The Empress herself took us to the Hive in her ship. Marque put me in a bubble of higher gravity when we arrived in orbit above the main colony planet, but left Graf, the Empress and Leggy in the lower gravity. Graf was an enormous spider, twice as tall as me, with pearlescent shining fur on its abdomen and legs, and eight glistening eyes. Leggy was one of the oldest Imperial Guards – he’d been a guard for nearly a hundred years. His species were similar to an Earth stick insect, with a two-metre-long narrow body the colour of Earth tree bark, nine pairs of long legs and a single pair of wings. Like Graf he towered over me, walking carefully on his stilt-like legs. The two exoskeletal aliens were more comfortable in lower gravity, and the dragon was capable in surviving in almost any environment.
The dominant Hive Queen occupied a hollow satellite made of amber-coloured silicate glass that orbited their homeworld. The workers extruded the silicate in strands from their butts and wove it haphazardly into the structure. The multiple round airlocks were ten metres across, and a mass of smaller tan-coloured workers acted as doors, pulling back to release a puff of atmosphere and allow the larger transient workers to fly in and out. Some workers walked over the structure, extruding the silicate and adding glass to walls. Others kept the atmosphere fed by carrying it up from the planet below in large glass containers. Each worker looked similar to an Earth fly, with eight jointed legs, six narrow transparent wings, and a pair of eyes on long stalks.
Outside the satellite’s thin layer of atmosphere, the workers surrounded themselves in glass cocoons, and squirted the air out of holes in them to travel through space. They jetted around the Empress’ ship, gleaming golden in the Hive system sun. A worker came into view above the Empress’ ship and waved from within its cocoon for us to follow it. The Empress folded us out of her ship, and Marque carried me, in a bubble of atmosphere, to follow the Empress as she swam down onto the Hive’s surface. We landed softly next to one of the entrances and the mass of connected workers shifted to reveal an opening. We went into the chamber made of twisting amber glass threads, where a male was waiting. The male didn’t have wings, and its black body marked its gender. A few workers buzzed close to see if it required anything, then flew away when it ignored them. We walked up to it, and it crossed its main pair of antennae at us, the silver scales on the sides of its furry head marking it as a dragonscales child of the Empress.
It didn’t speak, just turned and led us inside the Hive. The light shone golden through the glass walls, and we entered the main tunnel, ten metres high with workers flying in and out above us. A couple of soldiers – deep purple, the size of a small bus, and with fearsome blades on their front legs – crossed their antennae as we passed them. They were too big to exit through the airlocks and lived their entire lives inside the Hive.
We travelled through tunnels that became narrower and smaller, with more soldier guards, until we were at the central nesting chamber. The Queen floated in the centre, curled up in a scrum of workers, a pulsing white mass from which was difficult to differentiate head from body. The drone turned to us, crossed its antennae, and walked through a hole in the wall nearby.
The noise was incredible; the thrumming of the workers’ wings made the entire structure vibrate.
‘Hey, Silver,’ the Queen said through Marque. ‘It’s good to see my favourite dragon.’
‘You too, darling Hive,’ the Empress said. ‘Life treating you well?’
‘Can’t complain. Terraforming’s complete on the fourth planet of our twenty-fifth colony system, and agriculture’s commenced. We have twenty-five interlinked Queens now, more than we’ve had in any time in our history.’ A group of workers emerged from holes in the wall carrying irregular-shaped spheres made from their amber butt-glass and filled with black liquid, with a small hole at the top to drink out of. ‘Food?’
‘Thank you,’ the Empress said, taking one of the spheres and sipping from it. ‘Magnificent.’
The workers approached each of us. Graf refused, Leggy carefully accepted a sphere on its manipulating front appendage, and I also took a sphere through the wall of my gravity bubble. I took a sip – the flavour was unique and rich; sweet and dark and full of depth, and even better than the Hive wine sold on the dragon homeworld. Hive wine was nearly as valuable as potatoes throughout the Empire, but I’d never tasted it this aged. It must have been a special vintage for the Queen herself.
