The Bees: A Novel

by Laline Paull

  Fresh nectar, after days of stale, damp food in the hive—how her sisters would cheer and what a balm to her conscience, to see them feasting on her forage. Flora was ravenous, and she increased her wingbeats. With luck she might even be first to stand on the velvet lip of a petal as the day’s nectar rose.

  She sped along the stinking dark line of the road, toward the red- and gray-roofed town and the tiny green gardens that pried the houses apart. The asphalt veins multiplied and the dank monoxide wind billowed higher, but Flora rose above it, glorying in her extraordinary new power. Perhaps Holy Mother had spared her for this very purpose: to bring the finest forage for the hive, and fill its Treasury with wealth. By her efforts foraging and the value she brought to the hive, she would offset the crimes of her body.

  Flora steadied herself on the high, warm current and checked her position, logging all the visual markers into her antennae. The town was straight ahead, but if she veered to follow the rising land on one side, she could approach its tiny gardens from the back—and those flowers whose sweet mouths she could smell. She felt for the thermal flowing toward the slope of the land and rose up to catch it. But instead of the warm curl of air she expected to ride with ease, it spiraled and spun her into a big, fast current streaming through the valley.

  Get down! Lily 500’s voice burned through her antennae. Descend!

  So the old forager had traveled this way herself, then. Flora struggled lower to clear her antennae from the strange sound in the wind that kept snagging her attention. The interference got worse. With a rattling snap, all but her visual data completely vanished.

  Alarmed that this might be the result of particles of that gray film of sickness, Flora flew toward a clump of trees on the hilltop. Her body felt strong and well, but a pressure was building in her head, and the trees came in and out of focus.

  One was larger than the rest and its dark green branches barely moved. It was some sort of massive conifer, its leaves stiff and gleaming, its trunk covered in a strangely uniform-colored brown bark. Some of its branches appeared to be made completely of metal, and a dismal emanation transmitted from its core, like a prayer mumbled backward. It had no smell and its energy was neither living nor dead.

  The wind scattered on the hilltop and once again Flora tried to descend, but an alien force pumped at her brain and blocked out her senses. She found herself flying around the tree’s dead, shiny branches, on which no insects crawled and no birds rested. Far below were four shining metal roots, ugly and symmetrical, dug deep into a stone platform on which were scattered many black dots. Their shape was familiar, for they were bees. Revolted, Flora tried to use her strength to break out of the prison circle in which she flew, but each effort merely increased her speed. A hideous power pulsed from the metal tree, sapping her strength.

  A sharp pain shot through her head as a burst of Lily’s data broke in again.

  Do not look down— Follow—

  Flora strained to draw more out but her antennae sagged like dead things. Follow what? She tried to focus on one spot beyond the tree and hurl herself out toward it, but her whirling momentum blurred everything to writhing green lines.

  —the Myriad—the Myriad—the Myriad—

  Now the old forager’s data looped over and over, mixing with the dull moan of the tree’s core until Flora wanted to tear her own antennae from her head to stop it. A high hissing sound cut in and as she was dragged around again she caught a lurid flash of black-and-yellow livery.

  “Greetings, Sister Apis,” called the high, wicked voice of a wasp. It hung in the air watching her, completely unaffected by the shining tree. “Are we outwitted, so far from home?” It flew alongside Flora to show itself.

  She was a young female, much smaller than the great Lady Vespa who had tried to raid the hive and been cooked for her pains—but even in her dulled state Flora could see her malicious face and smell her ready sting. The wasp laughed again.

  “Oh we do like to see our sisters Apis in trouble. . . . Even the Chosen People must sometimes struggle, no?” She floated closer to Flora. “None of you know this tree, do you? Until it is too late!” She made little backward bounces without moving her wings, showing off. “We are not the Chosen People, but we are still superior, do you see, cousin? We make no honey, but we are more intelligent, more beautiful—” The wasp smirked and pirouetted, and even in her battered state Flora longed to strike her to the ground.

  “And, oh yes!” The wasp slid out her little dagger to show the bead of poison glistening at its tip. “And so much better equipped!” She flexed it lasciviously, then flew so close to Flora that her buzzing drowned out the moaning of the tree.

