The Queen of Springtime

by Robert Silverberg

  “And they swallow what he tells them?” Husathirn Mueri asked. “They believe him?”

  “He’s very persuasive.”

  They were in the reception-room of Husathirn Mueri’s imposing house in the Koshmar district of the city, overlooking the bay. “Hard to imagine,” Husathirn Mueri said. “That he’s actually getting children to overcome their prejudice against hjjks. Children dread them. Always have. Great hideous hairy-legged bug-monsters, creeping stealthily around the countryside trying to grab little boys and girls—who wouldn’t despise them? I did. You must have. I had nightmares about hjjks, when I was young. Sweats and screaming. Sometimes I still do.”

  “As do I,” said Curabayn Bangkea.

  “What’s his secret, then?”

  “He’s very gentle. Very tender. They feel his innocence, and children respond to innocence. They like to be with him. He leads them in meditation, and little by little they join with him in chanting. I think he snares their minds somehow with the chanting. He does it so subtly they don’t realize that what he’s selling them is a pack of ugly monsters. When he talks of hjjks, they don’t see real hjjks, I think. What they see is fairy-tale creatures, kindly and sweet. You can make any sort of monster seem sweet, your grace, if you tell the story the right way. And then the children are lost, once he’s made them stop fearing and hating the hjjks. He’s very clever, that boy. He reaches right into their minds and steals them from us.”

  “But he can barely speak our language!”

  Curabayn Bangkea shook his head. “Not true. He isn’t the uncouth wild man any more that he was when he first came here, not at all. Nialli Apuilana’s done a tremendous job of teaching him. It’s all come back to him. He must have known how to speak our language, you know, when he was young, before he was captured, and he’s found it again, the words, everything. It never really goes from you, when you’re born to it. He sits there—there’s a park he likes to go to, and children meet him there—and he talks of Queen-love, Nest-bond, Thinker-thoughts, Queen-peace, all that filthy hjjk craziness. And they eat it up, your grace. At first they were disgusted by the thought that real people could live in the Nest and like it, that you could touch hjjks and they could touch you and it would somehow seem a loving thing. But by now they believe it. You should see them sitting there with their eyes shining as he pours out his spew.”

  “He’s got to be stopped.”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “I’ll talk with Hresh. No, with Taniane. For all I know, Hresh’ll think it’s utterly fascinating that Kundalimon’s peddling stuff like Queen-love and Nest-bond to little boys and girls. He may applaud the idea. Probably he’s interested in learning more about such things himself. But Taniane will know what to do. She’ll want to find out what sort of creature it is that we’ve allowed into our midst, and what her daughter is spending so much time with, for that matter.”

  “There’s another thing, your grace,” said Curabayn Bangkea. “Perhaps you ought to know it before you talk with Taniane.”

  “And what is that?”

  The guard-captain hesitated a moment. He looked unnerved. At length he said, quickly, with a flat intonation that twanged like an untuned lute, “Nialli Apuilana and the hjjk ambassador have become lovers.”

  It struck Husathirn Mueri with the force of a thunderbolt. He sat back, staggered, feeling a sudden ache in the pit of his stomach, a dryness in his throat, a harsh stabbing pain between his eyes.

  “What? Coupling, are they?”

  “Like monkeys in heat.”

  “You know this for a fact?”

  “My brother Eluthayn was on guard duty at Mueri House until recently, you know. One day he passed outside the room of Kundalimon while she was with him. The sounds that he heard from in there—the thumpings, the gaspings, the passionate outcries—”

  “And if she was teaching him kick-wrestling?”

  “I don’t think so, your grace.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because when Eluthayn reported this thing to me, your grace, I went to the door myself and listened. I tell you, I know the sounds of coupling from the sounds of kick-wrestling. I’ve done a little coupling myself, your grace. And some kick-wrestling too, for that matter.”

  “But she won’t couple with anyone! That’s well known all around town!”

  “She’s been in the Nest,” Curabayn Bangkea said. “Perhaps she was only waiting for someone else with the flavor of hjjks all over his fur to come along.”

