//------------------------------//
// Chapter 52 
// Story: Don't Bug Me 
// by Starscribe 
//------------------------------//

By the time noon arrived the next day, Amie was aboard a secret train, cutting sharply across the otherwise empty desert surrounding Sonoma. The expedition was not much larger than the one she had taken on her way out—aside from her brother and herself, she had three companions from the orange tribe. Pachu'a and one other hunter had come this time, a stranger she didn't know yet, to protect the relief shipment.

Then there was Natane, the spy armed with Kaya's book of gathered changeling knowledge as a bargaining chip. There were no other cars, just the engine and one passenger vehicle behind it. That meant she would never get total privacy for herself and her brother to talk about Stella Lacus.

Did it matter? Amie still wasn't sure. So far the orange bugs had done exactly what they promised in every respect, and intervened in meaningful humanitarian ways. She could hardly expect more from a human city-state in a similar position.

But she couldn't shake just how inhuman these bugs were. If she relied entirely on the expectation that they would behave like people, she would make false judgements and get herself into serious danger. Kaya made it quite clear just how dangerous bugs could be. If Amie had handled the situation a little differently, she wouldn't have survived the visit.

She did her best to get a little privacy. Their lunch-table wasn't terribly interesting to the other bugs—if anything, they seemed disgusted by the act of physically eating a meal. They chose to sit elsewhere while Wes and Amie ate.

The changelings weren't very good cooks. They had brought baskets of fresh bread just as they promised, but some of it was doughy in the middle, and other loafs burned on the outside. Amie ate it all anyway, she was hungry enough for that. And Wes was observant enough to notice.

"You keep stuffing yourself like that, Amie. I know I'm not supposed to say this, buuuut..." He pointed. "I can tell. A little plump in the middle there. Maybe you should focus on magic and not eat the other stuff?"

Amie lifted another slice to her mouth and finished it, ignoring him. It wasn't fat, her visit to Sonoma had taught her that. But if she thought about what was really happening, she might just lose her grip on reality completely and break down. Better to pretend it wasn't happening, and wait for it to go away.

"Something big is happening in Stella Lacus," she said, when she had finished. "I negotiated with Albrecht last night. I'm getting my campers out. Things might be getting a little crowded at the Rent-a-Friend."

Wes's mouth fell open. For a few seconds he said nothing at all, waiting for her to admit that it was a joke. Of course, she never did.

"Does that seem like a... good idea? How many kids are these exactly?"

"I had 23 students originally, including you. Three of them are living with us right now, so another 20. Four are..." She whimpered, looking away from him. "They were starving. If I left them in Stella Lacus, I might lose even more."

"Four kids... died?" Wes asked, his voice low. What didn't come was the request for how Amie could know what she did.

"No. But they're not okay either. I stopped their bodies from starving, but I think they might be... brain-damaged? I'm not sure. I just hope they'll be able to recover with enough to eat."

"I... don't want to be the bearer of bad news," Wes began. "But twenty new ponies aren't going to go unnoticed. I'm guessing they're too weak to transform, right? And the city is keeping watch at night... then there's your boss. You think Bud will be okay with that?"

He better be, or this whole plan is doomed.

Of course none of those problems were new to Amie. She had her ideas about how to solve each one—but whether or not they actually worked depended on the cooperation of a few ponies.

"Remember that cave where we spent the night? I'm going to lead them there. I'll transform them and bring them inside in small groups, early in the morning or late at night. I got to know some of the city guards while I was working on base—I'll use that to distract them. My boyfriend might have some ideas to help there too."

Wes listened to her answer, poking and prodding at the meal in front of him. He didn't say anything for a few minutes, expression distant. When he did finally speak, it was quietly. "Suppose you can get them past the walls, then what? You said you wanted them living with us?"

Amie nodded reflexively. "There's a whole floor, and Bud can't bring anyone else into the building because of the ones working up there. He... really wants more employees. I can think of several campers in my group who would be perfect for it. Not all of them..." 

