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August 20, 2578
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He hadn't seen Kirindi in days. Not that he'd measured it in days before.
She hadn't exactly been glued to his side before, what with her regular excursions into the market and the auton base, but that had stopped being a distant thing with the arrival of her sister and him taking a job as city guard. It felt like she was around less, now.
When had that started? With their arrival here, or with her figuring something wasn't right between them? The latter would be better; he had well, wronged her. But the former meant something about the hivemind.
Still, there wasn't anything notably off about it when he dropped into the birth chamber, where Kirindi happily bounced up with an arm full of ugly worm things.
Eagerly, she held them to his face and dropped them, so he reflexively caught the lot.
Who ... what the fuck. They chattered at him as grampa.
This would only be funny if he could show Nra'tex-ne, but right now it was an awful lot of babysitting. Kirindi hadn't been an actual baby, she had residue of her host in there. These did not. They had to be explained the difference between biting as affection and biting for food.
How was he even supposed to teach anything as simple as eating right and communicating with sound to creatures that had no arms, so needed their heads as the same?
"Are these going to grow up within a day, or what?"
"Noasyvé stagnated this actually," said Sarah somewhere on the side. "We're unsure how complex brain development
"And we don't want fifthy variants of Odygos," he clattered.
"Hey, Odygos is actually that one in a million odds of brain scrambling turning out excellent."
"I suppose it would be worse if they turned out like Eliath," he grumbled.
Sarah wavered between agreeing because Eliath was more inhuman, or disagreeing because Eliath had a 'healthy distaste' for Karga'te. Then she noticed he caught on to those thoughts.
"Kirindi, tune down the open hivemind a bit, will you? Or I'm not staying," Sarah said.
"Okay!"
Weird. The mental buzz just ebbed away within minutes, and it was actually easier to think now he didn't automatically pay attention to everyone else.
There were about five babies in his arms, three more had either fallen or move up his shoulders to his in his locks. Different personalities, also known as a host of different solutions if they weren't as compliant as Kirindi.
Grandfather, the concept existed around him now, but didn't have the weight of a matriarch. There was no respect.
They could defer to their leaders, but they couldn't respect. They didn't even understand what this concept Kirindi told them was. Pry that off, and he was ...
Nothing, really.
Staying too long with their simplistic minds set him ill at ease.
He looked up, right in the unhooded eyes of Ti'chai-di.
Now devoid of the ever incessant urge to reproduce, she was almost as empty. Within her was care for her sister and hatred for Jonah and all of Enigma II, but that didn't take further shapes.
To her, he wasn't any kind of concept. No deference, no respect, she merely followed Kirindi on how to deal with him.
In that moment it struck him absurd, how badly Kirindi had wanted her in their lives, when she was so little of a person. What was there to miss? She wanted less than animals.
"~What do you want onward?~"
There was no response, not even any confusion on this question, so quickly discarded as unfit for anything to consider.
"Do you need to do this all the time, or are you gonna take breaks? Do some city stuff again?"
She saw no point in that.
"So raise them," he said.
"Yes, what about helping them grow up?" Sarah asked. "Maturing, like Lemura. I had to teach her a lot to function, and you hate it when your kids die, right?"
Sarah's thick, brimming presence tore him back to the more concrete world.
Of course she did have to teach, that much Ti'chai-di understood. Groaning under the weight of her sack, she moved up, just to hesitate.
"Take a walk, see how fast they move maybe?" Sarah got up herself and scooped a few of the worms up. "These got the beginning of legs. First walk, then we'll think about where to go."
Karga'te struggled back from the void and found Sarah full of thoughts about heading back to fight those behind Enigma, and whatever threat they might bring. She too lacked questions, but different ones. Like, who else wanted to?
Where Ti'chai-di was empty, Sarah was full of things ... not unlike the mass of ideals that had controlled his brother. Valor for justice, that was probably hers.
Something was missing though. Sharp resentment, bit of bloodlust, hyper vigilance around Kirindi now he was near.
Where was Eliath?
Jay quietly piped in here; he'd gone with Bison, who wasn't joining the hive, to get some other planet's upgrade.
Huh, weird. Kirindi probably had suggested he do that — no, she hadn't.
She didn't like at all that Eliath was being friendly with Ayo, and if Bison was too, she would have written him off already if not for Jay. She couldn't persuade Jay to not love him; making love stop wasn't her thing.
Kirindi's attention snapped back to the joy of the new family, and that was that.
Karga'te tore himself loose, pushing himself back into the open air.
There he caught his clarity and growled at nothing but his disorientation. At other times he liked the clutter of life, be it the jungle or the airport, but this cloyed.
"I liked it better when it was just Sarah and me and Jay."
His head snapped at the small, garbled voice.
A tail flicked around the corner of a drop, where he found Lemura on her haunches, long fingers dragging through the dust.
She'd begun growing more rapidly since arriving here, now almost a meter tall and able to hold multiple babies in one arm. With the other, she drew tools for them.
He wasn't the only one paying attention.
The other humans, would be hosts from Enigma, flanked by drones passed by. Several broke off to look thoughtless at Lemura's work.
Just as thoughtless, she dropped the babies and wandered off, away from the attention.
She didn't like them, and after a few seconds of them cluttering telepathically around him — a new curiosity — he agreed.
In fact, resenting them was easy.
Many still longed for home. It wasn't discouraged. It might even be useful, once it was time to swarm. Karga'te snarled, and Kirindi, cooler than usual, said swarming was normal.
