The Bees: A Novel

by Laline Paull

  “Overwhelmed with love for your kin, I see. You no longer shun them?”

  Flora curtsied. “No, Sister. Accept, Obey, and Serve.” She felt Sister Sage’s penetrating attention examining her antennae, taking particular note of the fine line of the seal.

  “Always diligent, 717. In all you do.” The priestess studied her. “Now that you have found your way back to Sanitation, you will remain until further notice—is that clear?”

  “Yes, Sister.”

  Sister Sage indicated the Dance Hall. The Queen had gone.

  “You and your kin will restore this chamber to its immaculate state.” With an elegant foot, the priestess pushed aside a drone’s broken torso. “You will transfer all debris to the morgue, which you will then clean from top to bottom, and in all corners. You will completely empty that chamber, and permit nothing to interrupt this task. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Sister.” As the great calmed crowd of sisters filed out of the Dance Hall, Flora signaled to the sanitation workers to wait for her.

  “I see they recognize your authority.” Sister Sage scanned Flora again. “Do not close your mind to us, 717. Soon it will be time for the Winter Cluster. Do you know what that means?”

  “No, Sister.”

  “Life, for those who join it.” Sister Sage looked at the sanitation workers, who were already sweeping and scrubbing the Dance Hall clean. “But not all sisters can. When the last task is completed, send that detail to the spiders.”

  “The spiders? Sister, why? They are fit and strong—”

  “Silence! Winter is merciless, your kin is legion, and their few lives traded will help the hive.” Sister Sage paused. “The Melissae care for every kin, 717, even yours. I assure you their sacrifice has value, and their end will be quick.” The priestess walked away.

  Flora stared at her kin-sisters as they swept and cleaned. She picked up a broom and went to join them. Feeling her sadness, they touched her in concern. This time, their kindness hurt.

  Twenty-Nine

  FLORA DIVIDED THE SANITATION WORKERS INTO TWO details. One ferried drone remains directly from the Dance Hall to the landing board while the other started from the morgue. It was full since Flora’s last visit, the storage racks near the front tight with compacted dry bodies of old sisters, crushed together for maximum storage. The older dead were stored farther back in the long chamber, from where came a strong odor of propolis disinfectant. To Flora’s surprise, all her workers crowded away from it, little jabs of fear bursting from them.

  Heartsick at her imminent betrayal, Flora did not force them deeper but went herself. It was usual to treat the storage racks with propolis, and the large number of dead sisters was unsurprising, for all were old and from the early summer—but as she walked farther between the racks, she felt the difference in the air. A stillness . . . a secret. Beneath the bright antiseptic top note of the propolis, there were clots of decay. The bustling sounds of the workers faded and the blackness thickened.

  Flora stopped. Stored bodies in the morgue were always dry—but here the comb underfoot was wet. The seepage came from a soft and shapeless pile in the corner. Forcing back her instinctive revulsion, Flora extended her antennae to decipher the material. She stepped back in horror.

  The pile was made of brood of all ages, from collapsed eggs to decomposing larvae to perfect, fully formed young sisters, their limbs compressed as if their emergence chambers still held them safe.

  Sister Sage could not possibly know about this, for no bee would tolerate this decay and concealment, and Flora’s time in the Nursery had taught her that dead brood were always promptly removed. Tightening her spiracles against the polluting smell, she touched her antennae to the freshest-looking corpse. It could not be—she moved her antennae to scan the kin-scent of other heads protruding from the pile. All were Sage.

  “Do not tarry, 717.” The priestess’s voice came toward her down the corridor. “Simply arrange a rota to carry the debris a safe distance from the hive. Then clean every cell of this place.” Sister Sage appeared at the doorway.

  “Sister, something terrible—”

  The priestess examined the detailing of the morgue doorway. “This needs attention too. And when every last hexagon is cleaned, complete your orders. You alone will remain behind. Your strength will be needed.”

  “But, Sister—the dead Sage brood—”

  The priestess stared at her. “You are mistaken.”

  “No, Sister—” Flora staggered as the Hive Mind roared in her brain.

