Dublin raised an eyebrow. “So you think we should be kind to the Formics? Even though they want to annihilate us?”
“As I said, it is a complicated question and a complicated answer,” Wila said. “What is a Formic? Why did they come? Do we truly understand their mind? Is our own conscious mind fully awake on the subject? You say they want to annihilate us, but is that their goal?”
“They killed forty million people in China,” Dublin said. “They murdered children and families indiscriminately. They would have kept going if we hadn’t stopped them. Their intentions seem pretty obvious to me.”
“Yes, to you,” Wila said. “But would the Formics agree with your assessment? Would they think your interpretation of their motivations correct? I am not trying to defend their actions or condone the atrocities they committed. I only mean to propose that we do not understand the Formic mind. And until you understand the mind, you understand nothing.”
Dublin frowned and scratched at the side of his mouth.
“I have upset you again,” said Wila. “My apologies.”
“Stop apologizing. You haven’t upset me. I’m just surprised. I’ve never met anyone who takes the Formics’ side before.”
“You misunderstand me, Dr. Dublin. I do not take any creature’s side. I merely seek to understand it. I cannot relieve the suffering of something I do not understand.”
Dublin shrugged. “Well, no one here objects to learning more about the Formics or seeking to understand them. That’s one of the purposes of this facility. But you’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone else on board who wants to show the Formics any compassion.”
“I recognize that my viewpoint is unique, Dr. Dublin. That is why I do not generally discuss it openly.”
“I read your dissertation,” said Dublin. “Or most of it anyway. There were some dry parts I skimmed over.”
Wila suppressed a smile. Dublin was someone who had no clue how his candor could come off as offensive.
“You’re not the only person to find fault with my dissertation,” Wila said. “I was not awarded my degree.”
He shrugged. “What’s a piece of paper? As you said, it is the mind that matters. If you achieved greater enlightenment, who cares what the academic bozos think?”
Wila blinked, a little startled. “I have never looked at it from that perspective. Which is embarrassing since that is obviously the Buddhist perspective. Of course you are right. I see now that I allowed pride to keep me from reaching the same conclusion.”
He waved her gratitude away. “Your theories on the Hive Queen. Some of them were fascinating. Some downright strange.”
“They should seem strange. The Hive Queen is alien by definition. She evolved from a completely different protein structure. Every aspect of her life—physical, emotional, psychological, biological—should feel incongruent with our own.”
“You speak as if her existence is an incontrovertible fact.”
“Not at all,” said Wila. “She is a theory. But we do have observational data to suggest that a being like the Hive Queen probably exists. It is a creature with mental abilities and influence unlike anything our planet has ever seen. Her mind can reach across vast distances instantaneously and command an army of Formics. And the power of that command is so strong that all Formics obey it without hesitation or resistance. The Hive Queen could be another species, certainly, but the more likely scenario is that she is an alpha of the same species. A super Formic of sorts. Nearly identical genetically to her offspring, but different enough to endow her with a heightened mental awareness and connectivity. She must be able to think for tens of thousands of her children at once. She sees what each Formic sees, and processes all that data simultaneously.”
“So the Formics are her puppets.”
“Puppet might be too strong of a word as that would imply absolute and total control. I think it more likely that the Formics each have their own mental capacity. So she orders them to attack, but she doesn’t dictate every swing of their weapon, or parry, or feint.”
“Maybe they simply have a hive mind that self-governs,” said Dr. Dublin. “Maybe their collected conscience is all there is. They are aware of each other and always act in the interest of the hive.”
“Perhaps,” said Wila. “But there are other signs that hint at a Hive Queen’s existence. You are familiar with the disembowelment ritual that the Formics performed on slain humans?”
“I usually don’t discuss it over a bowl of oatmeal, but yes. You mean when a Formic finds a human corpse, cuts open the stomach, and then reaches up inside the chest cavity.”
“Any idea why they would do that?” Wila asked.
“I’ve heard theories,” said Dublin. “None of them very convincing, truth be told. One idea is that the Formics are looking for the human heart so that they might squeeze it in a show of respect. A warrior’s ritual, acknowledging the bravery of a slain enemy. Another idea is the opposite view, that they are desecrating our dead, mocking us. A third idea is that they are planting something inside the corpses, but a study of disemboweled people after the war found no evidence of that.” He shrugged. “You have a theory?”
“What is the most valuable asset of any community?” Wila asked. “Particularly a warrior culture? What resource must they protect more than any other?”
Dublin shrugged. “Their food supply?”
“Their womb,” said Wila. “If the women of their community cannot birth children, their culture will die out.”
“You think the Formics cut people open looking for a womb? They disemboweled women as often as men. The Formics found wombs. And yet they kept looking. Rooting around inside women didn’t slow their search.”
“Ah. So you agree that they were searching for something,” Wila said.
“It seemed that way,” said Dublin. “It looked more like a search than a warrior ritual, at least.”
“If the Hive Queen exists,” said Wila. “And if she is the alpha of their species, the one who controls all others in her community, she is, in essence, the voice of her people. Agreed?”
