The Bees
The Bees
Laline Paull
Born into the lowest class of her society, Flora 717 is a sanitation bee, only fit to clean her orchard hive. Living to accept, obey and serve, she is prepared to sacrifice everything for her beloved holy mother, the Queen.But Flora is not like other bees. Despite her ugliness she has talents that are not typical of her kin. While mutant bees are usually instantly destroyed, Flora is removed from sanitation duty and is allowed to feed the newborns, before becoming a forager, collecting pollen on the wing. She also finds her way into the Queen’s inner sanctum, where she discovers secrets both sublime and ominous.But enemies are everywhere, from the fearsome fertility police to the high priestesses who jealously guard the Hive Mind. And when Flora breaks the most sacred law of all her instinct to serve is overshadowed by an even deeper desire, a fierce love that will lead to the unthinkable . . .Laline Paull’s chilling yet ultimately triumphant novel creates a luminous world both alien and uncannily familiar. Thrilling and imaginative, ‘The Bees’ is the story of a heroine who, in the face of an increasingly desperate struggle for survival, changes her destiny and her world.
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Copyright (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
Fourth Estate
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Copyright © Laline Paull 2014
Laline Paull asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007557721
Ebook Edition © May 2014 ISBN: 9780007557738
Version: 2016-12-06
Dedication (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
For Adrian
Contents
Cover (#ud80f3c2f-bd9c-54e5-ac81-b05231af5d3f)
Copyright (#ulink_20c47891-e6dd-5ed4-b69d-ec2a0aa16f0c)
Title Page (#u1eeebd38-a450-5bb3-9814-6647534694e9)
Dedication (#ulink_613aa373-409a-5129-b7d0-846d537a0e06)
Prologue (#ulink_2514a7e1-ff1c-5ddc-a15f-2fb61458e418)
One (#ulink_247312a4-5fd2-5ac2-9bdb-1f178cc35b5c)
Two (#ulink_33ca12b9-bf39-58ae-b7e5-f95e492743cb)
Three (#ulink_6650717f-712b-517b-b759-7cc03fc73c27)
Four (#ulink_f6292da0-bef0-5578-9fcd-475c594e514f)
Five (#ulink_e23b4630-9c5f-5c23-8b57-683403ced26c)
Six (#ulink_38fb4ffc-3a65-5c76-ae21-37b7d38f51c9)
Seven (#ulink_6f2379d1-e973-5603-83d3-f5f09ea4ffb1)
Eight (#ulink_60d7aab4-c2d6-55fe-abdb-7f6a18ca9d2a)
Nine (#ulink_1746737e-36e5-5f56-a72e-383636e5631f)
Ten (#ulink_8f4d0d3e-d0e4-5c3a-be9c-aa8d87c7e585)
Eleven (#ulink_7dbd387c-0832-54cc-9530-f34c30130a06)
Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Forty (#litres_trial_promo)
Forty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Forty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Forty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Laline Paull (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
The old orchard stood besieged. To one side spread a vast arable plain, a dullard’s patchwork of corn and soy reaching to the dark tree-line of the hills. To the other, a light-industrial estate stretched towards the town.
Between the dripping trees the remains of a path still showed. A man in early middle-age kicked at the tall nettles and docks to widen it. Neat in her navy business suit, a younger woman followed. She paused to take photographs with her phone.
‘I hope you don’t mind but we’ve put out some feelers, and we’re already beating them off with sticks. Prime brown-field location.’
The man stared through the trees, not listening.
‘There – thought for a moment it had vanished.’
An old wooden beehive stood camouflaged against the trees. The woman drew back.
‘I won’t come any closer,’ she said. ‘I’m a bit funny about insects.’
‘So’s my father. He calls them his girls.’ The man looked up at the low grey sky. ‘Is that more rain? What happened to summer?’
The woman glanced up from her phone.
‘I know! I’ve forgotten what blue sky looks like. Must be hard with the kids off school.’
‘They barely notice. They’re always online.’
He walked forward and peered closer at the hive.
A few bees emerged from a small hole at the bottom. They walked along a narrow wooden ledge and hummed their wings.
He watched them for a while then turned back to her.
‘I’m sorry. Now is not the right time.’
‘Oh!’ She put her phone away. ‘Have you changed your mind?’
He shook his head.
‘No. I’ll sell …’ He cleared his throat. ‘But not yet. It feels wrong.’
‘Of course.’ She hesitated. ‘I suppose it’s very hard to know approximately …?’
‘Could be months. Could be tomorrow.’
The woman allowed a respectful silence.
‘Well, rest assured that when you are ready, it’s a seller’s market.’
She began walking back along the path.
The man stood alone by the hive. On impulse he put his palm against the wood, as if feeling for a pulse. Then he turned and followed her.
Behind them, bees rose into the brightening air.
One (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
The cell squeezed her and the air was hot and fetid. All the joints of her body burned from her frantic twisting against the walls, her head was pressed into her chest and her legs shot with cramp, but her struggles had worked – one wall felt weaker. She kicked out with all her strength and felt something crack and break. She forced and tore and bit until there was a jagged hole into fresher air beyond.
She dragged her body through and fell out onto the floor of an alien world. Static roared through her brain, thunderous vibration shook the ground and a thousand scents dazed her. All she could do was breathe until gradually the vibration and static subsided and the scent evaporated into the air. Her rigid body unlocked and she calmed as knowledge filled her mind.
This was the Arrivals Hall and she was a worker.
Her kin was Flora and her number was 717.
Certain of her first task, she set about cleaning out her cell. In her violent struggle to hatch she had broken the whole front wall, unlike her neater neighbours. She looked, then followed their example, piling her debris neatly by the ruins. The activity cleared her senses and she felt the vastness of the Arrivals Hall, and how the vibrations in the air changed in different areas.
Row upon row of cells like hers stretched into the distance, and there the cells were quiet but resonant as if the occupants still slept. Immediately around her was great activity with many recently broken and cleared-out chambers, and many more cracking and falling as new bees arrived. The differing scents of her neighbours also came into focus, some sweeter, some sharper, all of them pleasant to absorb.
With a hard erratic pulse in the ground, a young female came running down the corridor between the cells, her face frantic.
‘Halt!’ Harsh voices reverberated from both ends of the corridor and a strong astringent scent rose in the air. Every bee stopped moving but the young bee stumbled and fell across Flora’s pile of debris. Then she clawed her way into the remains of the broken cell and huddled in the corner, her little hands up.
Cloaked in a bitter scent which hid their faces and made them identical, the dark figures strode down the corridor towards Flora. Pushing her aside, they dragged out the weeping young bee. At the sight of their spiked gauntlets, a spasm of fear in Flora’s brain released more knowledge. They were police.
‘You fled inspection.’ One of them pulled at the girl’s wings, while another examined the four still-wet membranes. The edge of one was shrivelled.
‘Spare me,’ she cried. ‘I will not fly, I will serve in any other way—’
‘Deformity is evil. Deformity is not permitted.’
Before the bee could speak the two officers pressed her head down until there was a sharp crack. She hung limp between them and they dropped her body in the corridor.
‘You.’ A peculiar rasping voice addressed Flora and she did not know which one spoke, but stared at the black hooks on the backs of their legs. ‘Hold still.’ Long black callipers slid from their gauntlets and they measured her height. ‘Excessive variation. Abnormal.’
‘That will be all, officers.’ At the kind voice and fragrant smell, the police released Flora. They bowed to a tall and well-groomed bee with a beautiful face.
‘Sister Sage, this one is obscenely ugly.’
‘And excessively large.’
‘It would appear so. Thank you, officers, you may go.’
Sister Sage waited for them to leave. She smiled at Flora. ‘To fear them is good. Be still while I read your kin—’
‘I am Flora 717.’
Sister Sage raised her antennae. ‘A sanitation worker who speaks. Most notable …’
Flora stared at her tawny and gold face with its huge dark eyes. ‘Am I to be killed?’
‘Do not question a priestess.’ Sister Sage ran her hands down the sides of Flora’s face. ‘Open your mouth.’ She looked inside. ‘Perhaps.’ Then she inclined her head over Flora’s mouth and fed her one golden drop of honey.
The effect was immediate and astonishing. Clarity washed Flora’s mind and her body filled with strength. She understood that Sister Sage wished her to follow in silence, and that she must do whatever she asked.
As they walked down the corridor she noticed how every bee averted her eyes and busied herself, and how the dead body of the young worker was already far ahead of them, carried in the mouth of a dark hunched bee who walked in the gutter. There were many more of the same type, all moving on the edge of the corridor. Some carried bundles of soiled wax, others scrubbed at broken cells. None looked up.
‘They are your kin-sisters.’ Sister Sage followed Flora’s eyes. ‘All of them mute. Presently you will join them in Sanitation, and perform valuable service to our hive. But first, a private experiment.’ She smiled at Flora. ‘Come.’
Flora followed gladly, all memory of the killing lost in her longing to taste more honey.
Two (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
The priestess walked swiftly through the pale corridors of the Arrivals Hall. Flora followed closely, her brain recording all the sounds and scents as different kin broke free of their emergence chambers. Many more dark sanitation workers moved along the gutters with bundles of soiled wax. Noting their sharp distinctive odour and how other bees avoided any contact with them, Flora drew closer to Sister Sage and her fragrant wake.
The priestess paused, antennae raised. They had come to the edge of the Arrivals Hall where the countless rows of emergence cells finished, and a large hexagonal doorway led into a smaller chamber. A burst of applause from within carried out a thrilling new odour. Flora looked up at Sister Sage.
‘Unfortunate timing,’ said the priestess. ‘But I must pay my respects.’ Once inside, she put Flora to wait by the wall then went to the front of a crowd of bees. Flora watched as once again they burst out clapping, gathered before the entrance of a still-closed emergence cell.
Flora gazed around this beautiful room. It was obviously an Arrivals Hall for more favoured bees, for it was spaciously arranged around two rows of central cells, each one made up of six grand and beautifully carved individual compartments. Sister Sage stood in the welcoming committee before one of them, where many bees held platters of pastries and pitchers of nectared water. The delicious smells sharpened Flora’s own hunger and thirst.
Muffled curses and thuds came from within the decorated walls of the compartment, as if the occupant was leaping and jumping. At the sound of breaking wax, the assembled sisters redoubled their applause and their kin-scents flowed stronger with excitement. Flora detected a molecule of a different scent and her brain knew its pheromone signal: A Male – A Male arrives!
‘Worship to His Maleness!’ cried several feminine voices as a big carved piece of wax fell out, followed by screams of delight as through the hole came the plumed head of a brand-new drone.
‘Worship to His Maleness!’ the sisters cheered again, and they rushed to help him out, pulling the wax free themselves and making a staircase of their bodies.
‘Quite high,’ he said as he walked down on top of them. ‘And quite tiring.’
He puffed his dronely scent around himself, rousing more sighs and applause.
‘Welcome and Worship to His Maleness.’ Sister Sage curtsied low. As all the other bees graciously did the same, Flora stared in admiration and tried to copy the movement. ‘Honour to our Hive,’ said Sister Sage as she rose.
‘Too kind.’ But his smile had charm, and all the sisters returned it, gazing at him avidly. He was rumpled but elegant, and very concerned with the exact set of his neck-ruff. When he had finally arranged it to his liking, he bowed with a great flourish. Then, to the sisters’ fervent applause, he showed himself off from many angles, stretching out his legs in pairs, puffing his plume and even treating them to a sudden roar of his engine. They screamed in delight and fanned each other, and some scrambled to offer him pastries and water.
Flora watched him eat and drink, her own mouth dry and her hunger keen.
‘Greed is a sin, 717.’ Sister Sage was beside her again. ‘Take care.’
She walked on, and before Flora could look back at the drone her antennae tugged sharply from the line of scent the priestess had attached without her knowledge. She ran to catch up.
As she followed, the vibrations in the comb floor became more insistent, stronger and stronger as if it were a living thing beneath her, energy running in all directions. With a buzzing sensation through all her six feet, a torrent of information rushed up through her body and into her brain. Overwhelmed, Flora stopped in the middle of a big lobby. Under her feet spread a vast mosaic of hexagonal floor tiles, the patterns scrolling across the lobby and down the corridors. Endless streams of bees criss-crossed around them and the air was thick with scent broadcasting.
Sister Sage came back to her.
‘Well! You appear to have accessed every floor code at once. Stay very still.’ She lightly touched both Flora’s antennae with her own.
A new fragrance cocooned them. Flora breathed it deep inside and the rushing confusion in her brain subsided. Her body calmed and her heart filled with joy, for the fragrance told her with utter certainty that she, Flora 717, was loved.
‘Mother!’ she cried out as she sank to her knees. ‘Holy Mother.’
‘Not quite.’ The priestess looked gratified. ‘Though I am of the same noble kin as Her Majesty, all praise to Her eggs. And as the Queen most graciously permitted me to attend Her today, I am richly blessed with Her scent. That which you feel is but a tiny fraction of the Queen’s Love, 717.’
Sister Sage’s voice came from a great distance and Flora nodded. As the Queen’s Love flowed through her body and brain, all the different frequencies and codes in the tiles slowed and clarified into a map of the hive, constantly running with information. Everything was fascinating, and beautiful, and she turned her gaze to the priestess.
‘Yes. Very receptive.’ Sister Sage looked at her, then pointed to a new area of the mosaic. ‘Now stand over there.’
Obediently Flora moved, feeling how the comb transmitted subtly different vibrations and frequencies. She adjusted her feet to receive the strongest signal, and the priestess watched with keen attention.
‘You feel something – but do you comprehend it?’
Flora wanted to answer that she did, but her physical bliss prevented her speaking and she could only stare. At her silence, Sister Sage relaxed.
‘Good. Knowledge only causes pain to your kin.’
As they walked on, Flora’s euphoria stabilised into a feeling of deep physical relaxation and heightened perception. Only now did she fully appreciate the beauty of Sister Sage’s elegant form, how her pale gold fur lay in silky stripes against the thin brown gloss of her bands, themselves exactly matched by the shade of her six legs. Long translucent wings folded down her back and her antennae tapered to fine points.
They continued deeper into the hive, Flora entranced by its carved and frescoed walls of ancient scent and the beautiful blend of her living sisters. She did not feel how the golden tiles changed underfoot and the bare pale wax began, or how the priestess spread her cloak of scent over them both as they entered an empty corridor which held no vibration at all.
Only when they stopped before a small plain doorway did she feel how far they had travelled, and that she was still very hungry.
‘Soon.’ Sister Sage answered her as if she had spoken. She touched a panel in the wall and the door opened.
Three (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
The little chamber was tranquil and bare, and a beautiful soft smell filtered through the walls. The pale hexagonal tiles showed a wide tread of past wear across the centre of the room and Flora set her feet wider in case there was any information to detect.
‘All long gone.’ Sister Sage had her back turned but she still knew what Flora did. ‘And you will hold your tongue.’
Then came the sound of running feet, and another bee burst into the room. She stopped in shock at the sight of the priestess standing before her.
‘Sister Sage! We were not expecting you.’ By her hard shiny bands she was a senior, but her fur was yellow, her face coarse and her antennae blunt. She bowed deeply. Sister Sage inclined her head.
‘Sister Teasel. Are you well?’
‘Never doubt it; every Teasel as strong and willing as ever. You will not find sickness in this kin! Why? Has someone been found ailing?’
‘No. Not at all.’ Sister Sage’s attention rested for a moment on the far wall. Flora looked too. Where the worn tiles ended was the faintest outline of a third door.
Sister Teasel clutched her hands together.
‘A visit from a priestess of the Melissae is always an honour – but did not Sister in her wisdom order this side of the Nursery closed off? Otherwise someone would surely have been stationed here to receive you—’
‘I wished to avoid notice.’ Sister Sage gazed down the dim corridor from where Sister Teasel had come. Sister Teasel took the opportunity to stare at Flora. Alarmed at her tangible disapproval, Flora attempted a clumsy curtsy. Sister Teasel rapped her hard on the closest knee.
‘Forward, never splayed!’ She looked to Sister Sage. ‘Such boldness! But by her wet fur she is newly hatched – I do not understand.’
‘We were obliged to wait while a drone emerged. She saw such antics there.’
‘Oh, a new prince! Honour to our hive – was he very handsome straight away? Or does it come upon them as their fur rises? How I long—’
‘Sister Teasel, how many nurses have you lost?’
‘Since last inspection?’ Sister Teasel stared in alarm. ‘Compared to other departments, hardly any. We are not like foragers, we keep ourselves safe from the outer world and its perils – but even our kin will sometimes suffer—’ She cleared her throat. ‘Six, Sister, since last inspection. I move them on for the slightest sign of confusion or hint of ailing – we take no chances. And of course, we have only the purest kin here, and the most obedient.’ She coughed. ‘Six, Sister.’
Sister Sage nodded. ‘And what do you hear, of other departments?’
‘Oh! Mere canteen gossip, idle tittle-tattle, nothing I would repeat—’
‘Please do.’ Sister Sage focused her attention on Sister Teasel, her scent flexing in the air. Flora looked down at the waxen tiles and did not move. Sister Teasel twisted her hands together.
‘Sister Sage, we are very fortunate in the Nursery, plenty of food, everything brought to us – we do not feel the shortages, we face no dangers …’ She faltered.
‘Come, Sister. Unburden yourself.’ Sister Sage was calm and kind, and Sister Teasel dared look up.
‘They say the season is deformed by rain, that the flowers shun us and fall unborn, that foragers are falling from the air and no one knows why!’ She plucked at her fur convulsively. ‘They say we will starve and the babies will all die, and my little nurses are worrying so much I fear they will forget—’ She shook her head. ‘Not that they do, Sister, ever, for they are most strictly supervised and the rotas are always guarded, so even if they could count – you may kill me if it is not so.’
‘You need not give permission.’
Sister Teasel burst out laughing and reached for one of her hands.
‘Oh, Sister Sage, it does me such good to jest with you – now I have shared the burden, I am no longer fearful!’
‘That is the role of the Melissae: to carry all fears, so the hive is free.’ A calming scent flowed from Sister Sage and filled the chamber.
‘Amen,’ said Sister Teasel. ‘But oh for the courage of the kin of Thistle.’
‘Why? What do they do?’ Too late Flora remembered herself.
Sister Teasel glared at her in outrage, her own distress forgotten.
‘She speaks? The impudence! Sister Sage, please, spare my curiosity and tell me the reason for her presence. If it is to clean, then I shall add her to the next detail – but I hope all Sanitation is not now possessed of tongues for we shall be in uproar!’ She glared at Flora. ‘Obstreperous dirty creatures.’
‘Does Sister Teasel stand in judgement of our purpose?’
‘No, Sister, never. Forgive me.’
‘Then kindly recall that variation is not the same as deformity.’
‘Sister graces me with her superior wisdom – though to my ignorant eyes those terms are one and the same.’ Sister Teasel stood back from Flora. ‘How monstrously large she is – and that fur when it dries will be thick as a drone’s, and her shell as black as a crow’s – not that I have ever seen one, thank Mother.’
Sister Sage became very still.
‘You are fatigued perhaps, by your long duty? Your loyal heart wishes to serve longer, yet your spirits tire?’
Sister Teasel shook her head in alarm. Sister Sage turned to Flora.
‘Open your mouth, 717, let Sister Teasel look.’
Flora obeyed and Sister Teasel promptly peered in. She looked to Sister Sage in surprise. Then she grasped Flora’s tongue and pulled it to its full length, before letting it snap back in her mouth.
‘I see! It might indeed be possible, but with that tongue comes—’
‘She will lose its use when it is time for her to rejoin her kin. And should it linger, I will personally wipe any knowledge from her mind. Test her, and if she does not produce anything, send her on immediately.’ Sister Sage looked kindly at Flora. ‘This experiment is a great privilege. What do you say?’
‘Accept, Obey and Serve.’ The words blurted from Flora’s mouth unbidden.
Sister Teasel shuddered. ‘Let us hope she will. Such ugliness!’
Ashamed, Flora turned back to Sister Sage as her shield, but the priestess had vanished.
‘They do that.’ Sister Teasel watched her. ‘Never know where you are with them, always surprising you. Come along then.’ She opened a door and Flora smelled the sweet pure fragrance beyond it. ‘If Sister Sage hadn’t told me to do this herself, I’d call it sacrilege.’ She pushed Flora through the door with her foot. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
Four (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
The enormous nursery was filled with row after row of glowing cribs, some with little rippling streams of light above them. Flora followed Sister Teasel deeper into the chamber. To her wonder, the light was in fact a luminous liquid, pouring in droplets from the mouths of the young nurses who leaned over the cribs. Many more of them moved silently about the ward, young and pretty with glowing chins.
‘It is so beautiful!
Despite her resentment, Sister Teasel smoothed her chest fur and nodded. She pointed to an unattended crib.
‘What gender?’
Flora looked in. The larva was newly hatched, soft pearly tendrils of shell still clinging to the translucent white skin. Its tiny face was closed in sleep and a sweet milky smell drifted above it.
‘A female. She is so perfect!’
‘Just another worker. Now find a male.’ Sister Teasel indicated the whole vast nursery.
‘Yes, Sister.’ Flora raised her antennae. On each row she drew in the smell of female babies, strong and constant.
‘You can’t do it from here, you silly girl.’
Flora did not answer. She smelled the different kin of the young nurses, and all the thousand female children. There was no scent of male.
‘I have searched and there are none. Why is that?’
Sister Teasel stared at her.
‘Late in the season Holy Mother stops making them.’ She shook herself. ‘A good sense of smell is not enough to keep you out of Sanitation. Now hold your bold tongue and let us conclude this foolish experiment.’
Sister Teasel pushed Flora to the first worker crib she had shown her, and tapped on its side so that the little creature woke. When it opened its mouth and began to cry, she folded her arms in satisfaction and looked at Flora. ‘And now?’
Flora leaned in to look, and the larva baby flexed and stretched towards her. Its warm scent rose more strongly, threaded with the delicate fragrance of the Queen’s Love. Immediately, two pulses began flickering in Flora’s cheeks, and her mouth began to fill with sweet liquid. She looked to Sister Teasel in alarm.
‘Flow!’ cried Sister Teasel. ‘Don’t swallow, let it come!’
She guided Flora into the right position as the luminous drops spilled from her mouth. As they fell onto the larva baby it stopped crying and wriggled to lap them up. The drops thickened into a thin stream which pooled around the baby’s body until it could drink no more.
The liquid ebbed and Flora’s cheeks stopped flickering. Completely exhausted, she held the side of the crib for support. The baby grew as she watched, and the base of the crib glowed. Other nurses looked across.
‘Well!’ said Sister Teasel. ‘If I had not seen it for myself. A flora from Sanitation, able to make royal jelly – Flow.’ She corrected herself. ‘You must only ever call it Flow.’
‘Why, Sister?’ Flora felt warm and sleepy.
Sister Teasel tutted.
‘No more questions. All you need to remember is to feed as your supervisor instructs you. Not a drop more, no matter how the babies beg. And they will. Now I must find you a place to sleep – though I don’t know what the other girls will say about it. You mustn’t expect them to touch or groom you.’
Sister Teasel led Flora to a rest area where young nurse bees lay talking quietly or sleeping, luminous traces fading round their mouths. She lay down at once.
‘Flora 717 is here by Sister Sage’s express wish.’ Sister Teasel’s tone dared anyone to remonstrate. ‘Yes she makes Flow and yes it is most irregular for her kin, but we are in the season of irregularity, with the rain and the cold and the lack of food – so we will all be helpful. Is that clear?’
The nurses murmured assent and placed food and drink within Flora’s reach, but she was too tired to move. Sister Teasel’s voice continued above her and she knew that when the comb shivered, the divine fragrance that rose up from it was the Queen’s Love, and that this was the sacrament of Devotion. She wanted to join the sweet harmony of nurses in prayer, but the room was warm and dark, and the bed was soft.
* * *
Like the other nurses, Flora’s job was simple. She must give Flow to the babies as directed, rest when it stopped, then repeat. As Sister Teasel had stressed to Sister Sage, the feed timing was very strictly observed and marked with different bells that signalled one or other area of the nursery was due more, or must now stop feeding. These constantly chiming bells, and the shimmering energy of the fed larva, created an intense and dreamlike aura in the nursery, but one sound always alerted Flora’s attention. It was the bright resonant tone of the sun bell, and its particular frequency told all the bees that beyond the safety of the hive walls, day had risen again.
Flora particularly enjoyed its vibration and listened out for its rare pleasure. Every three chimes, the supervising sisters came round and collected all the nurses whose fur had risen and whose Flow was dwindling, and replaced them with new ones, fresh from the Arrivals Hall, their fur still soft and damp.
Flora’s fur had not changed, so she was kept on. By the sixth sun bell, every nurse around her had changed, but her own Flow continued as strongly as ever. Supervising sisters also changed, but there were always several Teasel in their number. As she watched them go about their business, Flora began to understand the workings of the Nursery.
The cribs were always being rotated. Each day the nurses who were soon to leave would clean out a thousand of them, then a small army of sanitation workers would arrive to remove the waste and scrub the floors. Surreptitiously, Flora watched them. Though they never made eye contact or said a word, their vigorous energy was tangible and all the nurses were relieved when they left, none more so than Flora, ashamed of her own kin. Then the nurses would prepare the empty cribs in the newly cleaned area and the supervising sisters would say prayers of purification, before veiling the whole section with the shimmering scent of discretion, ready for the Royal Progress when the Queen laid her eggs.
When the next sun bell sounded, the glorious fragrance of new life rose in the Nursery and a thousand new eggs lay pure and perfect in their cribs. Every bee in the Nursery joined in songs of praise for Immortal Mother’s fertility. It took three more sun bells for the eggs to hatch into larva babies, and then it was time to feed them Flow.
Under strictly timed supervision from a senior sister, for the next three days Flora and other feeding nurses watched in amazement as the babies grew before their eyes. Their sweet scent rippled with changes in their bodies, and then came the stark moment when the supervising sisters piped a quick whistle to stop the feeding. No matter how hungry a baby might be, not a single drop more might be given, for it was time to wean them in the Category Two ward.