‘You now occupy every habitable agricultural world in your systems,’ the Empress said. ‘Are you planning to expand outside your district?’
‘No, of course not. We’re well aware of how we are perceived from our pre-Empire behaviour. We won’t scare anyone else; we’ll stay within our own district. We’re safe and content to harvest our wine and visit with our Imperial siblings. Peaceful exchange of knowledge and art is far preferable to absorbing others into our shared consciousness.’ The Queen hesitated, then said, ‘That isn’t why you’re here, is it? You have both Graf and Leggy with you, and I understand the significance.’
‘It’s one of the reasons,’ the Empress said, cradling the wine in her front claws. ‘You’re right about your previous behaviour being disturbing – the Mushrooms will never trust you. But this business with the cats—’
‘We won’t stop,’ the Queen said, interrupting her.
‘Why are you doing this? Haven’t you done the Mushrooms enough harm? Allowing the cats to go through your district and right to the edge of Mushroom space . . .’
‘Have the cats harmed any Mushrooms? If they have, the deal is off.’
‘No. But the Mushrooms now have a dozen cat ships at the edge of their district demanding passage, and if they go around they’ll be back out on the edge of the galaxy where they started. They’re stuck there with no way home.’
‘The Mushrooms said no?’
‘The Mushrooms have sensibly refused to talk to them!’
‘Oh.’ The Queen was quiet for a moment. ‘The Mushrooms refused to talk to us about it as well, when we tried to explain to them.’
‘Can you blame them?’
‘Of course not. But the cats offered something that we couldn’t refuse for the passage through our district, and if the Mushrooms started negotiating, I’m sure they’d permit the cats through as well.’
‘What could the cats possibly offer that would convince you to let them into your space?’ the Empress asked. ‘Whatever they’re offering, you’re putting your whole district at risk! What if they decide to take your wine and kill your Queens?’
‘I’m glad you’re here, because this is something that I needed to tell you in person, rather than through your meddling AI. We wish we could live without it altogether, but it’s needed for translation,’ the Queen said. ‘We’re trading passage through our district for their child slaves.’
All of us shared a moment of shock.
‘What are you doing with them?’ the Empress asked, her voice strained. ‘After what you did to the Mushrooms . . .’
‘You’re not using them for food,’ Graf said. ‘You can’t be using them for food.’
‘Empress, if they’re eating the cats’ child slaves, my people won’t hesitate . . .’ Leggy said.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ the Queen snapped. ‘We’re rescuing them. Their families won’t take them back once they’re sold into cat slavery, so we’re buying them and we’ll keep them safe until they reach adulthood and their contracts are complete.’
‘Where?’ the Empress asked.
‘On our agricultural worlds. We’ve set up a few settlements for them, and we’re teaching them to be good citizens of the Empire. Hopefully they’ll return home and share the benefits of Empire membership.’ She lowered her voice. ‘It’s our way of atoning for our past . . . transgressions.’
‘Hostages,’ I said with wonder.
‘We are not holding them for ransom,’ the Queen said with forced dignity.
‘No – hostages in the Euroterre sense. It was something my people did after the Middle Kingdom War,’ I said. ‘Marque has the translation wrong.’
‘Oh,’ the Queen said. ‘Yes. Taken from their families into ours and taught our ways, as a diplomatic strategy to make them more benign towards us. Yes.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were doing this?’ the Empress asked.
‘Would you trust us to do it right? With our history?’ the Queen asked. ‘The Mushrooms are already prejudiced against us; they would be furious and quite sure we’re eating those kids.’
‘Are you?’
The Queen’s body made a deep rumbling sound that vibrated through the floor, powerful enough to crack some of the glass threads. The workers squealed in sympathy.
‘I don’t think there’s any translation for what they just said,’ Marque said.
‘We are trying to atone for our past mistakes,’ the Queen said. ‘Tell us to stop, and we will.’
‘I want to see one of the settlements,’ the Empress said.
The rumble changed in pitch. ‘I would be delighted.’ The Queen shivered over her massive white body. ‘I’m glad you’ve brought your captain, there’s something she needs to see.’
