Carlotta hated the Hive Queen, dead as she was. The Hive Queens' ability to communicate so perfectly with their daughters meant that there was no need for any kind of communications system. The Hive Queen could pilot the ship from anywhere. The pilot could be anywhere, too, with no need for visuals or even instruments, because whatever the Hive Queen knew from any of her daughters was known by all the others.
She stood over the Hive Queen's body while Ender took holoimages of the corpse.
"Don't touch it," Ender said. "She'll crumble into dust."
"So I guess this means interrogation is out of the question," said Carlotta.
"Go ahead and ask her anything," said Sergeant.
Carlotta didn't feel like joking any longer. "Somebody piloted this boat, and it wasn't her. But I can't trace the communications system because there isn't one."
Ender was oblivious to their concerns. "I've got all the images I can and they're stored back on Herodotus. So I'm going to take a sample."
"What happened to 'crumble into dust'?" asked Sergeant.
"I'll be careful," said Ender.
Carlotta saw that Ender really did have a delicate touch -- he lifted off sections of dried-up Hive Queen from various regions of the corpse, but never disturbed anything, or even pressed downward. Just nipped a bit, raising it as he did, and pushed it into self-sealing sample bags.
"The Formics were really good at genetics," said Carlotta.
"But no lab," said Ender. "Not here, anyway. Or their lab was the Queen's own ovaries. By an act of will she could decide when to extrude an egg that would become a new queen. And presumably to create an egg that would become a rab instead of a worker."
"It can't have been reflexive," said Sergeant. "She had to plan what she was doing, at least when she was making rabs."
"And while she was doing that," said Carlotta, "who was piloting the ship?"
"She was," said Ender.
"And who was tending to the ecotat, and who was doing maintenance everywhere, and who was reporting to the other Hive Queens on other worlds?"
"She was," said Sergeant. "Hive Queens are smarter than we are."
"Multitasking is fine, but was she really seeing and hearing the sensory input of all her workers at the same time, equally well? Or did she concentrate her attention where it was needed?"
"The individual Formic workers weren't just an extension of her mind," said Sergeant. "Not like hands and feet. More like perfectly obedient ... children."
"Somebody piloted this ship," said Carlotta, "and she wasn't there to control them. What if some of the Formic workers survived her death? If she wasn't controlling every thought in their heads, if they had the independence to learn their job and do it even when the Queen wasn't paying attention, then when she died, they could go on."
"No," said Sergeant. "It makes sense, but we know that every Formic worker died when the Hive Queens died. There were assault teams on some of the Formic planets when Wiggin killed the Hive Queens, and the human soldier reported that all the Formics stopped fighting at once. Stopped running, stopped doing anything. They lay down and died."
"But they lay down," said Carlotta.
"Dropped," said Sergeant.
"I read the same reports," said Ender. "They lay down. Some of them had vital signs for as long as half an hour. So Carlotta's right. There were at least some body systems in the workers that kept going for at least a little while after the Hive Queens died."
"What if this Hive Queen, knowing she was going to die, gave some of her workers instructions to keep piloting the ship?" asked Carlotta.
The others nodded. "We can't know what mechanism makes the Formics die when the Queen does," said Ender. "Maybe there's an exception."
"Let's find the helm and see," said Sergeant.
Carlotta looked out over the sea of rot that surrounded her. "Home sweet home," she said. "I'm trying to see this the way she did, when she was alive. All these little holes were like wombs for her eggs. All these slugs were being herded here to feed her and feed her babies."
Ender pointed up. "Don't forget the ceiling."
Carlotta looked up. Lots of stringy protuberances hung down from the highest points. A few of them had melon-sized balls hanging from them.
"What's that?" Carlotta asked.
"Cocoons. I'm sure they're all dead, but I'm going to want to take one back to the lab to study, if I can," said Ender. "Everything that's on the floor has been contaminated with that bacterial soup of decay. But larvae that cocooned themselves might still have clean genetic material I can study."
"Not our highest priority," said Sergeant.
"But not our lowest, either," said Ender. "We obviously have time to stop and chat. So let's collect a sample or two before we leave the Room of Goo."
"You going to take a slug back? And the bacteria?" asked Sergeant.
"Already collected samples of those on the way in."
"You were supposed to be our rear guard, not a prancing naturalist," said Sergeant.
"Nothing attacked us from behind," said Ender. "Hive Queens aren't the only ones who can multitask."
"Boys," said Carlotta. "Is this how our whole lives are going to be? The two of you sniping at each other?"
