Hellstrom's Hive (28 page)

“Bullshit!” Gammel shook his head. “You think we don't have our own suspicions about why your boss took the short road to hell?”

“The short road to—”

“Jumped out of that goddamned window! Are you their patsy?”

“I was sent here with the understanding that you would provide full cooperation until we could field new teams,” Merrivale said, speaking stiffly. “I don't find your present attitude cooperative in the least.”

Still not mollified, Gammel said, “Tell me—yes or no—do you have new information that dramatically alters your original assessment?”

“Of course not!”

“Nothing new to tell me?”

“I will not be cross-examined by you,” Merrivale protested. “You know as much about this situation as I do. More! You've at least been on the scene.”

“I hope you're telling the truth,” Gammel said. “If you aren't, I personally will supervise whatever action we have to take to fry you.” He turned, restarted the car, eased back onto the highway. He turned on his lights as he moved and they startled a big black and white cow that had wandered onto the verge. It galumphed ahead of them for several hundred feet before diving off into the open grassland beside the road.

Considerably subdued and now frightened at the position he might be in if he had no cooperation at all from the FBI, Merrivale said, “I'm truly sorry if I've offended you. As you can imagine, I've been under somewhat of a strain. First the Chief 's death and then the orders to take over here personally. No sleep really since this all started.”

“Have you eaten?”

“On the plane from Chicago.”

“We can get you something at our headquarters in the motel.” Gammel reached for the microphone under the dash. “I'll have them lay on coffee and sandwiches. What would you—”

“No need for that,” Merrivale said, feeling somewhat better. Gammel obviously was trying to get them back on a friendly footing. That made sense. Merrivale cleared his throat. “What sort of action plan have you devised?”

“We do only a minimum in the dark. We wait for morning and reconnoiter in daylight
and
under constant radio contact with base. That's clearly indicated until we find out what the hell has happened up there. We can't trust the local law yet. I've even been told to play it cool with the OHP. Our primary concern is to clarify some of this water that's been badly muddied up to now.”

Muddied by our people, of course, Merrivale thought. The FBI were still a bunch of bloody snobs. He said, “Nothing more tonight?”

“It didn't strike me as advisable to run any more risks than absolutely necessary. We'll have more muscle by morning, anyway.”

Merrivale brightened. “More people?”

“Two marine choppers coming up from San Francisco.”

“You ordered them?”

“We're still covering for you,” Gammel said. He turned, grinned. “They are for surveillance and/or transportation only. We stretched our good-will account considerably to get them with no better explanation than we could give at the time.”

“Very well,” Merrivale said. “Portland told me you had no telephone contact with the farm. Is that situation the same?”

“The line's out,” Gammel said. “Probably cut by your people when they went in. We'll have a repair crew out in the morning. Our own people, of course.”

“I see. Then I concur with your field decisions, subject, naturally, to review when we reach your headquarters. They may have more recent information.”

“They'd have called me,” Gammel said. He tapped the radio under the dash, thinking: They've sent a stuffed shirt. He's a patsy for sure and the poor bastard may not even know it.

From the Hive Manual.
As a biological mechanism, human reproduction is not terribly efficient. When compared to insects, humans appear grossly inefficient. The insect and all the lower life forms are dedicated to species survival. Survival comes through reproduction, through mating. Males and females of all life forms other than man are drawn together in the direct and singular interest of reproduction. For the wild forms of humankind, however, unless the setting is right, the perfume is right, the music is sweet—and unless at least one partner feels
loved
(a singularly unstable concept) by the other—the reproductive act may never occur. We of the Hive are dedicated, therefore, to freeing our workers from the concept of romance. The act of procreation must occur as simply, as naturally, and as obliviously as eating. Neither beauty, romance, nor love must figure in Hive reproduction—only the demands of survival.

