A murmur rolled through the crowd.
“Will you help me?” Rohan asked, stepping out from under the protective curve of the weaver’s leg, and, this time, there were scattered replies from the people.
“Yes!”
“I will help you, boy!”
“And me!”
“Me, too!”
And then the cry rolled through the crowd. Askavor would be protected by the settlers, because Askavor had saved Rohan from the arach, and Rohan needed their help to do the same for his weaver protector.
They went suddenly silent, when Askavor raised a single foreleg, and started to speak.
Rohan let him continue for a small span, then raised the mike to his lips, and translated.
“In return for your protection, Askavor offers to teach your children, and any adults interested, how to program in vespis and Galbas.” He paused to let the murmured responses die down. “And he promises to teach the best of you how to defeat the arach code, which will be used against you.”
More murmuring greeted this pronouncement, but it stopped, when Askavor stirred and added more, hunching in on himself, as he backed away from his audience to stand at the back of the podium. All eyes looked to Rohan for an explanation, but the boy hesitated, glancing uncertainly at the queen.
She made a gesture, signaling for him to continue, repeating it when Rohan looked back at his weaver friend.
“He said remembering how to break the arach programming was hard, because… because it takes him back to a time of indescribable pain.”
And Rohan handed the mike back to the queen, and went to stand close to Askavor’s side. Cascade crept up onto the dais to stand by his master. The crowd gasped as the dog passed under Askavor’s forelegs, and perilously close to the spider’s fangs, but Askavor didn’t shift.
He lifted his head and chittered, and the queen passed on his words.
“Cascade stood between me and the arach, just as I stood between the arach and the boy. Neither of us would let them pass.”
She waited, and the crowd settled under her patient gaze.
“By royal decree,” she said, and all movement stilled. “By royal decree, this settlement will be the home of the Lestret-T’Kvar Coding Academy, and the first community where vespis, weaver and humans live, side-by-side.”
Sounds of excitement and disappointment ran through the people before her, and she raised a hand.
“Those who do not wish to live with non-human neighbors will be assisted in resettlement elsewhere.”
Voices were raised from the crowd, as settlers turned to their neighbors. Excitement vied with horror, approval with protest, and anger and grief rode through them. Things were getting ugly, and I glanced down at the Blazer, switching the setting to something non-lethal.
In front of me, the queen shimmered and resumed her native form, vibrating her wings in a clear command. Beside her, the two bodyguards changed, becoming huge reddish-gold creatures, as they lifted from the stage and moved forward.
Some of those closest the dais moved back, and some began to run, but many sank to their knees, looking upward at the wasps. The queen’s words rang just as clear inside my head, as they must have done throughout the crowd.
“This is my decree. You will be protected, but you will protect each other, and you will protect those I consider under my protection. The humans, vespis, and weavers will live as one. That is my command. To go against it is to become a traitor, and to earn the fate that awaits all traitors. Kneel if you understand.”
I didn’t hesitate, but T’Kit reached out a long-clawed forelimb, and kept me on my feet.
“The Queen’s Guard do not need to kneel. Our obedience is not under question. Watch.”
I watched. Everyone already on their knees, stayed there—and many of the runners stopped and turned, dropping to their knees, as well. Some kept running, and four of the queen’s guards took off after them, catching them mid-flight, and lifting them off their feet, before flying them away, beyond the buildings.
More of the runners chose to go to their knees, rather than continue, but others made it to the shelter of the streets, and kept going. I saw the guards return, flying unerringly between buildings along the paths their quarry had taken, and I had trouble not asking for mercy.
T’Kit squeezed my arm.
“They will not be harmed,” she said. “Most are still traumatized from the arach attack, and act only in fear. We will release them when they are calmer. If they are able to cope, we will return them to this community, or house them in a weaver settlement until their experience, there, overrides what they suffered during the attack.”
“And if they can’t?”
“We will confine them in a place where all their needs are supplied by weavers, where weavers protect them, and where they will have to rely on weavers for their very existence. There is a well-known syndrome that can be used to assist humans build bonds in the most unlikely circumstances.”
Stockholm Syndrome? They were gonna what? The idea chilled me, and I didn’t know what to say.
“We will not execute them for being afraid,” T’Kit told me, “but that fear must be eliminated, or it will threaten us all.”
I wanted to know what event in their past had led to this way of dealing with the problem, but T’Kit remained silent on the matter. The other bodyguards had returned, but not to the dais. Instead, they were moving amongst the settlers, touching a shoulder here, stroking a head there, shifting to humanoid form to gather a settler into a hug and hold them while they wept.
“We need to be among them,” the queen said. “Askavor, you will come to the front of the dais, and wait. You will be protected.”
“Darn right, he will,” Rohan muttered, but the queen acted as though she had not heard him.
“Walk with me,” T’Kit instructed.
As we descended the dais, I heard the thrum of wings, the burring hum as more vespis arrived. These did not have the
