Adrian Tchaikovsky - Children of Time

For a moment she does not even know what he means, but she sees his mind is still focused on that detritus of doomed males whose lives will take them no further than the foot of the trees.

They are of no value or worth.

But you cannot know that. There could be a dozen geniuses dying every day, who have never had an opportunity to demonstrate their aptitude. They think, as we do. They plan and hope and fear. Merely see them and that connection would strum between you. They are my brothers. No less so, they are yours.

Portia disagrees vehemently. If they were of any quality or calibre, then they would ascend by their own virtues.

Not if there was no structure that they could possibly climb. Not if all the structure that exists was designed to disenfranchise them. Portia, I could have been killed. You yourself said it. I could have been taken by some starving female, and nothing in that would be seen as wrong, save that it might anger you. He has stepped closer, and she feels the predator in her twitch, as if he were some blind insect blundering too close, inviting the strike.

Portia’s rear legs close up, building muscle tension for the spring that she is fighting against. And still you are not grateful that I think enough of you that your life is preserved.

His palps twitch with frustration. You know how many males busy themselves around Great Nest. You know that we fulfil thousands of small roles, and even some few great ones. If we were to leave the city all at once, or if some plague were to rid you of all your males, the nest would collapse. And yet every one of us has nothing more than we are given, and that can be taken away from us just as swiftly. Each one of us lives in constant fear that our usefulness will come to an end and that we will be replaced by some more elegant dancer, some new favourite, or that we will please too much and mate, and then be too slow to escape the throes of your passion.

That is the way things are. Following her argument with Bianca, Portia is finding this polemic too much to deal with. She feels as though her beloved Great Nest is under assault from all sides, and most from those who ought to be her allies.

Things are the way we make them. Abruptly his pose changes, and he is stepping sideways, away from her, loosening that taut bond of predation that was building between them. You asked about my discovery, before. My grand project.

Playing his game, Portia comes down from her roost, one leg at a time, while still keeping that careful distance. Yes? she signals with her palps.

I have devised a new form of chemical architecture. His manner has changed completely from the intensity of a moment before. Now he seems disinterested, cerebral.

To what end? She creeps closer, and he steps away again, not fleeing her but following that unseen web of his own invention.

To any end. To no end. In and of itself, my new architecture carries no instructions, no commands. It sets the ants no tasks or behaviours.

Then what good is it?

He stops, looking up at her again, having lured her this close. It can do anything. A secondary architecture can be distributed to the colony, to work within the primary. And another, and another. A colony could be given a new task instantly, and its members would change with the speed of the scent, as it passes from ant to ant. Different castes could be made receptive to different instructions, allowing the colony to pursue multiple tasks all at once. A single colony could follow sequences of separate tasks without the need for lengthy reconditioning. Once my base architecture is in place, every colony can be reconfigured for every new task, as often as needed. The efficiency of mechanical tasks would increase tenfold. Our ability to undertake calculations would increase at least a hundredfold, perhaps a thousandfold, depending on the economy of the secondary architecture.

Portia has stopped still, stunned. She understands enough of how her kind’s organic technology works to grasp the magnitude of what he is proposing. If it can be done, then Fabian will have surpassed the chief limiting factor that is frustrating the Temple even now, and that is preventing them from giving true reality to the Messenger’s plan. The brake will come off the advancement of their species. You have this Understanding, now?

I do. The primary architecture is actually surprisingly simple. Building complex things out of simple things is the basis of the idea. It’s like building a web. I also have a system for constructing any secondary architecture, fit for any task required. It is like a language, a concise mathematical language. He stalks forwards a few steps, as if teasing her. You will appreciate it. It is as beautiful as the first Message.

You must pass this Understanding to me immediately. For a moment Portia feels the strong desire to mate with him, to take his genetic material into herself, with its newfound Understanding, to set down immediately the first of the next generation who will rule the world. Perhaps she should instead have him distil his new knowledge so that she can drink it and Understand it herself, rather than leave it to her offspring, but the thought seems intimidating. How will the world look, when he gives her the secret of unlocking the future?

He does not speak. His shuffling feet and trembling palps suggest an odd coyness.

Fabian, you must pass on this Understanding , she repeats. I cannot imagine how you thought risking yourself could be acceptable, if you hold this knowledge.

He has ventured quite close, almost within the span of her forelegs. He is a little more than half her size: weaker, slower, more fragile and yet so valuable!

So unlike the rest of my kind? It is as if he has read her mind. But I am not, or you cannot know if I am or am not. How many Understandings are extinguished every day?

None like yours , she tells him promptly.

You can never know. That is the problem with ignorance. You can never truly know the extent of what you are ignorant about. I will not do it.

She physically recoils. Explain yourself.

It dies with me. I will not distil this Understanding. I will take steps to prevent it being taken by force. For, of course, there were chemical countermeasures for that now as well.

Why would you do such a thing?

Fabian looks direct into her eyes. Unless.

Unless? she prompts.

You are the pre-eminent priestess of Great Nest. I think there is no female more influential than you , Fabian observes, still watching her intently.

You wish to mate…? she begins tentatively, because Portia is finding some difficulty in knowing what he, a pampered male, can really want that he does not already have for the asking.

No. I wish you to go to your peer group, and to Temple, and to the other great matriarchs of Great Nest, and tell them that there will be a new law. Tell them that to kill a male shall be as abhorrent to them as to kill another female. Tell them that my brothers deserve to live.

She freezes because, yes, there have been deranged philosophers in the past who might put up such an idea as an intellectual exercise, and there are those other cities where the males assumed more of the work after the ravages of the plague, and have never quite let go. But that is not Great Nest – and Great Nest’s way is the true way, the preferred path of the Messenger.

Within her, biology and custom are at war. There is a place in her mind where the nanovirus lurks and it tells her that all her species are kin, are like her in a way that other creatures are not, and yet the weight of society crushes its voice. Males have their place; she knows this.