Dublin nodded. “I suppose.”
“And if she finds a species that is violently resistant to her wishes and is killing her offspring by the thousands, it stands to reason that she would want to communicate with that species. To demand their surrender, for example. Or to threaten them with worse destruction. Or to seek a truce. Or maybe even to send them a command like she does to her own soldiers. Wouldn’t that make her life easier if she could simply send us a mental command and we would all obey it? Put down your weapons, humans. Stop this resistance. Take your own lives. Flee this land we are claiming for our own. Whatever. Many people in the war witnessed what came to be known as the ‘stare.’ Formics, when they cornered a human, often paused for a moment and fixed their gaze upon the individual before delivering the fatal blow. No one knows why. Personally, I believe in those instances the Hive Queen was trying to communicate with the individual. She was sending a mental command or message to the human. But of course our minds are not designed to receive it. She is screaming at us, and we are deaf to her cries.”
“Possibly,” agreed Dublin.
“And for the Hive Queen this would be infuriating and baffling,” said Wila. “Why won’t they answer? Why don’t they respond? Maybe she even deems our behavior as a show of defiance. Maybe she believes we can hear her but are refusing to answer. But sooner or later she will begin to question herself. Can they hear me? Do they have the capacity to receive my commands? And so she orders her offspring to search for the Formic organ that receives the mental commands. The organ inside each one of them that enables them to receive her messages. The organ that has some biochemical process that sends messages to the Formic brain for processing. Just as our eyes take in light and send messages to our brains for processing.”
“But if that’s true,” said Dublin, “then why do the Formics keep looking? The Formics would know after searching a single human that we do
n’t have the organ. If they all share intelligence, then they would all have known that the organ isn’t present as soon as the first Formic looked for it and failed to find it. There would be no reason to keep digging around inside other people.”
Wila smiled. “Ah, but there is. If we entertain the idea that the Hive Queen is an alpha of her species, with capabilities beyond those of her children, then her anatomy would be different from that of her children. Just as the anatomy of queen bees or wasps or ants is different from their workers.”
“So the Formics aren’t looking for the receiver organ,” said Dublin, “they’re looking for the organ that can transmit. They’re looking for our Hive Queen.”
“That is my belief, yes,” said Wila. “The Hive Queen is the queen of her hive. She is not the queen of her entire species. On her world, there are likely many Hive Queens. So she would be accustomed to communicating with alpha creatures like herself. She would negotiate with them, govern with them, perhaps even war against them. There would be communication among them. But with us, there is nothing. And the only explanation for that silence is that our Hive Queen must be dead. So she searches for that confirmation. Find me the Hive Queen, she says. She must be different from the others just as I am different from you. Find her so that I might study her and learn of her and understand this species.”
Dublin sat back, his oatmeal finished. “An interesting theory. But of course it can’t be proven.”
“Most of what we assume about the Formics can’t be proven,” said Wila. “But that should not keep us from hypothesizing and testing what we can.”
“The reason you were offered this job, Wila, was because of your theories on the hull construction and the idea that the Hive Queen uses a multitude of creatures to do her bidding and build her ships. Dr. Benyawe gave more credence to your theory than I did, but I’ve been on a holo with Lem Jukes for the past few hours and I think you might be on to something. Lem has gathered new intelligence on the asteroids the Formics have confiscated. I’m to call a meeting as soon as everyone is awake and get the entire staff working on this. I think involving everyone is a waste of time, though, because if anyone is going to understand this and figure it out, it’s you.”
He removed a data cube from his wrist pad and set it on the table in front of her. “Look over this and tell me what you think. What are we to understand from this? What are the Formics doing? What are these creatures doing? What is the Hive Queen planning?”
Dublin stood. “It’s funny. As soon as the conference holo with Lem was over, I knew I needed to find you. And when I passed the cafeteria, heading toward my quarters, going a route I would not normally have taken, here you were, sitting by yourself under a single spotlight.” He smiled and put his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. “I can’t help but wonder if perhaps God isn’t indifferent after all.” He moved for the door. “I’ll see you at the meeting. Get a jump on this if you can.”
Wila picked up the data cube when he was gone. She should not have taken this job. They thought her more capable than she actually was. She was not an expert. She was a consumer and regurgitator of theories. Yes, she understood biochemistry, but it’s not like she was the world’s leading authority on the subject. And anyway, there was nothing biochemical under her microscope to explore.
She pocketed the data cube, tossed her cup in the trash, tucked her prayer book and tablet under her arm, and hurried to the top floor of the station. The porthole she frequented was in the ceiling of a small domed alcove with a wraparound padded bench and a few throw pillows. As many as eight or nine people could fit in here at once to study or meditate, but Wila had always found it unoccupied, as if it were her secret place of prayer. She slid the data cube into her tablet and went through all the videos, e-mails, reports, and data. Her heart leaped with she saw the grubs eat ice and then excrete pristine pellets of frozen water. She watched that segment again and again, marveling at how a creature could purify a substance at the molecular level and then refreeze that purified portion into a consistent stackable shape.
