Chitin

A short story by L. Lindsey Flansburg

Published by L. Lindsey Flansburg at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 L. Lindsey Flansburg

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Also by L. Lindsey Flansburg, Published at Smashwords:

Magi

We were struggling through the soft soil of another long cavern. It had been two weeks since we’d seen the sky. No one was paying much attention to the trail ahead except to pick up the occasional bug to eat. My mind was wandering again, as it always had since I was young. I was trying to decide if there were anything I could have done differently that would have led me to some other end than this. All my life I had struggled to find my calling. Everyone has something they are born to do. Something they excel at. Not me. I had been apprenticed to almost every possible occupation in the city, and somehow had found a way to fail at each and every opportunity. It seemed that I had the special talent of quickly learning any skill up to an intermediate level, but never excelled at anything. I would be top of my class in any new endeavor until the other students invariably passed me by.

Before I had come of age I had already tried my hand at a dozen occupations. As a carpenter or potter I could do the work, but hated working in the mud. As a mason or cooper I was too slow with the tools. As a blacksmith or cook I kept burning myself, or others. As a farmer or miner I was too unfocused. I had even given the church a shot, but they didn't like my endless questioning of the faith. I suppose that was how I ended up as a field laborer which left me wandering lost with a group of people I barely knew in this endless maze of tunnels.

We were all tired of this endless retreat. I suppose that is why we were taken by surprise. I stumbled to a weary stop, not really knowing why. Those of my companions who were walking ahead of me had given up their forward progress and were slowly stepping backwards. One of them turned and ran past me Then another, and then the rest broke into a panicked rush back the way we had come. For a moment I stood there alone staring confused into the dim recesses of the tunnel. My legs took a few terrified steps backwards before my mind could resolve the dim shape filling the tunnel before me. I stumbled past another of my companions frozen in terror and I fell backwards into the thick dust.

The pale round face of the creature hung near the cavern ceiling. Its grotesque features scanning toward us, trying to spot us with its two bulbous eyes, nearly blind in the dim light. I could clearly see its two upper limbs scratching in the cavern floor, pulling it forward. Its claws were split into five blunted tips bending unnaturally as they probed toward our group. The back of it’s massive body scraped against the ceiling as it struggled to support the bulk of its weight on the upper half of its two powerful lower legs, awkwardly bent in half, the lower half dragging uselessly behind.

The screams of the others became clear words at last in my ears, "Aliens!", and "Run!, Run for your lives!"

All my legs and arms swam in the thick loam, trying vainly to push my prone body away from the monster.

"Roberts!", someone shouted, "look out!".

Roberts couldn’t seem to move his legs as the alien stretched out its long arm and slapped him to the ground. He tried to twist his body free, but the giant monster gripped him firmly from behind and swiftly lifted him for a quick inspection in front of its blunt nose before tucking him securely into a heavy pouch that hung tight against its breast.

A chill ran through me as I realized that the hopeless wails of despair added to the panicked screams filling the cavern were the cries of other people already imprisoned in the alien’s pouch.

At last I managed to regain my feet, but too late. The alien’s claw hung in the air above me. I braced myself in fighting position, slowly, backing toward the now distant cries of my companions. The alien hung its gigantic claw down to block my retreat, and I spun, snapping my primary weapon at the nearest fleshy appendage. My pincer nipped into the soft, unarmored flesh and the alien yanked away nearly tossing me on my head as I lost my feeble grip.

I rolled and pressed myself against the wall, weapons held high, body low, my legs spread wide all around me. The alien was inspecting its wounded appendage, its other claw, now held out between us as it balanced itself on only the two bent lower legs. I took the chance to make my break. Turning as fast as I could, I began to run. My companions had all vanished into the darkness. Before I had taken twenty steps the unnatural softness of the alien's claw slapped down onto my back with a force that took all the strength out of my legs. I tried to spin, but it had an unbreakable grip on my body. I reached with all my strength to find some purchase with my weapons in its grotesquely soft flesh, but my arms would not bend far enough. I struggled helplessly as it drew me up before its horrible flat face.

The eyes both turned to focus on mine. Where its nose should be was a large flattened circle with two long thick whiskers poking out of either side and wrapping around behind its head. I couldn't see that it had a mouth, but still, I imagined that it intended to eat me on the spot. I drew my arms and legs in tight to my body, prepared to strike out if it allowed me within reach, but it simply shook in apparent amusement and moved me toward the prison on its chest.

With it’s free claw, the alien released the latch and lifted the heavy cover, revealing the tangled bodies of what must be at least eight people, their legs kicking as they all struggled in vain toward the opening. Staring down into the monster's people pouch woke the memory of my stint as a weaver. I had learned to work grasses into sturdy pouches such as the backpack I was wearing now, and I believe my work was excellent. Unfortunately, everyone else in my class could build four such bags in the time it took me to build one. Even in such dire circumstances my mind produced the incongruous question of whether the giant alien had produced the bag itself, or had it purchased such at some distant giant marketplace.

I shook off the thought and prepared myself to grab one side of the opening, ready to fight for my freedom with my last breath, but the alien let the flap slap closed. Its body jerked, head crashing against the ceiling and arms flailing to defend itself from an unseen foe. I was shaken back and forth several times, then unceremoniously dropped on my back. The breath was knocked out of me, so for a moment all I could do was lie there and watch as the alien shook its great head back and forth, slapping with one claw against its shoulders, the other claw supporting it’s weight on the floor, and slowly backing out of the tunnel the way it had come.

Then I saw her. Flying around the alien’s neck, stabbing with her sword, then dashing away with a grace I had never imagined possible. Again and again, she stung its neck then effortlessly dodged around its slapping claw. By the time I had regained my feet they were gone. I found myself totally alone. The silence closed in around me as I looked first one way, then the other along the tunnel. Should I go back that way and try to find my companions? There was nothing for us there. Even they must eventually return this way. We had walked for two weeks to get this far, and did not have supplies enough to go back. Or, should I continue on this way by myself. Was the alien waiting just out of sight in the dark? It occurred to me that the presence of a alien could only mean that we were close to the surface. Not that I was an expert on aliens, but even I knew that aliens rarely ventured far underground.

