The Bees: A Novel (22 page)

Thirty-Eight

T
HE TOMB OF THE MOUSE LOOMED OVER
F
LORA, REMINDING
her how far she was from the sanctity of the Category One Nursery—but never in her life had she seen a more beautiful baby. He had hatched perfectly—a whole day sooner than she had expected, but he was a pure pearl color, big and firm and glowing with a soft light. Even through the smell of the propolis, the sweetness of his breath made Flora catch hers.

She settled herself to feed her child in her arms. As he nestled against her and opened his little mouth, her cheeks tingled as the Flow rose from its secret source and soothed her like Devotion. The child ate until he was sated, then curled in his mother’s arms and slept, his particular fragrance rising from his little body. A missing worker was only ever presumed dead, never sought out, so Flora made herself comfortable and gave herself the luxury of falling asleep holding her child.

By morning he had grown to fill her arms and was hungry again. The sounds in the Dance Hall lobby beyond told Flora the hive was long awake, and she felt her own body light with hunger. Until she ate, there was no more Flow to feed him. Flora settled her baby as well as she could, soothing him with soft, loving words and a covering of her own scent. He closed his eyes, and she gazed down at him, her heart bursting with love. Then she slipped out of the corridor and went in search of food.

With her first few steps on the lobby comb, she knew something was wrong. The tiled floor-codes, normally so fluent and reassuring in their familiar messages, stuttered and jerked underfoot so that every bee walking them winced at the gibberish going into their brains. Flora hurried across to the big central mosaic where many foragers were gathered and—unusual for their kind—talking most animatedly.

The problem came from the Dance Hall itself, they told each other. The comb interrupted all their steps, throwing the phrases back in jumbled order so no one could dance and pass on knowledge. How could they forage effectively if they could not communicate? Every forager stopped talking as a group of Sage priestesses emerged from within the Dance Hall and walked toward them.

Flora clenched her antennae shut, a split second too late. One of the priestesses looked at her.

“We are glad that some sisters at least are happy. Can you share the source?”

Flora pushed her kin-scent out of her spiracles as strongly as she could, praying she did not smell of Flow.

“I humbly beg I might lead a cleaning party.” She made her tongue thick and ungainly in her mouth. “Were we to clean the floor again—”

“Yes.” Another priestess spoke. “That must be the cause—there must still be traces. Purge the hall again.”

Flora bobbed her head like the humblest sanitation worker, and the priestesses swept away. The foragers watched them go, then turned back to the Dance Hall. The doors stood wide open, but it was completely empty. In the center, a dark patch still showed on the old wax floor.

“She is right.” An Ivy forager spoke. “Always I smell the bl—”

“Do not!” Another forager, Madam Coltsfoot, turned away. “I wish only to forget.” She looked at Flora. “So you
willingly
choose to be a house bee again?”

Her words stung, but Flora kept her eyes on the corridor to her child. She nodded. Madam Coltsfoot shook her head in disbelief. “Then let me tell you this: I will never dance in there again, unless it is clean.”

“I will do my best.” Flora watched them go down the corridor to the landing board. At the sound of their engines rising up into the sky, she felt a huge pull in her own body, and her wings longed to spread above the currents. But even as she felt it, that faint pulse within her own thrummed harder, and she knew her child hungered.

She ran to the nearest canteen—and found it crowded with arguing sisters, for the malfunctioning floor-codes had told several different shifts to arrive together. The food was scanty pollen bread of poor quality, but Flora fell upon it and it was gone in seconds. She heard someone talking to her and turned to see an old sister from Teasel clinging to a table, food in her fur and antennae disordered.

“Manners are wasted on your kin.” The old Teasel shook her head. “You were the one in the Nursery, weren’t you? Still alive . . .” She pushed her plate of crusts at Flora. “Greedy thing, take mine. I know I die today.”

“Thank you.” Flora ate them, too hungry for pride. She felt her raging body calm, and knew her Flow would come again. “Thank you, Sister.”

The old Teasel looked around. “Category One is ruined now.” She plucked at the table. “Look at this crib, the wax is filthy! We can’t expect Her Majesty to lay in this, can we?” She waved an arm at the bees around them. “And all these foreigners, how am I supposed to train them?”

