Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

the Empire found useful. So the Empire provided the base materials; the insects ate and excreted it, and possibly did other things to it in their pyramids when no one was looking, and the end result was a series of extremely complex chemical forms that would be hideously expensive to reproduce in a laboratory. The Empire profited, the insects got protection from outside influences but were otherwise left strictly alone, and everyone was happy. Or at least no one complained.
    Captain Silence and Investigator Frost stood at the base of one of the massive pyramids, waiting for the insects' representative to make an appearance. The day was as hot as a blast furnace and twice as dry. The air shimmered, and the sun was too bright to look at, even with the heavy-duty protection over their eyes.
    Silence turned up the cooling elements in his uniform another notch and screwed his eyes up against the harsh, unrelenting light. Sweat was pouring out of him, only to evaporate almost immediately in the awful heat. Silence didn't look at Frost. He just knew she still looked cool and calm and completely undisturbed.
    She was an Investigator, after all, and therefore by definition not prone to the
    fallibilities of the merely human. In the end, curiosity got the better of him, and he looked casually around just in time to see her kick out lazily at one of the many small forms scuttling around their feet. It flopped over onto its back, its long legs wriggling, and then somehow turned itself over again and hurried on about its business. Frost sniffed.
    "Ugly things. Desolate bloody place. If the representative doesn't turn up soon, I'm going to start using these nasty little creepy-crawlies for target practice."
    "That should get their attention," said Silence, smiling in spite of himself.
    "Do I detect a note of distaste in your voice. Investigator? I thought you were trained to take all forms of alien life in stride?"
    "There's a limit to everything," said Frost, "and I think I may have found mine.
    Repulsive little things. If one even looks like it might be thinking of darting up my leg, I'm going to blast it and everything like it for a dozen yards around. I had more than enough of that inside the alien ship over Golgotha."
    Silence looked at her carefully. If it had been anyone else, he would have sworn there was a note of remembered horror in her voice. The interior of the alien ship had been horrible enough, certainly. He still had nightmares. But Investigators were trained from childhood to give nightmares, not suffer from them. He considered his words carefully, and when he finally spoke he looked off in a different direction.
    "It was bad inside the alien ship. All those insects, all sizes, all around us and no way out. Enough to give anyone the creeps."
    "You're about as subtle as a flying half brick, you know that?" said Frost. "But thanks for the thought."

    Silence looked back at her. She was smiling, but it didn't touch her eyes. He shrugged. "If you ever need someone to talk to…"
    "I'll bear it in mind. But any problems I might have are mine, and I'll handle them."
    "That's what I thought when the booze was drowning me inch by inch. You helped me out anyway."
    "You didn't know how to ask for help," said Frost. "Neither do you," said Silence.
    They looked at each other. There was a closeness between them that was more than just the link they always shared now. Frost's eyes softened slightly, and Silence thought for a moment that she was closer to opening up to him than she had ever been before. But the moment passed and the softness disappeared, and Frost was an Investigator again, cold and focused and quite impenetrable.
    Silence looked away.
    "You have to make allowances for the insect representatives," he said finally.
    "According to the files, they have little concept of time as we understand it, but they respond well to firm behavior."
    "I don't have to make allowances for anything," said Frost. "That's what being an Investigator is all about."
    Silence had to smile. "Useful though the files are, however, they don't have anything at all to say about how you get the bloody insects' attention in the first place."
    "We could kill a few," said Frost. "Hell, we could kill a lot. Nobody'd miss them."
    "Let's save that for a last resort," said Silence. "There must be something a little less drastic we could try."

    And then he broke off as a wave of insects came surging toward him, thick and black like a living carpet.