THE HIVE RESUMED ITS NORMAL LIFE. FLORA DID NOT. Since the loss of her second egg she kept her antennae sealed, making loneliness her constant inner state. Her sensual pleasure in food vanished, the busy gossipy canteens alienated her, and though she still attended Devotion, it was more a way to kill the time between flight and sleep, and had little effect.
The challenge of the forage was the only thing that kept Flora’s grief at bay, and efficiency on the wing her only satisfaction. She flew harder and longer missions than any other bee, and felt herself becoming grim and intent as she returned to the landing board. It was as if she observed herself in the body of some strange sister who neither spoke nor smiled, intimidating to the nervous young receivers who unloaded her panniers and took her nectar. Though she felt kindly toward them she did not show it, for to give or receive a loving touch might break her open.
Summer waned. The flowers pulled on their last strength to shine and breathe their sweetness on the air and Flora skimmed the roadside to harvest one final flush of purple-black pollen from the dusty orange poppies even as their tired petals fell. The cornflowers finished, then the lady’s-mantle, the rosebay willowherb, and the scant cow parsley that was Flora’s favorite flower.
Careful of the rank, unkempt ponds where frogs and dragonflies lurked, she made the long trip to the town gardens. All the echium had been cut down, and the remaining flowers were time-wasting potted ornamentals. There was still some comfort in the thin, wild borders of the fields, where the flowering weeds clung together and raised their scent, until one day the harvesting machines tore the fields edge to edge and the birds screeched above.
She had just that morning danced exact directions and confirmed them safe—but now crows endangered any foraging bee who used them. Far more important than filling her own panniers was the need to protect her sisters, and Flora sped back to give warning. Running into the Dance Hall she stopped short at the sight of the fertility police moving through the foragers, forcing them into their long-discarded kin-groups.
“Keep dancing,” one of the police rasped to the Calluna who stumbled in her steps. “Continue as normal.”
“Sister Officer,” Flora called out. “I must dance at once, for the crows are now on the field and my sisters must not go.”
The officer looked up at her, then beckoned. Flora walked to the center, where the Calluna very gratefully gave up her place.
The officer stood too close while Flora danced her news, including her new signature choreography, details of the air currents she had used. These subtle steps helped any who followed to save on fuel, but the presence of the police inhibited the audience and few danced behind her. As Flora continued she saw the young and tender sisters standing at the edge. They had come to watch and learn, but the fertility police bore down on them with questions and they stood dazed and stupid with fear.
“This is a place of freedom!” Flora called out as she danced, not caring that all eyes fixed on her. She repeated her steps to warn of the birds in the field, then looked directly at the officers. “How can anyone dance freely or give of her best if the air smells of terror? Respect this place or leave!”
“You dare direct the police?” An officer grabbed at Flora, but her reflexes were faster and she whirled her abdomen around to buzz the location of the last flowers she had found, a stand of dog roses climbing up a metal fence, south-facing and still in bloom. Emboldened, other foragers fell in behind her and picked up the steps. Ignoring the rising scent of the fertility police and remembering her own youthful joy in Lily 500’s dance, Flora took her steps nearer to the young and frightened bees by the walls.
She danced the falling poppies and the naked fields, she ran figure eights to teach them direction and azimuth, and as she turned she felt the answering rhythm in the comb floor as more bees joined in and danced behind her.
She danced the ivy that crawled along the town fences, and its buds that would soon bloom; she danced the empty dahlias, and the last dragonflies hiding in the ponds. And then she danced of her hunger for weeds.
“Enough!” Sister Sage stepped forward and Flora stopped. “Are you falling prey to the madness of the field? Or is it pride?” The priestess signaled an officer. “Measure her.”
A ripple of dismay ran through the crowd.
“Yes!” Sister Sage said to them all. “Even foragers may be measured, for no sister is exempt from the Holy Law. Eggs blight in the nursery—which means she who curses this hive still runs free, and seeks to pass her evil spawn as the pure issue of Holy Mother.” A frightening tone entered her voice. “What is our highest law?”
“Only the Queen may breed.”
“Again!” Sister Sage’s voice seemed to come from all around the Dance Hall, and the bees repeated the phrase over and over, staring at the humiliation of the famous forager.
Flora stood completely still while two officers ran their calipers over her. They were rough and pried at her intimately, they went over her antennae again and again with their burning scanners until the smell of her heating cuticle rose into the chamber and the bees wept at her pain, but Flora was strong from her forage and withstood it all.
“She smells, Sister,” said one of the police, her great jaws ready to bite.
“And her belly is swollen,” said another, her hooks gleaming.
“That scent is my kin. I am a flora and a forager, and I stretch this belly with nectar from a thousand flowers a day if I can find them, to bring home to our hive. Accept, Obey, and Serve.”
“Accept, Obey, and Serve,” shouted the bees, as if a Sage priestess had said it.
“Silence!” The inspecting officer cuffed Flora’s head. For a moment her anger caused her antennae lock to shift.
“She hides something!” cried the officer. “She locks her antennae from us!”
“Open them.” Sister Sage walked close to Flora. “Open them.”
Flora resisted until Sister Sage was using all her psychic force to break her mind apart—and then she released her seals.
High, roaring air currents—the murmuring tree—the wasps in the warehouse, gathering for attack—
“How dare you.” Sister Sage stepped back and Flora resealed her antennae and stood quietly. For the first time in many days, she became aware of the weak and distant pulse of Devotion in the comb. Then she saw the great numbers of sanitation workers clustered around the edge of the room. Some of them twisted their faces in grimacing smiles at her and she knew that despite the unspoken rule against their presence here, they had all come to watch her dance.
Sister Sage turned to the foragers.
“Ego is the great peril of your occupation. You begin to believe what the flowers tell you, instead of the Holy Law. Only Queen and Colony matter.” She turned back to Flora. “For the rest of the day you will return to Sanitation and all will command your labor. Tomorrow you will go out at dawn, and if by the noon azimuth you have not returned with a whole cropful of nectar, you are exiled.”
The foragers crowded forward, not waiting for permission to speak.
“None of us could do that— It is not to be found— The flowers come to their end— Any of us would die trying!”
Sister Sage stared at them, her antennae crackling. “In the air, you may think for yourselves. Here, the Hive Mind takes that care from you. Do not reject it.”
Flora stepped forward.
“I accept the task.” She looked across at the sanitation workers. “I will try my best, for the honor of my kin.”
“Then you will fail. The honor of your kin is found in dirt and service. To teach otherwise is to wound them with confusion.” The scent of Devotion rose stronger through the comb, and the priestess raised her antennae.
“Our Mother, who art in labor, Hallowed be Thy womb.”
All the bees took it up, releasing their tension into the formal beauty of the Queen’s Prayer until the Dance Hall echoed with their voices. Flora spoke it too, her heart stirred back to life by the confrontation. The air grew warm and soft around her as many sister bees came to stand wing to wing with her, protecting her and sharing their strength. They hummed the words of the Queen’s Prayer but they did not speak, for they were floras.