  Do not question the Melissae! Accept, Obey, and Serve!

  “Accept, Obey, and Serve—” Flora managed to repeat, over and over, until the pain subsided. When she could focus again, the priestess had gone, and the corps of sanitation workers stood in silence in the corridor, waiting for more orders. Their eyes were bright and steady, an urgent question in their gaze.

  Flora could not bear to trick them.

  “Winter comes, and to help the hive survive the Sage have bought knowledge from the spiders. The price . . . is the life of every flora who steps into this chamber to work.” She looked into their trusting eyes. “If I could spare you— If I could go in your place—”

  The floras came closer to her and touched their heads against her abdomen. Even though her antennae were sealed, the image of her egg shone bright in her mind. They knew. The floras stepped back and waited for her to speak, but she could not. The Holy Chord for Devotion began to vibrate through the comb floor.

  “Go,” Flora whispered. “Those who would spare themselves, find another task and do not return. I will finish the work and go in your place.”

  The sanitation workers bobbed their strange curtsy to her, then ran to receive the sacrament. Flora watched them go, stunned at their knowledge. It must have happened during the Queen’s Dream, when all antennae were opened. That was why they had shielded her with their kin-scent.

  She sat down. She had been ordered to send them to their deaths, but she could not do it. She betrayed her hive in every way. The vibration of Devotion rose around her and she knew she had only to walk down the passageway to receive more, but she craved stillness.

  The memory of her egg rose again, perfect beauty in a raw wax crib. Flora clutched her empty belly and wept for her lost motherhood, richer than any Queen’s blessing. A thought hit her.

  The crib, in the shadow of those three huge cocoons, each one with its unborn Sage priestess. Half-formed, like the largest in that pile behind her.

  She got up to look at them again—and screamed in horror, for the mound of dead was moving. A foul odor rose and Flora readied her claws to start killing a tide of parasites—and then with a great retching sound the center of the pile rose up high, and from it appeared the slimed body of Sir Linden.

  “Kill me,” he gasped, “for I would rather die than hide in here another moment.” He scraped at the repulsive matter that covered him. “A coward to the end. I should have stood by my brothers and died with them.” He fell on his knees in front of Flora and bared the joint of his head and thorax. “I heard all that passed today.”

  “Your name was called.” Flora could not look at him. “You were presumed missing in passion.”

  “Passion to eliminate—I could not wait. When I returned I heard the screaming—at first I thought the wasps came—then when I saw I could not believe it—I still cannot—”

  “Nor I.”

  They were silent. The vibrations of Devotion began to fade. Linden reached up with stiff arms and tried to pull his sodden ruff right, then abandoned the effort.

  “It is not strange to me, really, that you should turn on us at last. I know how vast we lived, with what ease, at every sister’s expense. Not one grain of pollen or drop of water, let alone nectar, did we ever bring in. Nor one stroke of work did we do—but we were very quick with our demands. Clean my hooks, lick my groin. Admire me, attend me, and you may eat my crumbs. And all the food we wasted . . . Forgive me.”

&nb
sp; He knelt forward and bared his joint again.

  “There is nowhere left for me, I understand. I ask but one thing: spare me the police and kill me yourself.”

  Flora turned away. “Ask some other sister. I am weary of death.”

  He looked up. “You are merciful?”

  Flora could not speak, for the image of the egg shone again in her mind. She curled her abdomen in and held herself, searching for the feeling. The emptiness was pain.

  “You wept,” he said. “I heard you. Are you sick?”

  “For love,” Flora said.

  “Ah, all you sisters fall in love with flowers, it is your only release. That, and your adoration of the Queen—”

  “Not with a flower, not with the Queen.”

  Sir Linden wiped gore from his face and puffed his thorax a little. “Anyone I might know?

  “No. And lost some time ago.”

  The comb rattled with the returning steps of the sanitation workers and Flora shook her memories away. Linden looked at her in alarm.

  “I have not seen you.” She went to the door to meet her workforce. Every one of them glowed strong and beautiful from Devotion, and all stood tall.

  “Work fast, my sisters,” Flora said to them. “Save it for the end.”