To Flora, this was a highly desirable place to work. Through the big double doors that separated the two nursery wards, she had often glimpsed older nurses playing and singing with the bigger children, even cuddling them in their arms.
Everything about the Ceremony of Transition was exciting to Flora, from the way the babies started wriggling and laughing in excitement at the delicious food smells coming from the double doors dividing the wards, to the first strains of the cheerful hymns sung by the nurses who came for them. With graceful curtsies to all in the Category One ward, even Flora, they scooped up the laughing babies and the doors closed soft behind them.
With their fully risen fur, elegant limbs and narrow curtsies, these sophisticated Category Two kins of Violet, Primrose and Vetch won Flora’s particular admiration. Discreetly in the dim holy atmosphere of Category One, she practised her own curtsy to overcome her shameful splay – just in case Sister Sage should reappear and move her to Category Two.
This was such a wonderful thought that Flora began including it in her prayers at Devotion. She forgot it each time the enchanting fragrance of the Queen’s Love rose up through the comb, but when the nurses changed again and her fur had still not risen, she gathered up her courage and sought out Sister Teasel.
‘You want to move?’ Sister Teasel stared at her in amazement. ‘From Category One, the holiest place in the hive and the closest you will ever come to Her Majesty? Why, She passes by us every day!’
‘But I have never seen—’
Sister Teasel swiped Flora’s antennae with a sharp claw.
‘Impudent, ignorant girl! Do you think a flora, a sanitation worker, is ever likely to be in the true presence of Her Majesty? I knew it would come to this! I was against it from the start – why, pray, are you now so eager to move to Category Two?’
‘It looks so bright and happy there. And the nurses play with the children.’
‘Yes, and as a result they are riddled with frivolity and attachment. I cannot believe it – move away from the Queen? Please, tell me: do you fantasise you are a forager, able to survive beyond Holy Mother’s divine scent? For clearly it is not enough to be a nurse!’
‘It is, Sister – forgive me for asking—’
But it was too late, for Sister Teasel’s agitation spread through the whole ward. The babies grew fractious, distracted nurses looked up from their feeding and Flow splashed against the cribs. Sister Teasel waved her arms at them.
‘Focus!’ She turned back to Flora. ‘Now you listen to me. We deliver one outcome here: identical care for identical brood. There is no improvising, no requesting a transfer, and, until you were forced upon us, no exception to the immaculate kin of our nurses.’
‘I know, Sister, I’m very grateful, it’s just that so many nurses have changed—’
‘What business is that of yours? Have you been trying to count?’ Sister Teasel came close to her. ‘717, have you been studying the rotas? Confess at once if you have, for it is a matter of hive security – what do you know about them?’ Her scent became fragmented with anxiety, and the babies began crying again.
‘Nothing, Sister! I just wanted to ask—’
‘There, that is the seed of it: you wanted!’ Sister Teasel groomed her antennae back from their trembling state, then glared at Flora again. ‘Desire is sin, Vanity is sin – it is all very well praying and splaying, 717 – and don’t think I haven’t seen you practising your ridiculous curtsy—’
‘Idleness is sin.’ Humiliated at her exposure, Flora continued the catechism. ‘Discord is sin, Greed is sin—’
‘And as for your appetite – as bad as a drone’s. No matter what the sainted Sage may think’ – and here Sister Teasel threw a quick glance around the ward – ‘you are typical of your kin. Greedy, ugly, obstinate things! Girls, what is our first commandment?’
‘Accept, Obey and Serve,’ chanted the eavesdropping nurses, staring at Flora.
‘Accept, Obey and Serve.’ Flora knelt before Sister Teasel. ‘A flora may not make Wax for she is impure, nor work with Propolis for she is clumsy, nor may she ever forage for she has no taste, but only may she clean, and all may command her labour.’
‘Exactly.’ Sister Teasel’s antennae twitched. ‘Yet here you are, feeding the Queen’s newborns. Summer is cold, floras speak: the world is upside down! Just be grateful for the honour, for it will soon be over. But I wish I knew when, for I have never seen the like of your Flow.’
‘What does it mean, for my knowledge to be wiped?’
Sister Teasel’s expression softened. She sighed.
‘You will find out soon enough. Now, spare us both – ask no more questions.’
* * *
Flora returned to the main floor, her hope replaced with dread. She joined a group of nurses who stood waiting to hear which section next needed Flow, their mouths already brimming with the bright liquid. The chime sounded, and ahead of them a dark little sanitation worker ran to get out of their way. Walking at the back of the group, Flora saw her clearly, cowering with her pan and brush and holding her wings so that she would not touch a higher kin by accident. Their eyes met for a moment. The little worker grimaced in a smile. Flora looked away and hurried on.
The next baby was big and hungry. She gazed down at its open mouth, always the trigger for the pulses in her cheeks to begin the feeding trance. Nothing came. The twisted friendly grimace of the sanitation worker stuck in her mind and Flora shook herself. She adjusted her position and concentrated.
The baby yearned up towards her, open-mouthed. The pulses in her cheeks flickered, and a few drops of Flow seeped out. Flora shook her head so they fell onto the baby and it lapped them hungrily. It looked up and opened its mouth for more. She concentrated until the sides of her mouth were throbbing with the strain, but nothing came. The baby began to cry.
A new nurse appeared at Flora’s side, her mouth and face glowing with fresh Flow. She was very young and deep in the feeding trance. She stood by Flora’s side and leaned over. Immediately the luminous stream began to fall and the baby quieted as it fed. Confused, Flora stepped back.
‘The miracle,’ said a kind, familiar voice, ‘was that you could feed at all.’
Sister Sage stood by her, beautiful and frightening. She smiled.
‘If your job bores you, 717, I will give you something more exciting to do. Consider it another test.’
Five (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
At the sight of Sister Sage all the Category Two nurses and nannies curtsied, though they looked warily at Flora walking with her. The priestess was not angry that her Flow had stopped, and seemed only to want to talk.
‘I would have said the experiment was a success,’ she said to Flora. ‘And I am sure Sister Teasel impressed on you the privilege of such sacred service.’
‘Yes, Sister. I am very grateful.’
‘But you are very curious about Category Two – a rather prosaic place, to my mind. Why is that?’
The more she breathed of Sister Sage’s strong scent, the more Flora grew calm, and felt an overpowering desire to tell the truth.
‘In Category One everything is always the same.’
Sister Sage laughed.
‘The very point of identical care. Yet it bored you.’
‘Yes, Sister. Forgive me.’ Flora lowered her head, but Sister Sage raised it and held her long antennae over hers.
‘We will forget the folly of the curtsies and your boldness in hoping to see Holy Mother, for I hear you are also very devout and hard-working.’
‘I hope so, Sister.’
‘And you love the Queen?’
‘With my body and my soul.’ Flora’s antennae trembled as she felt Sister Sage reaching deep into her mind.
Would you serve Her any way you can?
‘With my whole life.’
‘Good.’ Sister Sage walked on. ‘In this time of scarce forage, you have been surprisingly useful in the Nursery. Sometimes it works to spare the deviants, and experiment a little.’ She smiled. ‘Is this place as you imagined?’
‘Better, Sister! It is so lively, so full of wonderful things—’
‘Then look your fill. I wish you to know it.’
* * *
Flora could not take Category Two in at once, with its decorations and beautifully tiled play areas. Pretty nurses and nannies sat with their vigorous little charges, singing and playing games, or feeding them from shining platters. Healthy beautiful child-grubs were everywhere, their cheerful snubby little faces speckled with golden pollen dust. Gone was the heavy scent of Flow and the mumble of prayer, and in its place nursery rhymes, laughter and the bright aroma of fresh bread.
Sister Sage watched her. ‘What do you know of feeding patterns?’
‘Nothing, Sister.’ Flora admired two fat child-grubs, chuckling as their nurses tickled them. ‘Sister Teasel asked me that. All I know is that timing is very important and there are a lot of bells.’ Her own arms tingled to hold one herself and she turned away lest the sin of Desire take hold. ‘And we must always stop at the right moment and never give a drop more.’
‘Because …?’
‘I’m not sure, Sister.’
Sister Sage touched one of Flora’s antennae with her own, and Flora felt a piercing resonance in her mind. The sensation grew almost unbearable, then abruptly stopped as Sister Sage released her.
‘Good. You are truthful.’ Her long antennae flexed. ‘Tell me, though, about my sisters Teasel: do they hold any meetings or gatherings in the Nursery?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Flora felt a strong urge to please the priestess with the right answer. ‘But I know only the one, my supervising sister.’
‘Ah yes. To you they are all the same. And so they very nearly are, though they must still use speech to know each other’s thoughts. It is most quaint. But you will tell me if they hold private meetings, do you understand?’
‘Yes, Sister.’
They had come to the end of the Category Two ward where great panels of carving marked another set of doors. Flora could not decipher the markings but knew instinctively not to touch them. Sister Sage answered her unspoken question.
‘They speak of Holy Time, when we have all slept in prayer.’ Her voice was soft and her face shone as if she experienced some great inner joy. ‘Each Devotion, we recall something of that state.’ She remained rapt in contemplation.
Flora felt it correct to stand in silence beside her. A movement caught her eyes. It was another of the wretched sanitation workers, working along the ward gutter with her pan and brush, and looking directly at Flora and the priestess. Flora pressed her knees together and drew herself up as thin and tall as she could, trying to emphasise their difference. Steadily sweeping, the worker passed on. Though nothing more than a look had occurred, Flora was angry and agitated.
‘Do not blame yourself: no one may choose their kin – or all would be Sage.’ No longer in her enraptured state, the priestess smiled. ‘Because you lack botanical heritage, yours forms the base of our society. Or rather, you draw it from impure and promiscuous flowers, shunned by this hive.’
‘Sister Sage! Sister Sage!’
Sister Teasel’s high, strained voice reached down the long corridor of Category Two. They smelled her streaming panic before they saw her, running towards them with antennae waving and wild fear on her face.
‘Please – you must – both of you, I beg you—’ Sister Teasel could hardly speak. ‘Everyone must report at once, the fertility police are here now on our ward!’
* * *
As Flora followed Sister Sage back through the Category Two ward, every nurse and nanny clutched her little charge tight to her, and stared at them in silence. Up ahead through the big double doors, the Category One ward was no longer dim and hushed but starkly illuminated and pulsing with a harsh bitter scent. Flora stumbled as her brain struggled to recall it. Sister Sage took her by the arm to quicken her pace and strengthened her own scent around both of them.
‘You have nothing to fear.’
They went into the ward. At first Flora thought the nurses had gone because all the cribs were unattended and the babies were already starting to cry, but then she saw them all standing in lines near the ward sisters’ station. Some openly wept in fear, their antennae waving uncontrollably, while others stood rigid. Standing around the edges of the ward were the fertility police. Their kin-scents were hidden under their masking scent, their eyes were blank, and their fur was slicked dark against their bands – but Flora recognised them from the Arrivals Hall. Sister Sage curled a filament of her own scent around Flora’s antennae and she felt her mouth clamp shut. The priestess joined her to the end of the first row then stepped forward and bowed to the police.
‘Sister Inspector, Sister Officers. Welcome.’
The Inspector saluted her, then turned to address the nurses.
‘Another wing deformity has been found.’ The masking scent distorted her voice to a harsh buzz. Despite their fear, the nurses murmured in revulsion.
‘Praise to the vigilant Thistle guard on the landing board.’ Her scent fired in jagged bursts as she surveyed the nurses. Sister Teasel began to weep.
‘Not here, Madam Inspector, never in Category One, it is not possible – Holy Mother is here every day, Her scent so beautiful and strong – there can be no—’
‘Silence!’ the Inspector spat at her. ‘Do you think I mean the defect could come from Her Majesty? You fly close to treason yourself, Sister—’
‘Holy Mother strike me dead before my next breath if so!’ Sister Teasel fell to her knees, but Sister Inspector yanked her back on her feet.
‘Measure her.’ She shoved Sister Teasel at two of her officers and they lashed their black callipers around her thick waist. Sister Teasel voided herself in fear and the smell mingled with the scent of the nurses’ terror, rising from their breathing spiracles. Behind them all the babies began to cry. Sister Sage looked on calmly.
‘Not her, at any rate.’ The Inspector released Sister Teasel then turned to the nurses. ‘Deformities mean evil roams our hive. Somewhere hides a desecrating heretic, who dares steal sacred Motherhood from the Queen. That is why sickness comes, that is why deformities rise. From her foul issue!’ Her antennae twitched compulsively and Flora felt her longing for violence.
‘Only the Queen may breed,’ responded Sister Sage, looking at the nurses.
‘Only the Queen may breed,’ some of them managed to reply, but others stared at Sister Teasel, her antennae bent in shame as she desperately cleaned herself. The Inspector held up a long sharp claw to the ward.
‘We will search every crib, we will measure every nurse’s belly until we find the culprit. And then we will tear her filthy body apart and cleanse our hive of sin.’
‘Do what you must, Sister Inspector.’ Sister Sage bowed again.
Sister Inspector signalled and some of her officers began moving systematically through the rows of cribs, while others used the black callipers on their arms to measure the bellies of the terrified nurses.
When it was her turn, Flora looked in distress at Sister Sage, convinced her greedy appetite would mark her as doomed, but the priestess ignored her. The callipers went round her belly but the police moved on, measuring each bee until all the nurses were cleared and none found guilty.
Those who dared turned to look at the cribs where the larva babies wailed as officers swept each one up. With the powerful scanners of their antennae, they sent sharp vibrations through the small tender bodies. The babies cried in fear and regurgitated their Flow, and the smell of it mixed with their infant defecation.
‘Our Mother, who art in labour.’ Sister Teasel’s voice was faint, but her nurses joined their own in support.
‘Hallowed be Thy Womb,’ they sang to control their fear.
‘Thy Marriage done, Thy Queendom come.’
Flora wanted to join in, but the scent from Sister Sage had bound her rigid.
‘From Death comes Life Eter—’ The beautiful voices stopped at the sharp squealing from one of the cribs.
Every nurse stared in horror as one of the officers bent over it. The squeal became an anguished shriek as the officer held up a larva baby, struggling to roll itself up. Another officer pulled it open with a sound of tearing skin.
Standing by Flora, Sister Inspector slid a claw from her gauntlet. ‘Bring it.’
Muffling the baby’s screams, she scanned it with slow-burning antennae until its pearly skin withered. ‘It is possible,’ she announced. ‘It has a foul strange scent.’
‘That is fear!’ cried Sister Teasel.
Ignoring her, Sister Inspector held up the baby and pierced it with her hook. It shrieked and twisted in agony as she offered it to her officers.
‘Destroy it.’
‘Wait.’ Sister Sage pointed to Flora. ‘Let her.’
With a jolt, Flora felt herself released to move. Sister Inspector pulled her claw from the larva baby to drop it on the ground, but Flora caught it and clutched it to her, the first child she had ever held. Its warm blood soaked into her fur and she pressed the agonised little thing close to her, trying to staunch the bleeding.
Eat it alive. The voice spoke inside Flora’s own mind. She clutched the baby tighter and a searing sound went through her antennae.
Do it NOW. Tear it apart.
Flora bowed her own head over the baby and shielded it with her arms. The voice roared louder in her mind.
DESTROY IT—
Her antennae felt like they had burst with the blow that struck her. She staggered and fell, the baby still clutched to her. Blows shook her body and her antennae became two pulsing rods of agony. The screaming baby was pulled from her grasp. She felt its warm blood splash her face and heard its tearing flesh and the grunts of the fertility police as they devoured it. As Flora screamed, her tongue twisted hard in her mouth and she choked on the sound.
‘I asked too much …’ Sister Sage’s voice was close and gentle. ‘The experiment is over.’
Six (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
Flora regained consciousness lying on dirty blank tiles. A low moaning came from nearby, but when she tried to locate the source a searing flash forked through her head and she cried out.
‘Don’t move …’ A weak voice spoke. ‘The pain is less—’
Through the snarling odours of the small chamber Flora became aware of the faint scent of the kin of Clover.
‘Was it you?’ The voice was young and ragged. ‘For I swear it was not me.’
Flora tried to answer, but to move her tongue was agony.
‘Silence.’ Sister Sage entered, followed by a group of her identical doubles. All wore the ceremonial pollen marks of the Melissae priestesses, and a strong astringent scent flowed from them. Flora shrank in terror, but they paid her no attention. Instead, the first Sister Sage knelt down by the Clover and stroked her face.
‘Your crime is behind you now, and you harm only yourself by maintaining your lie.’ She waited, but the Clover lay panting and did not speak. Sister Sage leaned closer. ‘How many eggs did you lay? Did you wish to be Queen?’
‘Never!’ The Clover struggled to rise on her broken limbs. Her wings were shrivelled and curled. ‘I beg you believe me, I have not profaned our holy law, Only the Queen may breed—’
One of the other priestesses stepped forward as if to strike the Clover, but Sister Sage held her back and soothed the Clover again.
‘Why did you hide from the police? Was it to keep spreading your deformity through our hive with foul eggs? We have found the young sisters with your defect, your issue.’ Sister Sage hissed the word and the Clover began to weep.
‘I swear again I have never laid—’
‘Your wings show your true evil. And deformity creeps through our hive.’
The Clover gave up trying to stand.
‘Then maybe Holy Mother lays bad eggs.’
The priestesses hissed and rasped their wings like knives. Sister Sage lifted the Clover off the ground with one hand.
‘You blaspheme, at the moment of your death?’
The Clover raised her antennae to high shivering points.
‘From Death comes Life Eternal. Holy Mother take me back.’
The priestesses surrounded her and flexed their abdomens high. Flora saw the tips of their bodies draw in to a hard point, and as they sang the Holy Chord together their delicate barbed daggers slid out. The chamber filled with the scent of venom, the Holy Chord rose louder until the air reverberated – then the priestesses stung the Clover from all sides. She cried out once – and then the sweet scent of her kin burst bright upon the foul air and was gone.
The priestesses turned to Flora. She felt their probing attention work its way down her sore antennae, deep into her head. She curled herself up as small as she could, to brace for the searing chemical pain they would drive into her brain – but it did not come. Abruptly the intimate invasion withdrew. The priestesses talked together in low voices and despite her fear, Flora listened.
‘Cornflower yield is poor. Even the buttercups are short—’
‘The foragers speak of more green deserts—’
‘When they fly at all, in this rain.’
‘We cannot fight the season.’ By the rich particular timbre of her voice, the speaker was the same Sister Sage Flora knew. ‘We cannot fight the rain, we can only provision ourselves as best we may. So unless she be heretic or deformed, in such a troubling season, every single worker is an asset – and I am loath to lose one more.’
‘Hardly an asset,’ said another voice. ‘She defied you over the baby. I vote to give her the Kindness – I would not waste my venom on her.’
Flora lay very still.
‘I will kill her myself when her use is over,’ said Sister Sage. ‘But the first fault was mine. I acted independently.’
The air in the chamber contracted as the priestesses twined and flexed their scents together in consultation. Then one fragrance formed, no longer dominated by the harsh astringent top note, but smooth, warm and powerfully calming.
‘Only the Queen is perfect. Amen.’
Even in her pain, Flora heard the choral beauty of their voice when they spoke together, and breathed more deeply. When a foot nudged her she did not resist.
‘It is true. Such size and strength makes her useful,’ one of them said.
‘Provided she is docile,’ said another. ‘To have a rebel in that kin – and one who could have learned of feeding—’
‘That will never happen.’ Sister Sage knelt down beside Flora, and looked up at her fellow priestesses. ‘More than one of us should do this, to be sure.’
‘Of course,’ said another. ‘Dirt and fear will be her only guides.’
Three more priestesses knelt by Flora’s head, so there were two at each antenna.
Then they all touched their own to hers.
The sensation was very strange. As the chemicals jolted into her brain her body shook, but she did not feel pain, only waves of numbness, stronger and stronger until her consciousness shrank to calm and blackness.
‘717.’ The voice came from a great distance. ‘Get up.’
The massive limbs beneath her lurched into life and Flora stood. Dimly she felt energy of other beings around her, then the comforting dull rhythm thudding through the comb under her feet. It went up into her body and her brain. Without conscious thought, Flora lifted the body of the dead Clover into her mouth. As she did so the rhythm in the ground grew stronger, pulsing with each forward step she took to lead her onto the coded tiles. Pulled by the frequency, she carried the dead Clover out of the detention chamber, into the huge traffic of bees.
To shield her antennae from the many bruising signals in the air she walked with her head low. Air currents and electrical pulses from thousands of bees rippled against her, but Flora ignored them all. The pulsing track alone held her focus, clear and simple across the perilously busy lobby where she had to slow down because of the tempest of data underfoot.
A rush of workers came through in a tumult of scent and Flora lifted her head – then the rhythm of the foot-current drew her on. She trudged past the doorway of a great hall from which came the cheering of many voices, and some vast foreign scent blew through the air, but the stimulation was too much and she shrank low to the ground to keep going.
She found herself walking in a group also carrying pungent loads, and realised one was speaking to her. Flora looked into the dark face of a sanitation worker, urgently trying to guide her through a doorway. Flora stepped in, and found a clear space on the floor. The simple scent tiles prompted her to lay down the dead Clover’s body, and immediately another worker took it away. Hands pushed her back out into the corridor into another stream of sanitation workers. They marched in silence with their dark heads lowered, their aspect no longer dirty and vile, and their scent a comfort.
* * *
There were no chiming bells to mark time in Sanitation, only the differences in the smell of the dirt they cleaned, and the very basic food they ate. There was no chatter or gossip because none of the cleaners could speak, so they derived companionship from labouring together, and pressing close to share their scent.
Like the rest of her kin-sisters, Flora worked in a dull haze, interspersed with pauses for Devotion. When the fragrance of the Queen’s Love rose through the vibrating comb, the sanitation workers stopped wherever they were and cried out in slurred reverence, and Flora felt a moment of blissful relief from the constant pain in her head. Then they all returned to work, and her consciousness shrank back down to whatever task was in hand.
* * *
Sisters of all kin were born and died by their hundreds every day, so collecting the dead was a common occupation for every sanitation worker. As she carried body after body, Flora grew familiar with the routes down from the top and mid-levels of the hive, to the morgue and waste depot on the lowest level. Certain routes were blocked by kin-sensitive scent-locks, which stopped the floras polluting holy areas of the hive, like the nurseries on the mid-level, or the Fanning Hall and Treasury on the top level. After being buffeted back once or twice by the powerful scents, even the slowest sanitation worker like Flora learned not to try that way again, but sometimes on the mid-level of the hive, drifting scents of the Nursery tugged at her brain. The longer she stood, the more they distressed her, until she blundered away groaning.
Despite their status as lowest of the low, even in the department of Sanitation there was a hierarchy of ability. Certain floras could leave the dull, thudding foot-tracks and collect waste from difficult areas, and these sisters were also used to make short waste-disposal flights with corpses or particularly foul-smelling loads, dropping them a hygienic distance from the hive. The second group, to which Flora belonged, experienced such agony in their antennae if they diverged but one step from their ordained track, that the outer limit of their roaming was down to the morgue, or the freight holding area, both on the lowest level of the hive and near to the landing board. Sometimes Flora would pause here, where the vast foreign scent of Air swirled so strong about her body that her wing-joints trembled with a strange sensation – but to dwell on it was to invite pain, and to return to her duties, a relief.
Each sanitation detail had a supervisor from a higher kin, for they were not to be trusted on their own. Today, Flora’s supervisor was a Sister Bindweed, a long narrow bee with sparse fur and a brusque absent manner. She had them working in a vacant area of the Drones’ Arrivals Hall, cleaning out recently used incubation chambers in preparation for repair with consecrated wax.
Each bee had her own set of chambers to work on. Though none of them could speak, they grunted and scraped away with the same rhythm, apparently enjoying their work. Some scrutinised their neighbour’s labour, mutely pointing out the tiniest particle of remaining dirt, while others checked the soiled wax was efficiently compacted for removal. There were no guiding foot-tracks between the drone chambers, so to block painful confusion Flora clenched down on her scarred antennae to focus on the smallest possible area. It made her obsessive, but her work was immaculate, and Sister Bindweed had to shout and throw a piece of wax at her when it was time for Devotion.
From their place in the Drones’ Arrivals Hall, all the sanitation workers could hear the massed choirs of the hive singing through the carved walls. As the vocal vibrations sent the fragrance of the Queen’s Love shimmering through the membrane of the honeycomb and deep into their bodies, some of the floras made incoherent sounds of happiness, while others made rhythmic movements as if they were trying to dance. Flora was one of the many who stood transfixed by the blissful sense of being loved – until the divine surge began to ebb away.
A strange sensation rose inside her, strong as hunger but not for food or water. It was as if her abdomen dragged heavy behind her, and her rigid twisted tongue swelled in her mouth. As her detail returned to work, the sensations grew more insistent. Trying to rid herself of them, Flora shook herself from side to side.
‘Stop that, you stupid creature!’ Sister Bindweed took out her thin rod of propolis resin that she used to poke the sanitation workers without incurring dirty contact and waved it at Flora. ‘Get into that cell and clean it, unless you want me to send you for the Kindness.’
Obediently Flora climbed into the next vacated drone cell. The air was pungent and fetid, the walls and floor crusted with faecal waste. Even through Flora’s deadened senses, her brain thundered with the chemical onslaught from the waste of this drone. As the foul smell destroyed the last fragrant vestige of the Queen’s Love, a sudden rage rose up inside Flora. She attacked the wall with her jaws, furious at the sexual odour of the filth. The tightness in her mouth ignited in two points of pain on either side of her face, but she worked on in a frenzy, tearing out great soiled chunks of wax and hurling them into the corridor. Then all her sound and vision cut out and she was left in a chaos of odours.
Terror-stricken, Flora threw herself out of the drone’s chamber and onto the ground. Somewhere nearby the thinnest filament of the Queen’s Love lingered on the ground where it had come through the comb, and she threw her body down against it, breathing it in to counter the flashing black pain in her head.
