The Tower and the Hive (2 page)

The League decides to try to salvage what they can of the Great Sphere to learn more about Hiver space engineering.

Afra accompanies his second-born son, Rojer, to the
Genesee
under Captain Etienne Osullivan, for special duty when a sphere is tracked to a Hiver-occupied system identified on Mrdini maps as Xh-33. Despite being of the same species, the sphere is fired upon from the planet and its queens are destroyed as they try to escape the bombardment of their ship in pods.

Back on Iota Aurigae, Zara Lyon, sister of Laria, Thian and Rojer, becomes quite upset about the condition of the queen in Heinlein Base and determines to assist the captive. She manages to sneak a ride to Earth's Moon. Her interference results in saving the life of the captive queen, who has been slowly freezing. Even before this incident, Damia and Afra have worried about Zara's potential as a Tower Prime. Jeff and Rowan Raven agree that Zara might be better suited to another profession and Zara is, with Elizara Reidinger, as a dedicated medical T-1.

Despite orders from the High Council to maintain a watching brief,
⁴
a Mrdini ship's captain attempts to coerce Rojer into teleporting the ship's missiles to destroy Hiver settlements on Xh-33. Rojer's two 'Dini friends, Kat and Gil, are killed defending him from the Mrdini captain. Rojer barely escapes with his life. His mother, Damia, arrives to succor him and removes him to his grandmother's quiet home on Deneb Five to recuperate from the loss of his dear friends.
⁵

The Rowan, arriving on the
Genesee
in the Xh-33 system, helps Captain Etienne Osullivan execute a daring plan to “steal” the refugee sphere, and to destroy the two Hiver vehicles in orbit about Xh-33. She requires the assistance of Thian, returned from his post on the Mrdini ship, and Flavia, a T-1 from the Rowan's native planet, Altair. With the use of Talent, the sphere is purloined from the system and sent on its way to the League, thus giving the Alliance a relatively undamaged Hiver spaceship for Mrdini and Human engineers to examine. Teleported explosives blow up any chance for the Xh-33 Hiver population to leave the surface. The smaller Hiver scout ships that emerge from an underground hangar to fight back are also destroyed. The Alliance sets up on one of the Xh-33 moons to monitor the surface.

Once the intact sphere ship is moored off Phobos Moon Base, teams are set up to examine it in detail. This is best accomplished with the help of Talents. To avoid the aggravating “sting-pzzt” emanating from Hiver artifacts, the Talents control the exploration from a distance. Thian heads the team that includes the newest engineering graduate, his brother Rojer, Flavia and other assorted Talents, including several latent ones (Lieutenant Commander Semirame Kloo) who discover that they are bothered by the sting-pzzt emanations of Hiver artifacts. (Only Talents are affected by this phenomenon.)

While the Talented team is able to search the intricate labyrinth of a Hiver ship, including the “bridge” apparently staffed by twelve queens, they are unable to power it up. The Talents decide that the only recourse is to teleport the Heinlein Base queen into the bridge and see how she activates the ship. Ever watchful of his grandchildren, Jeff Raven, Earth Prime, approves of this ploy and comes along to be sure the queen does not escape. She shows the watching Primes the power-up sequence and is then deftly 'ported back to her prison.

Meanwhile, other squadrons are following a sphere designated Number Three, which seems uninterested in many likely M-5 worlds that it passes. These are briefly investigated by Talents, in one instance by T-2 Kincaid Dano, whose capacity is overtaxed by the scope of the mission. Before he can be burned out, either by his duties and by the unfortunate struggle for his attentions by officers on the ship, he is transferred to Laria's Tower on Clarf with his 'Dinis, Nil and Plus. He insists, despite his fatigue, on contacting Earth Prime with a report that there are more Hiver-occupied worlds than previously suspected: Hivers now occupy four of the twenty likely planets he has probed. He recommends that these worlds be examined by the League as possible colonial worlds to relieve the pressure on overpopulated Mrdini planets.