"I'd think not. The average age for your kids is what, fourteen? Can you send them out to make friends with strangers in a world they don't understand?"

"No," she admitted. "Only the older ones." She folded her forelegs in front of her, glowering at him. "Shouldn't you be helping me find solutions, not point out the problems? We have to get enough food for the whole camp. We can't rely on our new friends to keep us fed. That means we need hunters mixed in with ponies, who can gather glamour and bring it back. Do you see any way around that? Because I don't."

"No..." Wes muttered, ears folding flat to his head. "Not unless we can help everyone turn into... whatever I am. I don't need glamour, I can eat this stuff."

Amie dropped her voice to a whisper. Not that what they said now was any less secret than everything else. The orange tribe already knew enough to destroy them a hundred times over, if they really wanted to "You... changed your mind about going north?"

Wes nodded. "I don't know how I'll do it—but I've poked around with some maps. There's a giant magical city further north than anything else in Equestria, called the Crystal Empire. I'm sure if I'm supposed to find a magical secret to transform bugs for the better, it will be up there."

That sounded as plausible as any interpretation. There was only one problem. Well—there were many, but one stood out. "I don't think I can go with you," she said. "There's... a camp of starving bugs who need me. I can't leave them now. I'm..."

"The queen," Wes whispered. "Does that feel weird? You weren't a queen when we got here, you looked like everybody. But now here you are, all different. Weird how it was both of us who changed, not anybody else. Albrecht could've been the queen, but it's you."

Amie giggled in spite of herself, imagining what that might've been like. Director Albrecht hardly seemed like he would handle being mother to every green bug ever born. But Amie might not do a much better job, the jury was still out.

I'm not ready. I don't want eggs, I don't want a hive. I just need to get everyone home.

She was split in so many different directions! Ivy was away in Canterlot, investigating the portals that would (hopefully) let them all travel back home. Camp was starving, she had to bring her kids out to protect them from Albrecht, she needed hunters to start gathering glamour to bring back... and now her brother wanted to investigate the words of blind bugs chanted to hallucinatory smoke deep underground.

It all came back to that camp. If it was safe to live there, Amie wouldn't have to worry about leaving her campers there. The camp had physical resources—machines, technology, and supplies. It was filled with bugs old and social enough to trust to the task.

Albrecht was right. Getting my kids out is just me being selfish.

"You figured out a problem with the plan," Wes whispered back. "I know that look. What are you thinking?"

Her wings buzzed nervously. That attracted a few confused looks from the other bugs riding with them—from Natane, anyway. Pachu'a was in the engine, and his companion had her attention fixed on the windows, watching for danger.

Natane stood up, stretched, then started walking towards them.

"I'm the queen," Amie said. "I'm not responsible for 23 campers. I'm responsible for a thousand. If I smuggle my campers out, I could feed all of them—maybe by myself, just working for the Rent-a-Friend. But that's selfish. I have to save the whole camp. That means... I have to take it over. Albrecht and his Gestapo have to go."

Those words were so right when she said them like that. For almost two months now she had defended Wes, justifying her narrow view under the pretense of protecting the person most important to her on this entire planet. He was only here because of her. He should be safe at home right now, while she was the one banished.

"Duh," Wes said, not whispering anymore. "You're the queen. Of course you're supposed to be in charge. But how do you do it? How do you convince him to step down?"

A bullet. She dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. Amie hadn't hurt another human being before today, and she didn't want to start now. But if she did nothing, he was going to lead the rest of camp to starvation. "There's a graveyard under the ropes course, Wes. I counted sixteen dead. Most of those were probably campers."

Natane reached their table, then bowed. She levitated something out of the bag on her side, holding it up for her. "Forgive me, Queen Amie. From what I overheard, I believe you may find this helpful. Perhaps you should study some of the Queen's knowledge."