‘717! You are behaving like a demented bluebottle – stop that!’
Sister Bindweed tried to kick Flora back to her feet, but with her massive strength Flora clung to the wax until she drew the last molecules of the Queen’s Love into her body. Sister Bindweed’s puny kicks did not hurt, because something far more powerful was taking place in her mind and body.
Her tongue, so long hard and twisted, was warming and softening, and the disgusting taste of the drone waste was fading. Strength was coursing through her body, and her antennae throbbed as their inner channels opened up, restoring her vision and hearing. Most amazing of all was her sense of smell. She could discern all the different waxes used to make the floor tiles on which she lay, and the propolis inlay of the drone cells; she could smell the warm dirty odour of the sanitation workers’ bodies toiling around her—
‘Enough!’ Too angry to use her propolis rod, Sister Bindweed grabbed Flora by the edge of a wing and started pulling her towards the doors. To resist was to tear the membrane, and Flora was forced to hurry with her.
‘If you cannot perform the simplest task’ – Sister Bindweed pushed Flora out into the busy corridor – ‘then good for nothing is what you are, and no more use to this hive!’ Sister Bindweed shouted so vehemently that Flora smelled the half-digested pollen bread on her breath, and the slow taint of old age moving in her belly.
‘You stand there until the police patrol comes by – they’ll know what to do with you, make no mistake.’ Sister Bindweed shuddered at the smell of her own hands where she had grabbed Flora, and went back inside.
* * *
The Drones’ Arrivals Hall opened onto a main lobby filled with thousands of bees moving in all directions, never colliding. For a few moments Flora stood motionless, absorbing the tides of scent information that surged through the air and the vibrations in the coded tiles.
Rose Teasel Malus Clover came the rapid knowledge as different sisters passed her by, Clover Plantain Burdock SAGE—
At that last and fast-approaching kin-scent, a jolt of fear propelled Flora into the great moving mass of bees in the lobby. Instinctively she wanted to hide, and though a thousand floor codes pulsed their messages at her, one overrode them all, and it came from her heart: Beware the Sage.
Seven (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
The scent of the priestesses faded as Flora went deeper into the warm aromatic criss-crossing of her sisters, their body heat blending their kin-scents together in fragrance and gossip. To listen to their bright voices and understand all they said was a wonderful thing, and she was soon caught up in the major news of the moment, coming through the floor codes and the excited antennae all around her: the rain had stopped, the clouds had parted, the foragers were returning.
‘Nectar comes!’ shouted some bees. ‘The flowers love us!’
The comb shimmered and every bee felt joy running through her feet at the sweet smell coming up from the lower level. The bees pushed back to make a passageway through their numbers, and Flora found herself crammed wing to wing at the front of one cheering group, making space for those who were to come.
The bees redoubled their cheers as a forager ran between their cordon, her throat distended with the precious burden of nectar she carried. Filaments of golden scent drifted on the air behind her, telling of the flower that had yielded its sweetness. Flora stared enraptured as more and more of them came through – sisters of all ages and kin, some with ragged wings, some young and perfect, all with the golden fragrance of nectar streaming behind them.
As the molecular structure of the flowers went into Flora’s brain, a strange sound startled her. Sisters either side of her looked at her with compassion – and Flora realised it was her own voice, moaning incoherently as she tried to join in the cheering. The last forager ran past, the golden filaments of nectar scent trailing behind her, calling for Flora to follow.
The golden fragrance drew Flora on, until to her shock she realised she had passed unscathed through the scent-gates on the staircase to the highest level of the hive. There was no time to wonder at that, for now the party of nectar-bearers were passing down a long corridor whose immaculate pale tiles were inlaid with details of flowers. They were prayer tiles, preparing those who walked on them for the sacred mysteries beyond, and each step triggered chemical verses to unscroll.
At the back of the procession, Flora waited for an alarm to sound at her profane presence on this highest and restricted level of the hive – but a cloud of incense rose up beneath her feet just as from those ahead and joined her to the procession. And then, as the two tall double doors in the middle of the passageway swung open to admit them, her soul filled with joy. Waves of raw floral fragrance billowed out on warm air and as Flora entered the sacred refinery of the Fanning Hall, she beheld the genius of her people.
* * *
A golden mist and soft harmonic chord shimmered from the centre of the great atrium, whose six towering walls were made of interlocking chalices of honey, all capped and consecrated with the Queen’s seal, and curved in to make a domed ceiling. Far below stood hundreds of sisters in concentric circles, all fanning their silver wings. Their faces were joyous and blank and before each was a large chalice of raw nectar. From these vessels the mist and music spiralled into the air as the water evaporated from the nectar, thickening it to honey.
Only now did Flora realise that every forager and receiver of the procession was busy decanting their precious load into open wax chalices, and that she alone had no function there. She knew she should leave – the very presence of a sanitation worker in this holy place must surely warrant punishment – yet it was so wondrous that she could not bear to. From the scented shadows she watched the foragers and their attendants emptying their loads, then straightening their wings and walking out. One of the last young receivers was clumsy and spilled some nectar down the side of a wax chalice, but in her hurry to remain in procession she just glanced down guiltily, then ran to leave with the others.
The tall doors swung closed and the rings of sisters resumed their silver shimmer. The Holy Chord rose up and their wing-beats stirred fragrance through the warm air. To hide in the shadows felt disrespectful so Flora stepped out. Some instinct impelled her to bow to the centre of the atrium, but no sooner had she touched her antennae to the wax floor than her wing-latches clicked open, her virgin wings trembled as her engine fired, and she was lifted off her feet.
Some sisters glanced up, searching for the sound. Flora clamped her thoracic muscles together and dropped down to the wax before they could locate her. She latched her wings tight against her back and looked around in alarm. Bad enough for a sanitation worker to be trespassing here, but to have used her wings—
The extraordinary sensation subsided into her body. To calm her racing brain, Flora looked for any dirt to clean, but the Fanning Hall was immaculate. The only minute element of disorder was where the young receiver had spilled some nectar, now drying down the side of the wax chalice, and the tiles on which it stood.
At the scent, Flora’s belly clutched in hunger.
Desire is sin, Greed is sin—
But surely cleaning it would not be sin?
Careful not to let her profane body touch the chalice, Flora knelt down beside the spill and was overcome with the fragrance of honeysuckle. The living spirit of the crimson-gold blooms warmed her body with energy, and she was licking up the last molecules from the tiles when she heard the commotion outside.
The massed vibration of many agitated sisters came closer down the passageway, voices raised in protest.
‘Honey!’ boomed a deep male voice. ‘Now!’
‘Please Your Malenesses,’ cried a female voice. ‘Stop!’
* * *
Flora leapt back in alarm as a party of drones barged in and swaggered down the centre aisle towards her. They were huge and pungent with big handsome faces, sun visors over their eyes, and their thick fur was styled with pomade. The shimmering circles of sisters slowed their wings and turned their faces towards the intruders. No one noticed Flora.
‘Sir Poplar, Sir Rowan, Sir Linden, all noble sirs,’ cried another sister running after them, ‘let us send to Patisserie or—’
‘We said we want honey!’ shouted another drone.
‘A proper deep suck of it,’ called one more, ‘none of your dainty little sips.’
They began stamping their great armoured feet on the comb, chanting for honey and nectar. The mist from the chalices evaporated, revealing the sisters’ distressed faces.
‘Keep fanning, pretty sisters,’ called one of the drones. ‘We do not linger, we are on a mission of Love! And you, old girl by the door with the long face – good cheer from you too, for we fly for the honour of our hive!’
‘Worship to Your Malenesses.’ A senior Sister Prunus dropped him a deep curtsy. Flora joined in as all around the other sisters copied the obeisance. As she went low she stared at the drones’ armoured feet, their powerful tendons and thighs, and the underside of their huge thoraxes. Their smell was high but not unpleasant, and her breathing spiracles dilated to inhale more deeply.
‘Might we most respectfully suggest, Your Malenesses’ – and Sister Prunus rose to her feet – ‘that because of the constant rains, and this time of austerity, you might confine yourselves to our recently gathered nectars? For instance—’
‘Honey is our want, so honey we must have.’ The drone threw a big muscular arm around Sister Prunus and his scent drifted across her face. ‘Think now of those foreign princesses, waiting for us. How fatigued, how impatient for love must they be? Would you bind them in chastity a single moment longer? Or shall we fill our bellies with the strength of this hive, then free them with our swords?’
Sister Prunus gasped at his lewd gesture, her antennae waving wildly. The big drone laughed and released her, and all the sisters laughed too, avid for more of his scent. Sister Prunus quickly groomed herself to hide her shining face. Then she stepped forward and clapped all her hands.
‘Their Malenesses will take their Right of Access.’
* * *
Trapped between the disapproving sisters at the doors and the gluttonous drones, Flora remained where she was. The drones made very free in the Fanning Hall and, like every other sister, Flora watched in astonishment as they tasted different honeys, slurped from effervescing pails of raw nectar and whirled fanning sisters out from their sacred circles to dance with them. The one who pawed Sister Prunus was boldest, and his kin was Quercus.
‘Linden!’ His shout echoed around the holy chamber. ‘Come here, you fine little runt, and taste your namesake – lime-blossom is good eating!’
‘Only the best for me.’ A small drone straightened his neck-ruff and crossed to where Sir Quercus stood gorging. When he bent to taste it, the other pushed his face in it, then grabbed him by the fur and pulled him out, laughing at his jest.
‘A king’s share, to console you for your certain failure.’
Sir Linden wiped his face of honey and forced a grim smile.
‘You are too sure, my brother. For I hear of queens who will favour wit over strength.’ He pulled his ruff straight. ‘Such a one will be mine.’
‘Ha!’ Sir Quercus patted him so hard he staggered. ‘My wit is all pent in my prick, so I shall triumph with her as well.’
‘Unless a crow choose you first and snap you in its great blue beak!’
The sisters gasped at the mention of the bird.
‘More likely take you,’ said Sir Quercus, ‘who can barely keep up with a butterfly. Though you’d not make much of a feast.’
Sir Linden continuing his grooming. ‘Unlike you, so large and magnificent.’
‘You speak truly.’ Sir Quercus turned to the sisters. ‘Fortune favours me, does she not, ladies?’ And he swelled his sturdy thorax, raised his fur in three tall crests on his head, and pumped his male aroma so it rose up around him in a cloud. Some sisters swooned, and some, like Sister Prunus, spontaneously applauded.
‘Who will groom me?’
Several sisters rushed forward and other drones unlatched their wings in invitation and they too were attended. Flora began edging to the doors.
‘You there – wait!’ Sister Prunus came towards her. ‘We have not called for Sanitation – what in the air is a dirty flora doing here? Did housekeeping leave the scent-gate down again?’
Flora was about to answer, then held her tongue. She nodded and grunted.
‘Oh, these shortages are becoming abominable. The wrong kin everywhere – and yours so stupid and slow you cannot follow the simplest track.’ Sister Prunus looked at Flora suspiciously. ‘Unless you were stealing!’
Flora urgently shook her head and put her antennae low. Her kin behaved cravenly, she had seen and hated it so many times – but now she did the same, backing away as if in terror. She bumped into someone behind her, and Sister Prunus smacked her on the head between the antennae.
‘Your Maleness, allow me to apologise.’ Sister Prunus smiled sweetly. ‘Please forgive the soiling contact. I will call a higher kin to groom you clean.’
‘From Sanitation, is she?’ It was Sir Linden, the only drone unattended. ‘Are they all so hairy? Do not trouble yourself, Sister Primrose, today I have a mind for something different. This one may groom me.’
‘Your Maleness – a flora?’
‘Do not question His Maleness’s particular preference.’ He looked at Flora, and she saw how honey was still caught in his fur. ‘Bring me some spurge nectar.’
‘Spurge? Your Maleness jests!’ Sister Prunus laughed hysterically. ‘He knows that we would never serve it, corrupt as it is from the Myriad’s feet.’ She folded her hands. ‘You will not find it in this hive.’
‘Oh. A pity, for I heard it was good, with a cricket’s kick.’
‘Your Maleness, nobody here would say that, for no forager—’
‘It was no forager, Sister Plantain—’
‘Prunus, Your Maleness.’
‘As you wish, madam. But it was a fine dark fellow at Congregation who stank of it, and he said it made his dronewood hard as the twig we stood on.’
‘Stop, please! Your Maleness speaks too boldly—’
‘At least, I think that’s what he said, in his thick and foreign tongue.’
‘Foreign?’ Sister Prunus recovered herself. ‘From what direction? I only ask because the Sage like to be informed of all immigrants in our neighbourhood.’ She lowered her voice. ‘In case of disease, you see. Also, they take our nectar.’
‘Calm yourself, Sister, this Congregation was further than you could fly.’
‘Oh, I am just a house-bee, I did not presume! But – Your Maleness is not thinking of inviting any guests? Our pantries are emptier than we would like—’
‘Do you not think I have enough competition as it is?’ Sir Linden looked gloomily at the other drones being groomed. ‘In any case, the dark fellow was last seen leading the field in pursuit of a very fine princess, and is probably now king in some sumptuous palace. Run and tell your dreary priestesses that.’
‘Fresh news, I shall!’ Sister Prunus bobbed a curtsy, rejuvenated with excitement. ‘News is always of value to Sister Sage – thank you, Your most generous Maleness.’ She ran off.
Flora started after her, anxious to be gone.
‘You’re not going anywhere.’ Sir Linden pointed to his crotch. ‘You have to groom me. I can’t be the only one without someone.’
At his strong smell, another pheromone lock burst open inside Flora’s antennae. Her mind flooded with disordered images—
—larva babies in their cradles – a shrivelled wing pulled taut—
She felt him trying to push her down.
‘Are you deaf? Groom me when I tell you – it’s the Law.’
A baby on a hook—
Flora shoved him away and ran out into the prayer-filled corridor. He followed.
‘I am a Prince of the realm! You will obey me!’
Trapped between the drone and a phalanx of identical Sage priestesses marching towards the Fanning Hall in a cloud of incense, Flora hunched herself down like the lowliest sanitation worker.
‘How dare you—’ Sir Linden lunged for her and slipped in the path of the Sage priestesses. Unable to pass a male without obeisances, they were forced to stop while he got to his feet, cursing wildly.
Flora did not look back but ran as fast as she could. She almost missed the small dark doorway, but as she dashed in to hide, the ground fell away under her feet and she tumbled, for it was not a room, but a staircase.
The steps were deep and steep and she kept her wings tight against her body as she struggled to right herself. Falling against an old wax wall, she clung and listened for pursuit from above.
There was neither scent nor sound, only the pumping of her own blood and the thirsty pull of air into her breathing spiracles. Flora forced her panic down. Her newly functioning antennae told her she was on the lowest level of the hive, and the final flight of steps levelled out into a narrow corridor that led to a door. She crept forward to scan what was beyond.
Through the old wax she first detected the distinctive odour of her own kin, and then the long inert forms of bees. It was a worker dormitory, and a cleaning detail. Deeply relieved, Flora opened the door – and stepped into the morgue.
Several of her kin-sisters stared back in equal surprise, then emitted a strange sound, that might have been laughter. One signalled her to close the door, then they continued taking bodies down from the racks. For the first time, Flora became conscious of a definite intelligence behind their strange faces. With a start of excitement, she understood that these floras were from the top echelon of Sanitation, taking the cadavers to the landing board, to fly them out of the hive.
Flora bit hold of the biggest, heaviest corpse she could see, a bald old sister from Patisserie with hidden pollen in her pockets. Then she followed her kin-sisters out of the morgue towards the sun-warmed wood of the landing board, and the vault of sky beyond.
Eight (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
A great crowd blocked the lobby to the landing board and the sanitation corpse-bearers were forced to wait. Eddies of warm dry wind swirled towards them, then came cheers and applause as bees pressed back to make a corridor of space, and the foragers came rushing through. Awestruck, Flora stared at the dishevelled sisters with their blazing faces and radiant ragged wings, who smelled of no kin but the wild high air. They ran into an imposing atrium that opened off the lobby, from where there was more stamping and cheering, and the crowd poured in behind them.
The sanitation workers moved on towards the landing board, into a cordoned-off area, to prevent contamination of higher kin passing to and fro on hive business. The sun’s warmth created a festive atmosphere, and Flora thrilled at the sound of her sisters’ flight engines humming through their registers. She watched water-gatherers returning with bulging throats, their faces sculpted sleek from their work, then chains of receivers passed in exotic loads of raw pollen, never dropping a single grain. More wind-blown foragers came and went and Flora admired them with all her heart.
‘Corpse-bearers next!’ It was the stentorian voice of a Thistle, traditional guards of the landing board.
Flora walked out of the dark, closed hive into a dazzling world of light and space, and a floor made of wood. It was completely blank of any codes except the bright scent beacons laid along the edge to guide the foragers home, and the only other marker was the sun.
‘It’s busy, so stay low and be quick.’ The Thistle guard spoke loud and slow. ‘You know where to go – don’t linger, and return on the left.’
Flora shook her head.
‘Your cleansing flight – even your kin can remember that one place.’ The Thistle called to the bees jostling behind Flora. ‘Patience, sisters!’
Flora raised her antennae, searching for information. It made her head hurt and she looked down. Below the landing board in the tangle of grass and nettle and dock and trefoil that locked to the dense wet earth, disturbing scents wove strong and strange, telling of other creatures that lived there. The green began to seethe.
‘Stop that – no one looks down.’ The Thistle pulled Flora away. Both of them turned at the huge rumble of thoracic engines. The pungent smell of drones billowed out onto the landing board and led by Sir Quercus the drones marched out. Plumes high, visors down and their massive chests expanded, they turned to the Thistle sentries and showed their best aspects. The Thistle guards dropped nominal curtsies.
‘Worship to Your Malenesses.’ Their tone was respectful, if not fervent.
‘And honour to our hive!’ roared Sir Quercus, and all his brothers cheered as they crowded out onto the landing board. The smell of honey percolated through their thick aroma. As one, the sisters looked down. Their precious golden wealth clogged the drones’ feet, was trodden across the landing board and trailed back into the hive. Shocked faces of other sisters crowded in the doorway behind them and the Thistle guards’ antennae flickered rapidly at each other. No one said a word.
With a mighty bang the drones unlatched their wings, fired their engines for flight and tuned their roars to a rousing thunder. Flora saw Sir Linden at the rear, his fur still sticky as he struggled to stabilise his own slightly higher pitch. Too late she shrank behind a Thistle guard.
‘You there!’ he shouted into the noise. ‘How dare you disobey me? Come and lick my feet clean—’
He jumped back as a forager landed on the board in front of him.
‘Make way, Your Maleness.’ She pushed past to where Flora stood with Sister Thistle. ‘Lily 500 returning.’ Her nectar-scented voice was hoarse, her bright ragged wings told her age, but she radiated energy like a tiny sun.
‘Madam Forager, we know you well.’ Sister Thistle bowed deeply to her.
Lily 500 was about to go into the hive, then turned to the drones.
‘No sister shall lick our sacred honey from your feet. Would you draw the Myriad to watch and mock us?’
‘What Myriad, noble crone?’ Sir Quercus barged forward. ‘There are none today, so wish us Queenspeed and be out of our way!’
The old forager glanced at Flora, but spoke only to the Thistle.
‘You are charged to keep the board clear, yet a corpse-bearer lingers.’
‘Forgive us, Madam Forager, you are right, but they have sent out an ignorant one! What am I supposed to do? I cannot send a corpse back in, and she certainly cannot drop it from the board—’
‘As if I would suggest that. Shortages and incompetence—’ Lily 500 pulled out one of Flora’s wings. ‘Nothing the matter with them!’ She scanned Flora’s antennae with her own. Flora winced, and the forager looked to the guard. ‘They have wrecked her brain so badly it is a wonder she can see or hear.’
‘Good madams!’ interrupted Sir Quercus. ‘Gossip elsewhere: you delay our squadron. We like to leave with a good show, not all raggle-taggle like you ancient independents. So now if you would kindly move.’
Lily 500 held her ground. She flicked an antenna and a young Clover receiver ran out from the hive, knelt before her and opened her mouth. Lily 500 arched her body, triggering a stream of golden nectar from her own crop into the Clover’s mouth. When there was no more, the Clover bobbed a curtsy and ran back inside.
‘Crone vomit?’ Sir Quercus was appalled. ‘Is that what we’re drinking?’
‘Nectar, Sir. How did you think we carried it?’ Lily 500 turned to Flora. ‘Hold your burden tight, and follow.’
She pushed her off the board.
Blades of grass slashed towards Flora’s face, the rough wooden slats of the hive grazed past her antennae and the sun spun as she tumbled through the air. She flailed for balance and then, with a thunderous vibration, her flight engine fired her up in a great jet of speed and she was aloft, mounting the air behind the silver trace of Lily 500’s wings. Behind her came the massive blast of the drone squadron lifting off, and faint cheering from the hive far below, but she did not look down.
They rose up over the orchard, cool wind streaming down Flora’s sides and fluttering the dried edges of the dead sister’s wings, still held tight in her mouth. The sun warmed her wings and a thrilling power surge took her higher so that the world spread wide in all directions, the grid of green and brown below, the dark rise of the hills, the rough odour of the sprawling town—
It seemed to Flora that she heard the Holy Chord, though that was impossible for they were far beyond the hive. Its source was Lily 500, her wings two humming arcs of light around her. Flora sped forward to her side. The old forager veered away and Flora followed through trails and tunnels of scent, sweet and bitter threads of odour, focusing into the strong clear scent of resin and propolis as the conifers came into range. Lily 500 made a tight agile loop around Flora, forcing her down so she saw where to make her drop.
With the release of the burden Flora shot up into the sunshine and flew loops of pure joy and relief. Her vision sharpened so that far below she could see two raucous bluebottles chase each other, and below them, male mosquitoes whined their song over a pond, their blue streamers fluttering from their antennae. Even lower the dark blood-filled females cruised at the water’s edge and Flora stored every minute detail before she surged higher. For the first time in her life she was utterly free, with no walls or rules to curb her, and she dived and soared for joy. The more the sun warmed her, the greater grew her strength and skill and she looked for Lily 500 to thank her – but the old forager was already a speck in the distance.
She was alone in the bright vastness. In an instant, a ravenous hunger seized Flora’s body and homesickness hit her soul so hard that she cried out in surprise. She could not smell the Queen, nor any sisters, nor the hive, the orchard, nor one familiar thing.
The more she searched, the more the void of sky pressed her body to a speck, until she felt so small and alone that without a sister to cling to she thought she was dying. When her body lifted on a wave of acrid air, Flora soared crazily and saw that it came from a great black bird high above her – a crow! Her alarm glands fired and she sped away from it in blind panic.
Devotion Devotion Devotion – Flora searched the air for any scent trace of Holy Mother and scanned the foreign shapes and colours below her in an effort to reorient herself. Massive green and beige fields dulled the air with their monotonous scent and she veered away to glean any clue for home. With a surge of relief she picked up the scent of the orchard and then of her sisters – never more beautiful. Their mingled scent grew stronger as Flora entered the air corridor back to the hive, and her joy in flight was nothing compared to her gratitude in homecoming. The little green ruffle of the orchard came into view, and then the tiny grey square of the beehive. Not until this moment had Flora known how much she loved it and all who lived there. She could not wait to fold her wings and run into its warm depths, and press wing to wing with her sisters in the sacrament of Devotion.
At the thought of the Queen, Flora scented the precious molecules of her divine fragrance, poised and spinning like jewels where the air currents converged. Her heart filled with passion and confidence, but as the hive came nearer and the earth and trees raced past below, she saw foragers streaming back through the orchard, racing for the landing board. A new scent mixed with the homecoming scent, and as Flora began her descent her venom sac swelled hard in her belly and her dagger unsheathed.
The code was alarm: the hive was under attack.
Nine (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
Laid at close intervals along the length of the landing board, the alarm pheromone flashed its message across the orchard air. The last foragers rushed to get in as a foul alien scent mingled with it, sweet and corrupt like rotting fruit. It came from the lurid straggle of wasps hovering near the hive, drunk and jeering. Flora could hear her sisters yelling at her to hurry, but as she descended through the smeary marker trails the wasps littered in their wake, they turned their black gazes on her and sizzled their stings in welcome.
Flora curved up again on a blade of air and the wasps shrieked with laughter at her cowardice – before she hurtled at one of them and knocked the vile creature out of the air into the apple leaves. The touch of the wasp’s body against hers enraged her and she drove herself up higher, looking for another. But the wasps were already above her, buzzing high and furious as they swayed on their points of air, not to be taken like that again.
‘Dirty fiends!’ shouted one of the Thistle guards to the wasps. ‘Infidel!’ But her trembling antennae gave lie to her brave words.
Flora dropped down onto the landing board between the sentries. She smelled their flaring war-glands and knew her own streamed as strong, but a wave of fear came from within the hive.
‘What did we expect,’ muttered another guard in a low voice, ‘leaving honey on the board? Advertising our wealth to the Myriad, no one to clean it, everyone rushing out crazed as soon as the sun shines—’
She sprayed a great jet of her war scent into the air and the wasps laughed shrilly. They flung back the challenge with a hard gust of their own harsh smell and its oily particles settled on the landing board.
‘Closer!’ yelled the first Thistle who had spoken, her antennae rigid with rage. ‘I cannot smell you until I stick my dagger between your filthy plates.’ She too buzzed a blast of her war-gland at them.
‘Oh, you fat and useless creature,’ called back one of the wasps, pirouetting to show her tiny waist. ‘What pale squirt was that? I doubt you can even fly.’ Her friends reeled in the air, hissing with laughter.
‘Stay!’ A new Thistle held back her colleague. ‘They try to draw us.’ She motioned to Flora. ‘You’re big and brave – get inside and hold the line.’