Consequently, while the main squadron under Captain Ashiant continues to follow the sphere so obviously headed in a special direction, another group, under the command of Captain Vestapia Soligen on the
Columbia,
is staffed to explore the four M-type worlds: Talavera, Waterloo, Marengo and Ciudad Rodrigo. Prime Talent Flavia, Zara Lyon and Lieutenant Rhodri Eagles, T-3 and incidentally cousin to the Lyon children, are part of that contingent.

Suddenly more spheres are identified, some uncomfortably close to the
Columbia
while others speed to join or assist the Hiver that Captain Ashiant is tracking. This unexpected development suggests that the Hivers do have some form of communication. It would appear that this sphere is searching for a star as near to their homeworld's primary as possible. But what are the parameters? From records of earlier star maps in the general area of the nova, the signature of the primary, before it was destroyed by its primary, is verified. Thus the searchers are able to discover exactly what sort of primary the Hivers are looking for.

Following Number Three, the astrogators spot a primary with the requisite signature and Captain Ashiant engages some of the enemy spheres in a space battle. At first the Human/Mrdini ships are overwhelmed, until Thian realizes that Talent can end the battle by teleporting explosives to detonate the fuel tanks of the Hiver ships. As Talents are not supposed to engage in defensive, or offensive, maneuvers, there is some criticism of Thian's actions. However, the explosives do destroy the spheres. Captain Soligen's squadron, also being pursued by Hivers, is able to use this method, too, to destroy the spheres. In contrast to a direct confrontation, the Hivers do recognize other spaceships as threats, so the Hivers are prevented from establishing a new homeworld.

While that threat is eliminated, many more Hiver worlds have been located during the chase. All of them must be identified, and since the ethics of the Human/Mrdini Alliance do not include species genocide, how can the Hivers be prevented from following their cyclic behavior of overpopulating their planets and looking for new worlds to inhabit? How can FT&T under Jeff Raven's capable management find enough suitable Talents to keep up with the ever-expanding demand for Primes?

By noon of the day after the destruction of the Number Three Hiver sphere, the newly promoted Admiral Ashiant was already giving orders to elements of his Fleet to implement the second phase of their five-year mission. They could now begin to identify and reconnoiter all Hiver-occupied worlds in this quadrant of space. They were to initiate in-depth probes of such planets, disable any orbiting spheres and establish monitoring satellites to warn the Alliance of any further suspicious surface activity.

As the
Vadim
and
KLTL
were already within the system targeted by Number Three as possessing a primary similar to their original one, Admiral Ashiant ordered Captains Pat Shepherd and Prlm to do a thorough environmental exploration of the viable planets in the M-5 and M-6 positions.

“They might as well,” Admiral Ashiant told his Captain, Ailsah Vandermeer, “since the chase to destroy the two remaining scouts has already taken them halfway there. Rather far out to consider an immediate colonization of those worlds, but who knows how fast the Alliance will spread once the threat of Hivers is reduced? The Mrdini certainly need more space.”

“So they do,” Ailsah agreed sympathetically.

“I suspect those habitable worlds closer in to our home systems, 'Dini and Human, will receive the first mandates. However”—and he slapped his desk top decisively—“no need for us to hang about. Captain Vandermeer, if you will please initiate a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn of the
Washington,
we'll begin the long journey home.”

“Aye, sir,” Vandermeer said, giving him a crisp salute and a wry grin. “It will, as you know, take us five full ship days to slow enough to execute the maneuver.”

“Long enough for Shepherd and Prlm to do their probes and be halfway back to us,” Ashiant murmured.

“Should be an interesting cruise, sir.”

“Indeed,” Admiral Ashiant said, lightly fingering the circle of tiny stars that was his new rank. Hastily withdrawing his hand, he cleared his throat.

“Anything else, sir?” Vandermeer asked, pretending not to see that gesture.

“No, Captain, that'll be all. Good day.”

 

When news of those orders reached the Primes relaxing in the FT&T lounge, there was both excitement and regret.

“I wish one of us had been able to go with Captain Shepherd,” said the recently promoted Lieutenant T-2 Clancy Sparrow in a wistful tone. “It'd be interesting to see what Hivers consider ‘perfect worlds.' ”

“They seem to have found sixteen planets near enough perfect to eliminate any other life-forms, including Deneb,” Prime Talent Thian remarked in a droll tone. “And seemingly about one in five of other M-type worlds we marked on our way while pursuing Number Three.”

