Chapter 2

P-Ten clung fast with four tarsi to the back of a desperately bucking chiron. Her fore and mid-right limbs were devoted to thrusting a spear at the neck of the creature. V-Naia kept an eye on her first lieutenant as she, the captain, faced radar ears, great nearly blind eyes and razor-sharp canines. The chiron screeched, lunging at her, but she feinted, knocking it on the side of its skull with her weapon. Twice as big, and at least four times as massive as the Aeshnida, the chiron were potentially formidable predators. Luckily, they were also loners and predictable, hunting primarily at dusk. They flew on cumbersome membranous wings, and they could generally be outmaneuvered by a standard seven-member squadron.

This particular chiron dodged to the left, into the spear of a flanking officer. It pulled right again reflexively, and into the spear point that gave the formation symmetry. The officer on the behind that spear stumbled backwards, absorbing the force of the chiron and turning to fight gravity. The second lieutenant, who covered the back of the formation, noted that it was time to finish the skirmish. "Take it down," he signaled to the two officers waiting above, and P-Ten, who still stuck to the back of the chiron. A-Pol, the second lieutenant, dove after the dazed right flanker as the rest of the squadron chased the creature into the lush grasses and ferns below.

"Good work," V-Naia approved, allowing P-Ten to take the finishing stab and the first morsel. "By the lore." The rest of the squadron followed P-Ten's lead, taking bits of meat from the muscular area just behind the chiron's wings. These they would carry impaled on spear point to those of the tribe who could not hunt for themselves. The rest they left to the dipter and other scavengers, a signal to other chiron that the northern borders of Epepreo land were not safe.

Just as V-Naia took the seventh morsel, a flash of yellow and deep brown appeared over head. "Who goes?" demanded copper-tinged A-Pol.

"M-Bene of the Epepreo, Southern Fern-Shaded Pool," the dancer replied with her learned flourish. "M-Nev bids your squadron meet at the Sunset Cycad. It is a Gathering. Make haste!"

She did not stay for conversation, flying off instead to find the next nearest sentries on chiron patrol, looking not unlike a vespin with the bands of alternating color along her abdomen.

--

B-Leon, another dancer, navigated the southeast vespin hive field. A dry night breeze rustled through the thick, tall grasses, and the ruby male was a bundle of nerves. So close to the border, he fretted to himself. Most keepers and sentries had been evacuated from this area already, leaving a skeleton crew to patrol in the temporary calm before more strategic security could be devised. But B-Leon had two more individuals to locate before he could call his assignment complete. "Have you seen M-Ela and Z-Geph?" he called out to a distant keeper.

"Sunward a few beats," the keeper replied.

"Thank you!" B-Leon took a sharp turn westerly, and soon realized how he'd missed the pair. Z-Geph, a pale yellow keeper and M-Ela, a dull orange hunter, were deep in conversation amongst a thick swarm of vespin returning to hive for the night.

"Where have you been?" B-Leon asked, flying headlong into the swarm and dispersing confused vespin left and right.

"Would you be careful? How'd a klutz like you get to be a dancer, of all things?" retorted the hunter.

"Stop. He's just excited," Z-Geph admonished. "I was just relinquishing a weak one for feed," she explained to the dancer. As if to confirm this, she corralled a lone vespin that tumbled through the air. B-Leon's charge had apparently been its last straw.

"I see," answered the dancer. He let the other male put the vespin out of its misery before passing along his message. "What I am here to say," he gathered himself, "is that the Elder Council bids you meet at the Sunset Cycad. It is a gathering, and you're late, so hurry!"

--

Its base was a brilliant reddish-orange, inside and out, and this vivid color extended to the its male cone. Its leaves were black at their tips and lightened in an irregular gradient as they broadened nearer the center and ground. The effect was indeed that of a sun sinking into the horizon, and that the Sunset Cycad was rooted deeply in a steep western hill was probably just coincidence. The Elder Council perched staid on its crown of leaves, and a flock of dancers hovered around them, waiting to remember history. One stranger, red and brown, hung poised above the cone. All around the rise, in innumerable restless strata, were Epepreo of all castes.

Satisfied that quorum had been reached, M-Nev, the Elder Sentry, rose from her perch. The bright twin moons illuminated her striped orange and green form in spite of the new night. "The Gomphid have sent to us, in their Elder Sentry's stead, a herald. C-Fas," she turned to him, "you have the honor of the message."

C-Fas obediently rose so that all could see him. "In the name of S-Fon, Elder Sentry of the Pool of the Gingko, and in the name of my people, I C-Fas of the Double Moon Pool declare war upon you the Epepreo who have but cannot spare the stuff of life."

"Will there be parley?" questioned M-Nev.

"The time is past. There will be no parley," replied C-Fas.

"No parley," repeated the Elder, for the benefit of those gathered. "Then we take you into custody, first prisoner of war C-Fas." She signaled in Tribal to a pair of nearby sentries, who approached the Gomphid in the center of the cycad. "Take him to the west magnolia grove and keep him there. Treat him well." The sentries did as they were told, flanking the dancer and escorting him to a distant cluster of red-leaved trees full of fragrant white flowers.

