Neither the Cecropian nor the Karelian human had the empty look of death. But was Atvar H'sial conscious?
"Atvar H'sial!" Darya called as loudly as she could.
If the alien was at all aware of her surroundings, that should produce a response. Originating on the clouded planet of a red dwarf star, the Cecropians had never developed sight. Instead they "saw" by echolocation, sending high-frequency sonic pulses from the pleated resonator in the chin. They received and interpreted incoming signals through yellow open horns set in the middle of the broad head. As one result Cecropians had incredibly sensitive hearing, all through and far beyond the human frequency range.
"H'sial! Atvar H'sial!" Darya shouted again.
There was no reaction. The yellow horns did not turn in her direction, and the pair of fernlike antennas above them, disproportionately long even for that great body, remained furled. With hearing usurped for vision, Cecropians "spoke" to each other chemically, with a full and rich language, through the emission and receipt of pheromones. The unfurled antennas could detect and identify single molecules of many thousands of different airborne odors. If Atvar H'sial were conscious, those delicate two-meter-long fans would surely have stretched out, sniffing the air, seeking pheromones from the source of the sound.
"She's unconscious, too. I feel sure of it." Darya was moving forward to the place where the outermost ring of color began on the floor. Before she reached the edge of that first annulus of vivid yellow, Hans Rebka again restrained her.
"We don't know
why
they are unconscious. It looks safe enough in there, but it may not be. You stay here, and I'll go in."
"No." Darya moved more quickly down the slope of the shallow bowl. "Why
you
again? It's time we started sharing the risks."
"I have more experience."
"Fine. That means you'll know how to get me out of trouble if I need you. I'll go in just a little way." Darya was already stepping gingerly through the haze of the first hemisphere. She put her feet down carefully, feeling the ground ahead.
"All right, I"m through that one." She turned to look at Hans. He did not seem any different. She did not feel it. "No problem so far. Didn't notice anything, no resistance to motion. I'm going to cross the yellow zone."
She stared ahead. Yellow to green to purple. Five paces for each—it should be easy. Halfway between the second and third hemispheres she paused, confused for a moment about what she was doing.
"Are you all right?" She heard his call from behind her.
She turned. "Sure. I'm going to . . . the center."
And then she paused, oddly uncertain of her goal. She found it necessary to look around her before she knew what was happening.
There, in the middle, where Atvar H'sial and Louis Nenda are sitting, she reminded herself. In the chairs.
"I'm halfway there," she called. "Nearly done the green. Next stop, purple."
She was moving again. Bright lights, bright colors. Yellow to green to purple to red to blue. Five zones. Not following the usual order, though, red to orange to yellow to green to . . . the order in—what's that thing called? Hard to remember. The rainbow. Yeah, that's it.
These colors are not like the colors in the . . . whatever. Damn it, I've lost the word again. Keep moving. Only two more to go, and I'll reach what's-their-names. Yellow to green to purple to red . . . to—what was the name of that color—to yellow to . . . green . . .
Darya's eyes were wide open. She was lying on a hard, flat surface, staring up at a domed blue ceiling. Hans Rebka was bending over her, his face sweaty and pale.
She sat up slowly. In front of her was the great chamber, with its circular rings of color. At the center stood the dais with its two silent forms.
"What am I doing lying here? And why are you letting me sleep? We won't be able to help those two if we spend time loafing around."
"Are you all right?" At her impatient nod Hans said, "Take your time. Tell me the very last thing that you remember."
"Why, I was saying that I wanted to go into the rings, to bring Louis Nenda and Atvar H'sial out, and you were trying to talk me out of it. And then I was all ready to put my foot—" she was suddenly puzzled. "I was at the edge of the yellow ring, and now we're ten steps outside it. What happened, did I pass out?"
"More than that." His face was anxious. "Don't you remember crossing the yellow ring, and then the green one, and starting in on the purple one?"
"I didn't. I couldn't have. I only started out a minute ago. I just put my foot onto the yellow zone, and then—" She stared at him. "Are you telling me . . ."
