‘Don’t move …’ A weak voice spoke. ‘The pain is less—’
Through the snarling odours of the small chamber Flora became aware of the faint scent of the kin of Clover.
‘Was it you?’ The voice was young and ragged. ‘For I swear it was not me.’
Flora tried to answer, but to move her tongue was agony.
‘Silence.’ Sister Sage entered, followed by a group of her identical doubles. All wore the ceremonial pollen marks of the Melissae priestesses, and a strong astringent scent flowed from them. Flora shrank in terror, but they paid her no attention. Instead, the first Sister Sage knelt down by the Clover and stroked her face.
‘Your crime is behind you now, and you harm only yourself by maintaining your lie.’ She waited, but the Clover lay panting and did not speak. Sister Sage leaned closer. ‘How many eggs did you lay? Did you wish to be Queen?’
‘Never!’ The Clover struggled to rise on her broken limbs. Her wings were shrivelled and curled. ‘I beg you believe me, I have not profaned our holy law, Only the Queen may breed—’
One of the other priestesses stepped forward as if to strike the Clover, but Sister Sage held her back and soothed the Clover again.
‘Why did you hide from the police? Was it to keep spreading your deformity through our hive with foul eggs? We have found the young sisters with your defect, your issue.’ Sister Sage hissed the word and the Clover began to weep.
‘I swear again I have never laid—’
‘Your wings show your true evil. And deformity creeps through our hive.’
The Clover gave up trying to stand.
‘Then maybe Holy Mother lays bad eggs.’
The priestesses hissed and rasped their wings like knives. Sister Sage lifted the Clover off the ground with one hand.
‘You blaspheme, at the moment of your death?’
The Clover raised her antennae to high shivering points.
‘From Death comes Life Eternal. Holy Mother take me back.’
The priestesses surrounded her and flexed their abdomens high. Flora saw the tips of their bodies draw in to a hard point, and as they sang the Holy Chord together their delicate barbed daggers slid out. The chamber filled with the scent of venom, the Holy Chord rose louder until the air reverberated – then the priestesses stung the Clover from all sides. She cried out once – and then the sweet scent of her kin burst bright upon the foul air and was gone.
The priestesses turned to Flora. She felt their probing attention work its way down her sore antennae, deep into her head. She curled herself up as small as she could, to brace for the searing chemical pain they would drive into her brain – but it did not come. Abruptly the intimate invasion withdrew. The priestesses talked together in low voices and despite her fear, Flora listened.
‘Cornflower yield is poor. Even the buttercups are short—’
‘The foragers speak of more green deserts—’
‘When they fly at all, in this rain.’
‘We cannot fight the season.’ By the rich particular timbre of her voice, the speaker was the same Sister Sage Flora knew. ‘We cannot fight the rain, we can only provision ourselves as best we may. So unless she be heretic or deformed, in such a troubling season, every single worker is an asset – and I am loath to lose one more.’
‘Hardly an asset,’ said another voice. ‘She defied you over the baby. I vote to give her the Kindness – I would not waste my venom on her.’
Flora lay very still.
‘I will kill her myself when her use is over,’ said Sister Sage. ‘But the first fault was mine. I acted independently.’
The air in the chamber contracted as the priestesses twined and flexed their scents together in consultation. Then one fragrance formed, no longer dominated by the harsh astringent top note, but smooth, warm and powerfully calming.
‘Only the Queen is perfect. Amen.’
Even in her pain, Flora heard the choral beauty of their voice when they spoke together, and breathed more deeply. When a foot nudged her she did not resist.
‘It is true. Such size and strength makes her useful,’ one of them said.
‘Provided she is docile,’ said another. ‘To have a rebel in that kin – and one who could have learned of feeding—’
‘That will never happen.’ Sister Sage knelt down beside Flora, and looked up at her fellow priestesses. ‘More than one of us should do this, to be sure.’
‘Of course,’ said another. ‘Dirt and fear will be her only guides.’
Three more priestesses knelt by Flora’s head, so there were two at each antenna.
Then they all touched their own to hers.
The sensation was very strange. As the chemicals jolted into her brain her body shook, but she did not feel pain, only waves of numbness, stronger and stronger until her consciousness shrank to calm and blackness.
‘717.’ The voice came from a great distance. ‘Get up.’
The massive limbs beneath her lurched into life and Flora stood. Dimly she felt energy of other beings around her, then the comforting dull rhythm thudding through the comb under her feet. It went up into her body and her brain. Without conscious thought, Flora lifted the body of the dead Clover into her mouth. As she did so the rhythm in the ground grew stronger, pulsing with each forward step she took to lead her onto the coded tiles. Pulled by the frequency, she carried the dead Clover out of the detention chamber, into the huge traffic of bees.
To shield her antennae from the many bruising signals in the air she walked with her head low. Air currents and electrical pulses from thousands of bees rippled against her, but Flora ignored them all. The pulsing track alone held her focus, clear and simple across the perilously busy lobby where she had to slow down because of the tempest of data underfoot.
A rush of workers came through in a tumult of scent and Flora lifted her head – then the rhythm of the foot-current drew her on. She trudged past the doorway of a great hall from which came the cheering of many voices, and some vast foreign scent blew through the air, but the stimulation was too much and she shrank low to the ground to keep going.
She found herself walking in a group also carrying pungent loads, and realised one was speaking to her. Flora looked into the dark face of a sanitation worker, urgently trying to guide her through a doorway. Flora stepped in, and found a clear space on the floor. The simple scent tiles prompted her to lay down the dead Clover’s body, and immediately another worker took it away. Hands pushed her back out into the corridor into another stream of sanitation workers. They marched in silence with their dark heads lowered, their aspect no longer dirty and vile, and their scent a comfort.
* * *
There were no chiming bells to mark time in Sanitation, only the differences in the smell of the dirt they cleaned, and the very basic food they ate. There was no chatter or gossip because none of the cleaners could speak, so they derived companionship from labouring together, and pressing close to share their scent.
Like the rest of her kin-sisters, Flora worked in a dull haze, interspersed with pauses for Devotion. When the fragrance of the Queen’s Love rose through the vibrating comb, the sanitation workers stopped wherever they were and cried out in slurred reverence, and Flora felt a moment of blissful relief from the constant pain in her head. Then they all returned to work, and her consciousness shrank back down to whatever task was in hand.
*