her head down until there was a sharp crack. She hung limp between them and they dropped her body in the corridor.
‘You.’ A peculiar rasping voice addressed Flora and she did not know which one spoke, but stared at the black hooks on the backs of their legs. ‘Hold still.’ Long black callipers slid from their gauntlets and they measured her height. ‘Excessive variation. Abnormal.’
‘That will be all, officers.’ At the kind voice and fragrant smell, the police released Flora. They bowed to a tall and well-groomed bee with a beautiful face.
‘Sister Sage, this one is obscenely ugly.’
‘And excessively large.’
‘It would appear so. Thank you, officers, you may go.’
Sister Sage waited for them to leave. She smiled at Flora. ‘To fear them is good. Be still while I read your kin—’
‘I am Flora 717.’
Sister Sage raised her antennae. ‘A sanitation worker who speaks. Most notable …’
Flora stared at her tawny and gold face with its huge dark eyes. ‘Am I to be killed?’
‘Do not question a priestess.’ Sister Sage ran her hands down the sides of Flora’s face. ‘Open your mouth.’ She looked inside. ‘Perhaps.’ Then she inclined her head over Flora’s mouth and fed her one golden drop of honey.
The effect was immediate and astonishing. Clarity washed Flora’s mind and her body filled with strength. She understood that Sister Sage wished her to follow in silence, and that she must do whatever she asked.
As they walked down the corridor she noticed how every bee averted her eyes and busied herself, and how the dead body of the young worker was already far ahead of them, carried in the mouth of a dark hunched bee who walked in the gutter. There were many more of the same type, all moving on the edge of the corridor. Some carried bundles of soiled wax, others scrubbed at broken cells. None looked up.
‘They are your kin-sisters.’ Sister Sage followed Flora’s eyes. ‘All of them mute. Presently you will join them in Sanitation, and perform valuable service to our hive. But first, a private experiment.’ She smiled at Flora. ‘Come.’
Flora followed gladly, all memory of the killing lost in her longing to taste more honey.
The priestess walked swiftly through the pale corridors of the Arrivals Hall. Flora followed closely, her brain recording all the sounds and scents as different kin broke free of their emergence chambers. Many more dark sanitation workers moved along the gutters with bundles of soiled wax. Noting their sharp distinctive odour and how other bees avoided any contact with them, Flora drew closer to Sister Sage and her fragrant wake.
The priestess paused, antennae raised. They had come to the edge of the Arrivals Hall where the countless rows of emergence cells finished, and a large hexagonal doorway led into a smaller chamber. A burst of applause from within carried out a thrilling new odour. Flora looked up at Sister Sage.
‘Unfortunate timing,’ said the priestess. ‘But I must pay my respects.’ Once inside, she put Flora to wait by the wall then went to the front of a crowd of bees. Flora watched as once again they burst out clapping, gathered before the entrance of a still-closed emergence cell.
Flora gazed around this beautiful room. It was obviously an Arrivals Hall for more favoured bees, for it was spaciously arranged around two rows of central cells, each one made up of six grand and beautifully carved individual compartments. Sister Sage stood in the welcoming committee before one of them, where many bees held platters of pastries and pitchers of nectared water. The delicious smells sharpened Flora’s own hunger and thirst.
Muffled curses and thuds came from within the decorated walls of the compartment, as if the occupant was leaping and jumping. At the sound of breaking wax, the assembled sisters redoubled their applause and their kin-scents flowed stronger with excitement. Flora detected a molecule of a different scent and her brain knew its pheromone signal: A Male – A Male arrives!
‘Worship to His Maleness!’ cried several feminine voices as a big carved piece of wax fell out, followed by screams of delight as through the hole came the plumed head of a brand-new drone.
‘Worship to His Maleness!’ the sisters cheered again, and they rushed to help him out, pulling the wax free themselves and making a staircase of their bodies.
‘Quite high,’ he said as he walked down on top of them. ‘And quite tiring.’
He puffed his dronely scent around himself, rousing more sighs and applause.
‘Welcome and Worship to His Maleness.’ Sister Sage curtsied low. As all the other bees graciously did the same, Flora stared in admiration and tried to copy the movement. ‘Honour to our Hive,’ said Sister Sage as she rose.
‘Too kind.’ But his smile had charm, and all the sisters returned it, gazing at him avidly. He was rumpled but elegant, and very concerned with the exact set of his neck-ruff. When he had finally arranged it to his liking, he bowed with a great flourish. Then, to the sisters’ fervent applause, he showed himself off from many angles, stretching out his legs in pairs, puffing his plume and even treating them to a sudden roar of his engine. They screamed in delight and fanned each other, and some scrambled to offer him pastries and water.
Flora watched him eat and drink, her own mouth dry and her hunger keen.
‘Greed is a sin, 717.’ Sister Sage was beside her again. ‘Take care.’
She walked on, and before Flora could look back at the drone her antennae tugged sharply from the line of scent the priestess had attached without her knowledge. She ran to catch up.
As she followed, the vibrations in the comb floor became more insistent, stronger and stronger as if it were a living thing beneath her, energy running in all directions. With a buzzing sensation through all her six feet, a torrent of information rushed up through her body and into her brain. Overwhelmed, Flora stopped in the middle of a big lobby. Under her feet spread a vast mosaic of hexagonal floor tiles, the patterns scrolling across the lobby and down the corridors. Endless streams of bees criss-crossed around them and the air was thick with scent broadcasting.
Sister Sage came back to her.
‘Well! You appear to have accessed every floor code at once. Stay very still.’ She lightly touched both Flora’s antennae with her own.
A new fragrance cocooned them. Flora breathed it deep inside and the rushing confusion in her brain subsided. Her body calmed and her heart filled with joy, for the fragrance told her with utter certainty that she, Flora 717, was loved.
‘Mother!’ she cried out as she sank to her knees. ‘Holy Mother.’
‘Not quite.’ The priestess looked gratified. ‘Though I am of the same noble kin as Her Majesty, all praise to Her eggs. And as the Queen most graciously permitted me to attend Her today, I am richly blessed with Her scent. That which you feel is but a tiny fraction of the Queen’s Love, 717.’
Sister Sage’s voice came from a great distance and Flora nodded. As the Queen’s Love flowed
