The Scarab Path

Che digested these words, thinking: the past. It made no sense: she knew Beetle-kinden even if she could not quite claim to be one of them any more. It made no sense. Something doesn't add up. It gave her a strange sense of excitement. Khanaphes — what might I learn there?

It struck her then, and she actually jumped up, knocking back her chair. Taki was in the air in an instant, wings a-blur and a knife in her hand. A few of the other taverna patrons had gone for their weapons too. The war was not so very long ago.

She sat down, made herself give an apologetic wave around the room. Taki stood on her chair back for a moment, wings flicking for balance, before consenting to sit down.

A city of Beetle-kinden without machines?

A city of Inapt Beetle-kinden?

'Yes,' she said, thinking of Stenwold's offer. 'Oh, yes I will.'

Stenwold was enjoying an after-lunch bowl of wine in the College refectory when someone came brushing past behind him, murmuring, 'The Vekken are after you.'

His stomach sank and he looked back. 'Which ones?'

His informant, a natural history master, shrugged. 'Who can tell? They all look the same.'

This was Stenwold's chance to make himself scarce, but he did not seize it. 'They're my problem,' he replied, whereupon his benefactor shrugged and made a quick exit. Stenwold braced himself mentally for another taxing encounter. His Vekken initiative which, in their mutual derision of it, had at last provided Collegium and Vek with something in common. Yet nobody understood how important it was. He was trying to do what Collegium should have done in the first place, instead of relying solely on the strength of its walls and assuming the Vekken had been defeated a generation ago. Stenwold was trying to make sure that there would be no third Vekken war. He was trying to build bridges. The result of his months of careful diplomacy was that the Vekken had at last sent four men who claimed to be ambassadors, and were more probably spies.

Two of them located him soon enough after the tip-off, and came marching up to stand before his table.

He couldn't even tell which two of the team they were. Ant-kinden all looked like siblings, and the Vekken seemed to have sent four ambassadors who were absolutely identical. They stared at him now as though they had just found out he had sent assassins to kill their families.

'Masters …?' He made a motion at the table, offering chairs. They stared at the seats as though they were venomous, then turned the same expressions on him. His Vekken initiative had been worth it, if just for this. He had always known the dislike of his own people for the city of Vek, inspired by two repelled attempts at conquest, but he had not guessed at the reciprocal loathing felt by the Vekken because of Collegium's successful resistance. They hated the Beetle-kinden and, because they could not see how mere Beetles could resist the might of an Ant city- state, they feared them also. Stenwold was working as best he could to disarm that enmity but there was a lifetime of ingrained distrust to overcome.

'We are aware of your plans,' one of them said, and then paused as if waiting for him to admit everything.

He looked at them blankly. 'I have many plans,' he said at last. 'Which ones do you mean?'

'You are gathering allies,' said the same one, speaking with the flat courage of a man who expects his hosts to have him killed. 'You are sending to another Beetle city to secure them.'

That gave Stenwold pause, but he was good at handling surprises and just drained his wine bowl while he pondered, Now that's interesting. If they think that, then who else does?

'Your silence indicates admission,' said the same ambassador. They had an identical expression of dislike etched onto their mirror-image faces, but no more than that. As with all Ant-kinden, the real feelings were expressed inside their heads, secret among their own kind.

'You're talking about the Khanaphes expedition?'

'So,' the Vekken said, all their fears confirmed.

'What of it? It's simply an academic expedition to study a city of our cousins …' He was about to ask them if they would not be similarly interested, in his position, but they would never be in a similar position, because any other Ant city was automatically their enemy.

'So you say,' said the Vekken. 'But we see more.'

'Please sit down,' he suggested, but they would not. They continued standing there with their hands near their sword-hilts, waiting for the worst. He had a sudden dizzying thought of what it must be like for these envoys, surrounded by those they knew to be their avowed enemies, while deprived of the comforting voices of their own kin that they had lived with all their lives: just the four of them cut off and alone in an alien sea.

'What do you want?' he asked them patiently.

'Warmaster Stenwold Maker is sending an expedition,' declared one of the Vekken crisply. 'He tells us it is peaceful and that no harm is meant. He will not deny a Vekken presence, therefore.'

They waited for his furious objections as he stared at them, mind spinning. They saw a military purpose in everything, and that purpose forever turned against Vek.

At the thought, it was all he could do not to laugh, but that would not have been diplomatic.

'If you want to go, I shall make the arrangements,' he agreed.

They betrayed nothing in their faces, but he knew he had caught them out. They did not know whether to rejoice at defeating him, or curse at themselves being defeated.

He only wondered what they would make of Khanaphes.

Five

Greetings and salutations of the Great College to my good friend Master Kadro.

It has occurred to me that you may think we do not allow sufficient importance to your far-flung mission.

Similarly, communicating as we do by such inadequate means, your discoveries to date — as opposed to your renewed requests for funding — have not been communicated to us here so well as I am sure you would prefer.

As the first College Master to study such a fascinating people as the Khanaphir, I can tell you we are all agog to learn what you have discovered, and to assist in furthering your studies.

So it is that no less a man than War Master Stenwold Maker, whose decisive role in the recent war cannot have escaped your attention, has proposed that we send some further members of the College to assist you in your labours.

Rejoice, then! For an ambassador of Collegium, none other than War Master Maker's own niece, shall be travelling to assist you, be the distance never so far. She shall take with her certain other academics who have expressed an interest — as who would not? — in the vital work you are doing. They shall of course bring equipment and funds to assist you, and they will be keen to hear from you regarding your theories and evidence.

I do hope you can arrange for them, with the Khanaphir authorities whoever they might be, appropriate lodging and similar conveniences.

Your most dutiful friend and sponsor

Master Jodry Drillen,

of the Assembly of that most enlightened city of Collegium.

Petri Coggen read the letter again and felt like weeping.

She sat at the little sloping lectern which the Khanaphir had given her for a desk, and put her head in her hands. They were so obtuse, those old men at the College. Worse, they had a gift for bad timing. Beside Drillen's letter was one of her own, completed last night and ready for sending. It read: