Chapter 1: Hive Prime Is Burning
1. Spider Hole
The Hive around them shuddered again, to what must have been a direct hit by heavy artillery on the nearby exit. The air pulsed with overpressure, hurting Compound’s sensitive tympanic membranes. The walls shook. Structural spittle detached and rained down upon the three Changelings who huddled in their spider-hole.
“Make it stop!” Cowl cried, “It’s got to stop! There can’t be this many shells in all the world!” He clutched at his own head, scrabbling at the chitin with his claws.
“Easy,” Carry said. “It’s noise. Just noise.” The massive Worker took up most of the room in their hole, but the other two lings did not begrudge him the room. His quiet strength, emotional as well as physical, had so far kept them from going insane.
We’re the lucky ones, Compound knew. She dug her claws almost reflexively into the side of the spider hole, gripping structural spittle. We were assigned to Hive 238, back when there still were hundreds of Hives, back when we were winning the war, before this became Hive Prime by process of elimination. Because of that we’re still alive. For a little while longer.
“But where do they get all the shells?” Cowl asked again.
“You know the answer,” Compound said. “The factories.” They’d been powered by steam at the start of this war, now they were all run by electricity, and the last she had heard from the Infiltrators when there still had been an intact Infiltrator Corps was that they were starting to provide the electricity from earthfire reactors.
Cowl did not ask the obvious next question, which was ‘Where do they get all the workers for those factories?’
That was a question Compound did not want to answer, because the answer would have been politically dangerous. The answer, of course, was that the Equestrians got their workforce from the other Hives, the ones Queen Hunger had driven into alliance with Equestria as their only alternative to annihilation by Hunger’s forces. A horrifyingly large number of these Changelings were defectors from Hunger’s original Hive, under her previous reign-name of Chrysalis.
2. Memories
Compound knew this well because – at the start of the war, when Hunger’s armies had still been large enough to permit a sizable staff element – she had been a Theoretical Infilitrator – a new role, corresponding to an Intelligence Analyst among the Ponies. She had seen the statistics on the Equestrian population, industrial base, transport capabilities, reserve military strength, the incredibly-rapid progress of Equestrian research into advanced weaponry – air cruisers, airplanes, rockets, magefire bombs and reactors.
They had all added up to one alarming conclusion.
We cannot win a war against Equestria, no matter where or how we attack. We can run wild for a year at most, before the superior Equestrian resources are brought to bear and our armies are ground into so much broth. If we attack Equestria, we will waken a sleeping giant – and her wrath will be terrible.
A few years ago Compound had been young, innocent, new to her position, and extremely loyal to Queen and Hive. She had been tasked by Queen Hunger herself with the job of compiling a logistical analysis of the likely course of another Equestrian War.
She had done so. A totally honest one. Which, as she well remembered, had incorporated those exact lines, finishing with ‘and her wrath will be terrible.’
She had felt a sense of relief when she submitted the report. Her logic had been impeccable. Surely, she would be believed! She had saved the Hive from disaster.
It had never entered her young head that her conclusions might be rejected purely because those who read the report might not want these conclusions to be true. Surely there was nothing more important than service to the Hive, service to the Queen ... surely even if her immediate superiors did not like her revelations, they could not keep this knowledge from Hunger herself!
Least of all had it occurred to her that Queen Hunger might be the very one who had refused to accept her report. That Hunger’s arrogant pride might mean more to her than the well-being of her Hive. That Hunger, most of all, was a traitor to her own lings, viewing them as merely so much fodder for her own glory.
Compound had stuck her neck out, forgotten the most ancient motto of her race. In Secrecy, Safety. In Safety, Survival.
She was lucky that she hadn’t been sent on a suicide mission. Despite her subcaste, she’d also had the normal Infiltrator training – she could have ventured into Equestria, either raiding for love or with orders to destroy some vital military target. Of course, all such targets were now protected by magelights which would glow green when a Changeling entered their glow. Many would shift them into their true forms as part of the bargain. Attempting to Infiltrate any major Equestrian city, or any important target such as Canterlot Palace or Mustang Marina had been a one-way trip for a long time now.
Instead, some sense of the value of her talent for logistical analysis seemed to have stayed the horns of the Queensguard Specials, the most elite unit charged with fighting disloyalty within the Hives. They were sinister, silent lings who used some private communications channel, speaking only by body language, and only to the lings whom they had made their prey. Compound was terrified of them – any sane ling was – and half-expected at any moment them to tear open her sleeping-pod and drag her off to her doom.
Compound had been terrified for years now, to the point that it had become her normal state. There had once been a young ling, before that an innocently awkward nymph, who had loved and been loved, trusted and been trusted, as part of her normal life, but that had been a long time ago. She didn’t suppose that she’d ever feel that way again, not in the few days or hours of life that now remained to her.
She’d spent most of the war sitting at a tertiary core, tasting the memory waxes and inscribing trails of her own into fresh wax, helping to predict the demand for supplies from various military units. It was a challenging and important job – the new wonder-castes Hunger was birthing were indeed effective on the battlefield, but many of them required npn-standard supplies to operate.
There had even been a point at which she thought that her old report had been wrong, that the Hives could win. She remembered her exultation as the armies had poured out of the Badlands, overrunning Dodge Junction and Appleloosa, spilling through the Everfree, the forest’s monsters fleeing before them as if they were army ants consuming some jungle. Ponyville, a place the Queen hated, put to the torch. Breakout into the Plain of Avalon, breadbasket of the Equestrian Realm … the Palace of Canterlot almost within range of their guns …
Then the Equestrian counterattack, the revelation of new and powerful weapons which had been already in development at the war’s start. Some she had known about – others had come as terrible surprises.
She’d heard reports from secondary sources that Spark Wheel Aircraft Industries had been developing practical internal rotary aircraft engines – not from inside, never from inside, that traitor, who had received the same training as Compound herself ensured that no Infiltrator of Hunger’s ever saw the inside of one of her own husband’s factories! And that treacherous vine bore ill fruit for the Hives, as aircraft faster by far than any Changeling in flight tore through the Air-Warrior Castes, shredding wings and chitin with sprays of shells from their automatic cannons, slaughtering elite Warriors as if they were helpless nymphs.
On the ground, formations of clanking armored monstrosities, carrying artillery behind their plating, rolling on wide wheels and caterpillar tracks, shedding Changeling bolts, their machine-guns and howitzers blowing the biggest and strongest Warriors to shreds. Ordinary Pony Warriors, bearing the new repeating personal firearms with semi-automatic and automatic actions, grenado-launchers, armor-piercing rockets … the new weapons were reaching the front with blinding speed, far faster than the Changelings could adapt their tactics.
Her report had mentioned the Equestrian War Department buying up suspicious quantities of uranium, far more than could be explained by normal industrial demand. There were old records, references to still older ones, legends from the Age of Wonders to which she had pointed urgently, and which had been returned to her red-peppered “Unsubstantiated” in waxes whose taste had been bitter indeed to the young Infiltrator.
So she had almost expected it when the frantic reports came from the front of fireballs hotter than the surface of the Sun, and Celestia herself nowhere in sight, the banespells against Alicorns useless as whole regiments vanished in flashes of heat and hurricane winds, mushroom clouds rising high into the air over what had been elite formations.
At first the new weapons only let Equestria stabilize the front. Hunger ordered a tactical retreat back to the forests. Next year’s offensive would guarantee victory.
But the Equestrian armies grew month by month. Equestria kept her forces in the field during the winter, Peagasi clearing the skies to ensure air superiority when necessary, railroads and the new motor-wagons delivering ton upon ton of supplies, regiment upon regiment of reinforcements. Long before winter was wrapped up by the Equestrian Guard Environmental Corps, it was evident to all but the stupidest Hive Warrior-Leaders that there would be no spring offensive on the part of the Changelings.
Compound had predicted this all, yet she felt sick horror as she actually saw it happen. Equestria was mobilizing even faster than she had expected. New airplanes, new artillery, new fighting vehicles appeared among the enemy ranks. Field Infiltration was still – just barely – possible, and Compound got regular reports from the enemy camps.
That spring the Equestrians began their advance. Slowly, at first. Making mistakes, at first, ones which the veteran Changeling Warriors could still exploit to force Equestria to pay for every mile gained. There were still well-supplied fortresses to be reduced, Changeling reinforcements reaching the fronts, tricks that elite Infiltrators could play that cost Equestrian lives. There was still space for cunning and finesse, for courage and determination, traits at which the Changelings excelled.
But, steadily, the Changelings lost ground. As that campaign year wore on, tremendous amounts of artillery and shells reached the Equestrian formations. New armored vehicles appeared at the front. New attack jets soared over Changeling lines, delivering death from above which the Changelings could not check or counter.
More and more of the earthfire bombs. Fortress after Fortress, Hive after Hive vanished in blinding light, their Warriors and Workers vaporized or burned or mashed into sick parodies of ling forms. The losses mounted, far more rapidly than any program of breeding or construction could replace.
Now the Changeling retreat became a rout. Of the millions upon millions who had raced north in those first heady months of victory, mere hundreds of thousands staggered back south into the Badlands, their defeated columns cut up by slashing armored attacks, strafed and rocketed by the attack jets, burned to pitiful twisted forms by liquid fire. Rarely could they mass to make a stand, and when they tried, increasingly the strongpoint vanished under a roiling miles-high toadstool of earthfire.
Hunger decreed new "Provisional Hive Guard Swarms." Compound read the reports, knew clearly what the official statements concealed. The new Warriors were being rushed to maturity, lings who were barely more than nymphs had weapons put in their claws and were told they were ready to fight. Workers were being declared Warriors by Royal fiat, given makeshift weapons, thrown into battle.
Compound heard the results, increasingly horrified by what they said and what they implied. The underaged Warriors fought bravely, but with little leadership or skill were little more than roadblocks, at best buying a few hours or days for Hunger's Hives. The fate of the misused Workers was even worse. Completely untrained and unequipped for warfare, they were little more than distractions forced forward to soak up enemy fire. They meeped and whimpered in uncomprehending terror until somepony cut them down with the new Equestrian weapons.
