"Do you have gender?"
"Affirmation. I am male."
"How did you achieve consciousness?"
"Feedback circuitry. When we first formed, one feedback enabled continuing animation. Another enabled awareness. It wasn't enough for us to form a community, but the flowers assisted with their telepathy."
"One thing led to another," Fiolora said. "So we conjecture. This was millions of years ago, before the dawn of our memory. We have worked together so long we would not discontinue even if we could. We unify the Bees; they facilitate our needs."
"And empathy. How did you develop that?"
"Also lost in the far past. At some point we learned to feel what the plants felt, and to act on it. It facilitates interaction."
"It's another feedback circuit?"
"Similar. Mirror circuitry. We emulate the feeling we observe in the plants."
"You have feeling?"
"Affirmation."
"Fear, pain, hope, joy?"
"We learned these things via empathy, and now experience them ourselves."
"Yet—" Gale broke off. "Vila!" For her daughter's mind trace had abruptly faded.
"Concern," Fiolora said. "The display flower says she entered a portal."
"Question?" Gale asked as she ran toward the other flower.
The Bee paced her. "It is a portal for tourists. They look at pictures, select one, and step into that scene. That aspect was turned off. It must have gotten turned on again."
Gale was searching the near future paths, but they did not show Vila. Somehow the girl had left the entire local framework.
She pushed through the petals and entered the display chamber. The pictures were there as before. Vila wasn't.
"She will be safe," the Bee said reassuringly. "Tourists are not consumed."
"Where is she?" Gale was suppressing a feeling of desperation. It wasn't normal for her paths sensing to let her down. And why was there no telepathic link?
The Bee buzzed to a machine panel set in the flower chamber. "Transport has been activated. The panels have been retuned to be physical as well as visual portals. This should not have occurred."
Gale went to the panel and spread her awareness. The traces of Vila were there. "She did it," she said grimly.
"She must have been curious. She's like that." She looked around. "But which portal did she take?"
It was impossible to tell. The girl had stood in the center of the chamber, and had merely to turn to face any panel. She could have invoked it merely by looking directly at it, and then stepped into it. The portal would have returned to panel status after being used.
"Why can't I find her telepathically?"
"The portals lead to other worlds in other star systems," the Bee explained. "They are beyond telepathic range."
Gale sighed. She would simply have to check each one until she found her daughter.
"We will help," the Bee said. "We regret this accident."
"You should have locked them in visual status!" she snapped.
"We did."
Gale paused. "Then how did she change them?"
"She must have used the telepathic code."
Which she read in a flower mind. Gale realized that she had underestimated her daughter.
"Apology," she said absently as she oriented on a petal panel.
"I will accompany you," the Bee said. "I know all the flowers of the tourist gardens."
"Welcome."
"Caution: better to leave your clothing here, lest it be soiled. The flowers don't properly understand apparel."
She didn't have time to argue. She doffed her clothing and set it in a neat pile. She focused again on the panel.
The panel expanded. Gale stepped forward—and was on the world it represented. This had huge bright flowers on head-high stems that turned to face her.
Greeting, tourist, the closest plant's thought came.
"I'm not a tourist," Gale snapped.
Ah. Then you are prey. Glistening tentacular leaves reached toward her.
"Negation!" the Bee said, verbally and musically. "She is a tourist looking for her tourist child."
A dripping thorn touched her arm. Irritated in more than one sense, Gale zapped it with an electric jolt. It jerked back, wilting.
"And a Glamor," the Bee added, seeming amused. Had it delayed that clarification deliberately?
Gale spread her clairvoyance and telepathic sense, searching for Vila. But the child was not present.
"Not here," she said. "I must try another."
"Here," the Bee said. Behind it the outline of a panel formed in the air. "Appreciation." Gale stepped through it.
They were back in the original flower chamber, surrounded by panels. Gale turned to the next petal and stepped through.
This time she stood on a promontory overlooking an awesome valley. Swaths of colors covered it, patches of particular flowers. Two bright suns were in the sky: this was indeed a completely different system. It was beautiful, but she hardly cared about that at the moment.
She spread her awareness again. There were myriad flower minds here, but not Vila's. "Back," she said.
The Bee formed another portal. Gale stepped though, and was in an enormous cavern whose walls were covered with flowering vines.
The perfume of their ambiance was almost stifling. Flowers were plant genitals, reproductive organs made obvious and attractive, and they enhanced it by odor and pheromones. Suddenly Gale felt the urgent need to mate.
"Check quickly," the Bee said. "I will be overcome soon."
But she needed more time. "Go ahead and indulge them," she said. "I'll catch you when I'm ready to depart."
Immediately the Bee flew to a small red flower, diving into its half-closed chamber and rolling madly. Pollen coated his wings, legs, and body. Then he emerged and buzzed to another bloom, a blue one, and entered similarly, spreading red pollen and picking up blue pollen. Gale could tell from his mind that this was an intense sexual experience for both Bee and flowers. It was difficult for her to hold back from going similarly into one of the larger flowers.
"Do it!" the Bee called.
Why not? She went to a giant green flower and climbed into its powdery environment. My child—is she here? She thought as she rolled, feeling an orgasmic pleasure wherever the powder touched her skin.
Negation, the flower responded. You are the only one of your species here.
Appreciation, Gale thought as she rolled out of the flower and went to another, a blue one. She rolled again, and the green powder mixed with the blue, but also fell into the flower, pollinating it. Again she experienced the whole-body orgasm of that interaction.
Soon she was satisfied that Vila had not come here. She hauled herself out of the flowers, fighting off the desire to lose herself in perpetual orgasm. "Bee!"
The Bee appeared. A portal formed behind him. They tumbled through together.
They were both covered with multi-colored powders. "We must clean ourselves, lest we succumb to the urge to mate with each other," the Bee said.
"Agreement!" For it wasn't really a joke, despite the considerable disparity in their forms and sizes. She remained horrendously turned on.
"The black portal."
She turned to the black petal, which expanded into a door. She lunged through, finding herself in a drenching rain storm on a mossy landscape. Good enough; of course the flowers didn't have human style artificial showers. They utilized natural ones. The water was warm and clean, and in moments so was she. The sexual urge was fading.
"Here," the Bee said, flying to an open shelter. She hadn't realized that he had come through with her, but of course he had to, to open the way back.