The first time he encountered her, Stinger wasn't sure how she'd survived. Nobody ever managed to make it inside the farmhouse gate; not even the delivery people or the mail carriers. Even the school bus pulled up at good fifty feet back and honked back in the days when his daughter was getting her education.
But the woman in the angora sweater puffed her way towards him, her curly hair bouncing, everything bouncing, her gaze bright. Stinger felt something stir within him, something confusing since it was half fury, half interest.
"You're lost," he informed the woman, who'd made it to the porch.
"No, I'm Gina Bombini," came her cheerful reply. "I'd like to do business with you."
"Not interested," Stinger shot back automatically. He'd worked hard to establish a reputation as a recluse, and there wasn't anything he needed badly enough to have someone come all the way out to tell him so.
"Why?" she asked, cocking her head. Stinger was about to snap some crude and hard comment, but instead he took a look at her before replying. It was a mistake.
Looking at her meant noting the rounded curves of her, the bouncy boldness of her chest and thighs. Her skirt was snug enough to give him fair measure of her padded sweetness, and her dark eyes took him in right back even as she grinned.
"Because I'm a mean bastard with guns," he finally replied, scowling. "This is my property and I don't want you here, so get lost."
She laughed. It was a big woman's laugh, bubbly and musical. Sweet. Stinger shifted, feeling annoyed. He looked up in time to see a wave of workers circling overhead; they weren't attacking, but they weren't retreating either.
He cocked his head to look at her. "You're . . . not from around here," Stinger muttered.
"You could say that," came her reply. "Look, you don't want to talk right now, that's fine. But here—" She handed him a glossy sheet of paper, and flashed him a smile, "when you do, here's where you can give me a buzz, Mr. Apini."
Then she looked up and waved. "Talk to him; make him see reason, ladies."
He watched her saunter down the steps and out to her car, and caught himself licking his lips. Truly irritated now, he moved to crumple the paper up, but stopped himself and scanned it.
Want to increase your crop yield and help the planet? The flyer asked. Use Bombini's Bees! We bring hives to help pollinate your fields and provide natural fertility to your farms. Simple! Time-tested! Cheap!
Stinger managed a dry laugh. "Cheap. Got that one right. So you want me to supply you with workers. Answer's still no."
He glanced down and noted that the bees who had been overhead were now landing and crawling on the flyer, covering it as they danced over the smiling photo. Stinger rolled his eyes. "No. You've got entire fields right outside! More corn than anyone knows what to DO with!"
The bees kept landing on the flyer, their weigh making it sag around his fist. One particularly sassy one landed on his nose.
Stinger gave a sigh and dropped the flyer. He tried again as he retreated. "No."
It took three days for him to finally call her.
-oo00oo-
The next time Stinger saw her, Gina Bombini was in a fluffy yellow sweater covered with bees. His bees, he noted with annoyance. They were clinging to her like climbers on a rock wall as she made her way from her truck to the porch, and he heard her talking to them.
In Buzz.
Well that explained a lot, not that he hadn't had his suspicions, but her rich timbre had him on alert, and it took a moment to bring himself out of it as he pushed open the screen door.
"Don't baby 'em," he groused. "They'll take advantage of you."
She trailed off and wriggled her nose; the bees on her stopped their wings and simply crawled.
"You don't talk to them enough," Gina informed him. "They feel your resentment."
Stinger felt his scowl deepen. He let his glare sweep around the porch, which emptied of bees in seconds. The ones on her sweater quickly clustered on her back. "I don't resent . . . them."
"Really. When was the last time you sang to them? Told them the sagas? Gave them anything other than corn to pollinate for melifera's sake?" Gina buzzed at him, her dark eyes glittering.
Stinger felt the hair on the back of his neck go up, and quick jolts run down his shoulders to his hidden wings as the challenge of her tone hit hard. "How I run the colony is MY business. Stranger queen you may be, but this isn't your hive."
She stepped back and half-turned, pulling back her threat in one easy motion and the tension dropped immediately. Stinger held his gaze and she held out one hand, palm up; it held a Cosmos blossom. He recognized the gesture and gritted his teeth as immediately the flower was covered by delighted workers.
"Stop it; you're embarrassing me," he muttered to the insects, who paid no attention at all to him. To Gina he added, "They'll never accept you as queen, you know."
"I know," she replied, "but they'll follow me, if I take care of them."
It took nearly a week to work out the deal. The details were simple, although they still galled Stinger. Gina would load three hives onto her truck and take them for a few days to her clients who had gardens or orchards. Most of the trips were over a hundred miles, although some were closer; all of them left him slightly anxious. He scowled whenever the truck left, and let out a sigh of relief when it returned, all to the amusement of his daughter.
"Are Apini and Bombini always so . . . antagonistic, or is it just you?" she demanded with a half-grin. "Because Gina's nice."
"It's . . . a territorial thing," Stinger replied, cleaning one of the oldest weapons he had; a mezzabolt blaster. "I'm supposed to protect them."
"Against what? Getting great pollen? Enjoying new territory?"
"Against . . . enchantment," he muttered. "Mesmer is dangerous."
Kiza looked intrigued. "She's got Mesmer? Seriously?"
Stinger looked up, sighing loudly. "Usually Bombini are clowns. They're slow and stupid-looking. They hide their threat until they're close and then—"
"And then?"
"It's too late. Messy, disorganized, loud . . ."
Pointedly Kiza looked around the farmhouse and her father had the grace to cough a bit. "Never mind. Yes, she's got a bit of Mesmer to her. In her scent, mostly, and a little glow in her eyes."
"Why?" Kiza wanted to know. "She's not a soldier . . . is she a spy?"
"Most likely," Stinger grunted. "They're not fighters, they're sycophants, kissing up to the Entitled."
