20: Family Commitments

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Smon listens to Tyk explain the issue. “And now hiveheart think to send or not send messenger?”

“Yeah. I mean, they’ll send people. They only need to go to two locations, and it’s pretty important. So they will.”

Smon tilts her head. The echo stone doesn’t convey tone, and even if it did Tyk wouldn’t know how to read Smon’s tone, but she gets the impression that she’s amused. “You no think that. You think, maybe yes send, maybe no send.”

“I trust my hiveheart.”

“All trust hiveheart!” She makes her joyous call, but it sounds oddly flat today. “One thing all true, yes? Smon Earth hiveheart, Redstone River hiveheart… trust many hiveheart, yes.”

“Smon?”

She waves a claw. “Is not danger. Smon thing, past thing. No thing. If you know they say yes, not maybe no, then why tell Smon? Wait until hiveheart say yes. More easy tell then. More straight simple.”

“You… deserved to know,” Tyk says, but Smon clearly isn’t convinced.

“You smart girl, Tyk. You tell Smon so Smon know. If hiveheart say no, and say no tell Smon, hiveheart too slow. Thank you, Tyk.”

“You deserved to know,” Tyk mumbles. Then, struck by a sudden thought, she adds, “What will you do if the hiveheart doesn’t send messengers?”

Smon rolls her shoulders. “When that, we think. Big maybe not that. Big maybe they say yes. When hiveheart say yes, Smon go with messenger.”

“What? That’s dangerous!”

“Danger.” Smon seems to find that hilarious. “All danger, big danger. One person, danger. Need many person. Myn and Haidn need rock lorekeeper. Smon need air lorekeeper, body lorekeeper. Danger to go but big danger to stay.”

“What about your farm?”

“Smon work fast. Try big good. Need to do.” After some hesitation, she adds, “Tyk have Redstone River Hive. Smon very happy. Many good, have hive. But, if – ”

“Of course I’m going with you, if you go,” Tyk says. “But you shouldn’t. The hiveheart might not even let you. Or the messengers might not want you along.”

“I talk to messenger. Messenger let me. Big many happy with Tyk, but Tyk think about Tyk home, yes?”

“If you’re going, I’m going,” Tyk repeats firmly. “Nobody else is as good at talking to you as I am. Nobody else can predict or understand what you need as well as me. I’m marked by the Wandering Star, and if this is my destiny, then I have no regrets in following it.”

“Destiny. What thing?”

“Don’t worry about it.” What god has marked Smon? Was it even one that Tyk would recognise? Perhaps her Earth was so far away that different stars oversaw it.

“Well then.” Smon clicks her fleshy claws together. “We work and think. Do Tyk have land model?”

Land… model? A map. She probably means a map. “Come on,” Tyk says. “There’s one in the trader burrow.”

“At hive?”

“Close to it, yeah.”

Smon grabs her little satchel of water and tools and whatever and follows Tyk back towards the hive. But as they near the usually-deserted trader burrow, angry voices emanate from within.

“Are you serious?” Ayan screeches. “You can’t possibly be serious! Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“Oh, let an old woman have her fun,” Bette says, much more calmly.

“Fun? Orphaning your children is fun? Making me drag Keyan – ”

“Oh, no, no! You two are not coming!”

“You think we’d wait at home while you head off alone?!”

“I won’t be alone. I’ll be with the messengers. And you two are too young – ”

“And you’re too old! The hive needs you, needs your skills! Your children need you!”

“You don’t think that keeping these sky people safe will benefit the hive?”

“Of course it will! That’s why messengers, who are strong and capable of travel, will be sent to do it! But don’t for one moment pretend that you’re trying to help the hive, Mum – all you can do is slow them down and then die. Your skills all involve staying put, and you know it!”

“So I should hang about here until I die underground, is that it?”

“You’d rather go die out in the open instead? Stay here, and raise your son! Stay here and let him help you! Stay here, in your hive, and – ” Ayan stops talking abruptly. This is because Tyk and Smon have reached the doorway.

“Are we interrupting something?” Tyk asks.

Ayan and Bette stare at her. They’re alone; Keyan must be off learning from the men or something.

“Nothing important,” Bette says, recovering quickly. “And you must be Smon. Welcome to the hive. I’m Bette.”

“Smon happy to see Bette,” Smon responds, moving her long, puffy arms in an imitation of a welcome gesture. Then she makes the magic stone on her wrist glow, to better see the map on the walls and ceiling.

“Smon needed a map,” Tyk says to explain their presence. She’s starting to wonder if Smon is a man rather than a woman – the dextrous claws, the affinity for heights, the inability to see in low light. But that reasoning is probably as flawed as the reasoning that had her assume Smon was a baby girl in the first place; she’s so different from Tyk’s people that there’s no reason to think drawing those kinds of comparisons will tell her anything. Better to just ask, when she gets the chance.

“You’re going to Green Hills Hive too then, Smon?” Bette asks.

“You’re not going to Green Hills Hive,” Ayan snaps at her mother.