"Let's get one thing clear," said Ender. "Only one person has been sniping and it wasn't me. I've followed every order without complaint; I've criticized nothing. It's Sergeant who's determined to catch me doing something wrong. But I'm not. Carlotta said it -- the Hive Queens were expert geneticists, and they worked on their own genome to create the rabs. So what I collect here might teach us science that the human race hasn't developed on its own. It might save our lives."
"And here's where you're both so stupid it hurts," said Carlotta. "The illusion in here is so good that it fooled you both."
"What illusion?" asked Sergeant.
"The illusion of gravity," said Carlotta.
She watched in triumph as they realized: The cocoon wasn't going to drop when they cut it loose.
"But the other cocoons fell," said Ender lamely.
"During deceleration," said Carlotta. "The ship turned around and the rockets pushed upward to slow this big rock down. That's when the cocoons dropped."
"But all this liquid," said Sergeant. "It clings to the floor."
"It clings to the egg holes," said Carlotta. "It's not liquid, it's goo. Most of the voyage is in zero-gee. If the eggs and larvae need liquid to grow in, it has to be gelatinous so it stays put, or the Queen would be drowning in it."
Ender was, of course, extrapolating. "The Hive Queen needs an environment just like home," he said. "On a planet, the liquid might just be water, the larvae would climb to the ceiling to make their cocoons. So they make this place look like that and function like that even without gravity."
"Mags zero," said Sergeant. In a moment he was flying gently up to the nearest cocoon. With his laser pistol he deftly severed the stem, then floated back down holding the cocoon by that half of the stem.
Ender shrank an expandable bag around the cocoon and put it into the sample pack. "Thanks," he said.
"Now you'll try to baby that thing to keep from damaging it," said Sergeant. "Which means you won't be much help fighting."
"Sergeant," said Carlotta, "he learned a lot from the exploded rab corpse you brought back in the Puppy; he can learn from the DNA in a crushed cocoon. So he's not going to baby it, he's going to do his job."
"He was going to baby it," said Sergeant, "until you said that."
Ender slapped his sample pack. Hard. "Eh," he said. "Andrew Delphiki, reporting for duty, sir."
Sergeant couldn't help smiling. "Point taken. All right, Carlotta, where do you want to go?"
"The thing I'm afraid of," said Carlotta, "is going out the wrong door and letting in a bunch of feral rabs. They'd go for the new slugs and make hash of the working rabs if they tried to interfere."
"If we sedated them, then when they collide with this bacterial soup, I think they'll stick," said Ender. "If they don't drown, they'll dissolve."
"We'll do as little damage as possible," said Sergeant, "but there's no point in leaving the way we came, because the tracks just loop back to the starting point."
Carlotta agreed, but still had no advice about where to go. "The question is, will the helm be located at the hub, where it's equally distant from all the rockets and sensors, so all the controls and connections are the same length? Or at one edge, where it might have viewports?"
"If it has viewports," said Sergeant, "then
they'll be as far forward as possible, so that they get maximum
protection from the rock."
"But what good are viewports that only look in one direction?" asked Carlotta. "This ship has circular symmetry, there's no belly or back, like our ships have . So . . . more than one control room?"
Sergeant nodded. "And the control rooms are sealed off from each other, so damage to one doesn't cause atmosphere loss in the others."
"The pilots may be hiding from the feral rabs in just one of the control rooms," said Ender.
"So we go all the way forward," said Sergeant, "and then try for control rooms at the perimeter, exactly centered between the standpipes."
"Best view," said Carlotta.
"If the Formic workers ate these slugs, too," said Sergeant, "would there be a delivery system leading there?"
"I don't think so," said Ender. "The Hive Queen stays with the eggs and food comes to her. But the workers catch their meals between shifts."
"The question is, how far forward are we already?" asked Sergeant.
Good question. They had come a long way through the tram tunnel. "Map," said Carlotta.
A three-dimensional model of the ship seemed to
stand half a meter away, in front of her visor. Of course there was
nothing there at all -- it was just an illusion on the visor
itself. The visor could see where she looked and when she made a
little popping sound with her lips, it zoomed in. A click with her
tongue zoomed out.
"We're actually farther forward than the back of the rock," she said. "The Hive Queen is surrounded by rock above and at the sides. Anything with viewports is going to be aft of here."
"So we passed the helm getting here," said Sergeant, sounding frustrated.
Sergeant led the way to one of the five obvious doors at the perimeter.
"How did you pick this one?" asked Carlotta.
"Eeny meeny," said Sergeant.