  Wild images leaped unbidden to Husathirn Mueri’s mind, Kundalimon’s hand between Nialli Apuilana’s smooth thighs, Kundalimon’s lips to her breasts, her eyes flickering with excitement and eagerness, their bodies coming together, their sensing-organs thrashing about, Nialli Apuilana turning to present her swollen sexual parts to him—

  No. No. No. No.

  “You’re mistaken,” he said, after a while. “They’re doing something else in there. Whatever sounds you heard—”

  “It wasn’t the sounds, your grace.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “As you say, the evidence of the ears alone isn’t enough. So I drilled a small observation hole in the wall of the room alongside his.”

  “You spied on her?”

  “On him, your grace. On him. He was in my custody then, may I remind you. It was correct for me to ascertain the nature of his activities. I observed him. She was there. It wasn’t kick-wrestling that they were doing, your grace. Not when he had his hands on her—”

  “Enough.”

  “I can assure you—”

  Husathirn Mueri held up his hand. “By Nakhaba, enough, man! I don’t want to hear the sordid details.” He struggled to calm himself. “I’ll take it on faith,” he said coldly, “that your report is accurate. Close your spy-hole and don’t drill any new ones. Come to me daily with accounts of the ambassador’s preachings among the young.”

  “And if I see him with Nialli Apuilana, your grace? In the street, I mean. Or in some public dining-hall. Or anywhere else, however innocent. Shall I tell you about that too?”

  “Yes,” said Husathirn Mueri. “Tell me about that too.”

  “I want to go into the Nest with you,” Nialli Apuilana said. “To feel Nest-bond again. To speak Nest-truths.”

  “You will. When the time comes. When my work here is done.”

  “No. I mean here, today, now.”

  It was a quiet afternoon. The warm humid summer was over, and a strong autumn wind was blowing, hot but dry and crisp, out of the south. She and Kundalimon had coupled, and now they lay curled close together on his couch with limbs still entangled, grooming each other’s rumpled fur.

  He said, “Now? How can that be?”

  She gave him a wary look. Had she misjudged the moment? Was twining, was any sort of soul-intimacy, still as frightening to him as it had been at the beginning? He had changed so much since he had begun going out by himself into the city. He seemed different now in so many ways, stronger, less tense, more assured of himself in his flesh-folk identity. But still she was uneasy about risking his trust by crossing the unspoken boundaries that had been established between them.

  He seemed calm, though. He watched her with easy, gentle eyes.

  Cautiously she said, “You can guide me through your Nest-memories. By the touching of minds.”

  “You mean the twining,” he said.

  She hesitated. “That would be one way. Or through using our second sight.”

  “You often speak of second sight. But I don’t know what that is.”

  “A way of seeing—of perceiving the depths that lie beyond the surface of things—” Nialli Apuilana shook her head. “You’ve never felt yourself doing it? But everyone can do it. Young children, even. Although perhaps in the Nest, with no other flesh-folk minds around to show you what your own mind was capable of—”

  “Show me now,” he said.

  “You won’t be afraid when I touch you?”

&n
bsp; “Show me.”

  He really has changed, she thought.

  Still she was fearful of provoking fear in him, of forcing him away from her. But he had asked. He had asked. Show me. She summoned her second sight and sent it outward, expanding its field around him. He felt it. No doubt of that. She perceived his mind’s instantaneous reaction, a startled drawing-back. And he was trembling. But he remained close beside her, open, accessible. There was no indication that he was putting up any of the usual defenses that one would put up against someone else’s use of second sight. Was it simply that he didn’t know how? No, no, he seemed to be accepting her probing willingly.

  She took a deep breath and drove her expanded perceptions as deep into his mind as she dared.

  And she saw the Nest.

  Everything was blurred, indistinct, uncertain. Either his mental powers were still undeveloped, or he had learned some hjjk way of masking his mind. For what she saw in him she saw as though through many thicknesses of dark water.