When C-Fas was out of sight, M-Nev continued her duties as Commander in Chief, sending perhaps half of her sentries to the battle lines, and to the vespin hive fields as security detail. She kept a reserve force in the vicinity of her pools. The other Elders distributed their respective castes accordingly. R-Tem sent many of her hunters to the borderlands to watch for chiron and other creatures who would take advantage of war if they could. F-Uan sent contingents of his keepers to aid in protecting their vespin. A-Sclep and H-Mes assigned certain healers and dancers to accompany the sentries, to act as field medics and heralds and historians respectively. V-Sta kept her nurturers at home.

Almost as an afterthought, M-Nev summoned an unassigned dancer forward. "M-Bene of the Southern Fern-Shaded Pool," she asked, "are you willing to go in trade to the Gomphid, to confirm Epepreo acceptance of war and no parley?"

M-Bene hesitated, thinking of her pool and her people. "I am willing," she finally replied.

"Go then, M-Bene, and Fate be with you."

"Fate be with us all." M-Bene sped off into the east, in the direction of the sentry force, the battle lines and the Gomphid.

"Indeed. Fate be with us at sunrise."

Prologue

Great domes of deep red earth, speckled with dead, paper-like foliage, loomed above the grassy fields of Phaneros. Three scouts wove among them, examining their structure (full of small entry and exit holes), and the pale crimson terrain below. The inhabitants of the domes were elsewhere, for the most part, presumably on reconnaissance missions of their own, but there was still a bit of traffic in and out of the structures, and a low hum emanating from within them.

This was a deliberate incursion into enemy airspace, but the scouts found themselves too preoccupied with gathering intelligence to notice they'd been discovered.

Looking like the East Moon following the rising Phanerosian sun, the captain of an Epepreo squadron appeared in front of the invader. She held a long wooden spear expertly in her right foreclaws. The Gomphid leader noted that it was considerably longer -- and sharper -- than those issued to a standard scout.

The captain flew a field signal to her two lieutenants, who moved to shadow the remaining scouts. Her four officers covered the scouts' potential exits, above and below, left and right. V-Naia approved. Her squadron was responsive, and made talented use of "blind" spots which, for a race blessed with near 360 degree vision, were few and far between.

Switching from Tribal to Common Flight, she demanded, "Who comes forward?"

"D-Proi of the Gomphid, Double Moon Pool," he replied, keeping some attention on the spear she held at its length, hovering at ready.

"Your mission?"

"It is not for me to say to you."

A warm, water-heavy breeze blew between red and blue as V-Naia considered. With no indication of diplomacy, her options were in fact few.

"Then I cannot offer. Forward or back?"

"Back."

"So be it." The air became a blur as the Gomphid attempted retreat, and the Epepreo met the challenge. V-Naia took the leader alone, as was proper, but her six took on the two. Spear met spear, and spear met exoskeleton, and almost as soon as it had begun it ended, no hemolymph drawn.

"Forward or back?" V-Naia asked again, her abdomen heaving.

"Forward," conceded the equally fatigued scout.

V-Naia bowed, giving up altitude, then retaking it. "To Elder Council," she signaled to her team in Tribal. And forty long wings beat forward, twelve of them in custody.

---

Ph-Lyre rested on a fern, and watched the deep pool before him as it churned with nymphs first hatched, near-adult, and every molting in between. He also watched his mate as she told her story. His wings quivered with the subtleties of Common Alighted. "Is that all?" he asked.

"No. It was a routine mission. We easily apprehended the Gomphid. But Ph-Lyre," she replied, still aerial, "this is no less than the fifth mission of its kind for us in as many days."

"What do they need?"

"The vespin. According to the elders, the vespin of the Gomphid are dying, and nobody knows why."

"And with the vespin, the pools."

"Yes," she replied, finally landing on a broad leaf beside Ph-Lyre.

"Can we spare?" he asked, after a moment.

"No, we can't spare, especially if the death may spread."

"And what of the Gomphid?"

"They will keep scouting for territory. It will come to more than three at a time."

"The Gomphid you captured."

"Oh, those," her wings twitched. "Two we sent forward and away. The one, the leader, we kept on. His information may be valuable and besides, new blood."

"Of course. Which are ours, do you suppose?" he wondered, abruptly changing the subject.

"Who?"

"Of the nymphs. Which are ours?"

"All of them are of the Epepreo."

"No. Ours."

Now she knew what he meant. It was not a thing V-Naia often thought about, but as a nurturer (resting at the moment), she supposed Ph-Lyre considered it rather often. Which nymphs had been given to the Epepreo by them, by their circling above the pool for those moments.

They would never know. She couldn't find it in herself to express the obvious.

A small swarm of vespin flew by, from one flower to another. A breeze rustled the leaves shading the pool, and Ph-Lyre arose from rest to assist an older nymph who had ventured from the benthos to the surface, after a wriggling dipter larva.

Meditating on the glimmering, falling water that fed the pool, she wondered if that nymph was hers. And why the vespin were dying.