Chapter 1
Salma straightened her clothes and smoothed back her hair, stalling as she tried to steady her nerves. The ship yard buzzed behind her, full of people, human and otherwise, hurrying about their business, boarding ships that would take them all over the Sol system and beyond. The ship in front of Salma was far from the largest in the station, but it was one of the finest. A sleek black and gold vessel, all curving aerodynamic lines and glittering iridescent solar sails. Not much was known yet about the reclusive, isolationist Hymenopteran Empire, but it was known that they were very advanced and very resource wealthy. And now Salma knew one more thing: they were looking for human crewmen.
Before she could get the courage to continue up the gangway, the hatch at the end opened with a quiet hiss and a Hymenopteran emerged. They were tall, as all Hymenoptera were, with a proud, triangular head and large, glossy compound eyes. Their thin, segmented neck vanished into a ruff of white and golden brown fuzz that reminded Salma of fur. It had two sets of arms, their glossy back carapace fringed with delicate white hairs. The thicker pair of legs they stood on were dense with yellow fur. Their abdomen, held gracefully behind them, was striped with black and vibrant blue. They were delicate and menacing all at once, the light glinting on the sharp sawblade edges of those limbs and the stinger at the end of their abdomen. Salma swallowed a nervous lump in her throat and waved as she saw them looking at her. The Hymenopteran’s wings fluttered against their back and a moment later they were gliding down the ramp towards her.
“You are the candidate we are interviewing today?”
They didn’t speak. Hymenoptera had no spoken language or the biological capacity to use one. They communicated with one another through an intricate combination of movements and pheromones. But when they’d encountered other species that required auditory cues in order to communicate they’d developed technology to translate directly from their thought patterns. They simply thought whatever they wanted to say and, with some deviance for inflection, reference, and colloquialisms, the small device strapped to the bicep of their left upper arm spoke the words in the Human trade tongue. Salma glanced at the device as it spoke, a bit thrown off, then cleared her throat, trying to regain her composure.
“Yes. I’m Salma Ardeshir,” she said, offering a hand to shake, which the Hymenopteran accepted with unnecessary care, as though afraid they might break it.
“I am the Captain of this vessel,” they said. “You may call me Galanthus.”
Salma stood up a little straighter, flustered. She hadn’t expected the captain themselves to come and greet her.
“Please, come inside.” Galanthus gestured up the ramp. “We are ready to begin the interview immediately. If you are still interested?”
“Of course,” Salma said at once. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Our last candidate excused herself as soon as she saw me,” Galanthus replied. “I understand many humans have not seen one of the Hymenoptera before. I believe she expected us to be more… humanoid. Have you seen one of us before?”
They began to move up the ramp and Salma followed at once, mesmerized by the oil slick shimmer of the Captain’s wings.
“No,” she said. “I mean, I had heard descriptions but they really don’t do you justice. They mostly just said you looked like bees. Uh, a kind of insect life on our home planet.”
“Yes, I have heard the comparison.” Galanthus made a small, polite gesture at the hatch, bowing at their thin waist and indicating the way forward with all four hands. “We have not allowed many photos of us to be made public for this reason. We understand many humans have an instinctive negative reaction to such insects. You do not find the comparison apt?”
Salma stepped through the hatch on to the ship, looking around curiously. The atrium was large and comfortable for the size of the ship. She could see through it to the bridge at the nose in one direction. There was a large hexagonal hatch at the other end, which she assumed led to a bay of some kind. She’d expected crew quarters, but the layout seemed more like a shuttle. Albeit a very large, elaborate shuttle. The inner panels were waxy white and amber and the same shiny carapace black from the outer shell. Several other Hymenoptera were moving through the ship. There was a surprising amount of diversity in their appearance, Salma noted. There were a couple much large than the captain, one of which was covered head to toe in yellow fuzz with barely any black carapace showing. Others had dramatic coloration like the captain’s stripes. She saw one with a red tipped abdomen, and another who’s carapace wasn’t black but a shining metallic blue, a beautiful contrast against its halo of yellow hair.
“I mean, you do resemble bees,” Salma agreed belatedly, still staring at the rest of the crew. “I see where the comparison comes from. But it isn’t where my thoughts went first.”
Galanthus tilted their head curiously, looking at her with their unreadable shining eyes.
“Where did your thoughts go?” they asked. “If you care to tell me.”
Salma smiled, turning a little pink.
“It’s a bit embarrassing,” she admitted. “But I thought of the fairies from the illustrations in my books when I was kid. They were always impossibly thin and graceful like you. The colors are similar too. And the way you shine looks like magic. Sorry, I hope that isn’t species-ist.”
“Not at all,” Galanthus said, and Salma didn’t know enough about Hymenopteran expressions to tell how they felt, but their wings fluttered against their back for a moment as they led her towards a small hexagonal hatch she hadn’t noticed previously. There was a small room with a table beyond which Salma assumed had been set up for the interviews. She took a seat in the nearest chair, frowning as she realized her legs didn’t reach the floor. The chair was clearly made with a Hymenopteran in mind, with a low back to accommodate wings and extra height for their long legs. She did her best to sit up straight and look professional anyway.
Galanthus sat down across from her and, after a moment, two other Hymenopteran joined them. One was the Hymenopteran with the blue metallic carapace. The other seemed similar to Galanthus, but much larger and fuzzier.
“My first officer, Solidago,” Galanthus said, gesturing to the blue Hymenopteran. “And my chief of security, Stonecrop.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Salma said politely, and they both buzzed at her in what she assumed was an equally polite acknowledgement.
The interview was fairly standard at first and Salma breezed through it without too much concern, answering questions about her previous work and interstellar travel experience. All the while she remained on edge, waiting for the real interview to start. This was all basic information they’d likely seen on her resume. She had no idea if most of it even applied to the job she was interviewing for. The offer had been both incredibly specific and quite vague at the same time. ‘Seeking human females for ambassadorial position aboard Hymenopteran exploratory vessels. Must be without criminal record and willing to release medical history.’
Just the phrase exploratory vessels had been enough to raise eyebrows across the galaxy. The Hymenoptera had never engaged in exploration before. They barely ever left their home system. What they might have been planning, and what human females had to do with those plans, had been a subject of curious debate in the media since the ads had gone out. Many women had applied but most were rejected without interview, apparently based on their medical records. Others made it to the interview but apparently didn’t pass it. They didn’t offer explanations on why, referring questions to non-disclosure agreements they’d signed with the Hymenoptera ahead of time. In all the news Salma had seen regarding the Hymenopteran job search, only a spare handful of women had been hired.
So far, Solidago had been asking most of the questions while Galanthus scrolled through lines of complex hexagonal Hymenopteran script on a small screen that floated translucent before them. Finally, Solidago cleared their throat and inclined their head slightly towards Galanthus, who shifted their limbs in a barely perceptible response. Solidago pushed Salma’s resume aside.
“This next series of questions,” Galanthus said. “May be uncomfortable. You may decline to answer any of them, or leave if you choose.”
Solidago pushed a non disclosure form towards Salma on a thin slip of digital paper. She’d been expecting it and signed it with a slightly shaking hand. This was what she’d been waiting for. If nothing else, she was going to find out what this was all about.
