The Nurse gave Yellow-Spot a berry to make Paste. Again, Yellow-Spot cringed at its bitterness. After a short moment Yellow-Spot deposited the Paste into the basket, the Nurse stirred the two Paste batches, then licked it up. “Yes, I Taste only one person.” Her color-face looked brown, from disappointment, though Yellow-Spot couldn’t tell very well in the dim light. The Nurse walked toward the colony’s own Drones.
“Actually,” Yellow-Spot said, “could we get one of those?” She pointed to the section of Drones from other colonies. “The Queen never specified which Drone I could take.”
“Good. That’d be the best option.”
Yellow-Spot closed her eyes, hoping the ghostly demon would disappear. Instead, it appeared as an after-image behind her eyelids.
The nurse looked perplexed, but said, “I suppose it’s all the same, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Yellow-Spot said nervously.
The Nurse led the Drone out of its cell. It sniffed around and whimpered. Yellow-Spot grabbed its soft arm. Soft, like the gods’ skin, not the hard armor of a person’s.
Yellow-Spot and the Nurse briefly touched antennae to say goodbye; Yellow-Spot couldn’t stand too much { }. Yellow-Spot, Sweet-Berries, and Electric-Touch left, with the Drone in tow.
***
Pain exploded and Yellow-Spot startled awake.
The open sky hung above, with trees framing it. Where was she? The short night walk away from the colony. Setting up camp in the surrounding forest.
Now, noises everywhere. God noises. Yellow-Spot smelled the stink of pain on her. Her
pain.
“She’s hurt,” Sweet-Berries said.
“What’s going on?” Electric-Touch too smelled of fear and pain.
“Can you move?” Sweet-Berries asked.
“Yes.”
Yellow-Spot got up wobbly. She was blind. Not totally, but pain throbbed where one of her rear eyes had seen.
“Come on, sisters,” Sweet-Berries said. “Downhill.”
The three stumbled down the hillside. Trees parted, making room for them. In her pain haze Yellow-Spot couldn’t mind her feet too well, as she tripped a few times over the trees’ root-legs. It was only with Sweet-Berries’ vigilance that she managed to stay up.
Sound continued to roar around Yellow-Spot. She managed to realize much of it was god-speak, but she still needed concentration to understand. Tree leaves popped and disintegrated as they were hit by the gods’ hard projectile nuggets. Thunder sounded as the gods discharged their stick weapons-"guns” the gods called them in their sound language. Her vision spun, dizzy from the loss of one eye’s sight. And through all this, the pain, oh, the constant pain. Yellow-Spot prayed to the gods-the true gods-but only the demon appeared, looking more distinct than ever. “I need to stop.”
Sweet-Berries guided them behind a large tree, making sure its lower fronds would give them adequate cover. If it moved, they’d have to move with it.
“Give me a berry,” Sweet-Berries said to Electric-Touch.
“Where’s the Drone?” Yellow-Spot asked, smelling new fear coming from her body.
“Never mind. We need to attend to you. Electric-Touch, that berry.”
“No!” Yellow-Spot started to move, then saw the dumb thing ambling down the hill, following the three sisters’ scent trail.
When it was clear Yellow-Spot wouldn’t give up without a struggle, Sweet-Berries got out from the tree’s cover and grabbed the Drone to pull it into the tree-frond hideout.
Electric-Touch reached up out of the frond cover to the lowest tree branch, which lowered to aid in her reach. Just as she grabbed it, one of those hard nuggets hit her hand. She dropped the fruit and more pain filled the small enclosure. Electric-Touch stared at her hand,
stunned and uncomprehending. Yellow-Spot was only vaguely aware of Sweet-Berries scrambling to get the berry.
Yellow-Spot hit Electric-Touch’s antennae with her own. She felt the { } coursing through her, and Electric-Touch seemed to calm down.
Pleasure jabbed into Yellow-Spot and, in the midst of { } with Electric-Touch, she didn’t at first know where it was coming from. The dull ache was abating. She felt a warm tingle at the injury site. Only when she pulled away from the { } with Electric-Touch did it become clear that Sweet-Berries had applied Paste to the wound. Now that pain was no longer at the fore, the blind hole in her vision was even more evident. But it also meant she could now concentrate on what the gods were saying.
Yellow-Spot had to concentrate, but she could make out the words. “… surrender, Bee-Fuckers!”
The word “bee” hung in Yellow-Spot’s mind. A god had once shown Yellow-Spot a “bee” on the god’s magic window. Yellow and black, it looked nothing like a person. And tiny. In fact, the god said, the picture on the magic window was biggerthan an actual bee.
“Then why call us bees?” Yellow-Spot had asked.
The god paused, probably translating Yellow-Spot’s visual language into the god’s spoken one. Then the god said, “It’s just a name.”
“It’s not a name of respect,”the demon had said.
Presently Yellow-Spot looked between the fronds to see two gods about ten body-lengths from her. Halfway between them and her appeared the demon. Now its body took on a blue color, as if it was growing fur.
One of the gods was lying down; she was covered in red liquid. God-blood. The other stood, with its “gun” pointed somewhere Yellow-Spot couldn’t readily see. She’d labeled the god an “it” because it was like a Drone, only intelligent like its Queen partner.
“Only animals have Drones and Queens that are alike,”the demon said.
Yellow-Spot looked at her sisters, certain they’d give some indication they’d seen the demon. They did not.
“We destroyed your copter,” said a god Yellow-Spot couldn’t see. She must’ve missed part of the conversation.
“And that’s reason for surrender?” said the intelligent Drone. “More like reason for war!”
“You provoked it with the copter flight,” the unseen god said.
“That flight was routine. We’ve done it before to assess the progress of the Von Neumanns.”
“Ha! Unlikely story. Von Neumann machines by definition don’t need supervision: they reproduce and build on their own.” The god came out of its tree cover and charged toward the other. It held out its “gun” and the thunder of fire discharge sounded.