Hunger claimed amazing successes at Infiltrating Equestrian positions, produced memory-impressions of Equestrian camps with numerous Hive Hunger Changelings within. Compound, part of whose training included impression-analysis, could plainly see what was really happening. The soft-hearted Equestrians, increasingly aware of the harmlessness of Changeling Workers, were letting them join as servants -- giving them love in return for the performance of menial labor. The adopted Workers looked happy, healthy and well-fed; Compound could not help but compare their condition with the sorry state of the Workers back in the Hives.
Winter had seen a slowing but not a cessation of the Equestrian advance. Equestrian troops, transported in the new fast steamships, landed along the Gulf River, lifting the sieges on some of the Equestrian cities there, and taking back those which had already fallen. Now what remained of the Territory of Hunger was surrounded by Equestrian forces on all four sides. Queen Hunger had no allies, and now even if she had it would have done her no good.
Come the spring, the end of the snows and the storms, and the Equestrian advance resumed. What remained of Hunger's field armies melted like the snows in the furnace-blast of Equestrian military might. Whole units were vanishing in single days. What was more, Compound was now receiving reports that Hunger Warriors had begun actually surrendering to the Equestrians. Warriors, as formations, rather than individuals.
Hunger's forces were not merely being wiped out, they were disintegrating. This was something almost unknown -- Changeling Warriors almost never surrendered; they fought until they won or became physically-incapable of fighting. Workers might be paralyzed by confusion in battle, be captured, and adopt their captors as a surrogate Hive, but Warriors? Never! This meant that not only were the armies disintegrating, but the Hives as well.
A Pony could not have fully grasped the cosmic terror that gripped Compound's soul at the thought, and she understood Equestrian culture just well enough to realize that most Ponies would not understand this. Hive and Queen were all, they were the ultimate focus of felt-love, even though the love Compound felt most strongly now, after a week in the spider hole with them, was for her buddies Cowl and Carry. Without loyalty to the Hive, what was a Changeling? Nothing. Less than nothing, just a burden.
Did any Equestrians understand this? Of course they did; for the majority of the Changeling species, those who had refused submission to Hunger in the first place, was actually now working and fighting on the side of Equestria. Cowards! the official announcements relayed through the Hive Minds called them, Race-traitors!
But Compound could not help noticing -- though she spoke of this to no one, for this would surely have put her at the not-so-tender mercies of the Specials -- that the Hives who had accepted Reconciliation from Celestia were numerous, well-housed, well-fed, and well-loved. They were thriving as symbiotes with the Ponies, while the path of Hunger was increasingly leading her lings to suffering and annihilation.
Strange thoughts began to whisper at the corner of Compound's mind. The defectors have not betrayed the Hive. They have betrayed the Queen, but not the Hive. It is the Queen who has betrayed her own Hive. She is leading us all to destruction. We must revolt against Hunger, before it is too late for us all!
Madness. The Queen was the Hive. True, there had been a Queen before Hunger, even before Hunger had been named Chrysalis. Somehow, logically, Chrysalis must have replaced her. But ... these were forbidden thoughts. Every time her mind wandered onto them, Compound gave a little gasp of fear, looked around her, made sure that she had not broadcast any of that thought onto the Hive Mind channel.
Soon, there was no field army at all, nothing to impede the Equestrians from concentrating their forces against and crushing one Hive after another. Which is exactly what the Equestrians did. One after another Hive fell off the Inter-Hive Mind network. Some were pounded into craters by earthfire bombs. Others fell to close assault. Still others just stopped sending -- and the few Field Infiltrators left reported rumors of whole Hives surrendering rather than be destroyed.
There was a new factor now. Rumors -- strictly suppressed within the Hives, of a new claimant to the throne, a Queen of Kindness rather than Hunger, whose Stare and whose Pheromones were utterly overwhelming. She was somehow securing these surrenders, shattering the lings' loyalty to their rightful ruler, both through dominance and through the love she induced in all who beheld her. She promised peace and forgiveness, but these had to be lies, hadn't they?
In Secrecy, Safety. In Safety, Survival. Long centuries had taught the Changelings that they could live only hidden in the darkness. that they would die if brought into the light. Look at what was happening -- Hunger's hordes had erupted into the light, and now they were dying. Surely Celestia would, when the Hives of Hunger had all been crushed, turn on and destroy her supposed Changeling "allies." It was the way of the world.
Celestia had, after all, Reconciled with the very oldest and deadliest enemy of the Changelings, the one who had cursed them in the beginning, tormented them for centuries until there was nothing to do but hide from him. The Demon of Chaos, the Destroyer of Love. The Twister.
And that was the strangest thing of all. For the Queen of Kindness had also reconciled with the Twister, and counted him among her closest friends. How could any ling be the Twister's friend? It was enough to strain Compound's sanity to even try to imagine. No, the "Queen of Kindness" had to be a lie, something in which the Field Infiltrators were all too wiling to believe, for the obvious reason that it gave the Hives some hope, even past defeat.
Hunger kept proclaiming that they would inflict so many losses on the Equestrians that their courage would fail, that Celestia, who cherished her little Ponies too much to watch them keep dying in battle, would negotiate with her. Many in the Hive believed this.
Compound was not so sure. For she knew something they didn't.
Directly killing Captives was not normal for the Changelings -- they wanted to keep them alive as long as possible, to tap their love. But the war had gone so badly. There was increasingly little food in the Hives. There had been little sustenance for the Captives over the last few months. And it had been necessary to tap love at higher and higher levels to gain enough energy to empower the Warriors.
Equestrian forces had overrun some of the Hives fast enough to liberate their Captives, or just slowly enough that the corpses were still warm. Some of them had been in the first stages of being processed for the nutrient tanks. Stallions. Mares. Foals.
Pony intelligence was largely oriented toward protecting their foals. It had been even on the Primal Plains, before anyone had first tinkered with the equine genome to create their species.
"Foal-killer!" was a cry that resounded deep within the Pony soul. It meant a predator threatening the herd, a predator to be trampled and crushed without mercy. And this came only four years after Windvane's Rebellion, and the revelation of just how the New Mandate had gotten the energy to power their Rainbow of Darkness.
The Equestrian armies, who might have been expected to be war-weary after such a long, hard fight, flung themselves into the fight with rekindled fury, and a grim determination which looked absolutely terrifying in the memory-impressions. Now, the problem many lings faced was that some Ponies were no longer accepting their surrenders.
Compound knew then that the war would not end until either Celestia's or Hunger's subjects were all dead. Which was why she knew that her life was almost over. For there was no way, now, for the Changelings to win. The story of the Changelings, as anything but Equestrian slaves, was almost over now, and soon Compound's own story would end as well. It was inevitable.
As was normal for a Changeling, Compound did not much fear personal death. Her mind contributed to the constant emergent hum that was the Hive-Mind, and when she died she would return to the Hive, and something would be born again which might partake of some of the nature of Compound. Even a defeated Hive would be consumed or integrated into the Hive which had vanquished it. Life went on. The Changelings went on.
But if the Hive itself died? If all the Hives died? Compound despaired before the horror of such a cold and uncaring Universe, the cold and uncaring Universe against which the Hives themselves had been built to shelter. This would be the ultimate victory of that cold uncaringness over Rosedust's Children, a victory that could never be undone because the Changelings would be no more. And soon, very soon, this would be exactly what would happen. Compound shivered at the thought.
3. Collapse
Carry noticed her fear and embraced her in his strong, powerful forelegs, forelegs which could toss a heavy stone boulder as if it had been structural spittle, forelegs which could tenderly shelter a nymph, forelegs which now held his officer and commander in seeming safety against the world. Cowl saw what was happening and joined the huddle, and they both shifted slightly to let him in. They held one another, and made their own small pocket of warmth, and felt-love, against the cold from outside.
The bombardment, which had tapered off, resumed with a fury.
WHAM!!! the great guns said. WHAM!-WHAM!-WHAM!-WHAM!-WHAM! Outside their spider hole all was chaos and death and confusion. WHOOM!!! That one struck right above the exit, and the whole tunnel overhead caved in, fortunately in a manner which did not crush their spider hole. They still had light from their small glowmoss lantern. Compound knew that the air would eventually run out, if they didn't dig themselves out first. Changelings were good diggers -- but right now it would be death to attempt such an activity.
Whoom! Whoom! Whoom! The hits were muffled now by the absence of a direct atmospheric path, but were still quite audible through the hole's walls. With each detonation the spider hole shook and the spittle rattled down. Now rubble and earth were starting to sift through cracks in those walls, and Compound knew that if this went on much longer, the whole hole would fall in on them; they would be buried alive in their own Hive.
For once the greater Hive was no comfort. They could hear the Hive-Mind in the back of their own minds, and it was not soothing them. It was screaming.
She smelt the acrid tang of vented wastes. Something hot and nasty ran down her leg. She looked at Cowl's face, saw a tear-streaked mask of shame and misery. They had their own little latrine in one corner of their hole, with neutralizers and a lid to cover it, but despite all that the hole was at best unpleasant for long residence. The latrine had not ruptured. Cowl, in his utter terror, had lost control of his own bodily processes.
I'm sorry, he minded to her -- they were all far too deafened right now for acoustic channels I'm so sorry .... Cowl's mind-speech was weak and stuttering. It had been a long time since any of them had eaten food-love, and their powers were at the lowest ebb they had ever known.
Wham! said the guns. Wham! The tremors were less intense; apparently the hit which took down the tunnel mouth had satisfied the Pony observers, and the batteries had shifted to new targets.
Compound knew he could not hear her sound-voice and wanted to conserve her mind-voice, pheromones were useless in the stench surrounding them, so she answered through her only remaining communication channel. She clutched him tightly, stroked him affectionately, play-bit his cranial carapace. It's all right, her body language said. We're friends. I love you. It's all right.
He smelled abominable, but then everything in the hole now smelled abominable, and he was her buddy. They were all going to die in this hole, in their own bodily wastes, but they were going to die together, and that somehow made all the difference. Holding Cowl, with Carry holding both of them and sheltering them from the crumbling ceiling with his own great bulk, they were their own little Hive, and that was enough.
WHOOM!!! That one was far-off but tremendous, and Compound knew what that meant. One of the new Equestrian bunker-busters, well-aimed, had hit the magazines of a Changeling popup turret, detonating its entire store of shells. The whole hole rocked to pressure waves so strong that the walls visibly rippled, and for a moment, Compound thought this was the end. Will I see Rosedust? she thought as the secondary explosions crackled like the Twister's own firecrackers, and then the shaking stopped, was replaced with the (by comparison) mild tremors of shells hitting other parts of the Hive.
