Sage became very still.
‘You are fatigued perhaps, by your long duty? Your loyal heart wishes to serve longer, yet your spirits tire?’
Sister Teasel shook her head in alarm. Sister Sage turned to Flora.
‘Open your mouth, 717, let Sister Teasel look.’
Flora obeyed and Sister Teasel promptly peered in. She looked to Sister Sage in surprise. Then she grasped Flora’s tongue and pulled it to its full length, before letting it snap back in her mouth.
‘I see! It might indeed be possible, but with that tongue comes—’
‘She will lose its use when it is time for her to rejoin her kin. And should it linger, I will personally wipe any knowledge from her mind. Test her, and if she does not produce anything, send her on immediately.’ Sister Sage looked kindly at Flora. ‘This experiment is a great privilege. What do you say?’
‘Accept, Obey and Serve.’ The words blurted from Flora’s mouth unbidden.
Sister Teasel shuddered. ‘Let us hope she will. Such ugliness!’
Ashamed, Flora turned back to Sister Sage as her shield, but the priestess had vanished.
‘They do that.’ Sister Teasel watched her. ‘Never know where you are with them, always surprising you. Come along then.’ She opened a door and Flora smelled the sweet pure fragrance beyond it. ‘If Sister Sage hadn’t told me to do this herself, I’d call it sacrilege.’ She pushed Flora through the door with her foot. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
The enormous nursery was filled with row after row of glowing cribs, some with little rippling streams of light above them. Flora followed Sister Teasel deeper into the chamber. To her wonder, the light was in fact a luminous liquid, pouring in droplets from the mouths of the young nurses who leaned over the cribs. Many more of them moved silently about the ward, young and pretty with glowing chins.
‘It is so beautiful!
Despite her resentment, Sister Teasel smoothed her chest fur and nodded. She pointed to an unattended crib.
‘What gender?’
Flora looked in. The larva was newly hatched, soft pearly tendrils of shell still clinging to the translucent white skin. Its tiny face was closed in sleep and a sweet milky smell drifted above it.
‘A female. She is so perfect!’
‘Just another worker. Now find a male.’ Sister Teasel indicated the whole vast nursery.
‘Yes, Sister.’ Flora raised her antennae. On each row she drew in the smell of female babies, strong and constant.
‘You can’t do it from here, you silly girl.’
Flora did not answer. She smelled the different kin of the young nurses, and all the thousand female children. There was no scent of male.
‘I have searched and there are none. Why is that?’
Sister Teasel stared at her.
‘Late in the season Holy Mother stops making them.’ She shook herself. ‘A good sense of smell is not enough to keep you out of Sanitation. Now hold your bold tongue and let us conclude this foolish experiment.’
Sister Teasel pushed Flora to the first worker crib she had shown her, and tapped on its side so that the little creature woke. When it opened its mouth and began to cry, she folded her arms in satisfaction and looked at Flora. ‘And now?’
Flora leaned in to look, and the larva baby flexed and stretched towards her. Its warm scent rose more strongly, threaded with the delicate fragrance of the Queen’s Love. Immediately, two pulses began flickering in Flora’s cheeks, and her mouth began to fill with sweet liquid. She looked to Sister Teasel in alarm.
‘Flow!’ cried Sister Teasel. ‘Don’t swallow, let it come!’
She guided Flora into the right position as the luminous drops spilled from her mouth. As they fell onto the larva baby it stopped crying and wriggled to lap them up. The drops thickened into a thin stream which pooled around the baby’s body until it could drink no more.
The liquid ebbed and Flora’s cheeks stopped flickering. Completely exhausted, she held the side of the crib for support. The baby grew as she watched, and the base of the crib glowed. Other nurses looked across.
‘Well!’ said Sister Teasel. ‘If I had not seen it for myself. A flora from Sanitation, able to make royal jelly – Flow.’ She corrected herself. ‘You must only ever call it Flow.’
‘Why, Sister?’ Flora felt warm and sleepy.
Sister Teasel tutted.
‘No more questions. All you need to remember is to feed as your supervisor instructs you. Not a drop more, no matter how the babies beg. And they will. Now I must find you a place to sleep – though I don’t know what the other girls will say about it. You mustn’t expect them to touch or groom you.’
Sister Teasel led Flora to a rest area where young nurse bees lay talking quietly or sleeping, luminous traces fading round their mouths. She lay down at once.
‘Flora 717 is here by Sister Sage’s express wish.’ Sister Teasel’s tone dared anyone to remonstrate. ‘Yes she makes Flow and yes it is most irregular for her kin, but we are in the season of irregularity, with the rain and the cold and the lack of food – so we will all be helpful. Is that clear?’
The nurses murmured assent and placed food and drink within Flora’s reach, but she was too tired to move. Sister Teasel’s voice continued above her and she knew that when the comb shivered, the divine fragrance that rose up from it was the Queen’s Love, and that this was the sacrament of Devotion. She wanted to join the sweet harmony of nurses in prayer, but the room was warm and dark, and the bed was soft.
* * *
Like the other nurses, Flora’s job was simple. She must give Flow to the babies as directed, rest when it stopped, then repeat. As Sister Teasel had stressed to Sister Sage, the feed timing was very strictly observed and marked with different bells that signalled one or other area of the nursery was due more, or must now stop feeding. These constantly chiming bells, and the shimmering energy of the fed larva, created an intense and dreamlike aura in the nursery, but one sound always alerted Flora’s attention. It was the bright resonant tone of the sun bell, and its particular frequency told all the bees that beyond the safety of the hive walls, day had risen again.
Flora particularly enjoyed its vibration and listened out for its rare pleasure. Every three chimes, the supervising sisters came round and collected all the nurses whose fur had risen and whose Flow was dwindling, and replaced them with new ones, fresh from the Arrivals Hall, their fur still soft and damp.
Flora’s fur had not changed, so she was kept on. By the sixth sun bell, every nurse around her had changed, but her own Flow continued as strongly as ever. Supervising sisters also changed, but there were always several Teasel in their number. As she watched them go about their business, Flora