  “Admit that we are better, and curtsy to me,” simpered the wasp, “and I might show you how to leave.”

  Follow—the Myriad— Lily 500’s voice bit through Flora’s heavy mind—Because they are not affected—

  “I admit it!” Flora spread her knees in a clumsy curtsy and tipped in the air. The wasp shrieked with laughter, then whirred her wings in her face.

  “Follow me quick and close, stupid cousin, and do it now—”

  Flora lunged after the wasp and fell from the tree’s hold. The ground spun toward her but she grabbed on to a dry brown stem. The wasp settled on the dead bush beside her and waited while Flora righted herself.

  “So clumsy; how the flowers must hate your touch. Curtsy again.”

  “No.” Nauseated and angry, Flora could barely speak.

  “La la, then I will leave you,” sang the wasp, “and watch how long you take to die.” She flew off a short distance and hovered. Flora gathered her strength to fly, but her body was weak and her fuel supplies low. As soon as she felt the air between her wingbeats, the moaning tree sucked her back toward it.

  “Curtsy,” sang the wasp, “and see your hive again. Up to you!”

  Flora clutched the twig again and curtsied to the wasp.

  “How the Chosen People grovel, when they must! With all your treasure and your fur, and your superior holy attitude that you make such song and dance about. As if you are the only ones the flowers care for!”

  “You are right, cousin. You are better. Now how may I leave here?”

  “Ah well, first you should have kept to your side of the road,” said the wasp.

  “The air belongs to all. No wasp decrees our flight.”

  “Is that the royal We? Well dear cousin, let me tell you: we, the Vespa, think that your royal mother sickens. Indeed we do.”

  “You lie.” Flora’s sting flexed at the insult.

  “Oh no, for we found a poor sister from your orchard, lost on the wing just like you.” She made her small sizzling laugh. “We know your livery; of course we do. Even when sullied with nasty gray specks. Poor dying Apis, we carried her in to comfort her last moments, and how freely she spoke! How she called for her sisters—oh, we did not take offense, for she was very weak, but it was charming how she shared her news with us, of Lady Vespa’s rude reception, and all about your holy Sage.” The wasp put her head to one side. “And how Mother’s reek grows weaker.”

  “Holy Mother! And her Love stays strong.” Flora’s dagger tingled to be used.

  “Forgive me, cousin, you are right to mark my manners.” The wasp giggled, then shot her a sly look. “Do you think we are inferior?”

  “Yes—but it is not your fault.” Flora did not want to anger the wasp. “You are stronger than me, for you can withstand this tree.”

  “Not a tree, stupid cousin!” The wasp hovered and lifted one claw in time to a silent beat. “Can you not hear it? Boom, boom, boom—it never stops! And so loud and boring—but at least it cannot broadcast scent. That would be much harder to ignore.”

  Now that the wasp had pointed it out, Flora could feel the heavy magnetic throb dragging on the air. Completely immune to the pulse of the cell phone tower, the wasp wove about in the air in front of Flora, demonstrating different wingbeats.

  “Subtler frequencies, you see.
We set them to miss that dreary beat—because we are better fliers than you. Better at everything!”

  “Indeed,” Flora said sincerely. “You are very wise to understand this tree. And if I can return home, I will gladly tell my sisters of your skill.”

  “Of course you can. I will show you the kindness of wasps. How are your aerials?”

  Flora’s antennae were raw from the brutal pulsation of the shining tree and she could neither smell nor orient herself in any way, but she raised them to show good spirits.

  The wasp smiled.

  “Then follow me, and all will be well.”

  Senses blunted, Flora set her wingbeats to the wasp’s strange frequency and flew in her slipstream. If her cousin had not left her there to perish, then she could be trusted.

  Twenty-Two

  AS THEY DESCENDED OVER THE TREETOPS FLORA strained for any trace of scent of drones in case Congregation was near, but all she could pick up was a fragmented smell of an alien nectar. They flew low over the great gray road, its bitter stench soaking up into the air, and then across a small field of rye. That brash, familiar scent pushed into Flora’s brain and her senses began to revive. Vast gray-green fields swayed into the distance, but no fragrance of nectar or pollen drifted from ahead, only the dreary, useless odor of fibrous crops and strange tang of the earth beneath them.

