ic inbox

[lingeringhope]

[Hope's voice is clear and clipped.]

If you would like to leave a message, you may do so here. I can't promise to respond. I have many demands on my time, and this sort of thing is far down the list. Still, if you would like to, you may.

Comments

[wormintheglass]

Now you're just making excuses, Hope. If the plants here can feed us, they can certainly sustain a few bees.

Are you being difficult because it's me?

[lingeringhope]

I wasn't aware that you ate the same things as insects. Perhaps you could explain to me how bees survive? Then I will know whether they can survive here.

[wormintheglass]

All carbon-based life forms eat more or less the same things, Hope dear. Bees require mostly sugar and I know your plants can produce that.

[lingeringhope]

I don't wish to create lives that will only die again. Why do you want bees so badly anyway?

[wormintheglass]

Everything dies, Hope. Individual bees have short lifespans by nature, but it doesn't matter to them. They're not individuals. Their hive survives.

What I need from you is enough to keep the hive viable. I'm sending you a text file of everything I know about successful beekeeping; it's a lot.

(attached: imaginary file about bees.txt)

2/2

[wormintheglass]

I want them because they're a nearly perfect life form. They're everything I should have been and have never been able to be: a voluntary cooperative, a collection of lives working in harmony to make the universe sweeter.

[lingeringhope]

Very well. I cannot promise they'll flourish here, but I will alter one for you. In order to give me the necessary power to do so, you'll need to do something - or various things - that genuinely helps five people. Give them hope.