Read Online The Druid Gene by Jennifer Foehner Wells - Free Book Online
Authors: Jennifer Foehner Wells
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She’d been trying to pick out some unique characteristic to distinguish between them, but thus far, she hadn’t been successful.
She’d become habituated to the sight of their gleaming, oily shells. She no longer shrank from the touch of their pincers or the brush of the hair bristling from their forelegs as they nursed her through the postsurgical recovery.
She’d observed their behavior scrupulously. Yes, they were aliens. And they were giant bugs. They clearly operated under a different set of cultural conventions, but it was equally clear that they had roughly the same set of hierarchical needs that Abraham Maslow had described in his theory of human motivation. So, she could relate to them on a fundamental level. That was a starting point, anyway.
She sensed that this ship had already put a lot of distance between her and her home. She and Adam would need to find an ally on the inside if they were going to escape. Logic dictated that it was more likely they would sneak out, rather than fight their way out, since neither of them had any experience fighting and she doubted that Adam’s tai-chi lessons counted. So she kept trying to break through the cultural barriers, to cozy up to her jailers, in hopes of finding someone sympathetic enough to assist an escape attempt.
It was a long shot, but she didn’t have a lot of options.
However, her attempts at communicating with her captors were hampered by a few issues. She didn’t even bother to try with Hain, who treated her more like a fascinating science project than a person. There was no empathy to be found there.
The insects were taciturn by nature. They seemed to be irritable and quick to take offense. They were focused on their work and disgruntled by distractions. They were annoyed by her naiveté of the universe at large.
And then there was her lifelong aversion to insects. They’d picked up on that early on, before she’d mastered herself. That hadn’t endeared her to them.
But being called a bigot? That was just so damn messed up.
She planted her feet and stopped. She couldn’t go another step without being heard. “Look, I’m not a bigot, okay?”
One of them twitched an antenna.
She interpreted that to mean he was annoyed, based on prior experience.
“Really? What’s my name?”
She wracked her brain, but had no idea. She’d overheard a few names, but couldn’t be sure which name went with which individual. Whatever differences there were between them, she just hadn’t figured out yet.
But she would eventually, she was sure.
He folded his forelegs. “I didn’t think so.”
The other one let out a staccato laugh, and his mandibles worked, an indication of his amusement. “Aw, come on, give the anthropoid a break. Obviously none of them ever leave that rock. You’d be backwards too, if you’d never seen an outsider to your world. She’s probably never even heard of the Swarm.”
Darcy latched onto the modicum of compassion she’d heard. “Yes! And what if your first exposure to outsiders was being abducted?”
“Not my problem.”
A door opened behind Darcy. The less sympathetic of the two insects prodded her to go through the door. She remained focused. “I’m not an anthropoid. I’m human.”
“Are you? That distinction means very little here.”
“What’s the Swarm?”
“You’ve got a lot of questions.”
“I’d have fewer if you’d just answer some of them.”
The meaner of the two ignored her quip, backed up a little bit, and turned slightly. After a moment it chattered to the other one at a rapid-fire pace, too fast for Darcy to understand.
She’d figured out a few days before that they had spiracles on their shoulders through which they forced air to form vowel sounds. It was the concert of these sounds with the consonant sounds made by the joints in their forelimbs that made speech possible for them, since they did not appear to have vocal chords. It was amazing, actually. But when they spoke
She’d become habituated to the sight of their gleaming, oily shells. She no longer shrank from the touch of their pincers or the brush of the hair bristling from their forelegs as they nursed her through the postsurgical recovery.
She’d observed their behavior scrupulously. Yes, they were aliens. And they were giant bugs. They clearly operated under a different set of cultural conventions, but it was equally clear that they had roughly the same set of hierarchical needs that Abraham Maslow had described in his theory of human motivation. So, she could relate to them on a fundamental level. That was a starting point, anyway.
She sensed that this ship had already put a lot of distance between her and her home. She and Adam would need to find an ally on the inside if they were going to escape. Logic dictated that it was more likely they would sneak out, rather than fight their way out, since neither of them had any experience fighting and she doubted that Adam’s tai-chi lessons counted. So she kept trying to break through the cultural barriers, to cozy up to her jailers, in hopes of finding someone sympathetic enough to assist an escape attempt.
It was a long shot, but she didn’t have a lot of options.
However, her attempts at communicating with her captors were hampered by a few issues. She didn’t even bother to try with Hain, who treated her more like a fascinating science project than a person. There was no empathy to be found there.
The insects were taciturn by nature. They seemed to be irritable and quick to take offense. They were focused on their work and disgruntled by distractions. They were annoyed by her naiveté of the universe at large.
And then there was her lifelong aversion to insects. They’d picked up on that early on, before she’d mastered herself. That hadn’t endeared her to them.
But being called a bigot? That was just so damn messed up.
She planted her feet and stopped. She couldn’t go another step without being heard. “Look, I’m not a bigot, okay?”
One of them twitched an antenna.
She interpreted that to mean he was annoyed, based on prior experience.
“Really? What’s my name?”
She wracked her brain, but had no idea. She’d overheard a few names, but couldn’t be sure which name went with which individual. Whatever differences there were between them, she just hadn’t figured out yet.
But she would eventually, she was sure.
He folded his forelegs. “I didn’t think so.”
The other one let out a staccato laugh, and his mandibles worked, an indication of his amusement. “Aw, come on, give the anthropoid a break. Obviously none of them ever leave that rock. You’d be backwards too, if you’d never seen an outsider to your world. She’s probably never even heard of the Swarm.”
Darcy latched onto the modicum of compassion she’d heard. “Yes! And what if your first exposure to outsiders was being abducted?”
“Not my problem.”
A door opened behind Darcy. The less sympathetic of the two insects prodded her to go through the door. She remained focused. “I’m not an anthropoid. I’m human.”
“Are you? That distinction means very little here.”
“What’s the Swarm?”
“You’ve got a lot of questions.”
“I’d have fewer if you’d just answer some of them.”
The meaner of the two ignored her quip, backed up a little bit, and turned slightly. After a moment it chattered to the other one at a rapid-fire pace, too fast for Darcy to understand.
She’d figured out a few days before that they had spiracles on their shoulders through which they forced air to form vowel sounds. It was the concert of these sounds with the consonant sounds made by the joints in their forelimbs that made speech possible for them, since they did not appear to have vocal chords. It was amazing, actually. But when they spoke
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