by Laline Paull
Thirty-Three
THE COMB JUDDERED WITH THE PREDATOR’S POWERFUL bites. It was somewhere below them on the middle floor, near the Nursery. The sisters paused, counting the pattern of its feet—not eight, so not a spider; not six, so not an insect—four! A quadruped, with warm blood and dirty fur. Quick and silent, the party of Thistle guards and the strongest sisters from every kin moved toward the vibrations.
The gnawing stopped, as if the creature also took stock of the bees’ advance. Then the smell of its urine rolled down the corridor toward them and they heard the cracking of wax as it resumed its attack on their precious walls. As the sisters crept forward their venom sacs filled and their daggers slid ready.
In the lobby by the Drones’ Arrival Hall the intruder reared up before them. Its long gray head towered over them and its red eyes stared blindly into the darkness. Hundreds of thick trembling whiskers drew in scent and its hairless clawed feet gouged marks in the floor mosaic as it moved. The air was musty from its fur, and when it opened its mouth and panted, the bees saw the long yellow incisors and smelled its rank breath.
The mouse paused, confused. Its long, scaly tail twitched, spreading traces of its urine across the floor tiles.
One of the Thistle guards at the front buzzed angrily and fired her war glands, and every sister did the same.
Protect the Queen!
The mouse scrabbled around to face their sound, and the bees stepped forward slowly, buzzing low and staccato to drive it out. The mouse backed away and the sisters pressed forward, increasing the warning note in their buzz. With a sharp exclamation of revulsion, the first Thistle guard stepped into the trail of its urine. The mouse screeched too, twisting in panic. Its lashing tail knocked some bees off their feet and the others rushed forward, buzzing in rage and nipping at its flank.
It screeched again and turned to run, crashing down the main staircase to the bottom story and stopping only when it knocked its head on the propolis-carved doorway of the Drones’ Hall. Squealing in pain, it bared its long yellow teeth, so close the bees smelled the wood lice on its breath. It turned and ran for the landing board, but the collision had stunned it and it missed the corridor to the free air. As it changed direction and ran toward the back of the hive, Flora felt a draft of air—it must have gnawed a hole in the wood somewhere else.
As one, the sisters knew they must drive it out. They buzzed and pressed forward in angry feints, but the mouse could not run any longer. It fell on its side and lay staring at them, its breath coming fast and shallow. They bit at it and flashed their daggers, but it was old and weak, and its eyes stopped moving.
HUNDREDS OF SISTERS were mobilized to bring propolis from other parts of the hive. For hours the bees chewed and carried, chewed and carried until their long-unused jaws throbbed in pain, but finally the ice-hard propolis grew soft enough to mold. Little by little under the direction of the Sage, the bees embalmed the dead intruder until not a hair nor whisker could be seen or smelled.
Most of the bees were sent back to the Cluster, but Flora stayed in the last work detail, making sure that not the smallest airspace remained between the mouse and the floor. The pungent smell of propolis masked the approach of a priestess, and Flora jumped when she saw one. The identicality of the Sage unnerved her more than anything, and she feared every one of them. She tried to close her antennae—but could not feel them.
“So diligent in all things, Flora 717.” By her rich voice, it was Sister Sage from the Nursery. She stood near Flora but checked the seal of another bee’s work. “And still so strong and young.”
“I am honored at your notice, Sister.” Flora tried again to close her antennae, but the smell of the propolis slowed her reflexes. The priestess was faster, using her own chemical signal as a lever to pry them open.
“Do not shield your thoughts.” Sister Sage probed more deeply into Flora’s mind. Touching on the memory of the black Minerva spider, she shuddered in horror but pressed her awareness harder into Flora’s consciousness. “We must know, 717, what troubles you. We know you have a secret.”
Flora’s abdomen twisted, and for a second, the image of her egg shone in her mind. In desperation, she thought of the Queen clutching her arm, long ago in her boudoir. She remembered the flicker of pain on Holy Mother’s face.
I promised her my silence!
