“What a terrible accident befell her. How careless they can be.” He settled beside Flora. She could not speak. He raised his drooping antennae. “And what dismal air hangs over our old home—the chaps did hope for more.”

Flora looked up and saw more drones clinging to the hive roof, all bravado gone. Sir Linden pulled at his ruff and she saw how he had aged.

“Would no other hive admit you?” The Sage lock still seared her tongue, so that it hurt to speak.

“Oh, we found too many. Some dead or abandoned, some with such moaning and foul smell within as makes this one fragrant as spurge—to me at any rate.” Sir Linden looked at her. “Strange to say, I missed my family.”

“We have missed you too—all of you.” Flora gazed beyond the orchard, where bright machines moved across the nearest field and the crows wheeled above. She shook out her wings. “I—have more work to do.”

“May I help?” Linden held her eyes. Flora nodded.

“If you would raise good cheer, and strong scent—for a short while . . .”

“Madam, I am at your service.” He started his engine and flew up to his ragged cohort. “As I promised, brothers, they have missed us! Let us grace them with Our Maleness once more, let us be fed and warm and wanted again!”

Cheering, he led the drones down to the landing board. Flora heard the high excited voices of sisters running out to meet them. She listened a moment, then slipped back inside to her daughter.

Forty

IN THE TIME IT HAD TAKEN TO DISPOSE OF SISTER SAGE’S body, Flora’s baby daughter had grown again, and she was now pressing against the sides of her propolis crib. Shifting her to try to make her more comfortable, Flora felt the new weight in her child’s body and saw the change in her beautiful pearly skin. It had a new iridescence, and felt less fragile. She could not help herself—she lifted her up into her arms and gazed in awe at the beauty of her sleeping face—and at the way her features grew more adult and feminine even as she watched.

Flora froze at the vibration of footsteps running past the mouth of the corridor and the loud voices—and then she heard the shouts and guffaws of the drones coming in from the landing board, and the cheers and welcoming cries of the sisters. A great crowd of them were gathering in the lobby, and their laughter had a hysterical edge. Flora stood with her daughter in her arms, listening carefully.

The sisters were falling over themselves to welcome the drones back. Desperate to keep them, they told them how well they were and how soon the Queen was coming—and the drones were equally eager to be wanted, laughing and joking in their booming bravado, telling tales of adventures in golden palaces, which somehow could not compare to the pleasures of home.

Flora listened to them all thundering up the staircases to the midlevel, laughing and talking and heading for the canteens that would surely be thrown open to welcome them back. The footsteps died away, but still she listened, wary of a trap.

Her daughter felt heavier in her arms—and when Flora looked down she gasped. She had grown larger, and her beautiful face had changed again. A slow and steady frequency traveled in waves through her child’s body, and all at once Flora understood. This was not sleep; it was a trance. Her daughter was entering Holy Time.

Flora could not think what to do. It should not come this quickly—surely there were more days of feeding—but she could not remember. She could not think how many days’ Flow she had given her, or what she should do now. Holy Time was sacred—there were prayers, there was ceremony—she must be covered, and at once. But now she was far too big for the propolis crib, and to seal her against the dead mouse was an abhorrent thought.

The pressure of the silence grew and Flora pulled at her antennae in desperation. Her daughter would die if she was left uncovered, and die if she was discovered. She had lost one egg to the fertility police, one to the Visitation, and now she had killed a priestess to save this child.

Flora’s daughter murmured and shifted as her trance deepened. Her smell was exquisite, and Flora bent her head and breathed it in, watching in wonder as two tiny points of light appeared on the child’s head where her antennae would be. The change was happening before her eyes—and Flora’s every instinct told her she needed to protect her child, to cover her safely for Holy Time.

Where in the hive did it happen? She cursed herself for not finding out before. Surely she must have seen it—perhaps she had not noticed. Trying to keep calm, Flora thought of everywhere she had ever been in the hive, but she had never known of a place for Holy Time. All she knew was that when the babies were ready for it, they were moved from Category Two . . . to some unknown place, and then to Arrivals, where everyone hatched out.

It must be clean. That was what the old Teasel in the canteen had said.

Flora held her daughter tighter as she thought it through. The sanitation workers spent a large part of their time in the Arrivals Hall, cleaning out the vacated cells. For what? Preparing them for reuse.

All those long rows of chambers, the near ones busy with hatching, the middle ones being cleaned, and the distant ones, sealed and quiet. As every sanitation worker knew after a few days’ labor, their use was rotated. Now Flora understood what the dying Teasel in the canteen had meant. There was no special place for Holy Time; the children simply went into a trance in Category Two, then were moved by their nurses to the Arrivals Hall and sealed into clean chambers. The very place the fertility police would now be ripping apart in search of rogue eggs.

Flora heard the stamping of feet above, and felt the dim vibration of singing from the midlevel lobby. The drones were taking their mission of celebration seriously. Once she had saved Linden’s life, and now perhaps he had saved not only hers, which she held to no account, but also her beloved child’s. She blessed him with all her heart, and the feeling of gratitude brought tears to her eyes. She bent to kiss her sleeping daughter’s face, and to her joy, the words of the Queen’s Prayer came unbidden to her mind.

If there was anything holy left in this world, Flora knew it was this love for her child, and for the Queen, her beautiful mother who had loved her, and told her not to be ashamed. While the drones and the sisters rejoiced on the floor above, Flora said the words of the Queen’s Prayer in her mind, until it took over her soul.

From Death comes Life Eternal . . .

She looked up. The only other place a sister might lie undisturbed was behind this wall. It was not a dormitory, nor the Arrivals Hall. It was the morgue, and only her kin-sisters went there. While the drones still roistered above, there was time.

Flora raised her kin-scent as thick as she could and waited behind the propolis scent-veils until the lobby was quiet. Then, with her daughter still and white in her arms, she hurried out. A few bees looked at her in surprise, but she swung her head wildly and waved them away, making herself stumble.

“Sickness, sickness,” she slurred, and they shrank back in fear and ran.

THE MORGUE WAS EMPTY but for a couple of sanitation workers who nodded at her but did not speak. Flora laid her precious burden down in a shadowed corner and waited until they had gone. Her daughter was growing and changing as she watched—there was no time to lose. With all the strength of her kin and skill of her age, Flora bit through the division between two storage areas to make one large one, then used the broken wax to make a lid to cover her child. As she worked she repeated the Queen’s Prayer silently in her mind until her body was warm with the labor, and her mouth sweet with Flow. Flora leaned over her entranced daughter and let the last drops fall around her face, in a glow of light. No words could hold the love she felt.