Hellstrom's Hive (32 page)

What the drone said (Hive axiom).
You Outsiders! It's your children we're after, not you! We'll get them, too, over your dead bodies.

 

“How can he be Outside?” Hellstrom demanded, outrage amplifying the sudden surge of fear that swept over him. He whirled from the dark north end of the gloomy aerie, strode across the room to the female at the observer console who'd called out to him.

“He is,” she said. “See! There!” She pointed to the screen glowing with green brilliance in front of her. The screen showed Janvert's figure, its outline shimmering in the scattered radiation of night-vision projection. Janvert was creeping along a dusty road.

“That's the north perimeter,” Hellstrom whispered, recognizing the outline of the landscape beyond Janvert. “How did he get out there?” Reluctant admiration for this incredible male warred in Hellstrom with a swelling rage.
Janvert was Outside!

“We're getting reports of a disturbance at level three,” an observer at Hellstrom's left called.

“He's found one of the hidden doors out of level three,” Hellstrom said. “How did he get that far? He'll be at that car
with its watchers in seconds! The car's right down in those trees.” He pointed at the screen. “Have the watchers heard him yet?”

“We have a pursuit team out after him,” an observer on the left called. “They'll be a few minutes, though. They were on five and we routed them through the upper exits.”

The observer in front of Hellstrom said, “I got an interference flash just before I saw him, as though he'd used his weapon. Could he have knocked out the watchers in that car?”

“Or killed them,” Hellstrom said. “Poetic justice if he did. Who's observing that car?”

“The team was pulled back an hour ago to help search for the escaped captive,” someone behind him said.

Hellstrom nodded. Of course! He'd given the order himself.

“There hasn't been any conversation in that car for sometime,” the observer just to his left said. “I have the pickup on the tree above the car.” The observer tapped the shiny ivory plug in her right ear. “I can hear Janvert approaching—the watchers in the car sound unconscious. They're wheezing the way Outsiders always do when you stun them heavily.”

“Maybe it's a break for us at last,” Hellstrom said. “How far away is the pursuit team?”

“Five minutes at the most,” someone behind him said.

“Get backup squads out onto the rangeland between him and the town,” Hellstrom said. “Just in case—”

“What about the other watchers?” the observer in front of him asked.

“Tell our workers not to attract attention to themselves! Devil take that Janvert! The Hive needs breeders that resourceful.”

How had the man escaped from the Hive?

The observer on his left said, “He's almost at the car.”

An observer farther down the arc said, “Here's the report on how he got out.” She turned, her face in eerie side light from the screens, and told him briefly what the cleanup teams had found at level three.

He rode a food conveyor! Hellstrom thought.

The Outsider took risks no ordinary worker would think of taking. The implications in that would have to be considered more thoroughly—later.

“The captive female,” Hellstrom said. “Has she been shown what will happen to her if she fails?”

Someone behind him spoke with obvious distaste, “She's been shown, Nils.”

Hellstrom nodded. They didn't like this, of course. He didn't like it himself. But it was necessity and all of them could see that now.

“Bring her in here,” Hellstrom said.

They had to drag her into the range of the dim lights at the observation screens and then hold her upright when they stopped.

Hellstrom suppressed his own revulsion, spoke slowly and distinctly as though to a newly hatched child, and all the time he felt that he was sacrificing himself for the Hive.

“Clovis Carr,” he said. “That is the name you gave us. Do you still identify with it?”

She stared through the gloom at the greenish death pallor of Hellstrom's skin. This is a nightmare, she told herself. I'll wake up and find out it's all been a nightmare.

Hellstrom saw the recognition that use of her name aroused. “In a moment, Miss Carr, your friend Janvert will come within range of a remote speaker we have out there.” He pointed to the screen. “I will attract Mr. Janvert's attention then, and it will be up to you to get him back here if you can. I deeply regret that we must cause you this mental anguish, but you can see the necessity. Will you try?”

