Chapter Four

 

 

The second half of the run was propelled by the jump across the chasm. Adrenalin was a powerful thing.

Corbyn couldn’t fathom that they had all made it. She had been sure that one of the bots was going down the fissure, and while one nearly had, they were able to pull it away from danger.

Myx was actually humming as they jogged at an easy pace with long strides that took them farther than each previous running stride. The bots had gotten the workout they needed to loosen up.

“Why are you so happy, Myx?”

“Well, I am moving again, so that is great. I also feel that we will find what we need at the city.”

She wrinkled her nose and kept walking.

“So, I know about your status as a guard, but what do you really do?”

Corbyn chuckled. “I do what the description says. I guard.”

“Explain, please. Give me an example.”

“Well, the day of Burning Day, I took one of the collectors out to the crimson bees in order to grab some honey.”

“That doesn’t sound too dangerous.”

“The bees are over three feet long, and they can sting repeatedly with fatal results. They are exceedingly useful creatures, and we try to leave them alone as much as possible, but when we do go in, it is with a guard.”

“If they are dangerous, why do you use them?”

“They are all that we had. There are no large edible animals in this area, so when we have trouble with the rations and sufficient protein, we go to the bees.”

“Can they maintain their population with you using them as cattle?”

“One bee larvae feeds the protein needs of four hundred people for a week. The queen replaces them the same day we take them, and they are up to that growth level again within seven days. We leave their favourite foods for them in return for the dozen larva that we steal.”

“Do you steal them often?”

“Only when it is necessary. Our quartermasters let us know what we need to acquire, and we go and get it.”

He paused for a moment. “It seemed awfully quiet in the valley when we left.”

“The population was safe. Our population is second only to the bots, and once you guys were manned, there was nothing anyone could do. They got to safety.”

“Sensible.”

Corbyn chuckled. “Now, once we have the shopping list from the quartermaster, we get a bike. It is motorized, silent, and has a towing capacity of two tonnes. I get my collector, which is the person assigned for the day, and once I know what we are going out for, I get the appropriate weapons. With the crimson bees, I usually use a crossbow with a pulse gun as backup.”

“No short-range weapons?”

“If you are that close to a crimson bee, you are dead. The stinger goes through you over and over. I have had to retrieve a few bodies, and the venom isn’t quite quick enough.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The burn to the nervous system doesn’t kill them. They need to bleed out in agony.”

“That sounds unpleasant.”

“It is. Very. If I am lucky, I am sent out after they are dead. There have been a few who died in my arms.”

“If it is so dangerous, why do you do it?”

“It feeds the city. We do what is necessary to take care of the city. We support our mothers, our aunts, our cousins, and our sisters. Everyone at Bot City is a family member, and their survival is our prime focus.”

“So, what do you do after you get your collector?”

“I test the weapons, get on the bike, and she gets on behind me. We drive out to the hive on the map that has been selected for harvest, and we keep an eye on the sky. Harvesting during the day gives us the best chance of having the least amount of bees in the hive. They like to leave in the heat.”

“How many bees are there?”

“Two to three hundred in a large hive, three dozen in the smaller hives. We mostly harvest from the larger hives.”

“What do you do next?”

She got the feeling that he was distracting her from the drudgery of the gallop toward the city.

“We create a hole at the rear of the hive that they rush to defend, and then, we run around to the front, rub ourselves on the comb and head for the outer edge where the honey is stored. She removes sections with a blade made of an old stinger, and we haul the honey out of the hive. We then return, moving past the bees and trusting that our exposure to the hive walls will protect us. It would be better if we could find the queen, but that isn’t always possible.”

“How much do you take?”

“Up to three hundred pounds at a time. Multiple trips into and out of the hive.”

“What do you do if you are challenged?”

“I try to temporarily disable any bees that challenged us, and barring that, I would deform them. Removing a piece of a limb or antenna would get the others to attack the member of their hive that was no longer conforming to standard biology. It is brutal, but it is quick. While they do that, we drive for safety with the comb covered.”