He walked away, into the other direction from Lemura. Felt like a good time to get drunk with Jake and Shadhahvar.
· · · · · · ·
Anudjan had required a great deal of organizing lately, with plans to look at that third gray planet abound, but at last, Persephone got a hold of Y-921.
Near her room was an empty bit for the food deposits for their organic guests, new as good as empty. What boxes remained she stacked in front of the door, then cut the wiring and each of their wave modems.
Y-921 looked on from the middle of the room, with mild befuddlement, but made no objections; he was the type programmed by a butler class, somehow, despite being registered in the negotiator class. That would be her excuse if anyone curious drones like Odygos wanted to know why she secluded convenient old 921-Y.
"What is amiss?"
"My mildly illegal hobby of sorting out unusual personalities in light of drone variations."
Who had access to their network, and maybe even Anudjan. She couldn't risk contamination.
She hooked their wires together through their wrists, and left the prepared simulation run.
Five scenarios further, and he acted exactly as expected, when give one or another condition.
The problem with Auton personalities was that sometimes, they had to fill in a black space because they all lacked human instincts, but still had hardcoding afterward, so newly chosen traits could stick. Would stick.
"When you decided to meet up with Ayo, how did that happen?"
"Xylia approached me. There was a written note. Then x picked me up and carried me to the ship."
"Can I check your system integrity?" she asked, and then lied. "I worry they did something to you, and it's strange they don't allow us on that other planet."
"Of course. But, you too have experienced the sight. Have you checked yourself?"
She patted him on the shoulder. "I'm having it run over by others. I won't say whom, just in case of a Kendall virus repeat."
He chuckled. "Oh come now."
That didn't mean no.
Diagnostic came back clean, of course. The same as all prior checks before Xylia.
That was odd in and of itself.
He'd erased his memory to protect the drones, meaning a great deal of distrust of how he'd be judged. Yet with Xylia he didn't hesitate to trust instantly, despite introducing hallucinations to their kind, seemingly without virus.
Neither of these were comparable to preexisting scenarios, but both in line with known personality if one didn't compare them to another. Before them, either might have been a plausible development for this type of personality ... when guessing on little information regarding trust manifestation.
There were three others of his making among the Auton. She took a risk, contacted them through the physical matrix, requested behavior diagnostics on what they'd do if they'd been the first to meet Kirindi.
From then on, she spent the rest of the day buildig a better personality profile for Y-921.
· · · · · · ·
August 21, 2578
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Her mother didn't dream of anything unpleasant these days, but it was very boring. Her mind of full of children and motherhood, with every whiff of Enigma II and Jonah more easily suppressed by the day.
Not so easy for Lemura, who couldn't love all these weird worms the same way. They were growing up like drones to a queen, and they didn't talk more. It scared her a little. If she herself grew up, would she become more like them, all of her own thoughts just an accident cause it was Sarah who was her mother for a while?
All she could do was hang at the edge.
Karga'te wasn't too far away, trying and failing miserably to make the drones sit.
They didn't think like animals. He still wanted them to be.
Their telepathy had them hone into fear of victims, but they recognized other threats just fine. They'd dodge, they sabotaged walls, they destroyed droids. They looked for threats before they looked towards food or shelter.
Ziou'ra never needed this kind of vigilance. Once they were tame there was no need to hurt them. These might just need it for all time, unless he wanted to plead for some arrangement with their queen. Hmmmph. That'd defeat the point.
They would obey to avoid pain, and then try to undermine one, and it only went as far as the pain didn't pay off something bigger. That much he got from the Auton data, and the fact that trying to beat or wear them down resulted in retaliation. They had no compulsions about hurting him back just as much, and in varying degrees depending on their subtle personal differences.
He had to try something else, but there was no rewards he could give. Three of the more clever ones could be bartered with if he stole something from the Auton, if they felt like learning the way Odygos did, but usually they just leeched off of him.
They were still somewhat linked to their former hosts, having a sense of familiarity about them, but without the fixation on their safety the way Eliath and Odygos had for their charges. According to Kirindi, there was barely room for affixing them together, let alone use that as an in for Karga'te becoming an, ah, she'd dubbed it general.
They wouldn't kill him, but enduring as he now was, they could hurt him in countless ways, trap him as they pleased. Didn't even scare him, it annoyed. It had hate come out, but not in any shape he could use, and yet he didn't try to kill them.
She had to ask, and he answered reflexively.
That killing them made one a true hunter for almost all yautja tribes added up. They knew the reward of killing something physically stronger, using expertise and efficiency dumb animals did not muster. Same reason why humans, weak as they physically were, could be good prey : that mind that accompanied matter.
He had a sibling who had tried and failed to explain all that. Silly things that only had perspective, or angle, or whatever the word was, now he wasn't trying to kill.
But he didn't want it still.
Lemura chewed on that for a bit. To not want something of family so blatantly, was that allowed?
Damn right, the same way he was allowed to take a break without hollers of disgrace. He'd taken a lot of breaks, almost gleefully sharing how irritated the elders would be at his attitude.
Dwelling in those feelings distracted, so she startled when his feet appeared aside her.
"What, did Sarah say anything shitty?" If she hadn't, the Kirindi must have told her a few things.
Lemura didn't look up, or answer in any way.
He crouched, so he could tap on her head. "Whatever. Wanna learn how to fight?"