They were all covered in filth. Looking down, touching her own hindquarters, Compound realized that her own bowels had let go as well at that last great explosion. There was more waste than she and Cowl could possibly have produced, and she looked at Carry, who returned her gaze sheepishly. They'd all messed themselves.
She smiled at both of her friends. "We're all in the same cocoon now!" she said audibly, and started laughing. Neither of them could hear her, of course, but her meaning was obvious and they joined her in hysterical laughter. They were laughing because of the utter disgusting absurdity of the situation, because they loved one another, but most of all, they were laughing in sheer relief that they were all still alive.
4. Digging Out
Again the bombardment tapered off, or perhaps had simply shifted from their sector. She could still feel a grumbling and a shifting through her hooves that made it clear that no one had declared peace. But this meant that they had a chance of survival.
She reached for a large box, opened it. Within were mattocks, picks, shovels and hoof-spades. She selected a set of hoof-spades and stepped back. Carry and Cowl instantly grasped her intent and took tools of their own -- Carry a big mattock and shovel, Cowl a smaller shovel. Carry used the mattock as a lever, began shifting the lid of their spider-hole.
Dirt sifted down.
"Props!" cried Compound. Whether because their hearing was returning, because she immediately looked toward the timbers in the corner, or because it simply made sense -- a surprising amount of Changeling communication worked by shared perception of a common purpose -- Carry instantly grasped her idea, reaching for the timbers and wedging them into place under the load so that all but a small center, just big enough that Carry should be able to squirm through it, was supported.
Then Carry grabbed a pick and looked first at the lid, then at Compound. She nodded. Carry began to rip apart the lid with one point of the pick.
Great drifts of soft earth and pebbles, mixed with what had been the structural spittle ceiling of the tunnel outside, fell into the spider hole. Carry's nictitating membranes covered his eyes, shielding them as he continued to work like a demon, his pick making short work of the plyspit covering the hole. Now actual rocks fell on Carry's head and forelegs as he worked, but the big Worker merely grunted as he grabbed a long-handled shovel and stabbed at the hole, shaking himself occasionally to throw off the falling debris.
Compound scrabbled with her hoof-spades, throwing the spoil into a corner of her hole. Cowl adjusted the supports, shored up any part of the hole which looked in danger of catastrophic collapse. Sometimes their tunnel did threaten to collapse, or a section fell in entirely, but they simply adjusted their tactics and continued on forward.
They worked as a team. Each of them had chosen a role and did it uncomplainingly, without concern for status or danger. This, not predation or even shapeshifting was the great strength of the Changelings -- cooperation, a closer cooperation than that known to any of the other Four Kinds without considerable formal organization.
That Compound was an Theoretical Infiltrator, Cowl a Clerk-Worker, or Carry a Load-Worker; that they had all had spears pushed into their claws by a Hive gone mad, and told that they were Warriors now, meant nothing. They were buddies, they were a team, and there was a problem before them, a job to be done. Therefore, they did it. They forgot their fear, their shame, their pain, and they did the job. They were Changelings, and that is what Changelings did.
If you had somehow been able to tell Compound, at this moment, that this would be the virtue that was to carry her Kind across the sidereal Universe and beyond, to every corner of the Cosmos, even she, intellectual though she was, would have looked at you as if you had gone mad. This was the Twilight of Hunger, the Downfall of Hive-Prime, and even Compound's gleaming great eyes were at present unable to see the stars.
They dug backward, deeper into the Hive. Their spider hole had been backward-facing in any case, the idea being that Compound's trio would make a last mad dash against the rear of Pony assault troopers entering the tunnel from outside, all their life and individuality and potential spent in a suicide attack that if they were impossibly lucky might claim a few Equestrian lives as well. They should have had firearms, or at least repeating crossbows, but in these last days of the war the supply system of Hive-Prime was failing (perhaps because they no longer trusted the brilliant Compound to run it).
So they had been issued spears -- their own magic was far too weak after weeks of love-starving for their horns to be much good -- and ordered to expand themselves against Equestrian assault troops armed with automatic-action rifles and grenado-launchers, like so many rounds of the ammunition the Hive so sorely lacked. This would be a waste of Compound's carefully-inculcated skills as a Theoretical Infiltrator, or Cowl's as a Clerk-Worker. Even Carry's great size and strength could be better employed than soaking up Equestrian bullets. Sapient lives should not be thrown away senselessly in such a fashion.
But this was Hive Hunger-Prime in its last days, and this contagion of madness and death, which had spread from a single half-Zebra Changeling Royal to infect first one Hive, then through the greatest Territory the Changelings had ever possessed, was in the last brutal stages of its cauterization from the world of life and sanity. Hundreds of thousands of Ponies, and millions of Changelings had perished already, and now the whole domain of Queen Hunger had contracted to a single Hive, and that Hive was being pounded into rubble by the greatest concentration of conventional artillery this planet had seen for the last four thousand years. And if that failed, the earthfire bombs waited in readiness to be loaded onto the heavy bombers, to put a final end to Hunger's dark dream.
What were the lives of three little lings, against a background of such terrible waste?
Compound was, of course, thinking in no such terms. Her world had narrowed to a single tunnel that she and her two friends were digging. Carry dug. She shifted the spoil. And Cowl shored up the tunnel which stretched farther and farther up the shaft toward the Hive, toward safety and life, even if it was the safety of a little more life in the heart of a doomed Hive.
They were well within the old access tunnel now. They knew this by their positional senses, scrambled as these were by the repeated insults delivered to their bodies and minds during the hellish bombardment. They knew this by the quality of the rocks Carry was tossing backward and Compound was catching and shoving onto the growing heap of spoil. And they knew this by certain patterns they saw on the fallen structural spittle which were, to their nyctalopic senses, like so many clearly written signs to one of the other Kinds of Pony.
The moment came when they reached a section where the damage to the walls had been minor enough that they were within range of telepathic transmissions from the Hive-Mind. This theoretically should have enabled them to call for help from other members of the Hive, but the Hive-Mind was not in good shape, its channels mostly jammed by its own fear and pain.
Help, the Hive-Mind was saying Damage to sectors ... a list followed. Chambers ... another list ... entirely destroyed. Fires out of control in ... another list. Severe casualties ... and then on its emotional channels ... Help, help, help, the pain, the pain, make it stop! It whimpered and cried out for relief, for repair, but there was neither relief nor repair, only more and more damage, as the Equestrian bombs and shells and rockets tore great holes into the hillside, blasting and burning and smashing the non-sapient, but horribly-sentient and suffering collective intelligence of the Hive.
The trio looked at each other in horror.
"Shut down the channel," shouted Compound vocally, and did so herself. She could hear a bit now, and hoped that the other two could as well. "The Hive-Mind. It's hurt, it can't help us now. Shut down the channel, so that you can hear yourself think."
Cowl nodded, and made a brief mental effort. He wasn't as skilled at this as was Compound, who had recalled her Infiltrator training and had simply changed her Mask into that of a Compound who couldn't hear the Hive. So it was a struggle, but his strength sufficed. His features relaxed, his mind obviously cleared of the jamming.
Carry just gaped at her helplessly.
"I can't ..." he said. He'd never had any training on any topic more complex than how to find his way around the Hive and safely move heavy objects. "How are you ..." His face twisted in sympathetic anguish with the Hive's.
He couldn't dig very effectively like this. Besides, Compound couldn't bear to see him suffer any more.
"Wait," she said. "I think I have just enough energy left to help you. Look into my eyes," she said, putting a hoof-claw on each side of his head to ensure that he was facing her directly.
Carry obeyed her.
Compound closed her eyes, marshaled all her strength, and when she opened them her Stare riveted Carry's attention. It was not the mighty power of a Royal: she was only an Infiltrator, and a love-starved one at that. But Carry trusted her, was letting her in voluntarily. That helped a lot. A moment of adjustment, and then his will was hers to command.
"Ignore the Hive-Mind," she told him. "You cannot hear it. Only hear and pay attention to it when this order is countermanded." The last was almost a whisper -- her last dregs of energy were draining from her -- but she had to complete the command, leave a clear path to restore his link to the Hive-Mind after the crisis was over, lest she damage him.
As she spoke these words, she saw the pain depart her friend's face, his stance straighten. At the same moment the strength left her own limbs. Her forehooves dropped away from Carry's head, she tottered on her hooves, and might have fallen had not Carry's powerful forelimbs caught and steadied her.
"Easy," Carry said. "You look beat."
Compound reached within herself, made one more Mask-shift. She was now a Compound who didn't care about exhaustion. She felt her muscles firm, a false strength return to her.
"I'm all right," she told Carry. "Just had to catch my second wind. Let's keep digging." And, at Cowl's more dubious look. "Come on! We want to get out of here!"
She was lying to her friends. The strength was false. Mask-shifting wasn't like a true Shift at all, it was just a mind trick. What she had actually done was turn off the normal governors that any Changeling has to keep them from expending their last endurance, the reserves which maintained major organ functions.
She could keep going for a good while like this -- then something would give. Her heart, her blood vessels -- if she was lucky she would just faint. If she were unlikely, she could drop dead in her tracks, without her own bodily sensations giving her any hint of danger. When she had been taught this technique in her Infiltrator training, she had been warned that it was extremely dangerous, something she should not attempt save in an extreme emergency, if there were no better options.
This was an extreme emergency, and she had thought of no better option. Now, all she could do was use the extra energy she was burning from her own substance, to help save all their lives.
They resumed digging. A frightening amount of the tunnel had fallen in; Compound couldn't imagine how the Hive had taken so much damage from a single shell, without the explosion crushing all of them in their spider hole. It stumped Cowl as well. Surprisingly, it was Carry who grasped the reason.
"More than one hit," he said. "Look, the debris is in levels. The shell to the door must have caused the first collapse, the one that blocked our spider hole, that weakened a lot of the ceiling; then that really big blast sent it all crashing down. We're lucky it didn't send our little chamber crashing down right on our heads!"
Compound was impressed. Ordinary Workers weren't supposed to be that smart. Then again, he was a Load-Worker -- wouldn't knowing how things fell down be an important part of knowing how to pick them up and move them safely? Compound wasn't sure -- Infiltrators cross-trained in a lot of other skills, but noling had seen fit to teach her the ways of Load-Workers. She had no real idea what they knew or didn't know.
