Hellstrom's Hive (18 page)

“How can we prevent a—”

“Perhaps we cannot.”

“But we can't allow it now!”

“No. We must do our best to delay the swarming. To let them go now would destroy us. Have the filters turned back to maximum for a few hours and then adjust them to optimum.”

“Nils, a suspicious Outsider in our midst might—”

“We cannot do otherwise. Desperate measures are required. A quiet weeding of population may be indicated if this—”

“The vats?”

“Yes, if the pressure becomes too great.”

“The hydroponics workers who—”

“Watch them carefully,” Hellstrom said. “And the breeders—even Fancy and her sisters. A swarm will need breeders.”

Peruge's private instruction to Daniel Thomas (DT) Alden.
Janvert has come into possession of the special Signal Corps number and code required to call the president. If you see any attempt by Janvert to make such a call, any secretive attempt to use a telephone, you are to stop him, using whatever force you find necessary.

 

Peruge tuned in a symphony concert on the motel room's radio under the mistaken idea that it might distract him. Time and again, he found himself returning to contemplation of that disturbing woman at Hellstrom's farm.

Fancy
.

What an odd name that was.

This motel had been chosen because it provided him with a room whose rear windows gave line-of-sight communication with the Steens Mountain camps where his backup teams had stationed themselves in the guise of vacationers. Peruge knew he had but to signal out that rear window and he could be in direct touch with any one of the three teams. The laser transceiver would catch their voices as clearly as if they stood in the room with him.

It bothered Peruge that he had allowed Shorty Janvert to remain in charge of the teams on the mountain. Damn that slimy-minded Merrivale!

This was not a reassuring situation and, as night gathered over the brown countryside beyond his room, Peruge reviewed his instructions and his preparations.

Had it been wise to restrict Janvert by the explicit order, “You're to report everything to headquarters before initiating
nonspecified movements during those periods when I'm out of communication on that farm.”

The
specified
movements were extremely few and limited in scope: trips to Fosterville for groceries and visual check on Lincoln Kraft; shift of campsite to meet necessities of protecting the overall cover; visits between camps to transfer the watch and maintain constant surveillance…

Thus far, Janvert had given no overt indication of untrustworthiness. His communications fitted all of the reliability requirements.

“Does the Chief know you're going in there without communications?”

“Yes.”

“I don't like that.”

“I'm the one to worry about that, not you,” Peruge had countered. Who did Janvert think he was?

“I'd like to see inside that place myself,” Janvert said.

“You're not to make any such attempt without specific advice from headquarters and then only if I have been out of communication beyond a preset time limit.”

“I don't doubt your capabilities,” Janvert said, his tone remarkably conciliatory. “I'm just worried about all the things we don't know in this case. Hellstrom displays a remarkable lack of respect for our persons.”

Peruge suspected Janvert of trying to fabricate a tone of real concern where none existed; he felt impatient with such embroidery.

“The farm is my problem,” Peruge said. “Your problem is to observe and report.”

“Fat chance we get to observe while you're in there without a transmitter.”

“You still can't find a weak spot in their armor?”

“I'd have told you first thing if I had!”

“Don't get upset about it. I know you're trying.”

“There's not a sound behind those walls. They must have a sophisticated damper system of some kind. Plenty of odd sounds in the valley, but nothing we can really identify. Machinery, mostly, and it sounds like heavy machinery. I suspect they have equipment sufficient to've spotted our probes. Sampson and Rio are moving their rig to grid position G-6 some time tonight. They did most of the probing.”

“You're staying put?”

“Yes.”

Janvert was taking all of the right precautions. Peruge thought: Why do I distrust him? Would the little runt always live under the cloud generated by his reluctant recruitment? Peruge felt angry with himself. It was disloyal to entertain the thoughts flowing through his mind. What was the Chief really doing?

The magnetic woman at Hellstrom's farm—was she just teasing him? Some women considered him handsome and his big body exuded a sense of animal power that might explain most of what had happened up there.

Nuts! Hellstrom put her up to it!

Did the Chief consider Dzule Peruge just another of the many expendables?

“You still there?” Janvert asked.

“Yes!” Voice angry and sharp.

