Time. To a normal formite, to a formite blessed and cursed with the burden of their calling and cause, time was an irrelevancy. Measurement used in the individualized tasks during the rise, marking appropriate lengths for rest in the fade. The menial, the hauler, the tender, even the soldier; there was no need for consideration as to the larger implications, the first and then final notes, for death was but the end of the work. A good life was a life spent with neither mistake nor failure in the role, that more was added than was removed by your presence, and the colony continued unfaltering in your absence and replacement. To be remembered was to have your contributions used, iterated upon, a stone upon which the temple was ever erected. There was no end, no capstone nor pinnacle. The song came, and the song would someday end. Few drones lived long enough to even develop minds powerful enough to think on it.

Chkervthnaakt had lived a long time. Perhaps not by humanite standards, if his understanding of them was correct in that area; fifty cycles was nothing to the aliens, not even the apex of their middle years since their technologies had advanced. His bonded male, Chkervthnaakt thinker, had been older still when the fires of the star-sent came to their world. The sights the thinker had seen since leaving K-H-13 shamed any from the homeworld, but back then, he had believed he would live to be a hundred and never manage to witness such sights his bonded had sung to him. Waterfalls taller than mountains. Deserts through which entire troops of the Dread-Mother Chelice’s ancient descendants still roamed. Every rise was a joy. Ever survived fade, a gift. Survival was all there was. For the first in his life, here on a world once termed hostile, within the heart of a colony no longer his own, confined to this single cavern, survival was no longer ranked a consideration within his role’s priority. Biomass was provided. A colony which in a single cycle would be larger than most upon the homeworld secured him. An alien nest encircled, star-sent gargantuan constructs in the skies above patrolled against his invasion. Time. All he had, now, was time.

”You, Thinker. Unhappy emotions, register, output. Purpose?” The bundle of hair and flesh, squatting as it relieved itself in the back of the hollow, sung out in alien cords. The formite answered, both verbally and with scratches into the floor.

“I AM THINKING. YOUR CONCERN IS UNNECESSARY. LIMIT YOURSELF TO USEFUL OPERATIONS. Received?” He had been staring at the boxes drawn upon the wall again. More gaps than filled in sections, with only a spattering of humanite lettering and numbers making up the difference.

”Accepted and received.” It was different, without a Band. He’d gotten rid of it immediately, of course, let them slice it from his neck and offer whatever explanations they needed to their humanite overseers. Unable to rely on the Pod’s discretion, its mere presence was a risk, and so his first new task had been obvious. Needed no Queen to oversee, to order; learn their speech, unassisted. Teach them his, as much as they could replicate. Progress in the first tenmeasures was slow. The next twenty, simpler. Humanites were a complicated race, and it was difficult to structure their learning. Their minds rebelled and fought if forced to focus on the same task measure-in, measure-out. Once he had learned to appropriately structure breaks, entertainment, relaxation, however, the process sped drastically. He still spelled out their language on the ground, but had learned enough of their syntax to replicate some of their sounds. To teach basic acknowledgements and ideas through movement alone. A task which would aid all others. Obvious. Ongoing. Insufficient to keep him preoccupied. “We, continue. Must.”

“CANNOT. WE MUST WAIT. MORE INGREDIENTS ARE NEEDED. REQUIRE OUTSIDE AID = REQUIRE OUTSIDE COOPERATION = REQUIRE OUTSIDE SYMPATHY. AID WILL ARRIVE SOON.” Soon. Soon. The isolation of the room gripped at his lungs, gnawed upon his thoughts. Parker, finishing his excretions, shifted the pile with a rake to the tunnel entrance with the rest of the buried disposal pile. Grinning, his smile crooked but genuine, and only growing when Chkervthnaakt chittered annoyance and turned to better face the surfaces of tools and clay pots. The thinker enjoyed the symbols, but Parker had discovered quickly it was an area in which reversed the experience value of their roles. And the male delighted in reminding the thinker of it. Irritating. Secretly welcomed. A distraction from his fear.