I was still stunned by the implications of her words as Marque lifted my gravity ball, sealed it with energy, and carried me to follow half-a-dozen workers who guided us back out of the satellite. Another set of workers, already in their cocoons, were waiting for us near the glass surface, and escorted us down to the agricultural planet below. This was the Hive’s origin world, and completely covered in the red-brown filaments of the fungi they ate. Imperial scientists believed that there had originally been a complex ecosystem on the planet, but the symbiotic relationship between the Hive and the fungus had wiped everything else out.
The Hive had spread throughout its allocated Imperial space, clearing all habitable worlds and processing the animal life on them into a protein slurry that it stored in glass silos as a food store for itself. It then covered the planets with the fungus, left workers and a Queen there, and a colonising swarm moved on to the next system to find more protein. No wonder their first pre-Empire contact with another sentient species – the Mushrooms, a high-protein fungal consciousness that they found edible – had been such a disaster. When the Hive had first joined the Empire, everybody had assumed the Hive would use Marque to synthesise the proteins it needed. The Hive instead refused to have anything to do with the AI because of Marque’s actions during the Hive-Mushroom War. The dragons attempted to teach the Hive about animal husbandry with tailored bacteria to grow its own protein, but the concept was so far outside the Hive’s experience that after sixty years of attempts, the Empire had given up. Now, as part of the Empire, the Hive peacefully traded Hive wine with other Empire species for the pre-processed protein supplements it needed.
When we reached the surface of the planet, the workers shed their glass cocoons by shattering them on special hardened glass spikes, then flew over the twisting mass of red-brown filaments that covered everything. Each filament ranged in size from hair-thin to a metre across, and seemed to be growing and spreading as we watched. Workers hovered busily above the filaments, slicing off the topmost layer with specially evolved, knife-like forelegs. The cut filaments oozed a bright red liquid, and other workers followed to drink it. When they were full they flew away to eject it into glass storage towers, some of which were hundreds of metres tall, where it was fermented into Hive wine.
We travelled over the fungus-covered landscape for five kilometres until we reached a pair of glass structures. They were two connected domes constructed of the amber twining glass. We landed in front of the structure where a small cleared area was covered in a rippling glass floor to stop the fungus from encroaching. The fungus forest towered above the domes like it wanted to absorb them.
The doors weren’t made of glass, they were made of plant cellulose – similar to wood but snowy white. They opened to a small airlock and we went in.
On your guard, Captain, this has similarities to their pre-Empire protein processing facilities, the Empress said.
I nodded and tapped my weapon on my hip without drawing it. Graf and Leggy both raised one appendage to indicate their readiness.
The interior door opened and I stood transfixed. The dome was full of amber light from its glass walls, and workers were visible in holes above us, using their wings to ventilate the facility. The spacious area had chairs and tables made from butt-glass, but enhanced with fittings from all over the Empire: thick, soft rugs from the wool of Tsingai, plates and cups of ceramic and metal, and even a kitchen that must have been salvaged – or purchased – from an Empire ship. The Hive had been scrounging Empire resources to make the children more comfortable. There were fifteen children present, sitting on the furniture or on the floor, in a variety of species that were all subjugates of the Cat Republic.
‘I never knew about any of this,’ Marque said. ‘I have no presence on this planet, as per the Hive’s request.’
‘Now that you have a presence, perhaps you can help us,’ a cat child said as it approached us, followed by three of the other children. The cat had short white fur with black tips, making her appear silver as she moved.
‘Why are you here?’ the Empress asked. ‘The cats don’t trade their own children.’
‘Yes, we do,’ the cat child said. ‘My family was murdered in inter-clan warfare twelve years ago, and the clan that won all their possessions sold me to the Hive.’
‘We’re glad they did; Newmea’s our leader and very smart,’ an Eh-Yi-Oh-Eh said. The bear-like alien had long golden fur and stood on four legs.
‘Uo?’ I asked.
