Hellstrom's Hive (25 page)

From a news story, dateline Washington, D.C.
…and it was noted that Altman's death was not the first such suicide of a highly placed government official. Washington observers immediately recalled the death on May 22, 1949, of Defense Secretary James Forrestal, who shocked family and associates by leaping from a hospital window.

Altman's death also revived the recurrent Washington rumor that he was in fact the chief of a secret and highly sensitive investigative agency operating under the government's
executive arm. One of Altman's senior associates, Joseph Merrivale, issued an angry denial of the rumor, demanding, “Is that bloody gabble still going around?”

 

All in all, it had been a highly successful afternoon in spite of the earlier alarms, Hellstrom told himself. He stood in the barn aerie, staring out the louvered windows to the north. Vehicles were stirring up dust in the distance, but he felt no threat from the Outsiders at the moment. Reports from Washington and the nearby town indicated an easing of pressure.

Janvert had answered all of their questions with only the most gentle of persuasion. It saddened Hellstrom to think about this, comparing it with their previous procedure. So much pain could have been spared the other captives. When you thought about it, this technique was so
obvious
. Fancy had done the Hive a truly great service.

Saldo walked up beside Hellstrom with cat-footed grace and said, “Station six says that dust out there is three heavy vehicles approaching our lower road.”

“I think Janvert's ‘law' is almost here,” Hellstrom said. “Are we ready for them?”

“As ready as we can be. Mimeca is down in the farm house prepared to play Fancy to the hilt. Injured innocence, the whole thing. She's never even heard of Depeaux, that agency, a bicycle—nothing.”

“Good. Where did you put Janvert?”

“In an empty cell on level forty-two. Everything is on emergency alert.”

With renewed misgivings, Hellstrom thought about what that meant. Emergency alert: time lost from essential supportive tasks; workers detailed to man the system that could block off long sections of the access galleries with solidifying liquid mucilage; masses of hyped-up workers arrayed behind secret
exits and armed with stunwands and the few Outsider weapons the Hive could muster.

“They're coming on very fast,” Saldo said, nodding toward the dust cloud from the approaching vehicles.

“They're late,” Hellstrom said. “Something delayed them and they're trying to make up for lost time. Are we all ready to clear out this aerie?”

“I'd better give the word,” Saldo said.

“In a moment,” Hellstrom said. “We can delay them at the gate. Were you able to reach Linc?”

“Nobody answers his phone. You know, when this is over, I think we should provide him with a better Outside cover—a
wife
, another phone at his home tied to the office line.”

“Good idea,” Hellstrom said. He pointed out the window. “Those are big van-campers. Could they be the ones that were on the mountain?”

“They might—Nils, they're moving much too fast. They're almost at the fence. Maybe we should—”

He broke off in shocked alarm as the first of the big vans crashed through the north gate and swerved aside to block off the flat pillbox of the disguised ventilator outlet. Two figures leaped from the van as it skidded to a stop. One of them carried what appeared to be a black satchel. The other vans roared right past the stopped one, coming straight for the house and barn.

“They're attacking!” Saldo yelled.

A shattering explosion at the ventilator outlet punctuated his warning and was followed immediately by a second, louder explosion. The first truck had been blown onto its side and was burning.

Our own explosives for removing the emergency cover on that ventilator! Hellstrom thought.

There were other blasts now, shots, screams, running people.
Two of the attackers spilled from a moving truck, ran crashing through the farmhouse door.

“Nils! Nils!” It was Saldo pulling frantically at his arm, “You've got to get out of here.”

The wisdom of Harl.
A society that cuts across all of the conduct that Outsiders accept can exist only in a constant state of siege.

 

Mimeca sat in the farmhouse living room waiting for the arrival of Janvert's “law” when the first explosion rocked the building. A piece of metal from the first van ripped through the north wall a foot above her head. It crashed into the opposite wall and stuck there, smoking. Shots, screams, explosions erupted in the yard.

Ducking low, Mimeca sprinted for the kitchen. Mrs. Niles stored a stunwand in there. She crashed through the swinging door, surprising Mrs. Niles, who was using a stunwand to clear the yard between the farmhouse and barn. Mimeca gave the scene only a passing glance. Her own presence to play the part of Fancy was vital to the Hive's survival. She had to save herself. A door behind Mrs. Niles opened onto solidly built old stairs into the original root cellar. Mimeca jerked the door open, thundered down the stairs. There was a crash overhead, shots, breaking glass. She dashed for the fake shelves that concealed a tunnel to the barn, squeezed through. Workers armed with stunwands were pouring toward her from the other end. Mimeca ran panting past them, through the door to the barn basement. The tunnel behind her was already empty of defenders and she could hear the hiss of mucilage filling the area, plugging it.

A short hall stretched in front of Mimeca, open at the far end on a scene that only the Hive-born would recognize as not one of utter confusion. She trotted toward the area. Workers were dashing about, packages were being carried toward the
gallery head, a temporary repeater station had been installed against a wall on the left and guardworkers were keeping it clear there.

