The wasp smiled.

“Then follow me, and all will be well.”

Senses blunted, Flora set her wingbeats to the wasp’s strange frequency and flew in her slipstream. If her cousin had not left her there to perish, then she could be trusted.

Twenty-Two

AS THEY DESCENDED OVER THE TREETOPS FLORA strained for any trace of scent of drones in case Congregation was near, but all she could pick up was a fragmented smell of an alien nectar. They flew low over the great gray road, its bitter stench soaking up into the air, and then across a small field of rye. That brash, familiar scent pushed into Flora’s brain and her senses began to revive. Vast gray-green fields swayed into the distance, but no fragrance of nectar or pollen drifted from ahead, only the dreary, useless odor of fibrous crops and strange tang of the earth beneath them.

The wasp hovered on lissome wings and watched Flora.

“So, that way lies your orchard, cousin—and as you see, it is a route to give you empty baskets.” She sighed. “To think of all you poor cousins, your flowers rotted in the rain and no clue what to do.”

“There will be more flowers.”

“Not in our lifetime—do you not see the berries swell? All religions can read that sign. Many times we say at home, how we would willingly share our bounty with our cousins, for we have so much—how sad the Chosen People are too proud. Yet we Vespa long to forget the ancient feud.”

“You have pollen and honey?”

The wasp burst out laughing.

“Cousin, you work too hard! We have sugar, like hard dewdrops of nectar, but soft as larvae inside. Sweeter than honey, stronger than that scabbing tree blood you gather.” She spat in disgust.

“Propolis. It has many uses.” Flora tried not to be angry at her, for much might be gained from this friendship. She imagined herself on the landing board, unloading exotic treasure for her hive, insisting on the truth of its provenance.

“Whatever you like to call it, cousin. But you might feed your whole hive with just a few mouthfuls of what we have. Never mind—here I must leave you. Good foraging, cousin.”

“Wait—” Flora flew after her. “You truly would share with us?”

The wasp dipped her wings demurely, and smiled.

FLORA EXPECTED THEY WOULD HEAD for the maelstrom of scents coming from the town, but instead the wasp led her to a cluster of gray warehouses on its edge. Brown-belching vehicles labored to and fro, and Flora noted them to add to her homecoming choreography. There would be so much to dance about, and such a fervor of excitement. To think that the ancient feud with the Vespa might be ended—that would be expiation indeed.

The wasp checked over her wings that Flora was still behind her, and then began her descent toward the warehouse buildings. Flora logged as much information as she could, though her antennae were still slow and sore. She had never seen a place with so few plants, their stunted flower heads barely strong enough to open. Sensing the presence of a honeybee, they mustered their energy and breathed a poor wisp of scent to her.

“Leave them,” said the wasp. “They’re pathetic.”

But where one plant stretched and pushed out its scent, so did all its neighbors, and supplications and pleas came from every flower in every crack of concrete or cinder-block wall for Flora to come to them. They called and begged her; they wanted to speak with her and feel her feet on their petals.

“Very quickly.” Flora dropped down onto the soot-stained head of a buddleia trembling for her touch. It sighed in gratitude as Flora secured her hold, then pushed her tongue deep into a floret. A dirty film of oil coated its petals and she released it in disgust, rearing into the air. The buddleia drooped in shame.

“Told you!” sang the wasp. “Come now, if you wish to feed your family. Or go home empty.” She flew into the dark, cavernous mouth of a warehouse.

Flora hovered outside. She was glad there was no one from her hive to have seen her try the weeds—for despite their nectar and warm welcome, surely that was what they were: low, coarse, desperate weeds. There had to be a good reason their forage was shunned—but she could not think of one. The words of the Catechism came back to her. “Nor may a flora ever forage, for she has no taste.”

The weeds had made a fool of her, and Flora was angry at herself for succumbing to their pleas. She whirred her wings louder to muffle their voices. The bees certainly did not know everything—if they did, they would not have lain dead at the foot of the murmuring tree in such numbers while the wasp went free. Ignoring the cries of the weeds, Flora flew into the warehouse.

The cavern was dim and vast, with a sharp, peculiar scent that hit Flora’s antennae as soon as she flew in, making them twitch in excitement and revulsion at the same time.

“Here,” called the wasp, her voice deeper in the gloom. “This way, cousin.”

Flora flew toward her under the crackling bars of fluorescent light that hung at intervals down the dark, curved ceiling. The walls were made of stacked containers, and below her on the concrete ground, slow, ungainly vehicles labored to move them to and fro. They reminded Flora of sanitation workers rolling balls of drone wax, and she noted this little detail to further enhance her homecoming choreography.

“Come.” The wasp had returned to find her. Under the flickering lights Flora saw how young she was, her pointed black-and-yellow face completely smooth. A smile shone from her glossed black eyes, flatter than a bee’s and with elegantly glittered edges. She pivoted in the air and a wisp of formic acid drifted from her. She whirred it away with a sudden thrum of her wings.

“Forgive my excitement,” she whispered to Flora. “Come and taste the sugar.” She flew to the wall and alighted on an irregularly shaped ledge, a glowing mosaic of rock in colors more lurid and vulgar than any petal could attempt. Flora’s antennae lashed in repulsion at the blaring scent, but her tongue stretched out to taste it.

“Fill your crop, cousin,” said the wasp. “Feel your hunger.”

THE SUGAR WAS SOLID like propolis, soft like wax, then it melted like nectar. It was the most extraordinary substance, and the more Flora ate the more she wanted and the faster she chewed. As the taste raced through her brain, Flora abandoned decorum and gnawed at it as if she were breaking out of her emergence chamber. Each of the colors tasted slightly different, underlaid with a tang that almost made her want to retch, yet sharpened her appetite for more. She wanted to ask about it and where she might find this substance for herself, but she could not stop eating.

Far below on the ground, the vehicles whined and groaned and their engines hummed like sisters on the wing.

“You like it, cousin?” The wasp chewed sugar nearby and watched Flora eating. She was generous, Flora thought, and she wanted to say so, but something in the colored nectar-rock kept her gnawing faster and faster.

“Eat more,” the wasp said, a strange smile on her face. “Eat your fill.”

Suddenly self-conscious of her greed, Flora slowed down as she prized the last blue crystal out. There was a strange vibration at her feet as it came free, and Flora looked down and noticed what she stood on.

Extending on either side of the gaily colored ledge of sugar beneath her was a chewed gray mix of paper and clay. It curved out in an irregular shape and finished some distance underneath, tight against the wall. It was a great wasps’ nest, and the roof was made of sugar. The vibration she had heard did not come from the vehicles on the ground, but from inside the nest. It was the high-pitched whining of thousands and thousands of wasp larvae under her feet.