 

The night-shrouded countryside around the farm appeared asleep to Hellstrom as he scanned it from the aerie. Darkness blotted all of the familiar landscape and there was only the distant glimmer of Fosterville's light on the horizon. The Hive beneath him had never felt more silent, more charged with the tensions of waiting. Although the oral tradition spoke of early confrontations when the whole Colony Movement (as it was called then) faced extinction, the Hive had never faced a greater crisis. The thing had happened in such natural stages that Hellstrom, looking back, experienced a sense of the inevitable. The Hive's population of almost fifty thousand workers depended for their continued existence upon the decisions that Hellstrom and his aides made during the next few hours.

Hellstrom glanced over his shoulder at the swamp-fire glow of cathodes, the screens that watched over the Outsiders who'd come up from Fosterville just after dark. Three unmarked cars were parked out there in the rangeland now, little more than two miles away. A fourth car, identified as from the highway patrol, had been with them at first, but it was laboring its way around to the south of the valley now. The only track open to it there was the old Thimble Mine road and that came no closer than ten miles to the south of the valley unless its occupants took to the open country. Hellstrom suspected the vehicle might have four-wheel drive, but the character of the land to the south was such that the OHP car could not get closer than three miles from the Hive's perimeter at best.

The aerie's workers, sensing the weight of decision on Hellstrom, had lowered their voices and moved softly.

Should I use Janvert as a mediator? he wondered.

But mediation should begin from a position of strength and the Hive had only a bluff. The secret of the stunwand might be something valuable to offer. Janvert had seen it in action. He would know, too, about the Hive's mastery of human chemistry. He had his own reactions to verify that. But Janvert could only
become the Hive's enemy if he went out as an envoy. He'd seen too much of the Hive to even consider neutrality.

Hellstrom glanced at the clock behind the arc of surveillance instruments: 11:29
P.M
. It was almost
tomorrow,
and tomorrow was certain to see a showdown. He could sense that in many things, including the watchful waiting of the three cars parked between the Hive and Fosterville. Thinking about the occupants of those cars, Hellstrom felt a need to know what they were doing now. He returned to the observer station and asked a coordinating specialist, whose face looked deathly pale in the green gloom.

“They are remaining inside the cars,” the specialist said. “Their reporting schedules are staggered, about ten minutes apart for any given car. We are confident now that there are no more than two Outsiders in each car.”

Waiting for daylight, Hellstrom realized. He said as much.

“It's the general opinion here,” the specialist said. “That middle car is only about twenty-five yards from one of the hidden exits, the one at the end of level-two gallery.”

“You're suggesting we try to bring in the Outsiders?”

“It would give us answers to some questions.”

“It also might ignite a general attack. I think we've pushed our luck as far as it will go.” Hellstrom rubbed the back of his neck. He felt worn-out, running on nerve. “What about the car that's going around to the south?”

“It's stuck about where the old mine road starts to cross Muddy Bottom, about eight miles from our perimeter and at least twelve miles from the valley.”

“Thank you.” Hellstrom turned away.

The aerie was quieter now than it had been when he had arrived two hours before. There had been groups of security specialists passing through then, each being briefed for night sweep. All had faded away into the outside darkness now, nothing but
signal points on the aerie's instruments, glowing figures on the screens.

For perhaps the tenth time since taking up station in the aerie, Hellstrom thought: I should rest. I'll need all of my senses alert by daylight. They will come upon us in the morning, I'm sure. I more than any should be ready for them. Many of us will probably die tomorrow. If I'm alert, perhaps I can save some.

He thought sadly of Lincoln Kraft, whose charred body (hardly enough left to bother taking to the vats) had been removed from the wreckage of one of the attackers' vans. Kraft's death made the day's loss thirty-one.

Just a beginning.

The aerie had moved to a subdued murmur of questioning earlier. The words
attack
and
prisoners
had been repeated in many contexts. There'd even been a kind of adrenaline-pumped elation in the aerie, references to “the victory.”

Again, Hellstrom thought about the three prisoners the Hive now held. It seemed strange to be holding prisoners. Outsider adults seemed naturally to belong to the vats. Only very small children had ever been considered worthy of reshaping for the Hive's uses. Now—now, there were new possibilities.

