Chapter 571: A never-ending night
All the education it got from bees didn’t make the Champion Tree’s demeanour much less self-focused than it always has been. Probably because it could only sense its surroundings as far as its branches and roots went. But it got more used to talking to us, and its manner of speech became smoother.
Its younger tree-children weren’t much more communicative, but we still spent some effort on those who lived long-term as part of our buildings. The others were cut down for wood or to clear space too often. But this was alright for the usnea kind, as long as new trees were planted in their place.
Thus, when I directed my astral projection toward it, the Tree was thinking about tree things, as usual—how soon would its new fruits grow and ripen, and how many little trees would grow from them.
My question made the Tree change gears.
’This voice... The champion of bees, I recognise you, so I will answer your question. All gods can control the weather in all ways, of course. They are all-powerful.’
I shook my head inwardly.
’Yes, of course. But they play by the rules, this is the entire point! Is it by the rules for them to change the weather... or even cause a natural catastrophe?’
This time, the Champion Tree didn’t reply for a while. I didn’t hear even any background thoughts from it, which was very unusual—everybody had them almost all the time.
But there was an entire minute of silence so full that I began to fear that my question suddenly made the Champion Tree go brain-dead.
’Yes, it’s by the rules, if the god pays for this right with other opportunities,’ the Champion Tree thought suddenly. ’The cloud of ash that will soon reach you is a work of several gods who have united against you... But the volcano eruption was not.’
’You know all this from the Usnea God, Champion Tree?’
’I know all this, champion of bees.’
I translated that as "yes". Unlike my patrol gods, the Usnea God just put the knowledge they wanted me to know into the tree’s mind, which it believed to be absolute facts.
I returned to Hive Supremo with this worrisome information. Of course, I knew that I had enemies... But this was the first time they used natural phenomena against me.
This explained why it wasn’t predicted, though. The gods had all the power to hide from my Oracles.
The scouts were reporting that the ash cloud was approaching and showed no signs of slowing down—the wind continued to steadily blow our way, and this was made only worse by the cold aura of usnea trees growing on our lands.
***
The next morning, I sent my astral projection to check the progress of the ash cloud and saw not a hint of blue in the sky.
The ash cloud reached even Hive Supremo, moving with great speed, and still stayed thick enough to blot out the sun, making morning look like late evening. Flakes of volcanic ash were raining upon us.
Underneath this rain, some bees continued to work, while others followed the emergency protocols that were sent out by radio yesterday and hurriedly hid the vulnerable machinery.
To my relief, there were no terrible effects from the cloud besides the lack of light. The usnea trees didn’t like the lack of light and subsequent warmth, but they could be kept warm by fire.
The Oracles have reported that they found the thread of dreams that corresponded to the present and could semi-reliably predict the future again. They also reported that they see no end to the ash cloud in the next week.
It would stay in place, covering a large chunk in the middle of the Bee Empire—too much for a single cloud of volcanic ash from a single volcano, in my opinion—and being an annoyance. After it reached us, it clearly didn’t plan on going anywhere.
"Prepare more electric lights," I ordered. "I hope we won’t need them for much more than a week."
Then this week passed, and the Oracles still said that the ash cloud was going nowhere.
It didn’t even get much lighter than it was when it first appeared, despite covering the entire area underneath it in enough ash to cover entire buildings of bees! Even humans fell into it up to their ankles.
Mechas couldn’t work at all—their joints were too hard to clean. Ash got into the tiniest crevices, and anyone who left cover for longer than a minute had to spend a while afterwards to shake all the ash off their clothing.
The lack of sunlight also negatively impacted the mood of all the bees and humans inside the cloud. The humans already came up with a dozen myths and tales about the cloud, so my Agents had to spend extra time calming them down and convincing them that they won’t die if they walk under it and pick up work that our mechas couldn’t do anymore.
But I could understand them. It was an ominous, truly ominous sight—almost black clouds covering the sky as far as the eye could see, making the sun look blood-red.
At least I could send my astral projection to places outside the cloud’s shadow and see the sky, but many bees couldn’t.
At least Amby wasn’t affected much by it.
"I don’t go outside often, anyway. Dark or light—what does it matter to me?" she replied when I asked her about it. "Only workers are affected, because the day is when they ought to fly out and work. I think they will feel much better if you don’t just give them extra lights, but put them inside the hive, near their sleeping cells."
"Oh, to imitate the sunrise? Great idea, Amby! You are the best, of course! And let’s address our girls over the radio tomorrow. Since they will have to wait for the ash to go away for AT LEAST another week—"
I was interrupted by the electric lights in our living room going out. The entire hive was rumbling under my and Amby’s feet.
’Now earthquake, too?!’