100

The dozen or so bee women—striped yellow and black, with golden faces and large black eyes—carry crystal-tipped javelins and transparent flails on leather thongs, and they move toward you with purpose.

"I hope you're not thinking of fighting, Crowchar," Vecla says, her eyes never leaving the bees. "We're probably in their territory."

The bee women land on crystalline and rocky outcroppings all around you, tense and ready to fight. One panics and hurls a flail. It strikes you painfully in the hip but doesn't entangle your legs. When Alexius raises his rifle, he stops when he realizes you're already surrounded.

"Now we're in trouble," Vecla whispers.

The nearest bee responds, but they speak an unfamiliar dialect. At last, after several tense minutes, you strike on a kind of improvised pidgin that everyone can understand.

You don't like what you hear: the bees will take you back to their hive to meet their queen, under armed escort. Therko seems ready to fight his way out, but Control says, "Wait," and points to a shard of perfectly transparent glass worn between the eyes of one soldier.

"They have what we need," Control says. "Let's go." She doesn't look back.

The bee women keep you hemmed in on all sides, and soon smaller women—workers, you guess—appear in the air overhead. They move with a unity and efficiency you've seen before, in Control. The older soldiers watch you with hard, dangerous eyes, though several of the younger women keep looking at Vecla, their expressions worried.