‘Yes?’ the Eh-Yi said. ‘How do you know me?’
‘I’m Jian Choumali,’ I said. ‘I rescued your mother from a cat and cared for her until she reached adulthood and returned home to her family. I loved her like a daughter.’
The Eh-Yi backed away. ‘You’re Choumali?’ It skidded backwards, turned and limped as fast as it could into the dual-level sleeping area at the side of the dome. ‘Keep it away from me!’
I nodded to the worker that had been following us. ‘Thank you for keeping my granddaughter safe.’
‘We’re pleased that you know about this now,’ the Hive said. ‘We need help from the Empire – some of the children are sick. Uo was severely injured when she arrived, and close to death, and we were very fortunate to save her.’
‘Are any more of these children in need of medical care?’ Marque asked.
‘The sick children are in another facility on this world. One child came in with a communicable disease and gave it to a few others with similar protein chains. I’ll take you to them.’
‘Let’s go,’ the Empress said. She turned her head on her long neck to see me. ‘Would you like to stay here and talk to the Eh-Yi, Jian? I think we can trust the Hive’s good intentions.’
‘By your leave, Majesty,’ I said.
‘Very well. Marque, leave a small instance of yourself here to assist Jian, and then let’s go see what we can do for these sick children.’
The Marque sphere opened and a copy the size of a tennis ball flew out.
‘We’d also like to discuss trading for better facilities for them – the low gravity is harming their bones, and their bathrooms are entirely unacceptable,’ the Hive said through the worker. ‘Now that you know, you can help us. Under the terms of our agreement with the cats, they can’t leave Hive space, but we can make them more comfortable.’
‘I could help if you’d allow me to stay—’ the big Marque sphere said as they headed towards the airlock.
‘No,’ the Hive said, and the doors closed behind them.
The children stood watching me.
‘Are you happy here?’ I asked them. ‘Is the Hive looking after you?’
None of them replied.
‘Does it make you work? Are you prisoners in the dome? Are you treated well?’
They stood uncertainly and still didn’t reply.
I sat on the carpet. ‘Would you like to hear a story about my life on the dragon homeworld?’
Their reluctance disappeared. They moved quickly to sit around me and listen. Nearly all intelligent species treasured storytelling to share knowledge and experience. The few that didn’t use stories used telepathy to share their life experiences, and still liked to hear verbal stories from non-telepathic visitors.
‘I’m the dragon Empress’ guard captain,’ I said. ‘I live in a tower on the dragon homeworld. Bring up an image, Marque.’
Marque generated a three-dimensional rotating depiction of Sky City, then zoomed in on the main square with parliament on one side and the palace on the other.
The children made loud sounds of wonder and scooted forward to study the image more closely.
‘Is that the thing?’ a mole child said, pointing at Marque with its mucus-covered tentacles. ‘The talking thing that does the magic like these images?’
‘Don’t you dare do anything that could remotely be considered magic,’ I said as the sphere spun in the air. I turned back to the children. ‘It’s very advanced technology, not magic. It’s using energy to make the images. Yes, it talks, it is very intelligent, and it assists people in the Empire. It carries us and shields us and helps us to live long, healthy lives.’
‘My organic friends are precious to me,’ Marque said. ‘Like you are honoured to be contracted to the cats by your families, I am honoured to serve you. As Jian said, I am here to help.’
‘I am as well,’ I said. ‘I assume that you’re allowed out of the dome to see the sky?’
The children nodded, sharing meaningful glances.
‘We’re not prisoners – we can leave the dome any time. The Hive takes us on educational journeys,’ the cat Newmea said. ‘We’ve been to a few places – even to space! And the Hive doesn’t ask for labour or . . . entertainment in return.’
‘It’s weird,’ one of the other aliens said.
‘The cats are different from everybody,’ I said. ‘What they do to you is against the law in the dragon empire. Trafficking in children is wrong.’
‘That’s what the Hive said,’ one of the children said.
‘At first we didn’t believe that we weren’t toys for the workers,’ one of the children said, then made a long, loud braying sound. ‘Now we know much better – toys for workers! That’s like being a toy for a machine.’