I can’t say how long I stood there unable to make the decision. It might have been minutes or hours. Then a voice, like music in the wind drew me out.

"Are you alive?"

I had no words to respond. First my eyes located her, sitting on a large rock two meters away. Then my head turned to her, followed by my body and finally my feet untwisted placing me almost within reach.

Her sparkling eyes passed over me answering her first question.

"Are you injured?"

I could only stare in response to her second question. I stood frozen in awe. I had never been this close to a female before. That’s what she was, I was sure. An actual female. I had seen a few in the distance many years ago, back when they were more common. She was barely half my size, but her presence towered over me.

"You can close your mouth now", and I did. My expression changed to a puzzled joy. Not sure if I were happier to have escaped the alien, or just to be in the presence of a genuine female. I took a breath, my first since hearing her voice, and attempted a clumsy bow.

"What’s your name?" she asked and I told her. To my surprise my voice was clear and strong.

She repeated my name, and to hear it roll off of her tongue was like being dipped in butter.

"We should get going," she said with a graceful gesture in the direction of the departed alien. My expression must have shown her my concern because she went on to say, "Don’t worry, they’re gone." I met her eyes and believed her. "You sting them a few times and they usually move on."

Of course she had battled the aliens before. All females were soldiers. That’s why there were so few of them now. The long war with the aliens had taken a devastating toll. Once they were nearly as common as males. We all lived to serve our queen. The males building the cities and gathering food while the females defended territory from the next city. I suppose the females lived lives of constant warfare, but as far as we males knew, there was peace. Any battles were far away.

Then the aliens came. It was said that they dropped down out of the cloud in unimaginably large ships. I had never found anyone who could give me a good theory of where they came from. Everyone knew that there was only the ground, the air and the endless cloud above. No one could guess how creatures like this could have sprung to life in the infinite cloud.

For a generation they were a distant rumor. Then their hives began to grow. The story came to us in bits and pieces from the few refugees who passed near our city. The males were like the creature I had just escaped. The females were gigantic even in comparison to the males. They were the warriors. The massive armored creatures that lay waste to the land. Entire cities destroyed in seconds. Whole territories stripped of life in hours. It seemed they required flat, bare land to construct their immense hives.

I supposed I could call myself lucky. When the aliens came for my city I happened to be far in the field attempting to harvest swift grass. We didn’t suspect that we were homeless, or worse without a queen, until the end of the workday when we returned home only to find a featureless desert. Since then we had been wandering in numb disbelief. Eventually we traveled too close to one of the alien’s hives and were driven underground.

"The tunnel opens onto the river just ahead," she was saying, "and we’re far from where the aliens are building at the moment."

I babbled something about thanks, and dumbly followed her to the end of the tunnel. As she had said, the tunnel opened onto a pleasant river. Upon seeing the bright gray light of morning, I forgot completely about my miraculous companion and scuttled across the exposed five meters of rocky sand bar to the water. Once I was safely under the surface of the gently swirling water I backed under a large rock and took my first contented breath in weeks. For a minute I just savored the embrace of the cool water. My armor slowly replenished its moisture with a pleasant ache.

Before I could dig a hole in the sand large enough to hide and drift into a blissful half sleep, it suddenly occurred to me that there was a female sitting on the beach above. I had been incredibly rude. What was I thinking? Without a thought for other dangers, I scampered as quickly as I could out of my hiding place to the water's edge. I did not leave the water entirely, not sure if I could bring myself to expose myself to the dry air again just yet.

She was still there. Sitting on a rock with an amused look on her face. Her expression mocked me with a pout and her astonishingly musical voice caressed my ears again, "I thought you'd left me." and when I made no reply, "Most males I meet follow me around like a mudpuppy. Terribly annoying. What's wrong with you? Don't you like girls?"

"I don't know," I heard myself saying, "I've never met one before."

That evoked the most amazing giggle.

"I suppose that's true," she agreed. "I've met very few males myself. Come up here and let me have a look at you."

I was still crouched under the water with only enough of my head exposed to join in the conversation. Slowly I crept forward until I was nearly close enough to touch her. Her eyes caressed my entire body. I took the opportunity to look closely at her as well. She had the same basic body features as any male, just smaller and somehow more graceful. Her armor was unscratched, probably only a few days old. I felt a nearly irresistible urge to touch her, but more so felt the need not to loose an arm to the fine sword that was sheathed at her side. She made a sudden graceful leap to one side. I nearly dove back into the water at her sudden move, but realized before making a complete fool of myself, that she was simply circling me, inspecting me like a bait fish. Suddenly I felt naked, as if my battered, cracked, partly sloughing armor was completely transparent to her, exposing my innermost secrets.

"You look like you've been through Hell." She remarked.

I suppose the maze of tunnels we had been traveling through all these days could be called that. And I suppose we all looked like death itself since we hadn't been under water for two weeks. We? In a moment my thoughts returned to the plight of my companions.

"My friends," I spat, pointing back toward the dark opening in the bank.

She smiled. "They'll be alright. They have no other choice but to follow us out here. They'll be along any time now."

For a moment I was confused, then it struck me, "You really never have been around males before have you?"

She didn't answer, but her expression told me that I was right.

"They'll hide in the dark until someone tells them what to do." I corrected her. "They'll be afraid to come this way for fear of the alien they saw here, and afraid to go back for fear of getting lost in the tunnels. They won't dare move until they realize they are dying from starvation. It could be days. "Roberts was the only one of us who might..." again I was struck by the realization that I had forgotten something important. "Roberts! We have to save him!" I blurted out looking around the horizon for the first time to see if I could still see the alien walking away. Of course it was long gone.

"You're a flighty one," she laughed at me again.

"We have to find him." I repeated.

"We?" She seemed amused.

"Well, you," I stammered, embarrassed to admit that I had no useful skill.

"And you'll go back for the others," she stated.

Wordlessly I looked back at the dark mouth of the tunnel that I had so recently escaped, and thought that I had really meant for her to do that too. My eyes darted back and forth from the terror of the dark tunnel to the angel beside me and only when I realized that I had already taken three steps back toward the water, did I determine that if I was sending her to battle with the alien, I could not let her see me shrink from a task that held no real danger.

