  Tekravzary did not let their voices disrupt her, but explained that she understood their pain, that the arach survivors would never again be able to harm them, and that she had made an alliance with the human security company, Odyssey for protection. As she spoke, the crowd calmed, settling further, and then the queen told of what Askavor had done to help defeat the threat aboard the Shady Marie.

  They remained silent, when she asked Rohan to come and describe what Askavor had done for him when the arach had tried to take the drop-ship where he’d been sent for safety. Personally, I don’t think Mack or Tens had heard that particular story, but I forced myself not to look for their reactions. There were gasps from the crowd when Rohan came to the end of his retelling, and laid his hand against the side of Askavor’s head—more gasps, when the spider wrapped a protective leg across the boy’s front.

  “The arach have his scent, now,” Rohan told the waiting crowd, as he stroked the weaver’s carapace, “and their queen is waiting for the day he lies helpless before her so that she can feed him to her young.”

  He paused, his gaze sweeping the people below.

  “Askavor the weaver tech kept me from that fate, and I will not let the arach have him. Will you help me protect him, as he protected me?”

  A murmur rolled through the crowd.

  “Will you help me?” Rohan asked, stepping out from under the protective curve of the weaver’s leg, and, this time, there were scattered replies from the people.

  “Yes!”

  “I will help you, boy!”

  “And me!”

  “Me, too!”

  And then the cry rolled through the crowd. Askavor would be protected by the settlers, because Askavor had saved Rohan from the arach, and Rohan needed their help to do the same for his weaver protector.

  They went suddenly silent, when Askavor raised a single foreleg, and started to speak.

  Rohan let him continue for a small span, then raised the mike to his lips, and translated.

  “In return for your protection, Askavor offers to teach your children, and any adults interested, how to program in vespis and Galbas.” He paused to let the murmured responses die down. “And he promises to teach the best of you how to defeat the arach code, which will be used against you.”

  More murmuring greeted this pronouncement, but it stopped, when Askavor stirred and added more, hunching in on himself, as he backed away from his audience to stand at the back of the podium. All eyes looked to Rohan for an explanation, but the boy hesitated, glancing uncertainly at the queen.

  She made a gesture, signaling for him to continue, repeating it when Rohan looked back at his weaver friend.

  “He said remembering how to break the arach programming was hard, because… because it takes him back to a time of indescribable pain.”

  And Rohan handed the mike back to the queen, and went to stand close to Askavor’s side. Cascade crept up onto the dais to stand by his master. The crowd gasped as the dog passed under Askavor’s forelegs, and perilously close to the spider’s fangs, but Askavor didn’t shift.

  He lifted his head and chittered, and the queen passed on his words.

  “Cascade stood between me and the arach, just as I stood between the arach and the boy. Neither of us would let them pass.”

  She waited, and the crowd settled under her patient gaze.

  “By royal decree,” she said, and all movement stilled. “By royal decree, this settlement will be the home of the Lestret-T’Kvar Coding Academy, and the first community where vespis, weaver and humans live, side-by-side.”

  Sounds of excitement and disappointment ran through the people before her, and she raised a hand.

  “Those who do not wish to live with non-human neighbors will be assisted in resettlement elsewhere.”

  Voices were raised from the crowd, as settlers turned to their neighbors. Excitement vied with horror, approval with protest, and anger and grief rode through them. Things were getting ugly, and I glanced down at the Blazer, switching the setting to something non-lethal.

  In front of me, the queen shimmered and resumed her native form, vibrating her wings in a clear command. Beside her, the two bodyguards changed, becoming huge reddish-gold creatures, as they lifted from the stage and moved forward.

  Some of those closest the dais moved back, and some began to run, but many sank to their knees, looking upward at the wasps. The queen’s words rang just as clear inside my head, as they must have done throughout the crowd.

  “This is my decree. You will be protected, but you will protect each other, and you will protect those I consider under my protection. The humans, vespis, and weavers will live as one. That is my command. To go against it is to become a traitor, and to earn the fate that awaits all traitors. Kneel if you understand.”

  I didn’t hesitate, but T’Kit reached out a long-clawed forelimb, and kept me on my feet.

  “The Queen’s Guard do not need to kneel. Our obedience is not under question. Watch.”

  I watched. Everyone already on their knees, stayed there—and many of the runners stopped and turned, dropping to their knees, as well. Some kept running, and four of the queen’s guards took off after them, catching them mid-flight, and lifting them off their feet, before flying them away, beyond the buildings.

  More of the runners chose to go to their knees, rather than continue, but others made it to the shelter of the streets, and kept going. I saw the guards return, flying unerringly between buildings along the paths their quarry had taken, and I had trouble not asking for mercy.

  T’Kit squeezed my arm.

  “They will not be harmed,” she said. “Most are still traumatized from the arach attack, and act only in fear. We will release them when they are calmer. If they are able to cope, we will return them to this community, or house them in a weaver settlement until their experience, there, overrides what they suffered during the attack.”

  “And if they can’t?”

  “We will confine them in a place where all their needs are supplied by weavers, where weavers protect them, and where they will have to rely on weavers for their very existence. There is a well-known syndrome that can be used to assist humans build bonds in the most unlikely circumstances.”

  Stockholm Syndrome? They were gonna what? The idea chilled me, and I didn’t know what to say.

  “We will not execute them for being afraid,” T’Kit told me, “but that fear must be eliminated, or it will threaten us all.”

  I wanted to know what event in their past had led to this way of dealing with the problem, but T’Kit remained silent on the matter. The other bodyguards had returned, but not to the dais. Instead, they were moving amongst the settlers, touching a should
er here, stroking a head there, shifting to humanoid form to gather a settler into a hug and hold them while they wept.

  “We need to be among them,” the queen said. “Askavor, you will come to the front of the dais, and wait. You will be protected.”

  “Darn right, he will,” Rohan muttered, but the queen acted as though she had not heard him.

  “Walk with me,” T’Kit instructed.

  As we descended the dais, I heard the thrum of wings, the burring hum as more vespis arrived. These did not have the red tones of the queen’s guards, but were more a buttery yellow, or a sunburnt orange. They came off the hills overlooking the town, and descended as wasps, remaining in that form until they reached a settler who needed more.

  “I did not leave the settlers alone,” the queen said, answering questions I had not asked, “but they did not know that.”

  She looked around at where the newly arrived vespis mingled with the humans.

  “Until now.”

  21—Airfield Skirmish

  I moved with T’Kit, mostly ignored as the settlers gathered around her, seeking comfort and reassurance, asking questions about Askavor and weavers, and how the vespis would keep them safe. I had not realized just how bad the war between the vespis and the settlers had been, or how completely the humans had been brought to heel. If I had to work here, again, I’d make sure I did.

  Given that it was too late to do that, now, I settled for watching T’Kit’s back, and keeping a weather eye on the world around us. Just because the attack on the settlement had been defeated, did not mean the arach forces had all been dealt with. The more I thought about it, the more I wished the Shady Marie was in orbit above us, that I could call Tens, and ask for a scan of the settlement and its surrounds.

  I turned, surveying the hills above the town, pausing when I saw movement along the crest, and then moving on when a large, lone bug took to flight. I paused, again, when my gaze reached where Askavor and Rohan were standing, Cascade lounging at their feet. They were not alone.