Re: The Bugs
Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 9:19 am
Do workers get eaten if they make too many mistakes? Sociopathy, which is already an effect of the free rider problem in the world of genetics, becomes much easier with intelligence.
a short story by rotting bones
(Apologies: I know my English isn't polished enough to write fiction, so I must apologize because incompetence has never kept me from trying anything. Here's a story about a Bug who's wiser than me.
Note 1: This story has been written for the sole purpose of asking a question, and the names haven't been chosen with any care whatsoever. However, as the wails fall on the righthand column, I believe most of them should be compatible with Breen phonology if they were to be divided into counterintuitive units of phonation such as Da-gu-r.
Note 2: You know what? This could be the answer to my communication problem on the ZBB. Maybe I should write every post in the form of a short story. Who's with me?)
It was the smell that warned her.
In an instant, the quiet forest was filled with an inescapable stench that burned her nostrils like a mixture of acid, manure and pure hate. Dagur forgot her animal trap and peered into the dense foliage. The flash of an iris between the ferns was all it took. Leaping with inhuman speed, she was on the throat of the intruder.
It was a worker from Panin. She struggled mightily, but by the grace of Queen Sinai and the watching ancestors of Breen, Dagur had landed a secure hold. After a few minutes, the Paninite's efforts began to slacken. Sensing an opportunity, Dagur slipped her claws furtively into her victim's soft throat.
The Paninite's figure sagged and Dagur dropped the dead weight on the blood-splattered moss. It never occurred to her that this was a tragedy. If her response had been delayed by a split second, that would have been her corpse lying on the forest floor. Without hesitation, Dagur bent over and began to gorge on the warm flesh of her adversary.
As the blood and flesh passed her gullet, her mind was ecstatic. This was a feast far greater than any woodland Dti or Cu could have provided by falling into her trap. She might even be able to skip the next several meals.
Once sated, she picked up her trap, fashioned from splints of a purple bamboo stem and put it away in her sling. Then she turned to examine the remains of the Paninite. For a moment, there was a sense of wonder far in the back of her mind: What was a Paninite doing so deep in the hunting grounds of the Breen? Then she blinked and the question was gone. Dagur had only managed to consume a third of the corpse. The rest would be needed back at the nursery.
Within half an hour, Dagur was dragging the corpse towards a brick capsule jutting from the granite mountainside, framed by Kara trees. The Kara resembled Eucalyptuses, but were alien in their lankiness owing to low gravity. Other workers were passing all around her, accumulating the wealth of Breen. They sometimes eyed her load, but deciding that she needed no help, went on their way.
Dagur passed minims tending bulbous hedgerows and entered the brick portal. Inside was a bustle of nurses caring for the hatchlings. One of the nurses detached herself after feeding one especially sprightly infant and turned to Dagur.
Dagur said, "Blessings, Bani. I trust the watchers have kept you well?"
The nurse, many heads shorter than the new arrival, peered up at her face and said, "Dagur! May the watchers bless you, because you sure need it! You were discharged from my care a whole year ago. How many times must I tell you that meat goes in the larder, not the nursery?"
Dagur let out an irritated buzz. "Oh come on, Bani. I'm saving the porters a trip. You always need meat in the nursery."
"That's true." Bani's sigh echoed in the chamber like the crack of a whip. "Come here, little pup. I can spare you an hour tonight. We will hear the story of Bratahinulaika."
So Dagur crowded with the hatchlings at Bani's knees and heard the tale of the tragic queen of Zaru. The ancestral princess Bratahinulaika was full of talent and promise, glory of the race of Breen. Her bones were as strong as her memory was sharp. No other princess dared to challenge her, but cleared out of her path as she passed. From an early age, she was better versed in the ancestral traditions than any queen in living memory. She memorized the lay of the land, knew the seasons and the animal crossings. She even expressed interest in the traditions of the workers. As no one dared to cross her path, the royal hatchling visited the weavers and the furnaces of her own free will. When she founded a city, she said, she would instruct her workers personally.
