Chapter 576: A good train arrives on time
I didn’t leave Precio-Us immediately after this. First, I compiled in my head all the information known about the Divinity Sound so far, and made sure that not too many people knew about it.
I decided that the various "levels of comprehension" of the Divinity Sound needed their own definitions.
’They will be called stages,’ I declared to myself and Precio-Us.
The first stage was harmless, only stunning whoever heard it in their mind. A hive mind of a thousand bees could comprehend and use it.
The second stage, as Precio-Us demonstrated, had strange powers... But they were small-scale, apparently. A hive mind of at least three thousand bees was necessary to comprehend this stage.
And the third stage, by Precio-Us’ words, required twenty thousand more bees and would hold an unknown but great amount of power.
Besides myself, the Empire Council, and involved bees, nobody knew about the Divinity Sound; even those who were involved mostly knew very vague things about it.
Even the bees in the military branch that were testing the ability of the Divinity Sound to stun creatures didn’t listen to the Sound themselves—they just watched the trained hive minds do it.
And there were only two hive minds who could use the first stage of the Divinity Sound. Both only learnt it very recently.
I resolved to make sure all the bees who knew about the Divinity Sound kept quiet about it, and that Precio-Us would continue their research as alone as it was possible for a hive mind to be alone.
And only then did I return to Hive Supremo.
***
Supporting Precio-Us’ studies was the least complicated thing on my to-do list of late.
Each of the three disasters in a row would’ve been manageable on its own, but they came in such a short succession that they worsened the consequences of each other.
Upon return from Precio-Us, I had to stand in the memorial ceremony for the bees who died from the telepathic "attack".
The dark cloud surely fit the mood of the memorial... Instead of bright projectors, we had to use torches for light, and a tarp had to be placed above the memorial ceremony location to protect people from ash.
There were no bodies—they were already burned. Burials were never in the bees’ tradition.
Deaths by themselves weren’t too saddening for bees themselves, but their natural instinct was to seek revenge on the source... But they couldn’t.
I explained to them that the entire thing was just a weird accident that won’t repeat (hopefully). They, of course, believed me on my word—this accident wasn’t any stranger to them than a tsunami or an ash cloud hanging over our heads.
"Things aren’t at their best now. But we will make them better! We’ve already gone this far—all thanks to you and every other daughter of mine," I said, looking into the eyes of dozens of thousands of bees in attendance.
This was just a small population of people from Hive Supremo. Normally, I’d repeat a ceremony like that over the radio for remote hives, but our electricity was still fucked up, so a lot of people present were heralds.
They would carry my words far and wide.
Ambrosia, who was hovering next to me, added:
"The Bee Empire is our common colony. A colony is bigger than any single bee in it... Bigger than Advisers, than Queens, even than your Father. The colony can do anything, and the colony is you."
The bees listening to this puffed out their chests, and determination lit in their eyes—or ignited even brighter, since most of them were already a very determined lot.
The memorial ceremony went well.
***
But morale was our least problem.
The increasing amount of ash falling from the sky made it hard to fix the power distribution stations and cables harmed by the quake. Many parts of the electrical distribution system that carried power all the way from hydroelectric power stations in the mountains to the rest of the Bee Empire were built using mechas.
Mechas that couldn’t reach half of them because of the ash threatening to clog their joints.
Humans could do the same work, but first they had to be brought to the right place and explained what to do, which could be much harder than it sounded.
But this was all solvable with enough time.
Worse was the ash interfering with our trains!
They were one of the few things that weren’t affected by the ash and even by the quake. Mostly.
The railroads needed some repairs here and there, but most of them and the trains were built from sturdier stuff. They also could easily push away a bit of ash—they were designed to travel even through storms that poured enough water to drown a bee.
However, the larger amount of falling ash, which only STARTED to decrease three days after the quake, finally overwhelmed the trains.
Over this day, Workharder got over two dozen reports about train crews having to stop the train and leave it to clear the train tracks before it could keep going. The piles of ash were almost as tall as the trains themselves.
Because of this, supplies were getting late to Hive Supremo and even later to leave it and go to other sub-hives. Our amazing train system that carried supplies all over the Bee Empire was turning into an American train system that mostly carried misery and toxic leaks.
And Hive Supremo was a vital logistical station in the supply chain!
"Father, the ash just falls faster than we can clear the train tracks in the Central Region. At this point, we might try other methods of transport, because there’s no way the trains will keep arriving on time. And this will basically destroy the supply chain of the entire region, since Hive Supremo is a distribution point for approximately fifty sub-hives," Workharder told me.
"And do you have any suggestions?" I asked. It took an effort of will to not sound hopeful.