She nodded, her face a pale mask of terror in the green light. Try? Sure! Play right along with the nightmare.

“Very good,” Hellstrom said. “You must think in a positive way, Miss Carr. You must think success. I believe you can do this.”

Again she nodded, but it was as though she had no conscious control over her muscles.

From the Hive Manual.
The society itself must be considered as living material. The same ethics and morality that concern us when we interfere with the sacred flesh of an individual cell must concern us equally when we intrude into the processes of the society.

 

Janvert was reaching for the radio microphone, hardly believing he had that token of civilization within his grasp, when a voice boomed at him from high over his right shoulder.

“Janvert!”

He jerked back, slamming the door to shut off the car's dome light, dodged to the front of the car and crouched there, pointing his weapon up into the darkness.

“Janvert, I know you can hear me.”

The voice came from up in the trees, but it was too dark to show any detail to Janvert. He held himself locked in indecision. What a fool he'd been to leave the car's dome light on!

“I am speaking to you through a remote system, Janvert,” the voice said. “There is an electronic device in a tree near you. It will pick up your answer and transmit it to me. You must answer me now.”

A loudspeaker!

Still, Janvert crouched in silence. It was a trick. They wanted him to speak just to locate him.

“We have someone here who wants to speak to you,” the voice said. “Listen carefully, Janvert.”

At first, Janvert failed to recognize the new voice issuing from the speaker. There was such a throat-strained quality in the words, as though each required superhuman effort. It was a woman, though, and then she said, “Eddie! It's Clovis. Please answer me!”

Clovis was the only one who called him Eddie. The others all used that hated
Shorty
. He stared up through the darkness. Clovis?

“Eddie,” she said, “if you don't come back, they're going to take me down to a—a place where—where they—cut off your legs and the rest—” She was sobbing now. “Your legs and the rest of your body at the waist and—oh, God! Eddie, I'm so frightened. Eddie! Please answer me! Please come back!”

Janvert recalled that room of stumped bodies, the multicolored tubes, the hideously accentuated sexuality. Abruptly, he experienced a flashing memory: the severed head on the tunnel floor, the gore, his own feet trampling through red fruit, his body spattered with…

He doubled over, vomited.

Clovis's voice went on and on, pleading with him.

“Eddie, please, can you hear me? Please! Don't let them do that to me. Oh, God! Why doesn't he answer?”

I can't answer her, Janvert thought.

But he had to respond. He had to do something. The air was full of the nauseating smell of his own vomit and his chest ached, but his head felt cleared. He straightened, supporting himself with a hand on the car's hood.

“Hellstrom!” he called.

“Right here.” It was the first voice Janvert had heard.

“How can I trust you?” Janvert asked. He started working his way back to the car's door. He had to get to that radio.

“We will harm neither you nor Miss Carr if you return,” Hellstrom said. “We do not lie about such things, Mr. Janvert. You will be placed under necessary restraints, but neither of you will be harmed. We will permit the two of you to associate and have any relationship you wish, but if you do not return to us immediately, we will carry out our threat. We will do so with the deepest regret, but we will do it. Our own attitudes toward a procreative stump are much different from yours, Mr. Janvert. Believe me.”

“I believe you,” Janvert said. He was at the car's door now, hesitating. If he opened the door and grabbed for the microphone, what would they do up there? They must have searchers out here by now. They had that speaker in the tree. They had some way of knowing what he was doing. He had to take precautions, then. He lifted the captured weapon, intending to spray the area around him randomly before opening the door. He didn't allow himself to think about Clovis. But that room…His finger on the firing stud refused to move. That room with the stubs of bodies! Again, he felt nausea clutching him.

Clovis could still be heard over the speaker. She was crying somewhere in the background, sobbing and calling his name. “Eddie—Eddie—Eddie—please help me. Make it stop—”

Janvert closed his eyes.
What can I do?

