Page 49 of Butterfly Effects

That might have worked when we’d been more like wasps, but as modern Johrlac were bipeds built for live birth, rather than egg-laying, I couldn’t imagine being responsible for the population of an entire hive would be a lot of fun. The very idea made my hips hurt.

“Once a third-instar individual has settled and stabilized, they can be pushed over the edge into the fourth instar. Queens are creatures of community: like the third instar, their transformation must begin from the outside. The exact mechanism is not communicated, because it must be restricted for the health of the hive. Queens will vary in power and potential, depending on the strength of the push which cracked their shells. The greater the danger, the stronger the queen.”

“And that’s why you’re assuming I can stand up against a collective of five, since I was in a lot of danger when I changed,” I said. “Why is it ‘queen,’ and not ‘regent’ or something else gender-neutral?”

Annalist looked baffled. “Why would we choose an untrue title for our rulers?”

“Because men can reach the fourth instar?”

“But they can’t. It would take too long, and even if they survived, they would be dangerous. There are no male queens.”

“I’m already dangerous,” I protested. “I can bend space, and no one’s around to teach me how to do it safely, which means I could seriously hurt people, or even collapse chunks of space and time if I’m not careful. And my telepathy is too strong—I erased the mind of the man I loved, and I didn’t even realize I was doing it. I have no idea how strong I really am or am not, based on the scales you’re using, but all queens are dangerous.”

“Yes, which returns us to where we began: the collective will do whatever is necessary to prevent unauthorized queens from rising out of the population.”

“Uh-huh.” Given that the more advanced instars were all externally triggered, it would actually be possible for the collective to prevent other queens from rising. I just wasn’t sure why they’d bother. “And why is that?”

“Each mind added to the collective dilutes its purity of purpose,” said Annalist. “When a single mind controls the collective, there is no dissent or disagreement.”

“And there’s also no collective. One person isn’t a collective; it’s an individual.”

“Be that as it may, there have been collectives controlled by one or two minds, and those were harmonious times.”

Meaning a single queen would rise and seize control of the minds of the entire population? The thought was horrifying. I swallowed, staring at Annalist. “The current collective is five people.”

“Yes.”

“You said that was a small number.”

“We try to maintain a collective of eight or more, for the sake of flexibility.”

“How did they rise?”

“The first two were chosen by the previous collective to ascend and take their positions. The third was injured at a game with her brothers, and their efforts to call her back from her injuries were invasive enough to trigger her third instar. From there, she was able to convince her parents to press against her mind, and the pressure brought on her fourth instar. It was a shock to everyone when she broadcast her wishes over the city, and the existing queens took her into their number rather than executing her because they saw the potential in her range and strength. The fourth survived the collapse of a collective on the other side of the continent, and the fifth is the first to have been chosen by the new queens. Her name was Collate before her recategorization. She lived in this house with the others, once.”

“Are Fetch and Carry helping me because they’re angry at their friend for becoming a queen without them?”

“Nothing so simple as that. None of them wanted to join the collective. Fetch and her friends are what we call ‘individualists,’ people who believe individuals have the right to live their own lives, guided by their preferences and personalities, not at risk of revision because they displease a queen, not assigned to a profession from birth. We are eusocial insects at our core, but a hive may function without forcing forms of behavior upon its members. Collate was the strongest in her belief that self-determination was a right worth exercising. Her apotheosis was a punishment. She was revised, then triggered into ascension, and now she controls the city with the rest of the collective, and what little remains of their friend is worn away day upon day. They would burn this city to the ground if I allowed it—or if their own minds did. None of us can directly harm a queen. They fought back when Collate was taken, and now, even the thought of bringing harm to a queen harms them. They could never start the fire.”

“If you allowed it … ignoring their conditioning, how do you have the authority to stop them?”

“I am of a higher professional position, but more importantly, I am a keeper of the histories. I know and understand the ways in which collectives have collapsed. Attacking the people they control rarely destroys them. It is more likely to strengthen their position, as it causes all those who have not been incapacitated to flock to the feet of those they consider strong protectors.”

“This really doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with me.”

“Every queen is the living seed of a potential collective. They look upon your existence as a threat. They know not the exact shape of your strength, only that you were able to navigate a crossing between dimensions with multiple people and a large piece of your innate territory. That whispers to them of great and terrible power. You could overthrow them.”

“Is this why people don’t use their telepathy even as much as I do back on Earth?” I asked. “I used to dream of being a telepath in a telepathic society, where everyone would be sharing thoughts and there wouldn’t be secrets or hidden meanings or misunderstandings. But here, it’s like everyone’s afraid to do more than brush up against somebody else’s mind—how does that work?”

“The collective—”

“The collective changes. You just told me that. And if there’s more than one collective, that means they aren’t some unquestionable authority. So you must always be this reluctant to lower the barriers between you and everyone around you. How does that even work?”

“In the days before the cuckoos, we were better at unity,” said Annalist. “We had never considered that anything else might occur. We left our barriers down. But then, out of the disharmony, came conflict. Came discomfort, which grew and grew and left little room for lowering of barriers. We became insular once we realized we could have conflict with our own, and in the rise of the collectives, we discovered that only through self-protection could any trace of singularity be preserved.”

I shook my head, looking down into my half-empty salad bowl. How had I eaten that much of it—and when? “It seems silly, to be able to be so close and to spend so much time trying to be far apart.”

“The collectives must be obeyed,” he said. “How did you learn the way to apotheosis? It seems impossible for someone as isolated as you to have found the path.”