I paused at the White Rock, panting. Beyond lay the Forbidden Zone, where only the Masters patrolled. It was a long, low, tree-lined valley dotted with huge shapes, long and unnatural. Parts of the huge shapes glinted in the afternoon sun, but most of them were brown and green, overgrown with creeping tendrils that waved in the hot breeze. A few Masters scuttled over the enormous growths, and I caught my breath for a moment, until a few of the other boys caught up with me. Then I was off again, sprinting back toward the Hive, lungs burning as my legs pumped.
Gil won the race. I came in third, behind the boy we all called Red because his skin turned scarlet every time he was out in the sun. He was bright red now, huffing and panting, but standing tall before the Masters.
“Race stop,” the Master clicked. “This one fastest.”
Gil beamed at the Master, and shot a wicked smile my way.
My blood pumped hot and I wanted to slug him, but Chen grabbed my arm. “Not worth it. Let him go be a Runner. Good riddance.”
I smiled a little at that. Chen was right. It would be great to be rid of Gil.
“Hey, Noah,” Gil said as he sauntered past. “You okay? Saw that fall. Right into the leaf-eaters. Tough luck.”
My hands balled into fists, but once again, ˙ was there.
“You sure are fast, Gil,” he said. “Bet you’ll be the fastest Runner ever.”
Gil puffed up at that, glancing back to make sure the Masters had heard Chen’s words.
They didn’t deign to respond, of course. Such Low chatter was beneath them.
The Masters were magnificent in the late morning sun. It glinted off their armored backs, on the long, segmented tail with its stinger. Their six hind legs effortlessly ate the distance, and when they reared back to gesture at us with their huge pincers, we all shrank back. Next to them, we were nothing. Soft skin with no armor. Hideous hair growing from our heads. The fact that they allowed us to live in their Hive, to dive for their food and clean up their waste and maybe, just maybe, serve their Queen was unfathomable to me.
We plodded on our pathetic two legs down to the beach, surrounded by Master Soldiers. Past the towering brown Hive, we clambered down the rocky shore to where the ocean rolled in from so far away I couldn’t see the end. The sun was high now, glittering off the distant waves. Rocks gave way to brown sand, soft and shifting under our ungainly feet. The Masters skittered right over it. Hot wind brought a salty, fishy smell. This cove was bordered on each side by rock formations that jutted straight into the sea, blocking the heaviest waves. With each passing wave, I glanced up and down the long, smooth beach, watching for the little bubbles that indicated a shellfish had burrowed into the sand.
The Masters loved shellfish.
But the Masters didn’t swim. Far out beyond the breakers were vast fields of shellfish, lined up along hard coral ridges. They were deep underwater, and had to be pried loose with a tool, but I had mastered the technique. I was a great diver. This was my chance to shine.
“Dive,” one clicked. “Here. Most food best.”
One of the Masters had used a front limb to carve deep grooves into the sand, making large round circles, one for each of us. We would have a set amount of time until they called an end to collect as many shellfish as we could and place them in our circle. I grabbed a woven bag and tied it around my waist, handing another bag to Chen. Some of the boys weren’t good swimmers. Chen wasn’t. Instead of diving, he’d likely comb the sandy beach, watching for those bubbles and digging up the smaller shells as he could. He was pretty fast at it and would probably do fairly well. Gil wasn’t a great ocean swimmer, either, so Chen would have to watch his back. A pile of the strong metal rods we used to harvest the shells sat next to the circles, and I tucked one into the rope holding the bag around my waist.
The Master clicked the signal, and off we went. I bolted for the ocean, loping with huge strides into the oncoming waves. I dived under the largest ones, keeping my forward motion as the sea tried to shove me back toward land. As soon as I was out far enough, I submerged and swam, kicking with strong strokes away from the breaker line, out to the depth. The sea was alive with fish, darting among huge rock formations on which scuttled a hundred different kinds of sea-insects, brightly colored and shimmering under the weak sunlight.
The shellfish that the Masters loved were anchored to the rocks on the beach side of the cove. Shoals of them ran in long lines parallel to the sea’s edge, opening their shells to suck in seawater and closing them when a shadow passed overhead.
I scouted a likely area, dove down to grab a large rock, and kicked to the surface.
Breathe out, one, two, three. The breath whooshed out of me as I squeezed my chest.
One huge breath in, and down we go. The rock I had taken helped pull me down when the air in my lungs tried to stop my descent. Head down, I pinched my nose and pumped air into my head so my ears didn’t burn.
Once on the bottom I set to work. Pulling the pry rod from my waist, I braced myself against the sharp rocks. My hands were long since toughened to leather, and the edges didn’t cut me like they had when I was first learning to dive almost ten years ago. My rhythm took over. Dig the rod in. Lever out the shell. Peel it off the rocks. Stuff it in the bag. Repeat.
