They were told to stay away from the Innerlands.
It was a part of the laws that every colonist had to abide by and Bah and Gep had heard the morning rites every single day since they were larvae. Even in their vague infantile memories, before their antennae could process anything other than the comb they were growing inside of, the sounds of the other colonists' voices echoing through their thinly layered walls programming the laws that every colonist must abide by.
And so, there was no excuse for them should they get caught.
Right now, Gep and Bah stood and looked through the hole in the barrier that stood between the world they knew and the world they knew as forbidden.
“This isn't right,” Gep fretted. “We shouldn't be here. We'll be caught and punished!”
“No, we won't,” Bah said. “No one even guards the barriers. Everyone's just supposed to stay away from it. Nobody ever stops any colonist from going through, trust me.”
“I don't know about that. What if you're wrong?”
“I'm not wrong. Look.” Bah turned to him, antennae sweeping Gep's head in acknowledgement. “Has anyone ever been brought into the center square for such a crime? No, and neither will we. Now, will you stop being such a wimp and come on. Live a little!”
Gep said nothing else to this and merely followed his friend through the hole. As they traveled through the dark untraveled tunnels to the unknown, all he could think about were the rules that every colonist recited in the center every morning;
All work must be completed by the setting of the sun
The rain is thine enemy and thine friend
Remain unseen in the eyes of the Gods
The paths of the Outerlands are the pathways to righteousness
The paths of the Innerlands are the pathways to torment
We are for one purpose and one purpose alone
Respect the laws of the colony
If the elders knew what they were doing, where they were going…a dark shame would fall upon them. That is, if they survived.
“No one's every come back from the Innerlands,” Gep said suddenly.
“That's a myth,” Bah said. “Plenty of colonists have come back. Haven't you heard the stories of the bounties that have come from here? Food that need not be processed or stored? We can gorge ourselves on the feast while everyone else toils in the tunnels and fields. It is a paradise.”
“I don't know,” Gep said skeptically, “there must be a reason why we are forbidden to come here.”
“Of course there is!” Bah stopped and turned around to Gep, antennae scanning his friend's head. “We were born to work and toil and have no wants but what is best for the colony. If the other colonists knew about this, then no one would ever work! They would just stay here and eat and enjoy life! It's control, I tell you.”
“There's nothing wrong with providing for the colony,” Gep said meekly. “We are drones. It is what we are born for.”
“I don't believe that,” Bah said turning back around and marching through the dark tunnel. “And neither will you when you see paradise.”
They had traveled in the dark for many hours before a strange smell reached them. It reached Bah first and he stopped, antenna sweeping the air.
“Wait,” he said to Gep. “Do you smell that?”
Gep stopped and swept the air with his antennae. A fresh, sweet smell invaded his senses and immediately he felt his insides rumble with hunger.
“What is it?” he asked Bah.
“Ambrosia,” Bah said. “It is the Food of the Gods. Let's hurry.”
Their pace grew a little faster. As they went, Gep began to smell something else beneath the sweet smell of Ambrosia. He could barely sense it when it first appeared, but by the time they began to see light at the end of the long tunnel, it was just as strong as the sweet Ambrosia. He never smelled anything like either thing before…yet there was a certain foreboding in the underlying smell that worried him.
At the entrance to the Innerlands, Gep could not believe what stood before them. There stretched a great smooth cliff with yellow hills that stretched for miles. The paths between the hills reeked of the rich smell they'd encountered earlier and the hills smelled of it too. To the two colonists it seemed that they might be able to eat the paths and the mountains themselves.