“Use, sentences in. Good. Comprehension = advancing. Comprehension + practice = mastery.”

“It baffles me how your species can craft such beauty, then neglect it in favor of the crude and insufficient. This arithmetic, mathematics; where 2 must always equate to 2, A must always be A. Perfection. Actual perfection, here, in the sonorous compositions of the now.” He swapped from writing to proper speech, something in which he was once again the master and the alien, the student. Satisfied with the contorted face and struggle to keep up, the thinker once more lowered his sole foreleg. Not to draw with scythe, but with the elongated piece of tapered metal previously couched under his limb, so as not to blunt his already stubbed keratin. “TUTORING, APPRECIATED. BUT DO NOT FORGET ROLE. SUPPORT THINKER. PARKER + THINKER = GREAT ADVANCEMENT AND LEARNING.”

“You not the first, leader/superior role this drone knows. Had sub-queen like you once. Similar. Also not stand/tolerate being wrong.”

“I AM NEVER WRONG, ONLY OF OPINIONS WHICH ARE REFINED AS KNOWLEDGE GROWS.”

“You sung Queen not harm. Embrace you. After Sovereignty breeder female thinker pejorative harlot killed.” The humanite’s face strained, and though it had no antennae or jaws to angle, the thinker saw the anxiety in it.

“QUEEN DID NOT HARM. WAS CORRECT.”

“Sung she would accept. Sung she would understand. Now both trapped. Now both forbidden to sing with colony.”

“YOU ARE SONGLESS. WHY SHOW SORROW? SKTHVERAACHK COLONY NOT COALITION.” Consternation turned to confusion as the alien straightened. Its eyes, fogged over, struggling to regain a sense of clarity. It was always a small risk, poking the male like that, but the progress needed to be recorded. Physically, there were no outward changes since the thing’s capture. But as the alien shifted in place, the inner adjustments were all too visible if you knew, as he knew, where to look.

“Yes. Am of the Coalition. Corporal Parker, number 81-99… 1-99…”

“992-48-7.” The thinker supplied the missing digits, helpfully, as he always did now. The alien smiled a smile full of white enamel.

“Yes. But Skthveraachk will fight Sovereignty. Once I aid. If I help. Once Skthveraachk strong, no longer slave. You show this, so must help Skthveraachk-Colony, and so help Coalition-Colony. I cannot sing. But I listen.” True, it was muted and distant, but even the thinker could feel the stamp of tens of thousands of claws. Hear the choir in its recital through the rock and stone around them. It was engrained within him. The alien pressed to the wall, trying presumably to feel those same vibrations as the thinker did. “It is beautiful. Lack of contact, bad. Saddening. Do not know how you tolerate.”

“The pain of independence is chrysalis. The coldness, a trial against which you must learn to stand.” It was too eloquent for the budding drone with him to fully comprehend, but the music was enough to calm, to set the bipedal body swaying. The pattering of coming drones was ways away yet, and Chkervthnaakt felt that same icy solitude claw at him again. Permitted to share his knowledge, but not to share in the voices, to unburden himself and be joined as one. Watching the alien delight songlessly in the chords and thrums, the thinker steadied his breathing and continued his now eternal soliloquy. “You endure it because you must. You feel the fire and fury of the stars behind you, burning your Queen and bonded, sisters and brothers, and you flee not just in terror, but in defiance. Even when the soldiers turn back and throw themselves upon the invaders, dying to give you breaths more. Even when the menials bite their necks, choosing silence over the fear of frenzy. Even when you no longer hear a single voice but your own, taste the blood on your mandibles, crawling and rolling through a black forest as the lights and roaring of monsters behind you grows louder. You will live. Whatever it takes. Whatever must be torn, rent, destroyed, demolished. Whatever bargains must be struck, whatever degradations suffered. Silence was your kinds’ gift to me.” Reaching, his antennae cupped and stroked down the hairy sides of the humanite’s face. The being, enraptured in the music, unresisting despite how very nearly the thinker’s mandibles surrounding him. “An endless, infinite silence of solitude. I accept it. I shape it. I will embrace it, use it, and when I return it to your masters, it will be then a thing so dark and quiet that even Gods may sigh and sleep forever.” Peace. Assurance. There was not a one to share in his song, to reciprocate his offering, and yet Chkervthnaakt felt himself steadied once more. By the time she arrived, forelegs clasped around the sealed clay vat, he was as composed as one who had fresh drunk of a scentcrafter’s odors. Reared on four legs, bowing low, and angling his antennae at perfectly sharp turns. “Skthveraachk queen, may your sacrifices see you heralded as martyr among the most beloved of our memories.”

