Leaving Gnomon is like pulling myself up through a vat of honey. Through the sweet meniscus I can see my body in desiccated gold, but the barrier is glutinously impenetrable. The merest touch of the other mind clogs my mouth. It is enormous. I am a grub breaking free from a single hexagonal cell, but the hive is flooded and a great wash of honey fills the spaces that should be air, a honey composed of alien flowers and flavours for which I have no names. I jar upwards, stick legs kicking, wing cases fracturing as they press away from my carapace into a medium too thick for their newborn fragility. I let them fall away into the amber deep and kick, for my life.