Captured mech ships and a large orbital station aided this. Quath and Beq’qdahl had both been privileged to pilot flights to the captured mech station, the nearest they had gotten to where the orbital weavers conjured their deft magic.
No hope of such lofty labor now. All surface-working podia had to find rich upturned seams. All who could be spared became prospectors.
<It is boring work,> Quath said.
<So say they who do not do it well.>
<I would prefer focusing the Syphon.>
<That’s just puzzle-work. No real zest in it.>
<It is intellectually more difficult to—>
<Oh, never would I question your intellectual credentials.> Beq’qdahl dipped her proboscis sarcastically, impaling on it a burr of spitfood. <Particularly after your brilliant cross-examination of the Tukar’ramin.>
Quath bristled cilia. <I was seeking answers.>
<To grub-stupid questions. What does all that matter?> Beq’qdahl plucked a mite from a moist slickstrand.
<It is everything.>
<Talk, mere talk. We are here to act.>
<But what is the purpose, when—>
Beq’qdahl leaned closer gracefully, her hydraulics wheezing. <The purpose, slit-eye, is to get into orbit. To weave, not hug the ground like a grub.>
Quath framed a reply and suddenly saw that Beq’qdahl would be a success. Beq’qdahl’s smooth, successful, uncaring manner came
naturally because she was in touch with deeper wellsprings, she sensed the way things truly were. And in that clear world,
the Synthesis was talk and the Summation a promised sugar dollop meant to quiet children, not a thing podia took seriously
for long. That world was real. Relentlessly real.
SEVEN
Gathering call, came the beep, slicing through Quath’s concentration. She crunched over crumbling slag and looked for silvery green streaks.
Gathering call.
She slipped a needle into the flaking silver-green, measured and clattered her ossicles in frustration. The stuff wasn’t palazinia. Finding a lode of palazinia, the rarest of the bonding pastes, would have been a coup. This scrap, glinting falsely—Quath kicked at it—was worthless.
Gathering call.
She answered, dreading.
Rendezvous! Noble Beq’qdahl has found a deep seam of—
Savagely she clicked the message off. Another feat for Beq’qdahl.
This was the fifth important find since the prospecting and mining had begun, all Beq’qdahl’s. Most of the other podia were kept busy mining Beq’qdahl’s discoveries, leaving the field clear for Beq’qdahl to find more, to stand out even better. Quath had pondered giving up prospecting—she wasn’t good at searching; she moped and rambled when she should scuttle, ferretlike, poking into every cranny—and becoming a miner. But something inside made Quath keep on, trying to best Beq’qdahl. She would not yield the ground so easily. If only—
Quath’jutt’kkal’thon. Summons!
<I was delayed. Am proceeding to—>
No. Do not rendezvous. Return to the Hive. To the Tukar’ramin.
Down slippery strands slid the Tukar’ramin, a great glistening mass of polished steel and grainy carapace. Gusts of warm well-being spread through Quath as feelers stole into her mind, sensing all. Nervous, jittery tensions smoothed away.
*Rejoice, small one.*
<All celebrate, in your presence.>
*No formalisms please; they tax the mind by seeming to mean something. Rejoice, because you need no longer slough the crumbled land. I know you dislike that.*
<I have been so…obvious?>
The Tukar’ramin drew Quath nearer, washing her with comfort and forgiveness.
*Your doubts drag at every step you make.*
<I have kept to the task.> The words came out more stiffly than she intended, but Quath clutched at the phrase out of a sense of dignity.
*Must you always go sober-suited?*
<I…> She hesitated. How to tell this most enfolding of all creatures that the snug universe was a vortex, sucking them all down to nothing? <I am a mere quadpodder and more solitary.>
*But Beq’qdahl is solitary, too. Alone, seeking rare soils. Her pods do not shamble as yours do.*
Beq’qdahl again! Quath said primly, <We each have our ways.>
*But you are none of you alone!* Faint, chiding exasperation. *We are bound on the great, final task. The thermweaves we spin around this star will clasp firm its burning energy. Our fellow podia will soon harness the crackling electrodynamics of the Galactic Center which rage nearby. Soon we shall combine all such energies. Thus gathered, and the mechs banished—and who can doubt that we shall do so, given our great victory here?—we can use the tamed power to communicate with other Starswarmers in far galaxies.*
