The Druid Gene (12 page)

T
wo hymenoptera waited
for Raub on the other side of the door. The girl hung back with watchful eyes as it closed behind him. She was intensely curious—always asking questions, always watching, always noting differences. He’d never spent such a vast amount of time with someone so inquisitive. She was like an eager child, completely undeterred by his reticence.

One of the bugs took the lead, and the other came up behind, as they moved without a word toward Hain’s lab. He didn’t acknowledge their presence and they didn’t expect him to. It was routine. They believed what they were told—that he was a dangerous prisoner like the druid girl. The life-span of the bugs was so short, turnover so great, that none of them had even glimpsed him before now. It suited his purpose well. They wouldn’t tip the girl off.

Hain stood at a bench, studying something in a tube before placing it inside one of her analytic instruments. She raised her eyes from her work briefly to acknowledge his arrival. The bugs left the room to wait outside and he relaxed a little bit. Now he could be fully himself for the first time in days. He cleared a spot and perched on one of her workbenches.

“Judging by the infrared surveillance, the training is progressing as planned,” she said as she picked up another sample, eyed it carefully, and loaded it.

“It’s proceeding on schedule, yes. The girl learns quickly. The diet you’ve formulated is working well. She’s building muscle and strength.”

The truth was she was exceeding his initial estimation of her potential. She had a natural acuity for this fighting style and it showed in her enthusiastic execution. Her body was responding well to the activity. It was refining itself. She didn’t seem to be fully conscious of the change, but she had begun to move with a new power and grace. Yes, she was coming along nicely.

“Excellent,” Hain murmured. Her voice was reedy as usual, but had slightly more modulation.

He raised a brow. “And on your end?”

“The engineers have almost completed the modifications to the tern. Being from such an isolated planet, she should have no notion of the fail-safes that would be in place to prevent the plan from working. From her point of view, it will appear to be good luck that everything falls into place.”

He’d come to the same conclusion. “I agree.” Her naiveté about the universe at large continued to surprise him. She had no idea how things were normally done, so any deviation from that wouldn’t be remarkable to her. She didn’t even try to pretend to understand what was going on around her. She was unashamed simply to ask. He wasn’t sure if that was a wise strategy or a liability. Regardless, she was open and honest and some part of him found that disturbingly refreshing.

“And psychologically? What is her state? Will she take the bait? Will she perform as hoped?”

He nodded. “I’ve no doubt she will. She’s well adjusted to her situation, but eager to be free. I believe she’ll take advantage of any opportunity that presents itself.”

“She trusts you. You’ve grown close. Does that change anything for you?” Hain raised a culture to eye level, but her focus was on him.

He tensed a little. He was sure Hain knew he would find that question insulting, that he didn’t like being queried like that. He was not getting attached to the girl. “No,” he said coldly. “Don’t start getting haughty. This is just a play. You are not in charge here.”

Hain had misunderstood his strategy in humoring the girl to create a sense of camaraderie. That strategy was working well. The girl did trust him and was working hard to please him. He wasn’t going to change tactics now.

Hain’s expression didn’t change. She moved to another bench and picked up a tablet processor. She absently tapped it, then handed it to him. “This is the proposed timetable and route through the ship. All safety and security measures on this route will be neutralized at that time to make your passage smooth and simple.”

He took it without a word and looked it over, quickly committing it to memory. “This looks adequate. You’ve selected a planet?”

She took the processor from him and tapped it some more before handing it back. “We’re en route now.”

The door opened behind him. He stiffened. A hymenoptera stood outside, clacking nervously. “Mistress? Please forgive the interruption, but…a word, please?”

Hain’s eyes flashed, but otherwise she looked outwardly calm. “Enter. State your business quickly and be gone.”

“Of course, mistress.”

Raub sensed the bug coming up behind him uneasily.

“Sensors have detected a spike of genoflaphan hormone in the egg-incubation chamber. The newest batch of young may hatch at any moment and must be tended to promptly.”

Hain’s hand squeezed her pipette a bit tighter. She didn’t look up. “This does not concern me.”

He could hear the hymenoptera skitter back a few steps. “No. No. Quite right, mistress. But the female prisoner seems to be aware of the impending emergence and is handling the eggs. I’m sure you understand that this could create many problems with these individuals in the future.”