‘Anyway, I travel the stars – you’ve seen the stars?’ I asked.
They all nodded with enthusiasm.
‘Show them the Empress’ ship, Marque.’
Marque changed the image to the Empress’ ship, then exploded it to a three-dimensional diagram. It zoomed in on the ship, then zoomed out to show the ship in orbit around the dragon homeworld.
The children made more sounds of awe and studied the images with their eyes wide.
Marque zoomed the image out again, to show the folding nexus – a network of nodes and tunnels in stationary orbit around the planet. It took over the dialogue.
‘When the first dragon learned how to fold,’ it said, as a dragon appeared in the image, ‘she discovered another species far from her own. She fell in love and had children with the people she visited.’ It brought up a visual of a fleet of dragon ships. ‘The dragons travelled the galaxies, seeking love and making families wherever they went. Their leader is the dragon Empress, but all species that have loved dragons now have input into how things are run in a truly democratic and peaceful society.’
I took the narrative back, not wanting to hear the ‘story of the Empire’ for the millionth time. ‘I travel the stars with the Empress, sharing joy and love and the benefits of being in the Empire – which includes no selling children,’ I said.
Marque’s visuals gave the children a travelogue of the Empire’s best tourist spots. It shifted to a street in the Embassy district on the homeworld, where people were strolling along a wide avenue lined with eating areas and galleries, with occasional musical performances within sound bubbles. It played some of the music and the children listened, rapt.
‘In fact, we have a rule in the Empire: children are cared for and loved and never hurt.’
Marque changed the view to a socialisation school on the homeworld where the parliamentary delegates’ children – a stunning variety of species – shared knowledge and stories. It zoomed outside to a physical challenge playground – complete with high ropes – and showed the children flying from tower to tower. One of the children fell from the ropes and my small audience squealed, then squealed again when, in the image, Marque collected the fallen child and lowered her to the ground safely.
The children around me excitedly discussed the challenge course, but the cat girl wasn’t convinced.
‘My mother said that dragons lie about everything and never to believe what one says,’ she said.
‘Yes, sometimes dragons do lie,’ I said. ‘But I’m not a dragon, and I won’t. Not to you. What you’re seeing here is real. Ask me anything and I’ll tell you the truth. I have nothing to gain from lying to you; you’ll be here until you’re adults and then you’ll go back to your families.’
‘I appreciate what the Hive has done for us, but I have nobody to take me back.’ Newmea folded over her knees cat-style. ‘I don’t want to spend the rest of my life here, even if the Hive buys more children to keep me company.’ She looked up at me with her huge amber eyes. ‘I want to travel and see places, without people hurting me!’
‘How long before you’re an adult?’ I asked.
‘I already am,’ Newmea said. ‘I have no family to return to.’
‘What about you others?’ I asked the rest of the children.
They gave differing lengths of time that Marque translated into Earth years for me. The oldest was a mole and would be free in a few weeks.
‘My family will welcome me home,’ the mole said. ‘They’ll be happy that I reached adulthood without dying – and probably glad that the Hive helped me.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Who else will be welcomed by their families?’
The rest of the children indicated themselves, all except for Newmea. Uo pointedly ignored me from where she lay on the floor.
Newmea curled up tighter. ‘My family are dead. I can either stay here or return to the cat homeworld and enter a reproductive contract.’ She buried her face in her knees. ‘I don’t want to do that; it’ll be the same as being a toy – except with sexual demands on top of it.’ She raised her head to see me. ‘The Hive says I can stay, and I am deeply thankful, but there isn’t much to do here.’
‘You can come with me,’ I said. ‘I have a cat son already and he lost his family as well. He’d be happy to help care for you – he’d love to have a fellow cat to talk to. And before you think about sexual demands, he’s in a relationship with a dragon and they have a dragonscales child together. Nobody in the Empire is allowed to make sexual demands – that’s illegal too.’
Her eyes went wide and she smiled the cat way – all whiskers and teeth. ‘That sounds too good to be true.’