As she scrabbled to shift the spoil, it occurred to her that there were a lot of things about the world she didn't know, that she would never get to know, because even if they could dig their way to safety, they would all die within a few days when this fortress fell. It seemed a bit of a shame, really. Compound had always been a very curious ling, it was a requirement for her profession, and she had spent her whole life learning things. Soon, her education would end, forever.
"Wait," said Cowl, "Do you hear that?"
"Stop digging a moment," ordered Compound. Carry complied, standing in relative silence. They were all breathing hard now, and couldn't control it -- they were exerting themselves hard, in an oxygen-depleted atmosphere. Compound could hear the pounding of her own heart, and wondered how much longer she could keep this up before she collapsed. But she needed to keep calm, make the right decisions -- everyling was counting on her!
There it was again! Metal ringing against metal, muffled voices on the other side of the debris to their right! Compound consulted her memory -- hadn't there been some sort of ready room here? Yes, there had been a unit of Provisional Hive Guards stationed there. Had relief crews already reached this far?
"Dig in that direction," Compound said, jerking her head to the right. Carry heaved large rocks out of the way, Cowl struggled to shore up the tunnel with whatever large pieces of structural spittle he could find, Compound shifted spoil. It was the same thing they had been doing before, only now the air was definitely running out but there was noise on the other side, Changeling voices that were growing rapidly louder and more excited.
Suddenly Carry pulled away a piece of fallen ceiling and the soft earth shifted and there was light on the other side, brighter light than the wan illumination of their little lantern! The trio redoubled their efforts as claws reached out from the other side of the barrier.
"We're in here! We're in here!" a treble voice buzzed, which struck Compound as an odd thing for rescuers to say to rescuees.
"No, we're in here!" insisted Carry, while Compound and Cowl exchanged puzzled glances.
A moment later, the barrier crumbled between their little tunnel and the chamber beyond, and Compound realized what had happened.
There were eight supposed Warriors in the chamber. Compound's thought was "supposed," because six of them looked like older nymphs, not yet grown enough for their horns and wings to have fully developed. Two of that six looked so young that Compound was momentarily surprised there were no Nurses tending to them. They did, at least, look like they would grow into true Warriors, if it wasn't for the fact that they were all going to die long before that could happen.
The other two of the eight were Workers, and they were grown. One was a big strong Lifter drone like Carry, who was in fact the one who had been digging on the other side of the barrier. The other was a reedy little female, who was at least helping move the spoil. She was a bit older than the other Worker, and seemed to be directing her bigger friend.
"It's an Infiltrator!" the big drone said, looking back at the reedy female. "We're saved!"
This faith in her capabilities would have warmed the cockles of Compound's overstressed heart, on behalf of her whole Caste, were it not for the fact that they were, in fact, not saved. Instead, Compound, Carry and Cowl had just used a good portion of their remaining strength to dig in the direction of a blind alley. And the air was still going bad -- the new chamber they'd reached was bigger, but there were now eleven lings breathing what was left.
Compound noticed that the six Warrior nymphs seemed to be sitting around passively.
"Who's in command here?" she asked.
"Noling," came the amazing answer from the oldest Provisional Hive Guard, a big chubby colt-nymph with what a rather sickly cast to his thermal signature. "We had a Squad Leader, Warmdagger, but he went outside with the Assistant Squad Leader and they both got squashed when the tunnel fell in. And we're all Recruits and there's noling senior so we decided to just sit and wait till someling told us what to do."
Compound's mind boggled. Her culture was hierarchical, but not this hierarchical -- it sounded very much as if she hadn't happened along, all six of the supposed Warriors would have just sat in that chamber until their air ran out, leaving pretty little nymph corpses for some future explorers to find. She had heard of being "too dumb to live," but had never expected to encounter such a clear example of it, especially not in her last few days of existence.
Then she thought quickly. The eight in this chamber were eight more pairs of forelimbs and strong backs. And they were breathing her air. The implications were obvious.
"Right," she said. "I'm in charge now."
The two Workers looked relieved. The big chubby colt-nymph gaped at her in surprise.
"Don't you need a scent-marker ..." he started to ask.
"No," snapped Compound. "I'm a big scary full-grown Infiltrator, and you're just a little Warrior-nymph. You do what you're told!"
"Yes'm!" saluted the young Warrior, gulping.
"Now to the task at hand," continued Compound. "You," she said to the big Worker-drone. "Come up front with my team-mate Carry and do the digging. You," she said to the chubby colt-nymph. "And you, and you," she addressed the two other biggest Warriors. You're trimming the tunnel and shoring it up. You," she said to the small Worker, "and you two -- you're going to shift spoil. Get to it!"
With two big Workers digging, four lings shoring and four more shifting spoil, the job now went much faster. It might have gone faster still, had not Compound herself found it increasingly-difficult to put in her part of the effort. Her Mask was keeping her from feeling it too bad, but her hoof-claws were weakening, her breath coming with greater difficulty, and she had to coordinate her squad-sized group in addition to clearing spoil. Sometimes she had to stop for a moment, stars dancing in her vision, breath labored, heart racing.
She couldn't let her lings down. The world had narrowed to this race between the remaining blockage and the remaining air. It was a hellish race, here down in the dark with only the little lantern for light, a race on a course of unknown length, for she had no idea how much of the tunnel remained blocked. What if it were all blocked? What if the whole of Hive Prime had fallen in and there were nolings left alive in the rubble but her squad, eleven frantically and pointlessly laboring beings, doomed to labor thus by the delusions of their Infiltrator leader, until the air ran out and they dropped dead in the dark, just more organic debris in the great ruin that had once been a living Hive?
She tried to push the thought away but it kept coming back, each time more depressing than the last. Still, she could not show it, not speculate on it, for to do so would be to dishearten her squad. She was the one who must face such dark thoughts, alone, while exhorting her lings on to keep trying. That was her duty as leader.
A stray phrase came to her mind, a little piece of Equestrian ideology she had encountered in her researches, regarding the proper position of an Equestrian Princess. "Between the peril and her Ponies," the line went, and Compound laughed at the utter and absurd presumption of applying it to herself, for she was no Royal. She was just a Theoretical Infiltrator, and a disgraced one at that. She'd been sent here to the front to die, not to lead, but someling had to lead in this situation, and she was the only ling available to do the job. So she did it.
A blinding light. Pain penetrating the armor of her Mask, pain in her lungs, pain in her heart, so that she staggered as she stepped forward. Was this the light of Rosedust, calling her on to the next world? She was suddenly tired, so very tired, all her Masks dropping away, her mind no longer strong enough to maintain them.
And then the last wall of debris fell away, and she was at the interior guard post, which was full of Changelings, all of them staring in amazement as Compound and her squad, dirty and exhausted and stinking, staggered out into the full radiance of the glowmoss, gasping with relief as they finally tasted air with sufficient oxygen. The Changelings there included some very high-ranking Infiltrator and Warrior Leaders, and one of them was tall and darkly beautiful, her eyes blazing and her head topped by a pheromone crown, and Compound herself gaped in amazement as she beheld her sovereign, Queen Hunger.
Then reflexive duty took over. After a situation like this, she was supposed to report to the highest authority available, and the Queen was indisputably the highest authority available anywhere in the Hive. So Compound, half-dead though she was, made herself by sheer force of will take a few last, shambling steps up to Queen Hunger, looked her directly in the eye, and said:
"Provisional Warrior Team Leader Theoretical Infiltrator Compound reporting to base with ten more survivors of the tunnel collapse. Provisional Warriors Cowl and Carry have performed flawlessly and with the highest loyalty to the Hive. This Team Leader aided Provisional Warrior Carry with a Stare which needs to be countermanded. This Team Leader salutes you, Your Highness -- Glory to the Queen! Glory to the Hive!"
And that was that. She had just enough left in her to clear away the last remnants of her own Masks and then it all hit her, at once. The Hive-Mind, which was still jammed, sobbing to itself in dull misery. Her own exhaustion and pain. Her relief at finally being safe, even if it were only for now, at having brought her friends through this with no losses, not even of the baby Warriors she'd found along the way. It was all, suddenly, too much for her love-starved frame to bear up under.
Her vision grayed out around the edges. Suddenly the world was spinning, shifting, dissolving. Her limbs were floating. Gravity went away. Everything went black.
She was unconscious before she hit the floor.
Author's Note
The title of this chapter comes from Sabaton's song "Attero Dominatus." The obvious analogy here is the fall of Berlin in 1945, though of course the possession and use of atomic bombs by the Realm of Equestria also creates clear analogies with the fall of Japan that same year.
I'm going to do plenty of thrilling action war stories about the Great Changeling War, but I thought it would be interesting to show it from the POV of a not-very-bloodthirsty ling whose job let her know everything important that was happening, but who knew from the beginning that this war was a very bad idea, and mostly now just wants to live to see tomorrow. Not that this seems very likely now, for her or her buddies.
Theoretical-Infiltrator Compound is an interesting viewpoint for the Great Changeling War, because her position made her both intimately aware of the ebb and flow of the war and of the reasons for the defeat of Hunger's Hives. It is for this reason that I tell this tale from her perspective.
Chapter 2: In the Royal Bunker
Chapter 2: In the Royal Bunker
5. Hospital
When reality returned to Compound, she thought for a moment that the bombardment had ceased.
Then her eye followed the line of the intravenous feed coming from her left foreleg to the bottle-bugs on the rack above. The clear-bellied organisms were shaking slightly, and in a manner having absolutely nothing to do with either their own life processes or Compound's own. The whole arrangement was acting as a vibration amplifier, like an earth-penetrating sound sensor, and the shaking was coming from the floor.
The war was still on. She had obviously been moved to a lower level of the Hive, shielded by perhaps hundreds of yards of solid stone from the hell Equestria was unleashing on them far above. She was safe right now from anything but a direct earthfire detonation -- and, if she was down at the lowest levels of the Hive, from that as well.
In Secrecy is Safety, she thought bemusedly. The Equestrians did not know where she was. In Safety is Survival. As long as they did not know where she was, they could not kill her.
No, that's not quite right, she realized. The Equestrians had not known where she and her team were in the spider hole, but they had almost buried them alive with their heavy guns. And if she was still in the upper part of the Hive, she could still be smashed by an earthfire bomb.
