“I still don’t understand.”
The leader of the Armored Species looked somewhat flustered, as if a viewpoint he found uncomfortable was being forced into his mind against his will. His powerful, grey-black tail lashed with a sharp crack, mirroring his complex state of mind.
“It doesn't have to be this difficult for you... I am perfectly capable of protecting a male working in the Great Information Nest from harm. Not every insect wants to go to the battlefield like En.”
From Ge La’s perspective, this was a rather ironic statement. However, as it happened, he possessed a level of patience that most females disdained and a capacity for expression that most males lacked. Thus, he could converse with Kleiman with a calm heart.
The Zerg rejected weakness.
He needed to be rational, calm, and firm in his will to make the female before him realize that he was a "qualified conversational partner," rather than a helpless, fearful, hysterically sobbing ward.
But if an Armored female wanted to find a random male to chat with, he only had to stand there, and the other would be forced to tremble, cautiously weighing every word and desperately trying to satisfy any unreasonable demand.
Perhaps the deep-grey female himself hadn't figured out where this resistance came from, but instinct made him wary of potential divisions of rights and struggles for interest. To Kleiman, females were his natural community of interest. He could look down from the position of a protector to shield the weak and selectively listen to some of their suffering, but he still involuntarily recoiled from speaking to the dominated from an equal perspective.
“You think Kara is pitiful and needs your protection, so you are willing to bow your head and slow your pace for him.”
Speaking softly, the male’s white spiritual tentacles slowly smoothed over the other’s anxious, bristling emotions.
“Thank you for being willing to do that. Most would think it doesn't matter, but you saw it, and you reached out your hand to him. Do you consider males to be of the same kind as you?” Ge La asked, his pale eyes quietly watching the uneasy Armored insect.
“Yes,” the other replied after a momentary daze.
It was an interesting reaction. If the same question had been asked of the insect before him before Sarkadi set off for Kamlan, he likely would have given the exact opposite answer.
*—"Males are too weak; they are not our kind."*
*—"They cannot fight; they are useless."*
“Then everything you long for, we long for as well; every demand you have, we possess as well.”
Ge La took the other’s hand and patted it gently, as if soothing a larva—the Armored leader was so conflicted he had begun picking at the table, thinking he was being discreet.
“A bird that has never seen the sky will sing forever, knowing no sorrow. But once they have flown even once, they will never be willing to return to the cage, no matter how beautiful, exquisite, sturdy, or safe that cage may be.”
“I didn't...” Kleiman opened his mouth several times, seemingly at a loss for words.
His tongue was nowhere near as nimble as Ge La’s, and his heart was full of a sorrowful frustration he couldn't find the words for. Talking to this male was not a pleasant experience; every time, it brought a fresh shock that shattered his long-held, deep-rooted perceptions.
“I didn't mean to... to lock Kara up.”
The white insect smiled. He neither refuted nor explained, merely looking at the female with the lashing tail with a gentle gaze.
“If you have time, you should talk more with Kara and Xiao. I think Kara needs a teacher for the Common Tongue, and he trusts you very much.”
Change rarely happens overnight. Even the most resolute transformations must undergo a long period of preparation. Now, although the Armored leader’s steps were stumbling and difficult, he no longer ignored or overlooked. Neither Ge La nor Sarkadi needed to aggressively force him to accept their views; it was enough to let Kleiman see, think, and ask for himself.
Besides, the other’s "male-phobia" really did need to be treated. Bristling his scales a dozen times a day wasn't exactly good for the scales themselves. Ge La couldn't help but suspect that one day in the future, Kleiman’s scales might become loose and fall out easily.
Although a female’s scales could iterate and regrow countless times, he still remembered the scent of immense grief radiating from Sarkadi when he stared at his own patchy tail after defeating Katra.
However, as Ge La concluded the conversation, sent the newly annotated fortification maps to the other, and prepared to leave, the Armored leader, still sitting in his place, suddenly voiced a question.
“Is this... why you chose Sa as your mate? Just as he never accepted a second male, wanting only you.”
The white insect froze slightly at this unexpected remark, then shook his head with a smile.
“Yes, and no. Many conditions and factors determined my wish to be his mate.”
For instance, his strength, gentleness, and excellence, or his respect, the training, and the unstinting guidance. Any one of these could be a perfectly valid point in favor of choosing a partner.
“But the fact that I love him is independent of all those things.”
When a passionate emotion stabilizes, both the bystanders and the protagonists often find it dull. Because maintaining it requires every biological being involved to defy their natural instinct to favor the new over the old.
Insects and humans are both animals; they like the fresh, the powerful, and the diverse. Complexity and variety mean a high tolerance for error and an expansion of the offspring's genetic sample.
Thus, the males who had watched countless human movies on Kamlan often only saw the scenes where people successfully courted and became partners, the story ending abruptly amidst joy and tears.
But living isn't like that.
Living requires facing the exhaustion after the reproductive urge fades; it requires understanding that one's seemingly omnipotent, powerful partner is also an ordinary being who can shed tears; it requires accepting the fact that even Sarkadi cannot manipulate this universe at will.
Kleiman sat there, lost in thought. His stubborn, single-minded head would need a lot more time to figure out himself, to figure out males, and to figure out the relationship between everything and this world.
Coming out of the small nest partition, Ge La ran straight into Xiao, who was walking over in a hurry. The light-brown female’s tail was swaying; he seemed to be in a good mood. When he saw Ge La, he waved his arm lightheartedly and ran over with a hopping gait like a young lamb.