‘Don’t go with her,’ Uo said from the side of the room where she’d been listening. ‘She’ll kill you. The dragons are liars. This human kept my mother a prisoner for years!’
‘Yes, I did keep her prisoner for over a year – because if I let her out, she jumped into the ocean and tried to drown herself,’ I said. ‘When she stopped doing it, I released her, and when she reached adulthood I arranged passage for her to go home – where you were born, Uo. Tell Newmea that I’m lying about that.’
‘You lie about everything,’ she snapped, approaching on four legs. She limped slightly, her hind legs wobbly and weak.
The children didn’t know who to believe, but from their emotional aura it was obvious that they tended to dismiss Uo’s claims, and her rage indicated that she was aware of it.
‘I did the best I could for your mother, Uo. I gave her a name in my language.’ I wiped my eyes. ‘I loved her like my own child and it broke my heart to see her selling you to the cats. That is wrong – look at what they did to you, they nearly killed you. When you’re home, tell your mother to come visit me where I live in a beautiful tower with my spouses and my cat son and my family who will all give you more love and hugs than you can ever need.’
‘I believe it,’ she said. She lay on the glass floor, then grunted with pain and shifted her back end. ‘You want to break up my family and take my mother away from her homeworld. As soon as I’m an adult I can go home and they will love me better than any of your mixed-up families.’
‘I’m sure they will,’ I said. ‘Your mother has a good heart.’
‘My mother is the best,’ Uo said.
‘She sold you, and the cats nearly killed you,’ the mole said.
‘No. That was my decision,’ Uo said. ‘I did it for my family.’
‘They still nearly killed you,’ Newmea said.
‘And I would have died happily, knowing that my family would be safe,’ Uo said.
‘This is so broken,’ I said. ‘So wrong. You should not be sacrificed like this just for the cats’ amusement.’
‘If it kept my family safe I’d do it a million times over,’ Uo said.
‘I understand and respect that,’ I said. ‘In the meantime, the cats have a valid arrangement with the Hive for you to stay here for the rest of your contracts, and we’ll do our best to make you more comfortable.’
‘Can you fix Uo’s hip?’ Newmea asked. ‘It makes her cry sometimes.’
‘Shut up,’ Uo said.
‘Yes,’ Marque said. ‘I can fix your injuries and free you from pain. Just give me permission and I will make you pain-free.’
‘Stay away from me,’ Uo said.
‘Let it help you, Uo,’ Newmea said. ‘It makes all of us sad to see you in pain.’
‘We’re supposed to be in pain, we’re cat toys,’ Uo said. ‘If we’re not in pain, we’re not doing it right. The cats are cruel but we are noble and I will suffer this as long as my contract is valid.’
One of the smaller workers flew down from the ventilation holes and was replaced by another. It landed next to me, its head with its faceted rainbow eyes close to mine.
‘Can you provide them with higher gravity, Marque?’ it asked. ‘The low gravity of our planet is harming their bones.’
‘I can,’ Marque said. ‘But I’ll need to stay here to maintain—’
‘Without staying here,’ the worker buzzed. ‘Put some dense matter in the floor or something. We do not want you here.’
‘I can do that,’ Marque said. ‘But the children will need to move out of the dome while I infuse the glass.’
‘That will hurt Uo,’ I said. ‘It looks like the only reason she’s mobile is because of the lower gravity.’
‘I don’t care!’ Uo said.
‘Can you fix her?’ the worker asked Marque.
‘I can,’ Marque said.
‘No!’ Uo said.
‘Don’t do it until we have a plan worked out,’ the worker said. ‘There are multiple locations where we’re holding the children.’ It turned its head towards me, the rainbows shifting in its faceted eyes. ‘Captain Choumali, may I speak to you in private? Without the Empress or the AI present?’
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘Outside the dome,’ the worker said.
‘Thanks for visiting us, Captain,’ Newmea said. ‘I’ll think about what you said.’
‘I meant it,’ I said, then pulled myself to my feet and followed the worker out of the dome.