Subterraneans

Batu had been restless all day, even before reaching the idworm trail. As they awaited in ambush, the big cat paced while Tuya searched for the worm’s glow against the forest’s darkness. The heat signal was gone. Closing her eyes, she took deep breaths until the cricket-fleas’ chirping soured. “Got it,” she realized - synesthesia leak was indication that her mod-eyes were finally active. Her breathing synced, revealing the light spectrum’s hidden depths. Initially, nothing—then the mound lit up. Not just one trail, but a network of thick lines from a dozen hefty adults and numerous infant trails underground. They were on the top of a hive! How had she missed it? She scooped up some soil; it blackened her hand with silicate, a natural insulator. “Well, lucky me,” she muttered. Batu seemed to give her a knowing look. “Sorry, friend, should’ve listened,” she admitted. To the left, she pointed out a path with just a few adult worm signs. “Alright, Batu,” she said, “let’s get out”, with a flick of the wrist unfolding her pressure gun, “show me the way 

It was one of the clear night seasons, when the zeg flowers glowed in the dark and filled the air with their sweet scent. Zoe was busy planting a white corelia in the soil, but she paused and turned to look at the large wolf beside her. She asked, pensive, “Streak, tell me again about the times past… when things were not like this. About father.”

She had asked the large wolf this many times before, but there was tenderness in his eyes when he turned and started talking, his voice grave with his many years protecting their family. “Long ago, near the equator, there were these huge structures that rose from the ground like giant anthills. They were taller than three people standing on each other’s shoulders and shaped like giant waves. They stood in large clusters, lined in perfect rows. ... At night they hummed like buzzbugs and covered the horizon in blinking lights.”

“And what happened?”

“Well, that was before he brought me to the family. It was even before your father’s time... He said they were dangerous and our ancestors 

(...) 

"Tuya!" Zoe jumped up happily at her sister's arrival, noticing the large, colorful idworm Tuya carried, with Batu padding steadily beside her.

Zoe hesitated for a moment, eyeing the viscous fluids dripping from the fresh catch, then opted for a brief touch of foreheads, eyes closed.

She stepped back, worry creeping into her voice. "What kept you?" she asked, eyes scanning the state of her sister's clothes.

"Silicate everywhere. Couldn't see the damn trails until I was practically on top of a hive." Tuya dropped her gear, tired. "They almost had me trapped."

"A trap?" Zoe glanced up, puzzled by the idea.

"This was a smarter bunch," Tuya said with a bitter grin that softened when she caught her sister's worried expression. Concern flickered across Zoe's features.

"Of course not really smarter... it was just a silly mistake on my part," Tuya added quickly. "I missed signs they'd dug recently and there was silicate spill everywhere. You know how disorienting that can be."

"Oh!" Zoe brightened, though concern still lingered in her eyes. 

(...)

Tuya followed close to Batu, her left hand feeling the close warmth of his every move. The ground seemed quieter in this direction and the faint worm trails underground thinned to almost nothing. A hive is always dangerous to attack head-on. The id-worms could be as bulky as a small dog and several meters long. Despite their name they were more like long centipedes with just a few sets of leg-claws concentrated in the extremities and in a few spaced segments along the body. Their front and hind claws could be fast and sharp. The creatures isolated were good game, but in packs could be really destructive. She felt relief as they seemed to be moving away from the colony center. The large cat moved silently, ears scanning. She watched the earth through her modified sight, tracking the faint glow of distant tunnels. They were leaving the hive's core behind.

Just a bit further now and she would be out of danger. (...)

They worked in silence for a while. The smell of salt and silicate filled the air, thick and mineral. The night outside pulsed with the low drone of insects, steady, hypnotic. Batu had curled up a few meters away, tail flicking once before sleep took him.

Zaya scraped the blade across one of the id-worm’s plates, eyes sharp, movements careful.

“You know,” she said, voice light but deliberate, “soon I’ll be the one bringing the catch. You’ll see.”

Tuya didn’t answer at first. She rinsed her hands in the basin, the water turning gray. “You know you needs the Mods and medical already cam this year.”

(...)

Heat and panic. Several of her darts hit a larger id-worm and took it down. The others in the same tunnel scattered and Batu lunged at them. More darts burned their way through another pack of worms that tried to reach for them. The tunnel filled with smoke and the sharp tang of burned chitin.

They dove into the opening that formed in the tunnel's direction.

The corridors twisted, every surface alive with those glowing veins. Tuya's filters struggled against the brightness. The veins in the walls had complex pattern, pulses of light crossing in waves like murmuring birds. Nodes, connections, insanity? she thought to herself.

(...)

She woke that morning and felt the emptiness of their tent. Tuya was in her feet before her eyes were fully open, Zaya was not in her mattress. Still wearing her flannel garb, from the round lid of weaved worm thread that closed their small domed room she saw the red hooded sillouette of Zaya standing next to the mount that flanked their camp to the east. The younger woman was looking at something away, hand trying to protect the eyes, when she got closer he saw what.

"What is so interesting in the worm tubes, sillyblosson? … co ntinua aqui a cena onde Zaya esta intrigada com as construções e porque sempre se direcionam para o jardim de pedra.

"They Look like Sand Castles don’t you think? Almost pretty, like a fairytale."

" I would know a fairytale", she kissed her syster head and hugged her to her bossom rocking slowly.. "Maybe kheer told you one to many of tyhose don’t you thinkl?"

Kheer arrived silently in the darkness. His voice was low when he spoke.

"Tuya."

She turned. The wolf stood at the edge of the garden path, eyes reflecting the dim glow of the zeg flowers.

"Walk with me," he said. Not a request.

She followed without question. They moved through the stone path, away from the garden, toward the ridge where the wind cut sharp across bare rock. The ground changed beneath her feet—less soil, more mineral. The air tasted of dust and distance.

The burial ground stood on elevated terrain, almost lunar in its bareness. Bone markers jutted from the earth at irregular intervals, some carved with symbols she'd learned as a child, others worn smooth by wind. Dried plants clung to crevices between stones. This was where the ancestors rested—those who had walked these valleys before the families scattered.

Kheer stopped at the highest point where the foundation stones stood. Large monoliths rose from the ground, their surfaces covered in inscriptions detailing their local group—all the founders and the ancestors of her parents.  (...)

Morning light filtered through the garden in soft bands. Zaya knelt among the zeg flowers, watering them with careful movements. The air smelled of wet earth and sweet pollen. Everything felt calm, gentle, ordinary.

She looked up as Tuya approached.

"Tomorrow," Zaya said, smiling, "we could go down to the river. Plant some new zeg near the basin. The soil there is good this season."

Tuya stood at the garden's edge, silent. Something had changed in her posture—something firmer, more distant. She'd spent the night awake, staring at the darkness, thinking.

The world had not been empty when they arrived.

Each colony had been an intelligence. She'd felt it in that chamber—the wall of sound trying to speak, trying to reach her thoughts. Not mindless creatures. Minds.

And they hadn't just suppressed them. It had been genocide. Systematic. Deliberate. Season after season of burning, cutting, isolating. And now they continued—mutilating what remained (...)