Xiao hugged the white male, their tails intertwining as they rubbed against each other. His dependence on Ge La was heavier than on any other companion; it was hard to say whether Selin or Ge La was more important to him.
“I was just looking for you!” the Medium Species said cheerfully. “I saw you talking to Selin earlier.”
Stroking the head that was nuzzling him, Ge La chuckled at his friend, who was desperately sniffing his pheromones. “Did he bring some good news?”
“You could call it... good news.” Xiao muttered softly, his tail waving like a small fan. He pulled out a light screen and showed its contents to the white insect.
“Sa might have mentioned it to you—when you were entering your second genetic breakthrough, he had Selin and the others draft a more detailed set of management regulations and codes of conduct for the energy planet.”
The younger male’s eyes were sparkling, filled with unmistakable joy as he looked at Ge La.
“Sa said the Short-wings could consult with their companions, and also with insects of different ranks and tribes. They finished the draft, and just now Selin... Selin asked me if I’d like to read it and add my own views. He said I—I am also a member of the Short-wing tribe, and he said I could ask you if you wanted to read it too.”
In that moment, Ge La understood Xiao’s feelings.
Unlike the new workers who were delighted by sweet nectar, he and the light-brown Medium Species no longer worried about resources or food; the most difficult days of life on the mining planet were behind them. But something above that still weighed heavily over their heads.
However, the Short-wing administrator, who once couldn't understand why a male could be a companion, had taken the initiative to treat Xiao as a peer. This was the "honeydew" that made them happy now.
“I wanted to show it to you,” Xiao said quietly. “I didn't want to wait. I want to read this document with you, and then write some things we want to say into it.”
His little tail went *patter-patter* against Ge La, and his whole body emitted a soft hum. “Can you read it with me? There are many things I don't understand.”
“Alright,” Ge La replied softly. He sat with Xiao in the Great Information Nest, explaining the document sent by the dark-brown female line by line. He didn't ask his friend why he wanted to hear the reading from him rather than Selin.
He could easily distinguish the viewpoints proposed by insects of different levels and identities.
Sarkadi had told the insects to draft a set of management regulations themselves, and those insects had truly and diligently written a great deal. The Short-wings had never done such work before; the various opinions collected from different tribes were too chaotic, so they had tried their best to organize a strange draft into a neat format.
Inside, some things seemed to conflict. The females had gone through a long process of deletions and revisions; the version Xiao received was the original text complete with edits and annotations.
The enlightened female had presented a complete evolution of thought to Xiao; he let Xiao see the finished product and the tiny details behind it. Although this resulted in the entire document looking like a clumsy, naive suggestion book—naive, chaotic, and harsh.
Ge La stared at the flickering light screen for a long time.
He had read many human books and a large number of the Zerg’s own records. The former covered all sorts of topics, while the latter were mostly practical characters. This was the first time an insect had held a light screen, hoping he would write something on it—something that would become part of the foundation for those codes of conduct.
Xiao was looking at him expectantly. “Write something!” the Medium Species urged.
“...To conduct behavioral regulation in written form—whether it is reasonable for the powerful to be forced to cede most of their rights to the weak, and by what means the current situation of the weak being exploited without limit will be improved...”
It was more like a preamble.
Thus, while various images flashed through Ge La’s mind, his fingers slowly tapped out characters on the light screen.
He remembered the female at the trading nest when they first landed on Ja, looking contemptuous and certain as he tried to buy a male with genetic defects using energy stones.
“...Maintaining the operation of a normal production structure means the management needs to possess a certain degree of coercive and executive power, while simultaneously requiring corresponding constraints to avoid the unlimited expansion of power...”
Katra had treated all of Angon as his private property, squandering power at will, finding pleasure in strangling defeated tribes and plundering males.
In the dim light of the nest, the aging administrator Kata had sighed, numbed by the new deaths arriving each day, yet grieving for every life that passed.
The female who had taught Ge La how to use the Information Nest had lingered outside the Great Sacrificial Grounds for a long time, yet was powerless to save the abducted Xiao.
“When looking back at the past, we inevitably summarize and compensate for what has happened, and thus overlook the impact on the future at the moment the events occur...”
All transformations occur according to power, but the scales of power can be tilted; artificially created conditions will eventually become the lever that pries up the foundation of the old order.
The white male wrote slowly, writing characters he once couldn't understand and never thought he would one day commit to writing.
How ridiculous—a newly matured male, abandoned by his tribe, carrying genetic defects, living on a mining planet... was attempting to imitate the humans he had seen, clumsily writing language with regulatory force.
And language possesses power.
Xiao lay quietly by his side. The light-brown Medium Species didn't quite understand those words yet, but he didn't interrupt, merely resting his head on the other’s lap, watching the words with unfamiliar meanings take shape bit by bit.
Then Xiao saw that after writing the long, introductory passage, the other added a new line before the first rule provided by the Short-wings. It was an amendment to the existing management regulations of the energy planet Ja.
And this rule required no further explanation; Xiao understood it.
He watched with his own eyes as that law above laws was written into text.
A tiny flame, originating from the energy planet, from the mining planet, was born within a blurred consciousness—weak, idealistic, precarious, yet filled with an urgent vitality.
*“—The thorough abolition of the system of private ownership and trafficking of members of defeated tribes, along with all corresponding measures.”*
***
