by Laline Paull
All over the hive the bees cheered and cheered, their fear turned to triumph. Here was Holy Mother, and what was wealth without her? They could make more honey—they would make more! The Queen was never more radiant, and all the sisters marveled at the fresh mantilla of wax lace she wore and sighed in admiration at the new royal style.
Holy Mother stood in the midlevel lobby for a long time, allowing every sister of the hive to pass through and draw on her scent, a once-in-a-lifetime privilege for the thousands who had never seen her or ever dreamed of such holy proximity. As the massive pilgrimage of sisters continued through the lobby, the chemical atmosphere of the hive stabilized and the vibration of the Holy Chord restored power to the Hive Mind.
Flora stood at the back of the lobby watching the endless procession of sisters pass through, their faces glowing and exalted from contact with the Queen. Feeling the intensity of Flora’s attention, the Queen looked across and called with her eyes. Flora ran and knelt, her heart surging.
“We missed our storytelling child. We sent word to bring her back. But she did not come.”
The Queen’s scent filled Flora’s soul.
“Mother, I have sinned—forgive me—” She could not go on.
“We do, beloved. And we always will, because you are our child.”
“I do not deserve it—” At the Queen’s soft touch, Flora began to weep.
“Enough. Holy Mother must conserve her strength.” Ladies-in-waiting ushered Her Majesty away, and the crowd dispersed from the lobby.
Flora rose to her feet again. Her soul longed to be with her egg and see how it had grown—but her panniers and crop were still full, and all around were her starving, traumatized sisters. A forager’s first duty was to the hive, and to share her news would not take long.
Normal etiquette of the Dance Hall was suspended following the Visitation, so foragers took the floor wherever there was a space, keeping their choreography rapid and brief. Thistle guards were in attendance to keep the crowd moving.
“Everyone up to the Treasury,” they kept calling out. “No tasting down here, everyone up to the Treasury to mend the vaults.”
Flora stumbled in her dance. The Treasury, its broken walls streaming gold. And hidden behind them, her egg. Knocking sisters aside, she ran.
THE MOVEMENTS SHE COULD FEEL were a receiver’s hands, unpacking bundles of pollen from her panniers, and the smell was the kin of Poppy. The strange acoustics were the many voices and sounds of building work, taking place in a large, high space. Dazed, Flora came to her senses standing in front of a half-full chalice of echium nectar in the Fanning Hall, now a construction site.
She looked around. The broken Treasury walls above still bled honey, while hundreds of bees worked to save it and re-cap the cells. Hundreds more worked in living chains, passing blocks and panels and shards of wax in from the doors and up to more sisters hanging high on the walls, hooked foot to arm to foot so they could reach the roof. They were rebuilding the vaults with whatever wax they could summon—fragments from the Arrivals Hall, piles of fresh white discs commandeered from the chapel, and even bundles of yellow scraps reclaimed from the freight depot. On the ground, hundreds more sisters sent freshly chewed propolis to seal the gaps.
The young Poppy followed Flora’s stunned gaze.
“I know! Two whole walls of wealth completely stolen, and a third one damaged, but Mother be praised, the other three still intact. And look at the Sage working with us, have you ever seen that? So elegant even as they crawl!”
Flora stared at the priestesses moving along the high vaults.
“I must dance,” she said. “I must go to the Dance Hall—”
“Madam, you did dance, do you not remember? And so well that many have already returned with that new nectar, and it smells most delicious.” The Poppy looked anxious. “Do you think you can stand now? Would you like me to stay longer?”
“What do you mean?”
The Poppy looked around, then lowered her voice.
“Madam—your collapse. The foragers said it was the terrors of your flight upon you. When you ran in and saw the destruction, oh how piteously you took it—striking out as if every sister was a foe, wailing for our lost walls. We cannot bring them back, Sister, but we can rebuild them.”
“The walls. Yes.” Flora stared across the raw new space. “I saw it.”
