The Journal of BubbleLand Studies
Scented into wax by me, zzzzz'ZOE, the Royal First Cousin, on this day, Fourteen Pine, in the year 15910.The Bee zzzzz'Zoe, the Queen's First cousin, was taken by the rebel zz'Bic to view the first human Bees, those who escaped the Downsizing of their populations, through becoming Bees.
zzzzz'Zoe found that the humans were being used as honey storage facilities for Queen zzzzz'Drom's army of Scorpion Bees, lethal to humans.
After witnessing the terror and disgusting death of one such human 'Bee,' zzzzz'Zoe, head of the Archaeological expedition to find BubbleLand, criticized the Queen, throwing the full stature of Archaeology against her.
Downsizing
By
zzzzz'ZOE, For The Queen
Life is a sound. I saw this in little Sarah's eyes as she contemplated her dead father, Mayor Reg. I listened to the silence they brought, all of the humans, to their circle around the dead.
Queen zzzzz'Drom has done an evil thing, an evil thing.
It happened on the fourth day out from Capton Heights, at the extreme end of the range of Queen zzzzz'Drom's martial bees. Our guard was relaxed already, from several days without incident, when the news came that the ButterSnow Mountains had been sighted at last, a hazel brown smudge on the horizon, topped by high grey clouds.
It was a happy occasion for all of the Bees in our party, and in our haste to see our destination, we forsook our guarding of Sarah, and of the other humans, for foolish high flights of joy and sightseeing.
Mayor Reg saw our commotion, and immediately climbed a tall pole pine to share what glimpse he could. Hugging the tree's crown with both arms, his weight bending and swaying the slender top trunk, he fixed his eyes on our far away destination, and was unprepared to beat away any attacks.
I was among the first the see the Scorpion Bee fall, its multi-stinged sturdy tail glistening with the spit and polish of idle waiting about for war. It streaked down upon Mayor Reg's neck much as I remember from the demonstration in Queen zzzzz'Drom's Court. This fine fruit of Bee genetics stirred my pride, but only momentarily, as I realized this was no demonstration.
"In the Name of the Queen and Archaeology give way!" we shouted, but Bee wings thundering to war drowned out our words. I felt a fleeting comfort that at least their venom had been bred for mercy, or so we had been told by the Queen's military advisors. "None of the many millions of humans downsized by Scorpion Bees has ever felt a thing," the Bee Counter had told the Royal Court. "It is sleep we bring them. Nothing more." Mayor Reg's screams soon told a different tale, one which I hope all the Browser Hives are soon privy to.
When the Bee struck him, the poor soul arched back from the tree crown, convulsing wildly, then grabbed the tree forcefully and thrust his face into the tree needles, biting off strips of pungent young bark, and forcing fistfull after fistfull of raw green pine needles into his mouth, as if trying to staunch a horrible thirst, or some taste too vile and acid to abide.
His legs then lost their grip around the tree's crown, and he first slid, then jerked backward into a ragdoll fall, his mouth spewing chewed pine strips and green needle mash, chased from his throat by a choken scream, and distributed all about by a head flailing as if it were a body itself, jerking in the agony of its chemical beheading.
None of us had ever seen a Scorpion Bee used in anger, and we hovered for long moments around Mayor Reg's body after it hit the ground, unable to go until the last quiver had left his limbs.
I gave orders to seize the Scorpion Bee, but my workers searched and could not find him among the darkness of the wooded shadows. But we did find, to our sadness, the bodies of twenty-three other humans, many of them in horrible states of twisted rigor, nearly all of them with throats choked full of some kind of vegetation.We saw Sarah, Mayor Reg's daughter, creep from the brush to stare at her father's motionless form. Sarah who loved Bees, and had even befriended one, stood now looking at another of the Queen's Downsizings. It was not looking, so much, as listening.
In death, her eyes deceived, and showed her father to her, still brown of hair and ruddy of skin. Touch lied to her fingers with warmth and soft-textured hair that still sprang back when touched. Smell avoided the truth by the scent of the woods in his hair, and the sweet odor of the fruits he had eaten all his life.
But Sarah's ears, her ears, were not deceived and did not deceive. They listened for a voice, the sound of a breath, the brush of bristly whiskers against a leathered shoulder, and heard nothing.
For life is a sound. I read this in little Sarah's eyes as she contemplated her dead Father, Mayor Reg. And I watched her ears cringe with the beginnings of loneliness, and I heard her try to fill that silence with her own screams.
I didn't hear the Scorpion Bee until he was beside me. "Royal Cousin," he reported tersely. "Mayor Reg's daughter is on the Bee Counters' manifest. Her life is to be Downlengthened."
I turned to him, angrily. "And . . . ?"
"We are at a loss. We don't know which she is."
I looked at Sarah, looking very small now, though still huge to all of us. "This is not her. Sarah is already among the dead," I said.
"Then Justice has been served," he said. I took some steps back, and stared at him. His dark eyes were unfathomable, and he seemed a part of the shadows.
"How was Justice served?"
"Why, half were Downlengthened in the Enclaves. It wouldn't be fair to them if these were spared."
I couldn't believe my ears. "The Queen has killed half in the Enclaves?"
He nodded, beaming as if he'd won a prize, and saluted.
That night, I ordered the humans to bury their dead, and we moved as far away from NorthPort, and the Queen's Scorpion Bees, as possible. zz'Bic tells me that the message has gone out to the microbee Browser Hives, and that the mystery Bee stranger, shadowy leader of the microbee rebellion, is coming to comfort Sarah.
There are rumors that he will give his Promise to a new Queen.
And whoever she be, I will not be far behind him.
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5 June, 1996 -- Expedition Report -- 14 Pine, 15910