  The sanitation workers nodded. Fearless now, they went to work on every section of the morgue, cleaning and scrubbing and carrying out bodies until the floor was spotless, every mortal remnant was gone, and the whole chamber was empty.

  Sir Linden was nowhere to be seen.

  Then the sanitation workers bowed to Flora and drew their kin-scent strong about them to hold in the last of the Devotion in their bodies. Six by six, they walked in silent procession out to the landing board, Flora with them.

  They shivered as they stepped out into the light. Then they opened their spiracles to release one last saved breath of the Queen’s Love and drew in the divine healing scent.

  “Praise end your days, sisters,” Flora said to them. They twisted their little faces into their grimacing smiles, then one by one they set their engines. When all were ready they leaped the board together.

  Their aim was good and their force strong as they hit the webs, and the orchard chimed with the Holy Chord. Flora forced herself to watch as the spiders ran to meet the bees, and she cried out as her own sisters’ kin-scent burst bright on the air. The priestess had told the truth: their end was quick.

  But she had also lied, for Flora knew that decomposing pile of bodies at the back of the morgue held no other kin than Sage—yet the priestess had flatly denied it.

  Nothing made sense. The sanitation workers were strong and healthy and seemed only ever to die of old age—yet they were frequently sacrificed in great numbers. Exhausted and empty, Flora walked back inside. She tried to remember which scripture ordained the Sage the power of life and death. It was not in the Catechism, nor the prayer tiles, nor could she recall it from the Queen’s Library—but it must surely exist, for their rule was law.

  Thirty

  WITHIN TWO DAYS THE HIVE HAD ADJUSTED ITS bouquet, and it was as if the drones had never existed. When word came from the Nursery that the Queen no longer laid male eggs, the news spread fast. The austere meals served in every canteen, the slowing of foraging, and now this signal from Holy Mother—winter was near.

  Many house bees died in their sleep each night, and foragers in the day, courageous sisters dropping in the chill air as their strength gave out far from home. Some made it to a flower but could not rise again, even the best and strongest of them only ever returned to the board with half-full panniers and near-empty crops. Every able forager was ordered to fly, and Flora gladly returned to the air.

  Feeling responsible for the growing hunger in the hive, she stretched her endurance further, scouring the fields and town gardens for the smallest sip of astringent nectar. She found a patch of waste ground tumbled with garbage, lent grace by a bank of purple and yellow asters. Their petals spread wide to offer their coarse, ready pollen, and she fell upon them. By nightfall every forager with wit to find it and strength to return had added aster pollen to the coffers of the Treasury and the joy of the table—but by morning the sanitation workers were using the freight area overflow for the newly dead, for the morgue was full and high winds had closed the landing board.

  Foragers crowded the corridor to peer out at the racing gray sky and hear the orchard creak from its roots. When it was Flora’s turn, she stuck all six hooks into the wax of the corridor and leaned out into the gale. Leaves whirled in the air and the branches rattled. To her fierce satisfaction, the spiders’ webs had gone.

  Later that day the Sage, who had been conspicuous by their absence, reappeared in the hive en masse, walking in groups of six. Deep in prayer and chanting an unknown mantra, they were more beautiful than Flora had ever seen them, and she and many other bees stopped to watch their passage through the lobbies. Their long, elegant wings were unlatched so that their strong kin-scent flowed behind them, and Flora’s antennae twitched as she felt some hidden code within it. The priestesses did not speak, but when they had passed, every sister looked down at her feet in surprise. The comb had stopped transmitting.

  Completely unnerved, sisters collected around the big central mosaics in each lobby. They tapped their feet on all the codes and hushed each other while they tried to detect with their antennae the strange change in the air, but they could see no priestesses to ask and the mystery frightened them.

  The evening was more disconcerting than the day, for the priestesses appeared in the canteens to serve their meal. This was so unprecedented that the sisters were speechless, forgot their kin places, and sat wherever they could best stare at the extraordinary sight. The Sage had turned the edges of their wing mantles to show their fine gold stripe, their cuticles were polished to a bronze luster, and their fur stood soft and scented. Below their eyes each had made a subtle mark of gold so that as they turned their faces on each sister they served, the effect was one of almost queenly radiance.

