Hellstrom's Hive

A worker came down the beaten-grass path from the Hive, waving to attract Saldo’s attention. There was still no sign of dawnlight, but it had turned colder as it often did here just before daybreak. The worker stopped in front of Saldo and spoke in a low voice. “Someone’s coming from the Hive.”

“Who?”

“I think it is Nils himself.”

Saldo turned his attention in the direction indicated by the worker, recognized the oncoming figure by his gait. Yes, it was Nils. He wore a nightmask, but carried no wand. Saldo put down a sense of relief tempered by a surge of displeasure. His decisions had been the correct ones, but Hellstrom chose to come personally. Immediately, Saldo chided himself. He could almost hear the reprimand in Harvey’s aging voice: Isn’t that what you would do? The leader of the Hive could do no less. This thought restored Saldo’s feeling of calm competence. He greeted Hellstrom casually.

Hellstrom stopped a few paces from Saldo, examined the scene before speaking. He had seen Saldo at the instant the younger worker had identified him. The recognition had been obvious in Saldo’s movements. The loss of Old Harvey touched Hellstrom deeply, but he noted with approval that Saldo was doing all the necessary things. Saldo had the instincts of a good protector.

“Tell me what has happened and what you have done,” Hellstrom said.

“Have you had no report from the ones I sent to you?”

“They reported, but I would prefer that the leader of this search troop give me his own assessment. Sometimes, workers miss important things.”

Saldo nodded. Yes, that was wise. He told Hellstrom of the discovery of the Outsider female, the shooting, left out no detail, even to the wound on his own jaw.

“Should your wound be treated?” Hellstrom asked, peering at it. What devilish bad luck if they lost Saldo, too!

“It’s a minor wound,” Saldo said. “No worse than a small burn.”

“Take care of it as soon as you return.”

Saldo heard concern for him in Hellstrom’s voice, was warmed by it.

“I heard Old Harvey choose you as his second-in-command,” Hellstrom said.

“I was his choice.” Saldo spoke with calm confidence.

“Have any of the others displayed evidence of resenting this?”

“Nothing serious.”

Hellstrom liked that answer. It said Saldo was aware of incipient challenges but felt able to deal with them. He no doubt could deal with them, too. Saldo carried himself well. He possessed a sure sense of rightness. There was about him that unspoken air of dominance. It must be tempered, though.

“Did you enjoy it when you were chosen by Old Harvey?” Hellstrom asked, keeping his voice flat.

Saldo swallowed. Had he done something wrong? There’d been a prying coldness about that question. Had he put the Hive in peril? But Hellstrom was smiling faintly, a thin movement of his mouth beneath the nightmask.

“I enjoyed it,” Saldo admitted, but there was uncertainty in his tone.

Hellstrom heard that self-questioning quality in the younger man’s voice, and he nodded. Uncertainty bred caution. One could go from liking authority into a gambler’s stance: overconfident. Hellstrom explained this now in a quiet voice that carried only between them. When he’d finished, Hellstrom said, “Tell me everything you have ordered here.”

Saldo thought for a moment, then took up his account where he had left off. He spoke with noticeable hesitation, questing in his own mind for possible errors, for needed corrections.

Hellstrom interrupted to ask, “Who was first to see the Outsider female?”

“Harvey,” Saldo said, recalling the motion of the old man’s hand, the upthrust pointing finger to denote his discovery. A trickle of perspiration ran down Saldo’s cheek. He wiped at it irritatedly and the action burned his wound.

“What orders did he give then?” Hellstrom asked.

“He had told us earlier that we were to circle her when we found her. We carried that out without orders.”

“What did Harvey do then?”

“He had no chance to do anything. The female turned on her light and immediately began shooting.”

Hellstrom looked down at the ground between them, glanced around. Several nearby workers had left their tasks out of curiosity and had moved closer to listen. “Why aren’t you workers doing as your leader ordered?” Hellstrom demanded. “Your leader gave you specific instructions. Carry them out.” He turned back to Saldo.

“They are tired,” Saldo said, defending his workers. “I will make a personal inspection of their work before leaving.”

This one is a jewel, Hellstrom thought. He defends his people, but not too much. And he takes personal responsibility without hesitation.

“Exactly where were you when she began shooting?” Hellstrom asked.

“I was at the other end of the sweep from Harvey. When we closed the loop, I found myself beside him.”

“Who knocked her out of the tree?”

“The workers across from us where her light did not reach. The rest of us were dodging.”

“And Harvey gave no more commands?”

