The Bees: A Novel (5 page)

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 leveled out into a small corridor that led to a door. She crept forward to scan what was beyond.

Through the old wax she first detected the distinctive odor 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 signaled 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 jolt of excitement, she understood that these floras were from the top echelon of Sanitation, responsible for 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 pollen hidden in her pockets. Then she followed her kin-sisters out of the morgue toward the sun-warmed wood of the landing board and the vault of sky beyond.

Eight

A
LARGE CROWD BLOCKED THE LOBBY TO THE LANDING
board, and the sanitation corpse-bearers were forced to wait. Eddies of warm, dry wind swirled toward them, then came cheers and applause as bees pressed back to make a corridor of space as the foragers came rushing through. Awestruck, Flora stared at the disheveled sisters with their blazing faces and radiant ragged wings, who smelled of no kin but the wild, high air. They ran into the 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 nearer to 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 windblown 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.

F
LORA WALKED OUT OF THE DARK,
closed hive into a dazzling world of light and space and onto 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. 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 honor 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 back, his fur still sticky as he struggled to stabilize his own slightly higher pitch. Too late she shrank back 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, but instead she 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 stretched 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 up at 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 with 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 body 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 odor 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. The source of the sound was Lily 500, 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 odor, 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, small 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. 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. For the first time in her life 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 huge 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 the smallest scent of Holy Mother and scanned down at the foreign shapes and colors below her to try to reorient herself. Massive green and beige fields dulled the air with their vast, monotonous scent and she veered away to glean any clue to 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 gray 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, 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, and the hive was under attack.

Nine

L
AID 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. “Infidels!” But her trembling antennae undermined 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 another 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 buzzed more 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!” warned another Thistle, holding back her colleague. “They try to draw us.” She motioned to Flora. “You’re big and brave—get back inside and hold the line.”

S
ISTERS 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 in 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. The bees’ wings were crushed, the heat was rising, and a tide of irritation seeped through the crowd. And then—a hard beat 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 crack. 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 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 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 again. The wasp smiled at her.

“Pretty, pretty . . .” She drove a whip of her acid scent down the passageway; it wrapped around the antennae of dozens of bees and made them yelp 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 Thistles’ blood. To stop herself from running she dug her claws deeper into the comb. Deep within the hive, a faint vibration pulsed toward 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 malice rose stronger.

Draw her in,
spoke the thought in Flora’s mind.
Lure her, lure her—

Flora stepped backward and all her sisters moved with her. The vibration in the comb became 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 singsong 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 her sisters were dense behind her and there was no retreat from mortal combat.

The wasp’s body rasped on the hive floor. Four of her six elbows were in, and the only light was 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 chillldren, 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 the word as the wasp lunged—and sprang upon the monster’s back, her claws scrabbling for purchase on the slippery armor.

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 hissed 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. Blinded in agony, the wasp screamed in rage, killing 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 and she could not 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.

T
HE DEAD WASP
was a horrific sight. The great 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 very great.

Flora carried many 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. Many Sage priestesses moved among the dying to bless them with the Queen’s Love and ease their passing. One Sage 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, no longer fastidious.

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 reconsecrate 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. “But 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, and attend them well.”