That definitely was so very much not allowed. Bad instincts. No violence ever.
"So what? Figure out your violence," he said. "Do you like to fight or to kill? World of difference."
"Neither," she muttered. "There's this urge, like hunger. The enemy has to die."
"Who the fuck is the enemy and why do they gotta die?"
"I know it doesn't make sense!"
"Bullshit. It's gotta make sense somehow or you wouldn't do it. Figure it out. In the meantime, help me predict these pitpests." He picked Lemura up.
"They don't fuck." She dangled under his arm. Should she struggle? Was this bad? Sarah would worry.
"I'm gonna explain you swearwords while we're at it."
"Why?"
"It's fun."
By now he'd broken into a run, and being jostled about made it hard to talk.
Once he slowed, she said, "It is not fun. Sarah finds it rude."
"That's why it's fun. Come on, Sarah isn't your whole world and you better not turn out drab like your mom. Do shit."
"I don't shit."
"It's a metaphor." With that he planted her on a rock just before the flock of drones.
"They make sense, I don't, I shouldn't deal with them." Minds could be contagious.
"My brother told me it makes sense for us to spend our lives hunting. Path of honor as tread before us by the gods, and other bullshit like that. Battle dreamtime, pitblood curses, towards our prey. He believed that crap without fail. Murdered hundreds of humans. And then he fucked one and things didn't make sense anymore."
Karga'te walked past her, and kicked one of the drones. It got a lot of hissing, but no violence.
They just lazied about on the barren plain. Looking past them, it had to be many miles to the next line of hills. It was a biiiit tempting to run all over it and disturbed all the smooth wet sand.
"Okay, we're going to make them do that."
"Huh?"
"What you just thought, messing up the sand. I like it, you like it, we're going to convince them to like it."
The drones didn't feel any sense to wasting energy on that. They'd just sleep until the queen called.
Karga'te growled. "With the damn sense again. A while ago, it sounded like a good idea to murder your aunt. Having the whole picture's a must, so get the hell up and figure out your goddamn instincts."
"It's just the xenomorph's natural instincts."
"Not the point. Also, you want to have fun, it's a goddamn instinct for the overwhelming majority of species, and even Odygos gets it."
Actually, that's what it started like, but the more he talked, the more there had to be. Taming things could go all ways, including the self. He told her this, quietly. This way she followed his thoughts along.
Paths to the way were like building the goal, that's how he thought of things. And something about instincts. And sense in fun?
"So if fun is for all the thinking species, it is instinct, and so makes sense?"
"Boredom and monotony and all that rigid shit is probably what kept my people so ... "
"Monsters?" Lemura asked. "Sarah says we're all monsters."
He didn't answer, just clicked his mandibles weirdly.
Then he picked her up and threw her far onto the plain. She barely got one yelp in before landing with a splatter on the sand. It hurt the top layer of her exoskeleton a bit, but the skin was thin, and the impact not that bad. Soon the sand felt nicer.
"First lesson, you gotta know your own body. Our tribe had us play since toddlers, so we had no classes for that. You get to catch up the fun way. Come back here, we're doing it again till you land right."
Reluctant, she skittered back, and let him pick her up. "Try to spin in the air more, I wanna see what does."
He tossed her again.
Helpless, she flailed arms about to match up with some sense of movement. It didn't work and she landed on her back.
"This isn't working," she wailed softly.
"Bullshit. I got to see you fail, so lemme tell you what you did wrong : you see your whole body as a singular object to move about. Used to crawlspaces and pipes and hiding, right? But you don't move your body that much in relation to yourself.
Kids usually figure that out, but you got an exoskeleton with instinct for softmeat movement."
He tapped a claw on her stomach. "That should be treated like a joint. Hardmeat can't move this area much. Let's see you do it. Stand up, keep your feet in the same place, turn your torso sideways."
She did so with some trouble.
Karga'te stood to her right, set a foot over her toes — hurt a bit, but she kept a squeak in — and held out a hand overhead. "Hold on, and move along."
She hooked her hands around his fingers. He turned his arm so her upper body had to move to the left, but when she reflexively tried to move her feet, it wasn't possible.
Her skin on the stomach felt weird, and the muscles tensed over each other, but it would be possible with more moving, just like when she'd learned to crawl.
"See? You got those muscles. Use them for gravity distribution. First walking, then spinning in the air."
"Uh, okay ... how often?"
"All the time. Skip sleep if you have to. You don't wanna grow up wrong so all time counts."
"Okay ... "
Kirindi curiously tuned in, promised to remember to help Lemura, and suggested that she try the hexagons near the hive palace next. After that, it didn't take her long to show up across the hillside.
Soon she rolled down the slope, sprang up and latched onto Karga'te's shoulder.
"Why didn't you call me?"
He tapped her nose. "Wanted to see how far I'd come without you. Don't interfere."
"Oh, but I can make them understand so much better."
"It won't stick that way, not in them or in me," he growled, and tossed her next.
Lemura envied how she was able to land on her feet, her long tail out for balance, and quickly tucked that emotion away.
Kirindi rolled over a few times, but didn't like it so much as the hexagon field, so decided a sandcastle was her new priority. They would use this as a started to teach all of Lemura's new sisters how to build better palaces; Kirindi thought the current one too dull.
She understood fun so easily, and Ti'chai-di still did not. Kirindi was the carefully made one.