  The wasp hovered on lissome wings and watched Flora.

  “So, that way lies your orchard, cousin—and as you see, it is a route to give you empty baskets.” She sighed. “To think of all you poor cousins, your flowers rotted in the rain and no clue what to do.”

  “There will be more flowers.”

  “Not in our lifetime—do you not see the berries swell? All religions can read that sign. Many times we say at home, how we would willingly share our bounty with our cousins, for we have so much—how sad the Chosen People are too proud. Yet we Vespa long to forget the ancient feud.”

  “You have pollen and honey?”

  The wasp burst out laughing.

  “Cousin, you work too hard! We have sugar, like hard dewdrops of nectar, but soft as larvae inside. Sweeter than honey, stronger than that scabbing tree blood you gather.” She spat in disgust.

  “Propolis. It has many uses.” Flora tried not to be angry at her, for much might be gained from this friendship. She imagined herself on the landing board, unloading exotic treasure for her hive, insisting on the truth of its provenance.

  “Whatever you like to call it, cousin. But you might feed your whole hive with just a few mouthfuls of what we have. Never mind—here I must leave you. Good foraging, cousin.”

  “Wait—” Flora flew after her. “You truly would share with us?”

  The wasp dipped her wings demurely, and smiled.

  FLORA EXPECTED THEY WOULD HEAD for the maelstrom of scents coming from the town, but instead the wasp led her to a cluster of gray warehouses on its edge. Brown-belching vehicles labored to and fro, and Flora noted them to add to her homecoming choreography. There would be so much to dance about, and such a fervor of excitement. To think that the ancient feud with the Vespa might be ended—that would be expiation indeed.

  The wasp checked over her wings that Flora was still behind her, and then began her descent toward the warehouse buildings. Flora logged as much information as she could, though her antennae were still slow and sore. She had never seen a place with so few plants, their stunted flower heads barely strong enough to open. Sensing the presence of a honeybee, they mustered their energy and breathed a poor wisp of scent to her.

  “Leave them,” said the wasp. “They’re pathetic.”

  But where one plant stretched and pushed out its scent, so did all its neighbors, and supplications and pleas came from every flower in every crack of concrete or cinder-block wall for Flora to come to them. They called and begged her; they wanted to speak with her and feel her feet on their petals.

  “Very quickly.” Flora dropped down onto the soot-stained head of a buddleia trembling for her touch. It sighed in gratitude as Flora secured her hold, then pushed her tongue deep into a floret. A dirty film of oil coated its petals and she released it in disgust, rearing into the air. The buddleia drooped in shame.

  “Told you!” sang the wasp. “Come now, if you wish to feed your family. Or go home empty.” She flew into the dark, cavernous mouth of a warehouse.

  Flora hovered outside. She was glad there was no one from her hive to have seen her try the weeds—for despite their nectar and warm welcome, surely that was what they were: low, coarse, desperate weeds. There had to be a good reason their forage was shunned—but she could not think of one. The words of the Catechism came back to her. “Nor may a flora ever forage, for she has no taste.”

  The weeds had made a fool of her, and Flora was angry at herself for succumbing to their pleas. She whirred her wings louder to muffle their voices. The bees certainly did not know everything—if they did, they would not have lain dead at the foot of the murmuring tree in such numbers while the wasp went free. Ignoring the cries of the weeds, Flora flew into the warehouse.

  The cavern was dim and vast, with a sharp, peculiar scent that hit Flora’s antennae as soon as she flew in, making them twitch in excitement and revulsion at the same time.

  “Here,” called the wasp, her voice deeper in the gloom. “This way, cousin.”

  Flora flew toward her under the crackling bars of fluorescent light that hung at intervals down the dark, curved ceiling. The walls were made of stacked containers, and below her on the concrete ground, slow, ungainly vehicles labored to move them to and fro. They reminded Flora of sanitation workers rolling balls of drone wax, and she noted this little detail to further enhance her homecoming choreography.