Raub smelled the sharp scent of ozone.

“Retrieve the eggs, then, and bring them within my proximity.”

Raub smiled as it dawned on him what the insect actually wanted. She had to imprint on the newborns for them to recognize her as queen. Apparently it was not a chore she relished.

“Yes, mistress, of course. I would have done this already, except for…” The clacking trailed off softly.

Hain’s slash of a mouth tilted down. “Oh, the girl. You’re afraid of her.” She clicked the pipette angrily.

It must be so hard being queen. He held back, just barely, from sniggering at her reaction to their sniveling requests for assistance.

The insect didn’t argue with her. They
were
afraid of the girl. And rightly so. She was growing more lethal by the day. It was a pleasure to watch this unfold.

He didn’t understand the girl’s preoccupation with the eggs. She felt guilt over her first kills, which wasn’t entirely out of the realm of normalcy. There was value to life. It shouldn’t be taken indiscriminately. But focusing on these new individuals wouldn’t bring back the dead. Perhaps her culture was one that believed souls were recycled. He wasn’t curious enough to ask. It did highlight her obsessive nature, however, which he considered a positive character trait. She was stubborn and persistent, attributes that would serve her well in the days to come. And him.

He looked up. Hain had turned to him expectantly.

Raub raised his eyebrows, pretending to be ignorant of her wishes. He was relishing this. Yes, he was going to make her ask.

After another beat, she said, “Would you be so kind as to lock the prisoner up so the hymenoptera can retrieve their eggs from that chamber?”

He inclined his head in a courtly manner and hopped down from his perch. “I’m happy to serve, as always, mistress.”

She nodded slightly, then returned to her work, stabbing a box of sterile tips with her pipette.

Raub started to go, then turned around. “Have you decided on a name for this cadre?” he asked her lightly.

“No, I have not.” She didn’t sound perturbed. She couldn’t. But there was an agitation in her demeanor that he enjoyed.

“Might I suggest a name?”

Hain’s mouth parted to reveal a hint of its brilliant interior—her version of a surprised look and something she rarely let slip. As a ginnan, she had no teeth or tongue. Instead, yellow markings shaped like petals whorled down her throat in a golden spiral, so that when her mouth was held open wide, it resembled a flower in bloom. Her ancestors had evolved the stunning pattern, as well as a sweet woodsy odor, to lure nectar-seeking prey close. Trapped by a caustic, sticky resin, they had become slowly digested meals for Hain’s stationary antecedents. The pattern was now a vestigial artifact of evolution. “Yes,” she said finally, her eyes wary.

“Call them Darcy.” He smirked and, without acknowledging the hymenoptera, left the chamber, heading back to the quarters he shared with the girl. He strolled, taking his time and enjoying the distress that caused his “guards.” There were few things more farcical than watching a grown bug squirm. With so little to entertain him, he had to steal these moments when he could.

D
arcy was sitting
against the wall across from the hymenoptera eggs, dozing, when something woke her. She yawned and shifted her stiff limbs. Then she noticed something had changed. She perked up and eased closer to the eggs. They weren’t jiggling the way they normally did. They vibrated with a different kind of intensity.

She picked up one of the more active ones cautiously. There was definitely something happening inside there. One of the ends of the egg had grown more transparent, and, as she watched, she could see a mouth gnawing on the membrane, attempting to free itself.

Her heart pounded against her rib cage. For the first time, it occurred to her that when these things hatched they were going to be hungry—and she had nothing to feed them except half a food cube.

She’d expected Raub or the hymenoptera to be there when they hatched. She wondered fleetingly if the hymenoptera had planned this to happen this way. Was she meant to be the first food these critters consumed? Was this their revenge for killing their brethren?

She recognized those first few moments of anxiety as potentially triggering a panic attack and forced herself to breathe slowly—in through her mouth, out through her nose, just like she did when she meditated. The jangly feeling started to recede, her tension eased, and she was able to think logically rather than emotionally.

These things were smaller than her forearm. She could step on them if she had to. She wouldn’t, of course. But she wasn’t about to be eaten alive. She could leave the room or hide in her own sleeping cell if she felt threatened.