“Sister, this is the canteen, and they all are from our own hive—”

“Foreigners!” shouted the Teasel, her breath starting to rattle in her thorax. “Go away! Where are my lovely nurses?”

Flora settled the old sister’s disordered antennae and leaned close.

“Right here, Sister,” she said. “But I have forgotten where to take the babies for Holy Time.”

The old Teasel gripped her arm. “It must be clean.”

“Yes, Sister, but where?”

“Listen to me. You can—” The Teasel bent her head close, and stopped. Flora waited for her to continue, but the old sister did not move again. Flora finished every morsel of food on both their plates, then lifted the Teasel into her mouth, and took her down to the morgue. Then she went to the Dance Hall to start cleaning up the Queen’s blood. To her surprise, she found her kin-sisters scrubbing at the last of it, without any supervising sister. Flora looked around.

“Who told you to come? The comb?”

The sanitation workers looked around, as if to make sure no one could hear.

“You did,” said one of them. “Did you not mean it? We heard you tell the priestesses you would clean the floor.”

“But how— I did not see you.”

“Madam—you signaled. We read your wishes in scent.”

Only now did Flora notice how minutely their antennae quivered. Just like the Sage, they preferred chemicals to words. As they smiled at her, a great commotion in the lobby took all their attention.

A group of Teasel carried the broken body of one of their own aloft, and stopped on the central mosaic.

“Left for dead in a corridor!” yelled one of them. No bee had ever heard such warlike tones from her kin. “A warning to us!” shouted another. “Murdered by the police, for speaking out!” The Teasel sisters looked around at the shocked bees. “That will be
your
body, sisters, if you dare to ask where their princess is!” They laid the broken Teasel down, and all who could see shuddered at the sight of the young brindled bee who had addressed them all the day before. Her lower jaw had been ripped from her head, her tongue with it.

“No Devotion,” shouted another Teasel. “No answers—we want the truth!”

“The truth?” Sister Sage stood in their midst, radiant and serene. She looked down at the dead Teasel and shook her head. “You lack the stomach for it.”

“Tell us!” The Teasel sisters were raw with grief. “What truth keeps you in power, yet you cannot give us a Queen?”

“Divine Right.” Sister Sage was calm, and as other priestesses entered the lobby, their strong opiate scent began to rise. As Flora closed her spiracles, she sensed the other sanitation workers do the same.

“The right to murder?” A Teasel in her prime shouted it out. “Is that what you mean? The Sage are corrupt and wicked!”

“Dear Sister Teasel.” Sister Sage held out her hands and walked across the lobby to her. “Uncertainty is very troubling to weaker kin, the Melissae understand that—”

“And the Teasel understand the Sage cling to power at any cost!” Sister Teasel kept her voice strong, but her body hunched in fear at the approach of the priestess. Sister Sage stopped, her hands still outstretched.

“Touch me, Sister Teasel. Divinity flows through me. Feel for yourself, before you further wound our hive by voicing such cruel doubts. Open your mind, and make your own decision.”

Sister Teasel stared at the other priestesses around the lobby.

“It is a trick. You will join together and hurt me.”

“Any harm that comes to you can only be from your own soul.”

“Then I am not afraid.” Yet Sister Teasel hesitated to clasp Sister Sage’s hands. “Our kin are loyal servants of the hive, and we deserve respect!”

“Then keep no secrets.” Sister Sage stepped forward and gripped her hands. Sister Teasel started, then stood rigid and still. All the bees stared at the joined pair, but only the closest could see the shuddering at the bases of Sister Teasel’s antennae. All the Teasel gasped as her legs collapsed and her body sagged. Then the priestess turned Sister Teasel’s lifeless body to face them. Her eyes were covered with a white film, and the bases of both antennae were cracked and seeping.

“Spiritual pollution destroys the bearer.” Sister Sage let Sister Teasel’s body fall to the ground beside her dead kin-sister, then wiped her hands.

Madness. Sister against sister. Disaster.

