Chapter 1

Dipter, aerialists in their own right, swarmed. Their pale, veined wings and halteres carried them in unlikely bounds and barrel rolls; what this meant to the dipter, nobody quite knew. Their round multi-faceted eyes glinted blood-red in the sunlight, betraying no hint of intelligence. The small, dark creatures swam the currents of the air, dodging misty raindrops and predatory Aeshnida.

A youthful female, variegated in emerald and violet, was less interested in the scavengers than the carrion they consumed. All around her, fellow Gomphid Nurturers gently added their limp young to makeshift tombs. N-Argi had not been a part of the preparation of the graves. The deep depressions in the soil had been carved, with great care and over many long cycles, by industrious platinum coleo (all of whom had been forcibly evicted by Gomphid Hunters.)

"N-Argi, come away from there." A large silvery male sidled up to her, his wings frayed but functional. Focused as she was on the dead, she saw him without seeing him. He continued, trying to grab her attention. "This isn't healthy. Come on, you need a break."

He finally registered. "S-Pehn," she replied limply. "Go where?"

"Anywhere but here. Come on." He dipped away from the proceedings and on towards a pool. It would be a better place. Not by much, but it would be better. N-Argi trailed behind him, ignoring the other traffic between the pool and the vacated coleo nests.

The pair finally hovered over the Double Moon Pool, and S-Pehn considered that, maybe, this hadn't been his best idea. Raindrops hit the surface of the water with punctuated splashes, radially pushing aside a crowd of white dipter larvae who quickly moved to fill the vacancy again. The surface was thick with them.

The vespin had started dying a long cycle ago, possibly more. Without them, and the benefit of pollination, the riparian flora dependent on sexual reproduction died off in the cool season only to have no new growth to offer in the warm. Nymphs of the pool lost the respite of the shade the leaves provided, and the extra oxygen the foliage exhaled. They could not survive. The dipter, however, thrived. The imagos feasted on scavenged flesh, and used the extra energy to produce aquatic eggs in quantity. The maggots, for their part, loved the heat.

"We couldn't save them," N-Argi muttered. "There was no place else."

"No," S-Pehn agreed. "The Pool of the Ginkgo is almost as squalid."

"And other tribes, with better pools, they couldn't help. Or wouldn't."

"They're probably afraid."

N-Argi considered that, her attention on a reddish gold female who dove to pull a first instar hatchling from the water.

"They're probably afraid, but D-Proi was not, and neither am I."

S-Pehn noted that some of the old vigor had returned to N-Argi's motion. Mission accomplished, he thought to himself before replying, "Whatever happened to your mate, anyway?"

"Scouting mission," she clipped. "He went forward with two others, and never did come back." With that, she charged away from the stagnant place, nearly colliding with three other tribemates in quick succession. By the time they recovered, she was out of view, and they joined S-Pehn, continuing in that grimmest of recovery efforts.

--

A great cycad grew, deeply rooted, at the top of an escarpment. From there it overlooked the territory of the Gomphid and beyond. The fronds were black as midnight with the exception of the deep ruby veins that cut through them. At over four feet at their broadest points, and with nearly three times that in length, the leaves curved gently out. The resulting platforms were perfectly proportioned to Aeshnida landing platforms. It was there, at the Dying Star Cycad, that the Gomphid Elder Council met.

All six of the Council were convened, facing the brilliantly scarlet male cone in the center of the plant, when the young Nurturer arrived unannounced in front of them. The Elder Healer, olive-green and world-weary, saw her first and rose to attention. "N-Argi, what is the emergency?" asked the Healer.

"Emergency? Have you not seen the pools?"

"Of course I've seen the pools, N-Argi. We've all seen the pools," she answered. L-Ydia, a minute creature with red-striped wings, was patient as always.

"And we know how you feel," added the Elder Dancer, S-Vul. Her brilliant orange whipped through the air with the eloquence only Dancers came to achieve. "You fed them lore as well as meat. You knew them."

"We all knew them," N-Argi protested. "Story time or not, we all knew them. And without them we are nothing."

A third Elder, the color of an overcast sky, answered now. His left forewing had long since been crippled, and so he used a limited form of Common Alighted, moving his other three wings as best he could. One attendant, another Dancer, translated. "Do you believe we are doing nothing? Did we not bid the Gomphid stop circling over water when we saw the vespin start to fall? Have we not sent scouts into Epepreo skies to find new life?"

"And has that worked? D-Proi is not back. Nobody is back," N-Argi replied.

"D-Proi is your mate, correct?" asked the third Elder, who was in fact the Council Sentry and knew the caste under his command.

"That is correct, S-Fon, sir. Will you be sending somebody to look for him?"

"No," he answered after a moment. "N-Argi, we are convened here today..."

The Elder Hunter, A-Cya, interrupted. "With all due respect, sir, is this the wisest time to announce?" She hung in the air with her question.

"The ire of even the gentlest of Nurturers is risen. What better time? We have convened here today," he repeated, "to take the most drastic of actions. We declare war upon the Epepreo, who have but cannot willingly spare the stuff of life."

N-Argi let that sink in. "About time," she finally replied.

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.