“I believe he was the first one hit. I heard her first shot and—” he hesitated, shrugged, “for just an instant, I froze. Then I was hit and we were all rushing about. I saw Harvey go down and I started toward him. There were more shots and suddenly it was all over. She fell out of the tree.”

“Your confusion is understandable because you were wounded,” Hellstrom said. “I notice, however, that you kept your sense of balance sufficiently to prevent the killing of the captive. You have lived up to my expectations. But always remember what happened here. You have had a good lesson. The hunting of an Outsider is never the same as the hunting of any other animal. Do you understand that now?”

Saldo knew he had been both praised and censured. His attention went to the tree in which the female had concealed herself, then, reluctantly, back to Hellstrom. Presently, Saldo saw the slight lift of Hellstrom’s mouth that denoted pleasure. Sure enough, Hellstrom said, “You caught the female alive and that’s the important thing.” He pursed his lips. “She carried a weapon and Harvey should have anticipated that. He should’ve brought her down the instant he saw her. He was within range. Do you know bow to use such Outsider weapons, Saldo?”

“Yes—yes, I know. Harvey trained me himself.”

“Learn to use them well. The Hive could have need of such abilities. Let’s see, you’re thirty-two years old, isn’t that correct?”

“Yes.”

“You still could pass for a youth among Outsiders. It may be that we will send you out to one of their schools before long. We have ways of doing such things. You know about this.”

“I have not spent much time Outside,” Saldo said.

“I know. What experiences have you had?”

“Only with others, never alone. About a month in all. I spent a week in the town once.”

“Work or training?”

“Training for myself and others.”

“Would you like to go Outside alone?”

“I don’t think I’m ready for it.”

Hellstrom nodded, pleased with the candor of that answer. Saldo would make a superb security specialist. He already was far and away the most intuitively accurate among the new breed. Give him a bit more experience and there would be none to compare with him. He possessed that beautiful Hive candor. He wouldn’t lie, not even about himself. He was a leader to be preserved and nurtured. Hive conventions demanded this and the present circumstances required that Hellstrom begin that nurturing.

“You are doing very well,” Hellstrom said, speaking loud enough for the others to hear. “When the present crisis is over, we’ll make arrangements to send you Outside for further education. For now, report to me when you’ve finished out here.” He turned slowly, strolled back toward the Hive, pausing occasionally to glance around. Every movement said he was satisfied to leave matters in Saldo’s hands.

For a moment, Saldo watched Hellstrom go. The Hive’s first counselor, leader in every crisis, the prime male, the one to whom all others turned when in doubt-even those who guided breeding and food production and tool fabrication-the chief worker among them all had come out on a fact-finding expedition and had approved what he found. Saldo returned to overseeing the cleanup with a new sense of elation strongly tempered by a deeper respect for his own limitations. That, he realized, had been a major purpose of Hellstrom’s visit.

Tymiena realized quite slowly that her hands were bound behind her and that she was fastened securely into a chair of some kind. The chair’s surface was hard and she could feel the cold smoothness of its back against her arms. The most central part of her mind focused on her ankle, which throbbed painfully where she had sprained it. Fighting a deep reluctance, she opened her eyes, but she found only an impenetrable darkness, thick and ominous. For a moment, she feared she might be blind, but a faint glow insinuated itself into her awareness. The glow existed at an indeterminate distance directly in front of her. It moved.

“Ahhh, you’re awake, I see.”

It was a deep, masculine voice from somewhere above the moving glow. Something about the echo quality of the voice told her she was in a room, quite a large room.

She put down her terror with difficulty, forced a false nonchalance into her voice, and said, “How can you see? It’s pitch dark.”

Hellstrom, seated in a corner of the laboratory where he could watch the glowing instruments that told him the female’s reactions, could only admire her courage. They often were so very brave, these wild ones.

“I can see,” he said.

“My ankle hurts like hell,” she said.

“I truly regret that. We will give you something for that presently. Try to be patient.”

She found an oddly reassuring sincerity in the voice. It was a man’s voice, ranging from low to tenor. Exquisite control.

“I hope it won’t be very long,” she said.

She must be brought into some semblance of calmness, Hellstrom told himself. The nightmask was irritating where it pressed against his nose and forehead. He did not like the way it limned the female in a silvery glow. The irritation came from fatigue, he knew. Sometimes the Hive demanded too much of him. But this Outsider female must be questioned, and he found himself reluctant to turn her over to the merciless youngsters who waited so eagerly for the opportunity to prove themselves. He told himself that he delayed with this female because he did not trust what the others had wrenched from Depeaux. How could the Outsiders know about Project 40? One of the interrogators must have mentioned it! That was it, of course. Well, it could be tested with this female.

