‘Do not blame yourself: no one may choose their kin – or all would be Sage.’ No longer in her enraptured state, the priestess smiled. ‘Because you lack botanical heritage, yours forms the base of our society. Or rather, you draw it from impure and promiscuous flowers, shunned by this hive.’
‘Sister Sage! Sister Sage!’
Sister Teasel’s high, strained voice reached down the long corridor of Category Two. They smelled her streaming panic before they saw her, running towards them with antennae waving and wild fear on her face.
‘Please – you must – both of you, I beg you—’ Sister Teasel could hardly speak. ‘Everyone must report at once, the fertility police are here now on our ward!’
* * *
As Flora followed Sister Sage back through the Category Two ward, every nurse and nanny clutched her little charge tight to her, and stared at them in silence. Up ahead through the big double doors, the Category One ward was no longer dim and hushed but starkly illuminated and pulsing with a harsh bitter scent. Flora stumbled as her brain struggled to recall it. Sister Sage took her by the arm to quicken her pace and strengthened her own scent around both of them.
‘You have nothing to fear.’
They went into the ward. At first Flora thought the nurses had gone because all the cribs were unattended and the babies were already starting to cry, but then she saw them all standing in lines near the ward sisters’ station. Some openly wept in fear, their antennae waving uncontrollably, while others stood rigid. Standing around the edges of the ward were the fertility police. Their kin-scents were hidden under their masking scent, their eyes were blank, and their fur was slicked dark against their bands – but Flora recognised them from the Arrivals Hall. Sister Sage curled a filament of her own scent around Flora’s antennae and she felt her mouth clamp shut. The priestess joined her to the end of the first row then stepped forward and bowed to the police.
‘Sister Inspector, Sister Officers. Welcome.’
The Inspector saluted her, then turned to address the nurses.
‘Another wing deformity has been found.’ The masking scent distorted her voice to a harsh buzz. Despite their fear, the nurses murmured in revulsion.
‘Praise to the vigilant Thistle guard on the landing board.’ Her scent fired in jagged bursts as she surveyed the nurses. Sister Teasel began to weep.
‘Not here, Madam Inspector, never in Category One, it is not possible – Holy Mother is here every day, Her scent so beautiful and strong – there can be no—’
‘Silence!’ the Inspector spat at her. ‘Do you think I mean the defect could come from Her Majesty? You fly close to treason yourself, Sister—’
‘Holy Mother strike me dead before my next breath if so!’ Sister Teasel fell to her knees, but Sister Inspector yanked her back on her feet.
‘Measure her.’ She shoved Sister Teasel at two of her officers and they lashed their black callipers around her thick waist. Sister Teasel voided herself in fear and the smell mingled with the scent of the nurses’ terror, rising from their breathing spiracles. Behind them all the babies began to cry. Sister Sage looked on calmly.
‘Not her, at any rate.’ The Inspector released Sister Teasel then turned to the nurses. ‘Deformities mean evil roams our hive. Somewhere hides a desecrating heretic, who dares steal sacred Motherhood from the Queen. That is why sickness comes, that is why deformities rise. From her foul issue!’ Her antennae twitched compulsively and Flora felt her longing for violence.
‘Only the Queen may breed,’ responded Sister Sage, looking at the nurses.
‘Only the Queen may breed,’ some of them managed to reply, but others stared at Sister Teasel, her antennae bent in shame as she desperately cleaned herself. The Inspector held up a long sharp claw to the ward.
‘We will search every crib, we will measure every nurse’s belly until we find the culprit. And then we will tear her filthy body apart and cleanse our hive of sin.’
‘Do what you must, Sister Inspector.’ Sister Sage bowed again.
Sister Inspector signalled and some of her officers began moving systematically through the rows of cribs, while others used the black callipers on their arms to measure the bellies of the terrified nurses.
When it was her turn, Flora looked in distress at Sister Sage, convinced her greedy appetite would mark her as doomed, but the priestess ignored her. The callipers went round her belly but the police moved on, measuring each bee until all the nurses were cleared and none found guilty.
Those who dared turned to look at the cribs where the larva babies wailed as officers swept each one up. With the powerful scanners of their antennae, they sent sharp vibrations through the small tender bodies. The babies cried in fear and regurgitated their Flow, and the smell of it mixed with their infant defecation.
‘Our Mother, who art in labour.’ Sister Teasel’s voice was faint, but her nurses joined their own in support.
‘Hallowed be Thy Womb,’ they sang to control their fear.
‘Thy Marriage done, Thy Queendom come.’
Flora wanted to join in, but the scent from Sister Sage had bound her rigid.
‘From Death comes Life Eter—’ The beautiful voices stopped at the sharp squealing from one of the cribs.
Every nurse stared in horror as one of the officers bent over it. The squeal became an anguished shriek as the officer held up a larva baby, struggling to roll itself up. Another officer pulled it open with a sound of tearing skin.
Standing by Flora, Sister Inspector slid a claw from her gauntlet. ‘Bring it.’
Muffling the baby’s screams, she scanned it with slow-burning antennae until its pearly skin withered. ‘It is possible,’ she announced. ‘It has a foul strange scent.’
‘That is fear!’ cried Sister Teasel.
Ignoring her, Sister Inspector held up the baby and pierced it with her hook. It shrieked and twisted in agony as she offered it to her officers.
‘Destroy it.’
‘Wait.’ Sister Sage pointed to Flora. ‘Let her.’
With a jolt, Flora felt herself released to move. Sister Inspector pulled her claw from the larva baby to drop it on the ground, but Flora caught it and clutched it to her, the first child she had ever held. Its warm blood soaked into her fur and she pressed the agonised little thing close to her, trying to staunch the bleeding.
Eat it alive. The voice spoke inside Flora’s own mind. She clutched the baby tighter and a searing sound went through her antennae.
Do it NOW. Tear it apart.
Flora bowed her own head over the baby and shielded it with her arms. The voice roared louder in her mind.
DESTROY IT—
Her antennae felt like they had burst with the blow that struck her. She staggered and fell, the baby still clutched to her. Blows shook her body and her antennae became two pulsing rods of agony. The screaming baby was pulled from her grasp. She felt its warm blood splash her face and heard its tearing flesh and the grunts of the fertility police as they devoured it. As Flora screamed, her tongue twisted hard in her mouth and she choked on the sound.
‘I asked too much …’ Sister Sage’s voice was close and gentle. ‘The experiment is over.’