The Swarm (15 page)

“You make my father sound like a gangster,” Lem said.

“Gangsters are unintelligent apes,” Benyawe said. “That's not your father. He was always brilliant. But he was also dangerous. If your father were running this company right now, there wouldn't be a Gungsu Industries. He would have annihilated them before they got any traction and posed any serious threat.”

“Well I appreciate the criticism,” Lem said. “Anything else I'm doing wrong?”

“You misunderstand me, Lem. I didn't say you were doing anything wrong. I'm merely pointing out that your father had a very different approach, and that's why Gungsu is alive and kicking, because you allowed them to exist. And since I happen to believe in the free market and its ability to drive innovation, I'm glad Gungsu exists. We wouldn't have Nan-Ooze without Gungsu. Or any of the other tech they've given to the IF. Most of it is good, practical gear. I'm glad the IF has it. Had your father run the show, we wouldn't have any of that because it never would have been developed.”

Lem shook his head. “I can't understand you, Benyawe. One second it sounds like you're insulting me, the next it sounds like you're on my team.”

“Of course I'm on your team, Lem. I'm still here, aren't I? My point is, a win to Gungsu shouldn't demoralize us. It should inspire us. It should kick us in the rear and drive us to make something greater. Besides, your father can't award us every big contract anyway. It would look like nepotism, for one. And it wouldn't result in the best tech. We need competition, Lem. We need someone challenging us every single day, threatening to overtake us and wipe us out.”

“I don't like losing,” said Lem.

“Then stop losing. You're the CEO. If you want me to make a breach weapon that's better than Gungsu's, then get your boss-man face on and tell me to. Don't mope. Lead.”

Lem stood erect. “All right. Pity party's over. Gather all your little brainiacs and tell them that their workload just expanded. We need marines to get inside the Formic ships, and the hull they have to get through is indestructible. This is all hands on deck. Nights. Weekends. Whatever it takes.”

Benyawe stood. “I'll call a meeting right now. Anything else I should tell them? Like, say, there's a handsome reward for the winning team?”

“They're employees, Benyawe. I pay them handsomely already.”

She raised an eyebrow. “How quickly do you want results? Remember, a lot of my engineers are convinced we're going to lose. They'd rather spend weekends with loved ones with whom they believe time is short. Asking them to forfeit that might require an extra incentive.”

“All right,” Lem said. “Tell them I will give five hundred thousand credits to whoever creates a weapon that the IF buys.”

Benyawe smiled. “That will soften the bad news of weekends. Anything else?”

“Yes. Fire anyone who doesn't believe we can win. If they're not in this heart and soul, I don't want them. Call HR if you need more people. I don't want naysayers.”

“Very well. What are
you
going to do?”

“I'm going to call the press. I'm giving the world everything we know about the hull.”

 

CHAPTER 6

Wila

The Formics' biochemical process of ship deconstruction and reconstruction is perhaps the greatest evidence of their advanced bioengineering capabilities. Unlike humans, who rely on tools and machines to build and dismantle our ships, Formics relied on philotically controlled organisms specifically engineered to accomplish these tasks.

The ability of hull eaters to dismantle the hull of the Hive Queen's mothership, and of hull weavers to turn that material into a fleet of warships, while continuing to move into our solar system at a significant fraction of the speed of light, clearly illustrates the Formics' scientific superiority in biomechanics. Meanwhile, other specialized organisms were used to build propulsion drives, shields, weapons, and life support systems. Imagine Columbus in 1492 dismantling his carrack and caravels and turning them into fifty seaworthy catamarans and outrigger canoes—in midvoyage, far from land, and without losing any supplies or delaying the voyage in any way—all through the use of semi-intelligent termites and barnacles.

The Hive Queen not only contained the entirety of this technology within her mind, but also, with a bit of help from her sister Hive Queens on other worlds, designed new ships, weapons, and structures that no Formics had needed before. This combination of deep and wide knowledge with astonishing creativity bespeaks a mental superiority over individual Formic workers that explains why she was able to dominate them so completely that they functioned as if they were extensions of her body, the way our hands and feet are extensions of our own.

