Before he got the chance to ask about the tower one of the girls sitting around him chimed in.

"Teacher, everybody's always talking about limits, but what is a limit?"

The teacher looked away from him and nodded at the girl. "Yes, I imagine you must be wondering what this is about, especially considering the fact that you were tested for your limits."

Unexpectedly the teacher went to the box with school supplies and started searching until she found several colors of chalk. Then she drew a layered pyramid with a star above it, all in white, on the blackboard. "Everybody has potential in many different areas. Some are good at handycraft, some are wonderful artists, mages or fighters. But a talented fighter usually isn't equally talented in other things, like management for example. So let's say the grey chalk is talent at flying, the red one cooking talent and the green one crafting talent." She made three quick crosses, the grey one in the upper third, the other two in the middle. "Now, as a child of course that future fighter doesn't know a thing about any of the three, but the high flying talent means that bee will easily make it to an above average level within a few years. But even if that person were to spend all their life practicing cooking or crafting the best they'd ever manage would be average skill, even if they keep improving those improvements would be so small as to be neglectible. That's a limit. When improvements can hardly be seen anymore. So when young bees are tested by the priests they find out which talents are above average and which are high level. Based on those results you'll be adopted by a bee or a clan."

The little girls all had wide eyes and some nodded, their eyes full of understanding, even calculations. For a five year old worker bee such comprehension was the surest sign of their ability to become future leaders in their kingdom, that much he understood.

"But what if someone only has average talents?" One of the children asked. "Or if they have high talent in two things?"

"Stupid, if someone has two then it's obviously about what's more important. What use is talent in baking if the other thing is magical talent? Or political aptitude?"

Giggles spread through the room as the obvious answer came immediately. Still, the answer was not something an average child would think of. Nor the question that really was more complex than that. He felt with the girl that was angrily biting her lips after being made fun of.

The teacher hushed them before she answered properly. "There is a ranking in occupations. So the results go to the ministers first, who choose their children regardless of what other talents they may have. Next are the elite forces, who select for flight talent, magic talent, leadership and other things in various combinations. Even if someone's cooking talent were higher than those things, if the elites choose the child that doesn't matter. The crafting jobs, after honey making, are roughly equal so there the communities talk it out among themselves."

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The discussion went on and on, while he was more and more impressed with the young girls gathered in the room. Usually they were playful and halfway diligent students. Innocent children. But it was rapidly becoming clear that there was a very good reason why these children had been adopted by ministers, the highest ranking worker bees in the kingdom. The question was: could the queens and drones, the rulers, keep up with them intelectually? The old, wise ones certainly had enough experience, but his mother had never seemed extraordinary when it came to leadership or intelligence. Insecure and kind, playful, but he had the distinct feeling that in a few years these children would be able to think circles around his mother. So what was the real political structure in a bee kingdom?

Plus, by now he'd heard enough boy jokes to know that ministers, unlike other bees, occasionally had sons. Or rather, were permitted to have sons. Who wouldn't want the child that inherited the intelligence of such a mother in their kingdom, as the father of countless worker bees? Again, the question: Were the ministers' sons more sought after or the sons of a queen?

He had asked before about who held the power in the kingdom, but aside from being told that the queens were sacred mothers and the ministers her hands, feet, eyes and ears he hadn't managed to get anything definite. He was always too young to think about such things.

With a sigh he resigned himself and continued listening to the by now lively discussion between teacher and girls. He'd ask about the tower some other time. Maybe when he got older.

One thing was abundantly clear however. This, as fantastic as it all seemed, was definitely not a game. People didn't start out equal and they never would be.

"What about those with little talent? The ones who aren't chosen by anyone?" One of the girls asked just then.

"Ah!" The teacher smiled indulgently. "You don't need an education or talents to carry things, serve or clean. There's a job for everyone."

The nameless girl, his best friend, who always played her flute so beautifully came to mind. Aside from playing there was nothing she could do. Sometimes he wondered what would happen to her once she grew up if there was nowhere to go, if there was nothing for her to dream of. One baby after another, they would all grow up, turn five, start studying. Walking steadily towards their future, while all that remained for her would be her flute.

Her musical talent was judged just slightly above average, deemed just barely good enough for a small child to find joy in.

Somehow he hoped that the teacher was wrong.