Two feet on the ground
This is the first part of a mini series.
Even for a scientist it was almost impossible to describe it properly. It started of calm for a few brief moments and then immediately turned into a vicious shriek that ripped through the spacious science chamber. The high pitched sound ripped through Parathrecinas ears and caused all of her antennas to vibrate in an extremely uncomfortable manner. Earbuds offered no protection as she had learned and it was impossible to ignore it for more than seconds.
She sighed deeply and moved away from the console and turned towards the source of the unholy wail. The larva was hardly longer than her forearm and couldn’t weigh more than a few kilograms. Yet it could output an astounding amount of noise. She sighed again.
Her upper pair of eyes caught a hint of movement at the edge of her vision and she put out her claw to stop it. Queens had no maternal instinct to speak of as she had noticed but drones apparently had paternal instinct in abundance and her assistant had more than most. Yet she did not want his assistance.
She picked up the larva in her arms and eyed it carefully with her eight pair of eyes. It stopped shrieking in her grip. From past experience this was because it had not yet been accustomed to the more imposing figure of a queen Myrna compared to that of a drone. Her infovisor told her that it had been feed recently. It either needed a bath, expulse some excrement or it just needed to be turned a few times. You could never quite know. Just to be sure she dropped it in a fresh bath and started turning it. The larva started vibrating and switched to a soft humming. Parathrecina sighed again. They sounded almost as annoying when contempt as when they wanted something.
Hector felt himself drop closer to the floor as his five legs lost their tensions. The soothing humming of the larva worked almost as strongly in his mind as the piercing shriek of discomfort had done. He could see his mistress turning the larva in the bath with a detached form of methodical motion. He did not know why she did this and it worried him. It was the fifth larva they had collected from the communal spawning habs since he had been picked as the queen’s assistant, and he suspected this one would be replaced too once it entered the cocooning stage. The queen clearly did not enjoy the process of caring for a larva like a drone would have. Yet she persisted with it. Sometimes he wondered if his mistress truly was mad as the rumors implied.
A drone lived his life in five year terms. Hector had done two in the army, one term in economics (arguably his worst experience yet) and his remaining seven in mining or industry. He had lost a leg, an eye and had more scars on his chitin than he could count. When a drone had done his ten he could choose what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Some choose to work as teachers to other drones, others choose senior positions in their preferred sectors. Hector had chosen to work in the nurseries, caring for eggs that turned into larva, that cocooned and that finally gave birth to new Myrna. But some carefully selected drones got the honor of being chosen as advisors or assistant to queens. Hectors friends had cheered him on when he got into special forces on his second term. When he went into the deep mines for another term they had punched his back plate and bought him another round of Reyjuice. When he volunteered for space construction they had almost vibrated with reverence.
But when he was picked as advisor to Paracthrecina the room had been completely silent…
He could not help but think they were wrong. The queen was brilliant, that much was certain. She had hopped from subject to subject in the three years he had been his assistant. Material sciences, mathematics, computer prediction and energy wavelengths. The queen got results in an area almost as quickly as she lost her interest in it.
At first Hector didn’t know what to do with the accumulated research given that the queen never bothered to publish it. After a while he had started handing it over to selected researchers to further the good of all Myrna. While the breakthroughs they did were important his heart couldn’t help a truly alien feeling for a Myrna, that his mistress was not getting the recognition she truly deserved.
As the larva stopped humming Hector woke up from his daydreams. “Don’t think on the job” had been his advice for young drones so many times and he felt ashamed for breaking it. He looked back to his work.
“Queen scientist Parathrecina, I think we have a failure in the quantum decoupler or the sensors. I’m getting readings in the mXM range on this experiment”.
Parathrecina turned around. A quick calculation in her head told her Hector was wrong. That was rare. She had chosen him carefully. On the surface it seemed he had low intel scores but she knew how to read between the lines. 28 egg fertilization commendations and dozens of important industrial practice improvements told a different story. This drone was smart and he had taken to science remarkably well. Still, their generator wasn’t even capable of even milli XM levels of power output. Still, the important parts came first.
“Hector, I still want you to refer to me as Pat.”
“Yes queen Parathrecina” came the expected answer.
She sighed, for the 63rd time of the day and moved over to his console. A few clicks of her claws told her that the drone was right. Something was wrong. A diagnostic sweep revealed nothing wrong. Auxiliary sensor input confirmed the results. She restarted the grid array three times with the same results. Her antenna started to shiver slightly.
“Hector”.
“Yes Queen scientist Parathrecina?”
“I think we’re going to need a pair of new advanced deflector dishes. And XM power couplings, and they need to be connected to the city network”.
-------------------
Hector was standing almost pressed up against the wall as the two queens argued. He had known it when he appropriated the deflector dishes from the factory that this was not going to end well and he was right. The fact that Myrna drones were never deceitful had worked in their favor only until Queen mayor Acropyaga had received the reports and seen his queens name on the shipping orders.