"You said it a minute ago. You passed out. But not here." He pointed. "Way over there. You were halfway to the dais when your voice went all confused and dreamy, then you sat down on the floor. And then you lay down and stopped talking. That was three hours ago, not one minute. You were unconscious in there for nearly all that time."
"And you came in after me? That was crazy. You could have passed out, too."
"I didn't go all the way in. I didn't dare. I've seen something like this before—and you've written about it in your artifact catalog. It was your suggestion that this is a Builder artifact that told me what the problem had to be."
"Unconsciousness? That's not a Builder effect."
"Not unconsciousness. Memory loss. It's the same thing that happens to people who try to explore Paradox, except that what it does there is far worse. You only lost a few hours. They come out with their memories wiped clean. I've seen victims who tried to enter and came out more helpless than newborn babies."
Excitement replaced alarm. Darya had studied the artifacts since childhood, but until Summertide she had seen only Sentinel firsthand. "You're saying that there's a Lotus field inside those hemispheres. That's absolutely
fascinating
."
She could see from Rebka's look that the word was not one he would have chosen. She hurried on. "But if it
is
a Lotus field, however were you able to get me out? If it affected me like that, it would do the same to you."
"It would have. It did, a little bit. You were all right in the yellow ring, you still knew what you were doing, so I was willing to risk that much. I went that far. But the field would have caught me, too, if I'd gone all the way in to get you. Then we'd have lain there helpless until we starved to death, or somebody else came along to kill us or get us out."
"But you got me out."
"I did. But I didn't go in for you. I stood in the yellow zone and I hauled you out from there, like a hooked fish. Why do you think you were in so long? I had to find something to use as a grapple. It wasn't easy. It took me hours to find something I could use, then another hour to fish for you."
Darya turned to face the center of the chamber. "Atvar H'sial and Louis Nenda are right in the middle of it. Do you think their memories are wiped clean?"
"I can't say, but if this is anything like Paradox the field may affect the approach route and not the middle. They could be fine—or they could be wiped. We won't know until we get them out."
"Can you do for them what you did for me—haul them clear?"
"Not with this." Rebka indicated the length of noosed cable that lay on the floor at Darya's side. "It's too short, and they look like they're tied somehow to those seats."
"So how do we get them out?"
"We don't. Not for the moment." Rebka helped her to her feet. "We have to find some other way to do it. Come on. At least I know a bit more about the layout of this place—I ran up and down half the corridors off this room, scavenging for something I could use as a rope. This is a wild place—some parts are spotless; others have a ten-million-year dust layer. But don't ask me what any of it is
for
—that's a total mystery."
Darya allowed him to lead her to a doorway, three entrances farther around the room's perimeter. "It's hard to see why Glister is here at all," she said. "But it's not the prize mystery."
"Plenty of choices for that." Rebka sounded weary, but Darya knew from experience that he would ignore fatigue until he actually collapsed. "I can list a bundle," he went on. "The fast Phages. The atmosphere on the surface. The way we got inside. The equipment that provides air and water. The Lotus field in the chamber we just left. They're all candidates. Take your pick."
"You haven't listed the one most on my mind." The path was spiraling down, heading in a gentle, curving ramp toward the middle of Glister. Darya was thirsty—and suddenly so hungry that it was hard to think of anything else.
How long since she had eaten? It felt like forever. Her mind might have been switched off for three hours, but her stomach had not been. It kept careful track of missed meals.
"The tough one is this," she said at last. "Why did the orange cloud on the surface let Kallik pass through untouched, but grab
us
, and Louis Nenda and Atvar H'sial, and bring us down here? There's something on Glister that
knows
the difference
between humans, Cecropians, and Hymenopts.
That's
the biggest mystery of all."
Distribution:
The Hymenopt cladeworld is not definitely known, but it is believed to be one of the eighty worlds subjected to large-scale surface reshaping by the Zardalu, roughly twenty thousand years ago.