“That sounds dangerous for a bit of sugar.”

“It is far more than sugar. You really want to know about the rations from the city, don’t you?”

“I was trying to get around to it.”

She flexed her neck slightly and kept walking. “Fifty years ago, the rations that the city was sending began to be a little... less than filling. There was still enough rationing for the population, but the contents were dwindling with each Burning Day shipment. We already had underground gardens, water treatment and our successes with locating protein sources have been notable. They were not aware of that, so our only conclusion is that they wanted to starve us out.”

“And yet, you still want to hand me over to the pilot that they have produced?”

She sighed and gritted her teeth. “Duty is not a choice. This is our obligation. This is what we have sworn, and this is what we train for.”

“Good little soldiers.”

“They get regular weaponry. We are engineers. We build them as we go.”

 

* * * *

 

Lido murmured, “Are you okay, Cio?”

“I believe that there is corrosion due to my temporary use as a planter two decades ago. It is so much a part of me, it didn’t register that I wasn’t able to access the propulsion trigger.”

“I swear, my people are going to hear about this.”

“They already know. The Padu clan leader came and had them clear it out.”

Lido winced. “Of course, she did.”

“Tell me, how does a gardener classify herself as an engineer?”

Lido blinked. “Uh, I design and execute methods to gain and increase the output of our plants and hydroponic systems. Even the aquaculture is farming. Our diet is mostly fish based, and they require mechanical filtration, fresh water, pumps and filtering via plants.”

“What do you do on a daily basis?”

Lido kept them thudding along with the rest of the pack. “I get up, I eat, and I do my work.”

“Details. I need details. We have some time to use up.”

Lido snorted. “Tell me what you want me to say.”

“I want to know what happens at every stage in your day. This is intensely interesting to me.”

“Fine. I wake up, shower quickly, get my routine sheet via my com unit, and then, I get dressed. I head to the gardens and go through what needs to be worked on.”

She paused and then filled him in. “I check the watering systems, maintain the pumps, and taste test a few new vegetable crosses that we are working on. On the days that I work with the fish, I sometimes have to dive into the tanks and that adds a whole level of difficulty to the process.”

“You swim?”

“Yes. It is necessary for someone who works with as much water as I do.”

“To someone like myself, I find it fascinating.”

“I guess you sink.”

“We can walk in most water bodies. We are water tight.”

“Well, that’s a good thing.”

“It is. There was a river at the bottom of the chasm. If we could not have maintained a grip on the wall, we could have landed and walked our way out, eventually.”

Lido sighed. “That does make it a bit better.”

They continued on for a bit.

“Where did you get the fish?”

She grinned. “We used to collect hatchlings in one of the local rivers, but after we perfected the mimicry of our systems, we are now able to have the fish swimming and spawning as they would do in the wild.”

“Interesting. It works?”

“It works very well. The original engineers started the system and we maintain it.”

“Does that ever frustrate you? I mean, not being able to do your own work.”

She sighed. “I have my own projects that I have brought to the clan council, and two have even been put into common use.”

“What were those?”

“I created a windmill to draw power back from the coursing water we had created for the fish. Small, confined balls strike the surface and sink. They don’t get in the way of the fish and can generate enough energy to work the feeders that we have in the large tanks.”

“What was the other invention?”

“I created a flower that buds into a vitamin-rich fruit. It is in its fifth year, and ways are being found to dilute it into something that the body can absorb.”

“I am missing something.”

“It is rather like plasma instead of the fuel for your burners.”

“Ah. Same purpose but too strong. It seems you have been able to provide what is needed for long-term survival, even if the city falls to invasion.”

Lido blinked. “I hope it doesn’t fall. We are not pilots; we were never trained as pilots.”

“I believe you are doing very well.”

She smiled slightly. “Thank you, Cio. You are a good instructor.”

“You are an excellent pupil. Can you see in the distance? We are nearly to the city.”

Lido looked up and out, staring into the night as the dome of light came into view. She sighed in relief. Her nightmare of playing warrior was almost to an end.