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And then, very unexpectedly, a voice I’d never heard boomed right inside my head.
“She’s on the Red path,” the voice said. “Well, she will be in twenty seconds. No, you definitely will not be able to get there in time. It was a good try, but unfortunately you just guessed wrong.”
“Thuliak?” I hissed.
“No. Think harder.”
The Red Path? The voice had called it the Red Path. The whole color-coding system I’d made up was just in my head. I had never uttered a word of it aloud.
“How did you read my mind?” I asked.
“Think harder again, Kaav.”
“You’re not the fucking Hive Mind.”
“I am,” it said.
The Hive Mind didnottalk to individual Khetar. It was completely unheard of. And if itdid, as some people speculated it might, it would only talk to scions. It wouldn’t talk to a fucking spy.
“Right,” I said. “Whoever you really are, can you kindly shut the fuck up so I can hear if she’s tunneling under me?”
“She’s not,” it said, “I’m about to send her along the Red path.”
“Prove you’re the Hive Mind then. Send her on the Blue path so I can grab her.”
“What’s the plan after you grab her?”
If this fucker was the Hive Mind and could really read my mind, then I didn’t need to talk to it. If it was Thuliak trying to crack my plan, then it needed me to spill my plan by saying it out loud. I decided to talk to the voice in my head just by thinking. The Hive Mind could read my thoughts, but Thuliak could not.
As unlikely as it was to be the Hive Mind, if the super-intelligence that was our true high form was willing to help me snag my mate, I’d certainly accept its omniscient help.
I’ll take her out here into this corridor,I thought as I visualized the spot on the map,,I’ve got an emergency vacuum bubble embedded in my forearm. I get it over her, then I tunnel us out into vacuum.I grab my other body, then I hack open the airlock onEve’s Riband get us onto the women’s ship. I don’t think Thuliak can get me from there without creating a very bad diplomatic incident.
The moment I finished the thought, I shifted my focus to listening for movement beneath my feet. I still didn’t believe the Hive Mind was talking to me. Maybe Thuliak hadWrathpretending to be the Hive Mind? But why do that when he could have just had the other warriors kill me a few minutes ago? Hell, maybe they were already on their way over to kill me, and the voice in my head was just to distract me?
I didn’t expect an answer from the voice in my head, but I got one. “If I send her on the Blue path, she’ll be under your feet in exactly 20 seconds. If you use the tunneling gun to carry out your plan, I can guarantee you it will be successful, provided you don’t fuck up too badly.”
Why are you helping me? Shouldn’t you be neutral? If you do all the work for me, then I haven’t proven that I’m strong enough to deserve a mate and offspring, have I? The Hive Mind would make me work for it.”
“I want something from you,” it said, “agree to give it to me, and I’ll send her your way, just like I said. There’s going to bea lotof work for you to do, Kaav. Youwillearn your mate, even if I help you now.”
What the fuck could the Hive Mind possibly want from me? Fuck it, I’d agree, because either it was going to do what it said, in which case I’d get my shot with Weapons, or it was full of shit, in which case I’d know to ignore the voice from here on out.
We have a deal. As long as I get to have Weapons,”I thought, making sure it couldn’t take the one thing from me that I really wanted.
“Agreed.”
Or my cock. I won’t give you my cock or balls either.
“Your golden cock and balls will always be yours,” it said.
It knew I was a spy. It knew I was wearing a disguise to look teal. It was telling me it knew who I was and what I was doing. Fuck, maybe it really was the Hive Mind?
I doubted the Hive Mind would have any business fucking over some lowly Khetar like me who just wanted to grab a mate.
Deal, I thought,now how much longer?
“Two seconds,” it said.
I counted in my head, my finger beginning to squeeze the trigger. I listened with my ears and my whole body again, and then I felt it. The tiny little disturbances you could feel when a pack ship sent someone through a tunnel near you.
I squeezed the trigger, and the tunneling gun ripped a hole into the ground. I reached down into it.
Weapons was as good as mine now.
