Alvarez pulled out a cell phone and punched in a speed dial number. She held it to her ear as I punched in symbols, trying to reassure both hives. Inside the greenhouse, the humming got louder. “I’m trying to tell them we’re on the problem, but I don’t think they’re buying it.”

“Okay. I just called my nephew but he’s not answering.” She frowned. “Which is awful strange since he told me he’d have his phone turned on all day after I said I was bringing in an outside expert. Said I might need the moral support. You talk to the xenos, yet?”

I shook my head. “No, they’re not responding. They seem to be following the hive, but there are air currents in there that they’re approaching, too. They shouldn’t be doing that, unless…” I had an awful thought and looked up at the greenhouse. “They’re not xenos.”

“Young man, where do you think you’re going?” Alvarez shouted after me as I pelted toward the greenhouse, trying to reconfigure my toolkit to the right complex of frequencies in transit. At the door, I paused to check it, but I couldn’t be sure. Damnit, I’d aced that exam. I ripped open the door and aimed high.

A cloud of blue nanobugs came right at my face. I yelped and hit the button.I heard a ZOT as I fell backwards outside the doorway. Then, to add insult to injury, the cloud of deactivated nanobugs rained down on me, showering me with little machine parts. Inside the greenhouse, the bee hum geared down.

“You okay?” Alvarez stood over me.

I spat out tiny metal bug legs. “Despite an attempt, probably by your nephew, to de-rectify that situation, I’m just peachy, Ma’am. And now that the threat’s been neutralized, your bees sound like they’re getting back to normal, too.”

She helped me up. “What happened? I thought we weren’t allowed to kill xenos.”

I brushed off the last of the nanobugs. “Those weren’t xenos and they weren’t intelligent. They were nanobugs programmed to steal your crop.”

.