Hellstrom's Hive

“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.”