Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

His hand dropped to the disrupter at his side. Frost already had hers out, and was sweeping it back and forth, searching for a meaningful target. The wave crashed to a sudden halt a few feet short of them and began piling up into a tall, thick pillar of squirming bodies. The twitching legs folded around each other and were still, the small bodies fitting neatly together like the interlocking parts of some more complicated machine, and gradually the pillar took on a humanoid form: a dark, shiny shape that mocked humanity as much as it duplicated it. The square, flat-sided head turned jerkily on its thick neck to look at Silence and Frost, though there was no trace of anything that might have been eyes. It buzzed briefly: a short, ugly, and completely inhuman sound. It buzzed again, and suddenly, though the sounds hadn't changed, Silence and Frost somehow understood it.
    "Empire," said the dark human shape, though there was nothing that might have been a mouth. "Interrogation. Respond."
    Frost put her gun away and tried to look as though she'd never drawn it in the first place. "Yes, we represent the Empire," she said flatly. "You've been informed why we're here?"
    There was an Empire Base on Shanna IV, populated by a handful of scientists and a small force of guards who'd all managed to upset someone really badly to get themselves posted here, but they had as little contact with the resident aliens as they could get away with. They might have arranged this meeting, or they might not have. It was that kind of Base.
    Silence stared at the humanoid figure, and it stared right back at him. Though there was no trace of eyes on the flat shiny face, Silence had no doubt the
    insect representative was watching him. He could feel the weight of its stare, like an icy breeze in the boiling heat of the day. The insects that made up the human shape twitched suddenly, hundreds of legs flexing briefly so that a shimmer seemed to run through the figure, and then it was still again. Silence winced as a headache blossomed slowly between his eyes. It was as though he could almost see or hear something that was being hidden from him. He concentrated on the feeling and realized it felt something like the link that he shared with Frost. He glanced at her to see if she felt it, too. She was scowling, but there was nothing unusual in that. Certainly she didn't seem as disturbed as he felt. He tried to grasp the vague feeling and bring it into focus, but it slipped away like water between his fingers and was gone. He still had the headache, though.
    "Rebels," the alien representative said suddenly. "Avoid. Punishment."
    "Got it in a nutshell," said Frost. "Anyone tries to contact you, rebel or alien, you tell them to go to hell and then report them to the Base immediately.
    Understand?"
    "Rebels. Avoid. Punishment. Chemicals. Interrogation. Respond."
    Silence would have shivered, had he not been boiling alive in his own sweat.
    There was something about the way each word seemed to emanate from different parts of the dark human shape that upset him greatly. He made himself concentrate on his job.
    "Yes, we've got your chemicals," he said curtly. "They're being unloaded in the usual place. The regular supply ship will be along to pick up the compounds you've produced." A question occurred to him, and he decided to ask it before he could think better of it. "We have a use for those compounds, but what do you get out of the deal?"

    There was a long pause, until Silence assumed the construct wasn't going to answer him; then it said two words and fell apart before Silence could respond.
    The human shape disintegrated from the top down, tumbling into hundreds of its respective parts, which hit the ground running and scuttled off in different directions. In a few moments they were indistinguishable from those who were already covering the ground, and Silence wasn't at all sorry to see the back of them. Particularly, after the two words the figure had spoken. Chemicals.
    Addictive. He looked at Frost, who was still staring thoughtfully at the insects scuttling around her on their inscrutable, incomprehensible missions.
    "Do you suppose they have any concept at all of themselves as individuals?" he said finally. "Or only when they gather together like that?"
    "No one knows for sure," said Frost. "They're supposed to have a single hive mind for the whole species, but no one's been able to prove anything, one way or the other. Our instruments can't