At the door, they found the cloud of debris again and a couple of eager rabs. A shot of gas and Carlotta closed the door again. At the next door, it was the same, and this time Sergeant led them through, they closed the door behind them, and fogged their way through to a passage leading aft -- down, the way the corridors were oriented for Formics; to the right, the way they were oriented as they walked along the wall of the low wide tunnel so they could stand upright.
The passage was all afloat with the debris of feral rab life. "What are they finding to eat?" asked Carlotta.
"All the debris is rab body parts," said Ender. "They eat each other."
They were at a level now that Carlotta's map said should be just aft of the intersection of rock and hull. "If there are viewports at all, they could begin at this level."
"Maximum shelter," said Sergeant. "Let's give this level a shot."
They fogged the corridor and began to make the circuit. There were doors but they all led inward, toward the hub.
"Maybe we were wrong and the control room is in the hub," said Carlotta.
"Might as well see," said Sergeant.
They took up their standard positions at the door and Carlotta opened it.
It felt as if all the rabs on the ship leapt at her. Carlotta was knocked into the opposite wall. Both Sergeant and Ender sprayed like crazy, but it took several seconds for the rabs to fall into a stupor, and in that time, two got claws up under Carlotta's visor. If they had understood human anatomy, they could have severed her carotid artery, but instead they went for the soft place under her jaw. The pain was exquisite.
Carlotta tried to crawl away, but something had hold of her leg and wouldn't let go.
Sergeant. It was Sergeant holding her. All the rabs that had poured out of the inner chamber were inert, floating and bouncing around with the force of their original launch. Ender was still spraying fog into the room. Nothing was coming out.
"Bloody mess," muttered Sergeant. "Who ever knew the girl had so much blood in her?"
Within a minute, he had a coagulant pad in place and anesthetic was doing its job.
"Can you still use your tongue?" asked Sergeant. "Talk?"
Carlotta made a try. The anesthetic was numbing her tongue a little, but she could move it. "Talk fine," she said.
Ender came back then. "How's she doing?"
"Just soft flesh damage under the jaw. Nothing to the throat, and the meds will have it all healed up in a couple of hours."
"Wish I knew how long the sedatives would hold," said Ender.
"What were you doing in there?" asked Sergeant.
That's when Carlotta realized Ender must have gone inside the chamber that the rabs had come out of.
"It's a breeding chamber. They were protecting their young."
"Any queens?" asked Sergeant.
"More like seals -- mothers and their pups gathered around them. Huge room. I think it's the control center," said Ender. "All the cabling is routed through there. Ductwork everywhere, ducts filled with cables and wires, lots of maintenance doors on everything."
"Let's go before they wake up," said Sergeant. "I think this might still be the level of the helm or helms. If all the controls are routed through the hub, they must be coming from somewhere and leading to somewhere. Might be on this level."
But it wasn't. It was on the next level aft, which they reached an hour later. They also learned that the recovery time from the sedative mix was longer than that hour, because no rabs woke up. For all they knew, the fog was lethal and they'd never wake up.
Carlotta knew the door of a helm room when she
saw it. It lay in the floor beneath their feet, and it was
exceptionally wide and high. There was also a window in the door,
and there was light on the other side. Bright light. Sunlight. They
were on the side of the ship facing the sun right now.
"This isn't it," she said. "There has to be a way to block the sunlight when it's shining in the ports, and it isn't being blocked. But it'll be a room like this, farther along."
It took a while to work their way around the ship. They fogged the corridors as they went, because there was debris -- but a lot less. And then Carlotta realized something and made them stop. "This sedative is going to work against the pilots, too -- they're bound to be biologically related to Formics, even if they aren't Formics themselves. We've got to wait for the fog to dissipate before we open a door."
"The ventilation system is slow," said Ender.
"Maybe we want them to get a little dose of the sedative," said Sergeant. "Not a full spray, but whatever seeps in from the corridor."
"They won't like it," said Carlotta.
"If they're asleep, they won't mind anything," said Sergeant.
Carlotta conceded the point, though she still didn't like it. They opened the next helm door, a fifth of the way around the ship, where the sunlight wasn't so direct. It was a helm all right, several Formic-shaped perches and control sets. Lots of unlabeled dials and displays that consisted of arrangements of small lights. And perches in front of the viewports, so observers could be stationed there.
But there wasn't a soul in the room. Not even a corpse.
"Proof of concept, anyway," said Sergeant. "Now we know that helm rooms are arranged symmetrically around the hull, and not hidden away in the hub."