Those wet, golden walls of wealth disappearing into that white bag. Her egg had drowned in honey. Her egg was gone. She felt the Poppy clutching at her hand, and knew the little thing wept.
“I saw it too, Madam—and how will we forget? How can we? Our home torn apart, so many lost—I can never forget!”
“Hush.” Flora gazed across at where her crib had been. The outer wall of the secret chamber remained, built strong and old of a different-colored wax from the rest of the hive. Numb and cold inside, she comforted the Poppy. “Hush,” she said, again and again, to both of them. “Hush.”
A wave of masking scent rolled into the Fanning Hall at the arrival of a police squad. Every sister working there looked up in disapproval, for despite the vigorous activity it was still a sacred place. Flora recognized the particularly harsh scent of Sister Inspector and watched her speaking quietly with Sister Sage. Very slowly she averted her antennae, lest her notice rouse their attention. The priestess turned.
“Immediately upon completion of repairs,” Sister Sage an-nounced, “the Treasury will be reconsecrated.” She scanned the workers. “But the theft of our wealth has revealed a greater evil. We are no longer in any doubt: a laying worker hides among us. From now on there will be spot checks throughout the hive, day and night. Any sister who resists an officer will be deemed guilty. Is that clear?”
“Accept, Obey, and Serve,” the bees murmured. When the police left, they returned to work, but now in total silence. The Poppy receiver moved on to a new arrival in the hall, and Flora bent her head and pumped the last of her crop of echium nectar into the chalice. Sisters joined her and began to fan their wings to cure it. Gradually the water from the nectar evaporated as silver mist and the Holy Chord began to rise. All over the broken, desecrated Fanning Hall, the working bees joined in it, a hymn of courage for their labors. The sound filled the emptiness in Flora’s heart. She would not weep; she would work. As her nectar cured, brave and industrious Flora 717 stood amid her sisters, her mind’s eye gazing deep into the dark sky of her body, searching for a new star.
Twenty-Five
THE HIVE RESUMED ITS NORMAL LIFE. FLORA DID NOT. Since the loss of her second egg she kept her antennae sealed, making loneliness her constant inner state. Her sensual pleasure in food vanished, the busy gossipy canteens alienated her, and though she still attended Devotion, it was more a way to kill the time between flight and sleep, and had little effect.
The challenge of the forage was the only thing that kept Flora’s grief at bay, and efficiency on the wing her only satisfaction. She flew harder and longer missions than any other bee, and felt herself becoming grim and intent as she returned to the landing board. It was as if she observed herself in the body of some strange sister who neither spoke nor smiled, intimidating to the nervous young receivers who unloaded her panniers and took her nectar. Though she felt kindly toward them she did not show it, for to give or receive a loving touch might break her open.
Summer waned. The flowers pulled on their last strength to shine and breathe their sweetness on the air and Flora skimmed the roadside to harvest one final flush of purple-black pollen from the dusty orange poppies even as their tired petals fell. The cornflowers finished, then the lady’s-mantle, the rosebay willowherb, and the scant cow parsley that was Flora’s favorite flower.
Careful of the rank, unkempt ponds where frogs and dragonflies lurked, she made the long trip to the town gardens. All the echium had been cut down, and the remaining flowers were time-wasting potted ornamentals. There was still some comfort in the thin, wild borders of the fields, where the flowering weeds clung toget
her and raised their scent, until one day the harvesting machines tore the fields edge to edge and the birds screeched above.
She had just that morning danced exact directions and confirmed them safe—but now crows endangered any foraging bee who used them. Far more important than filling her own panniers was the need to protect her sisters, and Flora sped back to give warning. Running into the Dance Hall she stopped short at the sight of the fertility police moving through the foragers, forcing them into their long-discarded kin-groups.
“Keep dancing,” one of the police rasped to the Calluna who stumbled in her steps. “Continue as normal.”
“Sister Officer,” Flora called out. “I must dance at once, for the crows are now on the field and my sisters must not go.”