As Mimeca entered this area, the concealed hatch over the emergency stairs opened above her. Saldo and Hellstrom came dashing down followed by armed workers. The opening of the hatch amplified the clamor of battle overhead, but the noise died abruptly. There came one more explosion, another shot. She heard the brain-resonating humming of many stunwands.

Silence.

Hellstrom saw Mimeca, signaled her to join him, but continued his course toward the temporary repeater station. At his approach, a senior observer turned, recognized him, and said, “We've accounted for the ones who got this far, but there are still two more down by the fence. They're out of stun-range from this distance. Shall we get them from behind?”

“Wait,” Hellstrom said. “Is it safe for us to go back to the aerie?”

“The two by the fence are armed with at least one machine gun.”

“I will go back upstairs,” Saldo said. “You wait here. Don't risk yourself, Nils.”

“We'll both go,” Hellstrom said. He motioned for Saldo to lead the way, spoke to Mimeca. “I'm glad you escaped,
Fancy
.”

She nodded, beginning to recover her breath.

“Wait here,” Hellstrom told her. “We may need you yet.” He turned, followed Saldo, who waited with armed workers at the stairhead. The abruptness and savagery of the attack still had Hellstrom in a state of shock. They were really into the fire now, really into it.

The studio area of the barn presented a scene of remarkably little damage except for a hole blasted in the wall to one side of the north door. Some equipment had been scattered and lay in smashed disarray there. Part of the equipment included a
small hive of the new guard-bees. The survivors were buzzing around angrily, but were not attacking the Hive's workers—a remarkable test of efficiency in the conditioning process. Hellstrom made a mental note to compliment the directors of that project and to assign additional resources to it.

The studio's main boom had not been damaged. Saldo already was headed for its cage when Hellstrom emerged from the stairwell. Hellstrom swept his gaze around the studio as he followed. Workers' bodies were being removed briskly by scavenger crews. Casualties, casualties, casualties! Damn those bloody murderers! Hellstrom felt himself experiencing a pure Hive reaction of violent outrage. He wanted to wave his arm to summon followers and sweep down upon the two remaining attackers, tear them apart with bare hands no matter the cost. He sensed the matching eagerness of adrenaline-filled workers all around. They would follow him at the slightest gesture. They no longer were camera crews, actors, technicians, specialists in the multiplex tasks by which the Hive collected Outsider energy/money. They were infuriated workers, every last one of them.

Hellstrom forced himself to cross calmly to the cage, joining Saldo there. He took a deep, trembling breath as he hopped up into the cage. The Hive had never been under such great threat and never before had it needed such cool thinking from its leader specialists. “Get a bullhorn,” Hellstrom told Saldo as the boom lifted them toward the aerie. “Call to the two remaining attackers that they must surrender or be killed. Try to take them alive.”

“If they resist?” It was not Saldo's normal voice, but pure emotion-charged male, primed for attack.

“You must stop hoping they resist,” Hellstrom said. “They are to be stunned and taken alive if at all possible. See if you can get under them in the Hive with a stunwand. That might be one way.”

The boom cage wafted them gently to the edge of the loft. Hellstrom stepped out, Saldo right behind. The aerie baffle was open, and excited voices could be heard from inside.

“Tell those workers in there to place more reliance on Hive-sign during stress periods,” Hellstrom ordered, angry. “It keeps down the hubbub and upset.”

“Yes—yes, of course, Nils.”

Saldo found himself awed by the cool command Hellstrom displayed. Here was the true mark of a leader specialist: rational assessment overpowering the anger simmering underneath. No doubt Hellstrom was angered by the attack, but he had himself completely under control.

Hellstrom stepped through the short entry to the aerie and barked, “Let's have some order in here! Restore that baffle. Is our telephone still open to the Outside?”

The noise subsided immediately. Workers moved to obey. A security specialist, standing at the end of the curved bench that had supported the repeaters, passed a telephone to Hellstrom.

“Get the equipment back up here,” Hellstrom ordered as he took the telephone, “and send an observer down to Project 40. The observer is not to interfere or interrupt in any way, just observe. At the first word of a breakthrough, this observer is to report directly to me. Is that understood?”

“Understood,” Saldo said and moved to obey.

Hellstrom put the telephone to his ear, found it dead. He passed it back to the worker who'd given it to him. “Line's dead. See about restoring it.”

The worker took the phone and said, “It was working just a minute ago.”

“Well, it's dead now.”

“Who were you going to call, Nils?”

“I was going to call Washington and try to find out if the time had come to bluff.”

From the diary of Trova Hellstrom.
A filled life, good things in their own time, knowledge of constructive service to your fellows, and into the vats when you die; that is the meaning of true fellowship. One in life, one in death.