“Yes,” Smon says. “Find Myn and Haidn.”

“The sky people at Green Hills Hive,” Tyk explains, although context probably makes the explanation unnecessary.

“I still think it’s dangerous,” Tyk says. “And unnecessarily complicated. Better to let the messengers do their jobs.”

“For once, I agree with Tyk,” Ayan says. “You, Mum, have work to do here for the hive. You, Smon,” she adds, moderating her tone to add formality and respect, but Tyk doesn’t think that Smon will be able to tell the difference, “have work to do to prepare for establishing your own hive, don’t you?”

“More easy with three person, different know, different work,” Smon responds, most of her attention on the map. “One person make accident, more see and fix. Work with Myn and Haidn is faster. Where is Green Hills Hive?”

“Upriver,” Tyk says, indicating the hive on the map.

“Hmm. Straight journey. Go on river?”

“In a boat? No, not this time of year. Sometimes the river swells early. We could be stranded or washed away. We’d have to go overland, and take carts.”

“Messengesr won’t need carts,” Ayan adds. “Which is why you haven’t a hope of convincing the hive to take you along, Mum, it’d turn the whole thing into a massive undertaking and slow everybody down.”

“Oh, they’ll take carts,” Bette says confidently. “They’ll take as many carts as they can pull and load them as full as they can. Do you really think that we’d miss this opportunity to trade with the Green Hills Hive?”

Smon bobs her head in agreement. “They plan for carts early, I think, in case wingsong stream not come back. When wingsong stream go, hiveheart seem true in not know when come back, but must think big maybe, even then. Very… bad think, bad feel, in there. They know wingsong shape back then but say less than know.”

“They lied to us?” Tyk asks.

“Maybe lie, big maybe no lie. Just no say every know. They know shape right away, they say know no thing.”

“What makes you think that?” Ayan asks.

Bette and Smon look at each other, a moment of camaraderie between two people who can’t possibly read the others’ expression. It seems to work, anyway, because it’s Bette who answers.

“They said from the beginning that communication was down between all the hives, didn’t they?”

“Yeah,” Tyk says.

“But how can they possibly know that? We lost communication. There’s no way for anybody else to tell us that they did, too.”

Smon bobs her head again. “They know enough of shape to say all hives. But they say they know no thing of shape. They start planning then, big maybe, if need trade. So. They send many trade thing with messenger. We go with messenger, no hard.”

“Exactly,” Bette says.

“You’re not going,” Ayan tells her again.

“Yes, I am. You and Keyan will be fine with your aunt and unc – ”

“You won’t be fine without us! If you go, we go; if you want us to stay here safe, you’re staying, too.”

Tyk watches the conversation, something horrible falling into place. Not once in the conversation has anybody mentioned Kebette; Ayan’s worry seems to be for Bette alone. Bette, whose carapace was in worsening condition for awhile, until her son got old enough to move about and help with simple tasks. And now she’s throwing herself into a radical, dangerous journey for no obviously pressing reason…”

“Bette,” Tyk cuts in.

“Hmm?”

“Is Kebette – ?”

Ayan bites her.

Tyk is taken completely by surprise. By the time it even occurs to her to try to dodge, Ayan’s mandibles are around her right foreleg, and it’s no warning bite; if she had the strength to do it, Tyk thinks she’d take her leg right off. She shakes the surprise off and jams her claw behind Ayan’s mandible, levering them open and hooking one of her own mandibles around the edge of Ayan’s wing carapace to push her back (an awkward manoeuvre, but not impossible due to their size difference). Smon looks uncertain, like she wants to intervene, but Bette, wisely, holds her back.

Even as she pushes Ayan away, Tyk can’t quite accept what just happened. Ayan doesn’t bite first. Ayan uses her natural charm and social skills to push and goad people so that she can play the victim. And she just attacked Tyk, no hesitation and no warning, right in front of her mother.

Tyk had thought she’d seen Ayan’s anger in the past. She’s never seen anything like this from her.

“Shut up!” Ayan screeches at her, causing Smon to shrink back against the wall of the burrow, hiding behind Bette (who’s doing her best not to look wary or surprised). “Say one more word and I’ll rip your face apart so you can never speak again!”

Which pretty much answers Tyk’s question. Kebette is dead. She barely knew him, and she’d probably been busy with Smon when his nearest and dearest had buried him. And now…

“I wasn’t going to say anything mean,” Tyk says weakly. She turns to Bette. “Bette, my cond – ”

“Don’t pity her!” Ayan yells, getting between Tyk and her mother. Tyk backs towards the exit.

“Smon, we should go,” Tyk says as she retreats. She doesn’t think that Smon’s in any danger, but still. Best to leave this family matter to its family.

Besides, Ayan’s request simply isn’t possible. There’s no way not to pity a lonewoman. Tyk remembers her own grandmother huddled in group room two and does her best not to shudder while still within sight of Bette or Ayan.

This is what the hive needs right now. More drama.

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