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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.’