 

Clovis had assigned herself to the first van, overriding Myerlie's objections that it was “no place for a woman.” She had told him where he could stuff that and he'd slowly smiled, a knowing look behind his eyes. “I understand, honey. It may be a bloody time at that farmhouse and you don't want to see your little Shorty-baby get it. If he does, I'll come back and tell you myself.”

So he knows! she thought.

And she spat in his face, brought up her left hand for a chopping blow as he made to strike her. Others intervened and DT had cried, “My God! This is no time to fight among ourselves! What're you two doing? Come on; let's get it moving!”

The first opportunity after they left town, they stopped the lead van and bound Kraft securely, gagged him, and dumped him on the bed in the rear. He objected that they were “going to pay for this,” but a gesture with the gun in Clovis's hand had silenced him. He permitted himself to be bound then and lay afterward on the bed, eyes wide open, studying everything he could see.

Clovis sat beside DT, who drove. She watched the passing scenery without really seeing it. So this was how it all ended. The people at that farm would kill Eddie at the first sign of attack. She'd had time to think about it now and felt this as a certainty. It was what any good agent would do. You didn't leave danger behind your back. She felt a red rage in front of her eyes; it actually felt as though it were outside her, beckoning her onward. She also began to see possible other motives behind the Chief 's choice of her as leader of this attack. He had wanted the leader to be in a blind, killing rage.

It was after four o'clock before they started. A light breeze
brushed ripples in the tall yellow range grass beside the dirt road. She saw the grass, focused on it, looked ahead, and realized they had reached the last turn before the fence. DT was pushing the big van to its limit, roaring up the last mile of road.

“You nervous?” DT asked.

She glanced at the hard, youthful face, still dark with the tan he'd developed in Vietnam. DT's green flight cap cast dark shadows over his eyes, accenting the small white scar at the bridge of his nose.

“That's a helluva question,” she said, raising her voice over the motor's roar.

“Nothing wrong with being nervous before a fight,” he said. “I remember one time in Nam—”

“I don't want to hear about your fucking brawl!” she cut him off.

He shrugged, noticed that her face was almost gray. She was taking this hard. Helluva business for a woman. Myerlie had been right. No sense getting into that scrap, though. If she wanted to be the gung-ho Ms., that was her lookout. Just as long as she knew how to handle the satchel charge. From all reports, she did.

“What do you do when you're not working?” he asked.

“What's it to you, Junior?”

“Christ, you're feisty! I was just making conversation.”

“Then make it with yourself!”

I'd rather make it with you, baby, he thought. You've got a nice body. And he wondered how Shorty enjoyed that. Everybody knew about those two, of course. A real
thing
. Bad business in the Agency, not like him and Tymiena—good clean sex. That was why Clovis was taking this so hard, naturally. Shorty was sure as hell going to get it the minute they opened up. And with Shorty dead, she'd wind up running this show!

He glanced at her once more. Did the Agency really trust her to run this sort of thing?

“They're not expecting us,” he said. “This could be a piece of cake. We'll walk right through the place. How many people you think they have up there? Twenty? Thirty, maybe?”

“It's going to be a gawdawful mess,” she snarled. “Now, shut up!”

Kraft, listening from the rear of the van, felt something akin to pity for them. They were going to run into a wall of stunwands, every one set to maximum. It was going to be slaughter. He had resigned himself to dying with the pair in this van. What would they do if they knew how many workers really were in the Hive? What would they say if they came back and asked him and he told them,
oh, fifty thousand or so, give or take a couple of hundred
.

Clovis found herself becoming bitterly amused by DT's spate of talk. The nervousness was in him, of course. She had gone beyond that to the killing rage the Chief obviously wanted. They were close enough to the fence now that they could see every exterior detail of the squat concrete structure beyond the gate. The afternoon light was beginning to draw its long shadows within the valley beyond. She could see no sign of human activity at the farmhouse or that portion of the barn visible from this vantage. She picked up her microphone from the radio under the dash to report this to the vans following, but the instant she hit the transmit button, the monitor telltale began to squeal. Jammed! Someone was jamming their frequency!

She glanced at DT, whose tense side glances at the transmitter told her he, too, understood.

She replaced the microphone on its hook and said, “Park the van between the farmhouse and the pillbox. You take the satchel. We'll both get out your side. Toss the satchel along the wall to the east side of the pillbox. Get to the other side of it and cover me. I'll set the charge. When it's set, we run like hell for the edge of that hill beyond there.”

“The blast will wreck the van,” he objected.

“Better it than us. Start revving her up. We can get more speed than this.”

“What about our passenger?”

“He takes his own chances. I hope he gets it good!” She grabbed up the little burp gun from the floor, prepared to release her safety harness. DT wedged an elbow against the satchel charge which had been jammed between his seat and the emergency jump door. “Hit it square in the middle!” Clovis shouted. “It's going to—”

Whatever she had been about to say was drowned in the clattering, screeching turmoil of their crash through the gate. There was no time to say anything more after that.