56: Alone

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“It’s a bold claim,” one of the hiveheart says, “for a handful of inexperienced children to make. That this new type of communication tower could reach all the way across the ocean.”

“Our star-travelling guest has demonstrated other powerful abilities,” another points out, “and the girl is Erlin-touched. I trust her extrapolative abilities.”

“Could your Rayjo Tau speak to other continents?” Kesal asks Smon.

Smon shrugs. “Hard to say. It depends on if any of us have landed on other continents, and if they also build a Rayjo Tau. And it depends on how high and how strong the towers are, and what the air up above the wingsong stream is like, because the Rayjo light will have to bounce off that if it’s going far away. And of course it depends on how far away the other Rayjo Tau is. I can definitely call those lost on the ocean to me. With a good tower, I could hear them as well, though I hope that by the time the tower is up they’ll be here and I won’t need to. Contacting other continents? With work, yes; air lorekeepers will come here, and can figure out where to put other towers, and send people to do it. Contacting other continents quickly and easily? That depends on too many things that I don’t know.”

Curse Smon’s insistence on honesty and fair play. You could’ve played up the chances a lot more, Tyk thinks. You know that other air lorekeepers must have survived up North, and must have gotten the same idea to build a Rayjo Tau. This is all a lot more likely than you’re making it sound, even I can see that, and even if contacting other continents does turn out to be difficult and take a long time, your people will be providing enough benefits to Glittergem by then that nobody will feel cheated. You don’t need to undersell it in the name of fairness.

But Smon is Smon, and cautious to a fault. Yet her little speech doesn’t seem to have discouraged the hiveheart all that much.

“Well, with our hive on the project, I’m sure we can manage it,” Kesal says. “If you teach us this communication magic — ”

“No,” Smon says.

“You come here and flaunt your amazing powers, and ask us to make sacrifices to help you, and you won’t even deign to share such abilities?”

“I’m willing to trade for your help. I will work, and help you find metal. I’ll trade resources, if I ever have any that you would want. But – ”

“Such as the magic fire stone on your wrist?”

“No. No magic. Not like this. Do not misunderstand me; I am not against sharing my magic with your kind. In fact, it’s probably inevitable if we are to co-exist. I think that the hives could make great use of Rayjo. But I won’t trade great magics in quick decisions made with a single hive just so that I can get the help I want. Understand that if I start giving you all of my knowledge, that will affect the trade and diplomacy balances of the whole continent. Small changes are normal, but bad trade decisions here could spell disaster for entire hives. I won’t be responsible for that. Trading magic must be done slowly, and with careful consideration.”

“How slowly?” Yar asks.

Smon glances at Tyk. “I’ve been told that the hives on the other side of the river will be moving into the current sleeplands in four or five generations. The whole trade network will be remade then, as new hives find new locations and new niches. We can make small trades in magic before then, but that would be the ideal time to trade everything.”

“Four or five generations?” one of the other women, one whose name Tyk doesn’t remember, screeches angrily. “You’re asking for our help now in the promise of teaching us something four or five generations hence?”

“No,” Smon says. “I’m asking for metal, and for land – surface land, my people are not burrowers – that you are not using, and I’m asking for it in exchange for helping you find metal, and proximity to the communication tower I will build. That is the trade. Future trading in magic is not relevant to the equation, and it’s not something that I will be doing lightly, or any time soon.”

“You-you, or your people you?” Kesal asks, looking rather more calm than most of the hiveheart. “Do you speak for all of the travellers from the sky, or will your hivemates have other opinions?”

“We’ll stand as one on this,” Smon says. “You won’t get an easier deal out of any of them.”

Tyk hopes that it’s not obvious to the hiveheart that Smon is lying. To Tyk’s eyes, uncertainty radiates from every aspect of her posture.

“As you say,” Kesal says, not hiding the fact that he doesn’t believe her. “Well, I’m convinced. If these people don’t burrow, I see little reason not to let them settle on a mountainside out of easy farming range. And I would like to see this Rayjo Tau.”

“Pretty maps of pretty futures aside,” Yar says, “I’m still not sure how much we can rely on the words of three unaccompanied children. Especially – and no insult meant to our guests – without any means via the wingsong stream to verify their identities.”

