The Bees: A Novel

by Laline Paull

  I will worship any Queen.

  BY NIGHTFALL, the bees were frantic. The dormitories were full of arguing, many bees complaining they could not—or did not want to—sleep in proximity to sisters loyal to Teasel, or loyal to Sage, and the air was rancid with discord. Some lay in their berths wailing for Devotion, while others berated them for reminding them of the precious thing they tried to forget.

  “We must be patient!” someone shouted near Flora.

  “We are damned,” spat someone else. “This hive is plagued—”

  Uproar broke out and both the Thistle guards and the fertility police stormed in, each demanding to know who had started it. The bees cowered in silence. The guards and the police gestured to each other with extravagant and dangerous courtesy, to allow the other to be the first to leave. The Thistle allowed themselves to be the first to go, and as the police followed, they looked back into the dark dormitory and sent a blast of their frightening scent across the bees loyal to Teasel.

  No one dared speak. Gradually, the dormitory fell silent, except for those berths where some sister could not stop crying.

  In the morning, many refused to rise.

  “Without a Queen,” said one, turning her face to the wall, “I have no will.”

  “No children born,” said another. “No life to work for.”

  Flora shook a sister. “But we have each other—”

  “We did.” A Rosebay forager rocked herself. “Until we maddened with fighting. To see such bitterness between us—I will die of heartbreak before a new Queen comes.”

  Flora held her.

  “Please, Sister, do not. If the house bees see the foragers stop flying—”

  The Rosebay pushed her off.

  “You have given up! You were one of our best—but now you cling in fear to your dustpan, too scared to fly. Your heart is broken too.”

  “It is not!” Flora stood up. “It is full of love, I swear it.”

  “Then forage!” cried a Cornflower, her wings disheveled and dry.

  “If my sisters ask me.” Flora unlatched her wings. “If they will fly beside me.”

  The Rosebay forager sat up. She got to her feet. “I care for my sisters. Not for politics.”

  The Cornflower stood too. “And I for flowers. And our hive.”

  “Our hive.” All over the dormitory, wing-latches clicked open as other foragers rose from their berths.

  ON THE LANDING BOARD the sun shone hot and hard, and waves of sweetness poured through the air. The foragers looked at each other in amazement. In their despairing queenless state, they had almost missed the start of the spring honeyflow. Now that they stood on the warming wooden ledge of the landing board, they felt the life-force pull the green blades up through the soft earth and swell the buds on the branches. Corms burst below the soil and high above it eddies of golden pollen carried on the wind.

  The foragers laughed as they woke from their sorrow. The world was come to life again, and at the glorious sound of their engines starting, more sisters came running out onto the landing board. At first they too were dazed, for the grim power struggle within the hive had sapped them all of strength—but at the sight of their brave forager sisters rising up once more into a blazing blue sky, they began to cheer.

  The tiredness in Flora’s body was a benediction of her skill, for even as she felt her joints stiffen and her engine straining, she used all her knowledge and experience to effortlessly guide her through the currents and track the finest scents. She delighted when she discovered the first narcissus in bloom, the flower every bee longed to find for its exquisite fragrance—the somewhat bland pollen being an afterthought. Its scent filled Flora’s soul with such flower joy so that she no longer felt any pain or weakness in her body—and then she foraged with all her skill and power. She found crocus and daffodil and then pale green hebe flowers, their startling pink pollen grains plump and moist like tiny berries. She filled her panniers, she filled her crop, and a thousand fluorescent petals and patterns returned to her mind. She was deep in the apple blossom with the Holy Chord all around her when she felt a jolt in her body.

  That slow, steady frequency, hidden in her own pulse so long she had ceased to notice it, abruptly stopped. She whirled around as if the hive had called her.

  Her daughter had woken.

  Forty-Two

  THERE WERE NO THISTLE ON THE LANDING BOARD NOR bees in the lobby, but the smell of alarm came thick from the top of the staircases. Wings unlatched, not caring who saw her, Flora ran straight into the morgue.

  She could smell her daughter’s strong scent, even as her brain registered that it had changed. Big, jagged shards of wax littered the floor but there was no blood, or smell of either the fertility police or the Thistle guards. A surge of raised voices came through the comb from above, and with it the vibration of thousands of sisters’ feet, running across the midlevel lobby. Then came a savage, sharp piping sound, traveling through the comb as if carried on the Hive Mind. A few seconds later, an answering burst of piping fired its own frequency through the comb. The two sound waves clashing in dissonance made bees all over the hive cry out in fear.

  So frightened for her child she could barely breathe, Flora ran up the main staircase. The scent of battle grew thicker the higher she went, blocking out every scent but that of the Teasel war gland, against Sage.

  Terrified sisters clung to each other in the corridors to the midlevel lobby and the scent of venom filled the air. Flora pushed her way through their shuddering bodies toward the dense wall of bees surrounding the central space. She pressed forward in the hot choking air, squeezing her way through the wings and bodies, the only thought in her mind to stand by her daughter’s side to the death—

  Thistle guards grabbed her to stop her going farther.