“What gave you the idea there might be more people on that farm than we can see? The tunnel?”

“That—yes, but there's more that you can't put your finger on. Record this for transmission, Shorty. I want a watch put on the ordinary supplies going into that place. How much food, that sort of thing? Be discreet, but pry.”

“I'll take care of it. Do you want DT assigned to that?”

“No. Send Nick. I want an estimate on how many people would match the normal food orders.”

“Right. Did the Chief tell you about the diamond bits for well drills?”

“Yes. They would've been delivered just about the time Carlos and Tymiena were supposed to be there.”

“Weird, isn't it?”

“It fits an odd kind of pattern,” Peruge said. “We just haven't found the precise nature of that pattern.” He cast about in his mind, wondering at the reason for diamond drill bits in a movie company. There was just no explaining it and no sense wondering without more evidence. More likely to come up with a wrong answer than a right one, and, either way, he couldn't be certain.

“I agree,” Janvert said. “Anything more for this report?”

“Nothing.” Peruge signed off, replaced the equipment in its cover packaging, stored it in his shaving kit.

Janvert had been more talkative than usual, and the surface attempts to be pleasant couldn't be anything but false from that feisty little bastard.

Peruge thought about this as he lay in the quiet darkness of his motel bed. He knew he had been cut off. He was alone, removed even from the protection of the Chief, and he wondered why he went on.

Because I want to be rich, he thought. Richer than the bitch of the board. I will be, too, if I can get my hands on Hellstrom's Project 40.

Script consultation, Nils Hellstrom speaking.
On the screen, the audience will see a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. We will see much more and, in a deeper sense, we want the audience to see what we see, unconsciously. The butterfly personifies our own long struggle. It is the long darkness of humankind when the wild ones imagined they talked, one to another. It is the metamorphosis, the transformation of our Hive into the salvation of the human species. It foreshadows the day when we will emerge and show our beauty to the admiring universe.

 

“The transmitter is in his wristwatch,” Saldo said. “We caught it just before he turned the thing off.”

“Good work,” Hellstrom said.

They stood in the electronic gloom of the barn aerie, the security command post, workers going about their jobs quietly all around, a sense of determination in every movement. Nothing would get through this guard.

“Those probes we detected came from Steens Mountain,” Saldo said. “We've located the position on the chart.”

“Excellent. Is their lack of success igniting a renewed effort or are they quiet now?”

“Quiet. I've arranged to send a picnic party into the area tomorrow. They'll play and enjoy themselves and report back tomorrow night. The party will be composed only of extremely experienced fronts.”

“Don't count on them learning much.”

Saldo nodded agreement.

Hellstrom closed his eyes tightly in distress and fatigue. He couldn't seem to get enough rest and what little he got failed to restore him. What they needed and would never find was a way to send Peruge packing, a way to answer all of his questions without answering them. Those mysterious, probing questions about metallurgy and new inventions irritated Hellstrom. What could that possibly have to do with Project 40? New invention—yes, possibly. But metallurgy? He decided to communicate his question to the lab at the earliest opportunity.

Saying of the Hive specialists.
How primitive and far behind us are the behaviorists of the wild Outside!

 

Peruge heard the scratching at his door as part of a dream. It was a dog from his childhood calling him to get up for breakfast. Good old Danny. Peruge could see the wide, ugly face, the dripping jowls, in his dream. He actually felt the fact that he
was in bed, clad only in pajama bottoms as had always been usual for him. Abruptly, circuits closed in his memory. That dog had been dead for years! He was awake instantly, silent and probing with all of his senses for evidence of danger.

The scratching continued.

He slipped his heavy automatic from under his pillow, arose, and went to the door. The floor was cold against his bare feet. Standing at one side with the weapon ready, he jerked the door open on its chain.

There was a night light outside his door. It cast a yellow glow on Fancy, who stood there wrapped in something furry, dark, and bulky. She supported a bicycle with her left hand.

Peruge closed the door, released the chain, swung the door wide. He knew he appeared strange standing there in his pajama bottoms with a big man-killer automatic in his hand, but he sensed the urgent need to get her out of sight into his room.

