He Comes in Peace

Skye Cedona waited for quite some time for Elixyne to begin her explanation. She didn't want to be impolite and badger her new Quettalian friend to start talking. But when Elixyne remained silent after they had traveled a good part of the day, Skye coughed slightly and spoke.

"Um, Elixyne? Sorry for being…bothersome, but I'd really like to, um, hear the story, if you don't mind." Skye turned bright red after she had spoken.

Elixyne laughed a small, feathery laugh. "Do not fret, Skye. I am merely collecting my thoughts."

For a good hour and a half? Skye shook her head as if she were a dog shaking itself dry.

"Oh, okay. Uh, thanks. I was just wondering if you forgot or something..."

"No, no. I did not forget. I am trying to make my explanation as clear as possible."

After another stretch of silence, Elixyne asked Skye a question that caught her off guard.

"Has Kartayon ever described the social and environmental system at Quetz as being similar to a beehive?"

Skye raked through her memory, having trouble remembering. "Um, no, I don't think so." She thought for a moment longer. "No," she confirmed in a surer tone of voice.

"Hm, that is interesting. Well, it is true."

It took Skye a moment to reel her mind back into the present. "It is? It's like a beehive? What does that mean?"

"You tell me, Skye Cedona."

"Well..." Skye thought for a moment about bees. What made their living system unique and different from everybody else's?

The remembered going to a bee farm when she was in elementary school, and taking notes in a little pink notebook her mother had bought her just for that occasion.

Skye drifted farther and farther into the confines of her mind, thinking about the 'Fun Facts' the guide had read out to them as they walked around the large field.

Candy, their guide's name, had spoken in a voice that even nine-year-old Skye had found irritating and unpleasant.

"Okay now, children. Follow Candy over here, yes, in a straight line, okay? See how Mr. Beekeeper is distracting the bees with smoke? Now he can go and get some tasty honey from the bees."

Later on, their entire class was given a small cup of honey, just a few millimeters worth. Skye slurped at hers in ecstasy, deliriously happy because of the treat. Her happy mood was watered down slightly when Candy started speaking again.

"Fun Fact number seventeen. There is one queen bee in each colony. Her job is to keep laying eggs, day after day, so there will always be plenty of bees around. The other female bees don't lay eggs, no they don't. That job is for the queen bee only, and a thousands of male bees called 'drone bees' help the queen bee populate the colony."

Now that Skye thought about it again, the words that Candy had used were unnecessary. She had been talking to them as if they were mere preschoolers.

She found herself grumbling under her breath, before a thought struck her in the back of the head.

Skye checked to see if she had walked right into a branch and had hit herself while she passed. No, it was definitely a thought, a realization that had struck her.

"Oh!"

Elixyne halted and stared at Skye, waiting for her guess.

"You said that everyone on Quetz is related. Oh!"

"Would you care to explain your epiphany, Skye?" Elixyne said with a hint of a grim smile.

"You have a queen bee, don't you? I mean, a mother, I mean..." Skye struggled to put her sudden onslaught of thoughts into words. "The mother that you and Kartayon have! She must be similar to 'queen bee', right?"

Elixyne nodded along as Skye continued to ramble.

"So that's how you can share the same mother but still have such an age difference! She must lay around all day just giving birth to new Quettles." The thought disgusted her slightly when a brief image flashed in her head.

"But how does she fertilize them? Do the male Quettles just...?"

Skye's expression went from wonder to horror.

"No!"

Elixyne nodded slowly. "Yes."

"No!"

"Yes. I am sad to say that what you are thinking is correct."

"Are you sure? Maybe my mind is just going haywire...Can you explain? Just in case what I was thinking isn't the same; just so I don't get the wrong picture?" Skye pleaded.

"Yes, all right. I think you know how life is on Quetz. You are a smart girl, Skye, when you get the wheels in your mind turning." She continued before Skye could get offended by the slightly offensive observation. "Quettalian life works almost exactly like a bee colony. I judge from your horrified expression that you have pictured the same with human beings. It is not like that; our bodies are not alike."