—Demosthenes,
A History of the Formic Wars,
Vol. 3

Wila lifted the hem of her white mae-chee robe and hurried toward the bridge to the old teakwood temple in downtown Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand. It was late in the day, approaching sunset, and Wila encountered no one as she crossed the park and made her way to the lotus pond where the temple stood upon stilts, surrounded by water and turtles and floating lotus flowers with their giant pink petals and yellow pointed stamens. Wila paused in the grass before crossing the bridge and took a few deep meditative breaths. She had contained her emotions on the train ride from the university and beaten back the tears that had welled up inside her. But now the tears were threatening to break through, and this time in earnest.

The dissertation committee had heard her oral defense, but only so that they might collectively deny her her degree. They could have easily rejected her dissertation weeks ago and spared her the humiliation of standing before them as they obliterated her conclusions. But no, she was to be made an example.

Three years of research, Wila thought. Three years of study and writing and refining her theories, and now she would have nothing to show for it. She would never teach.

She gripped the handrail and steadied herself. No, I will not allow my emotions to overtake me. The soul must be free of sadness and shame. It must be pure, at peace, as bright as the sun. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, taking in the sweet, heady fragrance of the lotus flowers standing tall in the pond below her. The plant had likely been there for over a century, Wila knew, sprouting new petals every season and surrounding the temple with its pleasant perfume. So beautiful, she thought, and yet so resilient. Am I not stronger than a flower?

She stood erect, no longer leaning on the handrail, the frustration and humiliation slowly fading. She lifted the hem of her robe once again, kicked off her sandals, and crossed the bridge barefoot. The wood was old and cool, worn smooth by the feet of thousands of monks who had walked these planks before her. Wila paused at the entrance, pressed her palms together, and gave a brief bow of respect. A small gold statue of the Buddha greeted her inside and Wila touched it gently. There was nothing in her order that required her to do so, but the coolness of the metal steeled her even further. I can be as still and strong as this statue, she thought. Unbending. Enduring. Immovable.

The sun was nearly set now, and the temple interior was growing dark. Wila busied herself lighting a few candles and then carried one with her as she moved inside toward the wihan—the great hall where monks and believers met in prayer.

Wat Thung Sri Muang was a tiny temple by Buddhist standards, no bigger than a modest home; to call the wihan a “great hall” felt like an exaggeration. Nor was the room particularly decorative. There were no golden statues of deities, demons, or mythical creatures; no ornate columns; no mosaics or pottery or framed art. There was only a single incense table—and a small, slightly wobbly one at that, built with the same ancient teakwood. A stick of incense burned for the spirits of the dead, and Wila paused to pass her hand through the thin tendril of smoke and bring the scent reverently to her face. Again, it was a gesture of her own invention, but it steadied her mind and helped prepare her for prayer.

Master Arjo was sitting in the lotus position on the cushion at the front of the room, eyes closed, facing the entrance, deep in mediation. His saffron robes were wrapped tightly around his thin and wrinkled frame, and Wila wondered how he could sit in that position for hours on end with his arthritis. Two other monks, both men, sat before him, also in prayer.

The city had risen around the temple over the centuries, crowding it with skyscrapers and commerce and the fog of pollution. Wila could hear the traffic outside and the distant wail of a siren. If she concentrated hard enough she could push the noise back in her mind until it nearly disappeared from her notice.

She found a spot on the floor in the back and began her prayer. She had many prayers memorized for the Hive Queen, but the one she recited now was her favorite. It was not a prayer
to
the Hive Queen, for Wila, like all believers of Theravada Buddhism, did not pray to any being, including the Buddha himself. Rather, it was a prayer
for
the queen, that in her current unenlightened bodhisatta state she would learn greater compassion for all sentient beings in the universe. It was a prayer for harmony and kindness, for the injured of the Formic race, that their suffering would be lifted, that their minds would be open and bright and receptive to the kindness of those not of their species.

It was a long prayer, and when Wila finally opened her eyes, she found Master Arjo sitting in front of her, eyes open staring just to the left of her head, his pupils milky white with cataracts. The other monks were nowhere to be seen.