* * *
Sisters stood densely packed and silent, their battle glands flaring and weapons at the ready. The smell of fear trickled up here and there, but every sister pointed her antennae forward and none gave way to it. Flora waited in the vanguard as the Thistle pumped out wave after wave of war scent, but the orchard was silent.
The bees waited. Murmurs began. Perhaps the wasps had gone. Wings crushed, the heat was rising, and a tide of irritation seeped through the crowd. And then – a wave of acid air rushed in and every sister’s feet felt the heavy alien vibration as a great wasp settled on the landing board. There was the sound of a hard scuffle and then a cracking sound. A Thistle guard screamed, then another. Standing right at the front, Flora saw it all.
The wasp was a huge female with bands of acid yellow and glossy black. Her head was as large as three sisters’ and she used her slashing claws to catch the guards one by one, killing each one with a snap of her heavy jaws. Then she flattened her long antennae, crouched down and peered inside the hive.
Spasms of fear shot through all the bees at the sight of her glittering malevolent eyes, but not one of them moved. Flora stared back at the wasp and felt her dagger slide out. The wasp smiled at her.
‘Pretty pretty …’ She drove a whip of her acid scent down the passageway, wrapping round the antennae of dozens of bees so that they yelped in anger and disgust. She pushed her huge face closer, blocking the light.
‘Greetings,’ she hissed softly, ‘my sweet, juicy cousins.’ Her claw flashed into the hive, close enough for Flora to see the entrails on its tip and smell the Thistle’s blood. To stop herself running, she dug her claws harder into the comb. Deep within the hive, a faint vibration pulsed towards her. It spoke in her mind.
Keep still. Hold firm and wait.
Flora gripped harder into the wax and held the wasp’s stare. The wasp gazed softly into her eyes, willing her closer. The scent of its malice rose stronger.
Draw her in, spoke the thought in Flora’s mind. Lure her, lure her …
Flora stepped backwards and all her sisters moved with her. The vibration in the comb came stronger and they felt it too. She kept her gaze locked with the wasp’s.
Lure her. Draw her.
Flora let her antennae tremble and the wasp pushed in closer.
‘Are you the one, shall it be you?’ Her voice had a soft sing-song cadence, but her gaze was hard and calculating. ‘What a fat feast you will make, little cousin …’ The wasp eased herself deeper into the hive entrance, and Flora could not hold in her fear, for with her sisters so dense behind her there was no retreat from mortal combat.
The wasp’s body rasped on the hive floor. Four of her six elbows were in, the only light the yellow striping of her face. Flora dug down into the wax again, but the voice in her mind had stopped. She would be the first to die, but she would fight for her sisters’ lives, for Holy Mother’s life.
She unlatched her wings and heard the sound of every sister doing the same.
‘No,’ the wasp crooned, pulling her last pair of legs into the hive. ‘We should not fight: all I want is to take you to meet the chil … dren, all the hungry … little … children—’ A claw slashed out and she laughed. ‘Forgive me, you’re too delicious.’
DRAW HER …
The voice was clear and strong in Flora’s mind. She whimpered and backed away and the wasp crawled in after her. The smell was suffocating and her soft hissing struck terror into Flora’s body. She felt that all her sisters had crept around the edges and their numbers had filled from the back. There was no more room to move. The monster gathered herself to spring.
NOW!
Flora roared it as the wasp lunged – and sprang upon the monster’s back, her claws scrabbling for purchase on the slippery armour.
The wasp hissed and writhed in a frenzy of rage, one sister after another shrieking as she snapped their heads in her jaws and ripped their bellies with her claws. Flora fought her way up to the wasp’s head and the lashing black whips of the creature’s antennae. She caught one in her mouth and bit down.
The wasp cried out and hurled herself against the walls, trying to crush her attacker against them. Flora clung on and spat the foul blood as below her sisters threw themselves at the thrashing foe. Then Flora lunged for the other antenna, cracking it off the wasp’s head so that the hole jetted pulses of green blood. Screaming in agony and rage, the blinded wasp killed sister after sister, but she was one against many and the tide of bees kept coming until the stinging biting weight of their bodies covered her and held her down unable to move.
Then they beat their wings, fast and tight with fury so that the air heated until they themselves could barely breathe. The wasp was strong and kept struggling, but she grew weaker, and then she stopped. Only when her smell changed and the bees heard the dull cracking of her shell from the heat did they cease their fanning.
The great wasp lay dead, and so did hundreds of brave sisters closest to her, killed by the colossal heat. Many others were maimed in the fight, and outside on the landing board, fallen Thistle sisters lay dead or mutilated in the sun. The air was thick with the foul scent of the wasps and the blood of bees, but the hive was saved.
* * *
The dead wasp was a horrific sight. The huge glittering black eyes were cooked white, and two green blebs of blood marked the roots of her antennae. Herself unhurt, Flora began to help her wounded sisters. More bees came running from all areas of the hive with vials of holy propolis to bind up the broken shells of any who might live, but the casualties were countless.
Flora carried fallen sisters out to the sunny landing board and laid them down gently, knowing they would not return. Many lay in agony with their limbs crushed. Flora stopped to comfort one, a sturdy little Plantain whose face was half gone. Sage priestesses moved among the dying to bless them with the Queen’s Love and ease their passing. One in particular caught Flora’s attention, the sun bright in her pale fur. The priestess turned to look, and by the power of her gaze, Flora knew they had met before. Quickly she walked back into the hive, to the group of sanitation workers gathered at the wasp’s body.
They were wild-eyed and terrified of the huge carcass, until Flora spat out a mouthful of its blood and grabbed one of its legs. It broke away from the body as she pulled it, and the sanitation workers roared in approval. No longer afraid, they fell upon the wasp, tearing what was left of her to pieces, and carrying them out. Then, because the scent of the battle was broadcast on the air far and wide, the remaining Thistle guards let them hurl the pieces over the edge of the board.
Bees of all kin scrubbed away at the landing board to rid it of the wasp’s foul smell, and as each section was cleared the priestesses passed along the edge and laid new markers to cleanse and re-consecrate the hive. Sisters looked for dead of their own kin, then the priestesses stood wing to wing and sang the Holy Chord as even the timid house-bees came forward to fly the dead to the burial area. Flora searched too, but no sanitation worker had fallen.
‘Your kin does not fight.’ It was Sister Sage, the pale priestess who had taken Flora first to the Nursery, and then the detention cell. ‘Though you did, and bravely. Why did you not run back inside?’
‘The voice in my head.’ Flora felt no fear. ‘It told me what to do.’
Sister Sage looked at her for a long time.
‘That was the Hive Mind. It has also restored your tongue.’ The priestess touched her antennae to Flora’s, and once again the divine fragrance of the Queen’s Love filled her soul. ‘You are indeed unusual.’
‘Is my Holy Mother safe?’
‘More questions … Yes, she is. And it is our ancient law that no matter what her kin, any sister who channels the Hive Mind in times of crisis may be taken to meet Her. If, of course, she survives. It appears you have.’ She clapped her hands together, and six beautiful young bees arrived at her side. All wore fresh veils of the Queen’s Love, which made their faces iridescent.
‘Behold the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. Go with them, attend them well.’
Ten (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
The ladies spoke very prettily to Flora as they led her through the hive, in accents so refined it was hard to understand them. Outside the silent Dance Hall the lobby was busy with sisters rushing to help the wounded. From there the ladies escorted Flora up an unfamiliar staircase whose steps chimed softly in welcome. They emerged in a small hall in the mid-level of the hive, near to the hallowed Chapel of Wax.
The soothing warm smell of the Nursery drifted in the corridor and Flora hoped they should pass through it so that she might see the babies again – and so that Sister Teasel and the other nurses might see how she was honoured for her service to the hive. But the ladies took another route, down the long passageway between the worker dormitories and the Arrivals Hall, and beyond Flora’s knowledge of the hive. They stopped at elegant doors made of many different shades of gold, cream and white wax and exquisitely carved with flowers. Lady Burnet held them open.
* * *
They entered a small vaulted chamber made of immaculately plain cream wax. Three silver and three green pitchers stood on an old hexagonal table, but otherwise the room was empty. The air was so full of the Queen’s Love that it sparkled, and Flora laughed in joy as she breathed it.
‘Holy Mother is near! Am I really to meet Her?’
Lady Burnet smiled and took up one of the pitchers from the table.
‘Yes, my dear, but you are unclean, and first must be prepared.’
Then each of the ladies took a pitcher and stood around Flora, pouring ceremonially in turns, pure water then healing infusions in case of injury or disease. Flora shivered as the wasp’s blood mingled with that of her fallen sisters and ran down her legs and drained into a channel in the ground. Then the ladies encircled her and fanned her as if she were a chalice of nectar. Only when Flora’s thick russet fur stood high and dry were they satisfied she was clean. While Lady Primrose and Lady Violet each used a lump of golden propolis to fill in the many scratches on Flora’s legs, they all sang softly in another language, lilting and beautiful.
‘What does that mean?’ Flora felt ashamed at the care they lavished on her.
‘It tells of Her Majesty’s marriage flights.’ Lady Primrose giggled.
‘Shh! Not for her ears!’ Lady Violet smiled at Flora. ‘Though you shine so clean you’re barely a flora at all now.’
‘Thank you.’ Flora tried to curtsy. At this all the ladies came forward to demonstrate the correct way, guiding her limbs with delicate hands.
‘It is not your fault.’ Lady Burnet was so kind. ‘You cannot help your kin.’
‘Yet she was so brave’ – Lady Meadowsweet also smiled at Flora – ‘and seems so willing and humble – could we not do a little more with her?’
‘We could!’ Lady Primrose took hold of Flora’s fur. ‘Make it softer.’
‘Shine her whole cuticle, not just the legs – make her colour seem lighter.’
‘Do something about her breath—’
Flora swallowed hard. ‘I am very sorry, my ladies. It is the wasp’s blood.’
‘So shocking.’ Lady Burnet offered her water to drink. ‘But how wonderfully you speak; I can understand nearly every word. Not like a flora at all. Now if only you did not look it! Ladies, it would be a fitting tribute, would it not, for her bravery? Would you like that, my dear?’
‘To change my kin?’
‘And lose your wonderful heritage of service?’ Lady Burnet laughed. ‘Goodness me, no! But we might disguise it, a little.’
When they had exhausted their skills with grooming, pomade and propolis, the ladies trained Flora how to sit and rise, but were forced to let her splaying curtsy go uncorrected, for there was nothing to be done with that. When the comb trembled through the hive the ladies did not move to attend the service of Devotion, for here the Queen’s Love filled the chamber so strongly that anyone who entered became euphoric as they breathed.
Flora’s joy increased when she saw the food. Patisserie and nectar finer and more fragrant than she could ever have imagined were served to them by pretty sisters from Rosa and Bryony, but on observing Flora’s manners, the ladies all agreed she was still too uncouth to meet Her Majesty. They made her demonstrate the correct way to eat and drink so often that for the first time in her life, Flora’s hunger was satisfied and she could leave food uneaten. Then they bid her keep her hands still to let set the fashionable shapes they had twisted into her fur, so she rested in great contentment, listening to their bright bubbling conversation – and, despite the vanity, surreptitiously admired the sheen of her newly polished legs.
* * *
After supper they took Flora with them to fulfil the daily duty of visiting the Queen’s Library. When they closed all the doors of the hexagonal chamber, one continuous mosaic of coded scent tiles ran round the walls, and featured on each was one small central panel. Flora sniffed in fascination, detecting the bouquet of home amidst the many unfamiliar smells.
‘Instead of Devotion,’ whispered Lady Primrose, ‘we maintain the Stories of Scent. Not nearly as pleasant, but just follow along and we shall soon be out. We’ll only do the first three, so don’t worry.’
The ladies formed a line and put Flora at the end. They walked in a circle around the chamber repeating the Our Mother, and then Lady Burnet stopped in front of a panel.
‘The first story is called The Honeyflow.’ She smiled at Flora. ‘The lightest touch, then move back.’ She dipped her antennae and touched the panel to demonstrate. Immediately the scent of flowers rose up from it, developing and blending as each of the ladies took their turn. Flora marvelled to recognise the ancient kin-scents: the Sage and the Teasel, the Rosebay Willowherb, the Clover, Violet, Celandine, Burnet, Thistle, Malus, Bindweed and all of them. Of the floras, there was no reference.
‘Quickly, my dear.’ Lady Burnet’s voice had the slightest tremor. ‘We must move along.’
As Flora touched her antennae to the first panel, all the blossom of spring burst into life and the air was filled with orchard sweetness and the scent of lush grass. But before she could fully enjoy it, a pressure wave went through the air in the chamber. She heard the harsh caw of birds and smelled the sharp tang of a wasp.
As she leapt back in shock, all the ladies laughed nervously.
‘A common reaction,’ said Lady Burnet, ‘but it is only a story; it cannot hurt you. Fresh as dew, yet made in the Time before Time. Is it not a marvel? And better that we learn of the Myriad – though you of course have met one already.’
The ladies clapped politely. Flora felt embarrassed.
‘There are others – of the Myriad? Not just wasps?’
‘Oh, they are legion. It means all those who would hurt us, or steal from us, or who pollute and destroy our rightful food. Like flies, for instance.’ Lady Burnet put a hand to her head. ‘Take great care in here, lest all the stories stir at once – our antennae would split with shock.’ She turned to her ladies. ‘I think we may conclude for this evening.’
‘But there are five more.’ Flora gazed at the other walls, from which intricate and unknown scents coiled then curled back in, without diffusing into the air. She looked to the ladies for explanation and saw all of their antennae quivering with stress, and that Lady Primrose was on the edge of panic. Lady Burnet forced a smile.
‘To tend these panels is to strengthen the Hive Mind with the ancient scent-stories of our faith. The priestesses do not expect us to read each one.’ She looked down. ‘The first and second panels are enough. The rest … hold terrors.’
‘I am not afraid,’ said Flora. ‘I long to serve my hive.’
‘My dear – please recall your kin. Do not presume—’
Lady Meadowsweet coughed and looked at Lady Burnet, a world of meaning in her gaze. ‘Does it matter who reads them, if the duty is done?’
‘Yes,’ added Lady Violet, ‘I have heard her kin have less nerves.’
‘And would be less affected,’ agreed pretty Lady Primrose.
Flora stepped forward.
‘Please, my ladies, if I may do any duty, to the hive or the Queen – I am strong and willing’ – pressing her knees tight, she knelt before them – ‘and I long to serve!’
The ladies clapped again. Lady Burnet raised her up.
‘Very well. The second story is called The Kindness.’
Flora saw how the ladies flinched at the name. She stood up stronger.
‘I have heard that word before. I will do it.’
She walked to the next panel. As she touched her antennae to it, the voices and hubbub of the hive rose up all around them, and the wonderful comforting smell of sisters rustling their wings for sleep. She was overwhelmed by love for all her sisters, and the beauty of the hive. Then her feet tingled as if walking on coded tiles, and in her mind she saw herself walking down a long corridor, with a Thistle guard. She saw herself kneel, her knees still splayed, then bend her head low to the wax as the guard braced her feet and raised a great sharp claw above her.
Forgive me, sister—
Pain streaked through the join of Flora’s head and thorax. She cried out and staggered back from the panel.
She was in the Queen’s Library, and the ladies stood watching. She felt her body – unharmed – but the shock of the blow reverberated.
‘I – I don’t understand.’
Lady Primrose giggled nervously.
‘Every sister sees her own end. Though we never go as far as you just did – it is enough to walk the corridor and know what is coming!’
‘The Kindness means death?’
‘Amen,’ chorused the ladies. ‘No use to the hive, no use for life!’
At their hysterical laughter Flora laughed too, excited by the terrible vision.
‘Let me do another! Now I understand—’
‘You understand nothing – you are merely brave.’ Lady Burnet leavened her words with a smile. ‘But if you would take one more, then half are done, and our duty is amply fulfilled.’ She followed Flora’s eyes around the last three. ‘No. Those are too strong, only the priestesses tend those stories.’
‘Then one more.’ Flora drew herself up, proud of her courage and the awe in the eyes of these fine ladies. ‘And with all my heart.’
The other bees stood near the door as Lady Burnet positioned Flora at the third panel.
‘Keep your wings latched,’ she told her, ‘and stop at any time.’
Flora stepped forward and touched her antennae to the wax mosaic. It was plainer than the second, its scent held close to the wax as if to shield its secret, but as she focused, its peculiar fragrance structure began to part.
First came the intense bouquet of the hive, strong and welcoming and laced with the wealth of a million different flowers’ nectar. It smelled of sunshine and sisters, and Flora drew it in more deeply, searching for the strange accent note she had first registered. It darted at the edge of her consciousness, just out of reach.
‘Good, that is enough,’ murmured Lady Burnet from the door. ‘Let us go.’
But the olfactory loop held Flora’s attention: the hive, the sun, the honey – then without warning came a blast of wild cold air and choking smoke. Flora staggered. Her body was in the room but her senses flooded with the panic of ten thousand sisters roaring their engines, the dazing sun and the overpowering smell of honey.
‘That story is called The Visitation.’
The voice was sweet and thrilling, and the hand that touched Flora took away her fear.
‘It tells of robbery and terror, and the survival of our people.’ The scent mirage was gone, and in its place an intense pure wave of Devotion filled the chamber. Flora dropped to her six knees, at last in the presence of the Queen. She laid her antennae along the ground in reverence.
‘Brave daughter.’
Flora looked up. At first all she could see was the golden aura, but then Her Majesty’s beautiful eyes shone through, lit with kindness and love. She was magnificently large, with long shapely legs and a graceful tapering abdomen, full and buoyant under the golden tracery of her folded wings.
‘Mother,’ Flora whispered.
‘Child,’ said the Queen. ‘Do not be ashamed.’ She raised Flora to her feet and smiled at all her ladies. ‘Come, my daughters, let us be more comfortable in my chamber, that I may hear about my ancient cousin Vespa’s wicked venture.’
Eleven (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
Flora 717, low of kin and sweeper of filth, now sat with the Queen and her ladies in Her Majesty’s own private sitting room, eating jewelled lily-cakes and drinking fresh nectar, while she told her story of the wasp and the heat ball. Without warning the Queen scanned her, then to Flora’s shame the smell of the wasp rose from her body again. The ladies started in fright and protested they had washed her.
‘Hush, daughters.’ The Queen smiled. ‘I only wished to make sure that even in its last traces, the scent of the Vespa had not changed. Her ancient envy still beats strong; that is why they want to steal from us, as if our honey or our children will give them our power. In the Time before Time they chose blood above nectar, and we became foes.’
Lady Burnet clasped her hands. ‘Immortal Mother protects Her children.’
‘Hallowed be Thy Womb,’ all the ladies responded, Flora too, as the words rose unbidden from her tongue.
‘Leave me, daughters.’
Then the Queen lay down on her couch of petals, folded herself in a haze of scented sleep and vanished from their view.
* * *
The ladies showed Flora her bed, and it was soft and sweetly scented, almost as fragrant as the cribs in Category One.
‘Because the Nursery is just beyond that door,’ said Lady Violet from her neighbouring couch. ‘Perhaps you shall see it tomorrow when we attend Holy Mother at Her Laying Progress. With all the eggs and glowing cribs – it is a sacred marvel beyond words.’ She coughed. ‘Do not be offended if we cannot take you.’
‘I will not.’
‘Your humble attitude is honour to your kin.’ Then Lady Violet wrapped herself in a thin scented veil of sleep and spoke no more. Flora lay in the darkness, breathing in the divine nurturing perfume that held them like a tender embrace. She drew it deep into her body until she felt her abdomen soften and glow.
* * *
The next morning the sun bell rang and the Queen’s fragrance rose strong and sweet as the ladies opened the doors to the Nursery. They called Flora to come with them and they entered the great chamber of Category One behind a dense veil of seclusion. They were now in the most sacred area of the hive, the Laying Rooms, row upon row of immaculate cribs empty and waiting for the Queen.
The Queen’s scent rose high as she went into her birth trance. Her face shone brighter, her scent pulsed, then with a fast graceful rhythm she began swinging her magnificent long abdomen from side to side, each time sliding the tip deep within a crib. At the back of the Progress, carrying the water and cooling cloths, Flora saw the faint point of light remaining in the wax, where a tiny new egg adhered to the bottom. Each one glowed with soft gold light then faded down as the Queen moved on, her birth dance so hypnotically beautiful that Flora wanted to swing her own body in joy, but seeing that none of the other ladies danced but followed most demurely, she held her urge in check and did as they did.
Six times she returned to the Queen’s chambers for fresh water and pollen cakes before all the cribs were filled. The Laying Room was soft and bright with new life, the Queen stood proud and exhausted, and her ladies wept in delight.
Back in the Queen’s chambers, Lady Burnet directed Flora to clean and make ready the common parts while she and the other ladies took Her Majesty into her private sanctum to prepare her for rest. As Lady Violet closed the doors, Flora curtsied and gazed her last on Holy Mother, her heart filled with love and a tearing sadness that this day of beauty and wonder was over. With scrupulous attention she swept and cleaned, knowing that when the doors opened again, she must leave.
The ladies-in-waiting filed back out. Determined to show that a sanitation worker had manners, Flora pressed her knees straight and curtsied to Lady Burnet.
‘Thank you for all your—’
‘Oh, do not be so craven.’ Lady Burnet had a strange look on her face. ‘Holy Mother has requested you attend her again.’
‘Me?’ Flora looked around at the ladies. None smiled.
‘You.’ Lady Burnet spoke neutrally. ‘Do not linger, go at once.’
* * *
The Queen parted her golden aura when Flora entered and bade her sit beside her. Then she drew it close again, so that Flora was wrapped in it with her.
‘I have not left the hive since my marriage flight. Now I only taste the world through food and drink, and the stories of my Library.’ The Queen gazed through her golden veil, as if out upon the open sky. ‘Did they frighten you?’
‘Yes, Holy Mother, at first. Then I wanted to know more.’
‘They tell of our religion, and must be fed with attention. After my labours I have not strength to scent them myself, though my ladies do their best. The priestesses read them when they can, but in these strange times they are so busy with matters of governance that it is not their priority.’ The Queen smiled. ‘Tales of the world, my daughter, of beauty and terror.’
‘Holy Mother, I will read them gladly – after the wasp, I fear nothing.’
The Queen’s laugh sent ripples of delight through Flora’s body, though she did not know how she had so amused her.
‘Let us see,’ said the Queen. ‘The first three will be enough for you.’
* * *
And so Flora kept her position as attendant to the ladies-in-waiting for another day, fetching water and refreshments for them until the Queen had laid her thousand eggs and returned to her chamber – and then her second job began.
While the ladies groomed each other, ate their supper and the Queen rested, Flora went to the Library. Without the anxiety of the other ladies around her, she was calm and could focus, and the intense energy of the chamber no longer overwhelmed her. In the still air she detected wisps and trails of the story fragrances as their living energy drew her attention and sought release – but this time she was determined not to lose control.
Very carefully, Flora scented the first story panel. There it was, The Honeyflow in all its blossoming glory, the foragers calling to each other in the Old Tongue – and there were the terrors of the Myriad lurking in wait.
Beside that was The Kindness, where a sister saw her own death by the hand of another. Then came the third, that honey-scented door to chaos – The Visitation, from whence a filament of smoke curled out its invitation. Flora stepped back, and the smoke retreated. The Queen had said three panels were enough, but excitement coursed through her body. If the priestesses were too busy to read the last three panels, then surely it would be of benefit to the hive if she could perform that service.
She looked at the last three panels. No tremors went through her antennae, nor did her feet drag forward without intention. The lilting singing of the ladies in the rest area beyond came through the walls, sweetly reassuring. Flora stepped up to the fourth panel, and the singing grew louder. A beautiful choral sound filled the chamber, the sound of ten thousand sisters singing one word that ebbed and flowed around the Library, as if they moved just beyond its walls. Flora could not quite decipher it, and as she concentrated the Library filled with the bright busy smell of the Dance Hall – and a great pressure wave rolled through the chamber.
Expiation! The choral blast of the word made Flora stagger. It echoed and died away, and the scent of the Dance Hall faded down.
Flora shook herself, her blood racing. Though she did not understand the strange word or the scents, and the feeling in her body challenged her to flee, the Queen wanted her to know the stories, and she would not fail her.
Flora moved on to the fifth and penultimate panel. At first glance it was very simple – just one carved leaf. As she looked more closely, it took on a golden hue and its filigreed veins pulsed energy that grew into a stalk, then a stem which stretched down the length of the panel and into the floor, its golden roots spreading all through the chamber and back up the walls until they met overhead. The heavenly smell of Holy Mother rose up strongly, mingled with the rich aromatic scent of pollen. Flora looked up and saw the roots had joined into a knot at the centre point of the vaulted Library ceiling that swelled into a crown-shaped fruit. It grew larger and larger, then burst apart in a shower of golden dust.
The Library returned to normal – but a blow of sadness struck Flora in her heart as the name of the panel spoke in her mind. The Golden Leaf. Suddenly the beauty of the strange story was loathsome and Flora felt a terrible grief – but nothing had happened, nor was she hurt in any way. She stepped back from the fifth panel. It was deeply disturbing – and yet even as Flora recoiled from the dark and twisting feeling that had risen in her heart, a little part of her mind whispered praise for her own endurance – she had read five stories! How pleased the Queen would be with her, and how wonderful to be able to help the busy priestesses!
There was one last story. The sixth panel smelled inert, yet held a powerful stillness. Cautiously, Flora focused on it. Nothing happened; no scent, no image, no sound came forth, but the air in the Library grew warm and close. From the centre of the little panel blew a faint trace of fresh air. Feeling as if she was suffocating, Flora could not help drawing nearer.
The Library vanished and she smelled the Nursery. One crib pulled her closer, huge and dark. Deep within it a baby cried in pain, and a cold wind howled. As Flora ran towards it, the crib began to rattle and break apart. The baby cried louder and as she leaned over the crib to see it, a twisting black comet screamed out of its depths and into her brain.