I harvested until my chest screamed for air. Grabbing another rock, I kicked for the surface. When my head broke, I sucked in a huge gasp of air, holding my face clear of the rolling waves. A quick glance at the shore showed distant figures rushing along the waterline, grabbing at shells in the surf. I couldn’t tell who was who, or how well they were doing.
Back down we go. Breathe out, one, two, three.
After three trips down to the shell field, my bag bulged. Time to head in and dump. I had no idea when the Masters might call a halt to the test. The older Divers I trained with had varying accounts of their own Ranking. Some only had time to get a single trip, while others were diving all afternoon, until their heads and ears were pounding from the pressure. The Masters were clever and would always bring out our best.
Waves pounded into my back as I found footing in the shallows and lurched toward dry land. Chen was up on the beach, dumping a bagful of the smaller shells from the tide line into his circle. I jogged up the beach, pulling at the rope that tied my bag shut, clanking with sharp seashells around my legs. When I emptied the bag into my circle, I could see that I was in the lead so far. My pile was the biggest, but not by much.
Get back out there. Win this.
I turned and headed back to the sea with a glance at the Masters. Their faces had no expression, hard plates shining in the sun. Their chests bellowed rhythmically, slow and calm under the hot sun. My own chest was heaving, but I could rest later. Win this.
White foam tickled my legs as my feet slapped into the water. I turned back one last time to make sure the Masters hadn’t called a halt.
A figure was in my circle, crouching over my pile of shells. The boy grabbed a large handful and scuttled over to his own circle, dropping them inside before trotting down toward the water.
Zero doubt who had stolen my shells.
Gil. And the Masters had watched it happen.
***
My face heated up, neck burning with rage. He took my shells. They watched him take my shells.
Was this some kind of test? Of course it was. The Masters were far above caring about the petty squabbles of Lowforms. Why would they care if someone cheated? Only results mattered.
Gil trotted down the water’s edge where Chen was bent over, digging out a shell. He shoved hard into the smaller boy’s side as he passed, and Chen toppled over onto the wet sand.
My hands were pulling the pry rod from my waist before I knew I was running.
“Hey, that’s it!” I shouted. “You’re a thief and a dung-scraper. I saw you take my shells.”
Gil whipped around and saw me coming, pry bar raised over my head.
“Noah, no!” Chen’s voice barely reached my ears through the white-hot anger pulsing in my head. He tried to grab at me as I flew past him toward Gil, who had turned to run but gotten his feet mired in wet sand. Gil toppled over and Chen grabbed my arm. The prybar fell from my hand and I fell onto Gil, fists flying.
Neither of us could get purchase in the wet, sticky sand, but I caught him a solid blow right in the nose. Crimson blood streamed out and his eyes got huge and round. He rolled his weight on top of me and reared back to punch me, but Chen launched into him from behind. Both boys crashed into me and someone’s knee drove the air right out of my lungs.
“Stop! Stop! The Masters said it’s over!” The other boys crowded around us, pulling us apart.
I couldn’t get air. My chest wouldn’t rise and I lay there on the sand as wave after wave rushed up around me. Chen pulled me up to a sitting position and slowly my chest relaxed, allowing a trickle of air in.
“Noah, what were you doing? He just knocked me over. That’s just Gil. He’s always been a dung-scraper.”
I shook my head. “Took my shells.” Words came in quick gasps. “Saw him.” Breathe. “Masters saw it.”
Chen looked up the beach to where the Masters watched the rest of the boys gathering up our harvest. “Why would they let him do that?”
I shrugged. “They just want shells.”
He helped me to my feet and I retrieved the prybar from where it had fallen into the sand. My whole back was gritty. There was sand in my hair, in my clothes, ground between my toes. I took a moment to wade into deeper water and rinse off before joining Chen and the rest of the boys up the beach.
Gil was holding his nose, tipping his head back. His whole chin was red, and where he’d touched his chest, the skin was smeared with his blood.
Good. Deserves it.
I didn’t win diving, but even with Gil’s treachery, I was a solid second. Chen was right in the middle, which should be pretty safe. Gil won, but there was no way they’d pick him as a Diver. They wanted a shellfish harvest, and although he proved he could steal them, he hadn’t proved he could collect them. My dream was still alive.
My stomach growled. I picked up one of the bags of shells and joined the party carrying them toward the Hive.
