While Matthew went off on his lectures and crusades, she spent her days working here. Though Orli still felt an occasional bittersweet twinge that she hadn’t had children of her own, these compies were enough. She and Matthew had agreed that it was enough.
MO brought her lunch, precisely at noon. “Your favorite, Orli. I’ve prepared a special dish that’s exactly what you’ll like.”
Orli made a point of appreciating whatever MO created, though she had never given the Domestic compy any guidance as to which foods she actually liked. MO simply worked her way through numerous recipes in a catalogue and pronounced each one a delicious masterpiece.
MO hovered to take away her tray as soon as she finished the last bite. “Was it delicious?”
“It was delicious, MO.”
DD came cheerfully into her office as she finished her meal. “A message just came in from your husband, delivered by a trader to Relleker.”
“Thank you, DD,” she said. Matthew preferred to record his messages and send them the old-fashioned way, rather than via a green priest, who would transmit the words through the worldforest network. He wanted his own voice, his own expression. Orli thought he just liked to hear himself.
She activated the transmission and saw his face: the dark hair, the faint crow’s-feet around his eyes, the pale blue gaze that she had once found so riveting, especially when they sat across the table from each other and discussed compy problems. Now, he looked tired, his expression haggard.
When he sent messages, Matthew did not use endearments. He had never been the romantic sort, and Orli had learned not to expect that of him. He had recorded this message some days ago and managed to avert his eyes so that he wasn’t looking at Orli on the screen. He seemed troubled.
“Orli,” he said as if addressing a business correspondent, “I’ll be back at Relleker in a week. We… we need to talk.”
Compies would never identify nuanced expressions or tonalities, but Orli heard something in Matthew’s voice, and she was already convinced she wouldn’t like what he had to say.
TWENTY-FIVE
TOM ROM
Heading toward the empty Klikiss city and into the gathering darkness, Tom Rom went far from the camp and lay on the ground, staring up at the stars. He felt safe in the open aloneness, wearing the armor of his own confidence.
The sketchy records he had found about Eljiid made no mention of dangerous nocturnal predators. He wasn’t worried. Tom Rom was never worried. He had taught himself to sleep lightly, and he always awoke feeling rested, and ready.
When the dawn washed over him, he rose to see the distorted alien towers that looked like pockmarked termite mounds. The nearby Klikiss city was empty, but he knew many insectoid bodies remained inside, preserved where they had fallen after the end of the last swarming. He had his autopsy kit and specimen containers. He would find what Zoe Alakis wanted.
During his trip to the transportal nexus at Rheindic Co, Tom Rom had studied all public information, as well as three classified reports, on Klikiss physiology. Dissections of the various Klikiss castes had already been done; one report was so detailed it was called An Atlas of the Klikiss Body, but the work was merely documentary—images, measurements, some limited chemical analysis—without any insightful conclusions. From the images, he had identified the “royal jelly” gland that Zoe wanted to investigate. None of the other scientists had even postulated what purpose the organ might have served.
In preparation for this mission, Tom Rom had also worked his way through the complex and confusing tome, The Song of the Breedex, which gave insight into the culture and history of the violent insect race, but he found it irrelevant. He only wanted to harvest what Zoe needed.
Brushing himself off from where he had slept, he took a sip of tepid water from his pack, ate a flavorless nutrient bar, and shouldered the pack. He had brought cutting tools, gloves, and a sterile mask—just in case. If he worked efficiently, he could be gone from Eljiid in a day. Zoe would be waiting for him.
As dawn brightened, he made his way through long shadows into the alien metropolis and searched for one of the ground-level doors. There were numerous openings at other levels, out of reach. He left spots of marker paint along his path, not wanting to get lost inside the hive labyrinth. The structures seemed similar to other Klikiss ruins, and Tom Rom was confident he could find his way. Locating a door, he entered.
The walls were made of a resinous cement, covered with spidery writing and complex symbols that extended out in shattered angles—Klikiss math and scientific principles. The powdery air smelled stale. This environment would have mummified the fallen insect bodies, preserving organs inside their exoskeletons.
All he needed was to find some cadavers.
He wandered through the empty insect city, following the curved tunnels, climbing up ramps. Finally, in a large open chamber, he found twenty alien bodies. The Klikiss drones looked like three-meter-high cockroaches with plated abdomens, multiple-segmented arms, flat heads. Each Klikiss caste had the soft thorax organ that would be filled with the glandular royal jelly.
Alone in the chamber, Tom Rom set up his lights, unrolled his pack, put on his gloves and mask, then withdrew his tools: a wide-bladed knife, a narrow hatchet if the exoskeleton proved too tough, jawlike spreaders, and tongs. Tipping up the head of the first drone, he cracked open the thorax. From the dissection records, he knew approximately where to find the gland. With gloved fingers, he dug around in the soft gelatinous tissue, but he was too clumsy with the first specimen. He ruptured the gland, mangling the job so that the thick, nearly hardened jelly oozed out. Contaminated, useless for Zoe’s purposes.
But there were other bodies to choose from. He exercised greater care with the next cadaver. After cracking the shell with the point of his knife, he used the spreader to open it wider. Using the tongs to move tissue aside, he exposed the gland at the base of the creature’s throat.
It was spongy and misshapen, gray-green in color, a swollen pustule filled with half-crystallized liquid. Taking care not to puncture the membrane, he snipped out the gland—intact—and placed it in a specimen container.
Technically, that was all Zoe needed to run her tests, but since there were numerous other Klikiss bodies lying here for the taking, he decided to increase his sample size. This would give the Pergamus researchers much more to work with. Also, if the royal jelly did prove to have exceptional health properties, Zoe would want to have more of it.
Practiced now, he cracked open another thorax, extracted the gland, and added it to the specimen container. He discarded the mangled Klikiss body and worked on the next one, and the next. In less than an hour, he filled three large specimen containers, sealed each one, and sterilized the exteriors. His gloves and sleeves were covered with ichor and slime, but his breathing mask remained seated in place. Only two more drone bodies left to harvest.
From the chamber doorway, he heard a loud, disgusted gasp. The disheveled-looking Mr. Bolam stood wide-eyed, as if ready to vomit. “What the hell are you doing? Those are specimens, protected by a Confederation Act. You can’t just—”
Tom Rom carefully stripped off his gloves and tossed them aside. He applied a sterilizing gel to his skin, just in case he had been exposed to any fluids. “Do you think the Klikiss care? Or are you one of those who believes the bodies are still alive and just hibernating?” All around him, the harvested Klikiss bodies lay sprawled in oozing pools. Even through his mask he could smell an odd, putrid odor that wafted up from the cracked insect shells.