“Chkervthnaakt thinker,” The queen’s soft voice, strained by the distance it traveled, came from the menial worker’s shell as though across a yawning chasm. “May the light of understanding guide us to brighter future. I adhere first to the tenants dictated by Skthveraachk Queen, and recite the decrees: you will not join your voice with ours.”

“Received.”

“You will not depart this cavern without permission.”

“Received.”

“Forever shall you reflect on your corruption, and through service to Skthveraachk-Colony, redeem yourself in the annals of the Composer.”

“Received, Skthveraachk queen, and accepted with greatest respect.” He could feel the confusion, the overwhelming dread from the drone through which the lesser-queen relayed the message. A different one each measure, each just as overcome as the next. Thinkers, queens, perhaps even the accursed white mender; the higher castes seemed capable of segmenting their knowledge, of keeping information from the colony. Not a lie, no, of course not, merely the omittance of information from a link which existed to share every sense and sensation. The queen was uncomfortable, her body trembling somewhere up in the colony as she sung the private message to the thinker. The drone, however, would be unable to reconcile it. Every measure, a delivery of biomass and materials. Every measure, a taking of research and materials. Every measure, another drone silenced so it could not threaten the colony with what it now knew existed down in the depths and dark. Fifty-six drones he was worth, now. His value only growing every rise. “Humanite mourns lack of contact. Operational efficiency diminishes when emotions unbalanced. Permit me to sing more frivolously for its benefit?”

“Accepted. Contact is also missed here. I lament your loss, thinker. I lament my failure to prevent you from becoming…Queen says, ‘deviant’.”

“The humanites share this term. Label current situation, ‘imprisonment’. Temporary measure for permanent problem. Queen, at least, accepts logical conclusion. Destroy, or use. It is preferable to being silenced.” The drone did not understand the word ‘deviant’. But it smelled every hallmark and note of ‘frenzy’ in the term, save one. When Chkervthnaakt stepped nearer, beckoning for Parker to take the vat of goods, the relay-menial shook like a goldbough beneath the engines of the sky-sent. Held in place only by the commands of the queen. “Sing to me of colony. Sing to me of progress.”

“Ever wonderful. Ever building off your contributions. Many new furnaces. Several, damaged. Exploded. Too much heat. Thinker Skthveraachk now updating every kiln.”

“Clarify.”

“Investigated humanite vessels. Material often different at places of intense heat. But sometimes, material identical on exterior, different on interior.” Adaptation of a technique they’d already learned. Wonderous. “Ran multiple experiments on available resources. Mixture of paste from dirt and mineral, most suitable. Coating inside of kilns increases heat resistance. Addition of fanning drones and greater venting to cool cavern. Production rates increase.”

“Fascinating.” Jealousy? A pang, perhaps, but distant. He had discovered, communicated, the initial knowledge. Let the other thinkers claw over his foundations and add their own touches. Parker, already having pried the lid off the vessel, was setting out the ingredients. Taking time to hastily shove a handful of jelly into his mouth, exhaling pleasantly. The drone nearby looked as though it would be sick. “Lesser-queen’s continued contributions of the jelly, thanked.”