Nevertheless, when the rasping mouth finally did break through, she set the egg down and edged away. But she couldn’t stop watching as a translucent creature emerged. It appeared to be eyeless and bristled with sparse, white hairs. Its body was long and segmented. It had a mouth at one end, but tapered and curled into itself at the other. Its skin was so transparent she could see the dark blobs of internal organs at its core. It undulated and twisted, its mouth contracting rhythmically, searching for food, but it didn’t make a move toward her.

She was surprised no one had come to care for them. Perhaps she wasn’t watched as closely as she’d presumed. She began to feel sorry for it as it blindly and fruitlessly searched for sustenance on the dirty floor. She took a small hunk of the food cube and crumbled it in the palm of her hand, then poured a little water in with it. She mashed it around to make a watery paste, then hesitantly extended her hand to the larva.

Instantly, it dove at her hand. She gasped and pulled back, her heart racing. But she was fine. She hadn’t even felt the graze of teeth.

Cautiously, she proffered her hand again. It slurped at the slurry in the hollow of her palm. It was actually quite gentle. It tickled. She broke into a smile and relaxed a little bit. She could see the mixture sliding through the creature’s alimentary canal in pulses of peristalsis. It delicately sucked her hand clean.

The larva moved less restlessly now, more like it was simply exploring its environment. She felt a warm, maternal surge of satisfaction at having cared for the infant. Then she looked up and realized several more had hatched while she was paying attention to the first one. They were rooting around frantically amongst the intact eggs and the discarded rubbery shells.

She didn’t know if the food was suitable for them or not, but she assumed it was some kind of universal chow. So she mixed some more with water and held out her hand to the newest hatchlings.

“There you go,” she said, and giggled as they formed a ring around her hand, pushing and shoving at each other and sucking up the mixture as fast as she could make it. She touched a fingertip to one of them. Its skin was cool and moist and smooth, not gross or slimy like she expected. The white hairs that stood straight out were soft, like kitten whiskers. She was so entranced by watching them eat that she didn’t hear the door slide open behind her.

“Halt!” a voice clacked loudly in her ear. “Move away from the young!”

She froze, her shoulders hunching, expecting the paralyzing feeling of the shock stick to descend on her at any moment. But it didn’t come. Instead she heard rapid-fire clicks and clacks that sounded distressed. She made out a few phrases here and there, like, “This is disastrous,” and “What will we tell the queen?” and “We may have to fertilize another cadre.”

Darcy slowly stood and turned, confused. “They’re hungry.” She looked down. Seven larvae crowded at her feet, craning up at her, bobbing and weaving and caroming into each other, looking for more food.

Raub stood there smirking, with four hymenoptera behind him, all gesticulating nervously and clacking nonstop.

“You had no right!” one of them said.

“They needed care! If you’re so concerned, why did you leave them without anyone to watch over them?”

More consternated pops and clacks. “This is the way of things. It’s not your concern. You interfered.”

She sneered at them. “I—you—I—that’s rich.”

“Back away from the young,” someone ordered.

Another gestured toward Raub. “This one will escort you away now, so we may tend to the young.”

Raub came forward and led her through the door into the hub. “Come, Leebska. Let them retrieve their little grubworms and begone.”

She looked over her shoulder to see the hymenoptera gathering the eggs and hatchlings and tossing them carelessly into a crude container. She wished they’d treat them gently. “What are they going to do with them?” she asked Raub fearfully. “Will they kill them just because I touched them? I was trying to help!”

He frowned at her then gestured for the hymenoptera’s attention. “Your mistress is in the foulest of moods. It’ll not be in your best interests to reveal this oversight. I’ll not say a word to her about it, and I’d advise all of you to do the same. The human female only handled a small percentage of the grubs and did not cause any harm to them. It should not affect the psychology of the cadre.”

The adult hymenoptera stopped what they were doing and looked at each other skeptically. One of them turned to him and said, “Why would you do this? What do you want in return?”

“I want nothing—from you. I’ve been campaigning for more freedom and more-comfortable living quarters. If you anger Hain further, I doubt she’ll feel generous enough to grant my request.”

There was a general grumbling among the insects as they moved into a tight circle to discuss the issue. They came to a decision quickly and turned as one. “We agree with your assessment. We will not tax the mistress’s patience with this petty mishap. It will be well.”

Darcy breathed a little easier. The insects resumed gathering the eggs and larvae and then left, shutting the door between them, locking them in.