Next, she pulled out sealed bags of dried moss. It had been a method she had learned in London, before she came out to France, where they used sphagnum moss as an absorbent surgical dressing for wounds in war hospitals. Here on this world, it proved a Godsend, once they had located a suitable source.
She packed the wounds with the moss and bandaged them using lengths of silk that the chatts provided. She hoped that it would bring the ovipositor swelling down enough to allow the passing of eggs. The dressings would have to be changed every couple of hours. That, for now, was all she could do.
Tired, she found a nook out of the way of the constant scuttling, crawled into it and hugged her bag to her. The ability to sleep anywhere, at any time, was a skill the Fusiliers had long since mastered, and one she had soon acquired. Despite her unfamiliar surrounding and the constant, unsettling chittering, she fell quickly and deeply asleep.
SHE WOKE SEVERAL times throughout the night; or at least, she assumed it was still night. Down here, in the bowels of the edifice, it was hard to tell. She changed the dressings on the wounds and found that, whatever the hour of day or night, the level of attendance to the Queen did not drop.
The chatt who had conducted her attended her closely. It watched her, intently, so she taught it as she went along, seeing it not as a repulsive chatt, but another creature wanting to care for others. On the other hand, it would probably kill her if it looked as if she was harming the Queen in any way. They probably all would. She tried to push that thought to the back of her mind.
The dressings seem to have done their work. The wounds were less inflamed and the tube was looking less swollen. As to what had caused the wounds, she couldn’t say, but she did wonder how such injuries were possible in a place where the Queen was cosseted and cared for every hour of the day. If Sirigar did not cause this, it had certainly gained great capital from it, seeking to blame the illness and possible reproductive crisis on the ‘Great Corruption’. If the Queen had not responded to Edith’s treatment, the chances of the Pennines’ survival would be very bleak indeed.
She turned her attention back to the task in hand. Had she done enough to ease the egg blockage?
Parting the fleshy sheath, once again Edith eased her hand into the ovipositor canal. Gently but firmly, she pushed her arm up inside. There had been some improvement. She could pass her hand beyond the swelling now. At full stretch, she could feel an egg with the tips of her fingers, pressing against the wall of the canal. She struggled and flexed, trying to get another inch or so of reach. After a minute or two of frustration, her fingers finally curled round the far edge of the egg and she managed to retrieve it, scooping it slowly down the canal. Almost immediately, another slid down. Matters would improve as the swelling reduced.
When she delivered the pearlescent egg to the waiting chatt, a wave of excited chittering passed round the chamber. It almost sounded like soft, polite applause.
Edith glanced up along the ovipositor, over the vast, throbbing, translucent abdomen to the small thorax and head high above her, and saw the Queen staring back down at her over its vast bulk.
As soon as Edith delivered them, the chatts took the eggs to the nursery chamber, each one carried away with awe and reverence.
It might be days before the infection was gone, but she showed the chatt what to do. Its slender arm and longer fingers might be better suited to retrieving the eggs than hers.
In response to some unspoken command, Edith found herself manhandled, despite her mild protestations, from one chatt to another and guided swiftly up the incline of the spiral gallery until she reached the audience gantry. There, ushered by the arthropod attendants, she stepped out to come face to face with the Queen itself; with the greater part of its obscene bulk hidden below like an iceberg, the portion Edith faced looked natural, or as natural as these creatures ever could.
With feeble arms, it beckoned Edith closer. She took a faltering step toward it. The Queen leaned forward, waving its long antennae at her as an attendant tried to feed it from a bowl. The Queen chittered at it. It froze, not comprehending its instructions. The Queen spoke again, more forcefully this time. With reluctance, the attendant turned and proffered the bowl to Edith. Unsure as to the etiquette of the situation, Edith pointed to herself.
“Me? You want me to eat?”
The chatt offered the bowl again. There was no mistaking the gesture. Those chatts nearby halted briefly in their tasks to watch.
“It is an honour no urman has ever been given,” said the chatt, watching her.
Edith looked at the grey, glutinous and masticated jelly in the bowl. It didn’t look at all appetising. She could feel her stomach rebelling just looking at it. Seeing no way to decline politely, she smiled weakly at the Queen, cupped her hand and slipped her fingers into the warm gelatinous mess.
The Queen watched expectantly.
Edith took a deep breath and spooned her fingers into her mouth. She gagged a little at the thick and slimy texture, and had to force herself to swallow it. It was curiously filling, and it was a struggle to finish the bowl. She could feel it rising back up her throat and she swallowed hard, determined to keep it down.
The Queen watched in approval, unblinking.
Unsure what to do next, Edith gave a little curtsy. Another attendant ushered her away along the gantry as others resumed the chores of feeding and cleaning their Queen. Her royal audience was over.
Edith reached the other side of the royal chamber and looked back. They had forgotten her presence already. Down below, chatts once more resumed the collection of eggs.
A chatt led her down another passage to another circular plant door. The chatt breathed on it and the circular plant portal shrivelled open to reveal Rhengar.
“Come,” it said before stopping. It looked at her, tilting its head to one side like a curious dog, its long antennae waving in an agitated manner. Then it did something Edith had not expected. It knelt before her, touching its head and thorax in reverence.
CHAPTER EIGHT
PADRE RAND VACILLATED all night. It had just been a dream, a hallucination, nothing more. How could it be anything else? Then he looked around at the small chamber, here in an edifice of arthropods on an alien world. The comfortable boundaries of what was and was not had shifted. Anything seemed possible. Here, so far from Earth, God had spoken to him, as He had to His people of old. He had asked something of him and the Padre wondered if he would find himself wanting.
He hadn’t truly understood the function of the rite last time. The Khungarrii called it the Kirrijandat, the cleansing, a ritual ordeal meant to be a symbolic pupation for urmen, a casting off of old ways, a rededication. If he wanted to, he could see it as a re-baptism, a Confirmation. But for God to ask this of him? Now he comprehended the night terrors. But if it was the Lord’s will, then so be it.
The plant door dilated open and Chandar waited outside the small chamber.
The Padre got to his feet with a groan as he felt pins and needles prickle his feet and calves.
He nodded to the chatt. “It’s done,” he said.
“This One has spent the night meeting with members of the Shura. They are willing to consider a supplication of the scents,” said Chandar as the Padre joined him. “Sirigar now knows that this One has something of importance to say, but does not yet know what. Many of the Shura are convinced by Sirigar’s words, that the Queen’s illness is the taint of the Great Corruption spread by the Tohmii. Singar will call for the scentirrii to march once more and eradicate your clan for good.”