It was nothing short of miraculous. That such a creature existed was a marvel. That it operated in such a structured and ordered fashion left Wila nearly breathless. Had the Formics found this creature? No. Impossible. It had been engineered by the Hive Queen. Just as we would design and manufacture a machine for the task, the Hive Queen had built a biological factory.
And not only that, but here was further evidence of trans-species philotic communication. For who could doubt that the Hive Queen sent an impulse command to these creatures. Chew! Break down! Isolate elements! Freeze ice! Stack!
When Wila read the analysis of the metal pellets, however, she paused. One of the pellets was pure silicon, which was strange. Silicon was almost never found in its pure form, especially not on asteroids. It was found in various forms of silicon dioxide or silicate compounds. Stony asteroids consisted predominately of silicate minerals—olivine, pyroxene, enstatite, and hundreds of other minerals. So silicon would certainly be plentiful on an asteroid. But why would the Formics want it?
Wila set her tablet aside and lay back on the benches, staring up through the porthole at the Formic hull zipping past. Why silicon? The Formics weren’t making semiconductors or integrated circuits, which is what we would use it for. We had studied their recovered vessels after the war and found no evidence of computers of any sort on board. Formic vessels were more mechanical in nature, sometimes rudimentarily so. And yet Victor’s vid showed Formics harvesting a massive amount of silicon. More than any other metal, it seemed. And the Hive Queen would not harvest something she did not intend to use. The Hive Queen was many things, but wasteful wasn’t one of them.
Wila considered what she knew about silicon. It was a tetravalent metalloid. Like carbon it usually formed four bonds, but unlike carbon it could take on additional electrons to form five or six bonds. The four-bond structure allowed it to combine with all sorts of elements and compounds. The most common partner was probably oxygen, forming silicon dioxide, or silica, a network solid that could form various stable crystal structures depending on the orientation of the tetrahedrons. Sand, quartz, glass, silica-based gels, ceramics, and countless others.
Silicon was also a component of some superalloys, incredibly strong metals that were resistant to thermal creep deformation, corrosion, or oxidation. Nanoparticle synthesis had allowed for the creation of a wide variety of new superalloys since the First Formic War, many of which were used by Juke Limited to build the fleet.
And of course there was biogenic silica excreted by siliceous sea sponges.
Wila paused at that thought. Sea sponges. If there was an animal on Earth that felt as alien as the Formics, it was the sea sponge. Their cells could transform into other types and migrate between the main cell layer and the mesohyl. They got their food and oxygen from the water that flowed through their central cavity, depositing nutrients along the way. And most importantly, their skeletons were often made of spicules of silicon dioxide. These tiny star-shaped spicules fused together into tightly woven structures that grew upward from the seafloor.
Wila considered this: animals that built and wove with silica.
Wila’s thoughts returned to the pellets Victor had found. The purity of the silicon was very high, which was surprising. Normally such a pure state could only be achieved after repeated applications of refining technologies. And yet Victor had found no evidence of any refining process on the asteroid. No tools, no machines, just the bioengineered worms—leading Wila to assume that the silicon was formed in much the same way that the ice had been. Only instead of worms ingesting dirty ice to excrete pure ice, silicon-producing worms had ingested rock, separated the various minerals and elements in their gut, isolated the silicon, fused it together into a pellet, and then excreted the pellet into a pile. The process, if true, was even more astounding than the ice purifiers. How could a creature survive such a process? Human methods of refinement for silicon required electri
city and intense heat and complex machines. But Formics were doing it with worms. A tiny, self-contained, independent, biochemical system. It was unfathomable.
Wila marveled yet again at the genius and power of the Hive Queen. Not only did the Hive Queen have a vast understanding of chemistry and molecular structures, but she also clearly understood how to manipulate those structures into desired states. And what was even more impressive was how she did it. She didn’t operate out of a laboratory and rely upon highly sensitive computers that could detect and manipulate macromolecules; she built intelligent, living, breathing organisms to achieve those ends. It made Wila dizzy just to consider it. Nothing was more complex and intricate and massive in its scope than the genetic makeup of a living thing. It was miraculous to think that the Hive Queen could identify and understand macromolecules without the aid of computers, and it was even more miraculous that she could manipulate nucleic acids, proteins, and carbohydrates to achieve not just an animal, but an animal that could perform an incredibly complex chemical process. She hadn’t just made a worm—which by itself was an achievement. She had made a worm that could do the impossible.
Here again was evidence that the theory of philotes might be correct, thought Wila. Somehow, down at the subatomic level, the Hive Queen was connected to her offspring. Her philotes were entwined or entangled with the philotes of her children, which is what allowed her to communicate with them instantaneously, to send them impulses and thoughts that they understood. And if that was true, if the Hive Queen had the ability to create such a connection with those she birthed, it stood to reason that she could also create that same connection with an organism she engineered. She could, in essence, build in the communication mechanism. Why not? If she knew how to create a worm that processed silicon, why couldn’t she also engineer it to hear her thoughts?