Somehow I managed to take the first few steps back toward the tunnel. I stopped at the dim shadow line that marked the opening and turned back for one last look at the sky. The comforting gray blanket of the ever constant cloud beckoned me to remain outside, but the presence of the female made that impossible. She was sitting on her rock again watching me with an amused expression. I could see that she really did not believe I could take the next step. So I did. I think it was the hardest thing I ever did, even though my terror of returning to the nightmare of the caverns was quickly forgotten in the quest to retrieve my companions.

I returned with almost the entire group of refugees in less than an hour. Turner and Collins had run further down into the maze of tunnels than I was willing to search, and Johnson had agreed to go look for them. It shouldn't have taken nearly as long as it did, but most of the group was unwilling to believe that the alien was gone. None of them believed my tall tale about meeting a female. Only when I let them touch my armor to see that I had been refreshed did they decide I might be telling the truth about the lovely river. Then I had hardly been able to keep up with the group in their wild rush to escape the underworld.

She was gone. I searched the horizon in vain for several minutes before giving into the call of the water. Parker was nestled under my rock. I braced myself to challenge him, but he was so committed to his bliss that he took no notice of my posturing. After a moment it occurred to me that there must be far better shelters than this first small stone I had stumbled upon and I allowed the caress of the current to drift me along the shore until I saw a much grander rock to call my own.

***

I dreamed of my days as an artist. My instructor had been very patient. He needed to be. My sketch work was technically perfect, but he insisted that there was no feeling in the drawings. My sculptures never quite looked like what I intended, and in the end the instructor had sent me on to learn to be either a draftsman, where I tended to add more information than my instructors deemed necessary or a building painter, where I made such a terrible mess on my first day that I ended up working in the sewer system that week.

I awoke to the fading sound of a scream. At first I told myself that it was just the aftermath of a nightmare caused by shadows in my mind of the last two weeks underground. Then I saw the dark shape glide past my hiding place. A small piece of armor with a bit of flesh on it settled to the floor of my pool, and it was immediately clear what had happened. A fish had got Parker. I hunkered down beneath my rock trying to suppress the relief I felt at not having displaced Parker after all. After a minute I felt safe enough to retrieve the bit of flesh and I ate it in the safety of my shelter. As I finished the last bite of armor I thought, "I'm going to miss old Parker."

Then I saw another motion. Something passed over the shore in the air. The blurred figure turned and dove directly at me. In that moment my mind played out the immediate future for me as I was devoured by some terrible bird, and my last thought was, "I hate living in the wilderness."

With a roar the blurred flier transformed into a column of bubbles directly in front of me. I raised my inadequate weapons in a reflexive defensive gesture, then lowered them in relief when the fleeing bubbles unveiled my angelic female rescuer from yesterday.

"There you are," she began. Somehow the water gave her voice a sultry timbre that sent a shiver through me. "I've been looking all over for you," she continued. "The others are all ready to start their training. Lets go."

And she returned to the air with as little effort as she had used to enter. I was helpless to do anything but follow. Minutes later I found myself looking over the edge of the embankment gazing upon an astonishing sight. Hundreds of people were spread across the fields. Dozens of burrows built up at random locations. It was almost a city. I hadn't gone far when I was accosted by the largest man I had ever met.

"Where do you think you're goin' boy?" he bellowed, placing a claw nearly as tall as I was in my path.

"I was... just got here," I managed.

"What's your name boy?" he demanded.

I told him.

"That's a stupid name," he challenged. "Now get in that line before I kick your..."

"Wilson."

I recognized that angelic voice. There, hovering above us was the female. The change in Wilson's personality was dramatic. A moment ago he was the incarnation of brutal domination, and now he was a grinning shy child dragging at least three of his toes nervously back and forth across the ground as he beamed his tittering devotion upward.

"Take good care of my friend here," she directed him, "I see great things in his future."

Her eyes met mine and for just a moment I think I echoed Wilson's embarrassing display. I recovered myself and managed a casual, "Hey."

Then she was gone, her musical laughter hanging in the air between us. I turned my impish smile back toward Wilson and all the joy immediately drained from my expression. He was looking at me with an expression of disbelief hidden only by his obvious need to kill me on the spot.

"That line right over there?" I backed quickly out of his reach into the false security of a crowd of young boys.

The slow moving line carried me to a table where a very bored man was directing the mostly younger males ahead of me to other lines.

"What training do you have."

I had reached the front of the line, but was scanning the horizon again hoping for another glimpse of the only reason I was here.

"Hey!" the bored clerk demanded my attention.

"What are your qualifications?" he enunciated slowly.

"Huh?" I offered.

"Skill set?" his expression showed his scorn.

"What?" I confirmed his opinion of me.

"Infantry." He decided, pointing to another long line behind him.

I stared dumbly at him finally beginning to wonder what was going on here.

"Go...over...there...and...wait...in...that...line." he condescended.

I chose not to reply and just walked to where he had indicated.

"Yeu look like yeu seen some action." The accent was deep north.

I was not interested in a conversation at the moment. "Uh, yea sure." I reacted.

"Hot dawg! I knew it!" He slapped me on the shoulder and I was drawn in.

"I'm Nub," he babbled on. "Come all th' way down from th' territories."

I introduced myself and as several others appeared alongside Nub, he obviously being the most intelligent of the lot, I could not avoid relating a very condensed version of my travails. The group interrupted me several time asking questions which forced me to jump around awkwardly in my narrative. I'm not sure if the story I ended up telling started with me in the caverns or ended there, and just as I was about to tell of my rescue from the alien, I was distracted by the female flying across the edge of my vision in the distance. Another question, and I may have completely skipped over any mention of the female at all, except to end my tale with her invitation to come here. That naturally led my asking Nub what was going on here?

Several members of the group attempted to answer my question all at the same time. The one voice I could understand said something like, "We're the Infancy."