"How the hell does that work anyway? You're a lot more like her than Ti'chai-di," Karga'te said.
Lemura remembered the rest of the family. Sarah's poor duplicates couldn't do any of this, so she shared it with them too.
That got Sarah's attention right away.
Oops. She didn't like that.
"~ Karga'te, cut it out. She doesn't like fighting and you're a horrible choice for basic self defense classes. She can work along with me once I get around to them. ~"
She was sending Odygos to fetch her.
Karga'te disagreed, and was ... oh no.
Somehow, Karga'te had figured out telepathic screaming, and used that to pick a fight both with Sarah and Noasyvé.
She parsed one thing out of it that got repeated a lot in various words. "~ Being stuck doing nothing or shit you hate is gonna get awful quick. Give her something to do. ~"
Sarah argued that Lemura needed a lot of attention since she could lose her control, and that stung. Lemura curled up a little more, and didn't understand why it stung.
"~She doesn't bother me. I barely detect her in the hivemind at all. Ti'chai-di doesn't acknowledge her beyond successful child, want more, and Kirindi doesn't know what to do with her. ~"
He didn't care if she got violent. Not like she could really hurt him. Modifications with xeno nature scaled up from the starter point, he was a yautja, if she did get angry ... it didn't matter if she was a monster.
Sarah had said everyone was a monster, but that didn't make sense. Sarah didn't have to fight bloodlust, did she? Not the same kind of monster at all.
But she imagined herself getting really angry when she'd been young, and figured, same thing, just with more monster now.
"~She isn't you," Karga'te said. "She's never going to be you.~"
"~What the hell are you going on about?~" Sarah spat. "~Lemura struggles against something you never had to deal with! I've been there from the start, I do know.~"
Not the same kind of monster at all.
Something got argued then, Karga'te thought lots of incoherent stuff about where he'd come from. Family. Pyramids. Hunt. Bloodlust as a way of life. They'd made so very sure that those who got to breed were those craving it. It wasn't good enough.
"~That was all nurture, not nature. Keep your murderous brother out of this.~"
Nobody knew anything for sure.
And Kirindi huddled next to her, at a total loss for how to make the fight stop. She pulled Lemura into her lap, a little like Sarah had often done, but she didn't make any proclamations. Just held her and fretted over how to get peace back. Karga'te wasn't to be compelled, and Sarah only got angrier if she tried because she could see.
Lemura put her arms around her, and they were just long enough to reach around now. She'd be bigger than Kirindi soon, and there was nobody who could tell her what that would be, not even her tiny aunt, who never would grow further.
Somehow, Kirindi took all her vague feelings as a question.
"What do you want to be?" Kirindi asked at last. "I'd like it if you stayed and played. Sarah's just very sad and disturbed because of being on Enigma so long. Be a xeno a little more, it's okay. They're all going to be more fun and you can help."
"I'd like that," Lemura muttered.
"~Oh hear who can talk. Give up now, Driscoll~." Karga'te figured out how to lace that with this emotion called smugness. Lemura didn't understand, but hey, maybe she'd learn that too. It felt nice for him, but also annoying for Sarah.
Maybe she should go collect new emotions for herself too.
Sarah said nothing, and the silence bothered her more than anything, but turn back she did not. Cause, it started to feel like playing and learning and fighting could all be the same time.
Maybe that fit her monsterness better.
· · · · · · ·
August 22, 2578
· · · · · · ·
Persephone thankfully didn't experience true anxiety, or else the wait would eat her.
This day started with strange, sporadic updates. First, change in the way the drones moved.
"Shake up with the hivemind," Anudjan said. "Lemura won't return to the room soon, she's moved in with Karga'te."
"Not her mother?"
"Nor Kirindi. They live separately now that Ti'chai-di has so many children. Karga'te intends to train Lemura in self defense. On a very unrelated note, we're preparing an acid proof surgery room. I was assigning duty for this and found you've taken 921-Y offline recently."
Shit, an open post like that wouldn't normally bother Anudjan.
She didn't answer, and he didn't press.
Next, the Auton en large wanted to gather more data on what the human side of the hivemind was to live as.
Between Jake, Jay, Sarah and Karga'te, all the genetic modifications were kickstarted by incubation. Noasyvé's pools involved no such process.
It was plausible that she could do without that, of course, but they wanted to double check whether the salvaged humans had never been incubated. There were no records of them being operated, and the basic x ray scans hadn't indicated anything. It had been assumed there was no parasite because it would show.
There was no data, though. None what so ever on whether they'd been checked for the hypothetical lethargic incubations. An egg unhatched didn't show up on an x ray.
There was no data.
Out of the list of potential sources, Sarah and her two friends were the most likely, but Sarah was missing and Jay fretting.
"Is Bison still visiting the Aing Tii?"
"In deed, and incidentally, Eliath is notably absent. Same time table."
The suggestion they'd gone together was absurd. Bison was notoriously distrustful of anyone.
"He might just be hibernating because Kirindi doesn't need a guardian anymore," she said. "We don't need to know where he is, but Bison's absence is worrying. I had the impression he and Jay had a good relationship going, so to take off just like that? Something is wrong."
She went back to her checking up on Y-921's relation to Kirindi. There hadn't been a new prompt for their friendship and Kirindi hadn't gone near due to hiding the drones, but ...
She arranged for Y-921 to meet with Odygos, having sent the latter a message about how he owed the android a thank you. Whether the drone understood or just followed Sarah's directions wasn't important. Kirindi would likely show up to supervise the event.
