Rogue Queen

by L. Sprague De Camp

  Bloch had spread a cloth on the ledge and taken his gun apart, laying the parts out in careful order and cleaning and oiling each one. Barbe went for water, using Antis’s helmet as a bucket.

  “There!” said Antis, forcing the pandre-eg’s head down upon the point of the stake he had whittled. Blood trickled down the stake.

  Bloch said: “It seems to me your magical rite is a trifle confused. Presumably it’s to transform a hunter’s bad luck to good—that is, to let him kill game. But if it has to be performed with a game animal’s head, that means his luck has already turned.”

  “You don’t understand these matters, Daktablak,” said Antis. “It always works for us. Are you ready, beautiful?”

  Iroedh got up slowly. “I’m so tired, Antis…”

  “It will only take a minute. Come on, you stand on that side while I stand on this. Ready?”

  He began clapping his hands together and hopping backwards. Iroedh, staggering, did likewise. On the third time around she tripped and sat down.

  “Iroedh!” cried Antis with unconcealed exasperation. “Now we shall have to begin over. Try to keep glancing back over your shoulder, won’t you? That’s a brave worker.”

  They got up to six circuits of the head when two pistol shots cracked. Barbe appeared, running, and behind her came a noag—a monster of its species, half again as tall as a person. Its long neck arched, its jaws gaped, its clawed hands reached out, and its long tail stuck up behind like a guidon.

  “Run!” screamed Barbe, coming toward them.

  Bloch jumped to his feet on the ledge, holding his useless gun barrel.

  “Up here!” he bawled. “We can hold it off!”

  Iroedh summoned her last ounce of strength to scramble up the short slope to the ledge. Antis dashed ahead of her; then, seeing her falter, caught her arm and hauled her after him.

  A despairing scream from Barbe made Iroedh look back. The female man had almost reached the foot of the slope when she had tripped and fallen prone. The pistol, which she had been carrying in her hand, bounced along the ground ahead of her. The noag came on in great bounding strides.

  Something went past Iroedh in a brown blur. It was Bloch, holding the machete Antis had left on the ledge over his head and uttering a Terran war cry that sounded like “Sanavabyts! Sanavabyts!”

  The noag, stooping to seize Barbe, looked up and backed away with a startled snarl as this new antagonist hurled himself at it. The machete whirled in circles of light; the noag screamed as the blade sheared off two clawed fingers and bit into the fanged muzzle. Antis, seeing what was up, picked up Iroedh’s machete from the ground and started toward the scene of the fight. Before he arrived, the noag, slashed and bloody, had turned to run. With a last cut Bloch took off the tip of its tail. The noag disappeared, its howls coming back fainter and fainter until they could no longer be heard.

  Then Bloch and Barbe were embracing and uttering Terran endearments. Antis, watching, said to Iroedh:

  “I misjudged Daktablak, thinking he lacked courage. That took nerve and quick wit, don’t you think?”

  Iroedh herself admitted that in the conflicts with the drones Bloch had acted rather uncertain, disorganized, and timid. She said:

  “It must be that Terran love of theirs. Remember the quicksand? Whatever troubles it may cause, that kind of love makes them run risks for each other they wouldn’t for anybody else.”

  When Bloch, Barbe, and Antis had eaten their fill of pandre-eg steak, Bloch said: “Shall we rest in the cave for a while to get our strength back, or go on right now and cover as much ground as we can before dark?”

  Antis was for pushing on; Barbe for resting some more. When they turned to Iroedh she said:

  “It makes no difference to me because I cannot go on in any case.”

  “Why not?” said Bloch.

  Barbe said: “The poor thing is weak from the starvation, that’s why not. Look at her ribs. She’s had nothing to eat for six days, most of it climbing around this terrible country.”

  Iroedh said: “I’m ashamed to admit it, but that is the truth. The rest of you go on whenever you like; I’m done for.”

  “Nonsense!” said Barbe. “Do you think we would leave you here to die?”

  “There is no point in your dying too. Go on.”