At last they parted in front of Nub who led me to look over the top of a low hill. The thick looks on the faces of my new companions changed to match my expression of awe at the synchronized motions of the one hundred men below. They were arrayed in a large rectangle each exactly the same distance from his neighbor. They all appeared to be holding long sticks in their claws as they spun and stepped all together in a complex martial dance, striking the air, ground, or their neighbor's stick with their own sticks every few seconds. The crack of their sticks meeting each other and the simultaneous stomp of four hundred feet on the ground could be heard even at this distance.

I'm not sure how long I stood there watching, but it finally dawned on me that I was alone on the hilltop. Well, not entirely alone. Wilson was standing beside me.

"Aren't they beautiful," he said almost pleasantly.

His eyes were not on me so I took the opportunity to back down the hill toward the infancy. He turned and his eyes pinned me to the ground several meters before I reached my goal.

"I understand you drove off a dozen aliens single handed at the battle of barren hollow," he declared just loud enough for the entire group to hear.

"I...huh?" was my eloquent response.

It seemed that the disjointed story of my adventure had been retold and so rewritten several times before it had reached the big man's ears.

"Imagine my joy," he continued, "to find my lady's favorite among my boys."

He had closed the distance between us, and I flinched as he placed one arm around my shoulders, turning me toward the group.

"Do you have any idea why you're here?" he whispered.

"We're the infancy?" I croaked.

His grip tightened as his pained expression assured me that I was far from correct. For just a moment I thought he was going to snip me in half.

"Have you all met?" he asked. Many of the group nodded their heads, a few shook theirs no, but most just directed blank looks at the two of us. Wilson introduced me. To hear my name from his lips was like being rubbed between sheets of sandstone. Squirm as I may, I could not shrink from his grip. I was proud that I remained on my feet when he finally released me and marched through the center of the group saying, "Come. Get some sleep. Tomorrow at first glow you all learn to do that!" He turned and pointed dramatically back toward the top of the hill.

I knew that he was referring to the odd dance beyond but from the expressions of the others I could see that most of them thought he was just pointing at me.

***

In the morning we found ourselves standing in a small flat area between the rough burrows where we were required to sleep. Actually, I was not ready to declare it to be morning. The glow at the eastern edge of the cloud had barely begun. Wilson looked like he had already been awake for hours, and clearly was not about to allow any of us to get the proper amount of sleep. I supposed I would have to take a nap around lunch time.

Nub had taken me under his tutelage and directed me to stand next to him in the front and center of a very rough approximation of the rectangular formation we had watched yesterday. Wilson called out my name as he bore down on my position. My armor itched with apprehension. He was carrying two long sticks each with one end sharpened. He stopped ten meters away.

"Well, step out here boy!" he ordered, "Let's us veterans show these children how its done," and I found myself moving a few meters closer to him.

He tossed one of the two sticks high in the air directly at me, and I thought I was very clever to duck out of the way. It crashed to the ground behind me and I watched Wilson with a smile on my face to see if I could avoid the next one he threw.

His expression shot fire at me. "Pick...it...up," he growled.

My smile was washed away as I scrambled to retrieve the stick. When I recovered it and turned back to face him he had closed the distance between us to barely a meter. I was frozen in fear. He held his stick up in front of him, one claw at the base, one a short distance above. Was he about to hit me?

"You hold your spear like this." He bellowed loud enough for the whole group to hear. Some of them began to move out of their positions in the rectangle to find a better viewing angle. I attempted to mirror his grip with my shaky claws on my own stick. Apparently I did it wrong because he reached one claw forward and gripped my stick near the center. When I felt him tugging I simply let go. Again, he gave me that look that I had been interpreting as furious disapproval. It occurred to me that maybe his face just looked that way most of the time.

He held the stick out to me again. "Hold the spear tightly."

I grasped the spear again. He pulled on it and it slipped from my grasp.

"Tighter!" My rear legs were running away but the others couldn't move.

I did as he demanded, and SNICK my upper claw cut the stick in two.

He stared silently first at the end of the stick in his claw, then at the other piece at my feet. He closed his eyes for a moment, took a single deep breath, then dropped the other half of my stick at my feet. "Not that tight."

He thrust his own stick out at me whispering harshly, "Take this one."

In my terror I had no choice. I grasped at the stick one claw above his, the other below, and SNICK SNICK his stick was in three pieces. I was finally able to take a step back away from him. He lowered his head, turned his back to us, and for a moment I thought he was laughing. He did not turn back to face us. With a vague gesture he ordered, "Everyone take a spear and get back in formation."

The crowd rushed forward to a large pile of sticks across the way. I allowed myself to blend into the current of bodies and having selected the thickest stick I could find, returned to as close to the middle of the rectangle as possible. I had decided then, that I would never find myself in the front of the group again.

***

For the next several days, we practiced the stick dance that Wilson had taught us that first morning. There were only twelve different moves and three ways to grip the stick. By the end of the week I could perform the dance as well as any man in the entire camp.

We also spent a lot of time running. Run up the hill. Run down the hill. Run around the hill. I never understood the point, but I was not about to call attention to myself by leaving the center of the group. We also continually practiced poking holes in a large roll of grass with the pointy end of our sticks. One day it dawned on me that the rolls of grass were laid out roughly in the shape of a male alien, as if it were sleeping on the ground. I couldn't help but think that it was not a very bright idea to go poking a sleeping giant with our sticks. It might wake up. Still, I refused to bring myself to Wilson's attention by pointing this out.

Many of the Infancy looked up to me for some reason. I was one of the best dancers in our company, and spent a lot of time during the day helping the others improve their form. I couldn't help thinking, "soon, they would all be better at this than me."

I think the stories of my renown had grown to the point of silliness. Any stupid thing I said in jest would be taken as law. I had to watch who I joked with. It made friendships impossible, except for Nub who actually was quite intelligent as it turns out. He saw through the legend and helped me in my quest to avoid Wilson.

Finally the itching under my armor became too urgent and I missed the morning run. It couldn't have been worse timing because that day Wilson himself came to our burrow and led the company out. When he saw my condition, he ordered me to, "Just stay put," with that same disapproving look that he always wore.

"I'm alright," I had insisted, "I'll be there in a minute," but by then my armor was almost entirely over my head and I could do nothing but roll on my back and kick. When I had finally struggled out of my skin and finished eating the old shell, I wandered out into camp to find it deserted. I guess Wilson had planned a special trip away from camp that day for everyone. It was just like him to find a way to exclude me, so I returned to the river and spent the rest of the day soaking my new armor.

