Ocellus rolled her eyes, but she didn’t actually address anything James said. “The swarm is a singular, adaptive intelligence. It is collectively far more intelligent than any individual mind, probably smarter than we can even comprehend. But it works in really predictable ways. These individual drones, think of them like… single brain cells. You know what those are, don’t you?” She didn’t wait for confirmation. “We’re basically inside the swarm’s brain. It doesn’t care that we’re here, it only cares about keeping Equus going. But these individual drones, they’re much dumber than we are. They respond in predictable ways. The scent we used, that’s like saying that we’re part of the swarm. But the fact we don’t act like them makes them think we’re defective, so we end up with the other living things that aren’t working right. Thing is, we can manipulate them in way better ways than that. Give them instructions, even. So long as we give them correctly, the swarm carries them out, thinking that we’re just another part of the system.”