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Laline Paull
Born into the lowest class of her society, Flora 717 is a sanitation bee, only fit to clean her orchard hive. Living to accept, obey and serve, she is prepared to sacrifice everything for her beloved holy mother, the Queen.But Flora is not like other bees. Despite her ugliness she has talents that are not typical of her kin. While mutant bees are usually instantly destroyed, Flora is removed from sanitation duty and is allowed to feed the newborns, before becoming a forager, collecting pollen on the wing. She also finds her way into the Queen’s inner sanctum, where she discovers secrets both sublime and ominous.But enemies are everywhere, from the fearsome fertility police to the high priestesses who jealously guard the Hive Mind. And when Flora breaks the most sacred law of all her instinct to serve is overshadowed by an even deeper desire, a fierce love that will lead to the unthinkable . . .Laline Paull’s chilling yet ultimately triumphant novel creates a luminous world both alien and uncannily familiar. Thrilling and imaginative, ‘The Bees’ is the story of a heroine who, in the face of an increasingly desperate struggle for survival, changes her destiny and her world.
(#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
Copyright (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
Fourth Estate
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Copyright © Laline Paull 2014
Laline Paull asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007557721
Ebook Edition © May 2014 ISBN: 9780007557738
Version: 2016-12-06
Dedication (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
For Adrian
Contents
Cover (#ud80f3c2f-bd9c-54e5-ac81-b05231af5d3f)
Copyright (#ulink_20c47891-e6dd-5ed4-b69d-ec2a0aa16f0c)
Title Page (#u1eeebd38-a450-5bb3-9814-6647534694e9)
Dedication (#ulink_613aa373-409a-5129-b7d0-846d537a0e06)
Prologue (#ulink_2514a7e1-ff1c-5ddc-a15f-2fb61458e418)
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Ten (#ulink_8f4d0d3e-d0e4-5c3a-be9c-aa8d87c7e585)
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Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Forty (#litres_trial_promo)
Forty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Forty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Forty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Laline Paull (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
The old orchard stood besieged. To one side spread a vast arable plain, a dullard’s patchwork of corn and soy reaching to the dark tree-line of the hills. To the other, a light-industrial estate stretched towards the town.
Between the dripping trees the remains of a path still showed. A man in early middle-age kicked at the tall nettles and docks to widen it. Neat in her navy business suit, a younger woman followed. She paused to take photographs with her phone.
‘I hope you don’t mind but we’ve put out some feelers, and we’re already beating them off with sticks. Prime brown-field location.’
The man stared through the trees, not listening.
‘There – thought for a moment it had vanished.’
An old wooden beehive stood camouflaged against the trees. The woman drew back.
‘I won’t come any closer,’ she said. ‘I’m a bit funny about insects.’
‘So’s my father. He calls them his girls.’ The man looked up at the low grey sky. ‘Is that more rain? What happened to summer?’
The woman glanced up from her phone.
‘I know! I’ve forgotten what blue sky looks like. Must be hard with the kids off school.’
‘They barely notice. They’re always online.’
He walked forward and peered closer at the hive.
A few bees emerged from a small hole at the bottom. They walked along a narrow wooden ledge and hummed their wings.
He watched them for a while then turned back to her.
‘I’m sorry. Now is not the right time.’
‘Oh!’ She put her phone away. ‘Have you changed your mind?’
He shook his head.
‘No. I’ll sell …’ He cleared his throat. ‘But not yet. It feels wrong.’
‘Of course.’ She hesitated. ‘I suppose it’s very hard to know approximately …?’
‘Could be months. Could be tomorrow.’
The woman allowed a respectful silence.
‘Well, rest assured that when you are ready, it’s a seller’s market.’
She began walking back along the path.
The man stood alone by the hive. On impulse he put his palm against the wood, as if feeling for a pulse. Then he turned and followed her.
Behind them, bees rose into the brightening air.
One (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
The cell squeezed her and the air was hot and fetid. All the joints of her body burned from her frantic twisting against the walls, her head was pressed into her chest and her legs shot with cramp, but her struggles had worked – one wall felt weaker. She kicked out with all her strength and felt something crack and break. She forced and tore and bit until there was a jagged hole into fresher air beyond.
She dragged her body through and fell out onto the floor of an alien world. Static roared through her brain, thunderous vibration shook the ground and a thousand scents dazed her. All she could do was breathe until gradually the vibration and static subsided and the scent evaporated into the air. Her rigid body unlocked and she calmed as knowledge filled her mind.
This was the Arrivals Hall and she was a worker.
Her kin was Flora and her number was 717.
Certain of her first task, she set about cleaning out her cell. In her violent struggle to hatch she had broken the whole front wall, unlike her neater neighbours. She looked, then followed their example, piling her debris neatly by the ruins. The activity cleared her senses and she felt the vastness of the Arrivals Hall, and how the vibrations in the air changed in different areas.
Row upon row of cells like hers stretched into the distance, and there the cells were quiet but resonant as if the occupants still slept. Immediately around her was great activity with many recently broken and cleared-out chambers, and many more cracking and falling as new bees arrived. The differing scents of her neighbours also came into focus, some sweeter, some sharper, all of them pleasant to absorb.
With a hard erratic pulse in the ground, a young female came running down the corridor between the cells, her face frantic.
‘Halt!’ Harsh voices reverberated from both ends of the corridor and a strong astringent scent rose in the air. Every bee stopped moving but the young bee stumbled and fell across Flora’s pile of debris. Then she clawed her way into the remains of the broken cell and huddled in the corner, her little hands up.
Cloaked in a bitter scent which hid their faces and made them identical, the dark figures strode down the corridor towards Flora. Pushing her aside, they dragged out the weeping young bee. At the sight of their spiked gauntlets, a spasm of fear in Flora’s brain released more knowledge. They were police.
‘You fled inspection.’ One of them pulled at the girl’s wings, while another examined the four still-wet membranes. The edge of one was shrivelled.
‘Spare me,’ she cried. ‘I will not fly, I will serve in any other way—’
‘Deformity is evil. Deformity is not permitted.’
Before the bee could speak the two officers pressed her head down until there was a sharp crack. She hung limp between them and they dropped her body in the corridor.
‘You.’ A peculiar rasping voice addressed Flora and she did not know which one spoke, but stared at the black hooks on the backs of their legs. ‘Hold still.’ Long black callipers slid from their gauntlets and they measured her height. ‘Excessive variation. Abnormal.’
‘That will be all, officers.’ At the kind voice and fragrant smell, the police released Flora. They bowed to a tall and well-groomed bee with a beautiful face.
‘Sister Sage, this one is obscenely ugly.’
‘And excessively large.’
‘It would appear so. Thank you, officers, you may go.’
Sister Sage waited for them to leave. She smiled at Flora. ‘To fear them is good. Be still while I read your kin—’
‘I am Flora 717.’
Sister Sage raised her antennae. ‘A sanitation worker who speaks. Most notable …’
Flora stared at her tawny and gold face with its huge dark eyes. ‘Am I to be killed?’
‘Do not question a priestess.’ Sister Sage ran her hands down the sides of Flora’s face. ‘Open your mouth.’ She looked inside. ‘Perhaps.’ Then she inclined her head over Flora’s mouth and fed her one golden drop of honey.
The effect was immediate and astonishing. Clarity washed Flora’s mind and her body filled with strength. She understood that Sister Sage wished her to follow in silence, and that she must do whatever she asked.
As they walked down the corridor she noticed how every bee averted her eyes and busied herself, and how the dead body of the young worker was already far ahead of them, carried in the mouth of a dark hunched bee who walked in the gutter. There were many more of the same type, all moving on the edge of the corridor. Some carried bundles of soiled wax, others scrubbed at broken cells. None looked up.
‘They are your kin-sisters.’ Sister Sage followed Flora’s eyes. ‘All of them mute. Presently you will join them in Sanitation, and perform valuable service to our hive. But first, a private experiment.’ She smiled at Flora. ‘Come.’
Flora followed gladly, all memory of the killing lost in her longing to taste more honey.
Two (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
The priestess walked swiftly through the pale corridors of the Arrivals Hall. Flora followed closely, her brain recording all the sounds and scents as different kin broke free of their emergence chambers. Many more dark sanitation workers moved along the gutters with bundles of soiled wax. Noting their sharp distinctive odour and how other bees avoided any contact with them, Flora drew closer to Sister Sage and her fragrant wake.
The priestess paused, antennae raised. They had come to the edge of the Arrivals Hall where the countless rows of emergence cells finished, and a large hexagonal doorway led into a smaller chamber. A burst of applause from within carried out a thrilling new odour. Flora looked up at Sister Sage.
‘Unfortunate timing,’ said the priestess. ‘But I must pay my respects.’ Once inside, she put Flora to wait by the wall then went to the front of a crowd of bees. Flora watched as once again they burst out clapping, gathered before the entrance of a still-closed emergence cell.
Flora gazed around this beautiful room. It was obviously an Arrivals Hall for more favoured bees, for it was spaciously arranged around two rows of central cells, each one made up of six grand and beautifully carved individual compartments. Sister Sage stood in the welcoming committee before one of them, where many bees held platters of pastries and pitchers of nectared water. The delicious smells sharpened Flora’s own hunger and thirst.
Muffled curses and thuds came from within the decorated walls of the compartment, as if the occupant was leaping and jumping. At the sound of breaking wax, the assembled sisters redoubled their applause and their kin-scents flowed stronger with excitement. Flora detected a molecule of a different scent and her brain knew its pheromone signal: A Male – A Male arrives!
‘Worship to His Maleness!’ cried several feminine voices as a big carved piece of wax fell out, followed by screams of delight as through the hole came the plumed head of a brand-new drone.
‘Worship to His Maleness!’ the sisters cheered again, and they rushed to help him out, pulling the wax free themselves and making a staircase of their bodies.
‘Quite high,’ he said as he walked down on top of them. ‘And quite tiring.’
He puffed his dronely scent around himself, rousing more sighs and applause.
‘Welcome and Worship to His Maleness.’ Sister Sage curtsied low. As all the other bees graciously did the same, Flora stared in admiration and tried to copy the movement. ‘Honour to our Hive,’ said Sister Sage as she rose.
‘Too kind.’ But his smile had charm, and all the sisters returned it, gazing at him avidly. He was rumpled but elegant, and very concerned with the exact set of his neck-ruff. When he had finally arranged it to his liking, he bowed with a great flourish. Then, to the sisters’ fervent applause, he showed himself off from many angles, stretching out his legs in pairs, puffing his plume and even treating them to a sudden roar of his engine. They screamed in delight and fanned each other, and some scrambled to offer him pastries and water.
Flora watched him eat and drink, her own mouth dry and her hunger keen.
‘Greed is a sin, 717.’ Sister Sage was beside her again. ‘Take care.’
She walked on, and before Flora could look back at the drone her antennae tugged sharply from the line of scent the priestess had attached without her knowledge. She ran to catch up.
As she followed, the vibrations in the comb floor became more insistent, stronger and stronger as if it were a living thing beneath her, energy running in all directions. With a buzzing sensation through all her six feet, a torrent of information rushed up through her body and into her brain. Overwhelmed, Flora stopped in the middle of a big lobby. Under her feet spread a vast mosaic of hexagonal floor tiles, the patterns scrolling across the lobby and down the corridors. Endless streams of bees criss-crossed around them and the air was thick with scent broadcasting.
Sister Sage came back to her.
‘Well! You appear to have accessed every floor code at once. Stay very still.’ She lightly touched both Flora’s antennae with her own.
A new fragrance cocooned them. Flora breathed it deep inside and the rushing confusion in her brain subsided. Her body calmed and her heart filled with joy, for the fragrance told her with utter certainty that she, Flora 717, was loved.
‘Mother!’ she cried out as she sank to her knees. ‘Holy Mother.’
‘Not quite.’ The priestess looked gratified. ‘Though I am of the same noble kin as Her Majesty, all praise to Her eggs. And as the Queen most graciously permitted me to attend Her today, I am richly blessed with Her scent. That which you feel is but a tiny fraction of the Queen’s Love, 717.’
Sister Sage’s voice came from a great distance and Flora nodded. As the Queen’s Love flowed through her body and brain, all the different frequencies and codes in the tiles slowed and clarified into a map of the hive, constantly running with information. Everything was fascinating, and beautiful, and she turned her gaze to the priestess.
‘Yes. Very receptive.’ Sister Sage looked at her, then pointed to a new area of the mosaic. ‘Now stand over there.’
Obediently Flora moved, feeling how the comb transmitted subtly different vibrations and frequencies. She adjusted her feet to receive the strongest signal, and the priestess watched with keen attention.
‘You feel something – but do you comprehend it?’
Flora wanted to answer that she did, but her physical bliss prevented her speaking and she could only stare. At her silence, Sister Sage relaxed.
‘Good. Knowledge only causes pain to your kin.’
As they walked on, Flora’s euphoria stabilised into a feeling of deep physical relaxation and heightened perception. Only now did she fully appreciate the beauty of Sister Sage’s elegant form, how her pale gold fur lay in silky stripes against the thin brown gloss of her bands, themselves exactly matched by the shade of her six legs. Long translucent wings folded down her back and her antennae tapered to fine points.
They continued deeper into the hive, Flora entranced by its carved and frescoed walls of ancient scent and the beautiful blend of her living sisters. She did not feel how the golden tiles changed underfoot and the bare pale wax began, or how the priestess spread her cloak of scent over them both as they entered an empty corridor which held no vibration at all.
Only when they stopped before a small plain doorway did she feel how far they had travelled, and that she was still very hungry.
‘Soon.’ Sister Sage answered her as if she had spoken. She touched a panel in the wall and the door opened.
Three (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
The little chamber was tranquil and bare, and a beautiful soft smell filtered through the walls. The pale hexagonal tiles showed a wide tread of past wear across the centre of the room and Flora set her feet wider in case there was any information to detect.
‘All long gone.’ Sister Sage had her back turned but she still knew what Flora did. ‘And you will hold your tongue.’
Then came the sound of running feet, and another bee burst into the room. She stopped in shock at the sight of the priestess standing before her.
‘Sister Sage! We were not expecting you.’ By her hard shiny bands she was a senior, but her fur was yellow, her face coarse and her antennae blunt. She bowed deeply. Sister Sage inclined her head.
‘Sister Teasel. Are you well?’
‘Never doubt it; every Teasel as strong and willing as ever. You will not find sickness in this kin! Why? Has someone been found ailing?’
‘No. Not at all.’ Sister Sage’s attention rested for a moment on the far wall. Flora looked too. Where the worn tiles ended was the faintest outline of a third door.
Sister Teasel clutched her hands together.
‘A visit from a priestess of the Melissae is always an honour – but did not Sister in her wisdom order this side of the Nursery closed off? Otherwise someone would surely have been stationed here to receive you—’
‘I wished to avoid notice.’ Sister Sage gazed down the dim corridor from where Sister Teasel had come. Sister Teasel took the opportunity to stare at Flora. Alarmed at her tangible disapproval, Flora attempted a clumsy curtsy. Sister Teasel rapped her hard on the closest knee.
‘Forward, never splayed!’ She looked to Sister Sage. ‘Such boldness! But by her wet fur she is newly hatched – I do not understand.’
‘We were obliged to wait while a drone emerged. She saw such antics there.’
‘Oh, a new prince! Honour to our hive – was he very handsome straight away? Or does it come upon them as their fur rises? How I long—’
‘Sister Teasel, how many nurses have you lost?’
‘Since last inspection?’ Sister Teasel stared in alarm. ‘Compared to other departments, hardly any. We are not like foragers, we keep ourselves safe from the outer world and its perils – but even our kin will sometimes suffer—’ She cleared her throat. ‘Six, Sister, since last inspection. I move them on for the slightest sign of confusion or hint of ailing – we take no chances. And of course, we have only the purest kin here, and the most obedient.’ She coughed. ‘Six, Sister.’
Sister Sage nodded. ‘And what do you hear, of other departments?’
‘Oh! Mere canteen gossip, idle tittle-tattle, nothing I would repeat—’
‘Please do.’ Sister Sage focused her attention on Sister Teasel, her scent flexing in the air. Flora looked down at the waxen tiles and did not move. Sister Teasel twisted her hands together.
‘Sister Sage, we are very fortunate in the Nursery, plenty of food, everything brought to us – we do not feel the shortages, we face no dangers …’ She faltered.
‘Come, Sister. Unburden yourself.’ Sister Sage was calm and kind, and Sister Teasel dared look up.
‘They say the season is deformed by rain, that the flowers shun us and fall unborn, that foragers are falling from the air and no one knows why!’ She plucked at her fur convulsively. ‘They say we will starve and the babies will all die, and my little nurses are worrying so much I fear they will forget—’ She shook her head. ‘Not that they do, Sister, ever, for they are most strictly supervised and the rotas are always guarded, so even if they could count – you may kill me if it is not so.’
‘You need not give permission.’
Sister Teasel burst out laughing and reached for one of her hands.
‘Oh, Sister Sage, it does me such good to jest with you – now I have shared the burden, I am no longer fearful!’
‘That is the role of the Melissae: to carry all fears, so the hive is free.’ A calming scent flowed from Sister Sage and filled the chamber.
‘Amen,’ said Sister Teasel. ‘But oh for the courage of the kin of Thistle.’
‘Why? What do they do?’ Too late Flora remembered herself.
Sister Teasel glared at her in outrage, her own distress forgotten.
‘She speaks? The impudence! Sister Sage, please, spare my curiosity and tell me the reason for her presence. If it is to clean, then I shall add her to the next detail – but I hope all Sanitation is not now possessed of tongues for we shall be in uproar!’ She glared at Flora. ‘Obstreperous dirty creatures.’
‘Does Sister Teasel stand in judgement of our purpose?’
‘No, Sister, never. Forgive me.’
‘Then kindly recall that variation is not the same as deformity.’
‘Sister graces me with her superior wisdom – though to my ignorant eyes those terms are one and the same.’ Sister Teasel stood back from Flora. ‘How monstrously large she is – and that fur when it dries will be thick as a drone’s, and her shell as black as a crow’s – not that I have ever seen one, thank Mother.’
Sister Sage became very still.
‘You are fatigued perhaps, by your long duty? Your loyal heart wishes to serve longer, yet your spirits tire?’
Sister Teasel shook her head in alarm. Sister Sage turned to Flora.
‘Open your mouth, 717, let Sister Teasel look.’
Flora obeyed and Sister Teasel promptly peered in. She looked to Sister Sage in surprise. Then she grasped Flora’s tongue and pulled it to its full length, before letting it snap back in her mouth.
‘I see! It might indeed be possible, but with that tongue comes—’
‘She will lose its use when it is time for her to rejoin her kin. And should it linger, I will personally wipe any knowledge from her mind. Test her, and if she does not produce anything, send her on immediately.’ Sister Sage looked kindly at Flora. ‘This experiment is a great privilege. What do you say?’
‘Accept, Obey and Serve.’ The words blurted from Flora’s mouth unbidden.
Sister Teasel shuddered. ‘Let us hope she will. Such ugliness!’
Ashamed, Flora turned back to Sister Sage as her shield, but the priestess had vanished.
‘They do that.’ Sister Teasel watched her. ‘Never know where you are with them, always surprising you. Come along then.’ She opened a door and Flora smelled the sweet pure fragrance beyond it. ‘If Sister Sage hadn’t told me to do this herself, I’d call it sacrilege.’ She pushed Flora through the door with her foot. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
Four (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
The enormous nursery was filled with row after row of glowing cribs, some with little rippling streams of light above them. Flora followed Sister Teasel deeper into the chamber. To her wonder, the light was in fact a luminous liquid, pouring in droplets from the mouths of the young nurses who leaned over the cribs. Many more of them moved silently about the ward, young and pretty with glowing chins.
‘It is so beautiful!
Despite her resentment, Sister Teasel smoothed her chest fur and nodded. She pointed to an unattended crib.
‘What gender?’
Flora looked in. The larva was newly hatched, soft pearly tendrils of shell still clinging to the translucent white skin. Its tiny face was closed in sleep and a sweet milky smell drifted above it.
‘A female. She is so perfect!’
‘Just another worker. Now find a male.’ Sister Teasel indicated the whole vast nursery.
‘Yes, Sister.’ Flora raised her antennae. On each row she drew in the smell of female babies, strong and constant.
‘You can’t do it from here, you silly girl.’
Flora did not answer. She smelled the different kin of the young nurses, and all the thousand female children. There was no scent of male.
‘I have searched and there are none. Why is that?’
Sister Teasel stared at her.
‘Late in the season Holy Mother stops making them.’ She shook herself. ‘A good sense of smell is not enough to keep you out of Sanitation. Now hold your bold tongue and let us conclude this foolish experiment.’
Sister Teasel pushed Flora to the first worker crib she had shown her, and tapped on its side so that the little creature woke. When it opened its mouth and began to cry, she folded her arms in satisfaction and looked at Flora. ‘And now?’
Flora leaned in to look, and the larva baby flexed and stretched towards her. Its warm scent rose more strongly, threaded with the delicate fragrance of the Queen’s Love. Immediately, two pulses began flickering in Flora’s cheeks, and her mouth began to fill with sweet liquid. She looked to Sister Teasel in alarm.
‘Flow!’ cried Sister Teasel. ‘Don’t swallow, let it come!’
She guided Flora into the right position as the luminous drops spilled from her mouth. As they fell onto the larva baby it stopped crying and wriggled to lap them up. The drops thickened into a thin stream which pooled around the baby’s body until it could drink no more.
The liquid ebbed and Flora’s cheeks stopped flickering. Completely exhausted, she held the side of the crib for support. The baby grew as she watched, and the base of the crib glowed. Other nurses looked across.
‘Well!’ said Sister Teasel. ‘If I had not seen it for myself. A flora from Sanitation, able to make royal jelly – Flow.’ She corrected herself. ‘You must only ever call it Flow.’
‘Why, Sister?’ Flora felt warm and sleepy.
Sister Teasel tutted.
‘No more questions. All you need to remember is to feed as your supervisor instructs you. Not a drop more, no matter how the babies beg. And they will. Now I must find you a place to sleep – though I don’t know what the other girls will say about it. You mustn’t expect them to touch or groom you.’
Sister Teasel led Flora to a rest area where young nurse bees lay talking quietly or sleeping, luminous traces fading round their mouths. She lay down at once.
‘Flora 717 is here by Sister Sage’s express wish.’ Sister Teasel’s tone dared anyone to remonstrate. ‘Yes she makes Flow and yes it is most irregular for her kin, but we are in the season of irregularity, with the rain and the cold and the lack of food – so we will all be helpful. Is that clear?’
The nurses murmured assent and placed food and drink within Flora’s reach, but she was too tired to move. Sister Teasel’s voice continued above her and she knew that when the comb shivered, the divine fragrance that rose up from it was the Queen’s Love, and that this was the sacrament of Devotion. She wanted to join the sweet harmony of nurses in prayer, but the room was warm and dark, and the bed was soft.
* * *
Like the other nurses, Flora’s job was simple. She must give Flow to the babies as directed, rest when it stopped, then repeat. As Sister Teasel had stressed to Sister Sage, the feed timing was very strictly observed and marked with different bells that signalled one or other area of the nursery was due more, or must now stop feeding. These constantly chiming bells, and the shimmering energy of the fed larva, created an intense and dreamlike aura in the nursery, but one sound always alerted Flora’s attention. It was the bright resonant tone of the sun bell, and its particular frequency told all the bees that beyond the safety of the hive walls, day had risen again.
Flora particularly enjoyed its vibration and listened out for its rare pleasure. Every three chimes, the supervising sisters came round and collected all the nurses whose fur had risen and whose Flow was dwindling, and replaced them with new ones, fresh from the Arrivals Hall, their fur still soft and damp.
Flora’s fur had not changed, so she was kept on. By the sixth sun bell, every nurse around her had changed, but her own Flow continued as strongly as ever. Supervising sisters also changed, but there were always several Teasel in their number. As she watched them go about their business, Flora began to understand the workings of the Nursery.
The cribs were always being rotated. Each day the nurses who were soon to leave would clean out a thousand of them, then a small army of sanitation workers would arrive to remove the waste and scrub the floors. Surreptitiously, Flora watched them. Though they never made eye contact or said a word, their vigorous energy was tangible and all the nurses were relieved when they left, none more so than Flora, ashamed of her own kin. Then the nurses would prepare the empty cribs in the newly cleaned area and the supervising sisters would say prayers of purification, before veiling the whole section with the shimmering scent of discretion, ready for the Royal Progress when the Queen laid her eggs.
When the next sun bell sounded, the glorious fragrance of new life rose in the Nursery and a thousand new eggs lay pure and perfect in their cribs. Every bee in the Nursery joined in songs of praise for Immortal Mother’s fertility. It took three more sun bells for the eggs to hatch into larva babies, and then it was time to feed them Flow.
Under strictly timed supervision from a senior sister, for the next three days Flora and other feeding nurses watched in amazement as the babies grew before their eyes. Their sweet scent rippled with changes in their bodies, and then came the stark moment when the supervising sisters piped a quick whistle to stop the feeding. No matter how hungry a baby might be, not a single drop more might be given, for it was time to wean them in the Category Two ward.
To Flora, this was a highly desirable place to work. Through the big double doors that separated the two nursery wards, she had often glimpsed older nurses playing and singing with the bigger children, even cuddling them in their arms.
Everything about the Ceremony of Transition was exciting to Flora, from the way the babies started wriggling and laughing in excitement at the delicious food smells coming from the double doors dividing the wards, to the first strains of the cheerful hymns sung by the nurses who came for them. With graceful curtsies to all in the Category One ward, even Flora, they scooped up the laughing babies and the doors closed soft behind them.
With their fully risen fur, elegant limbs and narrow curtsies, these sophisticated Category Two kins of Violet, Primrose and Vetch won Flora’s particular admiration. Discreetly in the dim holy atmosphere of Category One, she practised her own curtsy to overcome her shameful splay – just in case Sister Sage should reappear and move her to Category Two.