"And we know the Formics wanted to look, not just take the Hive Queen's data," said Ender.
"Or this is how she got her data," said Carlotta.
"Could be," said Sergeant. "Observers in all the helm rooms, but actual pilots in only one."
"So let's go find the one," she said.
Sergeant seemed not to mind that she had, in effect, preemptively given the order. He led the way back into the corridor. No need for more spray -- the fog they had originally sprayed was still spreading through this corridor all the way around the ship. In smaller concentration, it wasn't so quick -- there were rabs still waggling their limbs and jaws. But Sergeant and Ender didn't spray again. These rabs weren't trying to attack anything, they were trying to stay awake. And failing.
The third helm was dark. Nightside. But when Carlotta shone her helmlight on the door, she pointed to shininess on the metal near the lower and upper sills. This door had been opened repeatedly in recent years.
They got in position. Carlotta stood away from where the opening would be -- lesson learned -- and shifted the lever. The door slid open.
Nothing came out. Not a sound from inside.
Sergeant lowered himself into the room and drifted downward, toward the wall with the viewports, setting his helmet to illuminate the room and do a sweep of motion search.
"No movement," he said softly. "But there's a heat source."
Ender hesitated at the doorway. "Keep watch out here?" he asked.
"Come in and shut the door," said Sergeant. "We may have found our pilots."
Carlotta got to the windowed wall and then followed Sergeant as he walked lightly toward the control bay of the helm.
Unmoving, several small shapes with iridescent colors clung to the control panel. They were smaller than Carlotta, about half her height, but longer than the rabs. They had wings -- that was the iridescence. No claws. In fact, the two front arms on each side seemed to be fused together, parting only near the end. But the "Y" formed by the ends of the feet was able to grasp levers and controls. And the jaws were Formic-like, also able to grasp.
"What are they?" asked Carlotta softly. "Did the Hive Queens breed special pilot creatures?"
"No," Ender said, focusing his eyes on the creatures.
"Formics?" asked Sergeant. "These are Formics?"
"Pretty sure," said Ender. "Males, I think."
"Why didn't they die when the Hive Queen died?" asked Carlotta.
"Very interesting question," said Ender. "But maybe they don't react the way the workers do. Maybe when a Hive Queen dies, they stay alive so they can attach to the next one." Then he said, "Wait, I think we're as close as they can bear. That one is about to take flight."
Carlotta could see it now, too. The wings were extending. The eyes were standing straight up. "Is there any hope of communicating with them?" she asked.
"I hope we're communicating lack of threat," said Ender. "Don't point your hands at them. Set the shotguns down."
"No," said Sergeant.
"You're right," said Ender. "But the two of you back away, all right? Let me go in unarmed and alone."
Carlotta immediately complied; a moment later, Sergeant reached the same conclusion. Ender sent his shotgun drifting slowly toward Sergeant. He took off his helmet and sent it toward Carlotta. Then he rolled over onto his back.
Carlotta realized that this put his eyes on the top of his head, like the Formic eyes. She caught his helmet and held it.
Ender was keeping his arms down at his sides as he drifted toward the control panel where the Formics waited. Carlotta realized he was treating his arms like wings, showing them folded against his body. He was imitating their posture. Was this how the Formics showed submission? Were they submitting to us, and is Ender now submitting to them?
As Ender drifted closer to them, the Formics began to move. They were so small. Staying hooked to various controls -- controls that were definitely not designed for their use, Carlotta could see that now -- three of the five of them reached out for Ender's head.
She heard Sergeant's quick intake of breath.
"Let him be," came the Giant's voice softly through the helmets. "It's a chance that he has to take."
Carlotta could not help but marvel at Ender's stillness as the Formic males reached out and touched his head, bringing him carefully to a stop. Those Y-shaped claws, the mouths so near his face. The residual pain in her jaw reminded her of how dangerous it could be to let aliens near your head.
The three Formics who were holding him lowered their mouths toward his head. The other two were standing watch, it seemed.
They pressed the tips of their forejaws against Ender's head.
Ender let out a low moan, almost a cry.
Sergeant started forward.
"No," said the Giant.
Carlotta caught Sergeant, helped him back down to where his boots could remagnetize to the floor.
Ender sighed again. Again. Then his voice came, an urgent whisper. "Don't hurt them," he said. "They're showing me."
"Showing you what?" asked Carlotta, trying to keep her voice soft, to keep the fear out of it. Who knew what sense the Formics could make of the sounds they managed to hear?
"Everything," said Ender. "How they've lived
since the Queen died."
