FIVE

The New Place was quiet. There was much to be taken in, fresh ways to be dealt with. There was the strength of rebirth, but at the same time the weakness of lack of independent experience. There was little motion, some fluttering of antennae, but mostly it was a time to rest, to let new balances become established.

There were no outside disturbances to mar the quiet they needed for the resting and the development of their own world, now separate and separately driven.

The individuals in the New Colony were licking each other, as if the roaches were coated with some appetizing substance. Their antennae kept touching, and their bodies jostled softly together. In the effort to establish the necessary interconnections of the fresh society, some of the insects were even engaging in a form of anal trophallaxis, seen among certain termites. Nest-­mates exchanged chemical symbionts by eating droplets discharged from a neighbor’s anus.

The convergence was being directed by the Dome in the center of the new Nest. It was a smaller structure than its parent; as indeed, the members of this new branch of the roach colony tended to be smaller than their brothers in the pirate cave. Usually, with insects like bees, Nature sent the older group out to establish a new Nest. Here the development had been different—as with so many other aspects of the Yarkie Island mutation.

The Dome’s signals grew stronger and clearer with each passing hour. Soon it would be time to make known this Colony’s presence and assert its own, new territorial rights and appetites.