Mainframe hives where Zoltan Abbassid's secret experiments with the Mesopotamian bees are always taking place. Two gentlemen walk around the hives. And around the hives. And one more time. Seems they have been hired on as clocklings, people who stand in place or move slowly or even quickly, depending on whether they have been hired as day hour minute or second. Their position is magnetically controlled by the hive dynamo.     The Mesopotamian bees of my grandfather were waiting for me on this planet.