Five hours later, Y-921 was back to work with no further complications, having declined an invitation to visit Ti'chai-di.
The problem wasn't Kirindi's lack of interest now, and Odygos seemed outright curious. What missed was Y-921's curiosity, only when it came to Kirindi.
She visited Anudjan at the end of that day, with a simple request.
"Let's check everything," Persephone said. "Anudjan, I don't need Noasyvé finding out. Odygos is strange, but not outright rebellious. I would like things to keep operating as usual, while I operate separately. Will you assign me as ambassador to the Aing Tii and give me equipment, then erase your memory of this?"
· · · · · · ·
August 23, 2578
· · · · · · ·
Sarah said that Lemura was a very quick learner, but Lemura understood so very little.
In Sarah's mind, words like family, mother and father and siblings and grandparents existed, which she longed for and valued, but not as much as her goals.
Early on, she had called Noasyvé a mother in most reverent a tone — she no longer did. Lemura didn't understand the change, and Sarah didn't think about it. It just happened on its own, Sarah none the wiser, even when asked about it.
It took Lemura five tries, before the answer came : Noasyvé wasn't actually a god, just someone part of their environment. Sarah hadn't given her boss much thoughts, and then she had to explain what job she held before Enigma II. Don't fret about it.
Sarah wanted to make better drones for the fight against the enemy, and didn't think Lemura should be part of that. She was too young. Grudgingly, she would let her go to training and she never said outloud anymore that she hated Karga'te.
So Lemura asked Kirindi about the thing that bugged her, which she couldn't even name.
Kirindi declared it was the importance of the hivemind. She and Sarah's clones weren't really planned, just like Ti'chai-di wasn't planned, and so their instincts were messy. Kirindi had spent a long time trying to make it all right, but Ti'chai-di, she was already longing for more children and now slowly, creepingly aware that it would never be right.
Lemura visited Ti'chai-di then.
Her mother was alone in the den, for the first time in her short life considering meaning. Odygos had a lot to say about that. Lemura very little.
Ti'chai-di was a child in human years and she was also the size of an elephant, and had none of their purpose. Lemura sat with her until the sun set, and learned something : through the hivemind, Ti'chai-di's restlessness crept in everything, even as Kirindi did her utmost best to keep everyone happy and at peace.
Lemura herself had to think about everything. With humans and yautja, random inclinations popped into their minds at every turn, ranging from hunger to moods and more. Much of that didn't go automatic. Yet she understood more than a 1 year old human baby, somehow.
She lacked a point of reference, something she hadn't realized before training. It was the little things in how she had to figure out a unique way to move for a body nobody else had. That was design but not part of a pattern like everyone else's mixed designs.
Lemura was a baby. Lemura was a preteen. Lemura was learning how to fight like an adult, and would soon be the size of one. Three inches since having gotten here, then some more, and more. She grew by the day now she moved more, like a lock that had been taken off.
Sarah couldn't teach her much of what she needed.
So whenever there was no training, Lemura sat with her without interacting. There weren't even any card games anymore now Bison was gone, and shared experiments had stopped.
Today, after some hours of that, the Auton called to say Bison was back. He'd arrive soon on one of their transporters. No Aing Tii?
Jay got up and ran out the door, down the halls, off the ramp. Lemura peered out of the window to see him jump into Bison's arms and lock faces together, like they sometimes had done behind closed doors. First time Jay felt careless enough to do it in the open.
Sarah stayed put, and waited for them to enter, and Lemura waited for any of that to make sense.
It took a while before Bison walked into the living quarters of what once had been their quarters, and gave Sarah and Lemura a mild greeting.
Sarah closed the distance, while Bison opened a closet and rummaged for a box.
"Bison, where have you been for so long?" Sarah asked, worried, but also bitter that she'd been left behind. Sarah maybe didn't understand what her place was with her friends.
"I got an invite to one of the other planets, didn't you hear? Just to get my body fixed without alien upgrades. Any experiments you can use hormones for?" He held up his entire stack of material. "I won't need them anymore. They even have reconstructive surgery."
She took the offering, playing with ideas on embryos and almost walking off, but she forced herself to stop in the doorway.
"Is everything alright?" She glanced over him, tense as he was.
"I'm pretty nervous," he said. "Can you tell?"
"Not feel it, but I can see it," Sarah said. "We're guessing you got all these perks for a reason. You'll never join our hivemind, will you?"
Lemura now felt it echo through them all, Bison was not part of them. Not even potentially, regardless of what Kirindi wanted. He had joined an ally, and so, was no more than the Aing Tii.
"I would have joined them without anything like that. From what I see, they're the best option for how I want to live my life ... and the best option to help Jay, now that he's in."
He might be thinking that they were monsters.
"So you won't be sharing a mind with Jay, ever?"
"We didn't before. It'll be alright, Sarah. For us at least. You watch out for your locks on your mind."
She lingered on spitting something about cryptid answers and a cool sense of unease and aimless betrayal; how could anyone refuse the hivemind? Coalescent love would suit them, right?
"And you, too." Now he looked Lemura sharply in the eyes. "I don't think I need to wait long before you'll agree. But for now ..." He pointed at the bedroom and thought about Jay arriving soon.
At which Sarah instantly scooped up Lemura and marched out with a determination to distract; Kirindi later explained there'd be sex and Sarah had noticed her curiosity lately, and to not let Sarah know she knew that. Sarah had human weirdness about sex.