  It was the Nest, all right. She saw the dusky underground corridors, she saw the vaulted roofs. Dark figures moved about, hjjk-shaped, hjjk-rigid. But everything was vague. She couldn’t distinguish castes. She couldn’t even tell male from female, Military from Worker. And what was missing, above all else, was the spirit of the Nest, the dimension of soul-reality, the depth of Nest-bond that should envelop everything, the all-pervasive sweep of Queen-love flooding those dim subterranean aisles, the overriding imperative that was Egg-plan. There was no savor. There was no warmth. There was no nourishment. She was looking into the Nest and yet she remained cut off from it, an outsider, alone, lost in the cold realm of blackness that lies between the unfeeling stars.

  In frustration, she probed a little deeper. No better. Then she felt a gentle push.

  Kundalimon was trying to help her. Somehow he had discovered the font of his own second sight, which perhaps he had never used before, or had used without knowing what it was, and he was straining to amplify the vision for her. But even that couldn’t entirely lift the veil. She saw more clearly, yes, but the new brightness merely brought new distortions.

  Maddening. To come this close, and not get there—

  A sob burst from her. She pulled her mind free of his and rolled away, to lie facing the wall.

  “Nialli?”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll be all right in a moment.” She wept silently. She felt more alone than ever before.

  His hands caressed her back, her shoulders. “Did I do anything to upset you?”

  “No. Nothing, Kundalimon.”

  “We went about it the wrong way, then?”

  She shook her head. “I saw a little. Just a little. The edge of the outline of the Nest. It was all so shadowy. Unclear. Distant.”

  “I did it wrong. You will teach me the right way.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. It—just didn’t work.”

  There was silence for a while. He moved closer to her, covering her body with his. Then, suddenly, startlingly, he ran his sensing-organ along hers, a quick whispering touch that sent a shiver of keen sensation through her soul.

  “We try the twining, you think?” he asked.

  “Do you want to, Kundalimon?” She held her breath, waiting.

  “You want to see the Nest.”

  “Yes. Yes, I do. So very much.”

  “Then maybe the twining.”

  “You were afraid, that other time.”

  “That was the other time.” He laughed softly, “And there once was a time when you were afraid of coupling, I think.”

  She smiled. “Things change.”

  “Yes. Things change. Come. Show me the twining, and I’ll show you the Nest. But you must turn toward me, first.”

  Nialli Apuilana nodded and swung around to face him. He was smiling, that wonderful open sunlit smile of his, a child’s innocent smile in a man’s face. His eyes gleamed into hers, bright, expectant, excited. He was beckoning to her in a way that he had never done before.

  “I’ve twined only once,” she said. “With Boldirinthe, almost four years ago. I may not be much better at it than you are.”

  “We will be fine,” he said. “Show me what it is, this twining.”

  “First the sensing-organs, the contact. You focus everything, your entire being—” He began to look troubled. “No,” she said, “Don’t try to focus anything, don’t even try to think. Just do as I do, and let things happen to you.” She drew her sensing-organ close to his. He relaxed. He seemed completely trusting now.

  They made contact. And held it.

  Nialli Apuilana had never forgotten her hour of intimacy with Boldirinthe. The phases of it were clear in her mind, the way they had descended the ladder of perception that led to the deep realms of the soul where the communion took place. Kundalimon followed her readily. He seemed to know intuitively what to do, or else he discovered it as he went. In moments he was following her no longer, but was descending at her side, and even, at times, leading the way, down toward the dark mysterious depths where self was unknown and nothing existed but the unity of all souls.

  They joined, then, in full twining.

  His soul swept into hers, and hers into his, and at last she is back in the Nest.

  The Nest of Nests, it is, the great one far in the north, not the subsidiary Nest where Nialli Apuilana had lived during her brief few months of captivity. In a sense all Nests were one, for Queen-presence infused them all; but she had known, even then, that her Nest was only a minor one in an outlying district of the hjjk domain, presided over by a subsidiary Queen. Where they are now is the heartspring of the nation, the core and hub of it, the great pivot, the axis of all. Here dwells the Queen of Queens.

