“Your name is Hurg, isn’t it?” The attendant nodded. “Which mound are you from?”
“None, actually. I was clutched on the trade spinner above Ukuol. Spent my first half dozen molts there before volunteering to serve in the Dark Ocean Chorus.”
“Not a big leap, then, going from a spinner to a ship.”
“There are certainly similarities,” the attendant agreed. “The structure of things is quite different, though. New routines to learn.”
“Indeed. Did your clutch-mates above Ukuol learn the Parable of the Seven Sacrifices?”
“I’m afraid that one didn’t make the journey from the homeworld, Derstu.”
Thuk clicked his mandibles, excited at the chance to tell the story.
“It’s an old story, from before the Fall of Queens. It’s changed much as it’s floated down the timeflow. But the plates of it are this. Once, when mounds still made war against each other, there was a river valley. One side of the banks held seven mounds in an almost constant state of conflict. On the other bank, there was but a single small mound, half the size of the others. The rock there was close to the surface, so they couldn’t dig very deep. The soil along their bank was also poor, as the river moved too quickly there to bless the land with sediment during the floods.
“But their queen was wise and far-seeing, and her chorus endured despite their challenges, and the fact no one across the river coveted their patch of land kept them free of the conflicts that frequently erupted between the other mounds. That was, until one summer. The queen had traded with a mound far upriver for new hammers and chisels of an incredibly hard stone that would finally let them dig tunnels into the rock below their mound. But only a moon into their excavations, they struck sun-tears.”
“Ack,” Hurg said. “And suddenly the other mounds were very interested in their little patch of land.”
“Not right away. The queen kept the mouths of her people quiet for a year, then two. But eventually rumors from other mounds they traded with up- and downriver reached the other bank. The mounds launched raids individually, but the river was treacherous near their banks and all the raids failed before they set foot in the queen’s mound.
“The seven mounds eventually reached a truce and agreed to pool their resources to build a bridge across the river, kill the queen, enslave her people, and strip their sun-tears. They began immediately, and the bridge grew with each passing day, along with her people’s despair. They sent boats to set it on fire, floated logs from upriver to break its pylons, but nothing worked.
“Desperate, the queen hatched a plan. She picked seven of her best traders with her midhands—not for their strength, but for their familiarity with the mounds across the river. She told each to dress up as a warrior from each of the seven mounds, then ordered them to sneak into a different mound on the same night and attempt to assassinate the queen.”
Hurg’s eyes lit up. “Did they succeed?”
Thuk waved his primehands balefully. “No. They failed, to the last one. They all fell, and fell short … just as their queen had sang.” Thuk’s face brightened and his tone soared.
“Enraged at the attempted betrayals, each of the seven queens launched attacks against the mound they believed had tried to kill them even before the sun rose the next morning. By midday, the seven mounds on the other side of the river were engaged in the largest, most bloody war anyone could remember. The bridge forgotten, they wasted themselves against each other until none remained strong enough to carry on. In the end, the queen finished the bridge herself and used her modest army to sweep up the remnants of the seven mounds and claim them for her own. With each passing year, her people grew to fill the new mounds one by one until they were the strongest network anyone had ever seen. The queen decreed the seven mounds renamed, each after the loyal trader that had sacrificed themselves for their people.”
“That is a lovely story, Derstu. Is it true?”
“Who knows? Who cares? The best stories contain their own truth, Hurg. Whether they happened or not is the least interesting thing about them.”
“I understand. But why this story? Are you afraid our harmony and the Chusexx are like one of the traders? That we’re meant to be sacrificed?”
“I don’t know, Hurg. My mind wanders from the path sometimes. Maybe it’s nothing. But I can’t help but wonder why the Chorus is pushing us so hard. We’ve been at peace with the humans for so long. Why now to antagonize them? And why here, in a system they’ve only begun to excavate? There’s nothing here for us to easily take. It’s not even one of the worlds we dually claimed. I struggle to see the sense in it.”
“Our legs know not where they carry us,” Hurg said mechanically, unconvincingly. But Thuk would play along.
“Yes, of course you’re right.” Thuk held out a primehand and pointed at the rolling scroll. “We should wake our harmony and get to work carrying out the Chorus’s song, don’t