I don't know what happened that day, but after that, I never saw the original one hundred dancers that had inspired me that first day. All the members of the Infancy seemed upset when they returned and I could never get Nub to tell me what was wrong.

I soon found that I could get away by myself each evening as the cloud first began to darken. I would climb to the top of a low hill overlooking the camp and watch for her. Sometimes I saw her flying about the camp. Sometimes not. Most nights I would practice the stick dance there by myself. It was somehow very relaxing. Then one day my life changed. As I finished the stick dance I heard my name. I turned toward the voice that filled my dreams and she was sitting there watching me.

"You have learned the forms well." She sounded pleased.

I was too out of breath from the dance to gush my pleasure.

"It relaxes me." I managed, leaning casually on my heavy stick.

"Yes," she moved closer, "I know what you mean."

She placed one claw on my stick. "I see you have found yourself a proper spear. Most of the ones I see around camp are too light."

"I broke two before I found this one." I admitted.

She laughed. "I broke seven in battle myself, before I took up the sword."

I could only think how embarrassed she must have been to never have been able to use the sticks without cutting through.

"I could show you sometime," I chanced to offer.

"Perhaps," she said with a smile of coming possibilities.

And she was gone. Just like that. I had to sit until my knees stopped shaking.

The next evening I had just begun the dance when she appeared. She had brought a stout stick of her own, and at the moment in the dance when you're supposed to cross sticks with your neighbor she was there and our sticks met with a satisfying crack. My heart raced as she danced around me fast enough to play the part of each of my neighbors. I was thankful that my legs knew the steps so well, because my mind went blank. I thrilled at the crack of our sticks as they crossed again and again.

I think we repeated the entire dance three times before she fell to the ground laughing. "Enough, enough," she giggled. "Oh, I haven't done that in years."

My week knees forced me to the ground by her side. She lay on her back in the grass breathing nearly as heavy as me. At last her laughter trickled to an end and she propped herself up on three of her elbows.

"Thank you," she whispered. "I haven't practiced the forms since the destruction of Erowhen," and she told me a lovely story about her home. That made me homesick for my own lost home and I presumed to tell her a little about the gardens I helped to tend sometimes there. I didn't tell her the whole story of course. I wouldn't want her to know how I had only been allowed to work there a few weeks before the head gardener chased me out with a stick for over watering his favorite decorative fungus.

While we were talking I took the opportunity to memorize her every feature. I had never given much thought before now as to the differences between men and women of our species. She had the same basic body type as me. The same eight legs. the same six arms. The same two clawed pincers. The same eye stalks, long nose and mouth. Yet, nothing was quite the same. She had those beautiful delicate wings on her back of course, and everything else about her was somehow more pleasing to look upon. Every line of her beautifully speckled armor shell called out to me to touch, but I dare not.

When I told her that I was glad to see she had finally learned to use her stick without breaking it, she burst into laughter and I couldn't help but join in. For several nights in a row we met the same way. Danced then talked of our previous lives. Such pleasant conversation inevitably turned sad with the mention of old friends lost, and that would send her flying away.

***

One day the entire camp joined in our company's morning run. As usual, I paid no attention to where we were going. I simply stayed in the center of our group daydreaming about what I might share with her tonight. Perhaps I would tell her of the short time I worked as a teacher. I loved working with the children, but the school administrators couldn't understand why I was incapable of sticking to their strict agenda. While I couldn't understand how the students were expected to learn anything without my being able to spend most of the time answering all their amazing questions.

After what seemed an exceptionally long run we stumbled to a stop. A single voice was yelling far ahead, but I couldn't make out the words. The others seemed exceptionally nervous for some reason. At last the group charged ahead and I joined in the flow. We topped a hill and as we started down I was dragged to a stop. Nub had latched onto my arm and would not let go. I looked back at him and saw pure terror in his eyes.

"What is it," I asked.

He only stared past me down the hill after the others without releasing his grip. I turned and watched with him unsure of what was happening. The surreal horror of the next hour never passed out of my nightmares. At the bottom of the long hill was an immense flat plain with no sign of life, except the aliens. We were looking at a building site. There were no less than a dozen male aliens standing or marching around on the far side of the plain, and five great yellow female aliens moving across the landscape increasing the size of the desolation. I was astonished at the difference in body type between the alien males and females. The males had relatively normal arms and legs, although only two each, head on top, body in the center. The females looked to me to be a different species entirely. Their bodies were unimaginably massive, armored boxes. Their heads were partially transparent, and I imagined that I could see a male sitting inside the head of each female. Their feet were bizarre. I could make out no legs. It looked as if their feet were long belts wrapped around dozens of geared wheels. They constantly roared as if they were angry. Their breath visible as plumes of dark smoke following in their wake.

The nearest female sat motionless and all the people from our camp ran right up to it and began stabbing at it with their pointy sticks.

"What are they doing?" I demanded of Nub, who remained silent.

"What are they thinking?" I demanded of myself.

"We have to stop them!" I tried to drag Nub down the hill but he would not move. At last I broke free from his grip and took several steps down the hill. I turned back to nub and renewed my plea, "We have to make them stop."

Nub clearly was incapable of following. He just shook his head and mouthed the words, "No...No...No...".

That's when I realized that he had seen this before. This is exactly what must have happened on that day when I remained in camp alone. No wonder Nub would not go. How could anyone go? I looked across the hill and saw perhaps twenty other men either standing in horror like Nub, or crouching down as if to hide. Two men were running in such erratic patterns that they were making no progress down the slope. I was consoled that not everyone was so foolish as to join in this absurdity.

I turned back to the scene below to see a male alien climbing up onto the far side of the sleeping alien's head. The female flapped it's great ear and the male climbed inside. I was astonished and a bit nauseated to be witnessing what must be a some sort of strange mating behavior.

