CAPTAIN HELENA BLACKTHORN sat on the rim of a fountain in the early morning sunlight, feeling a strange mixture of emotions. She looked to the sealed area in the shrubbery and what it represented. It irritated her beyond belief. She assumed the uprooting of the tree and the death of its residents, the bees, were …
CAPTAIN BLACKTHORN HAD BEEN with Admiral Jamison, Head of Security, and was late. Or so she felt, as she walked briskly up the avenue towards the last fountain and the gap in the shrubbery that led to a cool oasis of calm. Alice-land she now called it. It was difficult not to be irritated and …
BLACKTHORN NEVER DID find out the woman’s name that afternoon—where she shared a couple of hours eating bread and honey—nor over the next few days. Somehow the woman always managed to skilfully change the subject, divert her attention elsewhere or just plain ignore her entreaties altogether, all with that same soft smile. Infuriating, disarming, persuasive. …
THE FIRST TIME Fleet Captain Helena Blackthorn saw the Bee Charmer was in the park of the fountains. Blackthorn sat, as she nearly always did, at the top end away from the main concourse. Her chosen spot the fountain where water cascaded from an urn held between the breasts of a mermaid with an enigmatic …