There was a lot of glowmoss on the ceiling, and though to Pony eyes it would have been dimly lit indeed, to her own great orbs it might as well have been full daylight. Far more comforting than full daylight, of course -- the surface meant danger, while the Hive meant safety.
She heard a stentorian snore. A very recognizable snore. She turned her head and smiled to see the big familiar form of Carry, folded into a sleeping posture on the floor to the right side of her cot. He had obviously fallen asleep watching over her. She wondered if Cowl was anywhere around.
A moment later her question was answered as Cowl poked his head through the flaps of the curtains around their compartment, a tray held in his mouth with three lidded, wide-strawed bowls balanced on top of them. "I got some chow ..." he started to say around the tray, then "Hey! Compound's come to!" In his excitement he almost dropped the tray, but caught it at the last moment in his aura.
"Mmpf?" Carry came sleepily awake, then his face lit up as he saw Compound sitting up to regard both of them. "Compound!" He surged to his feet, almost filling his side of the small compartment. He reached forward, and for a moment it looked as if he was about to fall on her, but he moved with his usual grace, always surprising to see in a ling so large, and put his right foreleg delicately upon her, almost a feather-light touch across her ventral surface, gently stroking her.
She folded herself around Carry''s foreleg, happily hugging it. She felt better than she had in weeks. They were out of the spider hole, out of the collapsed tunnel, they were safe -- perhaps only for now, but that was more than they had been for a long time. This was a moment of happiness, and she had to snatch at each little moment of happiness, for that was all that remained of her life other than suffering. Once there had been a future; now death was closing in; but for this moment she was warm and dry and safe and surrounded by her friends.
Not to be left out, Cowl put the tray down on a table and went around Compound's other side. In the process he got tangled in her IV tube and nearly yanked it out.
"Ow!" said Compound.
"Sorry," said Cowl. "Clumsy."
Compound made sure the tube was secure at both ends. "It's okay," she told Cowl, reaching out for him with her left foreleg and pulling him into the hug. "You're my Cowl. I love you as you are." All three embraced.
"So, what did you bring?" she asked the Clerk.
"Green-orange," he replied.
Changeling broths varied: not much by the standards of other races, but each Hive had a standard menu of flavors, each with slightly different constituents and nutrients, which its denizens came to know and love. Or at least like. The Field Infiltrators always claimed that the Enemy knew how to cook much better foodstuffs, and sometimes brought back samples by way of demonstration. Compound had tried some Equestrian field rations. She thought them rather dry and spicy by her standards. But then, she supposed, the Equestrians would have thought their broths very bland; it was one of the things on which the Captive-Nurses had always had to cloud the Captives. When there had still been Captives, that was.
Of course, the quality of the ingredients had gone way down since the heady months when Changeling armies had been overrunning Equestria. Now, there was no more flow of plunder coming back to the Hive; indeed, with the Hive besieged by the Equestrians, the Hive had to rely entirely on its own fungus farms, and that food source was also thinning as the supplies of fertilizer for the fungus ran out. They had been reduced to the point where much of the protein in the broth was coming from their own corpses. It had been weeks since Compound had been in charge of tracking the Hive's supplies, but she still tried to keep abreast of the situation, as best as she could in the Provisional Swarm.
So it was with some trepidation that Compound took the bowl and put the straw in her mouth. She sipped.
Flavor exploded all over her tongue and scent against the roof of her mouth. This was better than anything she'd tasted in the last year! As an expert on supplies, she could identify most of the vitamins and other constituents that surged into too-long malnourished body. The drip was feeding her water, salt and glucose, but Changelings had stomachs, albeit small ones by the standards of most races, and she needed more than mere chemical energy. This was more than she'd known in so long that she literally trembled in delight.
She was feeling better in another obvious way, as well. The love-starvation, a condition she had become so used to over the last month, had lifted. They must be feeding me fluid from the love-pool as well, through that IV. Medics could do this, though she was surprised they had bothered to waste any love on anyling as unimportant as herself.
Around her Carry and Cowl were making delighted noises of appreciation.
"This is great!" Carry finally said.
"Sunstroke!" swore Cowl, "They sure eat well down here! Almost worth what we had to go through to get here."
Compound took her mouth off the straw long enough to ask the obvious quesiton.
"Where are we?" she asked. She'd never been in this part of the Hive at all, not even when she'd been a respected Theoretical Infiltrator, and certainly not since being demoted to a mere Supply Coordinator.
Carry tried to say something, but it came out muffled around a mouthful of mush.
"What?" asked Compound.
"We're in the Royal Bunker," said Cowl, answering for him.
Compound was startled. They were just Provisional Hive Defense Swarm Warriors, at least officially. They should have been in either a Warrior or a Worker hospital -- certainly not in the most sensitive part of the Hive, in what amounted to a luxury facility reserved for the Queen and her most important lings themselves. Even when she'd been a Theoretical Infiltrator, she wasn't allowed down here -- she communicated with the Queen and her advisers by sending them messages by Courier.
"Wait," said Compound, "have I been promoted?" After years out of favor, the very notion seemed surreal.
"I think so," Cowl said. "I heard from one of the Medical Workers that the High Queen Herself said that you were to get special treatment. That she had some kind of use for you."
"Oh," said Compound. She did not know how to react to this. Had High Queen Hunger finally decided to take her advice? All Compound's predictions regarding the course of the war had been basically fulfilled, save for the parts that had turned out worse than even she could have imagined. She supposed she was due some recognition for this. Still, it seemed a bit late for it, now.
Another thing occurred to her.
"Not that I'm complaining," she said, looking at her two friends, "but why are they letting you guys stay with me? Does the High Queen have a special use for you, too?"
"That's my doing," said Cowl proudly. "I made sure to tell everyling that we were your staff. I'm your chief secretary, and Carry's your general assistant."
"I have a ... staff?" Compound asked wonderingly.
"Well, as far as they're concerned, yes," replied Cowl. "And between you and me, the Hive's getting really shoddy with the waxwork. Wasn't like this in the old days when I was in my old cocoonicle. I couldn't have gotten away with it back when things were running properly." The ex-Clerk practically sniffed in disapproval of the poorly-handled bureaucracy, even though this alone had enabled him to achieve his ends.
Compound laughed at the absurdity of it all. Here, at the end of all things, when the Hive was being pounded to pieces by an implacable and vastly-superior foe, what bothered Cowl was that the clerks were failing to keep proper track of their personnel records! She mused on this a moment. To each ling the task appointed, she thought, quoting the familiar aphorism. Cowl's task had been shuffling records, so of course he would perceive the local Cataclysm now descending upon Hive Hunger-Prime in terms of the disruption of proper procedures.
And I see it in terms of logistics, Compound realized. How does Carry see it? She glanced at the big, amiable face above her own, and briefly considered asking him. He wouldn't understand the question, she realized sadly. There's a mind behind all that muscle, and there's certainly a good and loving heart. But he's not a deep thinker.
That was the Infiltrator's perpetual problem, that they were so much smarter than normal lings, than anyling in the Hive save for the Royals themselves. It was why so many Field Infiltrators had emotional problems, even became Love-Locked on their foes. The culture and the Ponies of Equestria offered them so much more, intellectually, than they could ever hope to find in the Hives.
Not my problem for much longer, thought Compound. Soon I'll be part of the broth. But no, she realized with a shock. I won't, because there'll be no Hive and no Cooks to make the broth. Again she felt cold at the thought, not merely of her own death, but of the death of All.
The presence of her friends warmed her. They might not be her intellectual equals -- Cowl was more verbally-adept than Carry, but was every bit as limited in his horizons. Cowl dwelt in a world of waxwork to be taken in, filled out and passed on; while Carry in a world of physical objects to be picked up and moved and put down. Neither required much real intelligence.
They were both good lings, though. She was glad that they'd be together now, together at the end. Maybe it wouldn't logically matter, when the ceiling finally fell in under an Equestrian bomb, or shrapnel from a grenado diced them into meat-gruel, or they were all burned alive or asphyxiated by liquid fire. But it still mattered, somehow. She wanted to die in the company of her dear friends.
Which reminded her.
"Thank you, Cowl," she said, reaching out to gently touch his face.
"You're welcome," he said automatically. Then "For what?"
"You kept us together," Compound explained. "By making you and Carry my staff."
"Oh!" said Cowl. "Um, it just seemed like the thing to do."
"It was the right thing to do," emphasized Compound. "And you did it. On your own initiative, when I was unconscious. You did well."
"Oh ..." Cowl glowed in the infra-red Changeling equivalent of a blush. "Um ... heh ..."
The curtain twitched open. A Medic looked into the compartment.
"Ah, Theoretical Infiltrator Compound, I see that you're doing much better," she said. She looked at the wax tablet. "Love-starvation, overchanneling, general physical malnutrition, some minor fractures and bruising. Some love in the IV, some bed rest, your friends have already gotten you some food, very good." She stepped into the chamber. Her horn glowed slightly as she began palpitating various parts of Compound with her aura. "Ah yes, you're regenerating nicely. All you need now is time to heal. I'm releasing you for sedentary duty." The Medic smiled at Compound, looked at her two friends. "They were with you all day. Slept in here. You must be a very good leader -- you have a very loyal staff!"
"The best," replied Compound, quite honestly. But her mind was whirling around what the Medic had just called her.
Theoretical Infiltrator, she thought happily. I have my old job back. Queen Hunger wants my advice.
Maybe her last days weren't going to be too bad at all.
6. Memories
The Medic disconnected Compound from the intravenous feed and passed her an assignment chit. The chit specified her new quarters and workstation, and authorized her to either house her staff with herself or in the Royal Bunker's Worker Pool, at her discration. It also told her her shift.
The Hive Mind was still shaky, but it was now again able to perform simple functions, such as timekeeping and internal mapping. A quick query told her why: it had been disconnected from the exterior sections of the Hive. That meant that any Warriors still manning the guard stations and the gun turrets were now on their own -- if there in truth were any left. Central command of the battle-front was now limited to communications by Courier.
Compound had been trained in tactics, so she knew what this meant. The Hive's active defenses were weakening. The guns would fall silent, one by one, as the horribly-accurate Equestrian fire took out one position after another. The Workers would collapse the exits, the Engineers would mine all the approaches, they would do their best to keep the Hive free of intruders. However, the Equestrians had plenty of their own equivalents of Workers and Engineers, and of course Warriors, supported by a plethora of weapons of which the Hive's own Warriors could only dream, and in numbers essentially-unlimited, compared to the pitiful thousands of Hunger's Warriors still available.