A moment later the company of our people at the female's feet began the stick dance and woke the sleeping female. It came to life with a terrible roar, belching black smoke from the breathing hole on top of its neck and began to move. Those men who were in front of it were crushed as it ran from those behind. I watched as two men leapt upon its tracked foot and were quickly run down by the geared wheels behind them. In a moment the survivors were left behind. The alien had escaped their hopeless attack. The entire group of survivors swarmed together then renewed their charge after it. From my vantage I watched as the creature swerved to avoid a large boulder, then resumed its otherwise perfectly straight course. Then to my horror I watched as one of the other females turned onto a path that would overrun the entire group within minutes.

Without thinking I chose a path that would intersect with their charge just as they would reach the boulder. I ran as fast as I could screaming at the top of my voice for them to stop. I stumbled across the trail in front of them only moments before the second alien fell upon them from behind.

"The rock, the rock!" I was screaming as I took my own advice to, "Climb onto the rock!"

Most of the group followed me, at first not knowing why, then with a desperate urgency as they heard the first screams of those men who had fallen so far behind in the charge that the monstrous female had already caught up to them. I watched in horror as several dozen men were crushed under her tracks, the first who simply could not escape, and then more who foolishly decided to rush back toward the huge monster holding the points of their sticks up as if it might notice them before it crushed them.

The female passed around the rock and rushed away. At last someone sensible suggested that we should all get back to camp and I was left alone sitting on top of the great rock. I could not bring myself to follow the others. The aliens had torn up, then re-compacted the ground on both sides of the rock. I could not set foot on that unnaturally flat surface. I watched as everyone trudged back up over the hill joined by all those who had the sense to not run down the hill in the first place.

The last person I saw to crawl out from under a bush halfway up the hill, was Wilson. I was not surprised to see that he was brave enough to resist the lure of rushing to his destruction with the rest of the crowd as I had almost done. I waved to him, but I don't think he saw me. He seemed only interested in returning to camp as quickly as everyone else had.

I sat there the rest of the day watching the industrious aliens. They continually rushed back and forth across the plain as if they were still chasing people, but no one was here. Three times one of them sped past my rock close enough for me to make out the features of the male inside the female's transparent head, but even when I raised my claws in challenge at the last one, there was no evidence that either was aware of my presence. I came to the conclusion that at the very least the females were blind, if not also deaf and dumb, being directed somehow by the males inside.

At last the cloud glow turned orange in the west and began to darken in the east. By that time the females had all gathered together on the far side of the plain and had gone back to sleep. The male aliens crawled back out of the female's ears and wandered away over a far hill. I was left by myself to consider what I had seen. There was something extraordinarily unnatural about the female aliens. I had to wonder if they were living beings at all. Perhaps they only moved while the male aliens occupied their heads, because they had no minds of their own. The thought of a species with two sexes, but only one with a mind gave me another nauseous shiver. The males were wearing the females like armor shells, but re-using them after molting.

I forced my mind to turn away from such a disgusting subject to the mystery of our own presence here. What was everyone doing here? Why would the first of our people have run toward the monstrous aliens? Nothing about this day made any sense. I thought that everyone knew that you were supposed to run away from the aliens? Were they trying to fight them? Did they think they were females? Males weren't made for fighting. That would be silly. That would be foolish. That would be dangerous.

As the obvious reason for the existence of our training camp finally revealed itself to me, I was shaken out of the paralyzing horror by a terrible wail. I turned in recognition of my name turning from a wail of loss to a sob of life returned from death. I did not see her before she hit me. I was knocked completely off the great rock and might have been injured as we crashed together onto the flat machined surface, had the female not used her wings to slow our tumble.

"You're alive!" she was sobbing.

I was mute with the fear that she was trying to consume me. I could not move because her arms and legs were all wrapped tightly around me.

"Oh, I thought I'd lost you," she went on.

After a moment I understood that she was only embracing me and I relaxed, not wanting to move. Wishing that she would never let me go. My wishes never seem to come true. She pushed me away, suddenly, almost angrily, leaving me kneeling before her wondering what I had done wrong.

"They said that you had led the charge!" she accused. "That you directed the battle, and saved everyone who returned."

I started to respond, but could not form any words that might make sense of what she was saying.

"When I couldn't find you in camp I came looking for your body," she growled. "What are you doing here? Why didn't you return with the others?"

I couldn't quite get a response in between her questions. I was wondering if she had really come here intending to eat my dead body. The thought of that gave me an odd pleasure.

"What would I have done without you?" and she embraced me again.

The foolish grin of bliss that I'm sure I wore broke into fits of childish snickering at my position.

"What?" she said, holding me at arms length to meet my eyes.

I could not return her gaze for more than a moment.

"You like me." I managed.

"I love you, you ninny!" she declared.

Suddenly I found myself capable of returning her gaze. I was not sure how to take her declaration. I didn't know that much about females, but the rumor was that they loved everything. "I love my pet," they might say, or "I love that color." A male might use that word if he were very intoxicated. "I love you man!" might be heard after hours at the pub, but never in a sober moment like this.

"I lmphhth you too," I attempted.

That must have been enough because she returned to embracing me, and allowed me to wrap a few arms gently around her as well. This was better than the stick dance. Better than our evening talks. I could remain in the embrace of my angel forsaking all other needs until my shell sloughed away from age. All too soon, she remembered her anger at missing me and pushed me to arms length to return to her questioning.

"You didn't answer me," she said. "What were you doing out here?"

"Just watching." I managed to reply, thinking only of her touch.

"Ah, reconnaissance," she concluded, stepping out of reach. "What did you learn?"

Her official tone told me that my moment was over. I took a deep breath in a vain attempt to fill the hollow place that was left in my chest when her touch was removed. I didn't think I could look at her at that moment without rushing her and trying to renew our lost embrace. I turned away from her remembering how competent she was with that sword. If I did not want her to use it on me I must act as if she were not here. Convince myself for a moment that I was not aware of her presence. I must be like the female aliens. Like mindless machines. An important idea occurred to me, and for a moment I was almost successful in forgetting her presence.

"What?" she demanded my attention.

"They didn't notice us." I stated my thought aloud.

"What?" This time she demanded an explanation.

