Beneath Ibryn’s touch, the Instrument that Has No Name sings.
It is a complex affair—it took them several years to learn. Many more to master. Playing it is a puzzle, a complicated maze of levers and keys and dials only decipherable by the immense processing power of their hive. To even coax out a single sound takes weeks of practice. With Ibryn, though, it produces a symphony. One that never ceases. One everlasting.
Ibryn, currently, is not just at the Instrument. Their hive is also in the fields, tending to their acreage. They are also in the town of New Lausmus. Selling. Trading. Conversing. But always, through it all, playing.
When one drone becomes tired of playing, another fills in. The memory, the innate mastery of the Instrument is as transferable as their thoughts. The improvised melody twists and bends with their mood. Sometimes jaunty and exciting. Sometimes slow and serene. But always playing. Always urging them on to greater heights.
“I feel I see more of you everyday,” Palix says to them, in the town. Palix is another hive. Smaller. Their chitin shines darkly in the bi-focal sun as they inspect Ibryn’s produce. “How many are you now?”
“A few over a thousand”
“Just over a thousand.”
“Around twelve hundred,” Ibryn replies, the variations of their response echoing among the hive.
Palix conveys a sense of disbelief, underwritten with concern. A touch of discomfort. Palix’s hive stands at only just over a hundred. Hence the reason why there is just one of them that stands before Ibryn, versus the seven of Ibryn. “That many?” Palix asks. “Have you not considered severance?”
“Soon”
“Of course.”
“Just not the time.”
Skepticism from Palix. Worry. Reproach. “If you say so. Do not hurt yourself.”
Ibryn projects confidence to them. Palix need not worry. Ibryn’s hive has grown, true. But their connection is strong. Their drones spread throughout New Lausmus. Industrious. Working. Each an independent creature. Each linked nevertheless into the single great mind that is themselves. Ibryn is a tower, reaching towards the heavens, each mind a stone in its foundation. Some—most—have asked them why they choose such menial labour. Farming, of all things, for such a large hive. A mind like that, with its countless additional synapses, could be inventing. Debating. Schooling. Why risk such a large hive, with all its potential for instability, if not for greatness? But Ibryn does not wish to share their song, one that grows in complexity with each new drone. To the world, they remain a farmer. The song is for them, and them alone.
Ibryn has been here in New Lausmus since their own severance, when Y’kta separated just a dozen drones to help settle the planet. Ibryn has grown since then, beyond even Y’kta’s number, and they will continue to grow. Someday soon, they will sever. But not now. Not while the melody, that beautiful melody, is so tantalizingly close to perfect. The song of Ibryn. The one they have played, and will continue to play—
Wait.
What was that?
A falter.
A pause in the notes. In the fields, Ibryn trips, a hundred times over.
It was nothing.
Continue.
Except there it is again.
Ibryn at the Instrument holds a single appendage up, prepared to bring it down.
Two desires.
That note | This key
They are not separated. The thoughts. Both commands. Both instructions of equal measure to their limbs to move.
Stop.
Wait | Continue | Switch
A lancing thunderbolt of pain sears the mind. Indiscriminate. Ruthless. A single stone breaks.
The tower falls.
They are splitting. Are split. In two. Four. Seven. More. They reach desperately for each other. The disparate parts of themselves. It only serves to worsen the fracture.
Confusion.
Darkness.
The eyes fade from a thousand views. To hundreds. To dozens.
Where are we?
What are we?
Who are you?
They are dying. They can feel it. Broken. There is something that needs to happen. A constriction is growing within them. They used to know how to prevent it.
Breathing.
How?
Only half of Ibryn remembers.
There are too many thoughts. Too many. Conflicting. Ordering. A thousand minds no longer in harmony. They have to stop. Have to be quiet. And they tear. With claws and tools and teeth. Silence it. Quiet. Each thought a thousand scratches, a thousand swings.
Quiet.
Quiet.
Quiet.
Silence.
Ibryn is… still Ibryn.
They think.
They are here. Alive.
Where are the rest? There must be more. There has to be more.
They hesitantly reach out with their mind, trying to find the rest of themselves. There is something missing. Something Ibryn no longer has the capacity to comprehend.
They are in the field. They don’t know how long it’s been. Ibryn remembers starving. Vast parts of them starving. The hundreds of drones that once were Ibryn cover the ground. Many are torn to pieces.
Many more simply lie there. Unmoving. Their motor functions abandoned until they had wasted away.
Ibryn steps on shaky legs. They feel the others of them.
Less than how they were born.
Four.
Ibryn is only four.
But even still, they remember the urge. Know how to make it right. They stumble, as a group. Together. Into the shelter. The Instrument sits there. Undamaged. They breathe a sigh of relief. None of it is important compared to this.
One sits down. Lifts an appendage up to play.
And stops.
They do not know where to let it fall. So they guess.
No sound comes out.
They try again. And again. All of them, one after another. Mimicking the flow. Wavering. Then banging. Desperate to get a glimpse, a single note, of what they once were.
But no sound comes.
And they realize they cannot even picture the melodies they once played. Where once there existed scales and harmonies spread across a thousand minds, there now exists only the knowledge of what was lost.
No music.
No symphony.
Just deafening, thunderous quiet.
* * *
Ⓒ Kiernan Livingstone