“Queen commanded it.” His foreleg twitched. “Demanded. Humanite remains docile. Remains helpful. Removing now may cause harm. May make humanite hostile. Unacceptable.”

“War Queen accepts use of slavery, despite history and most adamant instances. Even more fascinating.”

“Desist.” There was an edge there, a sharpness not usually expressed by the softer queen. “Decision was poor. I accepted your inability to inform me what jelly was initially for. Sickened, as Queen, to discover purpose. Unacceptable decision. But more unacceptable to stop now. Acceptance of necessity, not enjoyment.”

“Received. My apologies are sung and offered.” Risk, risk, risk. Why did he test her, as he did the Parker? Why did he sing what he knew was untruth, why did he threaten everything by lying about something so meaningless? Why did he feel a dark delight when the queen signed acceptance of his apology, never even considering it could be false? “It is necessity, but could not be done without consenting queen to produce the substance. I repay this cruelty with our progress.”

“There is progress?”

“Yes.” He turned. Filled his eyes with the shelves, the drawings, the pots and containers and small crackling fires beneath orbs of clay and pilfered glass. “New components. Will teach you their creation. Parker. PARKER.” Sung. Drawn. The humanite leapt up, scuttled towards the countertop of wood and stone. The queen sung command to the drone, ordering it forward. It actually refused, once. Obeyed only at the second command, losing itself every moment in the wrongness of the situation. Chkervthnaakt found himself only annoyed by the delay, gesturing with foreleg to the first cup filled with white flakes and dust. “New resource. Component. From the castoff of specified humanite biomass.”

“This is the refuse we have collected? The shells of their meals?”

“Confirmed.” Eggs. Not of any creature the thinker could picture, but must be farmed in great abundance from how many shells the aliens discarded with their meals. He had been told they laughed upon being delivered the request, that the formites be allowed to sort their trash for useful materials. Given permission, readily. It was not found out in the battlefield, but in the garrisons? Hundreds. Thousands of the castoffs. And though the Parker had been confused by his interest too, at first, his whispers were what filled the thinker’s mind. “Ground down. Crushed. Powdered. Require great quantities. Collect all available, always.”

“For what purpose?” Unimpressed. Well, that was expected. Their kind still so base and stupid, focused only upon the immediate gains. He provided one.

“Structures.” A lie of omission. But one which caused the queen to chitter her excitement through the drone. “Current system, clay bricks with binding of mud, shredded palmidia, so on. Rudimentary. Primitive. Powdered shell, properly measured and added to sand, creates stronger binding. Alien terms it ’mortar’.” The cup was passed. “Binding between bricks for enhanced cohesion, but also, see. This model.” A miniaturized wall, sat on the counter, but rather than marked with the lines and gaps of brick, smoothed over with a white paste. Creating sheened surface, unblemished, and without a loss of protection or heat or cover. “Coats and protects. Solidifies. Will be of assistance, I hope.”

“Will have thinkers examine and theorize application! Great and welcomed addition, Chkervthnaakt thinker!”

“It is good. Require further materials, excitement now will be so small compared to later.”

“What is required? What assistance may be rendered?”

“Pale yellowstone. In middling quantities.” That sobered the female’s excitement, and Chkervthnaakt felt the crease of irritation once more begin to form in his vents. Parker noticed the sign, pausing in his loading of the drone with the canisters. “I know it can be of danger.”

“Such material is avoided, thinker.”

“We are within a caldera. The humanites sing a caldera is but slumbering mountain of old fire and ash. It should be able to be located here.”

“It has been located.” Hide the excitement. Bite down on the wild joy. “Was sealed, immediately. It poisons the air. Can sour the nest. Must be buried if stumbled upon, as the memories sing.”

“It is worth the risk. It is valuable component, many uses, many.”