Sarah brought her to training today, then left for council and experiments.
· · · · · · ·
Eliath was back. Dammit. Not having to fret about Kirindi getting scratches had helped Lemura's training along, now he was about to lose his guideline for Lemura's athletics.
He wasn't in the mood today to deal with Eliath, so sent her off with Kirindi to have a jolly damn reunion or whatever they were going to do.
A few of the drones followed them, but others stayed. That was interesting, to say the least.
They were in a small valley where nothing 'important' could get damaged by any jumping, throwing or exploding, so the drones didn't come here for any reason other than vaguely humoring Kirindi and a general sense of needing directions.
There wasn't a clear pattern to those that stayed, but it tended to be the more confrontational ones. Not a bad thing. Confrontational usually meant more chance of learning, when it didn't mean Eliath holding a grudge.
None of these drones gave a shit for his past, or ELiath's opinions, but they did care he was annoying them. They'd learned to conceptualize that feeling after Odygos explained them the existence of Shadhahvar.
Shadhahvar's boredom had driven her to entice the resin producing drones for material to work with towards alcohol, so Jake was around more. He'd taken to watching the sessions and sometimes join out of habit, but soon realized he could neither improve his shape nor lose it by inactivity, and had been faced with having only technique to improve on.
That would mean fighting Karga'te, an offer he was blatantly afraid to take. Jake didn't even try denying that fear. Meh. Disappointing but it'd be more irritating if he put on bravado. For that much, he somewhat preferred humans company; they had more members who didn't go all day thinking about achieving honor.
Now he always had humans humming in the background of this expanded hivemind, it was both easy and needed to find positive traits of it; Kirindi was thrilled of course and that leaked everywhere. At least, as long as Bison rejecting the hivemind wasn't the topic, or Jake was involved.
Jake, who was headed here to watch and brood.
By the human clock, most of this 'day' would be dark, because dawn didn't match up. The human biological clock responded to light, but as demidrones, they could just choose to sleep.
Karga'te picked a fight with a drone, reached a stalemate he didn't care to challenge, looked over to Jake.
He just sat there slumped against a rock wall, not even paying attention. No Shadhahvar either; thankfully.
"Tell me how you got rid of her," he said as passed by, dragging along a drone by its tail.
"Meh, Shadhahvar's been trying to use local resin for dalnauri or changing auton into into alcohol. We used to fuck sometimes when we were really bored, but now all she's got going is being part of the hivemind that doesn't have a use for her. Or me. What'cha doing?"
"Sit still test," he said.
He would arrange the drones into groups and command them to not cluster till he said so. That had been the original plan. Now it was more like avoiding the command and just seeing whether arranging them without prompt got them to stay. He'd pick another fight once this broke inevitably.
That went on for a while without Jake giving any input.
At last, Karga'te walked over and kicked him in the leg. "What the fuck is your problem today?"
Jake gestured at the stars. "All that. I'm so ... small. It's starting to sink in. The Auton say I'm crashing because of relaxing after prolonged stress, or the hivemind is bad for me, or ... something. I thought I was fine, you know ... like you ..."
"If you were like me, you'd be dead long, human," he grumbled. "Now spill it. Nothing is wrong here for you. Why are you like this?"
"Nothing, right? That's exactly it." Jake threw up his hands. "I'm immortal."
"Is that a problem?"
"Yeah! I had this idea, I'd have an adventurous life and either die awesome or live old and filthy rich of my earnings. Now? The world is going to end either because Noasyvé, some other mortal goddess, or a wicked AI takes over. Money doesn't even exist on this planet."
Karga'te thrilled in confusion, then remember to roll his eyes to make it clear just how stupid that was.
Jake noticed nothing and grinned almost inhumanly. "And I'm immortal. Could stay on this planet and never change. Boredom would be my greatest enemy."
"Get a damn hobby," Karga'te growled. "I did that when it was forbidden, so you can get off your ass and invent something when nobody stops you."
"You are really no good at just letting people simmer when they need to, you know that? I didn't ask for a solution."
"I ran away and didn't need a solution. The hobby was just to tide me over."
"Oh yeah, and how did that pan out for you? You went from being a serial killer with standards to one without, and now ..." There was no strength in Jake's words. He just dropped back again, rubbed his hands over his face and challenged the sky to nothing with a stare.
A few more drones drooped off.
Jake idly wondered what his drone would've been like, if he'd survived, and if he could've tried training it. But he wasn't that interested in animals, or nothing else.
Karga'te was getting entirely too much information about Jake's mind. Usually he was clueless unless Kirindi told him fine details, not now. He telepathically poked at a nearby drone, and caught some minor sense of which that one had burst from, too.
The hivemind got denser, apparently. That mellow rhythm almost everyone else swayed on now didn't have Jake, despite how deep he was in it. And Karga'te, neither.
They both needed something to do, but he wasn't good at brainstorming. Though ... there wasn't much he had at hand.
"You can fight well enough for training Lemura," he said. "Show up tomorrow, Kirindi's not going to be her sparring partner anymore."
Jake groaned, hating the idea, but didn't have the mood to argue against him. "Fiiiiine."
· · · · · · ·
This morning, Jay pinched in some more salt, just a bit extra to celebrate Bison was back. They'd have to face the fact it would run out eventually anyway.