The officer looked up at her, then beckoned. Flora walked to the center, where the Calluna very gratefully gave up her place.
The officer stood too close while Flora danced her news, including her new signature choreography, details of the air currents she had used. These subtle steps helped any who followed to save on fuel, but the presence of the police inhibited the audience and few danced behind her. As Flora continued she saw the young and tender sisters standing at the edge. They had come to watch and learn, but the fertility police bore down on them with questions and they stood dazed and stupid with fear.
“This is a place of freedom!” Flora called out as she danced, not caring that all eyes fixed on her. She repeated her steps to warn of the birds in the field, then looked directly at the officers. “How can anyone dance freely or give of her best if the air smells of terror? Respect this place or leave!”
“You dare direct the police?” An officer grabbed at Flora, but her reflexes were faster and she whirled her abdomen around to buzz the location of the last flowers she had found, a stand of dog roses climbing up a metal fence, south-facing and still in bloom. Emboldened, other foragers fell in behind her and picked up the steps. Ignoring the rising scent of the fertility police and remembering her own youthful joy in Lily 500’s dance, Flora took her steps nearer to the young and frightened bees by the walls.
She danced the falling poppies and the naked fields, she ran figure eights to teach them direction and azimuth, and as she turned she felt the answering rhythm in the comb floor as more bees joined in and danced behind her.
She danced the ivy that crawled along the town fences, and its buds that would soon bloom; she danced the empty dahlias, and the last dragonflies hiding in the ponds. And then she danced of her hunger for weeds.
“Enough!” Sister Sage stepped forward and Flora stopped. “Are you falling prey to the madness of the field? Or is it pride?” The priestess signaled an officer. “Measure her.”
A ripple of dismay ran through the crowd.
“Yes!” Sister Sage said to them all. “Even foragers may be measured, for no sister is exempt from the Holy Law. Eggs blight in the nursery—which means she who curses this hive still runs free, and seeks to pass her evil spawn as the pure issue of Holy Mother.” A frightening tone entered her voice. “What is our highest law?”
“Only the Queen may breed.”
“Again!” Sister Sage’s voice seemed to come from all around the Dance Hall, and the bees repeated the phrase over and over, staring at the humiliation of the famous forager.
Flora stood completely still while two officers ran their calipers over her. They were rough and pried at her intimately, they went over her antennae again and again with their burning scanners until the smell of her heating cuticle rose into the chamber and the bees wept at her pain, but Flora was strong from her forage and withstood it all.
“She smells, Sister,” said one of the police, her great jaws ready to bite.
“And her belly is swollen,” said another, her hooks gleaming.
“That scent is my kin. I am a flora and a forager, and I stretch this belly with nectar from a thousand flowers a day if I can find them, to bring home to our hive. Accept, Obey, and Serve.”
“Accept, Obey, and Serve,” shouted the bees, as if a Sage priestess had said it.
“Silence!” The inspecting officer cuffed Flora’s head. For a moment her anger caused her antennae lock to shift.
“She hides something!” cried the officer. “She locks her antennae from us!”
“Open them.” Sister Sage walked close to Flora. “Open them.”
Flora resisted until Sister Sage was using all her psychic force to break her mind apart—and then she released her seals.
High, roaring air currents—the murmuring tree—the wasps in the warehouse, gathering for attack—
“How dare you.” Sister Sage stepped back and Flora resealed her antennae and stood quietly. For the first time in many days, she became aware of the weak and distant pulse of Devotion in the comb. Then she saw the great numbers of sanitation workers clustered around the edge of the room. Some of them twisted their faces in grimacing smiles at her and she knew that despite the unspoken rule against their presence here, they had all come to watch her dance.
Sister Sage turned to the foragers.
“Ego is the great peril of your occupation. You begin to believe what the flowers tell you, instead of the Holy Law. Only Queen and Colony matter.” She turned back to Flora. “For the rest of the day you will return to Sanitation and all will command your labor. Tomorrow you will go out at dawn, and if by the noon azimuth you have not returned with a whole cropful of nectar, you are exiled.”
