MANY FORAGERS DIED OF EXHAUSTION every night and in the morning sanitation workers carried out their bodies. Those surviving stood by their berths until the workers had passed, singing the plainsong chant of farewell and respect:

Praise end your days, Sister, Praise end our days.

Flora’s first thought on waking had been to go to the Nursery to pay her visit to Sister Teasel, but despite her intention, her feet took her to the canteen for fuel, then the landing board with all the other foragers. Her secret love for her egg glowed deep inside her, but once again, as soon as she stepped out into the dazzling warmth and unlatched her wings, the physical desire for flowers took over, and all she wanted to do was fly. The sun was bright and strong that day, and the more Flora gathered, the more she wanted. Each time she touched down on the landing board she remembered her egg, but her missions were already celebrated and the Dance Hall crowded to watch her dance, and there was no possible opportunity until the day was over.

Each successful mission improved Flora’s skills and added to her knowledge, and on each one she went farther and visited hundreds more flowers. She brought back dandelion nectar and the soft purple-black pollen from poppies. She knew the right time to visit the mallows when their nectar was just rising, and she stormed through a bank of ultraviolet oxeye daisies, tasting which were tainted with road wind and which were fresh to gather from. Her sense of smell strengthened so that the air vector back to the hive was easy and fast to locate, and when she returned and disgorged her loads, her choreography became more detailed and roused more cheers.

She flew so many missions on her second day foraging that her sense of the hive stretched far and wide, for she saw and smelled her sisters at vast distances, and each of their bodies was a point of beloved, familiar scent. She was near one over a great swath of pink rosebay willowherb when she heard a strange rattling sound. Before Flora knew it a beauty of dragonflies was upon them, mesmerizing and terrible in their iridescent armor. Moving with astonishing speed and agility, the sublime monsters cut through the field, taking bees out of the air—and then they were gone, high and distant before any could cry alarm.

On her return to the Dance Hall Flora left no detail undanced. In graceful steps she told of the dragonflies and all the flowers that were safe to forage—and then her rhythm changed as she danced of the lost sisters from another hive. She had passed them on her return, their blind and dizzy flight striking pity in her heart as they cried out for their mother and home, the wet gray film weighting their wings and burning their minds. The bees stopped following as they recognized the stark message, and each one looked down at herself and her neighbor, to check that she was clean. When Flora stopped there were no cheers, but slow applause for the valuable warning.

It was night again, and Flora still had not visited her egg. Her mind was filled with flowers and pollen and the stream and the hedge and all the sights and sounds of her forage, but she forced them back. Her egg. She felt its need for her. She wanted to get up and go to it, but her exhausted body would not move. Tomorrow.

THE BEES WOKE TO RAIN, battering the hive wet and chilling the air. The floras came to take the dead to the morgue because the air was shut to flight, and despite the wear and tear in the field, many foragers groaned at the prospect of a day of enforced rest. Flora waited until the bodies were carried out, then dipped her antennae and followed her kin-sisters out, eager to put her plan into action.

She clamped her antennae shut, folded her wings respectfully, and went into the Category One ward. Sister Teasel sat sobbing with her nurses at the station. They all looked up as Flora walked in, and she saw their tearstained, frightened faces.

“What has happened?” Flora ran to them. Sister Teasel could barely speak.

“A most terrible calamity.” She burst out crying again. “It must have been a novitiate, her mind addled because she cannot get enough to eat!” She stared at Flora through her tears. “What are you doing here? I knew when I heard a flora had been promoted, that it must be a bold thing like 717, I said so— Oh, my poor babies, my poor, poor innocent nurses—now I must train these girls from scratch and no one for them to follow and learn from—” She reached out her hands to the young nannies clustered around her, and Flora saw their fur was flat and damp and fresh from Arrivals. “If we do not get enough to eat ourselves, we cannot concentrate properly, and mistakes will be made! It is not my fault if the food supply runs short—it is yours, it is you foragers not bringing enough—and now look what has happened—” Sister Teasel burst out weeping again.

“Sister Teasel, please. What has happened?”

“Why are you even here? Have we not had enough grief and terror for one day without everyone coming to stare at us?”

“I came to see you!” Flora fought down the impulse to run through the ward to search for her egg. “It is raining, we cannot fly so I thought—” She stopped, smelling the fertility police.

“Yes, they came.” Sister Teasel shuddered. “How many more nurses must I lose to them? And even Lady Speedwell dragged out of the Queen’s Chambers—oh, it was unspeakable!” She looked at Flora. “You know how they are. And one girl lost her mind in fear and said it was Her Majesty’s doing—well they tore her apart on the spot, right there where they found the egg.” She pointed to the end of the ward. “There, in that last crib. I don’t know how we will clean it, the blood went everywhere, and the child screamed and screamed for so long I will never forget—”

Flora’s whole body went cold. “What child.”

“A new-hatched drone. Oh the most beautiful little boy he would have been, such a handsome face—but in the wrong crib! A new nurse must have put his egg into a worker cell, and of course the boys must always get more, so no wonder he was starving by the time we found him—I said he was not yet stunted, I said there was still time to feed him up and move him, but the Sage hear everything, for next thing the police are here—and then—” Sister Teasel gathered the new nurses to her and sobbed against their fur.

Flora stared at the crib where she had placed her egg. Sanitation workers scrubbed the floor around it, and a bee from Propolis repaired the broken edge.

“You said something about Lady Speedwell.”

Sister Teasel wiped her eyes.

“Well I had to tell the truth. She came into the ward late one night, so I thought I should mention it. I never intended them to—do what they did. In public, even while she screamed on Holy Mother’s life she was innocent.” Sister Teasel got up and waved the young nurses away. “But the police must do their job, else where would we be? Overrun with monsters and cripples. Accept, Obey, and Serve, even when it hurts.”

“Yes.” Flora turned away, sick and heartbroken.

“Look around if you want, the trouble is over, and this is still the holiest place in the hive.” Sister Teasel shook her shabby old wings straight. “Holy Mother will make it right at Devotion. I don’t mind telling you I shall be first to breathe it today.” Her smile was weak. “How well you’ve turned out, 717. I’d never have believed it. Is something wrong? Your antennae tremble so.”

Flora clamped down on them so hard she gasped.

“Quite well, Sister. It is just—very sad news.”

Sister Teasel groomed her own antennae straight and combed down her chest fur.

“One egg is nothing. Holy Mother will lay a thousand more this sun bell, and a thousand more every day. It is the nurses I grieve for. All that training wasted.” Sister Teasel laid a light claw on Flora’s arm and pulled her close. “I’ll tell you what I really fear, 717. That it was not one of my poor nurses, but a vain and evil laying worker.” She stared at her. “We must all be vigilant.”