He felt a surge of elation. They'd sent this little pussy to compromise him, eh? But
he
had one of them outside their goddamned farm!

Fancy entered without speaking, wheeling her bicycle. She leaned the bicycle against the wall as Peruge closed and locked the door. When he turned toward her, she was facing him and removing her outer garment, a long fur coat. She threw the coat over the bicycle's handlebars, stood there in the thin white smock she'd worn when he'd last seen her. Her eyes were foscused intently on his with a smoky, mocking look.

Fun first? Peruge wondered. Or business first? His hand was slippery with perspiration against the butt of the automatic. God, she was a sexy bitch!

He went to the window beside the door, slipped back the draperies, peered out. He could see no watchers. He crossed to the rear window, looked out over the parking lot toward the mountain. No prying strangers visible there, either. Nobody. What time was it, for Christ's sake? And why wasn't the bitch
talking? He crossed to the nightstand, lifted his wristwatch: 1:28
A.M
.

Fancy watched all of this activity, a half-smile on her lips. Outsiders were such strange creatures. This one appeared even stranger than usual. Their bodies told them what they should do and they constantly disobeyed. Well, she had come prepared.

Peruge glanced at her from his position by the nightstand. Her hands were clenched into fists, but she appeared to be carrying no weapon. He slipped his gun into a drawer of the stand. Was she being quiet because this room had been bugged? That couldn't be! He'd made certain the room was clean. He moved carefully, being sure not to turn his back on her. Why had she come on a bicycle? And in a fur coat, for the love of God! He wondered if he should alert the night watch on the mountain. Not yet. Fun first.

Fancy reached up with her left hand as though she had read his mind, unbuttoned the front of her smock, shrugged out of it, and let it fall. She stood there naked, a sensuous pocket-venus body that sent his pulse racing. There were open sandals on her feet. She kicked them off, stirring up dust from her ride into town.

Peruge, his eyes glittering, wet his lips with his tongue, and said, “Aren't you something!”

Still without speaking, Fancy approached him, reached up, and clasped both of his bare arms. His left arm tingled as she touched it and he smelled a sudden, heavy musk. His gaze jerked toward the tingling in shocked alarm and he saw a tiny, flesh-colored ampule crushed beneath her forefinger against his skin, a fleck of his own blood there. In panic, he knew he should hurl her away from him, call for help from his night watch, but his muscles remained frozen while that tingling spread through his body. His gaze slipped from the ampule on his arm to Fancy's firm breasts, the dark nipples protruding with sensual tension.

As though a fog was creeping up from his loins, Peruge felt his will dissolve until his only awareness was of the woman who was now clinging to him, pressing against him with surprising strength, forcing him backward onto the bed.

Now, Fancy spoke. “You want to breed with me? That's good.”

From the Hive Manual.
A basic aim of the socializing process should be to create the widest possible tolerance of diversity among the society's components.

 

“Fancy's missing!” Saldo said.

He had come to Hellstrom's quarters, racing down the corridors and galleries that were never lacking activity, ignoring the upset his running passage created among the workers.

Hellstrom sat upright in his bed, rubbing sleep from his eyes, shaking his head to wake himself. He had been in deep sleep, his first in days, praying for a good rest before tomorrow's certain confrontation with Peruge and whomever Peruge added to the pressure on the Hive.

Fancy missing!

He peered up at Saldo's frightened face in the cell glow. “Alone?”

“Yes.”

Hellstrom exhaled a sigh of relief. “How did she get out of the Hive? Where is she?”

“She used that faulty emergency ventilator in the rock at the north perimeter. She had a bicycle.”

“Weren't there guards?”

“She stunned them with de-hype.”

“But the security watch!”

“They missed it,” Saldo confessed. “She's obviously used this route before. She went into the trees and avoided every one of our detectors.”

Of course,
Hellstrom thought. A bicycle. Why a bicycle? Where had she gone? “How did she get a bicycle?” he asked.

“It's the one we took from the Outsider, Depeaux.”

“What was that still doing around? Why wasn't it reduced for salvage?”

“Some of the engineers were playing with it. They were thinking of manufacturing our own model to speed up delivery service in the lower galleries.”