Janvert, the most puzzling of the three, had a background in law, Hellstrom had learned through careful questioning. Janvert might be ridiculously easy to wean from Outside ways, provided he could be sufficiently tempered to Hive chemistry. The female, Clovis Carr, was a carrier of aggressive characteristics that the Hive might turn to its advantage. The third one, whose identification papers said he was Daniel Thomas Alden, carried himself like a soldier. There could be valuable characteristics in all of them, but Janvert remained the most interesting. He was small, too, which was desirable in the Hive.

Hellstrom turned back to the observer stations, bent low over the second one from the right. “What about our patrol in
the creek bottom?” he asked. “Have they anything new to report on the conversation from that car they're watching?”

“The Outsiders are still puzzled, Nils. They call this a ‘very strange case' and they refer occasionally to someone named Gammel, who apparently believes the case is a snafu. What's a snafu?”

“A foul-up,” Hellstrom translated. “It's military slang: situation normal all fouled up.”

“Something that has gone wrong, then?”

“Yes. Tell me if they hear anything new.”

Hellstrom straightened, thought of calling Saldo. The younger man had been sent to keep a discreet observation on Project 40, working from one end of the long gallery at level fifty. It was not a good vantage point, because the major work was being conducted toward the middle of the gallery, at least half a mile from the end, but the researchers had shown increasing irascibility after the earlier incident with an “interfering observer.” Hellstrom was counting on Saldo's intelligence to manage the situation. It was a matter of desperation for them to know in the aerie if the situation in the lab showed new promise.

We could never get away with a bluff against the Outsiders, Hellstrom told himself. The Hive might gain a little time for itself, might be able to parlay the stunwands to create a temporary belief in a more potent weapon built on the same principle. But the Outsiders would demand a demonstration. And there was always Harl's warning to consider. The threat to use an absolute weapon put the trigger in the hands of an opponent who might say,
so use it!
The weapon must be applicable at less than absolute energies, and that must be demonstrable, unmistakably demonstrable. The Outsiders had a saying that fit the situation aptly. “Don't kid the kidders.” A bluff would not work for long. The Hive would be called—and then what?

The wild Outsiders were very strange, really. They tended not to believe in violence until it was inflicted upon them. They had a saying about this, too. “It can't happen here.”

Perhaps this was inevitable in a world that based its societies on threat, violence, and illusions of absolute power. How could such people as Janvert be expected to think in more malleable terms, to think of life dependencies and the interlocked relationships of living systems, to think of inserting the human species into the great circle of life? Such concepts would be gibberish to Outsiders, even those who spoke for the new fad—
ecology
.

From Joseph Merrivale's private notes.
As per the instructions handed to me at JFK Airport, I arrived late Sunday in Lakeview to establish a preliminary liaison with FBI-SAIC Waverly Gammel, who had set up a base in Fosterville. He took me to Fosterville where we arrived at 2318 hours. Gammel reported having taken no action except minimal surveillance of target area from distance of approximately two miles and involving only four vehicles with nine men. According to Gammel, this was in compliance with his instructions, a statement not in accord with what I was led to believe at the action briefing. Gammel reports no word from any of our team that entered the target area earlier on this date. Gammel evinces doubts that this case involves narcotics. He has seen the preliminary report on the Peruge autopsy. I must protest my dependence on another agency for the manpower to prosecute this case. Divided authority is producing a situation fraught with potential embarrassments and inconveniences. The loose working agreement under which I must perform my duties can only exacerbate present difficulties. Since many actions have already been taken in the field on this case without my knowledge or agreement, I must lodge my formal protest at the earliest opportunity. My capacity in the present contretemps bodes ill for our responsibilities. I must make it clear that none of the conduct in this case has accorded with my own understanding of the decisions required to resolve the situation.

 

Saldo made record time coming up from the Hive's 5,000-foot level where the researchers had moved their operations. There were fast elevators only in the so-called new galleries below 3,100 feet, but even these became progressively slower the higher he went. The work in the new galleries delayed him slightly at 3,800 feet, but he bulled his way through, making a note to ask Hellstrom if that work could not be put on minimum standby during the present crisis.

