And at the heart of that pattern lies such a creature as he has never imagined: a world in itself, that huge motionless thing. With the aid of the Wonderstone that his brother holds in the curl of his sensing-organ, somewhere thousands of leagues behind them where they have left their unconscious bodies, Thu-Kimnibol can perceive the vastness of the container of flesh that houses the mind of the Queen, the slow journey of the life-fluids through that gigantic ancient body, the ponderous workings of its incomprehensible organs.

It has waited through half of time for his coming here, so he feels. And he has passed all his life in a dream, waiting only for this moment of confrontation.

“There are two of you,” the Queen declares, in that same overwhelming tone. “Who is your other self?”

Hresh does not respond. Thu-Kimnibol sends a probe in his brother’s direction, to prod him to make some reply. But Hresh seems silent, dazed, as if the effort of the journey itself has exhausted the last of his powers.

All is in his own hands, then. He says, “I am Thu-Kimnibol, son of Harruel and Minbain, brother on the mother’s side to Hresh the chronicler, whom you already know.”

“Ah. You have an Egg-maker in common but you come from different Life-kindlers.” There is a long pause. “And you are the one who would destroy us. Why is that, that you feel such hatred for us?”

“The gods guide my hand,” Thu-Kimnibol says simply.

“The gods?”

“They who shape our lives and control our destinies. They tell me that I must lead my people forward against those who stand in the way of our achieving what we must.”

There comes a sound of great pealing laughter now, rising and spreading outward like the floodwaters of some mighty river, so that Thu-Kimnibol has to fight with all his strength to keep from being engulfed in that tremendous outpouring of mockery.

The words he has just spoken echo and re-echo in his ears, amplified and distorted by the tide of the Queen’s laughter so that they become pathetic comic shards of foolishness — destinies … lead … achieving … must …His staunch declaration of purpose seems only like empty nonsense to him now. Angrily he strives to reclaim some shred of his lost dignity.

“Do You mock the gods, then?” he cries.

Again that great flood of laughter. “The gods, you say? The gods?”

“The gods, indeed. Who have brought me here today, and who will strengthen my hand until the last of Your kind has been sent from the world.”

Thu-Kimnibol is aware now of Hresh, distant and vague, fluttering against him like a bird against a sealed window, as if trying to warn him against the course he has chosen. But he ignores his brother’s agitation.

“Tell me this, Queen: do You so much as believe in the gods? Or is Your arrogance so great that You deny them?”

“Your gods?” she says. “Yes. No.”

“What does that mean?”

“Your gods are symbols of the great forces: comfort, protection, nourishment, healing, death.”

“You know that much?”

“Of course.”

“And You have no belief in those gods?”

“We believe in comfort, protection, nourishment, healing, death. But they are not gods.”

“You worship no one and nothing, then?”

“Not as you understand worship,” the Queen replies.

“Not even Your creator?”

“The humans created us,” she says, in a strange offhanded way. “But does that make them worthy of our worship? We think not.” Once more the Queen’s laughter engulfs him. “Let us not discuss the gods. Let us discuss the injuries you do us. How can you carry on such war against us, when you have no true understanding of what we are? Your other self has already seen our Nest. Now it is your turn. Prepare yourself to behold us.”

But there is no time to prepare himself, nor does he know how, or for what. Before the Queen’s voice has died away the Nest in its totality sweeps like a rushing torrent into his soul.

He sees it all: the great shining machine, the flawless world within the world, Militaries and Workers, Egg-makers and Life-kindlers, Nest-thinkers and Nourishment-givers and Queen-attendants and all the rest, every one woven together in an inextricable way in the service of the Queen, which is to say in the service of the totality. He understands how the creation of Nest-plenty and Nest-strength fosters the furtherance of Egg-plan, by which Queen-love will ultimately be extended to all the cosmos. He sees the smaller Nests here and there and across the face of the planet, each of them tied to all the rest, and to the great central Nest, by the powerful force of Nest-truth that radiates from the immensity that is the Queen of Queens.

How puny his own armies seem, against the colossal confident single force that is the hjjks! How ragged and confused, how crippled by division and vainglory! There’s no hope of prevailing in this struggle, Thu-Kimnibol sees. Egg-plan is in direct conflict with the ambitions of the People, and Egg-plan must triumph through sheer will and force of numbers. He might win a battle now and then, he might deal one band of hjjks or another a grievous blow, but always the underlying force of hjjk unity will remain, always the power of the Nest will bring forth horde after horde, until in the end the upstarts out of the cocoon must inevitably be defeated.

Must — inevitably—

— be—

— defeated—

Or perhaps have been already. Despair presses against him with crushing weight. All strength seems to be leaving his limbs, and he sees that that strength was only an illusion, that he had thought of himself as a giant but had always in reality been nothing more than a flea: a bold flea and foolish flea who has dared to challenge an immortal monarch.

He is floating downward toward the colossus that is the Queen like a cinder drifting on the air. In another moment he will land on the great surface of Her and be swallowed up. When he looks toward Hresh for help his brother seems more distant even than before, a mere speck far away, already caught beyond hope of escape in the Queen’s compelling force, already sinking irretrievably within the layers of Her flesh.

He is next. They both are doomed.

The Queen is like some great cosmic force, a deadly elemental thing that holds the power of ending his life with a single contemptuous flicker of Her will.

Does She mean to kill him, Thu-Kimnibol wonders, or merely to swallow him up? He considers the vastness of Her and the probable power of the Wonderstone hidden somewhere within the incalculable volumes of Her flesh; and he decides that probably She doesn’t intend to kill him, but that if She tries it he’ll send such a flare of defiant fury into Her, by way of Hresh with whom he lies entwined and the Wonderstone which Hresh possesses, that She will sizzle in unthinkable pain.

More likely, though, he decides, She means to absorb and neutralize, to transform him from Her foe into Her slave. That he will not allow either.

Her strength is immense. And yet — and yet—

He thinks suddenly that he can see Her limits. How She could be brought to a standstill, if not defeated altogether.

The perfection of the hjjk empire hums and whirrs and gleams about him, and the power of the Queen holds him fast, and nonetheless in the midst of all that oppressive force Thu-Kimnibol knows what Hresh meant when he said that he must try to comprehend the vulnerability of the hjjks.

Their very perfection is their weak spot. The greatness of the self-contained civilization that they have built and sustained for so many hundreds of thousands of years contains the seed of its own destruction. Hresh has seen that already; and now Hresh, wherever he may be, is helping him to see it. The hjjks are a supreme achievement of the gods, Thu-Kimnibol thinks; but they will not allow themselves to understand that the essence of the gods’ way is unceasing change. Time has brought change to everything else that ever lived; and it will come also to the hjjks, or they will perish.