Bratahinulaika founded Zaru, glory of the land, a great shield in battle for the race of Breen, and a terror to the Paninite invaders. The great ancestor had only one weakness, an excessive nostalgia for her mother's city of Ral. She was known to climb a granite rock face and stare through the giant ferns at her place of birth. She said she could see in her mind's eye all the alleyways of Ral, where she played as a hatchling.
The queens of the Paninite race, and even some cousins of Breen, were exceedingly jealous of Zaru. They plotted an ambush in the fall months when the air was clear as crystal, and Bratahinulaika imagined she could discern the grand causeway of Ral. Near the rock face they killed her as she was beginning her ascent. But the price was steep. Not only her bodyguards, but even the laying queen herself joined the fray. Several dozen Paninite veterans were struck down that day, but then the glory of Zaru was no more. In her fury, her mother, the queen, ordered all workers from the cousin races were to be consumed. From that day, never have they set foot again in Ral.
It is said by experts in the astrological sciences that since then, the warrior spirit of Bratahinulaika had always watched over the city of Breen.
Bani gave Dagur a meaningful look. "Do you understand? The queen mother cannot afford our weakness. Oh Dagur, I urge you to be strong!"
As in after every previous attempt at remonstrance, Dagur looked up and clicked cheerfully. "I understand. Thank you for the story!"
With a bounce in her step, she left the nursery, looking for honest employment. The causeway of Breen skirted the wetlands and the mountain lake of Tuku, forking in two. The high road led to the quarries. With her immense strength, Dagur was good at quarrying stone, but it was dull work. Dagur eyed the steep path sloping down to the furnaces, clearly tempted. Minerals were quarried from a rocky ridge high above and lowered vertically into the chasm below. Dagur found it difficult to work in the furnaces down in the chasm. When stacking them, she could never tell the limestone apart from the magnesite, even though the elders had instructed her several times and they were stored far apart from one another. Nevertheless, she reasoned, manning the furnaces was more important work, what with Paninite intruders showing up on Breen's gates. She pirouetted on the fork, buzzing with the contentment of a full stomach: "... I can't resist! Furnace work is so interesting!"
Passing by other workers on the road who were muttering at her antics, she skipped down to the furnaces. Her face fell when she saw her elders stacking them to smelt iron. She would have welcomed any other task. However, she stiffened her jaw and worked up the courage to join them. Selecting an unattended furnace on the end, she filled it with iron ore. She looked left, then right. Where's the flux again? Her elders were preparing to light their furnaces.
"Hello, ma'am?" she tried with the worker next to her.
An angry buzzing was the only response. The elder was handling a flaming coal.
Dagur shrank back.
Looking through the storehouse, she found a quantity of white powder that she loaded into the furnace and lit it.
Just as she was choking a bit from the burning fumes, a terrible boom came from the other side of the workplace. The elders turned to look at a shocked worker standing in front of a furnace that had been completely blasted open.
"Igrid!" shrieked the crowd. Igrid was another unfortunate of the furnaces. Once before, she had loaded a furnace with explosive mixtures. This time, the crowd was maddened beyond reason. They descended upon the wailing girl and tore her limb from limb, consuming her on the spot.
Dagur did not join the crusaders. She had detected sure signs that she had loaded her furnace with magnesite instead of flux. She edged around the crowd and fled as fast as her legs would carry her.
That dawn, she tossed and turned without sleeping. The next evening, she woke up exhausted.
At midnight, she dragged her own corpselike self to the nursery.
"Bani?"
Bani was wrestling with a stubborn infant. "No, you can't play with the cleaner. Give me that! Dagur, I'm busy. Come back tomorrow night."
"Can I just ask you one question?"
"Okay, shoot!"
"If Bratahinulaika could have either built up Zaru one brick at a time or taken a chance at striking down Panin in one blow, what would she have done?"
Bani's click rattled around the compartment, louder than an avalanche. "She would have done the right thing, Dagur! Now leave me alone."