“Holy Mother was sick in her chamber,” Flora whispered. “That is my secret.”
Sister Sage withdrew her pressure, and when she spoke her voice was gentle. “Her Majesty is sick?”
Flora stared at the resin sarcophagus, then nodded. Her beloved Mother had begged her not to speak of it, and she had promised not to tell another soul. Now she had betrayed the Queen in every conceivable way. But even as she despised herself, Flora felt her control returning—and locked her antennae tight.
“That was long ago,” she said. “But just now in the Cluster, when I gave Her Majesty nectar, she was strong.” Flora stared at the priestess. She had cleared the morgue herself and seen the Sage bodies. She had touched those three strange tombs in the secret chamber behind the Treasury, and knew that they too held Sage. “Is there sickness in our hive?”
“Of course not.” Sister Sage groomed her own antennae, as if from soiling contact. “But the Cluster permits nightmares, as a way of cleansing our minds. And as foragers must withstand more sights than most, you might well have fearsome fantasies.” The priestess let her scent flow smooth. “If Holy Mother has been unwell, it is crucial you tell us. For the good of the colony.”
Light footsteps sounded in the corridor, and five identical priestesses entered. Sister Sage made an almost imperceptible motion to them, and they stood silent.
“Return to the Cluster,” she said to Flora. “The Melissae must confer.”
THE LIVING ORB OF SISTERS still pulsed with gossip of the mouse when Flora got back. To her astonishment, she heard the sanitation workers talking in low voices. She took her place and looked at them. They were smiling.
“In the Dreaming,” one whispered. “We took back our tongues.”
Then the scent of the kin of Sage flowed toward them as the priestesses returned. All the bees stopped talking and parted to let them disappear deep within the Cluster, near the Queen. Then the Holy Chord began to vibrate, and the Hive Mind spoke.
The danger has passed. We now resume our trance.
Accept, Obey, and Serve.
The bees murmured in response and settled their antennae for rest. Threads of the Queen’s Love drifted to the outer layers where her daughters clung in the cold, but the beautiful fragrance gave Flora no comfort.
Thirty-Four
FREEZING FOG CRAWLED DOWN ON THE HIVE, ITS clammy touch probing every unsealed gap. In the dense, chilled clump of life within, there was no more energy for dreaming, and the only message pulsing slowly through the Cluster was that every sister’s warmth was vital, and none might leave. In the rare few hours of runted sun, Flora and other foragers raised their antennae in hope, but it was still too cold to fly.
Three quarters of the Treasury walls were empty when the first signs came. The sisters did not stir, for even to think of spring would cost them psychic energy—but secretly each of them began to register a change.
The wooden walls creaked as they dried. The air thinned, and new scents stirred. Was that the soil they smelled?
Sisters began to shift their grip but kept their antennae connected to the trance, fearful of the agonizing disappointment if they were wrong. Flora unsealed both of hers—then raised her head in excitement. The air pressure was definitely changing—high above the Treasury ceiling the skies were opening. Since her desperate frozen flight back from the cage of glass, she had not been out or smelled any green and living thing—but now as the first seeds split deep within the earth, a primal scent began to rise.
One day the sun shone stronger and in the orchard the first bird sang. Deep in the Cluster the Queen stirred. Her fragrance pulsed stronger and stronger th
rough her daughters’ dreams, rocking their senses back to life—until with a shimmering burst the bees awoke to the great change in the air and joy at the coming of spring.
Euphoric with relief, Flora untangled herself and stretched her cramped limbs. She looked immediately for Sir Linden to acknowledge his survival, but he had already disappeared into the great shifting landscape of the Cluster’s disintegration.
A brown-and-gold tide of bees streamed down the Treasury walls and a thousand scent instructions and affirmations wove the air. Comb tingled underfoot as thousands of feet reactivated the dormant scent codes.
“Make all ready! Make all ready!” the sisters called ahead, and everyone pressed back in thrilled excitement as the Queen herself came rushing through on a great cloud of fragrance.