Somehow he detected that she had finished even though Wila had not moved.

“Your prayers test my patience, Wilasanee,” said Master Arjo. “I was beginning to wonder if I should have packed myself a sandwich to tide me over until you finished.”

Wila pressed her palms together and bowed low. “Master Arjo. I did not mean to make you wait.”

“You went before your committee today,” the old man said, “and your heart is heavy. You are sad for the outcome and sad that your prayers concerning the matter proved fruitless.”

“For a man who has no eyes, Master Arjo, you see quite clearly.”

Master Arjo smiled. “I have eyes, child. But I do not need them to hear the grief in your voice. You knew this committee would not accept you. There was no chance of them changing their opposition to your dissertation. And yet you went anyway.”

“I allowed myself to hope,” Wila said.

“You allowed yourself to be abused,” Master Arjo said. “You allowed them to spit vile at you and shame you, for I imagine that's what they did.”

Wila said nothing, for she did not want to speak unkindly of the committee.

“A young boy with a golden singing voice sees a ferocious tiger in a cage,” Master Arjo said. “The boy thinks he can tame this tiger with a song. So he steps inside the cage and sings the tiger a melody so sweet that all the villagers nearby who hear the song weep at the beauty of it. Whereupon the tiger opens its mouth and swallows the boy whole. Now, who is to blame? The boy, for being foolish enough to face such a beast, or the tiger for doing what tigers have always done?”

“Neither,” said Wila. “I blame the cage maker, for making a structure so insecure that a foolish boy could get inside.”

Master Arjo smiled. “Wilasanee. Always taking the untrodden path.”

“I do not walk my path alone, Master. There are many in Thailand and throughout the Buddhist world who share my belief that the Hive Queen is a bodhisatta, a creature on the path to Buddhahood.”

“It is an unpopular position,” Master Arjo said. “For starters, there is no evidence that the Hive Queen exists.”

“We may have not seen her,” said Wila. “But we have plenty of evidence to suggest that she exists. Or at least something like her. Someone was directing the Formics, Master. They moved as one in battle, responded without hesitation and without verbal communication between them. We have it all on vid. When the Formic scout ship was attacked, every Formic on Earth stopped what it was doing and raced back to the scout ship to protect it. We've noted the timestamps. Every Formic responded at the exact same instant, wherever it was in China. It was as if all of them were responding to a single impulse from a single source. That alone is evidence of a queen.”

“It is evidence of something,” Master Arjo said. “A mind beyond our comprehension. Perhaps it is a queen. But without physical evidence we cannot be certain. We are content to call it a queen because we associate the Formics with insect colonies on Earth. Like ants or bees or locusts. But the mind of their hive may operate differently. It might be the mind of a third species we have yet to discover, a species that controls the Formics like a farmer controls his plow horse. We simply do not know.”

“I thought you believed in the queen,” said Wila.

“I absolutely believe,” said Master Arjo. “For the idea of a Formic queen, a creature whose mind can cross immeasurable distances and touch the mind of another sentient being instantaneously, is an appealing theological construct. It is the first true example of an omnipotent mind that I have ever witnessed. That is enlightenment. That is by definition the Buddha mind, the ability to manifest your mind in millions of forms throughout millions of universes. That is the quest of us all.” He raised a withered finger. “However, why does the Buddha mind do this? For what purpose does an omnipotent mind reach across space?”

“To relieve the suffering of all sentient beings,” Wila said.

“Yes, to
relieve
suffering,” said Master Arjo. “This is where the idea of the Formic Queen as a bodhisatta unravels for me. The queen, if she is truly aspiring to Buddhahood, will never attain it. Her sins are too great, her bad karma too high. She did not relieve suffering on Earth, but rather created it to a degree beyond comprehension. No one invader has murdered more, burned more, broken more homes, shattered more innocence, destroyed more crops and cities and livelihoods. No being has slaughtered more innocent children. No creature has shown more disregard for order and peace and the precepts of Buddhism.”