  In front of her in the center of the lobby, two huge princesses crouched opposite each other. Each was twice the size of every other sister, and behind them stood a dense wall of their own kin: the Sage, and the Teasel. Every bee in the chamber was silent—except for the low hissing of the Teasel princess.

  She was yellow-furred, her face flat and brindled, and her bands bright brown. Flora could see the shining wet tip of her dagger as she slowly moved her abdomen from side to side and sank down lower, gathering her power. A snarl built in her throat, a low echo coming from the throats of her supporters.

  The Sage princess began to draw herself up from her own crouch, until she stood at her full towering height. She rasped her wings down her back so the sound filled the air, then she slowly swayed her long pointed face from side to side, her eyes sending sparks of hate at the wall of Teasel supporters. As she began to hiss, the Teasel princess gathered herself to spring.

  With a lightning motion, the Sage princess leaped to the ceiling and crumbs of wax fell down where her sharp, powerful claws dug in. The startled Teasel princess looked up, her poise broken. The Sage princess picked her way across the ceiling, her venom spraying down.

  The Teasel princess moved faster, and watched as the wax sizzled where she had stood. She drew her huge claws.

  “She flees!” Her voice was hoarse and loud. Then she drew her dagger, longer and thicker than any Flora had ever seen, with four lines of barbs instead of two. “A coward may not be Queen,” she called up to her rival.

  “Nor may a fool—” The Sage princess dropped from the ceiling onto the Teasel’s back, biting at her wings. The Teasel twisted around and threw her off, but the Sage princess’s claw had caught, and the bees heard the ripping wound. Too fast to give her rival a chance to leap for the ceiling again, the Teasel princess clamped her wings tight to her back and attacked so hard the bees heard their shells clash and smelled their poisons mingling as they hissed and struggled against each other on the comb floor. Their abdomens hard and curved as their daggers stabbed for the other’s body, the two princesses thrashed in a blur of rage—and then there was a harsh scream—and the struggle slowed.

  The bees stared as the two
princesses lay still. Then there was the sound of cracking limbs, as the Sage princess broke free of the dying embrace of her foe. Her dagger dripped venom, and the Teasel convulsed on the ground before her, stung through the belly.

  Even now the Sage supporters did not move or make a sound, but the Teasels gasped as their mortally wounded princess struggled to rise. The Sage princess bent low and ripped the wings from her challenger’s back. She held them up, then threw them on the ground.

  “Behold the fate of pretenders.” She turned back to her foe. The Teasel princess tried to pull herself along the comb toward her stricken supporters. The Sage princess walked in front of her. She climbed upon her rival’s twitching body and held her fast, before flexing her abdomen high so all the bees could see her shining dagger. Then she slid it between the Teasel princess’s head and thorax and stung her again.

  Only now did the Sage raise their voices, in a strange humming ululation that pierced the bees’ brains and made their stings pulse in terror.

  “Behold the Queen!” The Sage priestesses surrounded their champion.

  “The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen!”

  Flora stood transfixed. All around her she felt the gathering tension in her sisters, as if they would spring or scream or turn on each other.

  “The Queen is dead!” repeated the Sage, in their choral voice. “Long live the Queen!”

  At these words the Sage princess raised her wings and spread them, and her face was beautiful and terrible. At her gaze, many bees sank to their knees, shaking in fear.

  “We have others—” A weeping Teasel crouched by the body of her dead princess. “We have more princesses, we will bring them out as fast as they are born—”

  The Sage princess hissed and drew her sting again. “And I will kill them as I killed my own royal sisters, cowering unready in their queen cells. Divine Right to the firstborn—death to the rest. I am your Queen and you will worship—”

  A single piercing note tore the air. The Sage princess and every other bee spun around to face the source of the sound. Then the Sage princess piped back in outrage and lashed her antennae, but there was no answering sound. The bees froze in fear and listened. The sound had come from the long corridor that led to the worker dormitories and the Queen’s Chambers, but now there was complete silence.

  “Come out!” screamed the Sage princess. “You foul Teasel pretender, come out and die like your sister here!” She piped again and again, until the lobby echoed and the bees shrank together in terror. “You are a coward! Come out!”

  “I am here.”

  Then every bee’s glands flared in fright, for from the dark dormitory corridor walked a huge black princess with russet fur, long, quivering antennae, a tiny waist, and the strong hooks and limbs of her mother, Flora 717.

  “I am the last princess,” her low voice carried. “And I have already wet my dagger with the blood of all others. But one.”

  The Sage princess slowly twisted her head from side to side, and began to hiss again. “What foul thing are you?”

  “She is my daughter.” Flora stepped forward, her heart thundering in her body. “And I raised her and fed her Flow, so she is as much a princess as you are.”

  The Sage princess stared, then she laughed in great hisses. “Kneel,” she said. “Bare your neck for a merciful death.”

  When Flora’s daughter did not answer, the Sage princess piped her rage. “Answer your Queen!”

  “Not Queen until mated!” Flora called it loudly. Behind her, the floras gathered together, and their dark faces gleamed bronze as they let their scent rise up.