“Uncertain. Risk will need be assessed-“

“I interrupt with forgetfulness! Sincerest apologies, but omitted second discovery!” It was early to begin giving up his inventions, but the equation was absolute. Outside aid = outside cooperation. And there were few things better able to incentivize cooperation, in his experience, than things of luxury. The scent filled the room as soon as the bottle, snatched from the rows of pots, was offered and opened. Even the panicking drone quieted, tongue extending as it drew nearer. “New form of preparation of fruit. Of kakstrip, and even jelsaah perhaps.”

“This is a smell of humanite discards?”

“Their apples, yes. Uneaten cores and sections.” He himself had not believed the Parker at the offhanded story the former had once shared. Had dismissed it outright. Now? His legs may have ached from the process, from the laboring over the tub of husks and mostly devoured pits, but the result was undeniable. “Crushed, like the shells, but to gather and extract the juices. Rather than use stomach, opened container is utilized. Stirred, each rise and fade, left to sit. Until ten and five measures passes, and sweetness is achieved.”

“You have spent time discovering method of fermentation outside the gut of selected drones?” Incredulous. Enthralled. Horribly hiding the excitement resonating from her voice.

“Rudimentary. Requires refinement and experimentation. Will eliminate need for small-scale production in stomachs. Single drone theoretically capable of a hundred batches, now.

“Unimportant to colony progress.”

“Great importance to potential tradeable goods. To deliver what other colonies may only refine in miniscule amounts. And to the emotional happiness of colony, yes?” A delicacy restricted to events of great importance, and only to the highest castes. To think that even soldiers or drones could perhaps some measure taste of the regal juices Queens enjoyed. The bottle was clasped, held protectively, and the queen bid the drone keep the container nearest its vents, to bask in the sweet aroma.

“Acceptable and accepted progress, thinker. Will relay to Queen at nearest available time.”

“With request for permission to exploit the palest yellowstone deposits?” Hesitation still present. He pushed the harder. “Will, in the meantime, investigate methods of protecting colony and delvers from the threat of poisoned air.”

“Will request this. With my recommendation of allowance.” A smile offered through eyes and antennae, despite the drone’s lack of sharing in the emotion. “If such can be achieved with the star-sent’s waste, can imagine only more incredible things from pure resources.”

“More than can be dreamed in the waking, Skthveraachk queen.” The Parker emitted a low whine, feeling the exchange drawing to a close, but the thinker was quick to wrap around him. To brush hairs against toughened skin and massage antennae into his body, while the drone began to crawl by lengths towards the exit from the prison. “We will await your next arrival.”

“Continue role. It is valued and critical, even if you must be hewn from our song, beloved thinker. May you once again join to us, in some distant time.” The humanite tugged, the urge to follow filling it. The thinker clung tighter, fighting his own impulse to march after the drone and link arms in the great chorus. Only when it had faded entirely into the background of the colony did the male release his grip, both figures collapsing down with sigh of regret.

“Only gave two?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Not ready for more.” He remained on his back, eyes half buried in the dirt and half up on the boxes inscribed into the wall once more. Switching to steady drawings with his pipe into the flooring. “NOT PREPARED. I MUST LEARN MORE.”

“Caution, thinker, friend.” The Parker sat upright, drooping arms across the knobbly knees of its legs. “Drone was wrong. Learned so little, but already frenzied.”

“QUEEN WILL CALL IT FRENZIED. WILL KILL IT, YES. SMALL LOSS.”

“Not what fears me. Fear you being frenzied.” Looking over the masses of instruments, of constructions, of experiments old and new and forgotten in the piles of rubbish, the humanite tapped and scratched at the dirt. “You are different to formites. Can resist, like Queen. But immune? Unsure. If I keep helping, worry will lose you.”