As if Flora had spoken aloud, Sister Sage turned to focus on her part of the crowd, her powerful antennae scanning. Flora felt the burning sensation in her own antennae, but stood motionless. Then the priestess returned her attention to the silent assembly.

“The wicked secret that just killed Sister Teasel is that her kin raise their own princess in secret, and now think of themselves as royalty.”

“We have as much right as you!” shouted another Teasel. “Your kin sicken so that you cannot make a healthy princess, but we are the kin of the Nursery and we know how to do it! There
is
no Divine Right; food means destiny! That is the truth and you know it: every girl child is born a worker but it is how we
feed
her that makes her Queen!”

At this, the bees broke into uproar. Something ignited in Flora’s brain. The Nursery rotas. That was why no one must see them, or learn to count. That was why the Sage had tried to destroy her brain when she left—in case she knew. Deep tremors began racking through the comb below their feet.

SILENCE!
came the voice of the Hive Mind. At the mouths of the corridors joining the lobby, dark clusters of police had gathered.

“No!”
shouted back the Teasel. “Three days for a worker, four for a drone—”

Sister Sage signaled, and the police began pushing through the crowd toward the Teasel. Bees scattered in terror as she tried to take cover behind them.

“And five days makes a princess—Flow is the great secret!” she screamed as the police surrounded her. “Any female could—” The police unleashed their rage on her body and the smell of her blood filled the air. An officer held up a wet red mass on her claw.

“The traitor made more eggs.” She ate them. “And was rich in Flow.”

Before the bees could scream, the priestesses drove their scent hard through the crowd, so that their brains were seized and the sound of terror died within them. The comb jerked beneath their feet.

Our M-Mother—
came the voice of the Hive Mind.

Who art—Our Mother—from death comes—Our Mother—

At the stuttering of the Queen’s Prayer, the bees began to moan in fear. The comb hummed higher and higher until a terrible frequency went through the bees’ brains—then abruptly ceased. The air felt sucked dead.

Sister Sage held up her hand. “Hush.” She smiled at the bees. “Do not be afraid; the Hive Mind tires of conflict and must rest.” She turned to the chief Thistle guard. “Brave sister guards, surely you see the damage of discord? Stand not in martial judgment, but join your strength with our own officers, for the greater good.”

“How?” The Thistle’s face gave nothing away.

“Search the hive for queen cells. Those not guarded by our trusted police or a priestess, destroy. Leave nothing alive inside them.”

“We have never seen queen cells, Sister. How will we know them?”

Sister Sage permitted herself a grim smile.

“They will be unlike any cell you have ever seen. Leave nothing inside them alive. That is all you need to know.”

Sickened, the Thistle nodded. The Sage withdrew, their scent lock slowly releasing the bees’ bodies. Confused and panicking sisters collided as they tried to pick up instructions from the floor-codes, but the comb transmitted no information. Only the sanitation workers remained calm and industrious. Flora looked around—the Thistle guards were already conferring with the fertility police, standing in groups at the head of every corridor to the lobby, so that every bee must pass between them to leave. Her mouth filled with the sweetness of Flow and it spilled out onto her fur. She swallowed, but more came and it would be impossible to hide. Any moment someone would smell it and kill her—and then her baby would die—

She would not let that happen. As yet no Thistle guards had returned to the landing board, and no police stood at the entrance corridor. Foragers were only just moving across the lobby to return to the landing board, and Flora ran to join them, pushing past to get out before anyone could challenge her scent. Unless she took to the air now, she would never be able to get to her baby in time.

The sun shone on the board and the skies were clear. Flora did not wait to lay a marker signal, but roared her engine as hard and loud as she could to signal she was going a great distance, then made an almost vertical takeoff. She rose up high above the hive and orchard and then circled around behind it and dropped down onto its sloping roof.

Keeping her scent glands tight to prevent any sisters on the wing from smelling her, Flora began walking down the side of the hive. Every insect that crawled there had left a trace, as well as the bird droppings that seared her brain, and the film of dirt deposited by the wind—but there at the bottom was the ragged black gap. Even after the winter, the gnawed edges held the rank scent of the mouse, but beyond it came one much sweeter. Flora crawled inside.

High above the orchard, another wasp watched with interest.