“Attend, attend!” she called, and the smell of her rising fertility trailed behind her sweeter than nectar. Then came her ladies-in-waiting running to follow, all their pretty fur in disarray, antennae waving disheveled at their sudden return to duty.
“Attend, attend!” they cried as they ran, and all the bees cheered in joyous relief and sang the Queen’s Prayer to spread the good news: Holy Mother was preparing to lay again, and winter was finally over.
IT WAS WONDERFUL AND STRANGE to be at liberty in the hive again. Sisters from Propolis immediately got to work repairing the damage the great mouse had wreaked with its gnawing and crashing around, and sanitation workers set about cleaning the dirt it had brought with it. Foragers rushed past Flora toward the landing board, but a phalanx of priestesses stood in the midlevel lobby surveying the damage and repairs. Flora could not help herself. She sealed her antennae and went up to one.
“Sister, may I be permitted to ask a question?”
“Speak.”
“Did the spiders in the orchard speak truly?”
The priestess’s antennae pulsed hard and high for a second, then she drew them down.
“Why do you ask? ”
“They spoke of two winters. But now it is spring.”
“A strange memory, to hold all through the Cluster. Would you rather the spiders spoke true, or false?”
Flora was silent. Twice comes winter; one more egg.
“False, Sister, for they wish us no good.”
“Then why bring their malice to mind?”
“So many lives were sold in payment for what they said, that if they lied—”
The priestess groomed her antennae, and when they rose again, Flora knew she had sealed them, as if she too had something to hide.
“The Cluster survived, did it not?” The priestess let her kin-scent flow. “Fly while you can, old forager. Bring us food!”
“Accept, Obey, and Serve.” Flora bowed, and ran for the board. The priestess had not answered her question. There was still hope.
IT WAS A JOY TO SEE the Thistle guards standing at arms on the board again, and when Flora laid her own kin-scent along with all the other homecoming markers, they saluted her like any other forager. She shivered her engine back to life and stretched her long cramped wings. They hurt as the sun roused blood through the silver membranes, and her joints felt stiff. She was aging, there was no doubt—and so were other foragers who showed yet greater wear and tear. But as they streamed high into the sparkling air, the sounds of their engines were joyous and strong.
Flora leaped to join them. If anything, the long confinement had made her faster and more agile than before, and the very thought of a cold sister clinging on to her body sent her faster in pursuit of the wonderful smell of pollen.
It came from a straggly line of willows edging a field, their leaves still furled in sleep but their acid-yellow catkins just opening with their first wave of pollen. There was no nectar, for all the trees were male, but after her long fast, Flora craved the thick carbohydrate of pollen. She ran up and down the golden pendants, triggering the precious dust to shower all over her body, then she combed it off and packed it hard and tight into expert bundles. She ate until her strength was restored, and the taste and the freedom made her hum for joy. When bees from other hives joined her in the branches, they greeted each other in the most beautiful word of their tongue: Spring!
Each returning forager was met with a storm of applause as she touched down with her load, but none had such a haul as Flora. She danced her directions to a packed and enthusiastic crowd in the Dance Hall, and many did not even wait for her to finish before they rushed off to find the catkins themselves.
All the foragers did well that day, only stopping as the sun sank early in the afternoon and the chill evening forced them back. Some had found bright orange pollen from crocuses, some early daffodils with their rough vivid taste, and the mood in the canteens was buoyant.
More good news came as they finished their meals. Two young Teasel nurses burst in, their faces bright with excitement.
“Sisters! Holy Mother’s eggs flow strong again,” cried one. “Worker after worker.”
“And for every hundred of us, a male! Their Malenesses are coming, sisters! Truly it is spring, tell everyone!”
Like the memory of summer, the massacre of the males had vanished with the Cluster, and so their joy and excitement was fresh and pure. All the bees remembered was the thrill of Devotion, once again traveling through the wax comb to reassure the colony of Holy Mother’s health, and her ongoing love for them. Spring was here, and all fear was gone.