He had left a young assistant at the relocated lab, seated at the southeast end of the long gallery with the secret weapon Saldo had commandeered: the binoculars once used by the Outsider, Depeaux. The binoculars revealed a spate of activity by the researchers which Saldo interpreted as readiness for a test of the system. He dared not approach the specialists, though. Hellstrom's orders had been explicit on that score. Only Hellstrom might change that now and, knowing the urgency, Saldo went to argue for a small interruption of the lab work.

It was almost midnight when the boom cage deposited him on the catwalk outside the aerie. A guardworker there passed him with only a casual glance of recognition. The inner room was dim and oddly hushed as he passed through the baffle, and he saw that most of the Hive's leadership cadre had taken over the night duty with Hellstrom, who stood at the room's north end, a blocky figure against the dark outline of the louvered window. Saldo found he did not have the highest regard for the leadership qualities of most of those present, excepting Hellstrom, and sometimes even Hellstrom. Some of these workers should be conserving their strength for the morrow. He knew this inner reaction reflected a pattern bred and conditioned into him, but the knowledge subtracted little from his assessment of his own personal qualities. Hellstrom—and at least half of those present—should be resting now.

Saldo had known he would find Hellstrom here, though, and he found nothing inconsistent in the recognition that he,
too, would have been standing there at that window to the north were he in Hellstrom's place.

Hellstrom turned and recognized Saldo making his way through the green gloom. “Saldo!” he said. “Is there something to report?”

Saldo moved close to Hellstrom and, speaking in a low voice, explained why he had left the lab.

“Are you sure they're about to test it?”

“It looks that way. They've been stringing the power cables for several hours. They didn't bother with power cables on the other models until they were about to test.”

“How soon?”

“That's difficult to say.”

Hellstrom moved back and forth a few paces restlessly, fatigue visible in the controlled precision of his actions. He stopped in front of Saldo. “I don't see how they could be testing it this soon.” He rubbed his chin. “They said the new model would have to use the entire gallery.”

“They are using the gallery, all of it, and fans and a strange construction of pipes that they are connecting down the entire length of the gallery. They're supporting the pipe on anything they can collect—chairs, benches—it's a very strange thing they're building. They even took a heavy-duty pump from level-forty-two hydroponics. They just went right in, disconnected it, and took it. The hydroponics manager was upset, as you can imagine, but they merely said you'd authorized it. Is that true?”

“In essence,” Hellstrom said.

“Nils, do you think it likely they'd behave this way unless they were about to test and were reasonably sure of success?”

Privately, Hellstrom agreed with Saldo, but there were other considerations, and he had not yet dared to let himself hope. The specialists' behavior
might
be a reflection of the upset that had spread throughout the Hive. Hellstrom did not think this likely, but it was possible.

“Shouldn't you go down and make a personal inquiry?” Saldo asked.

Hellstrom sympathized with the impatience that had brought Saldo up from the lab. It was an impatience shared by many in the Hive. Was anything to be served by going down there now himself, though? The specialists might not tell him anything. They were naturally wary of predicting the outcome in any project. They spoke of probabilities when they did speak, or of possible consequences in certain “lines of development.” It was understandable. Experiments had been known to turn upon the experimenters. An earlier test model in Project 40 had created an explosive plasma bubble which had killed fifty-three workers, including four researchers, and had spread havoc two hundred feet in a side gallery at level thirty-nine.

“What power-drain figures did they give Generation?” Hellstrom asked. “How much diversion do they require?”

“The generation specialists asked, but were told the computation is not complete. I've posted another observer in Generation, however. Surely, the researchers must
ask
for the diversion.”

“Will Generation make an estimate based on the size of the power cables being used?”

“As much as five hundred thousand kilowatts. It could be less, though.”

“That much?” Hellstrom took a deep breath. “Researchers are different from the rest of us in many ways, Saldo. They were bred for a rather narrowed vision, a concentration of intellect. We should be prepared for the possibility of a disastrous failure.”