“I don’t see the problem,” one of the other men says. “This is going to take a really long time, right? And the wingsong stream will be normal again fairly soon. If they’re lying, somehow, then we can just cancel the project then. But come on, Yar – a soft-bodied creature with the mind of a person and the body of some sort of newborn water grub without enough legs tells you she came from the Redstone River Hive, a place that we know was hosting one of the fallen stars, and you think she might be lying? Who else could she possibly be?”

“I’m just saying,” Yar says, “caution is never misplaced. And trusting the judgement of children should be done carefully.”

“I’m not a child,” Smon points out. “I don’t have children, but I’m old enough to be a mother, or even a grandmother.”

The entire hiveheart stares at her, shocked. Tyk can feel the mood in the room sink to the moss farms. Smon glances about uncertainly, like she’s not really sure what’s happening or how to fix it. But Tyk understands the problem.

“Smon’s truebrother isn’t dead,” she explains, “and he’s not lost; this Rayjo Tau project isn’t some desperate attempt to find him. Smon’s people don’t have truebrothers. They go through life alone, as a single being.”

The dread and pity change to confusion.

“No brothers?” Yar asks, like she can’t quite understand.

“That’s right.”

“Like spiders?” Keton asks.

“Yes, sort of like spiders.” That’s not completely accurate, Tyk knows, but this probably isn’t the time to try to explain a whole new kind of biology that Tyk herself doesn’t really understand. Smon is frowning, like she’s not happy with the inaccuracy, but she doesn’t try to correct him. (It’s all Smon’s fault, really, Tyk thinks; if she wasn’t so cagey about men and women in her hive, maybe Tyk would be able to explain better).

“A whole hive of women,” Yar says, sounding slightly horrified. Tyk understands the feeling. She’s used to Smon’s oddities, but putting herself in the shell of somebody who isn’t, imagining one of her people’s hives as just women, half a hive… the thought makes her feel ill.

“Well,” Mal speaks up, voice authoritative despite trembling with age. “That simply will not do. If our guest here is cursed to a life without even a truebrother by her side, it is simply beyond cruel to deprive her of a hive. I posit that it is our moral duty to help her gather her own kind. We may quibble about location and material supplies, but to refuse to help build this Rayjo Tau is simply not in the tunnel. We can no more turn our backs on this woman that we would separate somebody from their truesibling.”

The talk turns to topics for which Tyk has nothing to contribute – discussions about where Smon should look for metals, talks about travel logistics in moving materials to a good location for the Rayjo Tau, that sort of thing. Some time later, the meeting concludes, and they head back out to Mia and Kemia, waiting just outside the polite area of clearance given to any kiveheart meeting room so that nobody can hear what parts of the discussion might somehow audibly make it through the thick silk doors.

Smon walks with new purpose in her step, enough that Mia and Kemia seem cowed all over again as they scramble to find something to do for her and she tells them, politely but firmly, that she wishes to rest. (Tyk knows for a fact that Smon slept very soundly and isn’t remotely tired. What Smon wants, she suspects, is to think.)

The trader burrow has again been upgraded in their absence, every speck of dust and bug silk removed and the gems polished to a shine. The rushes and herbs on the floor have been replaced; they were a detail that Tyk had already thought excessive (nobody has the time to cover their floors like that, stone and mortar have always been just fine in her hive), and replacing them daily borders on the absurd. Some dishes, grooming tools, and various daily use items sit on an obsidian slab dragged in for the occasion; not simple everyday tools, but elaborately carved artisan’s pieces, some even with gemstones set in their rims and handles. Ketyk immediately flies over to inspect them, and Tyk thinks, somewhat dizzily, that she should probably start teaching him to use a grooming pick anyway, she’s been without such basics for far too long on the road, and why not start with one worth as much as every gem on her mother’s carapace?

The only part of the burrow left completely untouched is a small respectful area around Smon’s farm. It is, of course, absolutely taboo to touch a trader’s cart without permission, and everyone seems to be taking extra care with Smon. Which is reasonable.

As soon as Mia and Kemia (reluctantly) leave them, Smon collapses against her cart. She starts laughing. She laughs so long and so hard that Tyk wonders how she can breathe.

“Are you alright?” Tyk asks.

“Yes. Yes.” She brushes fluid from her eyes. “I just can’t believe we’re here. We’re doing it. After all this time, I… I think I’m just now realising that we’re actually going to succeed.”

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