BURNING WITH ADRENALINE FROM EMPTYING HER fuel reserves, Flora flew higher and faster into the headwind. The smell of the crows hit her antennae, and her brain screeched as Lily 500’s hoarse voice cut in.
Low! she shouted in Flora’s mind. Drop lower!
As she saw the red eyes and black beaks Flora swerved low and hard beneath the crows, dropping through the air currents toward the smell of the earth and corn. The strobing shadows of the flock passed over her. All except one.
A sudden downdraft bounced Flora’s body higher in the air as the crow dived for her and snapped its massive beak. It whirled around looking for her, cursing in vexation. Flora rolled and tumbled in the swell from its huge, stinking wings and sped low above the spiking cornstalks. The crow flapped and cawed in excitement as it searched for her, and she did not dare stop.
Shelter by the edge! came Lily’s data, but there was no edge; the field was vast as the sky, and all Flora could see were the racing spears of grain that would beat her from the air if she misjudged her level. The wind threw a carrion-footed scent over her like a net, and Flora knew the crow was close and low behind her.
The edge! The edge! There it was—a low line of green hedging hidden in the moist division of the crops. She fled toward it not knowing what good it would do—and then she saw the bright flutter of other insects above the flowering weeds—flies and gnats and white butterflies spiraling in the sun—
Use them!
Flora sped at them, the crow hard behind her. She had one glimpse of the butterflies’ surprised faces and the beautiful bronze tips of their wings before she burst through the crowd of insects, sending them into a whirring panic in the path of the crow. She heard its flapping wings as it thrashed along, snapping up as many as it could catch.
Flora drove herself high above the hedgerow and spun until she locked onto the scent of the hive. Beneath her the crow cawed in triumph, and she did not need to look to know the butterflies were gone.
THE ORCHARD WAS A SWEET-SCENTED SIGHT, the little gray square of the hive even dearer as she descended from the turbulent heights down to the landing board.
“Halt, Sister.” Two Thistle guards came forward as soon as her feet touched the wood. When they had scanned her and could find no trace of the gray film they escorted her to the Dance Hall, where a crowd stood behind a sickle of identical Sage priestesses. She felt their keen attention rove her body and draw deeply on her scent.
“Your smell has changed.”
“I had to void myself,” Flora said, “in the field.” As another Sage priestess walked behind her, she felt her antennae begin to throb. It was so unexpected and intimate that for a second Flora did not react. The priestess began pushing the probe of her will into Flora’s mind.
My egg!
Flora’s war gland flared at the threat. Without knowing how she did it, she felt her antennae lock so hard that the priestess instantly withdrew her attention.
You will not hurt my egg!
Anger shining in her beautiful eyes, the priestess came round to face Flora.
“What strange sister is this, who can hide her thoughts?”
Another priestess joined the first, and Flora felt their combined will focusing on breaking into her mind. They probed her antennae with their powerful scent, trying to force their chemicals into her brain—but despite the burning pain, Flora maintained her lock. She concentrated on speaking calmly.
“Forgive me, sisters,” she said. “When I knew I had drunk poison, I locked my channels lest I signal falsely and draw others into danger. Now I cannot open them.”
“Very . . . prudent,” said one. “And how did you know to do such a thing?”
“Lily 500 gave me her knowledge.” Flora did not react as they released her, but she could feel the glands in her mouth moistening. She longed to hold her egg again, and the smell of the Sage made her want to flee.
“Very agitated, Flora 717.” A third priestess came to study her. “Good communication is even more vital in these difficult times—let us help you open your channels again.” Her scent was far more powerful than the others’, and Flora knew this was the priestess who had chosen her in the Arrivals Hall.
“Accept, Obey, and Serve,” she said loudly, to cover her fear. “Forgive me, Sister Sage, but I saw much harm, and I must dance without delay to spare our hive.” She ran onto the dance floor where the tiles were scuffed by the feet of a thousand foragers past. The scent of flowers rose up from the wax, and Flora began to dance.
To begin, she copied the style of Lily 500 as her steps told of the huge full fields she had traveled, bare of forage but stained by the low dank vapor of the road that cut between them. Then she danced the scanty hedgerows and then the great golden field of poison, with all the creatures dead upon the earth and the ants that ate them. There were murmurs of horror and cries of disappointment at the great waste of pollen and nectar when Flora danced its vastness, but all the Sage watched in silence. Then she danced the field of corn and the crows, and the sunken hedgerow at its edge giving sanctuary against the avian Myriad—though at the price of other lives. At this, some foragers gave solemn applause.
“The hive comes first,” called out one, “else how could we return?”
“You did what any of us would,” called another, and the applause grew.
“Silence!” Sister Sage signaled to stop her dancing. Flora stood with her sides heaving and the electrifying choreography still running through her body as the priestess addressed the assembled sisters.
“The true passage of bud to bloom to fruit to seed is coded in the walls of Her Majesty’s Library—but this new season of flood is not inscribed. Every sister knows our forager losses, but coarse wings may endure more than those of highborn kin—and so for reason of these extraordinary times we announce an exception to the ancient order of our hive. Flora 717 is permitted to forage.”
At first there was total silence. Then one forager began to clap. Then another, and another, until every sister in the Dance Hall was applauding and humming her approval. Joy and gratitude ran through Flora’s body as she felt their blessing and saw their shining faces—and also a thread of fear at the sight of every priestess staring at her.
FLORA’S LONGING TO BE CLOSE to her egg was now a physical ache, but she stood in the lobby accepting congratulations from sisters who had never before spoken to her. It would now be much harder to visit the Nursery, for though Sanitation was regularly called in to clean, foragers famously had no interest in eggs or children—whereas the kin of Teasel lived for nothing else. As Flora smiled and thanked the passing sisters, a daring thought occurred to her. She would publicly visit Sister Teasel for old times’ sake, and take a nostalgic and admiring tour of the Nursery.
But that plan would have to wait, for the next cadre of foragers due to depart came out of the Dance Hall and smelled her low fuel supplies. Now that she was one of them, they insisted on taking her with them to the canteen, even the most taciturn of them stressing the importance of proper energy supplies before a mission. All the other bees gave them precedence, and then after they received their food—one tongue of honey on a thick slab of pollen bread—they ate without speaking, for every atom of fuel was precious, and gossip squandered strength.
Flora was grateful for their silent camaraderie, for in the privacy of her own mind she needed to calculate how long she had to visit before her egg would hatch, grow, and leave the Nursery. Her time in Category One felt very distant, but she remembered the sun bell rang three times before an egg hatched to a larva-baby.
She ate her bread and concentrated. Yes—then three more sun bells while the babies were fed Flow, then they were big and healthy and moved to Category Two. She knew nothing after that, except the children were at some point taken off and sealed for Holy Time, that mysterious interval before a bee was born. Flora could not think where in the hive it happened. Every single bee had passed through that sacred phase, but she had no memory of it, and her own emergence was now a blank.
Flora returned to her immediate concern—the need to visit Category One before six days had passed. If she did not, it might be impossible to find her child amid thousands. The very thought of her egg made her mouth moisten with sweetness.
The closest forager looked up and sniffed her. Flora stood up.
“I am ready.”
When the foragers smiled, their beauty shone past their cracked and weathered faces. They stood and bowed to her, then unlatched their wings all together with the sound that so long had thrilled her. Flora pressed down her secret and let her wings unlatch too, proud and grateful to be one of their elite and honorable number. Before six days passed she would visit Sister Teasel and find a way to see her child. But first, and with all her strength and passion, she would serve her hive.