As the thought pulsed in his mind, he felt a tingling on his back and right side, heard a distant humming that followed him all the way down to the dusty ground beside the car, but he no longer heard it by the time he was stretched in the dust.

From the Hive Manual.
Protective resemblance has always been a major key to our survival. This is shown by the oral tradition as well as by the earliest written records that we have preserved. The mimicry our ancestors learned from insects helps protect us from the attacks of the wild Outsiders. Observation of insects tells us, however, that the survival value of this device remains low unless we perfect it and combine it with many other techniques, especially new techniques that we must constantly search out. To spur us on the way, we must think always of Outsiders as predators. They will attack if they find us. They are sure to find us someday and we must prepare for this. Our preparation must include both defensive and offensive characteristics. In offensive weapons, let us always keep the insect as our model—the
weapon must
condition
any attacker against repeating acts of violence against us.

 

The vibration of the Hive began somewhere far down below the aerie and reached upward and outward with shock waves that would register on seismic recorders all around the planet. When it stopped, Hellstrom thought:
Earthquake!
It was a fearful prayer in his mind, however, not a recognition. Let it be an earthquake and not the destruction of Project 40!

He had just begun to relax from the recapture of Janvert not twenty minutes ago when the vibration began.

The aerie stopped creaking and there was a moment of abnormal silence, as though all of the workers of the Hive held their breath simultaneously. In that moment, Hellstrom moved through the aerie's gloom, noting that the lights still functioned, the screens still glowed. He said, “Damage reports, please. Somebody get me Saldo.” The note of calm command in his own voice surprised him.

Within seconds, they had Saldo on a screen at the right side of the arc. Hellstrom could see a section of a wide gallery behind Saldo, dust settling there.

“They held me!” Saldo greeted him. The younger man looked shocked and just the smallest amount cowed. One of the big symbiotes who attended the researchers moved in behind Saldo then and thrust him aside. The scarred, ebony features of a researcher filled the screen. A pink palm came up in front of the face then and the fingers winked in Hive-sign.

Hellstrom translated aloud for those around him who could not see the screen.

“We do not appreciate the distrust represented by your observer with orders to delay the power connection for our project. Let the alarm you felt be a small sign of our displeasure. We could have warned you to expect it, but your behavior did not
deserve such warning. Recall the resonance we all felt in the Hive and rest assured that the effect was of an order many thousands of times greater at the locus of our projected impulse. Project 40, except for some small refinements which may include damping the local feedback, can be judged a complete success.”

“Where was the locus of your projection?” Hellstrom asked.

“In the Pacific Ocean near the islands that the Outsiders call Japan. They will observe a new island there shortly.”

The big face moved out of the screen's range to be replaced by Saldo.

“They restrained me,” Saldo protested. “They held me and ignored my orders. They connected the power and wouldn't let me call you. They disobeyed you, Nils!”

Hellstrom flashed a “calm yourself” sign and, as Saldo fell silent, said, “Complete the loose ends of your observation, Saldo. Assemble a report, including development time for the refinements they mention, then report to me personally in full.” He signaled to close the communication, turned away.

The Hive had its defensive-offensive weapon, then, but with it came many other problems. The crisis disturbance that had spread all through the Hive had left its mark on the researchers. Their ordinary irritability had been amplified into a species of revolt. There was damage to the Hive's interdependence system. This might buy them the time to recover, though. Whatever else it needed, the Hive needed long periods of undisturbed time most of all. The big changes devoured great blocks of time. He could see this when he compared himself to the new breed. Hellstrom held few illusions about himself. He really preferred to vocalize, and Hive-sign always represented a strain on him, but for some of the new breed, this pattern was reversed. Hellstrom knew he took an unhealthy enjoyment in the possession of a distinct name and an Outsider-like identity, but most of the Hive's workers were free of this bondage.

I am a transitional form
, he told himself,
and someday I will be obsolete
.