***
By the time we got the harvest turned over to the Masters in the Hive, the sun had disappeared behind the bulk of our enormous home. Built by the Masters over a hundred generations, it was a masterpiece. Mud hardened to solid rock, smooth brown on the outside, but on the inside the warren of hallways was as intricate as any spiraling seashell that washed up on the beach. Branching corridors led away from each other, crisscrossed, and doubled back, twisting ever downward. The higher levels allowed the Masters to survey the surrounding area, breathing in the world for miles. Our Queen owned every bit of land that could be seen from the topmost lookout of the Hive, from the ocean’s shore north and south along the coast, all the way through the grasslands to the green mountains and beyond. There had once been enemies on our land, other Hives ruled by inferior Queens. Our Soldiers destroyed them, and their Hives lay empty. We were victorious in battle every time. How lucky were we to live in the greatest Hive that ever was?
“Did you see it?” Chen startled me out of my reverie as we grabbed baskets, filled them with stones that had sat out in the sun all day, and entered the cool comfort of the Hive.
“See what?” I rubbed my ribs, sore where Gil had kicked me in our fight.
“The Feral.”
We followed the rest of the boys into the tunnels, heading for food. The stones in our baskets glowed with a clean, green light as we passed through the dark portions of the corridors. The walls were rough and brown, with holes to the sunlight at regular intervals, the floor smooth from generations of Masters’ feet, hard exoskeleton with delicate feelers all around, and our Lowform feet, soft and plodding.
“A Feral? You saw a Feral?” My eyes widened. “Where?”
“During the race outside. Didn’t you see it?”
Chen and I lined up behind the rest of the boys at one of the outer chambers on ground level. It had been specially formed at ground level as an annex to the Hive, with a lattice of holes in the roof and walls. Inside sat three huge tubs. They were made of a material not found anywhere else in the Hive, but similar to what our prybars and some of the other tools we used were made of. It was hard and smooth, and cold to the touch. Metal.
“No. What did it look like?” I swung my bag of glowstones over my shoulder and grabbed a tightly woven bowl. From inside the cool tubs I scooped a bowlful of the green slimy soup that was most of our diet.
Chen grinned, already slurping the green soup from his bowl. “It was a male. Bigger than us, looked pretty old. It was hiding almost all the way to the rock.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. “You really didn’t see it?”
I shook my head. “No. I was pretty mad, just trying to make up time.”
A Master stood at the exit of the tub room with a basket of the shellfish we had collected. As we passed, each boy was allowed to take one. I cracked open the shell and sucked down the salty goodness, tossing the empty shell into another basket at the doorway. My bowl of green soup sloshed as I walked, heading down the slope toward the sleeping room.
Chen’s soup was gone, and he dropped glowstones along our path, saving a few for our quarters when we got there. “I think it was alone. They usually are.”
Ferals. So close to the Hive. I hadn’t seen one for ages. They looked like us Lowforms, but they were not like us. They didn’t live in the Hive, and because they served no Queen, they were wild and dangerous. They were one of the many perils the Masters protected us from when we ventured outside.
I shuddered. “I’m glad I didn’t see it. I wonder what it was doing so close? Hope the Masters killed it.”
We trooped down and down, past the fungus rooms where Masters and Lowforms tended the mushroom gardens, past the long hallway that led to the Mothers’ chambers, where female Lowforms and their babies lived in the calm glow of the stones, protected from all the dangers above. We never went down that hallway. Masters guarded it, keeping our breeding females safe. I had been born somewhere down that hallway, to one of the females I had no memory of. When I was four years old, the Masters brought me out, never to return. Only mothers and babies were allowed in that area of the Hive, and I had no interest in going down there, anyway. Who would want to be around a bunch of babies?
I shuddered again, for a different reason. What if I failed the Ranking? I hoped I’d be a Diver, spending every day of the rest of my life in the ocean prying up food, or down in the clear, cold rivers that flowed beneath the deepest tunnels of our Hives. I dared to dream I might possibly gain the highest honor and enter the Queen’s Service. But what if I didn’t? What if I got Ranked as a Gardener in the fungus garden, or a Cleaner, carrying out waste from Masters and Lowforms? Worst of all, what if they made me a Caretaker? I would spend the rest of my life in the Mothers’ Hall, locked away with the females and screaming babies, never to see the sunlight again.
No, that couldn’t possibly happen. I did well in the footrace, and I was second in Diving. Tomorrow was another swimming event, and I’d do well. I wasn’t the strongest for the rock carrying challenge, but there was no way I’d get Ranked so low as to end up a Caretaker.
Chen and I found our sleeping room, a small alcove off one of the hallways. We bunked with four other boys, and mercifully Gil wasn’t one of them. The Hive was chilly and the light from the remaining stones in our baskets cast long shadows up the walls. I was deep in the Hive, safe and protected. Whatever happened tomorrow, I’d be ready.
And by the end of the day, one way or another, my fate would be sealed.