So he gave her the information she desired, and in the process found that he was learning much about her anyway. Every concept she found foreign meant that she had experience of a different nature, and that helped define her. Indeed, she could not exchange the full degree of her recent experience with twenty others of her kind simultaneously, getting current; she had to “talk” individually with each. Except that she did have an alternate mechanism: the largest creature, with the four feet on the ground, was a “horse” who was “telepathic.” He was male, and he could communicate simultaneously with all the others of the group. While in his presence, the others could draw on his ability, so that they could exchange information simultaneously. So they were indeed a hive, by this mechanism, and Burgess could be part of it, if he learned to transmit to the horse without requiring direct contact with a contact point. All this Burgess learned, in the process of answering her questions about the nature of floaters, hives, and individuals.
Communication, though linear, was becoming so facile that Burgess almost forgot the strangeness of the situation. He structured his thoughts to be linear, and paced them, so that though time passed in the transmission, Colene was able to understand his situation.
His kind had evolved, according to hive memory, in that same Cambrian explosion she knew about. This followed the near extirpation of all forms of life, the greatest of three formidable extinctions. The seas had been left bereft of all but single-celled life forms, so many new many-celled forms rapidly evolved. These filled the seas and competed for dominance, and some were winnowed out while others proliferated. Then the second greatest extinction came about 225 million years ago, wiping out nineteen of twenty life forms. But the survivors soon bounced back, forming many competent species. Then the third extinction came, 65 million years ago, again wiping out most life forms. This time the triramous phylum, which had been established but not dominant, expanded to fill the vacated niches. From these came the floaters, who foraged on the surface of the sea, and found it easy to forage also on land. They were just another type on the sea, but became dominant on land, with many species developing. Most lost their multiple contact points, specializing in individual hunting and foraging. But the hivers retained them, and became more closely cooperative, finding security in close numbers. They became smarter together, because of heightened communication. They learned to use the rivers as avenues to reach all parts of the land. By remaining near the water’s edge they succeeded in avoiding predators, who were normally either of the land or of the water. Then one species learned to change the land to make better regions for safety at night, and this one flourished.
Burgess had been an external contact entity. Instead of remaining in close communication with his own hive, he acted as liaison to foreign hives, so that the hives could communicate with each other somewhat in the way individuals within each hive did. Each hive had its own nuances, so that a floater from one hive could not readily relate to one from another hive. Burgess had to learn to tolerate and comprehend foreign nuances, and to be able to endure for periods without being current with his native hive. In this manner he helped coordinate the activity of the hives, so that they did not congregate in particular regions and deplete the resources.
But then he had encountered a hive that had gone bad. He picked up some of the poison of its nature, and knew that it had to be isolated from contact with other hives, lest it poison them too. He returned to his own hive and signaled warning: a series of honks. Then he retreated, knowing that he could never return, so that he himself would not infect his hive. It was a tragedy, but there was no alternative.
He was expected to join the bad hive now, since he could relate to its members and had nothing further to lose. That hive would not be allowed to contact any other hive. Any member it sent out would be driven back or killed. But Burgess could not bring himself to join it, because its poison revolted him. He preferred to regress into animalism alone, as would inevitably happen without hive contact. It was a horror, but the alternative was to die swiftly.
But when his native hive saw that he was not joining the poisoned hive, it instituted defensive measures. This was because it feared that he would try to rejoin it, and thus poison it. So it sought to kill him before that could happen. Burgess knew that its decision was reasonable; it had hundreds of members to protect, while he was only one. The single floater always had to give way to the welfare of the hive. Burgess had attempted to forage and hunt alone, in a remote section of his home hive’s province, but this was not allowed. Parties were sent out to kill him.
So he had tried a desperate ploy: he had invoked a Virtual Mode. This was largely a matter of chance. Few of his kind could even sense the Modes, and none wished to explore them. But Burgess’ experience as a foreign contact person had prepared him for this yet-more-alien contact. He had tuned in increasingly well, and when a Virtual Mode had come, he had reached for it, using his mind and will to secure an anchor in his Mode. Then he had awaited the contact of whatever creatures inhabited the Virtual Mode with considerable trepidation, knowing that they were likely to be more alien than anything he had encountered. But if they happened to be of his kind, they might represent a new hive, which was not poisoned, and which would not be harmed by his own infection.
“But what is this poison?” Colene asked, concerned. “Is it a disease that will make us die?”
No, it was not a physical disease. It was a mental one. It was a syndrome known to infect hives that became too small. Their internal contacts became so intense that their members lost their tolerance for any foreign floaters at all. Since it was necessary to share offspring, who went at the outset of their lives to foreign hives, so that there would not be ingrowing, this was an attitude that could not be allowed to spread, lest the entire species fragment and lose its dominance. Burgess himself had not succumbed to it, or he would never have been able to invoke the Virtual Mode. But he had been exposed to it, and that was enough to make him dangerous. Its nature was insidious, and he might at any time be overcome by it. So he was banished from the hive.
“Bigotry!” Colene sent, grasping the poison concept. “Racism. Intolerance. Prejudice. We have those poisons in our species too!”
They had it too? What had he floated into? He had hoped to find a hive to which he could relate without such contamination, so that he would never succumb to it himself.
“No, we here on the Virtual Mode don’t have it,” Colene clarified. “But it is elsewhere in our species. More prevalent than in yours, I think.”
He relaxed. The aliens had been exposed to the poison, but had not succumbed to it, which was the same as his own state. They would understand his situation. So instead of being a problem, it meant that this was after all a hive he could join. The strangest kind of hive, but not as strange as it had once seemed. The aliens resembled few-legged animals, but understood the dynamics of hive life. The reality counted more than the appearance.
“What about reproduction?” Colene asked, sending a picture of big floaters and little floaters. “I know you are male and female, because that’s the first thing that registers when we make mental contact, but just how do you do it? Do you have marriage or life-pairing?”
Burgess tried to address the matter, because her question implied social aspects that confused him. Mating within the hive was a straightforward act, and the young departed for other hives, while the incoming young from other hives were schooled by the contacts they made with hive members. But it seemed that among the aliens the concept of self complicated reproduction. Colene seemed not to accept the idea of young who had no contact with those who had generated them.