Serpent's Reach by C. J. Cherryh

associate with humans, a new and necessary fragment of the hive-mind. Betas made them, and sold them to other betas…and to Kontrin, who sold them to the hives, short-lived clones of beta cells.
    They came, bearing blue lights hardly brighter than the illusory fungus, and gathered about her, perhaps bewildered by the chitin on her hand, the realisation that she was Kontrin, though naked as they, and within the hive. They were not bred fighters, these particular azi, but they were clever and quick, bright-eyed and anxious to serve. They were much prized by majat and must know their worth in the hive, but they were a little mad. Azi who dwelled among majat tended to be.
    “We’re going outside,” Raen told them. “You’ll carry weapons and take my orders.”
    “Yes,” they said, voices overlapping, song-toned, inflectionless as those of the majat. There was a certain horror in these strangest of the azi. They came here younger than azi were generally sold; they acquired majat habits. They touched her, confirming her in their minds. She returned the touches, and gathered up the clothing she had been given. She wrapped it round and tied it here and there. It had a strange feel, light as it was, the reminder of a world and a life outside.
    A Warrior came then, sat down, glittering in the azi-lights, chitinous head and powerful jaws a fantasy of jewel-shards. It offered her a pistol. It carried weapons of its own, besides the array nature had provided it: these items too majat prized, status for Warriors…empty symbols: humans had believed so. Raen took up the offered gun, found it shaped to a human hand. The cold, heavy object quickly warmed to her grip, and she took keen pleasure in the solidity of it: power, power to make Ruil pay.
    “Azi-weapon,” Warrior said. “Shall we arm azi?”
    “Yes.” She thrust her free hand against its scent-patches, reaching between the huge jaws. “Are you ready?”
    A song hummed from Warrior. Others appeared, shifting from unseen tunnels into the meagre light. They bore weapons, some belted to their leathery bodies; others went to the azi. The azi’s human eyes were intense with something other than humanity. They grinned, filled with excitement.
    “Come,” she bade them.
    Her word had Mother’s authority behind it, the consensus of the hive. They moved, all of them, down the tunnels. Other Warriors joined them, a great following of bodies strangely silent now, songs stilled. They went in total blackness, azi-lights left behind.
    Then they reached the cool air of the vestibule, and poured out under the night sky. Raen shivered in the wind and blinked, awed to find the stars again, to realise the brilliance of the night.
    Warriors gathered silently about her, touching, seeking motive and direction. She was nexus, binding-unit for this portion of the Mind. She started away, barefoot and agile among the rocks.
vii
    Starlight glistened on the lake, and bright artificial lights; danced wetly at the farther shore, where Sul had never put lights. Raen stopped on the last rocky shelf above the woods and snatched a look at sights to which majat eyes were all but blind. For the first time her wounds hurt, her breath came short. Kethiuy-by-the-waters.
    Home.
    She felt more grief than she had yet felt. She had been out of human reference; and now the deaths became real to her again. Mother, cousins, friends…all ashes by now. Ruil would have spared no one, least of all eldest, so that there would be no possibility of challenge to their claim. Even yet the Family had made no move to intervene: Ruil still held here, or the hive would have known, would have told her, Red-hive remained here: of that they were sure.
    Bile rose in her throat, bitter hate. She swallowed at it, and wiped her eyes with the back of her left hand, the gun clenched in her chitined right.
    “Meth-maren,” Warrior urged her. She scrambled down, reckless on the rocks, half-blind. Her limbs trembled with the strain, but