"But—"

"Please let me explain fully before you ask any more questions." Elixyne waited for a brief nod before speaking again. "It does not take a full nine months for a baby to be developed. The baby leaves the womb after a mere sixty pirons. Piron is our word for—"

"I know. It's how you measure time. Sixty pirons equals one month, or thirty days. Kartayon explained it to me a while ago."

Elixyne nodded. "Yes."

"But doesn't that take a while? One baby every month, with only one mother."

"No, it is not one baby per month. That is how our bodies differ, Skye. I will not go into thorough details for your sake, but know this: We are not like humans, or elephants, or any mammals on Earth."

"Are you reptiles?" Skye blushed at the look she was given. She expected to be heavily corrected at her outburst, and was mildly horrified when she wasn't.

"Must you say it in such a disgusted way? We are born inside eggs, yes. Our 'queen bee', our Laqin, can fertilize up to ten eggs inside her body."

Skye was speechless for a few moments. "How does...Do the male Quettles just—?"

"There is no fixed mate for the Laqin. As horrifying as it sounds, the male Quettles have 'shifts'."

"Oh God!" Skye screeched, squeezing her eyes shut. Did that mean—? Kartayon?

"Do not think of it as how humans experience it, Skye. There is no love or lust involved. It is merely a task. A duty that male Quettles were burdened with since the start of our planet. It has been that way for as long as even the oldest Quettles on our planet can remember."

Skye took a few deep breaths. "Okay. So that explains how it's possible for you and Kartayon to have the same mother. But...Doesn't she age? The 'Laqin'? Doesn't she get old?"

"That brings us to my other explanation, or why I think Kartayon left."

Skye gulped.

"Quettalian lives work like bees in another way. Did you know that after a bee stings something, it loses its stinger and dies?"

Skye nodded, trying to figure out how this connected. "Wait, so Kartayon has a stinger? How can that be connected to how Quetz works like a bee colony?"

"In a sense, it connects perfectly." Elixyne thought for a few seconds before continuing slowly. "On average, Quettles can live as long as humans. While you say 'years', we say 'tkans'."

Skye repeated the new word under her breath.

"Because our 'pirons' are half of your 'days', our 'tkans' are also half of your 'years'. So two hundred tkans equals one hundred years. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Male Quettles reproduce with the Laqin six or seven times in their life. After the sixth, or sometimes, if they are lucky, the seventh time, they die."

Skye was speechless. How could such a system actually exist?

"That still doesn't explain how the Laqin can live so long."

"I was about to explain, Skye." An expression that looked remarkably like Kartayon's crossed Elixyne's face. "Each time a male mates with the Laqin, they give a small part of their life to her. Imagine how many fractions of lives she receives every single time she reproduces."

Skye nodded wordlessly. It made sense; a twisted, wrong kind of sense. "How long do females live?"

"We live considerably longer than the males. Roughly two hundred fifty to three hundred tkans."

"So males die just like that?" Skye snapped her fingers to emphasize her disbelief.

"No, not just like that. There are many Quettles on our planet, and more than fifty percent are male. When I spoke about taking shifts, that was what I meant. A male will not mate with the Laqin two pirons after. Males are usually able to live just as long as females before their lives are used up. Each male usually reproduces with the Laqin once every thirty tkans."

"But that's still horrible!"

"It is the way life works on Quetz. I believe that Kartayon left a tkan or so after his...first time."

Skye whitened. Kartayon didn't look much older than she was. "How old is Kartayon?" she asked softly.

"Thirty to thirty-five tkans."

"So he's around…fifteen to seventeen years old?"

"Yes, I believe he is."

"So he already...with the Laqin...?"

"Yes. And I also believe that Kartayon, being a very outspoken and stubborn Quettle, thought the system was unjust and decided to leave."

Skye felt a small trill of pride that Kartayon had decided to make such a drastic move and leave his planet.

"Wow."

"Yes, indeed. Wow."

"Skye?"

Skye frowned and looked at Elixyne. "Did you just say my name?"

The woman frowned and shook her head. "No, I did not."

They were quiet while they listened for the voice again.

"Skye?"

Skye's face lit up. "Kartayon?!"

The answer was immediate. "Skye!"

Without a second thought, Skye plunged into the woods towards the direction of Kartayon's voice, Elixyne hot on her heels.

As she ran, a joyful smile broke across her face and made her eyes as bright as stars.