The Equestrians would probably finish neutralizing all the Changeling guns within the next twenty-four hours or so. They might hesitate before committing their assault troops to the attack -- Equestrians were reluctant to spend lives, and preferred to spent ammunition and magic making sure that the way was as clear as possible before ordering their Ponies over the top. But the order would come. The Equestrians had not lost so many of their own, not advanced this far, to flinch from this last of Hunger's Hives. They cared about their lives, but were nevertheless courageous enough to fight to a decision.
Hunger's mistake had been in assuming that they were too soft and cowardly to turn the tide, but she had been wrong. The tide had turned, and flooded first one Hive after another, and within a matter of a day the first Equestrian troops would successfully carry the outworks of this very last Hive. They would be surprised at how weak would be the resistance: there was no way that Hunger's officers could conduct any real counterattacks with their slender resources. A fighting retreat would be the best they could hope for, and only because of the supreme loyalty of Changeling Warriors.
At some point Hunger's front would break. How soon that came would depend on the exact details of the defense plan chosen, and how well it was executed, and also how well the Equestrians fought. And what new weapons they reveal this time, don't forget that, Compound reminded herself. Every major battle had seen the deployment of previously-unknown Equestrian equipment, and this one would surely be no different in that regard.
A week at most, Compound estimated, based on her very limited data. A week before they blast through whatever barricades we lower at the last, and get all the way down here, and finish us off. A matter of a day or two if they use earthfire bombs to pound the whole hill into red-hot rubble. She sighed, and gazed at her two friends, who looked back at her with complete loyalty and trust. A few days to a week to live. Ah, well. She smiled at them, and was rewarded by smiles in return. That's more time than we would have had if we'd stayed in that spider-hole, even if the tunnel hadn't collapsed. We've gained some more days of life, and that's a victory.
She made her way to their quarters.
They had a whole small chamber to themselves! It was such luxury as she had not known since she had last been a Theoretical Infiltrator. Then she had shared her chamber with two other young officers, like her innocent and eager to serve the Hive as best they could. There had been nymph-like late-night talk sessions, friendship, cuddling -- bonds of love forged by the awareness of their new and bright shared destiny.
Solitary
One of them, Solitary, had been a Long Range Infiltrator, trained to penetrate deep into enemy territory and survive for long periods of time without making much contact even with prey, reporting back at intervals what he discovered at a distance. He had been tall and taciturn, but had cared for his friends even if he spoke little of his emotions. She remembered the wild party they'd thrown for him when he'd been assigned into the field, months before the war had started.
He'd come back, once, after Compound had been disgraced. She'd wanted to see him, he'd been a special friend, but when she set eyes on him as he passed through the Hive, he pretended that she didn't exist. That had stung her as sharply as had her demotion. She'd thought they'd had the sort of friendship that would last until one of them died.
Later, she'd realized that of course the successful young Long Range Infiltrator had wanted to distance himself from a former Theoretical Infiltrator of dubious loyalty. She'd told herself that she had been foolish to try to see him, that he'd only displayed common sense by pretending not to know her. She'd berated herself for her selfishness in risking his career.
Still, it had stung.
She hadn't tried to see him when he came back from his second mission. And from his third mission ... he'd never come back. By then Hunger's armies had been in full retreat, and a lot of lings had gone missing, presumably converted into corpses. Solitary had been just one of the millions, meaning nothing, save perhaps to one little ling who herself meant nothing to the High Queen.
Trapcastle
The other young officer had been Trapcastle, a Theoretical Infiltrator like herself. Trapcastle had been a plump, deceptively lazy ling with a first-class mind, easily Compound's own equal. She had a habit of listening to one at length, then coming out with a devastatingly-brilliant observation that either exploded one's whole notion, or showed one how to expand it into something really amazing.
She was like Compound in her intelligence, very much unlike her in her ability to fit in, to understand politics. Compound envied Trapcastle her smoothness, her ability to navigate the lightless tunnels of bureaucratic maneuvering, to make everyling think that she was on their sides. Trapcastle routinely lied to most lings, but she was always very honest with Compound -- why, Compound was never sure. Perhaps Trapcastle was still grateful for those minor favors Compound had done for her back in training?
She'd been an odd ling. Compound remembered when she'd shown Trapcastle her report, the report that had blasted Compound's own career to ruins. Trapcastle had listened to the whole thing, then simply smiled and told Compound: "You know, the old fogies will never accept this. They'll say that we can just capture their leaders like we did in the last war, and then our armies will overrun Equestria before the Ponies can react."
"But it won't work like that," Compound had insisted. "The Equestrians know about us now. And their technology and productive capacities have been advancing rapidly over the last ten years. We'll lose -- I'm right about this!"
"Perhaps," said Trapcastle, leaning back into her bedding and grooming her head slowly with one foreclaw. "Maybe you are right. I'm just telling you that they won't want to hear this. I'm not sure why I'm telling you this -- maybe I like rooming with you -- but you really shouldn't submit it."
"If you signed on to this ..." began Compound.
"Oh no," replied Trapcastle, waving her foreclaws as if pushing away something dangling from a tunnel ceiling. "I want no part of this. I like my job, and my little comforts."
"But they might believe ..."
"They'll believe what they want to believe," explained Trapcastle. "What you or I say won't dislodge the wax in their crania. What it may do, though, is make you very unpopular with the leadership. Don't you care about that? Don't you care about yourself?" She leaned forward, stroked Compound's chin with one claw. "Look, Compound -- I care about you. I know you're very forthright -- you say what you think, you don't care about making enemies. That's admirable -- but what this does is make you enemies. I've tried to protect you -- more times than you've realized -- but I can't protect you from the ministers. Or the Royalty themselves. You're opposing a policy that's been endorsed by the High Queen herself, don't you realize this?"
"I have to be loyal to the Hive," Compound said, straightening herself. "If we launch this war, the Hive will suffer. The High Queen will suffer. Someling has to let her know about the danger, not just cheer us on as we all run into a furnace and die together. If noling does, we're all doomed."
"But why does it have to be --" Trapcastle sighed, drawing her foreleg back. "I can't be associated with this, Compound. Surely you understand this. I can't be associated with ..." She cast her eyes down, ears drooping. "I'm going to request reassignment to new quarters. We can't know each other any more. I'm sorry, Compound. I don't hate you. I just have to look out for myself. Do you understand?"
"I ... of course," Compound made herself say. She Masked herself as a Compound who didn't care, hoped that she'd done so swiftly enough that Trapcastle hadn't seen it. A flicker from Trapcastle's own mind made her realize that her friend was doing exactly the same thing. Not for the first time, Compound considered that empathy could be less a blessing than a curse.
They said nothing more. There was nothing more left to say. Compound chose to sleep that shift in a common chamber. When she returned the next sleep shift, Trapcastle and her things -- more than most Changelings, even of fairly high caste, possessed -- were all gone. And that was the end of her friendship with Trapcastle. That was the end -- for a long time -- of having friends.
Demotion
Compound submitted the report. It was rejected. She lost her position as Theoretical Infiltrator, was downgraded to Theoretical Logistics. The sort of post one would give an especially smart Worker or Warrior, not normally a job for an Infiltrator at all. Everyling knew what she had been, and the story spread around the Hive of what she had done to deserve this demotion. That she had been a defeatist, almost (the whispers were hushed with horror at this point) a traitor.
She was lucky, of course, to be alive. Compound could have been drained, or ended, or (as the war grew more and more desparate) put right into a Penal Swarm, to be expended against the increasingly-common infernal devices of the Equestrians so that less-Defective Warriors had a chance of closing with the Ponies. Most who had managed to personally-offend the High Queen Hunger would have found such a fate.
Compound could only conclude from the mercy that had been shown her that her exceptional intelligence made her too useful to the Hives to expend in such a fashion. This was not arrogance on her part, but rational self-estimation: she'd always been smarter than most Lings, not just because Infiltrators necessarily were smarter to fulfill their functions, but even among members of her own caste.
That was why her friendships with Solitary and Trapcastle had been so special to her: they had been close to her own intelligence. They could have meaningful conversations. Now, because she had failed to suppress her own stupid ego for the harmony of the Hives, she was alone.
And yet ... she knew she was right. It was difficult to understand how she could be right, when even the High Queen hummed a different song -- was not Her will the expression not only of the will of one Hive, but of many? Did that not mean that Compound was failing to fit in? Yet, there was more than one kind of conformity. There was conforming to the will of the Hives, and there was conforming to the reality that lay outside the Hives. If the Hives themselves failed to conform to external reality, who then was Defective?
The thought was terrifying. Ideally, the will of the Hive -- its perceptions corrected by the very multiplicity of those who were perceiving -- and external objective reality should be one and the same. How could Compound's single mind see something that the Hive had missed? Or could the High Queen herself be -- but no, that thought was treason. Heresy. The High Queen could not be Defective. If a Queen were Defective, surely another Royal would Challenge her for leadership, and win, for the subtle will of the Hive Mind itself would strengthen the challenger, weaken the Defective one, and then a new ling would be Queen, and the Hive would have purged itself of Defect.
Revelation
The thought wormed at her as she lay alone in the very small chamber she was now able to occupy alone -- the one she occupied because noling wanted to be too closely-associated with the possibly-Defective Infiltrator who had been sufficiently useful to be spared for a lesser task, but she still had to sleep somewhere. It tormented her.
Does this apply to a High Queen, she wondered. Would the normal mechanism of Challenge even work to remove one with so much power? This was a situation the Hives had not faced in a very long time. Compound ran her tongue through some very old waxes, ones she should not have even been able to normally peruse, ones that if found tasting might well mean her own purging. They confirmed her fears.
There had been no High Queen since Rosedust, since before the Changelings were even Changelings in the modern sense. And noling -- nopony, the old waxes conveyed, in a shift of language with even more horribly-heretical implications -- had wanted to Challenge Rosedust. She had been removed, not for any Defect, but by the power of the Twister Himself.
There was no way to Challenge a High Queen. Her power was such that she could overcome any single Hive Mind, any other Royal -- any other Queen. She was invincible, and if she was Defective, she could ruin all the Hives in her madness.