“First, I must ask you a few questions,” he said.

“Why’re you keeping it so dark?” she asked.

“So you cannot see me.”

Sudden, wild elation filled her. If they didn’t want her to see someone, that meant she would have an opportunity to describe her captors. It could only mean they meant to release her!

Hellstrom read her reaction on his instruments and said, “You were very hysterical out there. Did you think we were going to harm your?”

She wondered what he meant by that question. They had her tied up like a Christmas turkey, which didn’t indicate the best of intentions. “I was terrified,” she said. “Did—did I hurt anyone?”

“You killed five of our people and injured two others,” Hellstrom said.

She had not expected such a coldly candid answer and it shocked her. Five dead? Could they actually release her after that?

“I—I felt trapped,” she said. “My—my husband was not back and I was—alone. I was terribly afraid. What’ve you done to Carlos?”

“He is suffering no pain,” Hellstrom said. And that was true, he told himself. It was difficult to lie outright, even to a wild Outsider. His statement was true. Depeaux had been blissfully unconscious when his torn body had been slipped into the choppers and thence to the dissolving fluids of the vats. He had suffered no pain there, and surely death had overcome him before any glimmering return to consciousness. The choppers were quick.

“Why do you have me tied this way?” she asked.

“To keep you in one place while I ask my questions. Tell me your name.”

They would have her cover identification papers, she thought. “My name’s Tymiena—Tymiena Depeaux.”

“Tell me about this government agency for which you work.”

Her heart skipped a beat, but she managed a semblance of masked response. “Gov—I don’t work for any government agency! We were on vacation. My husband sells fireworks.”

Hellstrom smiled sadly at what his instruments revealed. It was true, then. Both of them worked for a government agency and that agency was curious. Although he had been opaque to most of their probings, Porter had revealed as much. But Porter had not said anything about Project 40. Would this female impart such information? He felt a quickening of his pulse. This was the kind of danger the Hive had always feared, but there was something in it that aroused his hunt juices.

“Is your agency the CIA?” Hellstrom asked.

“I’m just a housewife!” she protested. “Where’s Carlos? What’ve you done with my husband?”

Hellstrom sighed. It was not the CIA, then—provided her responses could be trusted, and provided she even knew the connections behind her employment. It was possible she did not know. Such agencies had a proclivity for putting covers on covers on covers. “Do not worry about your husband,” he said. “You will be with him soon. We know, however, that you are not a simple housewife. Simple housewives do not carry such weapons as you had in your possession. They certainly do not demonstrate the proficiency you displayed with such a weapon.”

“I don’t believe I killed anyone,” she said.

“But you did.”

“Carlos insisted I have that gun. He taught me how to shoot it.”

Another lie, Hellstrom observed. He felt cheated. Why was she continuing to hide? Surely, she must know by now that she had been exposed by her accomplice. His questions could not conceal this. Hellstrom had forced himself to read the Depeaux interrogation account, avoiding nothing. What the merciless youngsters did, they did in the name of all the Hive. He wondered if he dared put her through a chemical reduction of personality. The youngsters argued against it. The method was painless, but uncertain. It had reduced Porter to slavering imbecility. The heroic totality of such an effort tended to erase memories as it exposed them. He did not want the Porter effort repeated and decided not to listen to his own inner revulsions. What must be, must be. He would continue with present methods, however, as long as she did not suspect her emotions were being monitored and as long as information was being gathered. The tapes were spinning to record everything that occurred here. They could be subjected to full analysis later. Even the Hive’s central computer might be helpful in the analysis, although Hellstrom tended to distrust computers. They had no emotions. Having no emotions, they failed when confronted by human problems.

“Why do you lie?” he asked.

“I’m not lying!”

“Is the agency that employs you an arm of the U.S. State Department?”

“If you won’t believe me, there’s no sense answering. I just don’t understand what’s going on here. You chase me, knock me out, tie me up, and all for—”

“And you killed five of my friends,” he reminded her. “Why?”

“I don’t believe you. You’d better let me go. Carlos is a very important man in his company. There are people who’ll come looking for us if I don’t call them.”

“If you don’t report in?” Hellstrom studied his instruments. She’d been telling the truth there, for once.

“It’s not like that!”

So she was supposed to report in, probably at regular intervals, Hellstrom thought. The eager youngsters had not elicited that from Depeaux. But then they hadn’t asked.

“Why were you sent here?” he asked.

“I wasn’t sent!”

“Then what were you doing here?”