Amie took the book gently from her magical grip, then slid sideways down the table from her plate. She left the bread where it was, fully intending to finish it later. "I... yes, I think that might be wise. How much longer do we have for this leg of the trip?"

"Until nightfall," Natane answered. "Then we'll stop just outside Salt Lick, and walk in. We'll board one of their trains to Agate. I'm... a little nervous about the prospect, I admit. But I'm confident skilled hunters and a queen can help me avoid detection."

Amie flipped through the book. Its pages were thick parchment, or maybe velum. That made them sturdy and strong, which was good considering how densely filled each and every page looked. They were all written by hand or the pony equivalent.

There was plenty in here that looked like it might be useful in combat—part of this was a spellbook. Amie ignored all that, and found herself turning to the section on medicine and caring for the tribe. Kaya had given her a detailed description of many illnesses, plenty of which were totally unknown and unknowable to human beings.

Mixed in with all those was a description of the symptoms of malnutrition and starvation, expressed from the perspective of an eusocial insect. 

Amie couldn't worry about how to take over the camp without first thinking of the casualties of Albrecht's rule.

"For those denied glamour over an extended period, the symptoms of souldeath are the inevitable result. Drones who travel this path cannot be treated by any artificer or healer—only the queen's direct intervention will suffice. Without it, they will never wake from their comas, and eventually succumb.

"A queen's intervention restores their bodily function, but leaves them inchoate, physically and mentally reduced to worker caste changelings. This is why managing a colony's food supply is so critically important, as the investment of glamour and time to create a drone must not be senselessly discarded. It is far better never to create a drone population you cannot feed than to allow them to be reduced to—"

That was it—more or less what Amie already knew, except with the frightening implication of inevitability. There was no cure for the bugs, no way listed to restore them.

Amie grew more agitated, flipping through the huge book so energetically that she nearly tore the pages. Could she at least find something about—yes, there it was. Workers.

"The foundation of your hive. Workers are the simplest to produce, requiring very little care while growing from eggs to larva, to pupa, and eventually to adolescent changelings. They are the basis for our fundamental measurement system: one Drachma of Glamour is measured as the smallest quantity of our ineffable nourishment that can sustain a single worker.

"These bugs will never threaten your rule, they will never complain at the work you give them, or retreat out of personal preservation when you require them to sacrifice for the swarm's welfare. A very small number of hunters can sustain a large population of workers, to physically expand and protect the hive.

"Many queens have wondered why they would bother to create drones at all, when workers can be sustained on a tenth the glamour. Wouldn't the largest army win every war? You must be cautioned against overreliance on workers, however. Workers cannot hunt effectively, not without your personal intervention. They will not find new solutions to the challenges facing the hive. You can build a hive on the backs of your workers, but not feed it.

"If you later find it necessary to send out more hunters and have no drones to work with, you will be in a desperate predicament. Even a skilled queen can only hunt through a few drones at once, and this will not be enough. There are steps you may take, though you should always consider the solution a last resort. It is always better to plan the size of each generation, and create enough drones for your needs.

"If you fail to do so, you may discover by accident what many queens have already mastered. The workers you choose to use as your vessels will eventually develop drives and personalities of their own. The process may take months and sometimes years, but the result is the same: a new source of drones.

"This process is swifter than raising drones from scratch, but not by much. The queen who uses workers for her vessels will discover their limitations impeding their usefulness—chief among them, their exceptionally limited reserve of glamour. Do not expect to work many complex spells through them. A drone in the same position can hold and use far more magic at one time—but using them also puts a valuable member of the hive in danger.

"You must decide for yourself the balance of workers to strike with the rest of your hive. Over many years, I have learned that drones are far more valuable to the hive than workers, even if keeping them happy is a more difficult process. I never allow the population of one to outnumber the other."

Amie closed the book in front of her with a dramatic smack. She was hoping to find a treatment tucked away in Kaya's knowledge—but that wasn't it.

The only way to help those kids is to use them in a spell. It was irresponsible, unethical, and immoral. She would have to do it anyway.