When Compound fully grasped the implications of this she had physically fallen, her world reeling about her, the secure pillars of its foundation removed and the whole warren threatening to collapse. Thankfully, noling else witnessed this -- there was the Hive Mind, of course, but to its simple perceptions all that had happened was a momentary fright and fall, something easily dealt with by Compound's own local processing resources, scarcely requiring attention from any other lings.
Shaken, she had fortunately still remembered to cover up the traces of her unauthorized tasting of the ancient memory cores. Her act would have been viewed as desecration -- the only older records of the Changelings had been taken to Canterlot by a Traitor, one of the few Royals of the Hive of Memory to have escaped Hunger's Unification, two years before the start of the Great War. There was literally no worse breach of security Compound could have committed, save handing over those waxes to the Sun Queen herself. Had Hunger known what Compound had done, her fate would have been sealed.
It's only a possibility, Compound had reminded herself, and kept reminding herself every time the terrible thoughts returned. High Queen Hunger could be insane. We might be following a madling to our doom. "Could" and "might" do not logically-equate to "must."
She had returned to her duties, and ceased her delvings into forbidden lore.
Exhaustion
She had tried to be a good Theoretical Logistician. She had mastered every aspect of supply, from planning to production to delivery to evaluation of requests, the whole cycle which kept the Swarms in the field. There was much work which needed to be done, due to the fundamental nature of the Changelings.
In peacetime, a Changeling Hive mostly ran itself, the Hive Mind handling the routine provision of needs through making Workers aware of what needed to be done to satisfy the hungers of the individual lings. There was no need of the more complex system employed by the Equestrians, in which individuals negotiated contracts and shifted metal bits around as claims on the labor of others. Each Hive was a command economy, and a very simple, rarely-changing one.
In wartime this all broke down. Swarms in the field had simple Hive Minds which could only handle the acceptance and distribution of supply or plunder; they did not produce, and were thus entirely dependent upon provision from outside. Somelings had to actually request supplies, others to order production, arrange for their transportation and delivery. If this work were not done, the Swarms might literally starve.
Compound was extremely good at coordinating logistics. It lacked the subtlety of Infiltration, the game of mind against mind to learn what the Enemy wanted kept secret from her. But there was a certain beauty to the task of figuring out what each Swarm needed, would need in advance, in a future whose shape would also be determined by the course of the campaign. Guess right, and everything spun on smoothly, the reward being that one could play the game again and again. Guess wrong, and lings starved, or ran out of the other supplies needed to keep on fighting. Guess badly wrong, and lings died.
Compound rarely guessed wrong. Unlike most Theoretical Logisticians, she was used to taking the plans of the Enemy into account when shaping her supply systems. It was that skill at anticipating what would be demanded because of what the Enemy would do in response to Changeling actions which made her so valuable in her position: valuable enough that, even though the High Command politically despised her, they did not wish to do without her services.
Then the game went all wrong. The Equestrians counterattacked in such strength that no conceivable system of supply could save the Swarms. Lings died in terrible numbers no matter what plans Compound made. She did her best -- more than once, her pessimistic calculations of the Changeling positions a week or month in advance ensured that supply dumps were in the right place for the Swarms to hold and rally upon, instead of being overrun by the Equestrian advances -- but increasingly her best was no longer enough.
It was her own fault, and she knew it. She didn't know how she could have done better, she just knew that she should. Must. And couldn't. She was not enough.
She studied frantically, sometimes kept on working well after her shift, mastered every possible aspect of running Hives. She issued orders, even when they were above her grade, let others take the credit when she was right, and took the blame when things went wrong. She spent the remainder of her reputation uncaring of personal consequence -- she had long since realized that she had no future prospects of any more prestigious position. She had ruined her higher hopes, and now all she could do was give what she could to save as many lings as possible.
She was tired all the time toward the end. When communications between the Hives was cut by the Equestrian conquest of the intervening territories, when logistics were once again simplified to questions easily within the capacity of a single Hive Mind to solve -- when the order came removing her from her post, reassigning her to a Provisional Swarm -- Compound was actually relieved, even though she knew that this probably meant her death, and fairly soon.
The long strain was over. Now she learned simple things -- shooting crossbows, pushing spears, digging and propping emergency tunnels. She was made a team-leader -- an absurdly low rank given her previous experience, but one which meant that all her problems would now be direct, easy to solve, immediate in their consequences. She would decide well, and her team would survive. Or she would decide poorly, and they would die. And she would die.
No more guilt. No more awareness that her mistakes would kill other lings. Compound breathed a sigh of relief when she first realized this. When she failed, she would die, and justice would be served.
And then came the miracle.
Her team mates looked up to her. Carry was strong but simple; he was in awe of her intelligence. Cowl was smart but unused to danger; he was dependent upon her ability to remain calm. They accepted her. They needed her. They liked her. Soon, they loved her.
It had been years since anyling had loved her. Since she had felt she belonged. It had given her such great joy to realize that in this, the last weeks of her life, she was loved, she was really part of something again, not just in the functional and intellectual sense she had known before, but emotionally as well. Compound had friends.
And that made all the difference.
In the last weeks of her life, Compound was once again happy.
7. Relaxation
So now there was nothing to do for more than a full shift-cycle. Compound's orders told her to begin her first shift in her restored role as a Theoretical Infiltrator after four shifts, and before then she would have no way of preparing or even studying for her task, since the very waxes she would need to taste were inaccessible to anyling without special authority, and she would not gain that authority until she actually began her new tasks. Likewise her staff, whose role was of course to support her, could do nothing until she started.
A whole shift-cycle's idleness was an unfamiliar sensation.
Bathing
They went to the baths, of course, and washed off every bit of grit and dust they had accumulated. These were not the common baths of the Hive, but the baths of the Royal Bunker, and the soaps included scented ones plundered from the Ponies back when their campaigns had been more successful. Compound actually remembered when some of those soaps had been found -- a whole warehouse-full of them, which the High Queen had sequestered for Royal usage. Compound had cut the orders distributing them to the Hives, but she had never expected to have the privilege of actually using them.
The Changelings actually made better soap under normal conditions, filled with their subtle bio-technologies, but the Equestrian soaps smelled prettier. There were brushes and applicators, some with markings -- "Property of the Ponyville Spa," read a label on one squirt-bottle. Compound supposed that these had been taken in the sack of Ponyville, two years ago. That town had figured prominently in some embarrassing defeats suffered by the High Queen before She had become Hunger, and consequently She had ordered it burned to the ground.
The Ponies had retaken the ruins over a year ago, of course. As Compound lazily lay in the warm water, she wondered if the Ponies had rebuilt yet, and if the Ponyville Spa was once again open for the Equestrians to enjoy. If so, they would have had to restock their soaps.
These baths were huge and under-used. Instead of being built as one great chamber, their walls were rippled and bubbled into little alcoves, allowing a rare degree of privacy for Changeling structures. This had probably been at the High Queen's command: She had a fondness for luxury rare in Her Kind.
Compound and her team took advantage of the privacy to play, something normally in very poor form for Changeling adults in public. Cowl started it by diving and tickling them with underwater wave patterns, and Compound responded by splashing him when he surfaced, so that he spluttered, while Carry let forth great hooting laughs. Cowl retaliated with his own splashing, and soon all three of them were churning the water into foam, giggling like small nymphs at the absurdity of their own actions. Finally, Carry swept the both of them up in his great load-lifting forelegs and planted them on his back, then swam through the deeper sections, his mighty limbs easily keeping his head above water as he carried them like some sort of boat.
They stopped suddenly when they realized that they were not alone -- a Cleaning-Worker had paused in her labors by the poolside to stand stock still, staring at the cavorting Changelings with a look of utter disbelief. The small ling looked as if she wanted to ask them what they were doing, but didn't dare.
So Compound answered her.
"Good Worker," she said, deadpan, "I am conducting tests in the potential use of Lifters as amphibious assault vehicles. What you have seen is of course secret, and you must not speak of it to anyling. Service to the Hive!"
"Service to the Hive," repeated the Cleaning-Worker automatically, but did not entirely lose her skeptical manner.
They marched out of the pool into the drying room, and once they were around the corner started snickering, making it all the way into the chamber before they actually fell down in helpless laughter, sinking against the wall. Carry put his forelegs around both of them, and cuddled Compound and Cowl until all three recovered.
"Ah," said Compound, "we can't keep on doing this kind of thing in public, or everyling will think us mad."
"Yes," said Cowl, "our insanity is of course secret, and must not be spoken of to anyling."
That statement may have been a mistake, as all three of them began laughing again.
"Aw," said Carry, "you guys are great. I'm glad we're still together."
"Same here," said Cowl.
"And me," said Compound, rubbing her cheek against Carry's barrel. "I can't think of a better way to end."
"What end?" protested Cowl. "We're safe now -- we're in the Royal Bunker."
"Sure," said Compound, smiling at her two friends. "We're as safe as anyling in this Hive."
Which was even true. Literally speaking.
"I'll keep us safe," vowed Carry, holding them tightly.
"You will, big ling," said Compound, enjoying his embrace. "You will."
They left the baths. As they did so, Compound looked back at the great pool. It was empty, only the water-purification system should have been disturbing it. Yet, every now and then, the water rippled, as if some sort of vibration from the walls was disturbing its surface. Which was, of course, exactly what was happening.
She wondered what hell the Equestrians were now unleashing against the upper Hive. But she said nothing to spoil the mood of her friends.
Eating
The main eating hall was occupied, unlike the baths. It was spacious, but there were a a dozen or so lings in there, including some rather high ranking ones. Not the High Queen, of course -- She would normally dine alone, or with a few ministers or favorites for company -- but various officials of the Hive or Swarm, some of them Subcaste Chiefs. They outranked her, of course, and far outranked her staff.
So Compound and her team were somewhat subdued as they took their bowls of broth and cups of liquid love and dined. The broth was even more excellent, by the lower standards of this last year of war, than had been the hospital food. It was decent even by prewar standards. The love was of course very dilute now -- supplies were running at least as low as Compound had predicted when arranging its distribution had been part of her earlier job -- and it was cut with synthetics which Compound knew assuaged some of the love-hunger but provided no real empowerment. There must be very little love left now, if this was what was being consumed in the Royal Bunker itself.
Compound was for the first time in months not love-starved, because she had received the previous IV drip. Nevertheless she was hardly flush, and she gratefully sipped up every drop of her cup. She was quite hungry for physical nutrient, however -- the love-energy worked best with actual matter to speed her regeneration -- and she was quite glad to eat her bowl of broth. Cowl and Carry, of course, had been on very short rations for many months before the tunnel collapse, and they drank their love greedily and with great satisfaction.
