I think I have the means now to make her majesty’s flesh crawl prodigiously.”
Thomas was ashamed to feel a sudden pang of resentment at the observation that Drake—who was, after all, five years his senior and no great beauty—had not thought to include him with de Vere and Raleigh in the list of his rivals for the queen’s affection. Such was the burden of humble birth, and perhaps the myth of mathematicians’ disdain for common passion.
Thomas now had the opportunity to see for himself that the giant inhabitants of the moon did not all resemble insects, although its insectile population was exceedingly various; there were, as Drake had briefly mentioned, creatures like slugs the size of elephants, with shells on their backs like mahouts’ turrets, and many other creatures shelled like lobsters, whelks or barnacles. There were legions of chimeras clad in what Thomas could not help likening to Medieval suits of armor designed for the protection of entities with far too many limbs.
“Why, this must be a busy port or a great capital,” Thomas said, though not aloud. “A cultural crossroads where many races commingle and interact. If the moon is hollow throughout, honeycombed with tunnels, how far must its pathways extend, and how shall its hosts be numbered?”
“Very good, Thomas,” his invader said. “I’m assisting you as best I can, but you’ve a naturally calm mind, which makes it a great deal easier. Thank God you have no relevant phobias—they’d be a lot less easy to counter than your allergies.”
“You talk a deal of nonsense,” Thomas said, “for someone using a borrowed tongue.”
“Aye,” the creature replied, “but I’ll make sense of it for you if I can. I must, for we’ve work to do here, now that the True Civilization is aware of your new capability. They must have studied you, I dare say, but they could not have thought you capable of building an ethership for another four hundred years—and study conducted at a distance is always calmer than a close confrontation, where differences stand out that distinguish you from burrowers and ethereals alike. We must convince an influential philosopher that you are harmless still, and likely to remain so.”
“Have you a name, guest?” Thomas demanded. “I feel that I am at every possible disadvantage here. Or will you name yourself Legion, and make things even worse?”
“I am no possessive demon,” the creature assured him. “I shall be as polite a guest as circumstances permit, and will take my leave before I overstay the necessity of my visit. You may call me Lumen.”
“As in light, or cavity?” Thomas retorted.
“A little of both. We are chimerical creatures by nature, and our aims are syncretic. I cannot bind your race to the True Civilization at present, but I must persuade someone close to its heart that humankind might one day be so bound—if I fail, the consequences might be catastrophic.”
Thomas wanted to demand further clarification of this remarkable statement, but he did not have time. They had just arrived in a much larger cavern: a vast and crowded amphitheatre, with terraces arranged in multitudinous circles about a central core.
“I told you so,” Drake shouted. It took Thomas several seconds to realize that his friend was referring to his assertion that an insect queen could never be as pretty as his darling Jane. Thomas had to agree, as he looked upon a vast individual, which was surely the queen of a hive, although her resemblance to an ant or bee was no greater than its resemblance to a moth or a centipede. Her ugliness in human eyes was spectacular in its extremity. She was laying eggs at the rate of one every ninety seconds, which acolytes carried away into tunnel-mouths dotting the rim of the central arena.
It was not the queen to whom the two prisoners were taken, though—it was to a group of individuals twenty-five or thirty strong, situated no closer to her head than her nether end, who were in conference in one of the inner ranks of the array of terraces. The majority were more moth-like than any other species Thomas had yet seen, conspicuously furry, with multifaceted eyes each larger than a human head; the minority were very varied indeed.
“Now,” said Thomas’ uninvited guest, “you must let me speak. The future of your nation, and perhaps your world, may depend on it.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Thomas pulled himself together once he had been released, and tried to look one of the moth-like creatures squarely in the eyes, although the wide spacing of the compound aggregations made it difficult. Whether it was he or his passenger who had identified the significant member of the group Thomas could not tell. Drake was standing close beside him, but said nothing: his eyes were on Thomas, his captain.
“Very well, Sir Lumen,” Thomas said, silently, since his guest seemed to be waiting for explicit permission to proceed. “Speak—but tell me, I beg you, what you are saying and what replies you receive.”
His hands immediately became active, as did the multiple forelimbs of the lepidopteran monster.
“I am delighted to have the privilege of communicating with one who has come so far through the universal web,” the voice within him said, evidently translating what the hands it was guiding were attempting to convey in a very different language. “May I address you as Aristocles?”
Then the internal voice changed its timbre entirely, to signify that it was translating a different gestural sequence. “You may,” the monster replied. “I suppose that it is a privilege of sorts for us, also, to converse with an ethereal in such a strange guise. We had not thought that such as you could have an interest in a being of this sort.”
Thomas, who still had control of some of his motor functions, tried to keep his eyes on the monster’s frightful face, although a certain instinctive repulsion added to the temptation to glance sideways to see what other creatures were passing along the terraces and to hazard guesses at what multifarious kinds of business they might be transacting.
“We are interested in all beings, whether they are ethereal, vaporous, liquid or solid,” Lumen stated. “Nor do we discriminate between endoskeletal and exoskeletal formations. We are as intrigued by anomaly as you are.”
“We stand corrected,” Aristocles replied. “Your kind does not often descend to planetary surfaces, though—do you not find the thick and turbulent atmosphere of this world’s neighbor as inhospitable as we do?”
“We can move in air as in ether,” Lumen said. “It is uncomfortable, but it does no lasting damage if we do not linger long.”
“And the same is true of these bizarre creatures, I assume,” Aristocles replied. “It will do you no lasting damage to dwell within the bonebag, provided that you do not linger long—but they cannot be as welcoming, in their capacity as hosts, as we soft-centered creatures are.”
The ether-creature made no reply to that teasing statement. Instead, it said: “May I introduce Thomas Digges, esquire, in the service of Her Majesty Queen Jane of England? His companion is Sir Francis Drake. May I also ask what has become of the other three humans who were captured with them?”
“You may,” the moth-like creature replied, its politeness wholly feigned if the suggestive timbre of its mimic cold be trusted. “Thomas Digges’ companions are unharmed, although one of them is direly fearful. He appears to believe that we and the Selenites are incarnations of pure evil.”
“I am glad that you understand these creatures well enough to be able to deduce that,” Lumen said—sarcastically, presuming the tone of the translation to be accurate “John Field has a narrow opinion of what it means to be
