Chapter 28
- Nora -
I trace a pattern on his carapace with my finger. “What were you like before you became Chief Harrower?”
He stretches and puts one arm behind his head.
“Oh, much the same as any young Harrower. Daring and ruthless. Perhaps I was more daring than most. That means you either succeed or you die. Mostly the latter. Space is dangerous, and my ship at the time was nothing like the Beast. I had many fights with Harrowers from other Broods. And I usually won. Not always.”
“But you survived.” His carapace slowly changes color. Maybe if I could read the pattern, I could find out how he feels, like Lucius's lights. But it's not like Krix'vorr isn't always clear about his feelings.
He chuckles, making me tremble. “I ran before they could kill me. I was strange like that. Most would prefer to be killed after a defeat. I never saw the point.”
“I'm glad you didn't,” I purr.
“Me too. Well, I did my best for the Queen.
I liked to spy on other Broods and find out what they were doing.
Their Harrowers didn't like it and tried to stop me.
That's where all the fights came from. But I kept on, and after a couple of longcycles I came across the ship of a Chief Harrower from another Brood.
Instead of fighting, I followed him. He was going to his Brood's next target to do a final inspection before the Harvest. I rushed to the Nest and reported it.
The Queen sent every Harrower within a day's travel, and we were able to Harvest their target before the other Swarm arrived.
Just a small moon, but it's exactly the kind of thing the Queen likes. So she made me Chief Harrower, as one of the youngest ever. A great honor.”
“That was a smart move,” I state, enjoying how his heart beats so slowly and so hard that I rock with each beat. “For both of you.”
“But not the other Brood,” he says. “I learned one thing from that: never do a final inspection on a target. After you find it, scan it as well as you can there and then, and don't return until the Harvest. The Queen made that a rule for every Harrower.”
“Do you ever think about the worlds you harvest?” I ask softly. “About their people?”
“Only in terms of how rich they are. They are our fuel. Our Brood runs on what we gain from the Harvest. With no Harvest, we would all die. And we prefer for that not to happen.”
It's a chilling answer, but this is who he is. Asking him to change his locust nature would be like asking water not to be wet.
“Can you try not to be wet?” I ask.
The room is quiet for a second. Then he lowers his chin to look at me. “What?”
“Never mind,” I say sweetly. “I will work on you. Slowly.”
Krix’vorr leaves to deal with the ship and crew, but I stay in his cabin. Outside, there’s always the chance of running into the Inquisitor or his monster, and I’d much prefer not to have to deal with them.
Still I put on the wrap and consider asking for more of the same material, maybe with a scissor so I can try to make some other garments from it.
The entryway opens and Lucius zooms in. “There you are, Captain. Don’t get your hopes up yet.”
I place the last piece of tape on the wrap, making sure the uniform markings are in the same place as before. “All right. I wasn’t going to.”
He buzzes closer. “I may have found something. Not everything we need, not by a long shot. But a direction we may want to follow.”
“A direction, but not a destination?” I ask. “Can’t you just look in that direction and see what’s there?”
“I’m going through the Beast’s memories and trying to find every time she’s seen or met the Gzet.
I’ve found four instances so far. All from a distance, and none of them made a big impression on her, so the details are too fuzzy for any precision.
But each time, the Gzet were traveling towards one particular octant of the galaxy.
I think we may shorten the journey if we do the same. ”
“An octant of the galaxy spans tens of thousands of light years,” I point out. “It’s a big space to search.”
“I would say it’s an impossible space to search,” Lucius says.
“I will refine the direction once I find more old memories of Gzet ships. I can only hope the Beast’s been closer to a Gzet on his way home than what I’ve found so far.
A single good memory could be enough. Of course, if she doesn’t have anything like that, then the whole search will be fruitless. ”
I sigh. “Thanks for the encouragement, Lucius. Let’s go and tell Krix. I think he needs a direction about now.”
I leave the cabin and make my way to the command chamber.
Krix’vorr is standing there, hands on hips, looking at a big living star chart. He turns around, and I like how he brightens a fraction when he sees me.
Then he sees Lucius. “Ah. We have a target?”
“Not yet, Chief Harrower,” Lucius says. “But we have the tiniest, roughest beginnings of a course.”