  Nothing about this place seems strange to Nialli Apuilana. It is where Kundalimon had spent most of the days of his life, flesh-folk boy among the hjjks, moving freely in their world, eating their food, breathing their air, thinking their thoughts, living as they lived. This was his home. And so it is her home also.

  Hand in hand they float through it like wandering ghosts, unseen, undisturbed. She is Kundalimon, and he is Nialli Apuilana. He is she and she is he: no knowing where one leaves off and the other begins.

  The great Nest is endless, a maze of warm dark galleries half-hidden beneath the surface of the ground, stretching for leagues in all directions. The gentle glow of Nest-light comes from the walls, pink and soft, a dream-light. On the easy currents of the air drifts the tingling sweet fragrance of Nest-breath, soft as fur, rich with the complex chemical messages that pass between the Nest’s inhabitants. Here in these intricate labyrinths live millions of hjjks, and here too, in the deepest part, at the still point of the busy hive, at the center of everything, lies the quiescent immensity of the Queen of Queens, ancient, eternal, undying, vast, all-guiding, all-loving. Nialli Apuilana feels the presence of Her greatness now, rolling through every hall like the tolling of a giant gong. There is no escaping it. She encompasses all the Nest and all the subordinate Nests as well in Her overflowing outpouring of love. And then too over everything else there sweeps that even higher and more all-embracing force, which even the Queen Herself acknowledges as supreme, the great undeniable inescapable torrential energy that is Egg-plan, the fundamental power of life, the ineluctable universal femaleness that drives all existence endlessly forward.

  Nialli Apuilana yields herself to that great song of perfection with utmost joy and ease. This is why she had yearned to come here: to feel once again the reassuring knowledge that the world has meaning and structure, to know once more that a shape, a design, an underlying purpose governs the bewildering workings of the cosmos.

  “Here is Nest-truth,” Kundalimon says to her, and she to him. “Here is Queen-light.”

  They drift onward, unhindered, here, there, everywhere.

  Without a sound the myriad dwellers of the Nest go about their tasks. Each one knows its place, each its responsibility. That is Nest-bond: harmony, unity, pattern. Nothing like i
t exists in the chaotic random world outside; but nothing is chaotic or random here. A profound silence prevails in these corridors, and yet there is purposeful activity everywhere.

  Here, bands of Militaries come trooping in from their latest forays, and Workers go to them to collect and clean their weapons, and to carry off for cleaning and storage the foodstuffs they have brought back. Here, in this place where the light is a dark purple, a smouldering smoky color, troops of Egg-layers rest in their stalls. Long lines of Life-kindlers move steadily past them, each pausing by this one or by that to perform the act of fertilization. Here, Nourishment-givers hover over eggs as they hatch, and bend to offer food to the newborn.

  And here the Nest-thinkers hold forth, enclosed in gloomy narrow stalls, instructing the young who stand motionless before them in taut concentration. Here too are the Queen-attendants in their warm catacomb, preparing Her morning meal. Here are the Queen-guardians in close formation, arms linked tightly together, barring the way to the lower galleries where the royal chamber is. Here are processions of the young, males here, females there, awaiting their summons to the chamber, there to receive the gift of Queen-touch and be awakened to adulthood and fertility—or else to be set apart by a different designation, marked as a Warrior or a Worker or, perhaps, to become one of the chosen few, a Nest-thinker.

  The royal chamber itself is the only area of the Nest that she and Kundalimon do not enter in this vision. They may not, not yet, for she was never granted First Audience in her earlier stay in the Nest, and Kundalimon cannot bring her before the Queen now, not even this way, in a vision, in a dream. That would have to wait until its proper time. When at last she would behold the Queen, vast and inscrutable, at rest in Her secret place at the heart of the Nest.

  But everything else lies before them. Nialli Apuilana moves through it in wonder, in a rapture of Nest-love.

  Nest-thinker says, “Here they are. The flesh-child, and the flesh-child’s bride. Come, sit here with us, enter into Nest-truth with us.”

  So they aren’t invisible to the Nest-dwellers after all. Of course not. How could they be?