She seized this opportunity to elaborate on her cover story: the long hours Carlos usually worked, the rare vacations, his interest in birds, her own interest in landscape painting. There was a certain delicate practicality about her account, a sense of domesticity she found herself almost wishing were true. Carlos hadn’t been such a bad sort in spite of . . . She broke off her account as this thought intruded. It confused her. There was internal significance in such a thought. Why would she think about Carlos in the past tense? Carlos was dead! She felt certain of this. What had that character over there in the dark said to give her this feeling of certainty? She trusted her instincts and felt fear rising like a tide of bile.

Hellstrom saw the emotion on his instruments, tried to divert her. “Are you hungry?” he asked.

She found it difficult to speak at first, then responded in spite of a dry mouth. “No, but my ankle hurts terribly.”

“We’ll take care of that pretty soon,” he reassured her. “Tell me, Mrs. Depeaux, if you were frightened, why did you not drive down to Fosterville in your camper?”

That’s what I should’ve done! she told herself. But she suspected this character and his friends had been prepared for such an attempt and that wouldn’t have succeeded, either. She said, “I must’ve done something wrong. It wouldn’t start.”

“That’s odd,” he said. “It started immediately for us.”

So they had the camper, too! All evidence of Depeaux and Grinelli would be gone by now. Carlos and Tymiena, both dead. A tear trickled down the edge of her left cheek.

“Are you a communist agent?” she husked.

In spite of himself, Hellstrom chuckled. “What an odd question from a simple housewife!”

His amusement filled her with bracing anger. “You’re the one who keeps talking about agents and the State Department!” she flared. “What’s going on here?”

“You are not what you appear to be, Mrs. Depeaux,” Hellstrom said. “There is even some doubt in my mind as to whether you actually are Mrs. Depeaux.” Ahhh, that hit a nerve! he noted. So they were just working together and not married. “I suspect you did—do not even care much for Carlos.”

Did not care! she thought. That’s what he was going to say! He caught himself. The lie came out!

She began to think back over this unseen man’s every reference to Carlos. The dead felt no pain. There was a sense of over-and-done-with about every mention of Carlos. She revised her assessment of her own situation. Darkness could have more significance than hiding the identity of her interrogator. It could be a deliberate ploy to confuse her, lower her defenses. She began exploring her bindings, straining against them. They were damnably tight!

“You do not answer me,” Hellstrom said.

“Why should I? I think you’re awful!”

“Is your agency an arm of the government’s executive branch?”

“No!”

He read otherwise in her responses, but it was a tempered reading. The answer probably was that she believed this to be the case but harbored her own doubts. He noted she was twisting frantically, trying to escape her bonds. Didn’t she believe he could see her?

“Why does the government investigate us?” he asked.

She refused to answer. The bindings were deceptive. They felt like leather and appeared to give when she strained against them, but when she stopped struggling even for an instant, they felt as tight as ever.

“You work for an agency associated with the executive arm of government,” he said. “It is a matter of curiosity that such an agency should pry into our affairs. What interest could the government have in us?”

“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” she asked.

She gave up struggling, felt completely exhausted. Her mind teetered on the edge of hysteria. They were going to kill her. They’d killed Carlos and were going to kill her. Something had gone very sour. It was the very thing she’d sensed in this assignment from the first. That damn fool, Merrivale! He never got anything right! And Carlos—the dope of dopes! Carlos had probably walked right into a trap. They’d caught him and he’d spilled his guts. That was obvious. This questioner knew too many things already. Carlos had babbled and they’d killed him anyway.

Hellstrom’s instruments revealed her approach to hysteria. The fear disturbed him. He knew it was partly his own sensitivity to her subtle bodily excretions. She was broadcasting terror for anyone Hive-trained to receive. No worker could escape such awareness. He didn’t even need his instruments. This room would have to be flushed out later. They’d had to do the same thing after interrogating Depeaux. Any workers who encountered such emissions would be disturbed. He still had his duty to the Hive, though. Perhaps in her fear she would reveal what he most wanted to know.

“You work for the government,” he said. “We know this. You were sent here to pry into our affairs. What did you expect to find?”

“I wasn’t!” she screamed. “I wasn’t! I wasn’t! I wasn’t! Carlos just told me we were going on vacation. What’ve you done with Carlos?”

“You’re lying,” he said. “I know you are lying and you certainly must realize by now that your lies are not working with me. It will go better with you if you tell me the truth.”

“You’re going to kill me anyway,” she whispered.

Damn! Hellstrom thought.