Dagur hung her head and left the nursery. Coming to the fork in the causeway, she hesitated a moment and took the high road.
a short story by rotting bones
(Apologies: I know my English isn't polished enough to write fiction, so I must apologize because incompetence has never kept me from trying anything. Here's a story about a Bug who's wiser than me.
Note 1: This story has been written for the sole purpose of asking a question, and the names haven't been chosen with any care whatsoever. However, as the wails fall on the righthand column, I believe most of them should be compatible with Breen phonology if they were to be divided into counterintuitive units of phonation such as Da-gu-r.
Note 2: You know what? This could be the answer to my communication problem on the ZBB. Maybe I should write every post in the form of a short story. Who's with me?)
It was the smell that warned her.
In an instant, the quiet forest was filled with an inescapable stench that burned her nostrils like a mixture of acid, manure and pure hate. Dagur forgot her animal trap and peered into the dense foliage. The flash of an iris between the ferns was all it took. Leaping with inhuman speed, she was on the throat of the intruder.
It was a worker from Panin. She struggled mightily, but by the grace of Queen Sinai and the watching ancestors of Breen, Dagur had landed a secure hold. After a few minutes, the Paninite's efforts began to slacken. Sensing an opportunity, Dagur slipped her claws furtively into her victim's soft throat.
The Paninite's figure sagged and Dagur dropped the dead weight on the blood-splattered moss. It never occurred to her that this was a tragedy. If her response had been delayed by a split second, that would have been her corpse lying on the forest floor. Without hesitation, Dagur bent over and began to gorge on the warm flesh of her adversary.
As the blood and flesh passed her gullet, her mind was ecstatic. This was a feast far greater than any woodland Dti or Cu could have provided by falling into her trap. She might even be able to skip the next several meals.
Once sated, she picked up her trap, fashioned from splints of a purple bamboo stem and put it away in her sling. Then she turned to examine the remains of the Paninite. For a moment, there was a sense of wonder far in the back of her mind: What was a Paninite doing so deep in the hunting grounds of the Breen? Then she blinked and the question was gone. Dagur had only managed to consume a third of the corpse. The rest would be needed back at the nursery.
Within half an hour, Dagur was dragging the corpse towards a brick capsule jutting from the granite mountainside, framed by Kara trees. The Kara resembled Eucalyptuses, but were alien in their lankiness owing to low gravity. Other workers were passing all around her, accumulating the wealth of Breen. They sometimes eyed her load, but deciding that she needed no help, went on their way.
Dagur passed minims tending bulbous hedgerows and entered the brick portal. Inside was a bustle of nurses caring for the hatchlings. One of the nurses detached herself after feeding one especially sprightly infant and turned to Dagur.
Dagur said, "Blessings, Bani. I trust the watchers have kept you well?"
The nurse, many heads shorter than the new arrival, peered up at her face and said, "Dagur! May the watchers bless you, because you sure need it! You were discharged from my care a whole year ago. How many times must I tell you that meat goes in the larder, not the nursery?"
Dagur let out an irritated buzz. "Oh come on, Bani. I'm saving the porters a trip. You always need meat in the nursery."
"That's true." Bani's sigh echoed in the chamber like the crack of a whip. "Come here, little pup. I can spare you an hour tonight. We will hear the story of Bratahinulaika."
So Dagur crowded with the hatchlings at Bani's knees and heard the tale of the tragic queen of Zaru. The ancestral princess Bratahinulaika was full of talent and promise, glory of the race of Breen. Her bones were as strong as her memory was sharp. No other princess dared to challenge her, but cleared out of her path as she passed. From an early age, she was better versed in the ancestral traditions than any queen in living memory. She memorized the lay of the land, knew the seasons and the animal crossings. She even expressed interest in the traditions of the workers. As no one dared to cross her path, the royal hatchling visited the weavers and the furnaces of her own free will. When she founded a city, she said, she would instruct her workers personally.
