Strange Harvest

Part IX: Host

My first reaction wasn't horror, shock, or disgust, but protectively cradling my stomach with both hands. The paralysis and numbness had been replaced by an itching, tingling pain and warmth. I could feel sweat covering my face, soaking my hair. "Eggs?"

"Yes." Mueller took my wrists and pushed them back to the ground before I could touch my wound. "This will be painful for you to hear. Laying these eggs... was her final act as queen, Jackson. Do you understand?"

Nauseous, my head spinning, remnants of the dream still intruding on my thoughts, I found it difficult to focus on Mueller's words. But their meaning sunk in as I looked up at him, and I took a sharp breath as tears flooded my vision. "No!"

Mueller nodded sympathetically. "I'm sorry. She attacked us after she stung you. Couldn't calm her down after she saw what the octopiders did to her hive. We had no choice. She's dead."

They killed her.

With my body and mind still flooded by the queen's venom, I couldn't control my grief. I cried out wordlessly at the acute sense of loss. We had been one, born together. And now, I had seen her glorious vision snuffed out, never to manifest in the world. I alone remained, carrying her story, her children, her last gasp of life. With a hopeful breath, I realized there could be another queen laid within me. A new life, from hers.

Lina024 broke in on the common channel. "Harvest complete. Seventeen point seven six liters."

They killed her for honey.

"Not even a full keg," Mueller lamented. "Right, Sarabi, get Lina and the honey back up here."

Again, Mueller held the Biofoam out for me. Weakly batting the canister away, I told him with a bitter glare, "No."

"You'll die without this, Jackson." He held my angry gaze as I looked up at him, and offered me the black canister again. "Think about your life. Remember yourself. Don't let the venom make the choice. It's you, or them."

I pushed it aside.

"I see." Seeming to study me for a long moment, Mueller finally nodded and moved away to put the Biofoam back inside the Packhound. All this time, I thought he cared about life on this planet more than anything. I thought he was here to protect them. But he'd killed a queen, the mother of the hive, in all her glory, for a few gallons of honey. All of this, for honey.

A sudden crack of thunder split the air from above, and I thought the storm had finally arrived. Then it turned into the distinctive, prolonged snapping of a tree limb. Mueller and Chavos flinched and looked skyward, where I saw a massive bough at least thirty feet long splitting from the steeloak's trunk near its top. It broke free, tumbling end over end incredibly fast, snapping against other branches all the way down. Fortunately, it seemed to be falling away from us.

"Hit 'em, boys!" Goldwater yelled on the common channel. Her friendly tag popped up near where the branch split away from the trunk. She must have slipped away from the Packhound and hidden up there, watching the dusters as they took their positions.

The bough crashed to the ground nearby, kicking up a wave of soil as sticks and leaves continued to rain from above. From the thick foliage where the bough landed, two people in camouflaged patchwork armor staggered away. Suddenly, over a dozen enemy icons appeared on my lenses, surrounding us from the jungle near the base of the steeloak. Goldwater sniped at them from her perch, red beams flashing bright from her rifle.

"Took you long enough!" Mueller shouted back as he and Chavos sprang to action, deactivating the force barrier, bringing their rifles to bear, and using the Packhound itself as cover. They gunned blindly at the marked icons—Goldwater's work, I guessed, while she was "missing"—and took a few down before the dusters started firing back and changing positions.

With the others distracted, I knew what my grubs needed—a cool, dark place. Dry. Enclosed. Somewhere for them to incubate undisturbed, protected, with time to feed and grow. I could smell the soil underground, feel the still air on my skin, like another of the queen's sense-visions. Back down below, in the root tunnels, I would find what they needed.

I didn't have much time. My weakened body would fail me before long. Quickly, I disabled my friendly tag like Goldwater had done and turned off my lens display, leaving my sight natural for the first time in days. The visual distortion from the venom still remained, a constant, rippling pulsation that seemed to come from... from everything. Clenching my jaw to suppress a cry of pain, I raised myself up and staggered toward the root tunnels, only staying on my feet thanks to my nullsuit's artificial strength.

Risking a last backward glance, I saw the barrier go up behind me with a glassy shimmer as dusters from all around returned laser fire on the Packhound. The beams left beautiful trails of light behind them when they faded, and I almost stopped to stare. Mueller, crouched behind the Packhound as he reloaded fresh power cells into his beam rifle, watched me go. He didn't say anything to the others, just let me leave. Chavos didn't notice, too preoccupied with planning his next shots.

I took ragged, short breaths. Each one seemed to hurt more than the last, even as my breathing got shallower. The numbness had faded from my limbs, but thankfully I still couldn't feel the shrinking area near the sting itself. I hoped I could get to sleep before then. I felt dizzy and tired, burning up in my suit.

Holding my arms around my abdomen as I stumbled half-crouched through the dark tunnels, lit only by my headlamps, I found the path to the old hive. A pang of grief touched a nerve in me, and I wept freely, blurring my vision even further. Just a moment to collect my strength might help. I could stop here and... no, no, I couldn't rest, or I wouldn't get up again. Sweat and tears mixed together in wet rivulets, dripping into my mouth and off my chin, as I turned away and moved down another narrower opening.

A protruding root snagged my boot almost immediately and I tripped forward, barely able to twist sideways in the air to avoid landing on my stomach. Even through the armor, the force of my fall sent pain shooting through me. I tasted blood and swallowed. Darkness took the edges of my vision, and I let out an agonized groan that turned into a defeated sob. Struggling to stay conscious, all I could see was blurs of black and red.

Couldn't sleep yet.

I shook my head to clear it. Drops of sweat dotted the inside of my visor. I squinted hard to focus, and was shocked to see several crimson lotus wasps gathered around me. They were small—workers, not warriors. More and more of them appeared until they covered the whole tunnel floor near me. I could hear the soft rustling of their wings, the clicking chatter of mandibles, as they gathered around me and inspected my wound.

They smelled the queen's scent.

Together, the workers used their strong legs to ease me onto my back. I could feel them wriggling beneath me, and I realized they were trying to carry me down the tunnel. The near-weightless nullsteel armor let them move me with ease, and I began to cry again as I realized that the eggs would survive.

They would live. They would live. Because of me, they would live. Another queen, maybe.

The workers carried me farther until we started moving up a steep root path barely wide enough for me to fit. The walls around me changed to the soft cream color of the interior of the steeloak tree. The tunnel seemed artificial, the wood chipped away by worker wasps' dutiful chewing. We must have been inside the steeloak, in a hollow near its base. They'd found a new hive site, better protected.

The chattering and rustling of wings intensified. They pushed me up to a cavelike opening where I was just able to crawl inside and curl up in the fetal position, my back resting along the interior wall of the nook. The wasps simply watched me, and I watched them. I don't know how much time passed like that.

***

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