This was such a wonderful thought that Flora began including it in her prayers at Devotion. She forgot it each time the enchanting fragrance of the Queen’s Love rose up through the comb, but when the nurses changed again and her fur had still not risen, she gathered up her courage and sought out Sister Teasel.
‘You want to move?’ Sister Teasel stared at her in amazement. ‘From Category One, the holiest place in the hive and the closest you will ever come to Her Majesty? Why, She passes by us every day!’
‘But I have never seen—’
Sister Teasel swiped Flora’s antennae with a sharp claw.
‘Impudent, ignorant girl! Do you think a flora, a sanitation worker, is ever likely to be in the true presence of Her Majesty? I knew it would come to this! I was against it from the start – why, pray, are you now so eager to move to Category Two?’
‘It looks so bright and happy there. And the nurses play with the children.’
‘Yes, and as a result they are riddled with frivolity and attachment. I cannot believe it – move away from the Queen? Please, tell me: do you fantasise you are a forager, able to survive beyond Holy Mother’s divine scent? For clearly it is not enough to be a nurse!’
‘It is, Sister – forgive me for asking—’
But it was too late, for Sister Teasel’s agitation spread through the whole ward. The babies grew fractious, distracted nurses looked up from their feeding and Flow splashed against the cribs. Sister Teasel waved her arms at them.
‘Focus!’ She turned back to Flora. ‘Now you listen to me. We deliver one outcome here: identical care for identical brood. There is no improvising, no requesting a transfer, and, until you were forced upon us, no exception to the immaculate kin of our nurses.’
‘I know, Sister, I’m very grateful, it’s just that so many nurses have changed—’
‘What business is that of yours? Have you been trying to count?’ Sister Teasel came close to her. ‘717, have you been studying the rotas? Confess at once if you have, for it is a matter of hive security – what do you know about them?’ Her scent became fragmented with anxiety, and the babies began crying again.
‘Nothing, Sister! I just wanted to ask—’
‘There, that is the seed of it: you wanted!’ Sister Teasel groomed her antennae back from their trembling state, then glared at Flora again. ‘Desire is sin, Vanity is sin – it is all very well praying and splaying, 717 – and don’t think I haven’t seen you practising your ridiculous curtsy—’
‘Idleness is sin.’ Humiliated at her exposure, Flora continued the catechism. ‘Discord is sin, Greed is sin—’
‘And as for your appetite – as bad as a drone’s. No matter what the sainted Sage may think’ – and here Sister Teasel threw a quick glance around the ward – ‘you are typical of your kin. Greedy, ugly, obstinate things! Girls, what is our first commandment?’
‘Accept, Obey and Serve,’ chanted the eavesdropping nurses, staring at Flora.
‘Accept, Obey and Serve.’ Flora knelt before Sister Teasel. ‘A flora may not make Wax for she is impure, nor work with Propolis for she is clumsy, nor may she ever forage for she has no taste, but only may she clean, and all may command her labour.’
‘Exactly.’ Sister Teasel’s antennae twitched. ‘Yet here you are, feeding the Queen’s newborns. Summer is cold, floras speak: the world is upside down! Just be grateful for the honour, for it will soon be over. But I wish I knew when, for I have never seen the like of your Flow.’
‘What does it mean, for my knowledge to be wiped?’
Sister Teasel’s expression softened. She sighed.
‘You will find out soon enough. Now, spare us both – ask no more questions.’
* * *
Flora returned to the main floor, her hope replaced with dread. She joined a group of nurses who stood waiting to hear which section next needed Flow, their mouths already brimming with the bright liquid. The chime sounded, and ahead of them a dark little sanitation worker ran to get out of their way. Walking at the back of the group, Flora saw her clearly, cowering with her pan and brush and holding her wings so that she would not touch a higher kin by accident. Their eyes met for a moment. The little worker grimaced in a smile. Flora looked away and hurried on.
The next baby was big and hungry. She gazed down at its open mouth, always the trigger for the pulses in her cheeks to begin the feeding trance. Nothing came. The twisted friendly grimace of the sanitation worker stuck in her mind and Flora shook herself. She adjusted her position and concentrated.
The baby yearned up towards her, open-mouthed. The pulses in her cheeks flickered, and a few drops of Flow seeped out. Flora shook her head so they fell onto the baby and it lapped them hungrily. It looked up and opened its mouth for more. She concentrated until the sides of her mouth were throbbing with the strain, but nothing came. The baby began to cry.
A new nurse appeared at Flora’s side, her mouth and face glowing with fresh Flow. She was very young and deep in the feeding trance. She stood by Flora’s side and leaned over. Immediately the luminous stream began to fall and the baby quieted as it fed. Confused, Flora stepped back.
‘The miracle,’ said a kind, familiar voice, ‘was that you could feed at all.’
Sister Sage stood by her, beautiful and frightening. She smiled.
‘If your job bores you, 717, I will give you something more exciting to do. Consider it another test.’
Five (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
At the sight of Sister Sage all the Category Two nurses and nannies curtsied, though they looked warily at Flora walking with her. The priestess was not angry that her Flow had stopped, and seemed only to want to talk.
‘I would have said the experiment was a success,’ she said to Flora. ‘And I am sure Sister Teasel impressed on you the privilege of such sacred service.’
‘Yes, Sister. I am very grateful.’
‘But you are very curious about Category Two – a rather prosaic place, to my mind. Why is that?’
The more she breathed of Sister Sage’s strong scent, the more Flora grew calm, and felt an overpowering desire to tell the truth.
‘In Category One everything is always the same.’
Sister Sage laughed.
‘The very point of identical care. Yet it bored you.’
‘Yes, Sister. Forgive me.’ Flora lowered her head, but Sister Sage raised it and held her long antennae over hers.
‘We will forget the folly of the curtsies and your boldness in hoping to see Holy Mother, for I hear you are also very devout and hard-working.’
‘I hope so, Sister.’
‘And you love the Queen?’
‘With my body and my soul.’ Flora’s antennae trembled as she felt Sister Sage reaching deep into her mind.
Would you serve Her any way you can?
‘With my whole life.’
‘Good.’ Sister Sage walked on. ‘In this time of scarce forage, you have been surprisingly useful in the Nursery. Sometimes it works to spare the deviants, and experiment a little.’ She smiled. ‘Is this place as you imagined?’
‘Better, Sister! It is so lively, so full of wonderful things—’
‘Then look your fill. I wish you to know it.’
* * *
Flora could not take Category Two in at once, with its decorations and beautifully tiled play areas. Pretty nurses and nannies sat with their vigorous little charges, singing and playing games, or feeding them from shining platters. Healthy beautiful child-grubs were everywhere, their cheerful snubby little faces speckled with golden pollen dust. Gone was the heavy scent of Flow and the mumble of prayer, and in its place nursery rhymes, laughter and the bright aroma of fresh bread.
Sister Sage watched her. ‘What do you know of feeding patterns?’
‘Nothing, Sister.’ Flora admired two fat child-grubs, chuckling as their nurses tickled them. ‘Sister Teasel asked me that. All I know is that timing is very important and there are a lot of bells.’ Her own arms tingled to hold one herself and she turned away lest the sin of Desire take hold. ‘And we must always stop at the right moment and never give a drop more.’
‘Because …?’
‘I’m not sure, Sister.’
Sister Sage touched one of Flora’s antennae with her own, and Flora felt a piercing resonance in her mind. The sensation grew almost unbearable, then abruptly stopped as Sister Sage released her.
‘Good. You are truthful.’ Her long antennae flexed. ‘Tell me, though, about my sisters Teasel: do they hold any meetings or gatherings in the Nursery?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Flora felt a strong urge to please the priestess with the right answer. ‘But I know only the one, my supervising sister.’
‘Ah yes. To you they are all the same. And so they very nearly are, though they must still use speech to know each other’s thoughts. It is most quaint. But you will tell me if they hold private meetings, do you understand?’
‘Yes, Sister.’
They had come to the end of the Category Two ward where great panels of carving marked another set of doors. Flora could not decipher the markings but knew instinctively not to touch them. Sister Sage answered her unspoken question.
‘They speak of Holy Time, when we have all slept in prayer.’ Her voice was soft and her face shone as if she experienced some great inner joy. ‘Each Devotion, we recall something of that state.’ She remained rapt in contemplation.
Flora felt it correct to stand in silence beside her. A movement caught her eyes. It was another of the wretched sanitation workers, working along the ward gutter with her pan and brush, and looking directly at Flora and the priestess. Flora pressed her knees together and drew herself up as thin and tall as she could, trying to emphasise their difference. Steadily sweeping, the worker passed on. Though nothing more than a look had occurred, Flora was angry and agitated.
‘Do not blame yourself: no one may choose their kin – or all would be Sage.’ No longer in her enraptured state, the priestess smiled. ‘Because you lack botanical heritage, yours forms the base of our society. Or rather, you draw it from impure and promiscuous flowers, shunned by this hive.’
‘Sister Sage! Sister Sage!’
Sister Teasel’s high, strained voice reached down the long corridor of Category Two. They smelled her streaming panic before they saw her, running towards them with antennae waving and wild fear on her face.
‘Please – you must – both of you, I beg you—’ Sister Teasel could hardly speak. ‘Everyone must report at once, the fertility police are here now on our ward!’
* * *
As Flora followed Sister Sage back through the Category Two ward, every nurse and nanny clutched her little charge tight to her, and stared at them in silence. Up ahead through the big double doors, the Category One ward was no longer dim and hushed but starkly illuminated and pulsing with a harsh bitter scent. Flora stumbled as her brain struggled to recall it. Sister Sage took her by the arm to quicken her pace and strengthened her own scent around both of them.
‘You have nothing to fear.’
They went into the ward. At first Flora thought the nurses had gone because all the cribs were unattended and the babies were already starting to cry, but then she saw them all standing in lines near the ward sisters’ station. Some openly wept in fear, their antennae waving uncontrollably, while others stood rigid. Standing around the edges of the ward were the fertility police. Their kin-scents were hidden under their masking scent, their eyes were blank, and their fur was slicked dark against their bands – but Flora recognised them from the Arrivals Hall. Sister Sage curled a filament of her own scent around Flora’s antennae and she felt her mouth clamp shut. The priestess joined her to the end of the first row then stepped forward and bowed to the police.
‘Sister Inspector, Sister Officers. Welcome.’
The Inspector saluted her, then turned to address the nurses.
‘Another wing deformity has been found.’ The masking scent distorted her voice to a harsh buzz. Despite their fear, the nurses murmured in revulsion.
‘Praise to the vigilant Thistle guard on the landing board.’ Her scent fired in jagged bursts as she surveyed the nurses. Sister Teasel began to weep.
‘Not here, Madam Inspector, never in Category One, it is not possible – Holy Mother is here every day, Her scent so beautiful and strong – there can be no—’
‘Silence!’ the Inspector spat at her. ‘Do you think I mean the defect could come from Her Majesty? You fly close to treason yourself, Sister—’
‘Holy Mother strike me dead before my next breath if so!’ Sister Teasel fell to her knees, but Sister Inspector yanked her back on her feet.
‘Measure her.’ She shoved Sister Teasel at two of her officers and they lashed their black callipers around her thick waist. Sister Teasel voided herself in fear and the smell mingled with the scent of the nurses’ terror, rising from their breathing spiracles. Behind them all the babies began to cry. Sister Sage looked on calmly.
‘Not her, at any rate.’ The Inspector released Sister Teasel then turned to the nurses. ‘Deformities mean evil roams our hive. Somewhere hides a desecrating heretic, who dares steal sacred Motherhood from the Queen. That is why sickness comes, that is why deformities rise. From her foul issue!’ Her antennae twitched compulsively and Flora felt her longing for violence.
‘Only the Queen may breed,’ responded Sister Sage, looking at the nurses.
‘Only the Queen may breed,’ some of them managed to reply, but others stared at Sister Teasel, her antennae bent in shame as she desperately cleaned herself. The Inspector held up a long sharp claw to the ward.
‘We will search every crib, we will measure every nurse’s belly until we find the culprit. And then we will tear her filthy body apart and cleanse our hive of sin.’
‘Do what you must, Sister Inspector.’ Sister Sage bowed again.
Sister Inspector signalled and some of her officers began moving systematically through the rows of cribs, while others used the black callipers on their arms to measure the bellies of the terrified nurses.
When it was her turn, Flora looked in distress at Sister Sage, convinced her greedy appetite would mark her as doomed, but the priestess ignored her. The callipers went round her belly but the police moved on, measuring each bee until all the nurses were cleared and none found guilty.
Those who dared turned to look at the cribs where the larva babies wailed as officers swept each one up. With the powerful scanners of their antennae, they sent sharp vibrations through the small tender bodies. The babies cried in fear and regurgitated their Flow, and the smell of it mixed with their infant defecation.
‘Our Mother, who art in labour.’ Sister Teasel’s voice was faint, but her nurses joined their own in support.
‘Hallowed be Thy Womb,’ they sang to control their fear.
‘Thy Marriage done, Thy Queendom come.’
Flora wanted to join in, but the scent from Sister Sage had bound her rigid.
‘From Death comes Life Eter—’ The beautiful voices stopped at the sharp squealing from one of the cribs.
Every nurse stared in horror as one of the officers bent over it. The squeal became an anguished shriek as the officer held up a larva baby, struggling to roll itself up. Another officer pulled it open with a sound of tearing skin.
Standing by Flora, Sister Inspector slid a claw from her gauntlet. ‘Bring it.’
Muffling the baby’s screams, she scanned it with slow-burning antennae until its pearly skin withered. ‘It is possible,’ she announced. ‘It has a foul strange scent.’
‘That is fear!’ cried Sister Teasel.
Ignoring her, Sister Inspector held up the baby and pierced it with her hook. It shrieked and twisted in agony as she offered it to her officers.
‘Destroy it.’
‘Wait.’ Sister Sage pointed to Flora. ‘Let her.’
With a jolt, Flora felt herself released to move. Sister Inspector pulled her claw from the larva baby to drop it on the ground, but Flora caught it and clutched it to her, the first child she had ever held. Its warm blood soaked into her fur and she pressed the agonised little thing close to her, trying to staunch the bleeding.
Eat it alive. The voice spoke inside Flora’s own mind. She clutched the baby tighter and a searing sound went through her antennae.
Do it NOW. Tear it apart.
Flora bowed her own head over the baby and shielded it with her arms. The voice roared louder in her mind.
DESTROY IT—
Her antennae felt like they had burst with the blow that struck her. She staggered and fell, the baby still clutched to her. Blows shook her body and her antennae became two pulsing rods of agony. The screaming baby was pulled from her grasp. She felt its warm blood splash her face and heard its tearing flesh and the grunts of the fertility police as they devoured it. As Flora screamed, her tongue twisted hard in her mouth and she choked on the sound.
‘I asked too much …’ Sister Sage’s voice was close and gentle. ‘The experiment is over.’
Six (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
Flora regained consciousness lying on dirty blank tiles. A low moaning came from nearby, but when she tried to locate the source a searing flash forked through her head and she cried out.
‘Don’t move …’ A weak voice spoke. ‘The pain is less—’
Through the snarling odours of the small chamber Flora became aware of the faint scent of the kin of Clover.
‘Was it you?’ The voice was young and ragged. ‘For I swear it was not me.’
Flora tried to answer, but to move her tongue was agony.
‘Silence.’ Sister Sage entered, followed by a group of her identical doubles. All wore the ceremonial pollen marks of the Melissae priestesses, and a strong astringent scent flowed from them. Flora shrank in terror, but they paid her no attention. Instead, the first Sister Sage knelt down by the Clover and stroked her face.
‘Your crime is behind you now, and you harm only yourself by maintaining your lie.’ She waited, but the Clover lay panting and did not speak. Sister Sage leaned closer. ‘How many eggs did you lay? Did you wish to be Queen?’
‘Never!’ The Clover struggled to rise on her broken limbs. Her wings were shrivelled and curled. ‘I beg you believe me, I have not profaned our holy law, Only the Queen may breed—’
One of the other priestesses stepped forward as if to strike the Clover, but Sister Sage held her back and soothed the Clover again.
‘Why did you hide from the police? Was it to keep spreading your deformity through our hive with foul eggs? We have found the young sisters with your defect, your issue.’ Sister Sage hissed the word and the Clover began to weep.
‘I swear again I have never laid—’
‘Your wings show your true evil. And deformity creeps through our hive.’
The Clover gave up trying to stand.
‘Then maybe Holy Mother lays bad eggs.’
The priestesses hissed and rasped their wings like knives. Sister Sage lifted the Clover off the ground with one hand.
‘You blaspheme, at the moment of your death?’
The Clover raised her antennae to high shivering points.
‘From Death comes Life Eternal. Holy Mother take me back.’
The priestesses surrounded her and flexed their abdomens high. Flora saw the tips of their bodies draw in to a hard point, and as they sang the Holy Chord together their delicate barbed daggers slid out. The chamber filled with the scent of venom, the Holy Chord rose louder until the air reverberated – then the priestesses stung the Clover from all sides. She cried out once – and then the sweet scent of her kin burst bright upon the foul air and was gone.
The priestesses turned to Flora. She felt their probing attention work its way down her sore antennae, deep into her head. She curled herself up as small as she could, to brace for the searing chemical pain they would drive into her brain – but it did not come. Abruptly the intimate invasion withdrew. The priestesses talked together in low voices and despite her fear, Flora listened.
‘Cornflower yield is poor. Even the buttercups are short—’
‘The foragers speak of more green deserts—’
‘When they fly at all, in this rain.’
‘We cannot fight the season.’ By the rich particular timbre of her voice, the speaker was the same Sister Sage Flora knew. ‘We cannot fight the rain, we can only provision ourselves as best we may. So unless she be heretic or deformed, in such a troubling season, every single worker is an asset – and I am loath to lose one more.’
‘Hardly an asset,’ said another voice. ‘She defied you over the baby. I vote to give her the Kindness – I would not waste my venom on her.’
Flora lay very still.
‘I will kill her myself when her use is over,’ said Sister Sage. ‘But the first fault was mine. I acted independently.’
The air in the chamber contracted as the priestesses twined and flexed their scents together in consultation. Then one fragrance formed, no longer dominated by the harsh astringent top note, but smooth, warm and powerfully calming.
‘Only the Queen is perfect. Amen.’
Even in her pain, Flora heard the choral beauty of their voice when they spoke together, and breathed more deeply. When a foot nudged her she did not resist.
‘It is true. Such size and strength makes her useful,’ one of them said.
‘Provided she is docile,’ said another. ‘To have a rebel in that kin – and one who could have learned of feeding—’
‘That will never happen.’ Sister Sage knelt down beside Flora, and looked up at her fellow priestesses. ‘More than one of us should do this, to be sure.’
‘Of course,’ said another. ‘Dirt and fear will be her only guides.’
Three more priestesses knelt by Flora’s head, so there were two at each antenna.
Then they all touched their own to hers.
The sensation was very strange. As the chemicals jolted into her brain her body shook, but she did not feel pain, only waves of numbness, stronger and stronger until her consciousness shrank to calm and blackness.
‘717.’ The voice came from a great distance. ‘Get up.’
The massive limbs beneath her lurched into life and Flora stood. Dimly she felt energy of other beings around her, then the comforting dull rhythm thudding through the comb under her feet. It went up into her body and her brain. Without conscious thought, Flora lifted the body of the dead Clover into her mouth. As she did so the rhythm in the ground grew stronger, pulsing with each forward step she took to lead her onto the coded tiles. Pulled by the frequency, she carried the dead Clover out of the detention chamber, into the huge traffic of bees.
To shield her antennae from the many bruising signals in the air she walked with her head low. Air currents and electrical pulses from thousands of bees rippled against her, but Flora ignored them all. The pulsing track alone held her focus, clear and simple across the perilously busy lobby where she had to slow down because of the tempest of data underfoot.
A rush of workers came through in a tumult of scent and Flora lifted her head – then the rhythm of the foot-current drew her on. She trudged past the doorway of a great hall from which came the cheering of many voices, and some vast foreign scent blew through the air, but the stimulation was too much and she shrank low to the ground to keep going.
She found herself walking in a group also carrying pungent loads, and realised one was speaking to her. Flora looked into the dark face of a sanitation worker, urgently trying to guide her through a doorway. Flora stepped in, and found a clear space on the floor. The simple scent tiles prompted her to lay down the dead Clover’s body, and immediately another worker took it away. Hands pushed her back out into the corridor into another stream of sanitation workers. They marched in silence with their dark heads lowered, their aspect no longer dirty and vile, and their scent a comfort.
* * *
There were no chiming bells to mark time in Sanitation, only the differences in the smell of the dirt they cleaned, and the very basic food they ate. There was no chatter or gossip because none of the cleaners could speak, so they derived companionship from labouring together, and pressing close to share their scent.
Like the rest of her kin-sisters, Flora worked in a dull haze, interspersed with pauses for Devotion. When the fragrance of the Queen’s Love rose through the vibrating comb, the sanitation workers stopped wherever they were and cried out in slurred reverence, and Flora felt a moment of blissful relief from the constant pain in her head. Then they all returned to work, and her consciousness shrank back down to whatever task was in hand.
* * *
Sisters of all kin were born and died by their hundreds every day, so collecting the dead was a common occupation for every sanitation worker. As she carried body after body, Flora grew familiar with the routes down from the top and mid-levels of the hive, to the morgue and waste depot on the lowest level. Certain routes were blocked by kin-sensitive scent-locks, which stopped the floras polluting holy areas of the hive, like the nurseries on the mid-level, or the Fanning Hall and Treasury on the top level. After being buffeted back once or twice by the powerful scents, even the slowest sanitation worker like Flora learned not to try that way again, but sometimes on the mid-level of the hive, drifting scents of the Nursery tugged at her brain. The longer she stood, the more they distressed her, until she blundered away groaning.
Despite their status as lowest of the low, even in the department of Sanitation there was a hierarchy of ability. Certain floras could leave the dull, thudding foot-tracks and collect waste from difficult areas, and these sisters were also used to make short waste-disposal flights with corpses or particularly foul-smelling loads, dropping them a hygienic distance from the hive. The second group, to which Flora belonged, experienced such agony in their antennae if they diverged but one step from their ordained track, that the outer limit of their roaming was down to the morgue, or the freight holding area, both on the lowest level of the hive and near to the landing board. Sometimes Flora would pause here, where the vast foreign scent of Air swirled so strong about her body that her wing-joints trembled with a strange sensation – but to dwell on it was to invite pain, and to return to her duties, a relief.
Each sanitation detail had a supervisor from a higher kin, for they were not to be trusted on their own. Today, Flora’s supervisor was a Sister Bindweed, a long narrow bee with sparse fur and a brusque absent manner. She had them working in a vacant area of the Drones’ Arrivals Hall, cleaning out recently used incubation chambers in preparation for repair with consecrated wax.
Each bee had her own set of chambers to work on. Though none of them could speak, they grunted and scraped away with the same rhythm, apparently enjoying their work. Some scrutinised their neighbour’s labour, mutely pointing out the tiniest particle of remaining dirt, while others checked the soiled wax was efficiently compacted for removal. There were no guiding foot-tracks between the drone chambers, so to block painful confusion Flora clenched down on her scarred antennae to focus on the smallest possible area. It made her obsessive, but her work was immaculate, and Sister Bindweed had to shout and throw a piece of wax at her when it was time for Devotion.
From their place in the Drones’ Arrivals Hall, all the sanitation workers could hear the massed choirs of the hive singing through the carved walls. As the vocal vibrations sent the fragrance of the Queen’s Love shimmering through the membrane of the honeycomb and deep into their bodies, some of the floras made incoherent sounds of happiness, while others made rhythmic movements as if they were trying to dance. Flora was one of the many who stood transfixed by the blissful sense of being loved – until the divine surge began to ebb away.
A strange sensation rose inside her, strong as hunger but not for food or water. It was as if her abdomen dragged heavy behind her, and her rigid twisted tongue swelled in her mouth. As her detail returned to work, the sensations grew more insistent. Trying to rid herself of them, Flora shook herself from side to side.
‘Stop that, you stupid creature!’ Sister Bindweed took out her thin rod of propolis resin that she used to poke the sanitation workers without incurring dirty contact and waved it at Flora. ‘Get into that cell and clean it, unless you want me to send you for the Kindness.’
Obediently Flora climbed into the next vacated drone cell. The air was pungent and fetid, the walls and floor crusted with faecal waste. Even through Flora’s deadened senses, her brain thundered with the chemical onslaught from the waste of this drone. As the foul smell destroyed the last fragrant vestige of the Queen’s Love, a sudden rage rose up inside Flora. She attacked the wall with her jaws, furious at the sexual odour of the filth. The tightness in her mouth ignited in two points of pain on either side of her face, but she worked on in a frenzy, tearing out great soiled chunks of wax and hurling them into the corridor. Then all her sound and vision cut out and she was left in a chaos of odours.
Terror-stricken, Flora threw herself out of the drone’s chamber and onto the ground. Somewhere nearby the thinnest filament of the Queen’s Love lingered on the ground where it had come through the comb, and she threw her body down against it, breathing it in to counter the flashing black pain in her head.
‘717! You are behaving like a demented bluebottle – stop that!’
Sister Bindweed tried to kick Flora back to her feet, but with her massive strength Flora clung to the wax until she drew the last molecules of the Queen’s Love into her body. Sister Bindweed’s puny kicks did not hurt, because something far more powerful was taking place in her mind and body.
Her tongue, so long hard and twisted, was warming and softening, and the disgusting taste of the drone waste was fading. Strength was coursing through her body, and her antennae throbbed as their inner channels opened up, restoring her vision and hearing. Most amazing of all was her sense of smell. She could discern all the different waxes used to make the floor tiles on which she lay, and the propolis inlay of the drone cells; she could smell the warm dirty odour of the sanitation workers’ bodies toiling around her—
‘Enough!’ Too angry to use her propolis rod, Sister Bindweed grabbed Flora by the edge of a wing and started pulling her towards the doors. To resist was to tear the membrane, and Flora was forced to hurry with her.