Acropyaga looked like a true queen, straight and regal with gemstones on her chitin and powdered antennas. And she was truly mad.
“You stole from the Myrna Parathrecina! That equipment was going to the planetary defense institute. I don’t care for your excuses any more. Yes, you were the best of us all in the academy. Yes, the radiation accident that left you barren was horrible. But it does NOT excuse sabotaging the state, not to mention these power outages.”
For the first time Hector saw his queen straighten out of her slouch.
“Queen. Mayor. Mother. Acropyga. I did NOT steal anything. I used my right as a queen to prioritize for the good of all. I wrote your physics paper so I don’t except you to understand. Just look at this pebble. Hector, run the experiment”.
Hector quickly punched his console before the mayor could say anything. The room went dark, indeed the entire city dimmed as the deflectors sucked in an inordinate amount of power. The air around the colored pebble began to wobble and finally collapsed taking the stone with it. Moments later it reappeared a few feet away.
The mayor took a step back.
“What just happened?”
Pat looked pleased, her ancillary antenna vibrating slightly.
“We just opened a wormhole for the pebble.”
“You just disrupted the cities power for this? What does this mean Parathrecina?”
“Proximity to a gravity source disrupts the process. That’s why we need the cities power. What it means Aca. It means that we need to call High Queen Mother Myrmelxenous. Because I need the space station. If I’m right, it means that we may have faster than light travel.
Aca, I think we may be going into space.”
---------------------------
The aftermath of the experiment had taken hours to clear up but finally everyone had left the room. Pat had taken the liberty of doing an impromptu dance in the middle of the lab. As she spun around, legs clicking on the floor she looked at Hector standing over in the corner. The drone didn’t seem shaken at all. She stopped and cocked her head to the side studying him. As the Myrna saying went, he had 6 legs on the ground, even if he was missing one. Solid as a rock. But then that was why she picked him in the first place. Sometimes she wondered what he thought of her. Most Myrna thought she was a jumping Myrna, completely unhinged and crazy, perhaps even dangerous. For a long time, she had herself thought that she was a one leg, balancing on the edge of madness. But now she felt grounded. She had a solid two legs on the ground. She laughed at that, as only a two legs would. Hector looked at her, antennas perfectly still. She laughed again, spun wildly and danced out of the room. She would never lay any eggs but she would bring her people into the galaxy. She laughed again. Hers was not a wasted life. Next week she went into space. And after that her people would follow.
Next chapter: A small jump for mankind.
This is the first part of a mini series.
Even for a scientist it was almost impossible to describe it properly. It started of calm for a few brief moments and then immediately turned into a vicious shriek that ripped through the spacious science chamber. The high pitched sound ripped through Parathrecinas ears and caused all of her antennas to vibrate in an extremely uncomfortable manner. Earbuds offered no protection as she had learned and it was impossible to ignore it for more than seconds.
She sighed deeply and moved away from the console and turned towards the source of the unholy wail. The larva was hardly longer than her forearm and couldn’t weigh more than a few kilograms. Yet it could output an astounding amount of noise. She sighed again.
Her upper pair of eyes caught a hint of movement at the edge of her vision and she put out her claw to stop it. Queens had no maternal instinct to speak of as she had noticed but drones apparently had paternal instinct in abundance and her assistant had more than most. Yet she did not want his assistance.
She picked up the larva in her arms and eyed it carefully with her eight pair of eyes. It stopped shrieking in her grip. From past experience this was because it had not yet been accustomed to the more imposing figure of a queen Myrna compared to that of a drone. Her infovisor told her that it had been feed recently. It either needed a bath, expulse some excrement or it just needed to be turned a few times. You could never quite know. Just to be sure she dropped it in a fresh bath and started turning it. The larva started vibrating and switched to a soft humming. Parathrecina sighed again. They sounded almost as annoying when contempt as when they wanted something.
Hector felt himself drop closer to the floor as his five legs lost their tensions. The soothing humming of the larva worked almost as strongly in his mind as the piercing shriek of discomfort had done. He could see his mistress turning the larva in the bath with a detached form of methodical motion. He did not know why she did this and it worried him. It was the fifth larva they had collected from the communal spawning habs since he had been picked as the queen’s assistant, and he suspected this one would be replaced too once it entered the cocooning stage. The queen clearly did not enjoy the process of caring for a larva like a drone would have. Yet she persisted with it. Sometimes he wondered if his mistress truly was mad as the rumors implied.
A drone lived his life in five year terms. Hector had done two in the army, one term in economics (arguably his worst experience yet) and his remaining seven in mining or industry. He had lost a leg, an eye and had more scars on his chitin than he could count. When a drone had done his ten he could choose what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Some choose to work as teachers to other drones, others choose senior positions in their preferred sectors. Hector had chosen to work in the nurseries, caring for eggs that turned into larva, that cocooned and that finally gave birth to new Myrna. But some carefully selected drones got the honor of being chosen as advisors or assistant to queens. Hectors friends had cheered him on when he got into special forces on his second term. When he went into the deep mines for another term they had punched his back plate and bought him another round of Reyjuice. When he volunteered for space construction they had almost vibrated with reverence.