  “Come.” The wasp had returned to find her. Under the flickering lights Flora saw how young she was, her pointed black-and-yellow face completely smooth. A smile shone from her glossed black eyes, flatter than a bee’s and with elegantly glittered edges. She pivoted in the air and a wisp of formic acid drifted from her. She whirred it away with a sudden thrum of her wings.

  “Forgive my excitement,” she whispered to Flora. “Come and taste the sugar.” She flew to the wall and alighted on an irregularly shaped ledge, a glowing mosaic of rock in colors more lurid and vulgar than any petal could attempt. Flora’s antennae lashed in repulsion at the blaring scent, but her tongue stretched out to taste it.

  “Fill your crop, cousin,” said the wasp. “Feel your hunger.”

  THE SUGAR WAS SOLID like propolis, soft like wax, then it melted like nectar. It was the most extraordinary substance, and the more Flora ate the more she wanted and the faster she chewed. As the taste raced through her brain, Flora abandoned decorum and gnawed at it as if she were breaking out of her emergence chamber. Each of the colors tasted slightly different, underlaid with a tang that almost made her want to retch, yet sharpened her appetite for more. She wanted to ask about it and where she might find this substance for herself, but she could not stop eating.

  Far below on the ground, the vehicles whined and groaned and their engines hummed like sisters on the wing.

  “You like it, cousin?” The wasp chewed sugar nearby and watched Flora eating. She was generous, Flora thought, and she wanted to say so, but something in the colored nectar-rock kept her gnawing faster and faster.

  “Eat more,” the wasp said, a strange smile on her face. “Eat your fill.”

  Suddenly self-conscious of her greed, Flora slowed down as she prized the last blue crystal out. There was a strange vibration at her feet as it came free, and Flora looked down and noticed what she stood on.

  Extending on either side of the gaily colored ledge of sugar beneath her was a chewed gray mix of paper and clay. It curved out in an irregular shape and finished some distance underneath, tight against the wall. It was a great wasps’ nest, and the roof was made of sugar. The vibration she had heard did not come from the vehicles on the ground, but from inside the nest. It was the high-pitched
whining of thousands and thousands of wasp larvae under her feet.

  Flora did not move. Now she felt the presence of all the wasps hovering close by in the air behind her, their scent masked by the thick smell of sugar she had raised by her frantic chewing, and their sound by the machines on the ground. In the time it took Flora to realize, the sugar under her feet hardened like propolis and held her fast.

  The wasp watched her. Flora did not turn. Instead, she bowed her antennae.

  “Thank you for this feast, cousin,” she said, as calmly as she could. “You are so beautiful, with your tiny waist and sharp, smooth stripes. Will you spin so I can admire you?”

  The young wasp could not resist. She pirouetted on the air.

  “Please,” Flora said humbly, and curtsied low, “that was so rare a sight, I have only seen it done faster once before.”

  “Faster?” the wasp retorted. “That was nothing; watch this.” And she spun again. Deep in her curtsy, Flora saw the massed horde of wasps hanging in the dim air of the cavern behind her. Quickly she bit her feet free of the sugar.

  “Are we not superior?” called the wasp within her spinning. “Admit it!”

  “You are!” Flora cried, pulling her feet free. “Faster!” Then, roaring her thoracic engine like a rampant drone, she shot backward as hard as she could into the ambush of wasps, scattering them in the air.

  “Apissss!” they screamed, rearing up from their shock. “Apisss, die!”

  They came at her from all sides, shrieking their fury and filling the air with the scent of their wet-drawn daggers. Flora plunged and swerved while inside the nest the larvae whined a thin, sick note of hatred through the paper walls, and their captives screamed for mercy in all the languages of the air.

  At the obscene, intimate brush of wasp wings against her own Flora lost her axis and fell. She tumbled in a sickening mist of sugar and formic acid and righted herself just before she hit the ground.

  The mouth of the cavern was bright and Flora threw herself toward it just as one of the great lumbering vehicles drew across it and blocked the entrance. In a desperate swerve she dived through the tiny aperture into the driver’s cab and the torrent of wasps poured in after her.