"We came here to fight the war with the aliens," I stated just to see if she would correct my conclusion. When she did not, I swallowed at the implication that she had been training all these males to be soldiers as if we were females. The war must be going far worse than anyone knew. I continued to think out loud, "We brought the war to them, but they just went about their business as if they didn't know we were here."

"What are you trying to say?" she asked.

I turned back to face her without fear of losing myself in her eyes.

"The aliens don't know we are at war," I proclaimed. "They were completely unaware of our attack."

"But they've been attacking our cities since they first came down out of the cloud," she debated.

"They're not attacking us," I revealed what I now knew must be the truth. "They are just doing this," I gestured at the flat plain around us, "because they like the ground to be flat. I don't think they are aware of what they are doing to us."

She was silent for a moment, but was not ready to admit that we were being defeated by an enemy who did not know about the war.

"They were aware enough to kill all these men!" she insisted.

"They only killed those men who ran under their feet." I replied.

"They were aware enough to kill all my friends," she wept.

I stepped closer and she allowed me to embrace her.

"What happened to all the females?" I needed to know.

She returned my gentle embrace, and I found it difficult to remember to breath. She held me in silence for a minute, then finally chose to answer my question.

"It was decided that we must drive them from our world once and for all," she began. "We flew to the heart of their largest hive and began attacking them wherever we found them." Her grip tightened as her story went on until I was actually having physical difficulty breathing. "At first it seemed to be working. We drove several of them into the shelter of their hives. But then... then..." I could only hold her until she found the strength to go on. "Somehow, the air began to fill with a dark clouds of poison. Any who entered the clouds, fell dead. Any who touched the edge of it were sick for days after. Those few of us who escaped could not continue the fight," she admitted. "The war was lost two weeks before I found you."

Her grip on my body went limp. I held her until she could cry no more. My mind was racing. The war was lost? We were a defeated people. Defeated by an enemy that I'm sure had no idea that any war was being fought. A single great battle had been fought, and they had seen our mightiest warriors as a momentary nuisance to be put down with a weapon that they had not used before or since. Another thought was growing in the back of my mind.

"How many of the aliens were killed in the war?" I asked.

She sniffled and dabbed at her tears as she considered the answer, then looked down in apparent shame. "We were never actually able to hurt any of them seriously."

Again, I was stunned. They had decimated our population, destroyed most of our cities, killed every queen within four weeks travel, and we had not been able to strike back with enough force to get their attention.

"That's good," I realized.

She gasped a short breath at my statement and nearly stepped out of my grasp. I held on to her with all my right arms, keeping my right claw over her shoulders and began to walk her back toward camp.

"That means they have no reason to hate us," I explained. "We may have lost the war, but we may still be able to win a peace. We only need to find some way to communicate with them."

***

The next week was very busy. The female put all the males to work rebuilding the camp into a proper city. Since we had no queen, it seemed a futile effort, but it kept everyone too busy to think about the battles they had lost, and many found hope in the idea that we could return to normal lives.

She was gone the entire time. Wilson seemed happy to take command of the construction projects, while I spent the time talking with everyone in camp to find some idea of how we might learn to speak with the aliens. My reputation had grown again with the retelling and re-imagining of my role in the battle. She had given me her sword to wear while she was gone, and as she hoped that led everyone, including Wilson to see me as her voice in her absence. That meant that when I talked people listened. When I asked for their help, everyone took it as their most important task to find an answer for me. So I was filled with dread at the thought that I would have to tell her that we had come up with absolutely nothing when she returned at the end of the week.

At the end of the week she did return as planned, and brought with her no less than twenty two other females. Needless to say, no work was done at all for the next few days as every male in camp was overcome with awe and timid bashfulness at their presence. A few weeks ago, I might have been just as lost as the others, but now I could only see one female among the crowd. She introduced me and the others swarmed around me clearly fascinated by a male that did not fawn in their presence. It felt as if they intended to devour me, but she managed to direct their attention to the new city laid out before them, and they all flew away to claim their own quarters.

When we were alone at last I tried to return her sword, but discovered she was already wearing another. She insisted I keep this one and took it upon herself to teach me how to use it. Although I could see no reason to learn the use of a girl's weapon, I would accept any excuse to spend time with her. The weapon was made of a metal I didn't recognize. The grip strapped over my strong claw and I found that even if I tried I could not cut through the handle. That gave me great confidence in wielding the blade, and in no time it became as natural to use as my own claws. There was another dance for the sword similar to the dance with the spears, and now we spent our evenings practicing that dance together, then lying together in her chambers at the city center as we talked about the past, and dreamed about the future.

But dreams never work out just as you might hope, and one day, one of the other females returned to report that the aliens were moving in our direction. In a few days they would destroy our new city just as they had done so many times before, and we would be driven out into the wilderness again.

It was Nub who saved us this time. A few days before he had suggested to me that even the aliens should understand the universal language of mathematics, and even though I really didn't understand how we could get the message of, "Stop destroying our cities," across using only numbers, I brought his plan before the council of females who were ruling our new city as a group until a single queen could be chosen. They agreed that since we had no other plan, this plan was the best one we had, and Nub found himself in charge of implementing it.

He took over the best of the work crews and taught them how to build geometric figures. Soon the entire city was surrounded by oddly unnatural structures. The hope was that the aliens would recognize some of the shapes before destroying them all, and if they looked closely enough they would see that we were here and spare our lives if for nothing more than entertainment value.

With news of the imminent approach of the aliens the council decided that we should place a few more of the geometric symbols in their path as far from the city as possible in the hope of slowing their approach by means of curiosity. For every minute they were admiring our work, we had another minute to retreat out of their path.

I set most of the people to moving our supplies to the other side of the river. From the experience of the females we knew that the aliens took several days to weeks to cross a river. That would be vital time needed to begin our communication.

Nub and his construction crew needed scouts to warn them when the aliens were approaching too close. Of course I volunteered Wilson.

"We all know that Wilson is the bravest of us." I declared, and he was unable to muster that look he always gave me because he found himself surrounded by the other females. Before he recovered from that scrutiny, he found himself on top of the far hill watching for the approach of the aliens.

