As Lara’s belly grew larger, I came to understand more words: death, grave, sorrow, and alone. Her next larva came sooner and was a smaller bundle they placed in the earth.
“Lara Juan food,” I insisted, pushing a bead of hardened nectar toward her. “Baby big. Baby strong. Friend food. Eat. No baby death.”
She stroked one of my antennae with a finger. I absorbed her melancholy. Worse than that was the horrible sensation she passed into me, making my exoskeleton feel as though it were fracturing and my insides oozing out through the cracks. She took the nugget of nectar, yet she didn’t eat it. She placed it on a table inside her chamber where I was not allowed.
I knew I should have looked for another queen, but I couldn’t bear to. The Black-Eyed Queen was the only one I wanted now.
The long warm season began to dwindle. Soon it would be winter. I dug deeper in the earth, knowing I would need to stay where it was warm. I dug a chamber where I stored leaves and dry beads of nectar. I explored farther and farther from the human camp to collect fuzzipillar eggs and small hatchlings for the winter stores.
When the first frost came, my Black-Eyed Queen stood at the entrance of my tunnel, calling me in a whisper. “Rover, come.”
I came. She snuck me into the chamber and hid me beneath a table under an unpalatable, fuzzy leaf she called a “blanket.”
“Secret. Juan doesn’t know,” she told me. Juan did not notice me as he stayed in the other room with her.
She did this many more times when the light of day waned and the air chilled with night. I did not like her coming out of the warmth of her chambers where predators like the night arachnipedes might capture her. I learned to listen for her opening the door. In the morning I returned to my tunnels in the slightly warmer hours when the sun came up and Drone Juan was not yet awake.
One day her drone caught her in the act of bringing me inside. He raised his voice to his queen and spoke many insolent words I dare not repeat. It is still too painful to imagine anyone could speak this way to a queen. Though she was barren for a time, she was a queen again now, for she was growing another larva within her, though it was too small to show as of yet.
The Black-Eyed Queen argued with her drone. Just when I thought she’d put him in his place, he raised a hand and struck her across the face.
My nerves exploded into a frenzy. I turned about in a circle, unable to comprehend what I had seen. My queen was sobbing now, screaming at her drone as he screamed back at her. I toppled over a chair. My head swam with dizzying anger in the enclosed space. The drone kicked out at me but missed. The hot, tart rankness of anger pressed in on me, becoming unbearable as the drone grabbed the Black-Eyed Queen by the shoulders and shook her.
I couldn’t tolerate it any longer. I grabbed him by the leg with my mandibles and flung him off her. He stumbled back into the shelves of what they called books and knocked over stores of items I couldn’t identify. My bead of nectar rolled onto the floor, shriveled and small.
She spoke with the cool authority of a queen, though I couldn’t hear her words with the way their emotions buzzed against my antennae. I stayed by her side as she packed her bags, bundled herself up, and left.
How I wished she would let me take her inside the tunnels I had dug. “Fuzzipillars warm. Rover hive food.”
She shook her head and continued on, the claw covers she called boots crackling against the rough ice on the ground. I moved slowly, the chill of the wind rattling through my armor and slowing my pace. She knocked on the door of the Black-Eyed Drone she called Marco, her larva mate, and his Green-Eyed Queen named Ellen. They allowed us to come in.
The Black-Eyed Queen stayed with her larva mate and this ally queen. She now had no drone of her own. Her people only took one drone at a time. Was this my chance to mate with her? I spat up a bead of nectar.
“Food gift. Lara eat. Lara strong. Baby food.”
She sat on a chair next to the other queen. “I don’t have a baby right now.”
“Yes. Lara baby. Lara eat nectar food.” I nudged the nectar closer with my mandibles.
Lara touched a hand to her flat belly. For once, the idea of growing a larva didn’t please her.
“Let me see that.” Drone Marco took the nectar bead from the ground and held it up to the artificial light.
“No. Lara gift. Not Marco gift.”
He made each word clear and slow like she did. “Lara can’t eat this gift. It isn’t food for humans. It will make her sick.”
“No give sick. Old baby of Lara sick and death.” I tried to explain. “Dirt, worm eat. Worm milk, plants eat. Plants, fuzzipillars eat. Fuzzipillars, spider eat. Dead spider, dirt eat.” There were many more species that ate each other but I didn’t want to confuse them. “All eat nectar. All babies eat nectar, no death.”
I repeated myself, uncertain whether they understood the cycle. Every creature had to eat nectar, even if they didn’t get it directly from the plants. It’s what made us healthy. It’s what made drones compatible with other hives’ queens. We were all linked through nectar.
Drone Marco nodded. “Interesting. There may be something to this.”
He turned to me. “I will take Lara’s gift with me to the lab. We will examine it and see if it’s safe.” There was hope of her at last accepting my offering. They allowed me to accompany them deeper into the catacomb of their hills, others of their kind skirting away when they saw me. Once inside the white room, Drone Marco cut my offering into little bits and placed them on glass. He examined many pieces, pointing to the wall where pictures of bubbles and dots appeared. They glowed the same amber as the nectar.
I tried to clamp my mandibles around the vision of honey on the wall, but they only met air. There was no taste of sweet that my antennae could pick up.
He pointed to black dots in the amber which he called bacteria. He showed us many other pictures, using his magic box to enlarge the minuscule. “This is the disease that has been killing those with impaired immune systems, our elderly, and the unborn.” Drone Marco pointed to red, squirming worms in another picture he made on the wall. Again many of his words were lost on me. I still understood the color red: the marking of death among this hive and signal of mothrafly poison among mine. I wondered if these red worms were what caused their aversion to the gentle cow-worms.
The Black-Eyed Queen created pictures of her own, mixing the red worms with my gift. We all watched and waited. The taste of the air changed: the salty sweet of hope.
Other humans came from adjoining chambers to join us. The Black-Eyed Queen pointed to the black dots surrounding the red worms. “I think this nectar has natural antimicrobial properties. This might be why the native species on this planet aren’t affected like we are.” I didn’t understand all that she said, but I knew she was pleased as her fingers smoothed over my antennae.