The bee looked at the wall with its compound eyes and the inner light in those eyes changed quality in a way that was visible from across the chamber—the warmth of the curiosity it had directed at Zeph replaced by something older and more specific.
Less like an impression being formed. More like a purpose clicking into position, the way a key clicked into a lock, the way something designed for a specific function recognized the function it had been designed for.
The change happened in the space of a single second.
One moment the bee had been looking at Zeph with the recognition of something that knew its carrier and had completed its initial assessment of that relationship.
The next, the compound eyes had oriented to the wall with the totality of something that had finished with preliminary matters and had arrived at the matter it had been built for.