I could not resist climbing to the top of the next hill west of Wilson to see the approaching aliens myself. Nub's crew had already built three large mud shapes here and as I climbed onto the flat top of the mud circle, I lost the will to move, terrified to see two male aliens approaching. In moments they were there above me. One of them was barking a string of vibrations into the air from inside its large circular nose as it gestured wildly with its weird claws toward the shapes.

I dropped my spear and drew my sword taking a defensive position at the center of the circle. The second alien grasped its nose with one claw and lifted the circular part with the four thick whiskers completely away from its face long enough to boom back at its companion through what appeared to be a small mouth with great square teeth. It's nose covering snapped back into place as it inspected the triangle to my right, glanced at the square to my left, then bent its legs and leaned down to look closely at me. I held my sword between us hoping that I could get in a single sting before it captured me, but it only looked at me. I could not move. I knew that if I turned my back to run it would capture me as easily as the first alien I had met back in the caverns.

My thoughts flew to her. Would she appear to rescue me again? Would this alien pop me into his pouch and carry me away, never to see her again? The back side of the alien's bizarre claw reached toward me, but did not quite come within reach of my sword. For a moment I thought it was going to brush me off of the top of the circle, but it must have seen my sword and changed its mind. It extended a single appendage at the end of its claw, the other four appendages bending unnaturally back. As the alien moved its claw left then right then left again. I followed the motion with the tip of my sword. Then it made more of those roaring vibrations toward its companion who also bent down to get a closer look at me.

Suddenly I realized that this was exactly what I had been hoping for. The aliens were watching me. This might be my one chance. Slowly I lowered the tip of my sword and scratched out a neat triangle in the dry mud surface between us.

The closest alien roared loudly and stood with a speed that belied his size. The other alien joined in his agitation, and they reverberated at each other, stomping around for several seconds, before returning their attention to me. Slowly the first alien bent down before me and reached out with its single appendage. It scratched a crude rectangle in the dirt next to my triangle. Victory. Communication was established. Now, I just needed Nub to continue. I turned to look for him, but instead saw that nearly the entire camp was moving up the hill toward my position, led by the entire council of females. What were they doing? They were all supposed to be waiting across the river. If I didn't start a peaceful dialogue at this very moment another battle was likely to break out when they arrived.

I turned my attention back to the motionless alien behind me. It was watching me intently. I scratched out a proper square next to its crude rectangle and again it roared at its companion. I watched with horror as a third male alien approached at a hurried pace from the hill where Wilson and nub had been working. This one was much slimmer that the other two and had a mass of long thin fibers hanging thickly from the top of its head. Its bark vibrated the air at a much higher frequency at these two while making wild gestures back toward where it had come. The second alien from my audience bounded off to follow the third back to see Nub's latest work.

The lone remaining alien leaning over me took the opportunity to scratch out another crude triangle. I decided to hurry along the message that Nub had taught us. Next I scratched out a shape with five sides. I wish I had paid more attention to what Nub had called that. Then, before the alien could react, I quickly scratched out a Hexagon, I remembered that name for some reason, then a seven sided shape followed by an eight sided shape.

I wasn't sure what reaction I expected, but from its body language I think the alien was expressing either joy or fear. For all I knew of the aliens it may have just been gas. Then I realized that the alien was no longer looking at me. It was looking at the mass of people arrayed across the hill behind me. I was a little intimidated by such a show of force myself. My mind scrambled for something to defuse the possibility that the warrior females would attack. I sheathed my sword and picked up my spear. With a loud flourish I called the men below me to attention and began the stick dance. To my great relief, they all joined me in unison. The site of five hundred well trained soldiers moving in unison, must have been too much for the alien because when I turned back to face it, it was gone.

***

I nestled into the warm embrace of my queen. No one had been more surprised at the council's choice of queen than her. And no one had been more surprised at her choice of consort, than me. Since the beginning of the peace, our city had flourished. She had chosen to name it New Erowhen after her lost home, and I had cultivated a lovely garden in the royal courtyard to remind me of my lost home.

The aliens had placed a long line of tall wooden posts just beyond the hillside with Nub's shapes, and the female aliens would not pass that line. Every day several male aliens would amble up to the hilltop to watch in wonder as a small group of men entertained them by drawing various shapes in the dirt, then performing the stick dance. It was a good thing that the aliens were so easily amused.

A few teachers had been found in our camp and they had been assigned the task of teaching the aliens to read. Nub believed that they might be intelligent enough to learn such a simple task, but I doubted it. He had directed workers to lay out a long line of slate stones across the top of the hill where I had first communicated with the aliens. Then as a small group of the aliens watched, we had laid out hundreds of small items along the hilltop and drawn the symbol representing each of those items with chalk on the slate. That seemed to make the aliens exceptionally agitated, but they had eventually settled down and to my great surprise a few of them seemed to be learning a few of the symbols. Perhaps one day we would be able to ask them where they had come from. Why they were destroying the world? Why did they wear those odd round covers over their nose and mouth? Perhaps even how could they mate with those horrible mindless yellow monsters?

A few of the other females had all flown up or down the river to become queens of their own cities. Four others had remained here as soldiers, and the rest had gone to be soldiers in the other new cities. They found that they could mark their territory by building Nub's shapes on the hills around each of the new cities and the aliens would soon place their own wooden territory markers just beyond.

Nub and Wilson had both been spirited away by other females to be consorts in the other cities. I found that I missed them both terribly, but my queen could make me forget anything when she chose. I suppose I would be able to find time to visit them if I wished, but for now I could not imagine any reason to leave the embrace of my queen for more than a few hours.

Life was good. I had everything I could ever have dreamed of and more. I had no cares, even knowing that one day it would have to end. As the primary duty of the Queen, she would inevitably come to me one day overcome with the need to produce children. I would happily surrender myself to that joy as was the primary duty of the Queen's Consort, after which she would bite my head off and devour my body. Necessary nourishment for the hundreds of eggs she would lay. Still, I couldn't imagine a more blissful way to end such a perfect life. I had finally found the one thing that I could do better than anyone else.

Thank you for reading Chitin. I would appreciate if you could take a few minutes to leave an honest review detailing a few points that you liked and disliked about this story.

Discover other titles by L. Lindsey Flansburg, at Smashwords.com

Magi

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