“Which direction did she go?” Hellstrom levered himself out of the bed. What time was it? He glanced at the crystal clock on his wall: 3:51
A.M
.

“She apparently went across the Palmer Bridge. There are tracks.”

Toward town then. Why?

“The guards she stunned say she was wearing Outsider garments,” Saldo said. “Wardrobe reports a fur coat missing. She was into Hive stores again, too. We haven't yet determined what she took.”

“How long has she been gone?” Hellstrom asked. He slipped his feet into Hive sandals, groped for a robe. It was cold, but he knew that was only his own lowered metabolism.

“Almost four hours,” Saldo said. “Guards were unconscious for a long time.” He rubbed at the healing wound on his jaw. “I'm sure she's gone into town. Two chemical trackers went as far along her trail as they dared. She was still headed for town when they broke off.”

“Peruge,” Hellstrom said.

“What?”

“She's gone to breed with Peruge.”

“Of course! Shall I call Linc and have him—”

“No.” Hellstrom shook his head from side to side.

Saldo trembled with impatience. “But that bicycle belonged to one of Peruge's agents!”

“Who identifies bicycles? They're not likely to make the
connection. Fancy won't tell him where that machine came from.”

“Are you sure?”

“I'm sure. Fancy has a one-track mind where breeding is concerned. I should've realized that when I saw her go on the attack with Peruge as target.”

“That man is clever! She could tell him something without even realizing it.”

“A possibility we'll have to investigate. But for now, you will alert Linc. Tell him where she is and see that he makes certain they don't take her away for interrogation. Peruge is sure to have his friends watching him. We don't want any more activity around that motel than absolutely necessary.”

Saldo stared at Hellstrom in shocked silence. He had expected Hellstrom to call up all of the Hive's defensive resources. This was not an adequate response!

“Any more indications of swarming pressure?” Hellstrom asked.

“No. The—the ventilation appears to have helped.”

“Fancy is fertile,” Hellstrom said. “Getting her pregnant by an Outsider will help, too. She becomes quite tractable while producing a child.”

“Ahhhhh—” Saldo stood in admiration of Hellstrom's wisdom.

“I know what she took from stores,” Hellstrom said. “She will have a male sex-fraction in an ampule to hype up Peruge. She wants to breed with him, that's all. Let her. Outsiders have extremely odd reactions to this natural form of human behavior.”

“So it is said,” Saldo murmured. “I've studied the behavioral precautions for work Outside.”

“Depend on it,” Hellstrom said, smiling. “I have seen this happen many times. Peruge will show up here tomorrow the figure of contrition. He will be with Fancy and very defensive. He will feel guilty. That will make him vulnerable to us. Yes—I
believe I know how to handle this situation now, thanks to Fancy. Bless her.”

“What are you saying?”

“The wild Outsiders aren't all that different from us, chemically. It took Fancy to remind me of this. The same techniques we use to make our workers tractable, domesticated, and yielding to the Hive's needs will work on Outsiders.”

“In their food?”

“Or their water or even their air.”

“Are you sure Fancy will return?” Saldo could not keep down the niggling doubt.

“I'm sure.”

“But the bicycle—”

“Do you really think they'll identify it?”

“We cannot risk it!”

“If it makes you feel better, warn Linc about this possibility. I think Peruge's senses will be so dulled after a night of hyped-up breeding with Fancy that he wouldn't even recognize a bicycle when he saw it.”

Saldo frowned. There was a manic note to Hellstrom's manner and voice which was deeply disturbing. “I don't like this, Nils.”

“You will,” Hellstrom assured him. “Trust me. Tell Linc you are sending in a special security team. I want their instructions to be explicit, no misunderstandings. Go over them with the utmost care. They are not to interfere tonight. Their major task is to insure that Fancy is not removed from that motel. She must spend an uninterrupted night with Peruge. In the morning, they are to collect her at the first opportunity and bring her to me. I wish to thank her in person. The Hive
does
learn; it
does
react to danger as a single organism. It is just as I have always suspected.”

“I agree we should make sure she gets back here,” Saldo said, “but thank her?”

“Naturally.”

“For what?”

“For reminding us that Outsiders share our chemistry.”