  “I wouldn’t leave you, beautiful,” said Antis. “You are all I love.”

  “If you love me you will save yourself. I can’t go on, and that’s that.”

  “We could carry you,” said Antis.

  “No, you couldn’t in this rough country. I should probably be dead before you reached the road, and what good would it do to burden yourselves? Think of me as dead already, as if the noag had slain me, and make our parting as painless as possible.”

  Antis said: “Even if I knew you were going to die, I’d stay with you to the end.”

  “And have the rogue drones catch you? Don’t be irrational. I’ll kill myself before I let you do that.”

  “We’ll see that you have nothing sharp.”

  “There are other ways. And what’s the sense of it? You didn’t make such a fuss over poor Yaedh.”

  “That was different,” said Barbe. “She was dead already, and we never felt toward her as we do toward you. You are like one of us—one of our Terran kind, I mean.”

  Bloch spoke up: “I think we’re interring Iroedh before there’s any necessity. All she requires is a few good meals.”

  “And where shall I find those?” said Iroedh, with barely the strength to talk.

  Bloch gestured toward the eviscerated remains of the pandre-eg.

  “You know I cannot eat meat,” said Iroedh. “It would poison me.”

  “Have you ever eaten it?” asked Bloch.

  “No.”

  “Have you ever known an Avtiny worker who had?”

  “No. They wouldn’t have been alive for me to know them.”

  “Well, if you think you’re going to perish anyway, why not try it? At worst it can only kill you a little sooner, and at best it might give you the strength to persevere.”

  “But it’s such a painful death!”

  I’ll make an agreement with you. You eat a steak, and if I see you dying in convulsions I’ll blow your brains out with the pistol. You’ll never know what struck you.”

  As Iroedh hesitated, turning this drastic proposal over in her mind, Bloch continued: “Come on, what have you to lose? Either way it’s better than waiting for one of those Jabberwocks to devour you—”

  “Those what?”

  “Jabberwock, a monster out of Terran folklore. I thought the noag looked a little like one. What about a steak?”

  Antis said: “I don’t know. I favor her trying the meat, but I couldn’t stand by and watch you slay her in cold blood.”

  “No, Antis,” said Iroedh weakly. “The Terran is right. Cook me up a piece and I will try it.”

  A few minutes later Iroedh picked up a slab of steak, blew on her fingers as it scorched them, and turned it over warily.

  “Go on,” said Bloch. “A nice big bite.”

  Iroedh opened her mouth, then lost her courage and closed it again. She gathered her forces, drew a long breath, shut her eyes, and sank her teeth into the meat.

  A lifetime of conditioning caused her to gag and retch, but her shrunken stomach contained nothing to vomit. She clamped her jaws firmly shut until her gorge subsided, then forced herself to chew.

  At first she thought it tasted vile. Then she was not sure whether she liked it or not. It was so different from anything she had ever eaten. She got her first bite down and took a second.

  “Good for you!” said Bloch. “No pains?”

  “No, but they wouldn’t have started yet. It is not so bad as I thought.”

  They watched her in silence as she finished the piece.

  “Do you know,” she said, “I think I could eat another. Not that I really like it, but I’m still hungry, and I might as well die on a full stomach.”r />
  “Wait a while,” said Bloch. “Too much after a fast like yours would upset you. And it’s so late now we might as well spend the night here.”

  They made what camp they could and did a more thorough job on the pandre-eg, burying the guts and mounting the more edible parts on stakes. Antis, indicating the head which still grinned gruesomely at them from its stake, said:

  “We never did finish our good-luck dance. Iroedh…?”

  Iroedh put up a firm hand. “My love, if it were a matter of saving our whole race from extinction I couldn’t dance one step. If you must dance, why not ask the Terrans?”

  “Oh, very well. How about it, Barbe?”

  “How about what?”

  Antis explained about the good-luck dance. Barbe first burst out laughing, to the obvious perplexity of Antis. Then she said:

  “Well—I should like to, me, but I don’t know…”

  She cast a questioning look at Bloch, who said: “Go right ahead, my dear. It’s part of our job to participate in Ormazdian activities when opportunity offers. Besides, with his cultural attitudes I doubt if Antis would know what a voyeur was.”