Hymenopt societies flourish today on eighteen of those worlds, having been transported there by the Zardalu and abandoned at the time of the Great Rising. Eight of these colonies subsequently became technologically advanced enough to achieve interplanetary travel. One Hymenopt world was an independent discoverer of the Bose Drive, but for cultural reasons it limited its use.
After the Great Rising the Hymenopt worlds were lost from spiral-arm communication, until finally they were rediscovered by the Decantil Survey and Census of territories of the Zardalu Communion.
Since then, slave Hymenopts have been taken to all worlds of the Communion, and also to dozens of planets of the Cecropia Federation. The total Hymenopt population is unknown, but certainly it is in the tens of billions.
Physical Characteristics:
The Hymenopts in their own colonies contain six separate functional groups, designated as Regents, Recorders, Defenders, Feeders, Breeders, and Workers. There is a progression among these forms, in that Breeders following metamorphosis become Feeders, and finally Regents, while Defenders in the later stages of their lives become Recorders. Workers maintain the same form all their lives.
It should be noted that the only Hymenopts employed as slaves are the Workers. The others do not leave their colonies. Thus when another species of the spiral arm refers to "a Hymenopt," that is by implication a Hymenopt
Worker
. The following physical description applies to them alone.
Hymenopt Workers are sterile female eight-legged arthropods. The paws on all limbs are prehensile and capable of the manipulation of small objects; however, only the four forelimbs are normally used for delicate work. Despite the fancied resemblance of the Hymenopt Workers to the Earth Hymenoptera, which led to their naming by Decantil survey biologists, the physiological similarity is at best superficial. The Hymenopts do, however, possess a tough exoskeleton and a powerful sting at the end of the rounded abdomen. (This, combined with their speed of movement, suggests that the slavery of a Hymenopt Worker is a matter of choice and habit, rather than force.)
Hymenopts see with a ring of simple (i.e., not compound) eyes, circling a smooth head. The need for all-around vision encourages them to remain upright on most occasions, although for rapid movement they revert to a horizontal position. The Hymenopts' eyes are sensitive to a range of wavelengths from 0.3 to 1.0 micrometers, which more than spans the range of human optics. Their sensitivity to low light levels is superior to that of humans; this has led some exobiologists to offer an unconvincing identification of the Hymenopt cladeworld based on fainter sunlight and stellar spectral properties.
History:
The earliest history of the Hymenopts has been lost, together with knowledge of their cladeworld. Today, the planet of Ker is generally considered to be the center of Hymenopt civilization, and it is certainly the principal storage point for Hymenopt records.
It was on Ker that the Bose Drive was discovered, seven thousand years ago. That invention led to a dominance of Ker among other Hymenopts which has never been challenged. According to the Ker archives, some form of Hymenopt oral history and race memory extends back sixty thousand generations. Since a breeding cycle lasts for seventy standard years, Hymenopts have therefore been intelligent, with a well-developed language, for over half a million years. By contrast, written records on Ker go back less than ten thousand.
Ker is the moving force, main market center, and principal beneficiary of the sale of Hymenopt slaves. Its inhabitants are eager to maintain that role, and they follow general Hymenopt practice by discouraging interaction and commerce with any other species, except for the purpose of Hymenopt slave trading.
Culture:
In the Hymenopt worlds, societal control equals
breeding
control. Since the other five groups are sterile, the Breeders in principle possess unique power; however, each Breeder knows that she will one day undergo metamorphosis to Feeder (responsible for feeding the young) and then to Regent (responsible for all colony development decisions). These three groups therefore cooperate to constitute the "Superior Triad" of Hymenopt culture, with the Workers, Recorders, and Defenders forming the "Inferior Triad." It would be unthinkable for one member of the Superior Triad to sell another member for use as a slave.
Crossbreeding outside the colony is recognized as genetically beneficial, but travel is tightly controlled. It is approved in advance, and applies only to mating. No Hymenopt colony desires, or permits, uncontrolled transfers of individuals. This factor, more than any other, limits Hymenopt interest in interstellar, or even interplanetary, commerce. The slave trade of Ker is the single significant exception.
—From the
Universal Species Catalog
(Subclass: Sapients).