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She'd bumps and bruises enough getting in and Out of capsules and didn't want
to risk any more.
She was no sooner hidden than the door slid open and she `sensed'
her cousin Roddie. His mind was full of his duty and his concern for his
charge. He'd ordered some specially succulent tropical fruits she'd shown a
real interest in fruit until just recently: eating and saving pips and seeds.
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She wasn't even doing that lately. He had to stimulate her appetite, somehow,
someway. The xenobs and xenzoos were getting vehement about her lack of
interest in the larvae. Those things could die from neglect just like the
young of any species. If the Queen didn't make a move to attend them soon,
they'd have to be taken from her to join the programme. Two had made
successful transitions to the next step in their life cycle . . Roddie only
knew the fact not the reality of the transition.
Zara congratulated herself on being on time. She wasn't too late.
She'd help the poor Queen. She'd save her. The sounds of scuffling continued.
`Right. The fruit first,' and Zara followed Roddie's mind as he delivered
sweet-perfumed melons to the occupant of Heinlein Base.
`Bingo!' he said.
His irreverent attitude towards important things had always raised dislike in
his cousins and, despite having heard his mental ruminations, it roused Zara's
enmity. She followed his second `port.
Felt his confusion. `Hey, now, what's that?' `What's what, Generated by ABC
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Lieutenant?' `I don't quite know, Sergeant, but I think I should find out.'
Horrified, Zara took a deep breath and followed the direction of his last
`port and slipped on the congealed juices of many ripe fruits, falling
backwards and cracking her head against a larval sac.
For a long moment, Zara was stunned. And then she felt terribly cold: as if
every fibre of her body was frozen. Zara paused, knowing perfectly well that
the temperature of the base was kept at 32
degrees Celsius. Then she looked down at the motionless body of the Queen. It
was a lot larger than Zara realized: taller than she was, though she wasn't
tall: short for a Lyon, in fact. Not for a
Gwyn. Fleetingly she remembered Rojer telling her how much she resembled her
grandmother.
Well, she did, and she was here for a purpose.
And she had part of the answer. 32 degrees Celsius was not warm enough for an
egg-laying queen nor the eggs around here. Zara sensed terrible hunger,
terrible weakness, fear of leaving a. task undone.
Solitude! Hunger! Cold! Strangeness everywhere.
Cold! Hunger!
Zara Raven-Lyon? What are you doing down there? She stared up at the
Observation Module, aware she was dripping rancid fruit juice.
She's cold! She's bloody freezing to death! She's frozen, that's why she can't
eat. Turn up the temperature. Get more shavings down here to cover her and her
eggs or you're going to lose them all.
How under the seventy suns of the Alliance do you know that, Zara
Lyon?
Hive minds are female. The Rowan and everyone else who heard the
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Hive Many Mind were female.
I'm female! She's cold! Turn up the heat!
I've already turned it. And I'm turning you up here to face heat of another
kind, young lady!
Zara felt him touch her, to `port her to the Module. She resisted, grinning.
Did you forget, Cousin Rhodri, that I'm T-i? You can't lift me unless I want
to come.
I suggest, said another voice with great authority and no humour, that you
lift yourself into the Module immediately, Zara Gwyn-Lyon!
Grandmother Rowan, don't make me until she's warm enough to eat because she
needs help and I'll give it to her if no-one else will!
Why you cheeky little snip!
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A male chuckle spared Zara from matching strengths with her grandmother. She's
come a long way to do this, Rowan, and it was her grandfather. Since she's
brave enough to be there, and may be correct in her diagnosis, let's give her
the chance to prove it. Otherwise, the experts are fearful we will lose the
Queen.
Over the next two hours, Zara removed what she could to reach some comfort for
herself in what became midsummer tropical heat. But the
Queen began to move, began to eat, and Zara pushed more and more food close
enough for her to grasp it with her palps.
When the bales of shavings appeared, Zara piled them around the eggs and the
larvae. Her cousin sent her down something to drink to ease her own parched
throat, a sweat-band and replaced towels as soon
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as they became sopping.
Then slowly, the Queen worked herself free of her egg pile, crawling forward
on her upper limbs.
Zara, keeping a respectful distance from those long arms and powerful-looking
palps, remounded the shavings. The Queen continued to eat. When she stopped,
Zara moved as far from her as she could, with the larvae in between. The Queen
busied herself with adding more shavings, as if criticizing Zara's efforts.
Then she went into stationary mode.
Zara could sense nothing.
You've done what you set out to do, Zara, now report to the
Module, her grandmother said but she didn't sound angry even if her statement
of what Zara was to do now was not something Zara would, or could, disobey. I
suggest that you shower before you join us on
Callisto. There was a thread of amusement in that addition.
`I'm in for it though,' Zara thought, `but I did do what I set out to do. And
the Queen will live now!' To her surprise those on the
Module did not attack her, or put a guard over her. The first thing
Captain Waygella did was hold her nose and suggest a clean-up for the first
priority.
`We've got a good recycling plant in the Module but, child, you'll use up all
the deodorants for the month.' So Zara was led, at a jog trot, to the sanitary
facility, someone thrust a big towel in her hand and someone else a
knee-length tunic and some soft-soled station shoes.
Only when she picked up her suit, after a long shower, did Zara realize the
pong she'd given off. At arm's length she pinched two
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fingers on the leg and thrust it into the disposal.
Then she scrubbed the fingers again.
She was just opening the door, noting a female soldier outside when she was
arbitrarily `ported to the shuttle and beside the carrier she'd hidden behind.
In you get, chi(d, her grandfather said. We'll spare you what publicity we
can.
Zara `sensed' that Jeff Raven wasn't exactly angry with her, more surprised
than angry, but it was only him she could be sure of on that score.
She was right about that for when she arrived at Callisto, she was met in the
yard by Gollee Gren, her grandfather's first assistant, and the man who
decided where Talents should be placed when they were old enough to have
official assignments.
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