Now, waiting for the second set of ugly creatures to make their appearance, Kk’tik’s scent was full of questions.
“Patience,” said Ch’ika’tik. “They will come to us or we will go to them. Then we break them and go home.”
As if on cue, one of the creatures climbed up over the ridge of vines and stood there, its upper appendages extended above what Ch’ika’tik was fairly sure was its head. It was different again from the first two examples of whatever they were, smaller than both and with more of a mane than the second one though less than the first.
“I [surrender/reveal myself] to you,” it said. It spoke strangely, with no real chemical mixture under the words for clarity or emphasis. In fact, its scent was unpleasantly static. Another mark against these things. The creature seemed to wish to go on speaking, but Kk’tik had her wave lance up and trained on its face.
“Be still, ugly thing,” she said, and flooded her scent with a locking chemical. Whether command scents would work on these creatures remained to be seen, so Ch’ika’tik hung back, keeping her own lance targeted on the newcomer while Kk’tik took a closer look.
Ch’ika’tik’s scent advised caution, but it was clear that Kk’tik was secure in their superiority over this thing. Unlike the last one, this creature seemed fairly docile. There might not be a need to break it before returning to the Spire.
“It has no wave devices,” she said, still looking the creature over. “It smells…”
“I can smell it, you stupid slug,” said Ch’ika’tik. “Just break it and let’s go.”
“Wasn’t there another one of them?” said Kk’tik.
“Yes,” said Ch’ika’tik. “Go get it and bring it back here. I will watch this one.”
Kk’tik’s scent aura contracted until it was nearly imperceptible. As Ch’ika’tik took her position next to the new creature, she leaped up over the rise to capture the other. She didn’t have the sharpest mandibles when it came to planning, but when it came to following orders, she was perfect.
Ch’ika’tik took a better look at the alien while she waited. Not enough eyes (if that’s what they were). No armor that she could see to protect that soft, mushy flesh. No scent variation. And its face continued to twist in that odd and unsettling manner.
“Stop doing that, creature,” she said after a moment of watching it.
“What?” it said.
“That thing you do with your face,” she said. “The twisting. Showing your ugly teeth.”
“It’s called [facial contortion/expression of pleasure],” it said.
“Well, stop it.”
But the creature didn’t stop and suddenly all Ch’ika’tik could think of was how awful, how terrifying it was to be outside, under the sky with the Eye looking down in displeasure at everything below. It could see her, she realized. It could see her and, in seeing, know that she had hoarded nutrient jelly that had been meant for the larvae, that she had made sport with one of the breeder males when she should have been guarding the Spire.
The Spire! It would know about the Spire and their plans and then-and then-
The merest thought of the Eye’s wrath over her and her people’s misdeeds sent Ch’ika’tik into a paroxysm born entirely of fear. She fell to the ground before the ugly creature, taking no comfort that it had at last stopped twisting its face that way. All she could think of was the Eye, the Eye, the Eye and its awful righteous anger if it ever found the Spire.
She pulled her carapace close around herself, folding up into the same sort of ball she’d made during the first days of her martial training when the bigger pupae had scared her so. All she could think then was, Hide! Hide! Protect!Now, in the face of this new terror, it was all she could think again.
As her conscious mind began to shut down, she heard the ugly creature say, “All right, Christine. Go!”
Then there was that funny sound that had accompanied the use of the alien’s wave weapon only somehow louder and less amusing.
Then there was nothing. For the time being at least, Ch’ika’tik’s mind had gone away.
“Wow,” said Vale as she slid down the rise and saw the enormous and formerly fairly intimidating soldier curled up in something very much like a fetal ball. “What did you do to it?”
“Exactly what you asked,” said Troi.
Vale held up the two phasers. Neither of them had wanted to kill these creatures unless it was warranted. Vale guessed that two phasers set on maximum stun might take them down without killing them, and she was right.
Deanna’s part was harder, requiring her to use her empathic abilities in a way she normally didn’t or even couldn’t.
“I wish you’d told me before that I was shunting my emotions into you when I got stressed,” said Troi. “It’s a possible side effect of the fertility treatments I’m undergoing with Dr. Ree.”
“Sorry,” said Vale. “At first I didn’t know exactly what was happening, and then I didn’t want to pry.”
“We’re family, Chris,” said Troi in a tone that pierced Vale to her core. “Whatever else happens, you should know that.”
“Thanks,” said Vale, hoping she wasn’t actually blushing. “It’s a hell of a trick, but it looks like it worked too well.”
“How so?”
“Look at this thing,” said Vale. The Orishan was almost literally folded up into itself, having gone into some version of shock from the emotional overload. “It’s not going to be able to tell us where they took the others.”
“It doesn’t need to,” said Troi. “I might not be able to read minds as well as a full Betazoid, but when one is screaming at me, I can certainly hear it.”
“The Orishan told you the location?”
“Some place called the Spire,” said Troi. “It’s not far from here, but I don’t think we would have found it on our own.”
“Why not?”
“You’ll see,” said Troi. “Come on.”
Troi was right, they would never have found it on their own. Yes, it was massive, effortlessly towering over the jungle as well as its nearest neighbor. Yes, now that they were close, the tricorder could easily pick out the strange energy emanations pouring off the thing at intervals. But they would never have found the Spire on their own.
The stalks that rose up out of the chaos of vines were many times the size of the biggest redwood on Earth, their uppermost reaches not only standing well above the jungle canopy but seeming to disappear into the clouds above.
They were like the beanstalks in the old nursery story but without leaves or angry giants living in castles at the summit. This one, the Spire, had a few unique additions to separate it from its fellows.
“The metal looks woven,” said Vale softly. “Like the watchdog ship.”
“The tricorder says it’s some kind of resin,” she muttered, still trying to make sense of the readings.
The Spire was important to the Orishans. After their terrible deity this might be the most important thing on the planet, but she still had no idea why.
They had taken pains to camouflage the Spire, somehow making the technological additions to the stalk’s structure mimic as closely as possible the foliage around it. The woven metal Vale spoke of seemed to rise up out of the earth, winding around and through the great stalk, conforming to its color and contours, until she lost sight of it in the upper distance. There were openings dotting the thing all around that could be windows or lights or exhaust chimneys or even missile tubes, but each sported a sort of hood of artificial fronds, clearly technological from below but, at least on those she could see, from above the hoods were indistinguishable from the surrounding flora.
She wondered if all their structures were made this way and if that might not be the reason for the absence of the obvious industrial footprint Orishan civilization had to have left on its planet.