  “What a what was?” said Antis.

  “A Terran organism noted for its keenness of vision. Go on, his dancing can’t be worse than mine.”

  Barbe caught her bare heels and sat down twice in the course of the good-luck dance, which made the wearily watching Iroedh feel somehow better.

  At sunset they ate again. Iroedh, whose mind had been nervously exploring her viscera ever since her heretical meal, said:

  “There’s no sign of trouble yet. There must be something wrong with me, or I should be writhing in my death throes.”

  “Or something wrong with your system of tabus,” said Bloch. “Have some more?”

  “By Gwyyr, I will!”

  Next morning they impaled all the meat they could carry on a long pole, which Bloch and Antis carried slung between them over their shoulders. They started down the slope into the woods. Iroedh, marching ahead of them, felt much stronger in body but bewildered in mind. Could all workers eat meat with impunity? Then why on Niond had such a rule or belief been set up in the first place?

  She was thinking along these lines when a cry and the sound of a fall made her turn. Barbe lay at the base of the slope, holding her ankle. Her face was pale.

  “Sprained it,” she said.

  Bloch hurried back and helped his mate take off her boot. He felt the ankle while Barbe went “Ow!”

  Bloch sighed. “I presume we shall spend another day here at least; she can’t walk now. Next time we’re ready to start, no doubt Antis will cut himself open with his own machete, or I shall get careless and shoot off my big toe. So much for your good-luck ritual, Antis.”

  “You can’t tell,” said Antis. “Without the dance who knows what might have happened? She might have broken her leg instead of merely wrenching it.”

  “Merely wrenching it!” said Barbe between clenched teeth.

  “An unanswerable sophistry, my friend,” said Bloch. “Take her other arm.”

  They helped Barbe back onto the ledge and settled down again. To put the time to good use Bloch interrogated Iroedh some more about her native world. Barbe took notes in her notebook, and when she ran out of paper Antis found a vakhwil tree and peeled off enough bark to keep Barbe supplied for several days with writing material. Iroedh, eating regularly again, got stronger fast.

  Barbe’s sprain, however, proved more serious than they had thought. Her ankle swelled to twice its normal size and turned an assortment of greens and purples. Bloch said:

  “We may be here for a week, so I’d better hunt some more food. That pandre-eg will soon begin to stink.”

  And off he went with Antis.

  Six days later Iroedh sat on the ledge and watched Barbe try her ankle in gingerly fashion. The males were off hunting again. Iroedh felt in need of advice but did not quite know how to go about getting it. The personnel officer of Elham, who normally handled personal problems, was many borbi away. Moreover, one of the things bothering Iroedh was that her dreams had been taking such strange forms that she was embarrassed to submit them. For instance there was the dream about the memorial pillar in the ruins of Khinam that behaved as no normal pillar should. Then there was the curious feeling of anger that possessed her when Antis artlessly bragged about his proficiency in fulfilling his function as Queen Intar’s drone. Finally, she seemed to be undergoing other changes almost too bizarre for belief.

  Barbe said: “I think if I give it a little of the exercise today I may be able to hike tomorrow, or the next day at the latest.”

  “The swelling is nearly gone,” said Iroedh. “And speaking of swelling—”

  “Yes, my dear?”

  “It’s hard to know where to begin, but as another female I thought you might understand.”

  “Understand what?”

  “Ever since I started eating meat I have had the oddest sensations.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well—for instance, there’s a feeling of tightness in the skins of my chest. And when I look down I could swear my breasts are getting larger, like those of a functional female. Is it my imagination?”

  Barbe gave Iroedh’s figure a sharp look. “No, it isn’t. You definitely bulge.”

  “And I have peculiar internal feelings, too, as if other organs were growing.”

  Barbe said: “Turn around. I can’t see inside you, of course, but your hips do look wider.”