But Flora remembered everything, and that night as she lay in her berth, listening to the happy gossip and chatter of her sisters, she carefully scanned her body. There were nicks and tears along the edges of her wings, and their joints ached from her first long flight since the Cluster—but there was nothing else of note. Though she knew she aged, she was healthy and strong—except for the emptiness in her heart and the void in her belly. There was nothing to hide, and nothing to fear. The spiders feigned power with cruel, empty taunts, and there would be no third egg.
The next day a Calluna forager rushed back to the hive dancing wildly of a great blazing forsythia bush on the edge of the town, and all the foragers sped to find it. It was better than they hoped, wild and untrimmed so that its thousands of golden florets yielded nectar at the slightest touch, and so many bees visited it that it hummed with the Holy Chord.
All the foragers from the orchard hive visited it for hours, enraptured at the constantly twining threads of scent and the sudden bursts of glittery pollen showering onto their backs. At last even the most vigorous foragers were finally ready to stop, and with loaded panniers and well-filled crops they flew home together. This was a comforting strategy they permitted themselves only when the sky was clear of the scent of the Myriad; otherwise the scent and sound of so many richly laden bees would be irresistible to their enemies.
The cold spring breeze was in their favor, and as the sisters sped back toward the hive, they hummed in bright anticipation of the praise that would meet them as they thumped down onto the landing board.
It was not to be. Approaching the orchard, Flora saw that the foragers who had left the forsythia bush before them were still hovering fully loaded in the air, held back by a cordon of Thistle guards. They were demanding to land, and complaining of the extra fuel it was costing to keep them waiting.
“Forgive us, Madam; forgive us, madam foragers,” shouted back the Thistles. “But the Sage decree you wait, for special purpose.”
“What special purpose? What could possibly be more important than bringing in forage?” It was an Ivy, a late-born forager with plenty of strength. “I cannot believe you turn us away—shame on your kin!”
“Please, Madam!” The Thistle closest to the Ivy buzzed in distress. “We cannot, we are instructed by the priestesses. Accept, Obey, and Serve!”
Little black dots of sisters appeared on the landing board, and Flora smelled her kin-sisters, the sanitation workers. All the elimination flights had been performed, so it was unusual for them to appear on the board. They wept, and each carried a little burden. One b
y one, they lurched off the board and flew away, far past the place of elimination. When the last had disappeared, the Thistles moved back for the incoming foragers.
“Forgive us, sisters,” they said.
ON THE LANDING BOARD, Flora smelled the traces of her kin-sisters’ feet, and the peculiar and unpleasant load they had carried. She stood waiting to see if the floras came back, but there was no sound or scent of them.
“What did they take?” she asked the little Clover receiving her forsythia nectar. “What were the floras carrying?”
The Clover shook her head and hurried back into the hive. Flora followed and grabbed her. “Tell me what happened to my kin!”
The Clover started to cry. “I am forbidden. Accept, Obey—”
Before she could finish Flora pressed her own antennae around the Clover’s and held her firmly so that she could not run. The Clover did not know how to seal them, and her panic spilled into Flora’s mind, tumbled with images of the Nursery.
“They say the brood is plagued.” She leaned against Flora and wept. Flora pulled some pollen from her pannier and stuffed it in her hands.
“Hush. Tidy that and stop weeping, or the police will smell your distress—”
The Clover looked around in terror. “Are they here?”
“Not yet, so tell me quickly—what do you mean, plagued?”
“The babies turn to slime in their cribs, still begging for food even as their flesh falls apart. No one may speak of it on pain of the Kindness and now I have disobeyed—”
Flora pushed more pollen into her hands. “You have done nothing wrong. Who forbids it?”
The Clover looked at her in terror. “The priestesses. They are angry.” She fled.
FLORA WENT ON to the Dance Hall, looking for any sanitation worker on the way. There were none to be seen and the hive was immaculate. The scent of the Queen’s Love hung fresh and plentiful in the lobby, and the atmosphere was so calm that Flora wondered for a moment if the little Clover had been in her right mind.