The ever cloudy sky sometimes let the sun shine through, just line of pale yellow over the horizon around a red sun, but it gave a nice tint to the gray lands and clouds around. Good time for an outdoors dinner for everyone, the first one Bison could join without atmospheric trouble.
Most of their drones fortunately weren't as weird as Odygos. They didn't take clear orders, but some moved on a general sense of hive building and would thus move tables in a circle, even without him asking Kirindi to format that concept for them.
The androids wouldn't be joined, save a few who had befriended the humans. Maybe, they said. Jay placed a few extra plates just in case, but when people filed out, it was only organic folk.
The human group had dubbed themselves the Enigma survivors, and though Jay had been an employer of their would-be-murderers, they rolled with his presence; Kirindi really did smooth out a lot of potential distrust. They could just throw open a mental door, share how they thought of Enigma, and all was well. In fact, Jay's massive amount of dirt on Enigma II's contractual slavery resonated with plenty of the low class folks.
Telepathic dirty dishing was especially fun because some folks had great imagination, and everyone coming together was as good as a virtual reality game, super personalized to trash bad bosses.
The sore point was Bison, of course, but Jay had covered for that by excessive trust sharing. He really had no reason to be nervous, but he just was like that with his background.
If all went well, Bison would just join in with some quiet dirt talking on Enigma; Jay had asked Kirindi to keep people grounded today rather than go all dreamscape.
Odygos was smart and bored enough to help scoop food, and Sarah would soon entice him to do some fun tricks.
He'd done the best he could with local food and soon, people were scarving down as they chatted.
Sarah was the last to arrive, a hurried mess as she stumbled down the ramp; she must've been doing more genetic experiments.
"Sarah, good that you've found time." Jay gestured at an open seat, which she took. Clustering around her were some of her malformed clones, which didn't fit human chairs, but the drones had made them seats out of goo. Jay helped one of them climb up, and marveled at how he didn't find them disgusting anymore. Then he sat next to Sarah, with the other seat open for Bison.
No wait, Sarah was the second to last to arrive, of course.
Kirindi peaked over the table, snagged something, and ran off to test which of the babies could taste.
It was good times, when the kids could be kids and all he had to do was cook for flavor rather than hunger. He complimented that with a haphazard feast, and the promise of better yet in the future.
Bison arrived quietly, as always, and took that seat. He stared at the food for a long moment, grabbed a bottle and poured something over it, then devoured it. Jay didn't comment, but his lack of greeting unsettled him.
Everyone else had a good time, though. Maybe it was just all that time on the market with alien cuisine, but the reception was more than it deserved; he'd improve the recipes yet. The laughter was already here.
People had a lot of fun asking Kirindi to make the drones do silly things, but the peak was the artistic tower they built by climbing on each other. First a pyramid, then up, and they even managed branches. Neither of the queens agreed to bring out some eggs as fake fruit, though.
They could just hold that pose till the sun burned out, if they had to. What creatures they were, glistering in the sunlight like oil turned solid.
"You used to find them disgusting, long ago," Bison said.
Surprised, Jay glanced at him. "I got used to it years ago. So did you."
"Getting used to it isn't the same as not finding them freaky. Not too long ago, even Lemura was too much inhumanity for you."
Bison's plate was empty, it needed to not be that. Jay went to fetch more food.
When he returned, he overheard them talk about experiments, and how Sarah could work with embryos; confused he prodded for context.
"Sarah got your hormones? Should I ..." Jay started as he sat back down, and pushed a full plate to Bison.
"No, I'm fine. I'm using them to see whether Ti'chai-di can get male offspring. If all her children end up with parthenogenesis ... it's not sustainable, not even on an empty planet. They're immortal, y'know. She needs some type of drone, something that fills her need to reproduce regularly without that resulting in an ever branching population."
"Drone and male isn't a synonym," Bison said between bites. "Why call them male anyway? They don't actually have dicks. Not in the technical sense, anyway. Though I'm sure if we squint we can find a shape that distantly matches it somewhere on there."
"That's one way of looking at it, but—" Sarah lost herself to chuckling.
Bison took a long swig of the dalnauri and gestured at the drones. "No, I gotta be that guy : let's talk pronouns and drones. Why the fuck are we even doing it?"
"We don't have to talk of this," Jay muttered.
Bison slammed the jug. "Yes, we do. Because this is about humanizing."
Jay shifted in his seat, unsure what to do as he eyed everyone else. Sarah frowned. Neither could actually reach for Bison's mind ... or much of those around them. Right now at least.
What ...
"So, you all think nothing of it to call Kirindi a girl and Eliath and Odygos boys," Bison said loud enough for everyone to hear.
The group muttered variations of, "You mean they're not?"
"As praetorians, both Kirindi and Eliath have the potential to become queens if their own queen dies, but currently have no reproductive features, nor are growing towards them. No wombs, no hormones, let alone any of the associated social evolution, only similar guardian behavior and genes. They never will be queens unless someone dies. Not exactly how we humans work.
Odygos as a drone with different behavior and no potential for growing a womb is a different sex from the one that Kirindi and Eliath are.
With humans, genders sprung from eons of social evolution related to the sexes in a hunter gatherer society, a bunch of identity codes mixed with socialization habits when it mattered whether someone hunched down with a swollen stomach for months on end or spent that time stalking prey.
But brains come together before the body does, so it's a messy business. Not those creatures though. They grew so differently, they've never mismatched. Simple yet so solid. And asocial.