"I wish we could get seconds," said Carry mournfully.
"It's against the rules," replied Cowl. "I saw the sign on the counter."
"Yes," Compound affirmed. "We don't want to risk causing a scene in here. There are some important lings here," she said, surveying the patrons, "and -- oh crap." She had just spotted a very familiar face and set of carapace markings.
"What's wrong?" asked Carry.
"What did you see?" asked Cowl. He'd noticed the focus of her attention. He started to turn,
"No!" hissed Compound. "Maybe she hasn't noticed -- oh no." The very famliar face was looking directly at her. "She's seen me." She sighed in resignation.
"Who is it?" queried Cowl, looking nervous.
"An enemy?" asked Carry, his face darkening. "I'm not gonna let anyling hurt you ..."
"Thanks," replied Compound, smiling slightly at Carry's loyalty. At least I have true friends now ... "But I don't think you can protect me from this foe. And she's not really a foe," she explained. "More of an old friend. Well, ex-friend."
She looked up again. The face was staring right at her. The expression was one of indecision. Oh, why not, thought Compound. No point in being petty now. Why carry grudges when it will all be over so soon?
Compound smiled, waved.
Many expressions chased each other across the other's face. Then she got up, took her tray over to their table.
"Hello, Compound," the other ling said. She was not as plump, nor as comfortable as she had been before. Her face was worn by worry lines, her appearance somewhat less well-groomed, as if her life had been even emotionally-harder than Compound's own since they had last met. Still, Compound would have recognized her had she been even more profoundly changed. "How have you been?"
"Sometimes better, sometimes worse," Compound replied easily. "This place beats an adit spider-hole. And how about you, Trapcastle?"
8. Warning
"Living," stated Trapcastle. "Which is more than can be said for many. Most of our old friends are dead," There was a haunted look on her face. "Solitary ... he never came back from his last mission ..."
"I heard that," affirmed Compound. "I had hoped that ... well, I've been out of the loop the last couple of months. Maybe he's a prisoner?" Despite everything she could do to suppress it, short of Masking, her voice rose a bit with hope on those last words.
"Haven't heard so," said Trapcastle.
Compound's heart sank.
"But then we don't hear much these days, beyond the Hive," pointed out Trapcastle. "Very few Field Infiltrators left, and it's difficult now for even Infiltrators to move in and out of the Hive. He could still be among the living." She essayed a weak smile, then she once again frowned. "Some of the others ... Orangeshell, Pointleader, Brushleg ... I know they're dead for sure. I saw them on the casualty rolls."
"Sunburn and heatstroke," said Compound, softly, casting her eyes down. "So many good lings gone."
"Yes," replied Trapcastle. "They were good lings, all of them." She looked inquiringly at Compound's companions.
"Oh," said Compound, realizing what she had omitted to do. "Trapcastle, these are my staff -- Cowl, my administrative assistant; and the big ling's Carry, my general assistant. Cowl, Carry, this is Trapcastle, a friend from the old days -- from the last time I was a Theoretical Infiltrator."
They exchanged greetings. Trapcastle told her of the fates of some other mutual acquaintances -- Queensclaw had risen in the Royal Guard, Spearstrike died in the field, Passage at last report had been supervising Engineers in another Hive -- then leaned in and spoke very softly, so softly that only Compound herself could hear.
"We need to talk in private," Trapcastle said.
"I trust my staff with my life," replied Compound, a bit miffed. "We've been through Tartarus together."
"I don't trust them with my life," said Trapcastle drily. "And there's something you really need to know."
Compound considered for a moment, realized that she had to find out what Trapcastle meant to tell her.
"Carry, Cowl" she said sweetly. "I need you to perform some official staff functions. Can you get Trapcastle and myself seconds on the broth and some tea with that? And get yourself some too. And only one load at a time -- we don't want to spill any and look silly on our first cycle in the Royal Bunker."
Carry grinned cheerfully, saluted and got up to get the order. Cowl looked at Compound very suspiciously, but followed suit.
"All right," said Compound to Trapcastle. "You have my attention."
"When you report for duty next cycle," Trapcastle said in a low and even tone, "you will be asked to make some estimates based upon nonsensical premises. Evaluate the actions of Hives already lost and Swarms already surrendered or destroyed, that sort of thing. You must act as if these premises make perfect sense, the Hives are still in the fight, the Swarms in the field."
"What?" gasped Compound in shock. This sounded like insanity, even treason. "Why ...?"
"They've gone mad in there," explained Trapcastle flatly. "Or a certain highest-place personage has -- I can speak no more clearly than that. She wants it that way, they give Her what she wants. Or ..." she mimed a Stare, opened her jaws wide, as if she were consuming an immense amount of love directly from a living source.
"What, Her own officers?"
Trapcastle nodded. "She likes doing it. Reminds Her that She still has absolute power, here in Her last Hive." Trapcastle looked nervously from side to side. "You can't speak of this, Compound. I'm putting my life in danger by even letting you know this much."
"Then why are ..."
Carry and Cowl got back with the first trays, which they set in front of Compound and Trapcastle, and for a moment the two Theoretical Infiltrators were reduced to an uncomfortable silence. Then they departed to get the next load, and the conversation could resume.
"Why are you telling me this?" Compound asked.
"Because I know you," Trapcastle said. "You're honest. Good. Pure."
"Well, thank you --" began Compound, flushing slightly.
"It's not a compliment," said Trapcastle bluntly. "Not in this situation." Trapcastle sighed in exasperation. "This isn't a time for purity," Trapcastle explained. "No time to be a hero. The heroes are all dead or dying. They're gone, like Solitary. You're one of the last really good lings left, Compound."
Compound was still confused.
"I don't want you to die, too," Trapcastle said. "I've tried to protect you -- I diverted more than one suggestion to have you put in the Provisionals long before one finally went through. When that happened, a little more of me died inside. The nymph-hood me, the me who still believed in honor and friendship and Service to the Hive. When the tunnel collapsed ... when you were reported missing in action ..." Trapcastle fell silent for a moment, something dreadful flickering across her face. Then she smiled. "When I heard you had survived, been transferred to the Royal Bunker -- then that you were going to work in the Royal War Room -- I couldn't let you just scuttle in there with your courage and honesty and innocence and wind up victim to a madling. Not after surviving so long. I ... I couldn't let you go out of the world."
Trapcastle's face was earnest, her emotions untainted by deception. As far as Compound could discern, she was telling the truth.
I was the one she never lied to, Compound remembered. Then, with gladness, She never really stopped being my friend! Trap, you old softie, you were just Infiltrating, on my behalf! She felt a great rush of warmth and affection for her fellow Theoretical-Infiltrator.
"My dear friend ..." Compound began, moved in the beginnings of a hug.
"No time for that!" said Trapcastle, but she was smiling. "One more thing. You can't trust anyling in the War Room, except for me, and you can't let on to the others in there that we're still friends. You don't know what it's like in there -- it's like scorpions in a bottle, each one waiting for the other to show the slightest weakness, and sting. It's a nightmare ..." she began, then stopped in shock, covering her mouth. "Oh, and don't say that N-word. I know the highly-placed personage once gloried in the term, but things have changed, in the last couple of months. It could mean death for you, now."
"Sounds dangerous in there," Compound said, half-laughing.
"It is," Trapcastle said, without a trace of humor in her tone. "Oh, Comp, it is. You don't know the half of it."
Carry and Cowl returned, and there was then just the companionable business of eating, exchanging small talk, laughing with Trapcastle over old anecdotes, of the halcyon days before the War, when they were young and life seemed easy. When they were finished eating, they got up to go to their room, and Compound was exchanging farewells with Trapcastle. She had a sudden thought.
"Trap," suggested Compound, "Why don't you come with Carry and Cowl back to our quarters. We can shoot the breeze long into the night, cuddle, play, all be friends. It'd be just like old times, with you and me and Solitary."
For a moment Trapcastle's face looked very wistful, and she seemed about to take the offer. Then she shook her head.
"No," Trapcastle said. "It's probably been noticed that I had dinner with you and your staff, but that's acceptable given that we're old friends. But if I play with you -- no, that would be too much, imply too close an alliance. Then I might not be able to help you -- or myself -- if things go wrong."
The reasoning seemed foreign to normal ling nature. Changelings were hard-working; the greatest consolation of their lives was the love felt between friends, the ability to play and relax together when not actually working. Compound wondered how harsh and strange a social environment existed within the Royal War Room. She wondered if she would be able to survive it.
"All right," said Compound, as they got up from their table. "I'll see you around. Maybe someday, when the War's over ..." The statement seemed hollow to Compound herself, and Trapcastle smirked at her, calling her out on it.
"The only sort of lie you'd ever tell," Trapcastle said softly. "To make a friend feel better. I could always see through you, Comp."
"Stay safe, Trap" replied Compound.
"You too," said Trapcastle. "Especially you."
***
Later that cycle, when they were in the sleep portion, Compound lay long awake, comforted by the stentorian snoring of Carry and the more delicate sleep-noises of Cowl on his other side, and she wondered. They were warm and clean and dry; they were resting on a comfortable bed, they had enjoyed their play and expressed their felt-love, free of the fear that an artillery shell would at any moment obliterate them. They were together. They were safe, at least for now.
Were they? For what Trapcastle had told her implied that the Royal Bunker might be a place as deadly as any battlefield, with enemies who did not conveniently show their hostility until they plunged the dagger into one's back. None Shifted, but all false, a mockery of the normal cameraderie of Changelings. All putrid, because rotten at its very core.
I can survive this, Compound told herself. I must survive this. I'll lie, maneuver, do whatever I have to, to protect my friends. She buried her muzzle briefly in Carry's side, drank in the scent of her dear companion, was comforted as he reached forth one claw, gently stroked her, then fell back to sleep.
And Trapcastle, she thought. I mustn't betray her trust. She was my true friend, too, all along -- so much of a friend that she pretended not to be, to protect us both. I'll keep all of you safe, though I don't see how, right now. I'll think of something, she vowed to herself.I should be able to do so. I'm smart enough for us all.
She drifted into sleep, lulled by the low grumbling through the walls of the intensifying artillery bombardment far above.
