The Champion Tree didn’t provide with an answer. All it knew was repeating the sa thoughts I already heard and making this false note that sohow sounded worse and worse each ti I felt it in my head.
The last thing of importance I heard from it was:
’You will study the sound, and when you see all the gods, you will speak it. Then we all will live and spread offspring.’
This made understand one thing—for Usnea’s plan (assuming they weren’t lying about it all, possibly even playing a shitty joke at my expense with this "magical sound" thing), I didn’t HAVE to conquer the world.
I just had to stand at the divine court, which could happen if I were a witness to so rule-breaking, just as it happened earlier.
I was sure this could be arranged much more easily than world-conquering. But first, I had to deal with the sound, and since the Champion Tree wasn’t very helpful, I had to take things into my own hands.
After I returned to my body, I called Researchina and explained to her—telepathically!—about a secret project that could only be discussed telepathically.
She accepted the idea with mild curiosity. It didn’t sound impossible to her, but she really preferred chemistry and tallurgy over esoteric.
’Is this sound sothing like a song, Father? Maybe then Artist Bees should try studying it instead of us, Researchers. So Artists have been Researchers in the past; they know how to study things.’
’Huh. Why not? This certainly requires a lot of creativity in one’s approach!’
Thus, a special team was created from Artists with Researcher backgrounds to study the information from the Champion Tree. These bees travelled on a train to the Champion Tree itself and had long talks with it and with themselves.
I tried repeating the sound myself, but it was hard. Telepathy, as we had it, was more suited for sending words and sentences. Imagining a sound was easy, but making others hear it the sa way was surprisingly tough.
My attempts didn’t lead to any new understandings about its nature, either.
I also have humoured the Champion Tree’s request/prediction and sent a box of usnea tree seeds with a trading ship and a group of cold-immune bees to the Vardish Empire (or whatever was left of it).
I doubted these seeds alone would conquer this continent, but they could create so havoc there at least.
***
Another month passed without further appearances and ssages from any of the gods, which made it an excellent month overall.
The expedition force on the other continent made steady progress in killing the smooth-back deer, farming usnea trees allowed the Bee Empire to massively increase the stability of its food supply, and although the Special Sound Research Team didn’t achieve any results on their main subject, they ca up with so really catchy tunes.
The regular Research teams have achieved much more.
Researchina’s girls have worked tirelessly, drawing blueprints and directing Builder Bees to bring them into being. Thanks to their work, countless power-transmitting cables were put into the ground near our train tracks.
Thanks to the Bee Empire’s recent advancents with plastics and chemically-produced rubber, these cables—each as thick as my waist!—could be isolated and protected from the rainwater and corrosion. anwhile, the ground itself protected them from being stepped on by a beast or disturbed by the wind.
However, to be truly safe from possible disturbances of the earth above, each cable had to be either covered in a protective concrete foundation or put at least several dozen ters underground. The latter was an easier solution, so it was used in most places.
At the mont, chas and bees were digging kilotres of ditches for these cables, while entire manufactures were dedicated only to their production.
At the sa ti, the first hydroelectric power station was being built, too. The bees were converting the smallest dams built near the mountains into a power station.
It took much less work than I feared. All they needed was to put turbines into the openings for water, put a power generator on top of the dam, and connect the turbines to it.
Neither of these required risking the dam’s structural integrity.
"Not more than it’s safe, at least," Researchina had assured . "Of course, drilling holes for turbine connections and putting extra weight on the entire construction will make it more unstable, but it was all calculated."
Typical Researchina’s assurance, not assuring at all.
Especially since Researchers were often more reckless than Warriors. There were more Researchers with limbs replaced by usnea wood transplants than Warriors.
If a Warrior lost a few limbs, she usually died soon after. If a Researcher lost a few limbs, it had to be a research accident and possibly a consequence of trying to touch molten tal with bare hands.
(My Researchers weren’t actually THAT reckless, but being distracted by science made them often clumsy and prone to accidents.)
However, as another month passed, the power plant was completed, and the dam didn’t break. At the sa ti, the first vein of power cables spread from the dam underground.
This power line led to an experintal tal slting facility built a few sub-hives away, near an iron mine. It was the first tal slting facility with experintal electrical slters... Which were never tried out at full capacity because we simply didn’t have enough electricity to feed them!
These beasts, when put at full power, could outweigh the electricity usage of the entire Bee Empire. Only a hydroelectric power plant could let them work properly.
And now it could.
It was an event broadcast live on the radio all over the Bee Empire! Researchina personally provided comnts.
The power station was turned on, and a few hours later, when everything was checked twice, the slters began to work, too. Tons of tal ore from the neighbouring mine have filled them to the brim.
And as it was happening, the final points of the Bee Empire’s developnt ticked over and moved it to the next developnt level!
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