“A dis—” Saldo fell into stricken silence.

“Prepare to evacuate the area for at least three levels around the test gallery,” Hellstrom said. “You are to post yourself in Generation. Tell the managing specialist not to connect the power cables until I have given permission. When the researchers come to make the power arrangements, call me. Ask them then, if you're able, what range and error factor they are estimating for
the project. Get the power figures and, at the same time, order the evacuation of the galleries. We will risk no more workers than necessary.”

Saldo stood in subdued awe. He felt depressed, rebounding from his former pride. None of these precautions had entered his mind. He had thought only to argue Hellstrom into one particular course of action. The stratagem of stationing an observer in Generation with the authority to delay the power hookup, however, filled the demands of Saldo's own plan and did far more.

“Perhaps you'd better send somebody with more imagination and ability to Generation,” Saldo said. “Maybe Ed—”

“You are the one I want in Generation,” Hellstrom said. “Ed is a seasoned specialist with long experience Outside. He can think like an Outsider, which you cannot. He also has had sufficient tempering that he seldom overestimates his own capabilities, nor underestimates them. In a word, he is
balanced
. If we are to survive these next hours, we require this quality above all others. I trust you to carry out my orders carefully and completely. I know you can and will. Now, get back to your station.”

Saldo's shoulders came up and he looked at Hellstrom's fatigue-lined features. “Nils, I didn't think—”

Hellstrom interrupted in a softer tone. “In part, it is my fatigue being short and severe with you. This is something you should have taken into consideration. You could have called me on the internal system without leaving your post. A true leader considers many possibilities before acting. If you were ready for leadership, you would have thought to conserve
my
energies, as well as your own. You will grow into this ability, and the delay time between your consideration of many courses and your decision to act correctly will grow shorter and shorter.”

“I'm going back to my post at once,” Saldo said. He turned, started across the room. As he moved, voices were raised at the observer stations. A garble of sound could be heard coming over
one of the communicators. An observer could be heard asking, “Who else is there to take charge?” Another garble erupted from the communicators. “One at a time!” the observer shouted. “Tell them to hold their stations. If too many of us are running around without coordination, we'll just get in each other's way. We'll take charge of the search from here.”

The observer, a young female subleader-in-training, whose face appeared an oval mask of shock in the light from her screen, lifted herself half out of her chair to peer across the bank of instruments at Hellstrom. “One of the captives has escaped in the Hive!”

Hellstrom was at her side as soon as he could get there in a thrusting rush across the room. Saldo hesitated at the door.

“Which one?” Hellstrom demanded, bending over the observer.

“The one called Janvert. Shall we dispatch workers to—

“No.”

Saldo spoke from the door. “Nils, should I—”

“Get to your station!” Hellstrom called, not moving his gaze from the screen in front of the young observer. A frightened guardworker appeared on the screen, a young male with the shoulder mark of drone-dom. “Which level?” Hellstrom demanded.

“Forty-two,” the worker on the screen said. “And he has a stunwand. I don't see how he could—he killed two workers, the ones who said they were sent to—to—at your orders to—”

“I understand,” Hellstrom interrupted. They were the specialists he had sent down to bring Janvert to sufficient alertness for use as an envoy. Something had gone wrong and Janvert had escaped. Hellstrom straightened, gazing at the workers around him in the aerie. “Awaken your replacements. Janvert has been Hive-marked. No common worker would recognize him as an Outsider. He can move anywhere in the Hive without attracting attention. We have a double problem. We must recapture him
and we must not upset the Hive any more than it already is. Make that clear to every searcher. Send your replacements after Janvert with a phyical description. Issue Outsider guns to at least one worker in each search party as long as the guns last. I don't want stunwands used in the Hive under these circumstances.”

“You want him dead and in the vats then,” a worker behind Hellstrom said.

“No, I do not!”

“But you said—”

“One gun with each party,” Hellstrom said. “The gun is to wound him in the legs only if nothing else can be done to stop him. I want him taken alive. Do you all understand that? We need this Outsider alive.”