“Very good,” the locust says, obviously aware that his crew is watching and listening. “That’s exactly what we need. What it is?”
Lucius and he deal with the technical issue of converting Lucius’s highly scientific coordinates to the less accurate but still workable Space Locust system. Then Krix’vorr gives an order, and the stars outside the Beast’s ‘eyes’ slowly change as she makes a turn in space.
“Aiming for a less star-dense part of space,” the Chief Harrower comments. “It narrows down our possible targets.”
Narrows them down to about a billion suns, I think to myself. After seeing the giant forest of weird biological memories, I can’t see how even someone with Lucius’ raw data sifting skills can go through even one percent of them in time.
Lucius buzzes over. “I’ll return to the memory banks, Captain. The Beast had an interesting life, much more so than you may think. It’s sometimes hard to not follow those threads and keep looking for Gzet encounters. The value to Space Force would be hard to overestimate.”
“Okay, Lucius,” I say, wanting to keep him motivated. “After this whole thing, you can spend as long as you want in those memories and just enjoy them.”
“I would love that,” the drone says. “It’s like reading a book with endless boring passages and then great explosions of mystery and action.” He zooms up to the ceiling and buzzes out.
The command chamber gradually empties as crewers return to their duties.
The living star chart continues to pulse overhead while the Beast adjusts her course.
Around us, crewmembers exchange signals and consult organic leaves filled with navigation data, all of them acting as though they already know where we're going.
Which, I suppose, they do. The problem is that "somewhere in this enormous section of the galaxy" isn't much of a destination.
Krix'vorr crosses the chamber toward me. His large frame blocks part of the glowing star map above, and I find myself looking at him instead of the impossible distance we're supposed to search.
"That looked encouraging," he says.
I nod, conscious of the crew around us. "It reduces the number of possible planets," I agree.
"And so it further increases our chances of great glory."
I glance up at the map. "It’s a big galaxy. I hope Lucius will come through."
Krix'vorr studies the stars for a few moments before answering. "Many worthwhile things are impossible when viewed from far enough away. The trick is to go closer, so they look more possible."
"Is that a Harrower saying?"
"No." He reaches out and brushes a strand of hair behind my ear. "It's a Krix'vorr saying. Harrowers usually prefer something about glory and conquest."
Despite everything, I smile. The warmth of that smile fades when I remember why we're doing this in the first place. Somewhere out there Sophia is still missing, and every hour spent searching empty stars is another hour she spends alone among the Gzet.
Krix'vorr must see the change in my expression. "You’re thinking about your friend?"
"I keep thinking that every delay makes things worse," I admit. "What if we're already too late? What if we're searching for someone who's already been sold to somebody else? What if we find the planet and she's not even there anymore?"
The questions have been circling my head for days. Saying them aloud doesn't make them sound any better.
Krix'vorr lowers himself beside me and rests one arm along the edge of a fleshy console. For a while he simply watches the stars.
"I've hunted prey through asteroid fields," he says eventually. "I've tracked ships across half the galaxy. Every time I started wondering what might have happened while I was searching, I became worse at the search itself."
I look over at him. "So what's the solution?"
He meets my eyes. "Find her first. Worry afterward."
“What happens when we find her?” I ask, because I’ve been thinking about it.
“The Gzet are our enemies, and if they have her, we will have to decide what to do.”
It makes a lot of sense, and it’s also not a full answer. But it’s fair - Krix’vorr has enough to deal with if he’s not going to plan for a situation that’s completely theoretical.
He returns to his duties, and I wander around the Beast, hoping to find some kind of observation platform or something that shows me more of space than the small window in the cabin.
For the first time since Sophia disappeared, we’re moving toward something instead of wandering blindly.
A metallic rattle echoes through the corridor ahead. It’s strangely melodic, like a giant glockenspiel.
I pause and listen. Another sound follows a moment later, a scraping noise accompanied by a heavy thump that reverberates through the flesh-lined walls.
I follow the sounds through the passage until I reach the room that Deeg the monster was put in.
The membrane's standing partially open. Peering through the gap, I see the big room packed with metal pipes arranged in every imaginable direction.
For several seconds I don't see anything moving among them. Then one of the pipes twists.
My heart jumps before my brain catches up.