The Bees: A Novel

by Laline Paull

  Outside in the lobby she paused. Since she had danced it had become crowded with many sisters, but instead of passing through on their business, they stood talking in little clusters of kin groups. Most numerous were the Teasel. Some stood together, but others moved around the gathered sisters, murmuring earnestly.

  No bees stood near the entrance to the prohibited corridor, for the propolis disinfectant smell was overpowering, but as the lobby kept filling up, more and more sisters gathered near it. Every defensive urge sparked within Flora—she wanted to run down the corridor and protect her vulnerable egg—but to go now was to invite discovery. She forced herself to remain where she was. The tiny second heartbeat within her own had grown stronger.

  Flora’s cheeks prickled, then a faint sweetness filled her mouth. She swallowed quickly, her heart thudding. Flow. It could only be the sign that her egg was hatching—at any moment her baby would emerge, and cry for food.

  She looked around in desperation. The only way she could reach her baby was to ask the noble kins of Violet and Speedwell to move aside—a breach of hive etiquette guaranteed to focus attention on her. If she could only see her own kin-sisters there, she could join them—but mindful of the general distaste for their presence, all the sanitation workers had withdrawn.

  Flora swallowed down a mouthful of Flow. If she saw anyone going down toward her egg, she knew she would run and fight to protect it—but until then, the best thing she could do was pass unnoticed, and move when the crowd dispersed.

  “The Queen will come,” intoned a Thistle from the center of a somber-faced group of her own kin. “The Queen will come,” her sisters repeated, but their tone lacked conviction.

  “But not from the Sage!” A young Teasel shouted from the center of her own group. All the bees in the lobby turned to stare at this reckless sister with the brindled fur. “Because they are sick,” she continued, her eyes wild. “Why else have they not produced their princess?” She looked around the lobby. “If even Holy Mother could sicken, then why not her priestesses?”

  Before she could say another word a group of police burst the gathered Teasels apart and dragged her out. One of them cuffed her hard against the side of her head, another kicked her legs out from under her.

  “Blasphemy!” said one of the officers.

  “The Kindness is too good—” said another, raising her hooked gauntlet.

  The brindled Teasel tried to claw her way up through their bodies. “Sisters!” she screamed as the blows rained down. “This is what happens when you speak the truth—”

  The police closed in on her and the bees heard her shell cracking.

  “Stop at once!” The group of Thistle guards rushed to pull off the fertility police. “What is the meaning of this outrage, Officer?” The most senior Thistle guard used her claw to hold Sister Inspector between her head and her thorax. “This lobby is a place of gathering and talk—what laws do you enforce here?” She released Sister Inspector, who stared at her with hate.

  “The Law of Treason!” She spat the word at the Thistle, and her officers held their claws ready, pointed at the group of Teasel. The young Teasel on the ground stood up, and all the bees could see she was wounded, but she turned to face her attackers again.

  “Without our Queen,” she said loudly, “how can there be treason?”

  The truth of this silenced every bee. Then Sister Inspector hissed in rage. “Treason against the Sage!”

  “The Sage are a kin like any other,” cried the young Teasel, her hand to her wounded thorax. “But they think they are all queens—”

  The bees gasped to hear this and Sister Inspector raised her claw. Before she could strike the Teasel again, the large Thistle guard stepped between them. “What dark days are these?”

  “Indeed, when the kin of Thistle seeks to advance itself!” Sister Inspector’s voice was harsh and ugly. “But all the hive knows who killed the Queen.”

  The Thistle guard bowed her head.

  “To our eternal sorrow.” Then she looked at Sister Inspector and raised her own antennae thick and strong. “All sisters may gather here and speak freely. Remove yourselves.”

  Remove yourselves. The thrilling words rippled through the bees like the Hive Mind, but the comb had not spoken—only one brave Thistle guard. The sisters gathered behind her, a silent show of strength.

  Sister Inspector looked murderous—then gathered her officers and left. The bees began to applaud, but the Thistle guard who had spoken so bravely rounded on all of them. She pointed to the group of Teasel.

  “The Queen will come! And until then, do not provoke the police.”

  “No, Sister. Thank you.” Many Teasel bowed to the Thistle, but she was not looking anymore. Her antennae were turned to the corridor to the landing board. Flora smelled it at the same time.

  A wasp approached.

  Every bee in the lobby flexed her dagger and ran toward the landing board, the Thistle at the vanguard. Flora and other foragers squeezed themselves to the front and joined the line of Thistle guards scanning the orchard.

  There, at the perimeter of the hive scent markers, one lone wasp cruised. She was long and gleaming, and her legs were bright yellow. At the sight of the bees on the board she came closer, and they saw the two white dots painted above each eye. She hovered above the hive—then with a flash of her stripes she was gone.

  Sisters cheered, and congratulated each other in high tense voices. Their show of strength had driven her off; how dare a wasp come prowling in the orchard? They had shown her; look, even the Teasels from the Nursery came to fight!

  The foragers did not join in, nor the Thistle, still scanning the air. The wasp was of a kind none had seen before, and they did not like it.

  More sisters came pouring down to the Dance Hall lobby, for news of the standoff between the Thistle and the police had spread through the hive, and they wanted to talk about the mad and reckless Teasel, and the way everyone had driven off the wasp. And in the mass of gossip and grooming and anxious talk, Flora slipped away.

  Thirty-Eight

  THE TOMB OF THE MOUSE LOOMED OVER FLORA, 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 for
ager 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.”