"Then what's she doing here?" Kiza wanted to know, and for that, her father had no ready answer.
-oo00oo-
When Gina returned at sunset, he morosely carried the hive boxes to the back of the farmhouse, working hard to ignore the woman and not really succeeding. Kiza had left biscuits and butter out, along with instructions to share them; Stinger offered them up in a monotone.
Of course Gina accepted, settling down on the sofa on the front porch and using her index finger to lightly spread honey across one of the treats. Stinger leaned against the porch rail and watched her, biding his time.
"Someone somewhere did you wrong," she murmured, "and you're still not over it, are you?"
He managed a grin with no humor in it. "You can't trust what workers tell you; they see lots of things they can't understand."
"True," Gina murmured, and tossed her head back to get the curls out of her eyes, "but they've been with you a long time. You've been a soldier without a war to fight for a while now."
"What's it to you, jester?"
She pursed her lips as the jibe cut, and drew in a breath. "Nothing. It's nothing to me. This planet's big enough to hold you and your grudges, and you'll have it to yourself again soon enough."
Stinger hesitated, well-aware of her flutter of her hands, the glow of her eyes in the oncoming twilight. She was more vulnerable now, even before his sharp words and he felt a sting of regret. Carefully he shifted closer, reaching for a biscuit.
"I am a soldier, too blunt for my own damned good most days," he offered by way of apology. "I'm not used to . . . the authority of others, not in the realm of my own."
"I know," she replied, and this time her lips shifted to a small smile.
They sat in silence for a while, and as they did, Stinger mulled over her words. He glanced at her as the shadows grew. "What do you mean, I'll have it to myself?"
Gina winced. "Nothing. I run my mouth when I shouldn't. Time to go."
She rose, shaking her head, her long curls bouncing. Stinger realized she was slightly taller than he was. Before he could stop himself he called out. "Bombini, you have them? Or did your Splicer take yours away from you?"
Her laugh caught him by surprise. "I . . . have mine, yes, for all the good they do. Haven't used them in . . . years."
Stinger moved closer, feeling an oddness sense of camaraderie coursing through him. A kinship fueled by the honey in his mouth. "You can show them . . . here. If you'd like. I know how it feels to keep them folded away."
Gina nodded slowly, her wistful gaze meeting his. They looked at each other for a long moment, and Stinger felt his stomach tighten a bit. Tension. An old memory, a sensation he hadn't had in a very long time.
Then, she hummed, just under her breath; a low tone that curled into his ear like a hot breath. Gina moved away from him, letting the soft vibration linger as she headed for the truck. Stinger watched her drive off, and stayed out in the growing darkness, the memory of her hum echoing through him.
When she didn't show up after a few days, Stinger found himself caught between worry and annoyance. The tone of the hum around the farmhouse took a downward turn, and most of the workers moved a bit more sluggishly. Kiza said nothing, but by the fourth day, she'd moved the flyer from near the refrigerator to a more prominent place on the dining room table before heading out to work. Her father tried to ignore it, but when he found it covered with workers, he snatched it up and jabbed the number into his cell phone.
"More trouble than it's worth . . ." he groused, secretly glad to be doing something instead of pretending to repair the combine out back.
"Bombini's Bees, April speaking," came an unfamiliar voice.
Taken aback for a moment, Stinger hesitated, then barked, "I need to talk to Gina."
"Gina's out right now. Can I take . . . oh wait, are you Mr. Apini? She said you might call," the girl muttered over the line. "Hang on, she had a message for you."
Stinger gripped the phone, waiting impatiently, pacing a little around the table. He glanced around the walls, aware that the dining room had gone silent; the bees had drifted away.
"Okay, yeah. She said to tell you that she'll try to be out there by the end of the day, after she gets back from treatment."
"Treatment for what?" he blurted, still annoyed, but aware of some relief as well. Over the phone he heard the girl give a little sigh.
"I dunno. She goes in every couple of weeks though. Might be cancer or something. Anything else?"
"No, nothing else," Stinger muttered, adding an absent, "thank you," before hanging up. He shoved the phone back into his pocket, and stood a moment, trying to think.
Treatment could be any number of things. Splicing had drawbacks, and although most blends were stable now, there were always issues that cropped up, and it could well be something like that, he figured. She'd looked healthy enough the last time he'd seen her, although . . .
Stinger moved into the living room, glancing up. "You lot, the ones who went out with the queen. To me," he ordered, and closed his eyes. Within moments he stood covered in bees, a thick, moving beaded blanket of them over his shoulders and chest, crawling through his shock of hair and along his craggy face. The sight might have sent some screaming, but Stinger merely slowed his breathing and let the hum reach into his hearing and connect with the part of his mind that understood.
/Good/ Came the first impression /Of the hive/
/Yes I know you like her/ Stinger impatiently acknowledged. /What's wrong with her/
A sense of agitation rose, and with it, an odd reluctance on the part of the bees. Stinger waited for them to settle down, and they did, but not before leaving him with an impression it was something they didn't want to speak about.
He pressed. /What's wrong with her/
Now the buzzing was atonal, confused. Stinger tried to stay calm but his hive grew tense, and he felt the prickle of their feet digging in against his skin.
This hadn't happened in ages, he realized. Not since his arrival in this planet. They were resisting him, and rather than do damage, he allowed himself to hum.
The Drone's Song rose from him, calm and low; steady. Within a few moments the hive settled down again, and began to lift away from Stinger in patches—first his face, then his hair, then his shoulders. One pokey worker made her way to the rim of his ear before taking off, flicking it lightly and making him frown.
He looked upwards. "All right. Something's wrong and I'll find out from her myself."
And he would, Stinger told himself. Any secret that could work his hive up like this was dangerous.