  Flora thought she was dreaming as a priestess placed a golden cup of honey before her. Every sister at the table looked up in amazement as the same was done for her, for never in their lives had they eaten like this. Each was scared to start eating in case she was mistaken, for even in the Drones’ Hall this luxury would have been excessive. But the priestesses were genial and encouraged the sisters to begin.

  A thousand flowers’ sweetness burst upon the bees’ tongues, and great euphoria filled the air as they fed and felt their strength return. The honey made them sing with boldness and joy: The Sage were good, the priestesses cared for them and would never let them starve. The wind might blow and the frost might bite, but Holy Mother kept them safe and the Sage were her beloved envoys!

  As the bees licked the last honey from their cups and wiped them clean with the last crumbs of pollen cakes, the Sage moved among them, chanting softly in words unknown until the Hive Mind filled the mind of each sister.

  We share the Last Feast, before the Cluster.

  Winter comes, and we join in the Cluster.

  The priestesses began to hum the Holy Chord and signaled all rise. The sisters gathered their voices as one, feeling the delicious heaviness of honey and pollen in their bodies give new timbre to the sound. Then the priestesses led them out and the corridors filled with honey-scented bees, singing in a great procession. Flora expected that they would go down to the Dance Hall for Devotion, but instead, the Sage led them up to the Treasury.

  The bees gasped as they went in. Two great high walls showed empty vaults, but before they could feel any fear at the gaping lack of honey, they were smitten by the heavenly scent of the Queen. All the chalices of the Fanning Hall had been cleared away, and Her Majesty stood in the center of the atrium with her ladies, her scent billowing strong and pure. Her smile was so beautiful that each bee knew her Holy Mother saw her and loved her, and they hummed softly in well-being.

  “Blessings on you, my daughters
,” said the Queen. “May we meet again.”

  “We will now form the Cluster.” The Sage priestesses spoke with one voice, and began to guide the bees into formation.

  Starting with the highest kin groups, the bees encircled the royal party, hooking themselves together in elegant tessellation, kin after kin, reaching down and pulling each other up, supporting each other as they climbed around the mass that hid the Queen from sight at the center, careful always to leave the correct space for air.

  Kin after kin, they climbed and clung, climbed and clung, until every bee had her place and the Cluster filled the Treasury to the very top, where it was anchored to the comb by the strong kin of Thistle and where open honey cells mingled their perfume with the Queen’s scent. The exquisite fragrance reached down even to the sanitation workers who formed the lowest outer layer of the Cluster, so that even the lowest of the low were held by the Queen’s love and reassurance.

  As a forager Flora had the right to go in deeper, but she chose to stay with her kin-sisters, calming them and making sure they were correctly hooked together before she joined them. Then from the center of the Cluster, the Hive Mind spoke:

  Accept, Obey, and Serve.

  “Accept, Obey, and Serve,” responded every bee, and as each one spoke, her nervous system joined with that of her sisters, and she released her antennae. Flora spoke the words too, but she pressed her antennae seal tight. Nine thousand bees slowed their breathing, and their individual kin-scents quieted as they breathed as one, drawing in the combined bouquet of the Queen, the Sage, and the honey.

  Without the sisters’ bodies in constant motion, the hive cooled rapidly. The sanitation workers on the outer edge felt faint warmth emanating from the central mass, but their wings and backs remained cold as they synchronized their breathing and set their antennae to rest position. Flora listened as they all sank into sleep.

  Still wide awake, she inhaled the Queen’s Love again, feeling its delivery slowing as Holy Mother herself slept—but her own metabolism would not attune. Instead, she heard the distant rattle of the orchard branches and the wind sweeping the sky. Under the cold press of night, a lichen of frost bloomed on the wooden hive. Deep inside, on the rim of the dark ball of bees, Flora heard its structure creak, and the quiet breathing of her sisters. She refocused her attention on the Queen’s slow, pulsing scent.