  “How dare you—” As the Sage turned to Flora the dark princess ran at her. Fleet and vicious the Sage princess spun round with a slicing claw, but Flora’s daughter parried with her own massive hooks. Lacking the strength to fend off the blows, the Sage princess ran up the lobby wall again to attack from above—but Flora’s daughter followed her, her massive hooks tearing tendrils of wax from the walls, dagger gleaming. With a shriek of rage the Sage princess flew down into the midst of the watching bees, making them scream in terror and crush each other as they struggled to get out of her way—and then she ran through their midst into the empty Category Two ward.

  The fertility police beat the sanitation workers to the ground in front of their champion so that she would have to trample them to reach her foe—but the dark princess leaped at the wall and ran sideways above them, so that her great wing brushed across their faces and made them cry out in fear.

  When she ran into the big dark Category Two ward there was no sight or sound of the Sage princess, but the air was misted with her venom. For a moment there was silence—and then with a terrible shriek she dropped from the ceiling above and stabbed at the dark princess with the full length of her sting, so that the two huge princesses hurled their joined bodies in rage against the cribs and the wax cracked and split around them.

  Terrified by the combat but desperate to see its end, the bees followed, climbing over each other to escape the two roiling princesses as they slashed and bit and half flew, half staggered between the rows of cribs, neither one willing to release her hold. As the dark princess reached out to swing a great shield of wax against her rival’s head, the Sage princess let herself fall, so that her heavier foe lost her balance. With lightning speed the Sage princess twisted and leaped on top of Flora’s daughter, seizing her antennae and piping her screaming war note directly into them to destroy her brain. The high harsh sound paralyzed every bee but the Sage, and thousands screamed out in pain. The dark princess jerked her head in agony but could not release herself.

  “Submit and save them—” The Sage princess piped louder, and bees screamed for mercy. “You make them suffer—”

  A huge roar tore the air—its force blocking out the piping agony and beating waves of power through the air. It came from the engine of the dark princess as she beat her wings against her rival and threw her back. Before the stunned Sage princess could rise, Flora’s daughter was upon her, crushing her under her greater weight. Then she reared up, her dagger poised for the coup de grace—but did not strike. Instead, her antennae pointed high.

  In the sudden silence, every bee smelled the foreign scent. Their fur stood high with fear and their antennae pulsed. Wasps were in the hive.

  The Sage princess sprang free, a gaping wound in her thorax. The priestesses dragged her to safety behind their bodies.

  “She lives!” they shouted. “Behold the true Queen, kill the pretender!”

  “First the wasps!” roared the Thistles, and the bees cried out for action, for by the high formic tang in the air, their enemy had entered in great numbers.

  “First the true Queen!” shouted another of the priestesses. “Declare the rightful Queen, then we shall win—”

  “No! Defend the Treasury!”

  “Fight the wasps!”

  Panic streamed in the air and all was chaos. The Sage gathered their princess into their midst and ran through into the Category One ward. Bees milled in all directions, not knowing what to do. The Teasel stood helplessly, stunned at the ruins of the Nursery. Flora ran to her daughter and pulled her by her wet fur.

  “Come,” she said to her. “Food—then you will strengthen—please, daughter—”

  The smell of the wasps grew stronger—they were coming from the bottom story, their numbers swelling. Flora grabbed a Thistle guard.

  “Help me,” she cried. “The princess needs food to lead us—break open the Treasury and I will bring her—”

  The sibilant voices of the wasps were coming up the stairs. Soon they would be in the midlevel. The Thistle nodded. She signaled her sister guards, and then, readying their great claws, they ran quietly to reach the Treasury before the invaders.

  “For the sake of your hive, come with me.” Flora pulled her daughter by the wing and they ran. Terrified bees followed them, crying and weeping as they smelled the wasps pillaging the bottom level of the hive, their foul jests ec
hoing in the Dance Hall. Her own mouth dry with fear, Flora dragged her daughter into the Treasury. She knew what they must do but she could not speak.

  Rip them all open—and drink. It was the Hive Mind, and the bees heard. They climbed the walls and clawed and gouged open all the newly sealed honey vaults. At the scent, Flora’s daughter ran to drink and immediately her scent flowed more strongly. She raised her head, then pressed her abdomen into the comb, and buzzed against it. The sound reverberated through the Treasury and ran through the wax. In the midlevel below, the wasps shrieked in recognition of their prey above, and ran to find them.

  “Let the honey flow!” Flora shouted. “Let it pour across the comb—everyone into the corridor—there is a way—” She ran into the corridor, searching for the hidden staircase that led to the morgue. Behind her the Thistle yelled as they ripped open the vaults, the precious liquid wealth beginning to seep down the walls and onto the floor.

  “Holy Mother forgive us—” cried the guards as they broke open more vaults, and the air filled with the cured fragrance of a million flowers.

  “More!” cried Flora. “Use it all—” She pulled her daughter behind her as the thick golden tide of honey flowed over the wax and into the surge of wasps rushing up to meet it. They hissed and screamed as they were caught in their hearts’ desire, and were trampled by the greed of the coming horde behind. They screamed as their wings stuck and their legs broke, but their sisters did not care as they ran over their drowning bodies, screeching for joy that they had breached the bees’ Treasury.