‘If you cannot perform the simplest task’ – Sister Bindweed pushed Flora out into the busy corridor – ‘then good for nothing is what you are, and no more use to this hive!’ Sister Bindweed shouted so vehemently that Flora smelled the half-digested pollen bread on her breath, and the slow taint of old age moving in her belly.
‘You stand there until the police patrol comes by – they’ll know what to do with you, make no mistake.’ Sister Bindweed shuddered at the smell of her own hands where she had grabbed Flora, and went back inside.
* * *
The Drones’ Arrivals Hall opened onto a main lobby filled with thousands of bees moving in all directions, never colliding. For a few moments Flora stood motionless, absorbing the tides of scent information that surged through the air and the vibrations in the coded tiles.
Rose Teasel Malus Clover came the rapid knowledge as different sisters passed her by, Clover Plantain Burdock SAGE—
At that last and fast-approaching kin-scent, a jolt of fear propelled Flora into the great moving mass of bees in the lobby. Instinctively she wanted to hide, and though a thousand floor codes pulsed their messages at her, one overrode them all, and it came from her heart: Beware the Sage.
Seven (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
The scent of the priestesses faded as Flora went deeper into the warm aromatic criss-crossing of her sisters, their body heat blending their kin-scents together in fragrance and gossip. To listen to their bright voices and understand all they said was a wonderful thing, and she was soon caught up in the major news of the moment, coming through the floor codes and the excited antennae all around her: the rain had stopped, the clouds had parted, the foragers were returning.
‘Nectar comes!’ shouted some bees. ‘The flowers love us!’
The comb shimmered and every bee felt joy running through her feet at the sweet smell coming up from the lower level. The bees pushed back to make a passageway through their numbers, and Flora found herself crammed wing to wing at the front of one cheering group, making space for those who were to come.
The bees redoubled their cheers as a forager ran between their cordon, her throat distended with the precious burden of nectar she carried. Filaments of golden scent drifted on the air behind her, telling of the flower that had yielded its sweetness. Flora stared enraptured as more and more of them came through – sisters of all ages and kin, some with ragged wings, some young and perfect, all with the golden fragrance of nectar streaming behind them.
As the molecular structure of the flowers went into Flora’s brain, a strange sound startled her. Sisters either side of her looked at her with compassion – and Flora realised it was her own voice, moaning incoherently as she tried to join in the cheering. The last forager ran past, the golden filaments of nectar scent trailing behind her, calling for Flora to follow.
The golden fragrance drew Flora on, until to her shock she realised she had passed unscathed through the scent-gates on the staircase to the highest level of the hive. There was no time to wonder at that, for now the party of nectar-bearers were passing down a long corridor whose immaculate pale tiles were inlaid with details of flowers. They were prayer tiles, preparing those who walked on them for the sacred mysteries beyond, and each step triggered chemical verses to unscroll.
At the back of the procession, Flora waited for an alarm to sound at her profane presence on this highest and restricted level of the hive – but a cloud of incense rose up beneath her feet just as from those ahead and joined her to the procession. And then, as the two tall double doors in the middle of the passageway swung open to admit them, her soul filled with joy. Waves of raw floral fragrance billowed out on warm air and as Flora entered the sacred refinery of the Fanning Hall, she beheld the genius of her people.
* * *
A golden mist and soft harmonic chord shimmered from the centre of the great atrium, whose six towering walls were made of interlocking chalices of honey, all capped and consecrated with the Queen’s seal, and curved in to make a domed ceiling. Far below stood hundreds of sisters in concentric circles, all fanning their silver wings. Their faces were joyous and blank and before each was a large chalice of raw nectar. From these vessels the mist and music spiralled into the air as the water evaporated from the nectar, thickening it to honey.
Only now did Flora realise that every forager and receiver of the procession was busy decanting their precious load into open wax chalices, and that she alone had no function there. She knew she should leave – the very presence of a sanitation worker in this holy place must surely warrant punishment – yet it was so wondrous that she could not bear to. From the scented shadows she watched the foragers and their attendants emptying their loads, then straightening their wings and walking out. One of the last young receivers was clumsy and spilled some nectar down the side of a wax chalice, but in her hurry to remain in procession she just glanced down guiltily, then ran to leave with the others.
The tall doors swung closed and the rings of sisters resumed their silver shimmer. The Holy Chord rose up and their wing-beats stirred fragrance through the warm air. To hide in the shadows felt disrespectful so Flora stepped out. Some instinct impelled her to bow to the centre of the atrium, but no sooner had she touched her antennae to the wax floor than her wing-latches clicked open, her virgin wings trembled as her engine fired, and she was lifted off her feet.
Some sisters glanced up, searching for the sound. Flora clamped her thoracic muscles together and dropped down to the wax before they could locate her. She latched her wings tight against her back and looked around in alarm. Bad enough for a sanitation worker to be trespassing here, but to have used her wings—
The extraordinary sensation subsided into her body. To calm her racing brain, Flora looked for any dirt to clean, but the Fanning Hall was immaculate. The only minute element of disorder was where the young receiver had spilled some nectar, now drying down the side of the wax chalice, and the tiles on which it stood.
At the scent, Flora’s belly clutched in hunger.
Desire is sin, Greed is sin—
But surely cleaning it would not be sin?
Careful not to let her profane body touch the chalice, Flora knelt down beside the spill and was overcome with the fragrance of honeysuckle. The living spirit of the crimson-gold blooms warmed her body with energy, and she was licking up the last molecules from the tiles when she heard the commotion outside.
The massed vibration of many agitated sisters came closer down the passageway, voices raised in protest.
‘Honey!’ boomed a deep male voice. ‘Now!’
‘Please Your Malenesses,’ cried a female voice. ‘Stop!’
* * *
Flora leapt back in alarm as a party of drones barged in and swaggered down the centre aisle towards her. They were huge and pungent with big handsome faces, sun visors over their eyes, and their thick fur was styled with pomade. The shimmering circles of sisters slowed their wings and turned their faces towards the intruders. No one noticed Flora.
‘Sir Poplar, Sir Rowan, Sir Linden, all noble sirs,’ cried another sister running after them, ‘let us send to Patisserie or—’
‘We said we want honey!’ shouted another drone.
‘A proper deep suck of it,’ called one more, ‘none of your dainty little sips.’
They began stamping their great armoured feet on the comb, chanting for honey and nectar. The mist from the chalices evaporated, revealing the sisters’ distressed faces.
‘Keep fanning, pretty sisters,’ called one of the drones. ‘We do not linger, we are on a mission of Love! And you, old girl by the door with the long face – good cheer from you too, for we fly for the honour of our hive!’
‘Worship to Your Malenesses.’ A senior Sister Prunus dropped him a deep curtsy. Flora joined in as all around the other sisters copied the obeisance. As she went low she stared at the drones’ armoured feet, their powerful tendons and thighs, and the underside of their huge thoraxes. Their smell was high but not unpleasant, and her breathing spiracles dilated to inhale more deeply.
‘Might we most respectfully suggest, Your Malenesses’ – and Sister Prunus rose to her feet – ‘that because of the constant rains, and this time of austerity, you might confine yourselves to our recently gathered nectars? For instance—’
‘Honey is our want, so honey we must have.’ The drone threw a big muscular arm around Sister Prunus and his scent drifted across her face. ‘Think now of those foreign princesses, waiting for us. How fatigued, how impatient for love must they be? Would you bind them in chastity a single moment longer? Or shall we fill our bellies with the strength of this hive, then free them with our swords?’
Sister Prunus gasped at his lewd gesture, her antennae waving wildly. The big drone laughed and released her, and all the sisters laughed too, avid for more of his scent. Sister Prunus quickly groomed herself to hide her shining face. Then she stepped forward and clapped all her hands.
‘Their Malenesses will take their Right of Access.’
* * *
Trapped between the disapproving sisters at the doors and the gluttonous drones, Flora remained where she was. The drones made very free in the Fanning Hall and, like every other sister, Flora watched in astonishment as they tasted different honeys, slurped from effervescing pails of raw nectar and whirled fanning sisters out from their sacred circles to dance with them. The one who pawed Sister Prunus was boldest, and his kin was Quercus.
‘Linden!’ His shout echoed around the holy chamber. ‘Come here, you fine little runt, and taste your namesake – lime-blossom is good eating!’
‘Only the best for me.’ A small drone straightened his neck-ruff and crossed to where Sir Quercus stood gorging. When he bent to taste it, the other pushed his face in it, then grabbed him by the fur and pulled him out, laughing at his jest.
‘A king’s share, to console you for your certain failure.’
Sir Linden wiped his face of honey and forced a grim smile.
‘You are too sure, my brother. For I hear of queens who will favour wit over strength.’ He pulled his ruff straight. ‘Such a one will be mine.’
‘Ha!’ Sir Quercus patted him so hard he staggered. ‘My wit is all pent in my prick, so I shall triumph with her as well.’
‘Unless a crow choose you first and snap you in its great blue beak!’
The sisters gasped at the mention of the bird.
‘More likely take you,’ said Sir Quercus, ‘who can barely keep up with a butterfly. Though you’d not make much of a feast.’
Sir Linden continuing his grooming. ‘Unlike you, so large and magnificent.’
‘You speak truly.’ Sir Quercus turned to the sisters. ‘Fortune favours me, does she not, ladies?’ And he swelled his sturdy thorax, raised his fur in three tall crests on his head, and pumped his male aroma so it rose up around him in a cloud. Some sisters swooned, and some, like Sister Prunus, spontaneously applauded.
‘Who will groom me?’
Several sisters rushed forward and other drones unlatched their wings in invitation and they too were attended. Flora began edging to the doors.
‘You there – wait!’ Sister Prunus came towards her. ‘We have not called for Sanitation – what in the air is a dirty flora doing here? Did housekeeping leave the scent-gate down again?’
Flora was about to answer, then held her tongue. She nodded and grunted.
‘Oh, these shortages are becoming abominable. The wrong kin everywhere – and yours so stupid and slow you cannot follow the simplest track.’ Sister Prunus looked at Flora suspiciously. ‘Unless you were stealing!’
Flora urgently shook her head and put her antennae low. Her kin behaved cravenly, she had seen and hated it so many times – but now she did the same, backing away as if in terror. She bumped into someone behind her, and Sister Prunus smacked her on the head between the antennae.
‘Your Maleness, allow me to apologise.’ Sister Prunus smiled sweetly. ‘Please forgive the soiling contact. I will call a higher kin to groom you clean.’
‘From Sanitation, is she?’ It was Sir Linden, the only drone unattended. ‘Are they all so hairy? Do not trouble yourself, Sister Primrose, today I have a mind for something different. This one may groom me.’
‘Your Maleness – a flora?’
‘Do not question His Maleness’s particular preference.’ He looked at Flora, and she saw how honey was still caught in his fur. ‘Bring me some spurge nectar.’
‘Spurge? Your Maleness jests!’ Sister Prunus laughed hysterically. ‘He knows that we would never serve it, corrupt as it is from the Myriad’s feet.’ She folded her hands. ‘You will not find it in this hive.’
‘Oh. A pity, for I heard it was good, with a cricket’s kick.’
‘Your Maleness, nobody here would say that, for no forager—’
‘It was no forager, Sister Plantain—’
‘Prunus, Your Maleness.’
‘As you wish, madam. But it was a fine dark fellow at Congregation who stank of it, and he said it made his dronewood hard as the twig we stood on.’
‘Stop, please! Your Maleness speaks too boldly—’
‘At least, I think that’s what he said, in his thick and foreign tongue.’
‘Foreign?’ Sister Prunus recovered herself. ‘From what direction? I only ask because the Sage like to be informed of all immigrants in our neighbourhood.’ She lowered her voice. ‘In case of disease, you see. Also, they take our nectar.’
‘Calm yourself, Sister, this Congregation was further than you could fly.’
‘Oh, I am just a house-bee, I did not presume! But – Your Maleness is not thinking of inviting any guests? Our pantries are emptier than we would like—’
‘Do you not think I have enough competition as it is?’ Sir Linden looked gloomily at the other drones being groomed. ‘In any case, the dark fellow was last seen leading the field in pursuit of a very fine princess, and is probably now king in some sumptuous palace. Run and tell your dreary priestesses that.’
‘Fresh news, I shall!’ Sister Prunus bobbed a curtsy, rejuvenated with excitement. ‘News is always of value to Sister Sage – thank you, Your most generous Maleness.’ She ran off.
Flora started after her, anxious to be gone.
‘You’re not going anywhere.’ Sir Linden pointed to his crotch. ‘You have to groom me. I can’t be the only one without someone.’
At his strong smell, another pheromone lock burst open inside Flora’s antennae. Her mind flooded with disordered images—
—larva babies in their cradles – a shrivelled wing pulled taut—
She felt him trying to push her down.
‘Are you deaf? Groom me when I tell you – it’s the Law.’
A baby on a hook—
Flora shoved him away and ran out into the prayer-filled corridor. He followed.
‘I am a Prince of the realm! You will obey me!’
Trapped between the drone and a phalanx of identical Sage priestesses marching towards the Fanning Hall in a cloud of incense, Flora hunched herself down like the lowliest sanitation worker.
‘How dare you—’ Sir Linden lunged for her and slipped in the path of the Sage priestesses. Unable to pass a male without obeisances, they were forced to stop while he got to his feet, cursing wildly.
Flora did not look back but ran as fast as she could. She almost missed the small dark doorway, but as she dashed in to hide, the ground fell away under her feet and she tumbled, for it was not a room, but a staircase.
The steps were deep and steep and she kept her wings tight against her body as she struggled to right herself. Falling against an old wax wall, she clung and listened for pursuit from above.
There was neither scent nor sound, only the pumping of her own blood and the thirsty pull of air into her breathing spiracles. Flora forced her panic down. Her newly functioning antennae told her she was on the lowest level of the hive, and the final flight of steps levelled out into a narrow corridor that led to a door. She crept forward to scan what was beyond.
Through the old wax she first detected the distinctive odour of her own kin, and then the long inert forms of bees. It was a worker dormitory, and a cleaning detail. Deeply relieved, Flora opened the door – and stepped into the morgue.
Several of her kin-sisters stared back in equal surprise, then emitted a strange sound, that might have been laughter. One signalled her to close the door, then they continued taking bodies down from the racks. For the first time, Flora became conscious of a definite intelligence behind their strange faces. With a start of excitement, she understood that these floras were from the top echelon of Sanitation, taking the cadavers to the landing board, to fly them out of the hive.
Flora bit hold of the biggest, heaviest corpse she could see, a bald old sister from Patisserie with hidden pollen in her pockets. Then she followed her kin-sisters out of the morgue towards the sun-warmed wood of the landing board, and the vault of sky beyond.
Eight (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
A great crowd blocked the lobby to the landing board and the sanitation corpse-bearers were forced to wait. Eddies of warm dry wind swirled towards them, then came cheers and applause as bees pressed back to make a corridor of space, and the foragers came rushing through. Awestruck, Flora stared at the dishevelled sisters with their blazing faces and radiant ragged wings, who smelled of no kin but the wild high air. They ran into an imposing atrium that opened off the lobby, from where there was more stamping and cheering, and the crowd poured in behind them.
The sanitation workers moved on towards the landing board, into a cordoned-off area, to prevent contamination of higher kin passing to and fro on hive business. The sun’s warmth created a festive atmosphere, and Flora thrilled at the sound of her sisters’ flight engines humming through their registers. She watched water-gatherers returning with bulging throats, their faces sculpted sleek from their work, then chains of receivers passed in exotic loads of raw pollen, never dropping a single grain. More wind-blown foragers came and went and Flora admired them with all her heart.
‘Corpse-bearers next!’ It was the stentorian voice of a Thistle, traditional guards of the landing board.
Flora walked out of the dark, closed hive into a dazzling world of light and space, and a floor made of wood. It was completely blank of any codes except the bright scent beacons laid along the edge to guide the foragers home, and the only other marker was the sun.
‘It’s busy, so stay low and be quick.’ The Thistle guard spoke loud and slow. ‘You know where to go – don’t linger, and return on the left.’
Flora shook her head.
‘Your cleansing flight – even your kin can remember that one place.’ The Thistle called to the bees jostling behind Flora. ‘Patience, sisters!’
Flora raised her antennae, searching for information. It made her head hurt and she looked down. Below the landing board in the tangle of grass and nettle and dock and trefoil that locked to the dense wet earth, disturbing scents wove strong and strange, telling of other creatures that lived there. The green began to seethe.
‘Stop that – no one looks down.’ The Thistle pulled Flora away. Both of them turned at the huge rumble of thoracic engines. The pungent smell of drones billowed out onto the landing board and led by Sir Quercus the drones marched out. Plumes high, visors down and their massive chests expanded, they turned to the Thistle sentries and showed their best aspects. The Thistle guards dropped nominal curtsies.
‘Worship to Your Malenesses.’ Their tone was respectful, if not fervent.
‘And honour to our hive!’ roared Sir Quercus, and all his brothers cheered as they crowded out onto the landing board. The smell of honey percolated through their thick aroma. As one, the sisters looked down. Their precious golden wealth clogged the drones’ feet, was trodden across the landing board and trailed back into the hive. Shocked faces of other sisters crowded in the doorway behind them and the Thistle guards’ antennae flickered rapidly at each other. No one said a word.
With a mighty bang the drones unlatched their wings, fired their engines for flight and tuned their roars to a rousing thunder. Flora saw Sir Linden at the rear, his fur still sticky as he struggled to stabilise his own slightly higher pitch. Too late she shrank behind a Thistle guard.
‘You there!’ he shouted into the noise. ‘How dare you disobey me? Come and lick my feet clean—’
He jumped back as a forager landed on the board in front of him.
‘Make way, Your Maleness.’ She pushed past to where Flora stood with Sister Thistle. ‘Lily 500 returning.’ Her nectar-scented voice was hoarse, her bright ragged wings told her age, but she radiated energy like a tiny sun.
‘Madam Forager, we know you well.’ Sister Thistle bowed deeply to her.
Lily 500 was about to go into the hive, then turned to the drones.
‘No sister shall lick our sacred honey from your feet. Would you draw the Myriad to watch and mock us?’
‘What Myriad, noble crone?’ Sir Quercus barged forward. ‘There are none today, so wish us Queenspeed and be out of our way!’
The old forager glanced at Flora, but spoke only to the Thistle.
‘You are charged to keep the board clear, yet a corpse-bearer lingers.’
‘Forgive us, Madam Forager, you are right, but they have sent out an ignorant one! What am I supposed to do? I cannot send a corpse back in, and she certainly cannot drop it from the board—’
‘As if I would suggest that. Shortages and incompetence—’ Lily 500 pulled out one of Flora’s wings. ‘Nothing the matter with them!’ She scanned Flora’s antennae with her own. Flora winced, and the forager looked to the guard. ‘They have wrecked her brain so badly it is a wonder she can see or hear.’
‘Good madams!’ interrupted Sir Quercus. ‘Gossip elsewhere: you delay our squadron. We like to leave with a good show, not all raggle-taggle like you ancient independents. So now if you would kindly move.’
Lily 500 held her ground. She flicked an antenna and a young Clover receiver ran out from the hive, knelt before her and opened her mouth. Lily 500 arched her body, triggering a stream of golden nectar from her own crop into the Clover’s mouth. When there was no more, the Clover bobbed a curtsy and ran back inside.
‘Crone vomit?’ Sir Quercus was appalled. ‘Is that what we’re drinking?’
‘Nectar, Sir. How did you think we carried it?’ Lily 500 turned to Flora. ‘Hold your burden tight, and follow.’
She pushed her off the board.
Blades of grass slashed towards Flora’s face, the rough wooden slats of the hive grazed past her antennae and the sun spun as she tumbled through the air. She flailed for balance and then, with a thunderous vibration, her flight engine fired her up in a great jet of speed and she was aloft, mounting the air behind the silver trace of Lily 500’s wings. Behind her came the massive blast of the drone squadron lifting off, and faint cheering from the hive far below, but she did not look down.
They rose up over the orchard, cool wind streaming down Flora’s sides and fluttering the dried edges of the dead sister’s wings, still held tight in her mouth. The sun warmed her wings and a thrilling power surge took her higher so that the world spread wide in all directions, the grid of green and brown below, the dark rise of the hills, the rough odour of the sprawling town—
It seemed to Flora that she heard the Holy Chord, though that was impossible for they were far beyond the hive. Its source was Lily 500, her wings two humming arcs of light around her. Flora sped forward to her side. The old forager veered away and Flora followed through trails and tunnels of scent, sweet and bitter threads of odour, focusing into the strong clear scent of resin and propolis as the conifers came into range. Lily 500 made a tight agile loop around Flora, forcing her down so she saw where to make her drop.
With the release of the burden Flora shot up into the sunshine and flew loops of pure joy and relief. Her vision sharpened so that far below she could see two raucous bluebottles chase each other, and below them, male mosquitoes whined their song over a pond, their blue streamers fluttering from their antennae. Even lower the dark blood-filled females cruised at the water’s edge and Flora stored every minute detail before she surged higher. For the first time in her life she was utterly free, with no walls or rules to curb her, and she dived and soared for joy. The more the sun warmed her, the greater grew her strength and skill and she looked for Lily 500 to thank her – but the old forager was already a speck in the distance.
She was alone in the bright vastness. In an instant, a ravenous hunger seized Flora’s body and homesickness hit her soul so hard that she cried out in surprise. She could not smell the Queen, nor any sisters, nor the hive, the orchard, nor one familiar thing.
The more she searched, the more the void of sky pressed her body to a speck, until she felt so small and alone that without a sister to cling to she thought she was dying. When her body lifted on a wave of acrid air, Flora soared crazily and saw that it came from a great black bird high above her – a crow! Her alarm glands fired and she sped away from it in blind panic.
Devotion Devotion Devotion – Flora searched the air for any scent trace of Holy Mother and scanned the foreign shapes and colours below her in an effort to reorient herself. Massive green and beige fields dulled the air with their monotonous scent and she veered away to glean any clue for home. With a surge of relief she picked up the scent of the orchard and then of her sisters – never more beautiful. Their mingled scent grew stronger as Flora entered the air corridor back to the hive, and her joy in flight was nothing compared to her gratitude in homecoming. The little green ruffle of the orchard came into view, and then the tiny grey square of the beehive. Not until this moment had Flora known how much she loved it and all who lived there. She could not wait to fold her wings and run into its warm depths, and press wing to wing with her sisters in the sacrament of Devotion.
At the thought of the Queen, Flora scented the precious molecules of her divine fragrance, poised and spinning like jewels where the air currents converged. Her heart filled with passion and confidence, but as the hive came nearer and the earth and trees raced past below, she saw foragers streaming back through the orchard, racing for the landing board. A new scent mixed with the homecoming scent, and as Flora began her descent her venom sac swelled hard in her belly and her dagger unsheathed.
The code was alarm: the hive was under attack.
Nine (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
Laid at close intervals along the length of the landing board, the alarm pheromone flashed its message across the orchard air. The last foragers rushed to get in as a foul alien scent mingled with it, sweet and corrupt like rotting fruit. It came from the lurid straggle of wasps hovering near the hive, drunk and jeering. Flora could hear her sisters yelling at her to hurry, but as she descended through the smeary marker trails the wasps littered in their wake, they turned their black gazes on her and sizzled their stings in welcome.
Flora curved up again on a blade of air and the wasps shrieked with laughter at her cowardice – before she hurtled at one of them and knocked the vile creature out of the air into the apple leaves. The touch of the wasp’s body against hers enraged her and she drove herself up higher, looking for another. But the wasps were already above her, buzzing high and furious as they swayed on their points of air, not to be taken like that again.
‘Dirty fiends!’ shouted one of the Thistle guards to the wasps. ‘Infidel!’ But her trembling antennae gave lie to her brave words.
Flora dropped down onto the landing board between the sentries. She smelled their flaring war-glands and knew her own streamed as strong, but a wave of fear came from within the hive.
‘What did we expect,’ muttered another guard in a low voice, ‘leaving honey on the board? Advertising our wealth to the Myriad, no one to clean it, everyone rushing out crazed as soon as the sun shines—’
She sprayed a great jet of her war scent into the air and the wasps laughed shrilly. They flung back the challenge with a hard gust of their own harsh smell and its oily particles settled on the landing board.
‘Closer!’ yelled the first Thistle who had spoken, her antennae rigid with rage. ‘I cannot smell you until I stick my dagger between your filthy plates.’ She too buzzed a blast of her war-gland at them.
‘Oh, you fat and useless creature,’ called back one of the wasps, pirouetting to show her tiny waist. ‘What pale squirt was that? I doubt you can even fly.’ Her friends reeled in the air, hissing with laughter.
‘Stay!’ A new Thistle held back her colleague. ‘They try to draw us.’ She motioned to Flora. ‘You’re big and brave – get inside and hold the line.’
* * *
Sisters stood densely packed and silent, their battle glands flaring and weapons at the ready. The smell of fear trickled up here and there, but every sister pointed her antennae forward and none gave way to it. Flora waited in the vanguard as the Thistle pumped out wave after wave of war scent, but the orchard was silent.
The bees waited. Murmurs began. Perhaps the wasps had gone. Wings crushed, the heat was rising, and a tide of irritation seeped through the crowd. And then – a wave of acid air rushed in and every sister’s feet felt the heavy alien vibration as a great wasp settled on the landing board. There was the sound of a hard scuffle and then a cracking sound. A Thistle guard screamed, then another. Standing right at the front, Flora saw it all.
The wasp was a huge female with bands of acid yellow and glossy black. Her head was as large as three sisters’ and she used her slashing claws to catch the guards one by one, killing each one with a snap of her heavy jaws. Then she flattened her long antennae, crouched down and peered inside the hive.
Spasms of fear shot through all the bees at the sight of her glittering malevolent eyes, but not one of them moved. Flora stared back at the wasp and felt her dagger slide out. The wasp smiled at her.
