‘Casey mentioned that the bee-brains stick to specific paths,’ I said. ‘They weren’t supposed to be where we found them, were they?’

‘That’s what I said,’ Oskar grumbled.

‘I guess we’re going to have to rethink what we know,’ said Nadia.

‘I think we were jinxed,’ growled Oskar, giving me a foul look.

‘I already told you to shut the hell up,’ Nadia barked.

‘Yeah, I remember,’ he said, his tone sardonic. ‘You said you were going to make me walk the rest of the way back.’

She glared at him, but didn’t say anything more.

‘Since we’re here,’ I said, ‘maybe this would be a good time to tell me what the hell a “night patrol” is.’

Nadia regarded me through a fringe of hair that had fallen across her face. ‘They’re not quite the same as regular bee-brains,’ she explained. ‘They patrol the borders between different Hives, always after dark. Sometimes patrols from different Hives attack or kill each other. Also, unlike the regular bee-brains, they aren’t restricted to scent-marked paths.’ She regarded me darkly. ‘That’s what makes them particularly dangerous – they go wherever the hell they like.’

‘So why are the Hives so antagonistic towards each other?’

‘Mostly,’ she said, ‘they fight over resources.’

‘If they do that, doesn’t that imply there’s some kind of intelligence at work?’

‘You wouldn’t be the first to ask that same question. Actual bees are pretty organized, but they don’t have anything like human intelligence.’

‘So you’re saying . . .’

‘It’s an instinctive thing. No intelligence involved, or so Winifred tells me. She’s the one who spent time studying the damn things. They caught one and took it apart, said they found that all the parts of the brain dealing with higher functions had essentially rotted away.’ She shuddered visibly. ‘Ask her for the gory details when we get back.’

‘Anything else I should know?’ I asked dryly.

‘Lots,’ Nadia replied, ‘but I figure you’re under enough stress already as it is.’

‘You know,’ I said, ‘back when we were stuck in those vaults, running away from a lava flow, you told me it wasn’t always going to be like this.’

Something in the look she gave me kept me from saying anything more.

TEN

We soon got moving again. I smoothed the map out as we walked, studying it as best as I could in the day’s fading light, until I was pretty sure where we were. We were still walking parallel to the river, and well on our way to the bridge we had been aiming for. I figured we didn’t have more than another twenty minutes of walking before we reached it, and the farther the Hive slipped behind us, the safer I felt.