His brood mother had warned him that this crisis within a crisis might come in his lifetime. His workers had tortured a wild human. It had been done far outside the concept of mercy. Such a concept had not even entered the workers’ awareness as they went about their business of extracting information necessary for the Hive’s survival. But such actions left their mark on the entire Hive. There were no more innocents anywhere in the Hive. We’ve moved a step closer to the insects we mimic, he thought. And he wondered why the thought saddened him. He suspected that any life form that inflicted unnecessary pain tended to find its consciousness eroding. Without consciousness to reflect back upon life, all life might lose its sense of purpose.

In sudden anger, he snarled, “Tell me about Project 40!”

She gasped. They knew everything! What did they do to Carlos to make him tell everything? She felt icy with terror.

“Tell me!” he barked.

“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The instruments told him what he needed to know. “It will go very badly with you if you do not tell me,” he explained. “I wish to spare you that. Tell me about Project 40.”

“But I don’t know anything about it,” she moaned.

The instruments accorded this the value of an almost truth. “You know some things about it,” he said. “Tell me those things.”

“Why don’t you just go ahead and kill me?” she asked.

Hellstrom found himself working through a haze of deep sadness, almost despair. Powerful wild humans Outside knew about Project 40! How could that be? What did they know? This female was little more than a pawn in a larger game, but she might yet provide a valuable clue.

“You must tell me what you know,” he said. “If you do, I promise to treat you gently.”

“I don’t trust you,” she said.

“You have no one else to trust.”

“They’ll come looking for me!”

“But they will not find you. Now, tell me what you know about Project 40.”

“It’s just a name,” she said, wilting. What was the use? They knew everything else.

“Where did you encounter this name?”

“There were papers. They were left on a table at MIT and one of our people copied them.”

Stunned, Hellstrom closed his eyes. “What was in those papers?” he asked.

“Some figures and formulas and things that didn’t make much sense. But one of our people suggested they could be part of a design for a weapon.”

“Did he say what kind of weapon?”

“I think they said a particle pump or something like that. They said such a weapon could resonate matter at a distance, break glass, that sort of thing.” She sighed deeply, wondered why she was talking. They were going to kill her anyway. What did anything matter?

“Are—your people attempting to make such a weapon from these papers?”

“They’re trying, but I heard that the papers they found were incomplete. They’re not sure about a lot of things and there’s an argument over whether it’s really a weapon.”

“They do not agree that it’s a weapon?”

“I don’t think so.” Again she sighed. “Is it a weapon?”

“It is a weapon,” he said.

“Are you going to kill me now?” she asked.

The plaintive, pleading note in her voice sent rage erupting in him. The fools! The utter fools! He groped for his stunwand which he’d dropped to the floor beside the instruments, found it, and brought it up, setting for full charge. Those wild idiots Outside had to be stopped. He thrust the wand toward her as though he wanted to penetrate her flesh with it, let her have the full charge. The force of it resonating in the insulated confines of the laboratory stunned him for an instant and when he had recovered he saw that all of the needles on his instruments had dropped to zero. He turned on the lab’s coved lights, got to his feet slowly, and crossed to the female form sagging in the chair. She lay slumped to her right, held by the bindings. She was utterly still. He knew she was dead before he bent and confirmed it. She had taken a charge strong enough to kill a steer. There would be no more questioning of Tymiena whatever her name was.

Why did I do that? he wondered. Had it been the memory of Depeaux’s shattered flesh going into the vats? Was it some higher demand from his Hive awareness? Or had it been a peculiar personal quirk? He had acted in reflex, not thinking. It was done; no calling it back. But his own behavior troubled him.

Still in the grip of anger, he strode from the lab. When the eager youngsters in the outer room crowded around, he waved them aside, told them the captive female was dead. He answered their protests with curt gestures, saying only that he had learned what he needed to learn. When one of the youngsters asked if they should take the carcass to the vats or try for a sexual stump, he paused for only the briefest reflection before agreeing that they should try for a stump. Perhaps some of that female flesh could be revived and preserved. If her womb could be maintained, she might yet serve the Hive. It would be interesting to see a child of that flesh.

Other problems dominated his thoughts, however. He stalked from the lab area, still angry with himself. Outsiders knew about Project 40! A Hive worker had been destructively careless. How had such papers been allowed out of the Hive? Who had done this? How? Papers at MIT? Who had done the research there? The Hive must learn the extent of this disaster and take quick action that nothing of this sort ever happened again.

He hoped the breeder labs succeeded in making a sexual stump of Tymiena. She had served the Hive already and she deserved to have her genes preserved.