‘Pretty pretty …’ She drove a whip of her acid scent down the passageway, wrapping round the antennae of dozens of bees so that they yelped in anger and disgust. She pushed her huge face closer, blocking the light.
‘Greetings,’ she hissed softly, ‘my sweet, juicy cousins.’ Her claw flashed into the hive, close enough for Flora to see the entrails on its tip and smell the Thistle’s blood. To stop herself running, she dug her claws harder into the comb. Deep within the hive, a faint vibration pulsed towards her. It spoke in her mind.
Keep still. Hold firm and wait.
Flora gripped harder into the wax and held the wasp’s stare. The wasp gazed softly into her eyes, willing her closer. The scent of its malice rose stronger.
Draw her in, spoke the thought in Flora’s mind. Lure her, lure her …
Flora stepped backwards and all her sisters moved with her. The vibration in the comb came stronger and they felt it too. She kept her gaze locked with the wasp’s.
Lure her. Draw her.
Flora let her antennae tremble and the wasp pushed in closer.
‘Are you the one, shall it be you?’ Her voice had a soft sing-song cadence, but her gaze was hard and calculating. ‘What a fat feast you will make, little cousin …’ The wasp eased herself deeper into the hive entrance, and Flora could not hold in her fear, for with her sisters so dense behind her there was no retreat from mortal combat.
The wasp’s body rasped on the hive floor. Four of her six elbows were in, the only light the yellow striping of her face. Flora dug down into the wax again, but the voice in her mind had stopped. She would be the first to die, but she would fight for her sisters’ lives, for Holy Mother’s life.
She unlatched her wings and heard the sound of every sister doing the same.
‘No,’ the wasp crooned, pulling her last pair of legs into the hive. ‘We should not fight: all I want is to take you to meet the chil … dren, all the hungry … little … children—’ A claw slashed out and she laughed. ‘Forgive me, you’re too delicious.’
DRAW HER …
The voice was clear and strong in Flora’s mind. She whimpered and backed away and the wasp crawled in after her. The smell was suffocating and her soft hissing struck terror into Flora’s body. She felt that all her sisters had crept around the edges and their numbers had filled from the back. There was no more room to move. The monster gathered herself to spring.
NOW!
Flora roared it as the wasp lunged – and sprang upon the monster’s back, her claws scrabbling for purchase on the slippery armour.
The wasp hissed and writhed in a frenzy of rage, one sister after another shrieking as she snapped their heads in her jaws and ripped their bellies with her claws. Flora fought her way up to the wasp’s head and the lashing black whips of the creature’s antennae. She caught one in her mouth and bit down.
The wasp cried out and hurled herself against the walls, trying to crush her attacker against them. Flora clung on and spat the foul blood as below her sisters threw themselves at the thrashing foe. Then Flora lunged for the other antenna, cracking it off the wasp’s head so that the hole jetted pulses of green blood. Screaming in agony and rage, the blinded wasp killed sister after sister, but she was one against many and the tide of bees kept coming until the stinging biting weight of their bodies covered her and held her down unable to move.
Then they beat their wings, fast and tight with fury so that the air heated until they themselves could barely breathe. The wasp was strong and kept struggling, but she grew weaker, and then she stopped. Only when her smell changed and the bees heard the dull cracking of her shell from the heat did they cease their fanning.
The great wasp lay dead, and so did hundreds of brave sisters closest to her, killed by the colossal heat. Many others were maimed in the fight, and outside on the landing board, fallen Thistle sisters lay dead or mutilated in the sun. The air was thick with the foul scent of the wasps and the blood of bees, but the hive was saved.
* * *
The dead wasp was a horrific sight. The huge glittering black eyes were cooked white, and two green blebs of blood marked the roots of her antennae. Herself unhurt, Flora began to help her wounded sisters. More bees came running from all areas of the hive with vials of holy propolis to bind up the broken shells of any who might live, but the casualties were countless.
Flora carried fallen sisters out to the sunny landing board and laid them down gently, knowing they would not return. Many lay in agony with their limbs crushed. Flora stopped to comfort one, a sturdy little Plantain whose face was half gone. Sage priestesses moved among the dying to bless them with the Queen’s Love and ease their passing. One in particular caught Flora’s attention, the sun bright in her pale fur. The priestess turned to look, and by the power of her gaze, Flora knew they had met before. Quickly she walked back into the hive, to the group of sanitation workers gathered at the wasp’s body.
They were wild-eyed and terrified of the huge carcass, until Flora spat out a mouthful of its blood and grabbed one of its legs. It broke away from the body as she pulled it, and the sanitation workers roared in approval. No longer afraid, they fell upon the wasp, tearing what was left of her to pieces, and carrying them out. Then, because the scent of the battle was broadcast on the air far and wide, the remaining Thistle guards let them hurl the pieces over the edge of the board.
Bees of all kin scrubbed away at the landing board to rid it of the wasp’s foul smell, and as each section was cleared the priestesses passed along the edge and laid new markers to cleanse and re-consecrate the hive. Sisters looked for dead of their own kin, then the priestesses stood wing to wing and sang the Holy Chord as even the timid house-bees came forward to fly the dead to the burial area. Flora searched too, but no sanitation worker had fallen.
‘Your kin does not fight.’ It was Sister Sage, the pale priestess who had taken Flora first to the Nursery, and then the detention cell. ‘Though you did, and bravely. Why did you not run back inside?’
‘The voice in my head.’ Flora felt no fear. ‘It told me what to do.’
Sister Sage looked at her for a long time.
‘That was the Hive Mind. It has also restored your tongue.’ The priestess touched her antennae to Flora’s, and once again the divine fragrance of the Queen’s Love filled her soul. ‘You are indeed unusual.’
‘Is my Holy Mother safe?’
‘More questions … Yes, she is. And it is our ancient law that no matter what her kin, any sister who channels the Hive Mind in times of crisis may be taken to meet Her. If, of course, she survives. It appears you have.’ She clapped her hands together, and six beautiful young bees arrived at her side. All wore fresh veils of the Queen’s Love, which made their faces iridescent.
‘Behold the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. Go with them, attend them well.’
Ten (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
The ladies spoke very prettily to Flora as they led her through the hive, in accents so refined it was hard to understand them. Outside the silent Dance Hall the lobby was busy with sisters rushing to help the wounded. From there the ladies escorted Flora up an unfamiliar staircase whose steps chimed softly in welcome. They emerged in a small hall in the mid-level of the hive, near to the hallowed Chapel of Wax.
The soothing warm smell of the Nursery drifted in the corridor and Flora hoped they should pass through it so that she might see the babies again – and so that Sister Teasel and the other nurses might see how she was honoured for her service to the hive. But the ladies took another route, down the long passageway between the worker dormitories and the Arrivals Hall, and beyond Flora’s knowledge of the hive. They stopped at elegant doors made of many different shades of gold, cream and white wax and exquisitely carved with flowers. Lady Burnet held them open.
* * *
They entered a small vaulted chamber made of immaculately plain cream wax. Three silver and three green pitchers stood on an old hexagonal table, but otherwise the room was empty. The air was so full of the Queen’s Love that it sparkled, and Flora laughed in joy as she breathed it.
‘Holy Mother is near! Am I really to meet Her?’
Lady Burnet smiled and took up one of the pitchers from the table.
‘Yes, my dear, but you are unclean, and first must be prepared.’
Then each of the ladies took a pitcher and stood around Flora, pouring ceremonially in turns, pure water then healing infusions in case of injury or disease. Flora shivered as the wasp’s blood mingled with that of her fallen sisters and ran down her legs and drained into a channel in the ground. Then the ladies encircled her and fanned her as if she were a chalice of nectar. Only when Flora’s thick russet fur stood high and dry were they satisfied she was clean. While Lady Primrose and Lady Violet each used a lump of golden propolis to fill in the many scratches on Flora’s legs, they all sang softly in another language, lilting and beautiful.
‘What does that mean?’ Flora felt ashamed at the care they lavished on her.
‘It tells of Her Majesty’s marriage flights.’ Lady Primrose giggled.
‘Shh! Not for her ears!’ Lady Violet smiled at Flora. ‘Though you shine so clean you’re barely a flora at all now.’
‘Thank you.’ Flora tried to curtsy. At this all the ladies came forward to demonstrate the correct way, guiding her limbs with delicate hands.
‘It is not your fault.’ Lady Burnet was so kind. ‘You cannot help your kin.’
‘Yet she was so brave’ – Lady Meadowsweet also smiled at Flora – ‘and seems so willing and humble – could we not do a little more with her?’
‘We could!’ Lady Primrose took hold of Flora’s fur. ‘Make it softer.’
‘Shine her whole cuticle, not just the legs – make her colour seem lighter.’
‘Do something about her breath—’
Flora swallowed hard. ‘I am very sorry, my ladies. It is the wasp’s blood.’
‘So shocking.’ Lady Burnet offered her water to drink. ‘But how wonderfully you speak; I can understand nearly every word. Not like a flora at all. Now if only you did not look it! Ladies, it would be a fitting tribute, would it not, for her bravery? Would you like that, my dear?’
‘To change my kin?’
‘And lose your wonderful heritage of service?’ Lady Burnet laughed. ‘Goodness me, no! But we might disguise it, a little.’
When they had exhausted their skills with grooming, pomade and propolis, the ladies trained Flora how to sit and rise, but were forced to let her splaying curtsy go uncorrected, for there was nothing to be done with that. When the comb trembled through the hive the ladies did not move to attend the service of Devotion, for here the Queen’s Love filled the chamber so strongly that anyone who entered became euphoric as they breathed.
Flora’s joy increased when she saw the food. Patisserie and nectar finer and more fragrant than she could ever have imagined were served to them by pretty sisters from Rosa and Bryony, but on observing Flora’s manners, the ladies all agreed she was still too uncouth to meet Her Majesty. They made her demonstrate the correct way to eat and drink so often that for the first time in her life, Flora’s hunger was satisfied and she could leave food uneaten. Then they bid her keep her hands still to let set the fashionable shapes they had twisted into her fur, so she rested in great contentment, listening to their bright bubbling conversation – and, despite the vanity, surreptitiously admired the sheen of her newly polished legs.
* * *
After supper they took Flora with them to fulfil the daily duty of visiting the Queen’s Library. When they closed all the doors of the hexagonal chamber, one continuous mosaic of coded scent tiles ran round the walls, and featured on each was one small central panel. Flora sniffed in fascination, detecting the bouquet of home amidst the many unfamiliar smells.
‘Instead of Devotion,’ whispered Lady Primrose, ‘we maintain the Stories of Scent. Not nearly as pleasant, but just follow along and we shall soon be out. We’ll only do the first three, so don’t worry.’
The ladies formed a line and put Flora at the end. They walked in a circle around the chamber repeating the Our Mother, and then Lady Burnet stopped in front of a panel.
‘The first story is called The Honeyflow.’ She smiled at Flora. ‘The lightest touch, then move back.’ She dipped her antennae and touched the panel to demonstrate. Immediately the scent of flowers rose up from it, developing and blending as each of the ladies took their turn. Flora marvelled to recognise the ancient kin-scents: the Sage and the Teasel, the Rosebay Willowherb, the Clover, Violet, Celandine, Burnet, Thistle, Malus, Bindweed and all of them. Of the floras, there was no reference.
‘Quickly, my dear.’ Lady Burnet’s voice had the slightest tremor. ‘We must move along.’
As Flora touched her antennae to the first panel, all the blossom of spring burst into life and the air was filled with orchard sweetness and the scent of lush grass. But before she could fully enjoy it, a pressure wave went through the air in the chamber. She heard the harsh caw of birds and smelled the sharp tang of a wasp.
As she leapt back in shock, all the ladies laughed nervously.
‘A common reaction,’ said Lady Burnet, ‘but it is only a story; it cannot hurt you. Fresh as dew, yet made in the Time before Time. Is it not a marvel? And better that we learn of the Myriad – though you of course have met one already.’
The ladies clapped politely. Flora felt embarrassed.
‘There are others – of the Myriad? Not just wasps?’
‘Oh, they are legion. It means all those who would hurt us, or steal from us, or who pollute and destroy our rightful food. Like flies, for instance.’ Lady Burnet put a hand to her head. ‘Take great care in here, lest all the stories stir at once – our antennae would split with shock.’ She turned to her ladies. ‘I think we may conclude for this evening.’
‘But there are five more.’ Flora gazed at the other walls, from which intricate and unknown scents coiled then curled back in, without diffusing into the air. She looked to the ladies for explanation and saw all of their antennae quivering with stress, and that Lady Primrose was on the edge of panic. Lady Burnet forced a smile.
‘To tend these panels is to strengthen the Hive Mind with the ancient scent-stories of our faith. The priestesses do not expect us to read each one.’ She looked down. ‘The first and second panels are enough. The rest … hold terrors.’
‘I am not afraid,’ said Flora. ‘I long to serve my hive.’
‘My dear – please recall your kin. Do not presume—’
Lady Meadowsweet coughed and looked at Lady Burnet, a world of meaning in her gaze. ‘Does it matter who reads them, if the duty is done?’
‘Yes,’ added Lady Violet, ‘I have heard her kin have less nerves.’
‘And would be less affected,’ agreed pretty Lady Primrose.
Flora stepped forward.
‘Please, my ladies, if I may do any duty, to the hive or the Queen – I am strong and willing’ – pressing her knees tight, she knelt before them – ‘and I long to serve!’
The ladies clapped again. Lady Burnet raised her up.
‘Very well. The second story is called The Kindness.’
Flora saw how the ladies flinched at the name. She stood up stronger.
‘I have heard that word before. I will do it.’
She walked to the next panel. As she touched her antennae to it, the voices and hubbub of the hive rose up all around them, and the wonderful comforting smell of sisters rustling their wings for sleep. She was overwhelmed by love for all her sisters, and the beauty of the hive. Then her feet tingled as if walking on coded tiles, and in her mind she saw herself walking down a long corridor, with a Thistle guard. She saw herself kneel, her knees still splayed, then bend her head low to the wax as the guard braced her feet and raised a great sharp claw above her.
Forgive me, sister—
Pain streaked through the join of Flora’s head and thorax. She cried out and staggered back from the panel.
She was in the Queen’s Library, and the ladies stood watching. She felt her body – unharmed – but the shock of the blow reverberated.
‘I – I don’t understand.’
Lady Primrose giggled nervously.
‘Every sister sees her own end. Though we never go as far as you just did – it is enough to walk the corridor and know what is coming!’
‘The Kindness means death?’
‘Amen,’ chorused the ladies. ‘No use to the hive, no use for life!’
At their hysterical laughter Flora laughed too, excited by the terrible vision.
‘Let me do another! Now I understand—’
‘You understand nothing – you are merely brave.’ Lady Burnet leavened her words with a smile. ‘But if you would take one more, then half are done, and our duty is amply fulfilled.’ She followed Flora’s eyes around the last three. ‘No. Those are too strong, only the priestesses tend those stories.’
‘Then one more.’ Flora drew herself up, proud of her courage and the awe in the eyes of these fine ladies. ‘And with all my heart.’
The other bees stood near the door as Lady Burnet positioned Flora at the third panel.
‘Keep your wings latched,’ she told her, ‘and stop at any time.’
Flora stepped forward and touched her antennae to the wax mosaic. It was plainer than the second, its scent held close to the wax as if to shield its secret, but as she focused, its peculiar fragrance structure began to part.
First came the intense bouquet of the hive, strong and welcoming and laced with the wealth of a million different flowers’ nectar. It smelled of sunshine and sisters, and Flora drew it in more deeply, searching for the strange accent note she had first registered. It darted at the edge of her consciousness, just out of reach.
‘Good, that is enough,’ murmured Lady Burnet from the door. ‘Let us go.’
But the olfactory loop held Flora’s attention: the hive, the sun, the honey – then without warning came a blast of wild cold air and choking smoke. Flora staggered. Her body was in the room but her senses flooded with the panic of ten thousand sisters roaring their engines, the dazing sun and the overpowering smell of honey.
‘That story is called The Visitation.’
The voice was sweet and thrilling, and the hand that touched Flora took away her fear.
‘It tells of robbery and terror, and the survival of our people.’ The scent mirage was gone, and in its place an intense pure wave of Devotion filled the chamber. Flora dropped to her six knees, at last in the presence of the Queen. She laid her antennae along the ground in reverence.
‘Brave daughter.’
Flora looked up. At first all she could see was the golden aura, but then Her Majesty’s beautiful eyes shone through, lit with kindness and love. She was magnificently large, with long shapely legs and a graceful tapering abdomen, full and buoyant under the golden tracery of her folded wings.
‘Mother,’ Flora whispered.
‘Child,’ said the Queen. ‘Do not be ashamed.’ She raised Flora to her feet and smiled at all her ladies. ‘Come, my daughters, let us be more comfortable in my chamber, that I may hear about my ancient cousin Vespa’s wicked venture.’
Eleven (#u3261d611-1179-5c8e-8b2c-4c2ff06b0395)
Flora 717, low of kin and sweeper of filth, now sat with the Queen and her ladies in Her Majesty’s own private sitting room, eating jewelled lily-cakes and drinking fresh nectar, while she told her story of the wasp and the heat ball. Without warning the Queen scanned her, then to Flora’s shame the smell of the wasp rose from her body again. The ladies started in fright and protested they had washed her.
‘Hush, daughters.’ The Queen smiled. ‘I only wished to make sure that even in its last traces, the scent of the Vespa had not changed. Her ancient envy still beats strong; that is why they want to steal from us, as if our honey or our children will give them our power. In the Time before Time they chose blood above nectar, and we became foes.’
Lady Burnet clasped her hands. ‘Immortal Mother protects Her children.’
‘Hallowed be Thy Womb,’ all the ladies responded, Flora too, as the words rose unbidden from her tongue.
‘Leave me, daughters.’
Then the Queen lay down on her couch of petals, folded herself in a haze of scented sleep and vanished from their view.
* * *
The ladies showed Flora her bed, and it was soft and sweetly scented, almost as fragrant as the cribs in Category One.
‘Because the Nursery is just beyond that door,’ said Lady Violet from her neighbouring couch. ‘Perhaps you shall see it tomorrow when we attend Holy Mother at Her Laying Progress. With all the eggs and glowing cribs – it is a sacred marvel beyond words.’ She coughed. ‘Do not be offended if we cannot take you.’
‘I will not.’
‘Your humble attitude is honour to your kin.’ Then Lady Violet wrapped herself in a thin scented veil of sleep and spoke no more. Flora lay in the darkness, breathing in the divine nurturing perfume that held them like a tender embrace. She drew it deep into her body until she felt her abdomen soften and glow.
* * *
The next morning the sun bell rang and the Queen’s fragrance rose strong and sweet as the ladies opened the doors to the Nursery. They called Flora to come with them and they entered the great chamber of Category One behind a dense veil of seclusion. They were now in the most sacred area of the hive, the Laying Rooms, row upon row of immaculate cribs empty and waiting for the Queen.
The Queen’s scent rose high as she went into her birth trance. Her face shone brighter, her scent pulsed, then with a fast graceful rhythm she began swinging her magnificent long abdomen from side to side, each time sliding the tip deep within a crib. At the back of the Progress, carrying the water and cooling cloths, Flora saw the faint point of light remaining in the wax, where a tiny new egg adhered to the bottom. Each one glowed with soft gold light then faded down as the Queen moved on, her birth dance so hypnotically beautiful that Flora wanted to swing her own body in joy, but seeing that none of the other ladies danced but followed most demurely, she held her urge in check and did as they did.
Six times she returned to the Queen’s chambers for fresh water and pollen cakes before all the cribs were filled. The Laying Room was soft and bright with new life, the Queen stood proud and exhausted, and her ladies wept in delight.
Back in the Queen’s chambers, Lady Burnet directed Flora to clean and make ready the common parts while she and the other ladies took Her Majesty into her private sanctum to prepare her for rest. As Lady Violet closed the doors, Flora curtsied and gazed her last on Holy Mother, her heart filled with love and a tearing sadness that this day of beauty and wonder was over. With scrupulous attention she swept and cleaned, knowing that when the doors opened again, she must leave.
The ladies-in-waiting filed back out. Determined to show that a sanitation worker had manners, Flora pressed her knees straight and curtsied to Lady Burnet.
‘Thank you for all your—’
‘Oh, do not be so craven.’ Lady Burnet had a strange look on her face. ‘Holy Mother has requested you attend her again.’
‘Me?’ Flora looked around at the ladies. None smiled.
‘You.’ Lady Burnet spoke neutrally. ‘Do not linger, go at once.’
* * *
The Queen parted her golden aura when Flora entered and bade her sit beside her. Then she drew it close again, so that Flora was wrapped in it with her.
‘I have not left the hive since my marriage flight. Now I only taste the world through food and drink, and the stories of my Library.’ The Queen gazed through her golden veil, as if out upon the open sky. ‘Did they frighten you?’
‘Yes, Holy Mother, at first. Then I wanted to know more.’
‘They tell of our religion, and must be fed with attention. After my labours I have not strength to scent them myself, though my ladies do their best. The priestesses read them when they can, but in these strange times they are so busy with matters of governance that it is not their priority.’ The Queen smiled. ‘Tales of the world, my daughter, of beauty and terror.’
‘Holy Mother, I will read them gladly – after the wasp, I fear nothing.’
The Queen’s laugh sent ripples of delight through Flora’s body, though she did not know how she had so amused her.
‘Let us see,’ said the Queen. ‘The first three will be enough for you.’
* * *
And so Flora kept her position as attendant to the ladies-in-waiting for another day, fetching water and refreshments for them until the Queen had laid her thousand eggs and returned to her chamber – and then her second job began.
While the ladies groomed each other, ate their supper and the Queen rested, Flora went to the Library. Without the anxiety of the other ladies around her, she was calm and could focus, and the intense energy of the chamber no longer overwhelmed her. In the still air she detected wisps and trails of the story fragrances as their living energy drew her attention and sought release – but this time she was determined not to lose control.
Very carefully, Flora scented the first story panel. There it was, The Honeyflow in all its blossoming glory, the foragers calling to each other in the Old Tongue – and there were the terrors of the Myriad lurking in wait.
Beside that was The Kindness, where a sister saw her own death by the hand of another. Then came the third, that honey-scented door to chaos – The Visitation, from whence a filament of smoke curled out its invitation. Flora stepped back, and the smoke retreated. The Queen had said three panels were enough, but excitement coursed through her body. If the priestesses were too busy to read the last three panels, then surely it would be of benefit to the hive if she could perform that service.
She looked at the last three panels. No tremors went through her antennae, nor did her feet drag forward without intention. The lilting singing of the ladies in the rest area beyond came through the walls, sweetly reassuring. Flora stepped up to the fourth panel, and the singing grew louder. A beautiful choral sound filled the chamber, the sound of ten thousand sisters singing one word that ebbed and flowed around the Library, as if they moved just beyond its walls. Flora could not quite decipher it, and as she concentrated the Library filled with the bright busy smell of the Dance Hall – and a great pressure wave rolled through the chamber.
Expiation! The choral blast of the word made Flora stagger. It echoed and died away, and the scent of the Dance Hall faded down.
Flora shook herself, her blood racing. Though she did not understand the strange word or the scents, and the feeling in her body challenged her to flee, the Queen wanted her to know the stories, and she would not fail her.
Flora moved on to the fifth and penultimate panel. At first glance it was very simple – just one carved leaf. As she looked more closely, it took on a golden hue and its filigreed veins pulsed energy that grew into a stalk, then a stem which stretched down the length of the panel and into the floor, its golden roots spreading all through the chamber and back up the walls until they met overhead. The heavenly smell of Holy Mother rose up strongly, mingled with the rich aromatic scent of pollen. Flora looked up and saw the roots had joined into a knot at the centre point of the vaulted Library ceiling that swelled into a crown-shaped fruit. It grew larger and larger, then burst apart in a shower of golden dust.
The Library returned to normal – but a blow of sadness struck Flora in her heart as the name of the panel spoke in her mind. The Golden Leaf. Suddenly the beauty of the strange story was loathsome and Flora felt a terrible grief – but nothing had happened, nor was she hurt in any way. She stepped back from the fifth panel. It was deeply disturbing – and yet even as Flora recoiled from the dark and twisting feeling that had risen in her heart, a little part of her mind whispered praise for her own endurance – she had read five stories! How pleased the Queen would be with her, and how wonderful to be able to help the busy priestesses!
There was one last story. The sixth panel smelled inert, yet held a powerful stillness. Cautiously, Flora focused on it. Nothing happened; no scent, no image, no sound came forth, but the air in the Library grew warm and close. From the centre of the little panel blew a faint trace of fresh air. Feeling as if she was suffocating, Flora could not help drawing nearer.
The Library vanished and she smelled the Nursery. One crib pulled her closer, huge and dark. Deep within it a baby cried in pain, and a cold wind howled. As Flora ran towards it, the crib began to rattle and break apart. The baby cried louder and as she leaned over the crib to see it, a twisting black comet screamed out of its depths and into her brain.
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Laline Paull
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Born into the lowest class of her society, Flora 717 is a sanitation bee, only fit to clean her orchard hive. Living to accept, obey and serve, she is prepared to sacrifice everything for her beloved holy mother, the Queen.But Flora is not like other bees. Despite her ugliness she has talents that are not typical of her kin. While mutant bees are usually instantly destroyed, Flora is removed from sanitation duty and is allowed to feed the newborns, before becoming a forager, collecting pollen on the wing. She also finds her way into the Queen’s inner sanctum, where she discovers secrets both sublime and ominous.But enemies are everywhere, from the fearsome fertility police to the high priestesses who jealously guard the Hive Mind. And when Flora breaks the most sacred law of all her instinct to serve is overshadowed by an even deeper desire, a fierce love that will lead to the unthinkable . . .Laline Paull’s chilling yet ultimately triumphant novel creates a luminous world both alien and uncannily familiar. Thrilling and imaginative, ‘The Bees’ is the story of a heroine who, in the face of an increasingly desperate struggle for survival, changes her destiny and her world.