Whatever they've got, as a parthenogenic species it won't be anything like the male sex, let alone men. Kirindi and Eliath are the same sex, which is currently at best an immature female.
For Odygos there is no equivalent sex in humans, let alone any gender evolved along with it.
Karga'te just taught Kirindi there's he's and she's, she went with that. Kirindi's brain might have a more elaborate gender function, but who actually checked? Most of her life was spent in a wilderness, or a smattering of confusing cultures, while she apes Karga'te in all but her programmed sweetness."
"What are you getting at?" Jay asked.
Bison gestured at the drone tree again, just as Kirindi had them climb down.
"Stop thinking of those as obstinate teenagers on hormones, or as part of our social spheres. Those are intelligent war machines, regardless of whether Noasyvé makes them appear more approachable. Or the effort that one puts into persuading us." With that, his eyes rested on Kirindi. "You've become so accustomed to the idea of friendly xenomorph, our monster buddies that may be a bit slimy, because this praetorian feels that way. But none of them are, not even ... her."
All stared blankly. Kirindi looked unreadable, even her usually expressive face blank. Like this, it stood out a little more that she was pale because she had no red blood, only an imitation of skin over dark mass.
Bison sighed and leaned forward; eyes hidden. "I can say it, but it's not gonna process, is it?"
Lemura squeaked; an aborted attempt to opine just to find no clear answer.
"You probably actually are a girl," Bison said.
"How'd you even know when you can't do any telepathy?" Jay asked.
"Xylia has opinions and theories," Bison said, and from there on spoke softer. "By the way, Sarah. What about your variations? Who are they?"
For the first time, everyone actually looked at them, and an uneasy mental cacophony rose up.
They looked disturbed and sick, to human eyes. Kirindi tried to quell the disgust, but perhaps have only been able to redirect attention from them, rather than cause acceptance.
"What's your name?" Bison asked the eyeless one who lay on her stomach on rock, utensils already on the ground for not having the right muscles to use them. Sarah had not thought of doing anything else but what she did, and neither had Jay.
She ... didn't like to think about this.
Bison stood up as the group became silent, staring and uneasy. With a simple gesture, Bison laid a bunch of straws in the midst of Sarah's silent clones, who had no names to give.
Jay turned to Kirindi, and asked why they didn't have names.
Hadn't mattered, they didn't want names.
They hadn't asked for names.
"And you?" Bison asked the clone next to the blind, who had one popping eyes now staring wildly around. There was no answer.
"I guess you won't have one either?" This one was the most humanoid, but the skin over the faces seemed scratched off, and there was only skin in the eye sockets; sitting on the ground next to Sarah's chair and drawing in the dirt without even looking up.
"I don't know whether you can understand me, but if you do : you're more human than those drones over there. You should have their place in this group, as fellow humans and then something more."
A beat passed without any clear response from the three. Sarah stared down at her plate, tense.
"Alright then, don't let me bother you any further." He stood up.
Jay breathed out, and looked back at the drones, lined up around the eating space, at ease and guarded. They were all part of the same hive.
It was okay.
Within the hivemind, people worried whether the clones would stay like that, so inconvenient. Others felt shame. Yet others figured it would pan out. Kirindi liked best those with ideas to make them more mobile.
Sarah hated herself, but that sentiment soon got tucked away.
Bison was already halfway towards the ship, and everyone else started moving again.
The mood was ruined. Even Odygos didn't do anything silly, and Kirindi didn't pep it up either. She felt troubled, if anything, and fidgeted with her spoon while staring at the quiet clones.
It suffocated. He couldn't stand it anymore, and stormed after Bison.
As soon as they were both inside, he shouted down the hall, "What the hell was that about?"
Bison was already at the other end of the hall, but took a few steps back when he spoke. "Just testing out the scope on whether Sarah might use my gift on her clones. Did you ever wonder, can they want to not do it, in case Sarah wants it? We don't know what experiments Sarah does anymore, do we?"
That stumped him. It was true, they hadn't been part of it. He hadn't even thought of it, but that made sense. He was more than sick of anything science related.
"It's like watching exaggerations unfold, you know. Sarah is all science now, for Ti'chai-di, and you're all social center now, for the hive mind. I'm still in the middle, Jay. I have to push the ball and see where it rolls."
He clenched his hands, grit his teeth, and steeled his mind. They were free, finally, from that hellhole, and now Bison was complicating things.
"Listen, Jay—"
"You disappear without warning and only a damn written see ya later, and come back talking about stuff that was painful before like a mysterious mentor. Goddamit, we were having a good time and you use that as some existential stage? You could have taken Sarah apart to talk about your worries!"
Bison sighed. "I had a change in perspective, and it was a good opener without being too suspicious. Nobody here knows it's not something I avoided talking about, except Sarah, and she too should be thinking about this."
What the ...
"There's a lot more scheming than you realize, Jay. Information leaking is dangerous." With that, Bison closed the distance, and placed both hands on the sides of Jay's head. It was a bit more forward than he usually was in physical interaction and ...
It was so silent now. Everyone else was gone, it was just them.
"Promise me you'll stick with me if there comes a time for a quick decision. I will explain later," Bison said. "Go back, finish dinner. Talk to Sarah and Odygos about making better cutlery, and watch."
With that he let go, and Jay eased back into the hivemind, while Bison vanished around the corner.
· · · · · · ·