  “But what shall I do?”

  “What do you mean? You are doing all right, aren’t you?”

  “I can’t turn into a functional female!”

  “And why not?” said Barbe.

  “It’s unheard-of! I should be a monstrosity!”

  “Well, if you are bound to become a monstrosity, why not relax and enjoy the role?”

  “It must be the meat. But if I stop eating it I shall die!”

  “And there wouldn’t be any fun to that, would there? You just go right ahead, dear little monster. We shall love you in all cases.”

  When Bloch and Antis came back to the cave with a leipag the former had shot, Barbe made the announcement.

  Bloch said: “Bless my soul! That’s the best thing since Antis sat on the dhug and we had to pull the spines out of his podex.”

  “You know, darling,” said Antis, “I thought something was happening to you. What’s the cause of this change, Daktablak?”

  Bloch lighted his pipe before answering. “You wouldn’t know about hormones, but they are substances in your blood that make you grow up and develop in various directions. At least I suppose you have them just as we do, since your body chemistry seems to be similar to ours.

  “Now, one set of hormones controls development of sexual characteristics, and apparently among the Avtini the glands that secrete these hormones require meat in the diet to function. So the workers feed meat to drones and queens and deny it to those they intend to develop into workers. It’s like the bees on Terra who feed certain larvae”—he had to stop to explain what bees and larvae were—“who feed certain larvae a special food called ‘royal jelly’ that causes them to develop into queens.”

  Antis said: “Does that mean a drone fed on an all-plant diet would also become a neuter worker?”

  “I don’t know,” said Bloch, but Barbe put in:

  “Don’t you remember that visitor from Khwiem, who told us of the Community of Arsuuni who prefer neuter-male Avtiny slaves to the usual neuter-female ones? We thought she meant they make eunuchs of them, but it may be they simply rear drone children on a diet without meat.”

  “Conceivably,” said Bloch.

  Antis asked: “Then must drones and queens be reared on a completely meat diet? Or could they live on a mixed diet as you do?”

  “You could ascertain that by trying plant food, though I wouldn’t guarantee results. My own surmise is that, considering the abnormally high egg-laying capacity of your queen
s, they’re oversexed as a result of an unmixed meat diet. The males I wouldn’t even guess about.”

  Iroedh wailed: “But what will happen to me?”

  Bloch blew a smoke ring. “Well, my dear, I don’t see that you’ll be any worse off than you are, and you may enjoy some new experiences.”

  “There won’t be any place for me on Niond. Would Captain Subbarau employ Antis and me in his crew?”

  “No. It’s against I.C. policy to transport natives of Class H planets off their own worlds. But you’ll make out, I’m certain. Funny; I once read about a young lady named Alice who became a queen by jumping over a brook, but this is the first time I ever heard of one’s becoming a queen by eating steak three times a day!”

  IX. The Oracle

  Once again on their way, they camped by a small stream and devoured a portion of the meat they had brought from the cave. Bloch said:

  “I’ve been wondering how a band as large as that of Wythias manages. The hunting doesn’t seem good enough in these parts to feed so many in one area.”

  “I’ve heard,” said Antis, “that northwest of Ledhwid Wythias has land of his own where he raises the food he needs.”

  “It would require a hell of a big ranch to provide steaks for all those brigands. I wonder if perhaps they don’t subsist on a mixed diet despite your tabus?”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Because you can get a lot more calories from a given area by using vegetable crops directly than by feeding them to animals and eating the animals…”

  Iroedh, finishing her steak, hardly heard the discussion, which wandered off into the technicalities of dietetics. She was more concerned with her own problems.

  For one thing, her change of shape did not altogether suit her. Her new mammae bounced and jiggled in a ridiculous manner when she ran, and she was sure the thickening of her body through the pelvic region was making her less agile. At first she had thought this thickening a mere deposit of fat, but now it seemed that the actual bone structure was spreading as well. The Avtiny neuter-female worker’s body was built to an admirably functional design, with a minimum of vulnerable projections; but this awkward thing…