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the Queen, carried within the bowels of the ship through tunnels not made, but
grown for this exact purpose. Pushed by the internal workings of the hive, an
automatic peristalsis that moves the eggs to where they need to be--the pods.
Waiting to feel the eggs leave and then it's time ... time to separate ... time to break
apart into many tiny pieces so that only the core is left in space. The pods will
come to ground on new soil, a new world to eat, to despoil, to savor until there is
nothing of value left.
Then the hive will come together again, to be reborn, a new hive, a new Queen, a
new colony, billions strong. The high tide in a cycle older than life itself. To rise
and fly away, back into the coldest reaches of space bearing a new cargo of death
and destruction for the next suitable planet where everything will start again....
It went through her head in a split second, almost too fast to catch, leaving her
with a feeling of cold terror in the pit of her stomach. Even now the eggs were
ripening--if they waited until the gelatinous, fertile sacs left the Queen's body they
would be too late. How long will it take? How much time do we have? The Lepids'
'cycle' was an ancient one that took years to reach its peak. And yet, she felt in her
bones that when the apex of the cycle was reached, things moved very quickly.
How much time did they have? Not a hell of a lot!
She turned to Vince, feeling cold all over. We have to hurry! We have to get out
of here, now!
What? You mind tellin' me what the hell is goin' on? He sounded exasperated
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and the dark brows were drawn low on his forehead but he followed her when she
ran for the wall and began stroking it frantically.
Come on ... come on, Laura muttered urgently. She had a very bad moment
when she was sure that Tmm had fixed the walls of the chamber not to respond to
her touch and then the weird draining sensation ran up her arm like cool slime and
the wall began to open sluggishly.
What...? Vince began again but she only shook her head.
No time! If we don't do it before the eggs leave the Queen's chamber.... She
scrambled through the slit , which was barely big enough and reached back to hold
it open for Vince. The hive was moving sluggishly now, concentrating all its
efforts on the Queen and her ripening eggs. Vince barely squeezed out of the
opening she'd made before it closed again and the wall solidified.
Laura took a moment to get her bearings and then ran down the hall in what she
hoped was the right direction. The lighting in the hall had gotten noticeably
dimmer and the winding corridor had narrowed in places as the hive prepared to
break apart into smaller pods that would carry the Earth's destruction as their
cargo.
Laura, where the hell are we going? Vince was clearly exasperated now but
Laura couldn't spare any energy to talk. Even as the adrenaline raced through her
body, the pounding in her temples continued and a dragging lethargy pulled at her
mind. It was the Lepids' ship, the hive, she knew. Somehow it was sucking the
energy out of her, using her up little by little. To the alien organism that fed on
emotional force she was just another resource.
She was tired but she had to keep going. Miles to go before I sleep, she thought
grimly, and nodded for Vince to follow.
At last they stopped in front of what she was sure was the Queen's chamber and
across from it .... Across from it should be the harvest room. Nerving herself for
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the intense flood of emotion, Laura pressed her hand against the bumpy wall,
feeling the chilly drain and waiting for it to open.
After what seemed like a very long time, a slit began to grow in the wall. Laura
squeezed her eyes shut, awaiting the blast of emotion but it never came.
Kyra! Vince wriggled thorough the opening in the wall and Laura followed him,
keeping one hand on the wall to keep the slit open. The sight that greeted her was
terrible, made ten times worse by the fact that she had just seen this room only
hours before.
Along the long, narrow, oval-shaped room the abducted girls in various stages of
pregnancy hung, fixed in place by the fleshy arms that seemed to grow from the
substance of the wall itself.
Maybe three of the girls still had the sucking growths that Laura had seen earlier
strapped to their faces but the other fifteen or eighteen had bare faces, fixed in
expressions of agony or grief. Laura felt her heart ache for them. Beside them, no
longer needed, were the flower-shaped devices hanging withered and limp, as
black as rotten banana peals on their stalks, their purpose fulfilled. As she
watched, another sucker dropped away, leaving the face of the girl whose energy it
had been sucking frozen in a mask of horror.
My God, she thought wearily, staring down the narrow walls. Dead! They're dead
.... everything sucked out of them in only a few hours ... Sorrow for the wasted
lives, for the girls that had been taken from their home planet to die in this alien
waste threatened to overwhelm her and she had to push it back down. It was true,
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