Bratahinulaika founded Zaru, glory of the land, a great shield in battle for the race of Breen, and a terror to the Paninite invaders. The great ancestor had only one weakness, an excessive nostalgia for her mother's city of Ral. She was known to climb a granite rock face and stare through the giant ferns at her place of birth. She said she could see in her mind's eye all the alleyways of Ral, where she played as a hatchling.
The queens of the Paninite race, and even some cousins of Breen, were exceedingly jealous of Zaru. They plotted an ambush in the fall months when the air was clear as crystal, and Bratahinulaika imagined she could discern the grand causeway of Ral. Near the rock face they killed her as she was beginning her ascent. But the price was steep. Not only her bodyguards, but even the laying queen herself joined the fray. Several dozen Paninite veterans were struck down that day, but then the glory of Zaru was no more. In her fury, her mother, the queen, ordered all workers from the cousin races were to be consumed. From that day, never have they set foot again in Ral.
It is said by experts in the astrological sciences that since then, the warrior spirit of Bratahinulaika had always watched over the city of Breen.
Bani gave Dagur a meaningful look. "Do you understand? The queen mother cannot afford our weakness. Oh Dagur, I urge you to be strong!"
As in after every previous attempt at remonstrance, Dagur looked up and clicked cheerfully. "I understand. Thank you for the story!"
With a bounce in her step, she left the nursery, looking for honest employment. The causeway of Breen skirted the wetlands and the mountain lake of Tuku, forking in two. The high road led to the quarries. With her immense strength, Dagur was good at quarrying stone, but it was dull work. Dagur eyed the steep path sloping down to the furnaces, clearly tempted. Minerals were quarried from a rocky ridge high above and lowered vertically into the chasm below. Dagur found it difficult to work in the furnaces down in the chasm. When stacking them, she could never tell the limestone apart from the magnesite, even though the elders had instructed her several times and they were stored far apart from one another. Nevertheless, she reasoned, manning the furnaces was more important work, what with Paninite intruders showing up on Breen's gates. She pirouetted on the fork, buzzing with the contentment of a full stomach: "... I can't resist! Furnace work is so interesting!"
Passing by other workers on the road who were muttering at her antics, she skipped down to the furnaces. Her face fell when she saw her elders stacking them to smelt iron. She would have welcomed any other task. However, she stiffened her jaw and worked up the courage to join them. Selecting an unattended furnace on the end, she filled it with iron ore. She looked left, then right. Where's the flux again? Her elders were preparing to light their furnaces.
"Hello, ma'am?" she tried with the worker next to her.
An angry buzzing was the only response. The elder was handling a flaming coal.
Dagur shrank back.
Looking through the storehouse, she found a quantity of white powder that she loaded into the furnace and lit it.
Just as she was choking a bit from the burning fumes, a terrible boom came from the other side of the workplace. The elders turned to look at a shocked worker standing in front of a furnace that had been completely blasted open.
"Igrid!" shrieked the crowd. Igrid was another unfortunate of the furnaces. Once before, she had loaded a furnace with explosive mixtures. This time, the crowd was maddened beyond reason. They descended upon the wailing girl and tore her limb from limb, consuming her on the spot.
Dagur did not join the crusaders. She had detected sure signs that she had loaded her furnace with magnesite instead of flux. She edged around the crowd and fled as fast as her legs would carry her.
That dawn, she tossed and turned without sleeping. The next evening, she woke up exhausted.
At midnight, she dragged her own corpselike self to the nursery.
"Bani?"
Bani was wrestling with a stubborn infant. "No, you can't play with the cleaner. Give me that! Dagur, I'm busy. Come back tomorrow night."
"Can I just ask you one question?"
"Okay, shoot!"
"If Bratahinulaika could have either built up Zaru one brick at a time or taken a chance at striking down Panin in one blow, what would she have done?"
Bani's click rattled around the compartment, louder than an avalanche. "She would have done the right thing, Dagur! Now leave me alone."
Dagur hung her head and left the nursery. Coming to the fork in the causeway, she hesitated a moment and took the high road.
It's not very important anyway.