The foragers crowded forward, not waiting for permission to speak.
“None of us could do that— It is not to be found— The flowers come to their end— Any of us would die trying!”
Sister Sage stared at them, her antennae crackling. “In the air, you may think for yourselves. Here, the Hive Mind takes that care from you. Do not reject it.”
Flora stepped forward.
“I accept the task.” She looked across at the sanitation workers. “I will try my best, for the honor of my kin.”
“Then you will fail. The honor of your kin is found in dirt and service. To teach otherwise is to wound them with confusion.” The scent of Devotion rose stronger through the comb, and the priestess raised her antennae.
“Our Mother, who art in labor, Hallowed be Thy womb.”
All the bees took it up, releasing their tension into the formal beauty of the Queen’s Prayer until the Dance Hall echoed with their voices. Flora spoke it too, her heart stirred back to life by the confrontation. The air grew warm and soft around her as many sister bees came to stand wing to wing with her, protecting her and sharing their strength. They hummed the words of the Queen’s Prayer but they did not speak, for they were floras.
Twenty-Six
THE NEXT DAWN WAS COLD AND BRIGHT. HIGH AND sweet the birds sang their territories in the soft green light of the orchard—but standing on the board Flora felt a change. She unlatched her wings but did not start her engine. All was calm and still, except for the dazzling skein of light floating between the trees. It drifted until it caught on a twig. The next moment it shuddered taut as a spider sailed down it, another line unspooling behind her. Deftly she fastened it to the same twig, then ran back up the double line on her eight scrambling legs.
“I heard the Sage speaking of it yesterday.” It was another forager, Madam Dogwood. “When the spiders come, winter soon follows.”
Flora looked out at the gossamer webs shining in the trees, exquisite traps set across the flight corridor.
“So they knew.”
More foragers emerged onto the landing board, but when they saw Flora, they stopped. Knowing her impossible task, they made room to give her first departure. The Thistle guards saluted her.
“Queenspeed, Sister,” some said.
“Mother be with you,” said others.
The sun was shifting. Flora bowed to her hive, set her engine to hard ascent, and leaped from the board.
AFTER THE HARVESTS the fields were brown deserts menaced with birds, and the narrow gree
n sanctuaries at their edges all gone, now piled with broken stalks and clods of earth. The roadside flowers hung their dusty heads, empty and exhausted of anything a bee might want. Flora went to check the dog roses she had danced, but found their scent faded and their simple beauty wrinkled and spent. When she did not alight, their petals fell in sorrow.
In the town there was very little to be had; the gardens were nearly empty of friendly flowers, though many provocatively dressed foreign ones stood bold and bright, flaunting their sterile sexes. The foxgloves and the snapdragons, whose particular tricks of access Flora had delighted in perfecting, were long gone, the echium had fallen, but there were still some fuchsia, whose hanging bells required skill to plunder. Flora took all she could find, but it was paltry. She was about to leave the gardens and their reeking black waste bins buzzing with flies when she smelled a thistle in bloom.
Even for the most orthodox bees of Flora’s hive, this plant transcended its weed status by the strength of its nectar and the skill of the forage. She located it behind the stench of the bins and went closer. The thistle was so strong it had forced its way through the asphalt, then the dark space between the bins, straining its sharp purple crown up to the light. At Flora’s approach it pushed its scent harder, and the touch of her feet made its prickly petals shiver in gratitude.
She drank it dry, then searched the town for more of its kind, or dandelions, scrubby red dock bloom, or anything at all that might give nectar, for her crop was not even half full. The smell of sugar rose from litter blowing on the ground, but it reminded Flora of the wasps, and she went on. The azimuth of the sun shifted closer to noon. Her crop was only half full, but to keep searching would be to use what she had gathered as fuel. There was nothing more to find, and nowhere to go but home.