But when he was picked as advisor to Paracthrecina the room had been completely silent…
He could not help but think they were wrong. The queen was brilliant, that much was certain. She had hopped from subject to subject in the three years he had been his assistant. Material sciences, mathematics, computer prediction and energy wavelengths. The queen got results in an area almost as quickly as she lost her interest in it.
At first Hector didn’t know what to do with the accumulated research given that the queen never bothered to publish it. After a while he had started handing it over to selected researchers to further the good of all Myrna. While the breakthroughs they did were important his heart couldn’t help a truly alien feeling for a Myrna, that his mistress was not getting the recognition she truly deserved.
As the larva stopped humming Hector woke up from his daydreams. “Don’t think on the job” had been his advice for young drones so many times and he felt ashamed for breaking it. He looked back to his work.
“Queen scientist Parathrecina, I think we have a failure in the quantum decoupler or the sensors. I’m getting readings in the mXM range on this experiment”.
Parathrecina turned around. A quick calculation in her head told her Hector was wrong. That was rare. She had chosen him carefully. On the surface it seemed he had low intel scores but she knew how to read between the lines. 28 egg fertilization commendations and dozens of important industrial practice improvements told a different story. This drone was smart and he had taken to science remarkably well. Still, their generator wasn’t even capable of even milli XM levels of power output. Still, the important parts came first.
“Hector, I still want you to refer to me as Pat.”
“Yes queen Parathrecina” came the expected answer.
She sighed, for the 63rd time of the day and moved over to his console. A few clicks of her claws told her that the drone was right. Something was wrong. A diagnostic sweep revealed nothing wrong. Auxiliary sensor input confirmed the results. She restarted the grid array three times with the same results. Her antenna started to shiver slightly.
“Hector”.
“Yes Queen scientist Parathrecina?”
“I think we’re going to need a pair of new advanced deflector dishes. And XM power couplings, and they need to be connected to the city network”.
-------------------
Hector was standing almost pressed up against the wall as the two queens argued. He had known it when he appropriated the deflector dishes from the factory that this was not going to end well and he was right. The fact that Myrna drones were never deceitful had worked in their favor only until Queen mayor Acropyaga had received the reports and seen his queens name on the shipping orders.
Acropyaga looked like a true queen, straight and regal with gemstones on her chitin and powdered antennas. And she was truly mad.
“You stole from the Myrna Parathrecina! That equipment was going to the planetary defense institute. I don’t care for your excuses any more. Yes, you were the best of us all in the academy. Yes, the radiation accident that left you barren was horrible. But it does NOT excuse sabotaging the state, not to mention these power outages.”
For the first time Hector saw his queen straighten out of her slouch.
“Queen. Mayor. Mother. Acropyga. I did NOT steal anything. I used my right as a queen to prioritize for the good of all. I wrote your physics paper so I don’t except you to understand. Just look at this pebble. Hector, run the experiment”.
Hector quickly punched his console before the mayor could say anything. The room went dark, indeed the entire city dimmed as the deflectors sucked in an inordinate amount of power. The air around the colored pebble began to wobble and finally collapsed taking the stone with it. Moments later it reappeared a few feet away.
The mayor took a step back.
“What just happened?”
Pat looked pleased, her ancillary antenna vibrating slightly.
“We just opened a wormhole for the pebble.”
“You just disrupted the cities power for this? What does this mean Parathrecina?”
“Proximity to a gravity source disrupts the process. That’s why we need the cities power. What it means Aca. It means that we need to call High Queen Mother Myrmelxenous. Because I need the space station. If I’m right, it means that we may have faster than light travel.
Aca, I think we may be going into space.”
---------------------------
The aftermath of the experiment had taken hours to clear up but finally everyone had left the room. Pat had taken the liberty of doing an impromptu dance in the middle of the lab. As she spun around, legs clicking on the floor she looked at Hector standing over in the corner. The drone didn’t seem shaken at all. She stopped and cocked her head to the side studying him. As the Myrna saying went, he had 6 legs on the ground, even if he was missing one. Solid as a rock. But then that was why she picked him in the first place. Sometimes she wondered what he thought of her. Most Myrna thought she was a jumping Myrna, completely unhinged and crazy, perhaps even dangerous. For a long time, she had herself thought that she was a one leg, balancing on the edge of madness. But now she felt grounded. She had a solid two legs on the ground. She laughed at that, as only a two legs would. Hector looked at her, antennas perfectly still. She laughed again, spun wildly and danced out of the room. She would never lay any eggs but she would bring her people into the galaxy. She laughed again. Hers was not a wasted life. Next week she went into space. And after that her people would follow.
Next chapter: A small jump for mankind.
- 10
- 1
- 1