He still couldn't believe that he and his fellow Talents had managed to defeat the Hiver sphere: a process in which, after the first skirmish, only the enemy had died. It had been incumbent on the Alliance—somehow—to keep the Hivers from establishing a new home system to replace the original world that had been consumed by their sun's nova. If Prime Talent Thian had thought of a way to reduce loss of life among Human and Mrdini, surely he should not be criticized for devising what was now known as the Genesee ploy. That fact that he was Talent was the point of dispute, for Talent should not be involved in combat, however tenuous the connection. The pacifist element of Humankind had been appalled and the FT&T organization had received considerable criticism, despite the success of the Genesee ploy. The success was almost irrelevant in the storm of display and rebuke. However, the majority of the Alliance had been relieved that the problem had resulted in few losses. After all, the Prime Talents had only
delivered
what the Navy explosive experts had prepared. “Teleportation” was a main FT&T function. The explosive packages, carefully placed on the Hiver fuel tanks, had been actually detonated by naval personnel with the sanction of the High Council and on the orders of Admiral Ashiant, so the Talent involvement had been a quite legitimate duty.

The old argument about a gun not being dangerous until it is loaded and aimed at a target was revised and adjusted to the FT&T. So, as the delivery agent, like a gun delivering a bullet, were the Talents guilty because they had sent a lethal package where it could destroy the acknowledged enemy of the Alliance? Or were those who gave the command for the substance to explode the guilty ones? That the resultant combination of “Talents” and “naval specialists” had caused the enemy ships to disintegrate offered much fuel to the point where the satisfactory outcome was nearly irrelevant.

A good night's sleep had restored energy to the Primes and the rest of their team on the
Washington,
and they'd wound up the last details of their controversial participation in the battle to their own satisfaction. They were definitely looking forward to the exploration phase of their current assignment, studying the scanty probe reports of the first Hiver-occupied planet on the Fleet's return heading.

“Will we have to wait until the other ships rejoin the Fleet before we actually get to probe or land on the upcoming world?” Clancy asked, pacing up and down the lounge cabin.

“Don't see why we'd need to wait for Shepherd and Prlm,” Thian said. He was himself beginning to get restless, though the respite from frantic activity and precision teleportations had been welcome.

“Don't see why not if we get there first,” Clancy said.

“Speaking of getting
anywhere,
just when do I get transferred to the
Columbia?”
asked Prime Rojer, cocking his head and making his urgency plain to his older brother and team leader. “That was the deal for me, remember? I help demolish the Hiver spheres and then I get transferred to the
Columbia—
”

“And Cousin Asia,” Clancy put in, his expression carefully bland. Rojer shot him a dire look that Clancy ignored.

“When you've helped me reprovision this squadron,” Thian answered, linking his fingers behind his head as he leaned back and stretched out his long legs.

“Then you don't think the conservatives are going to insist that FT&T stop assisting the Fleet?” Roj asked.

Clancy's scoffing laugh echoed Thian's dismissal of that possibility.

“Look, bro,” Thian said, sitting forward, elbows on his knees. “The FT&T was very carefully,” and he emphasized the syllables, “nurtured as an autonomous public service—”

“And who can argue that getting rid of an implacable enemy isn't a public service?” Clancy put in.

“Back in the twenty-first century, when Henry Darrow was the manager of our budding organization, he determined to split it from any political group and to remain legally separate from any governmental agency until Earth became a united world. His successors studiously kept FT&T apolitical and also made certain that the facilities of the Towers were on a first-come-first-serve basis. It's impossible to bribe a Talent, remember, not with Primes who can ‘read' anyone's mind. The guilty always give themselves away anyhow.” He grinned. “Of course, the present emergency with the greedy Hivers required FT&T to do a lot of kinetic transfers that would make the founders of our elite band spin in their graves. Nevertheless, it is still in our precious Charter that we Talents are required to teleport a lot of people and things that are repellent to our sensitive souls, though not illegal. Meanwhile we preserve the entity
and
integrity of FT&T ...”