“To defy the will of the colony, frenzy. To act without unity, frenzy. To lie, frenzy. Curious, is it not, that while the word is so feared and shunned, so too is it unclear. Defiance, in any form, frenzy.” Not understanding his song, Parker’s look brought clarification in writing as thinker scrawled out the sacrilege without care. “I AM UNSURE IF FRENZY REALLY EXISTS.” Ironic, that those notes alone would have once been enough for any nearby to screech in terror and silence him on the spot, lest his ‘frenzy’ spread. Even Parker’s horrified expression was a lingering remnant of a truth so written into the core of the thinker’s species, even a half-formite mind like the alien now possessed was enough to recoil at the idea. “PARKER HAS TAUGHT MUCH. TOOLS, INVENTIONS, YES. BUT PROCESS. METHOD. SO MUCH MORE VALUABLE. TO BREAK DOWN, EXAMINE FROM SMALLEST, BUILD BACK UP TO UNDERSTANDING.”

“Rudimentary. Basic. Child knowledge.” Shaking first head, then shoulders, the alien rubbed at its arms. “Learned some at school. Some in factories. Chemicals. Ingredients.”

“ENERGY. MATTER. WHY. ALWAYS ‘WHY’. WHY DO MENDERS NEED TO EAT SHELLS TO FORM SEALANT, BUT CANNOT EAT FLESH? THE PARKER FINALLY GAVE IT WORD.”

“Carbohydrates?” A shiver from the formite, like hearing the name of the Composer for the first time all over again.

“PROTIEN. FAT. COMPONENTS. ALL OF US.” The scrawling ceased, his song taking over. “The water of the sea, one form. Apply heat, and the water vanishes. But it does not vanish, it but changes. Liquid to gas, and what is left?” He could smell it within one of the many dishes, tickling his vents. “Salt. But heat the juices, the fermented sweetness, and it is not salt. It is sugar. Eggs are not just eggs, but a casing of calcium, and makes nothing when added to sugar or salt. But heat salt and water, add fat and calcium…” The block of dissolving fat, which made slick anything it rubbed with water and Parker used occasionally in the corner of the room to clean away the dirt from his hands and hair. “I saw the finished products. I cared only for the end. Away with it all. It is not the end that is important, but the beginning. The ingredients. Heat and motion, the changing of states. Until the boxes are full.” Raising his metal rod, the thinker lovingly caressed the carved sigils upon the wall. Signs the drone and queen who used its eyes had not so much as glanced over, coveting instead the simple by-products of its glory.

H. He. Li, Be, F; he had pushed and shoved, forcing the humanite to recall every box he could. Until terms like oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and gold replaced the old notes of air, of ground and of stone. So much he yet could not understand, the meaning of the numbers the alien often attached to the elements. But he knew now their purpose, at least. That, through their combination, through heat and fire and energy and motion, their use and form could be changed. Suited to fit. What combination was it which allowed the aliens to hover their ships? To create the metals which refracted the beams of death? He did not know. He would move one step at a time, until he had ascended to where they stood. Surpassed them. Up he gazed, at that staircase of blocks and boxes, and rested his pointed upon the letter after which he had sent the queen.

“YOU ARE SURE IT IS CORRECT?”

“Yes. Old and not used much, but still valued. Combusts. Used in old earth weapons. Not sure of process, though.”

“WE WILL EXPERIMENT. COMBINE AND HEAT AND MIX. EVERYTHING WITH EVERYTHING. WE WILL LEARN.” Tenmeasures? Cycles? Tencycles? It mattered not how long it took. The aliens had had, according to Parker, nearly fifteen thousand cycles head start on his species. When they first met. With their pulleys, their spears and shields, it was more like ten thousand now. The great ‘S’ letter, the word ‘sulfur’ inscribed beneath, had been present at their town of Rugoro-Auslander, where their weapons had been crafted. Where it had been combined and changed until yellow powder was made black. And as the Parker sung, when utilized properly, it was that blackest powder which could see another five thousand cycles of distance shortened between them. And even if it took a hundred cycles and a million drones to perfect, the thinker knew. Laid on his back, his mandibles gnashing over an imagined flesh with blackest joy, he knew;

It was just time. He had all the time in the world.