Hellstrom's Hive

Saldo made record time coming up from the Hive’s 5,000-foot level where the researchers had moved their operations. There were fast elevators only in the so-called new galleries below 3,100 feet, but even these became progressively slower the higher he went. The work in the new galleries delayed him slightly at 3,800 feet, but he bulled his way through, making a note to ask Hellstrom if that work could not be put on minimum standby during the present crisis.

He had left a young assistant at the relocated lab, seated at the southeast end of the long gallery with the secret weapon Saldo had commandeered: the binoculars once used by the Outsider, Depeaux. The binoculars revealed a spate of activity by the researchers which Saldo interpreted as readiness for a test of the system. He dared not approach the specialists, though. Hellstrom’s orders had been explicit on that score. Only Hellstrom might change that now and, knowing the urgency, Saldo went to argue for a small interruption of the lab work.

It was almost midnight when the boom cage deposited him on the catwalk outside the aerie. A guardworker there passed him with only a casual glance of recognition. The inner room was dim and oddly hushed as he passed through the baffle, and he saw that most of the Hive’s leadership cadre had taken over the night duty with Hellstrom, who stood at the room’s north end, a blocky figure against the dark outline of the louvered window. Saldo found he did not have the highest regard for the leadership qualities of most of those present, excepting Hellstrom, and sometimes even Hellstrom. Some of these workers should be conserving their strength for the morrow. He knew this inner reaction reflected a pattern bred and conditioned into him, but the knowledge subtracted little from his assessment of his own personal qualities. Hellstrom—and at least half of those present—should be resting now.

Saldo had known he would find Hellstrom here, though, and he found nothing inconsistent in the recognition that he, too, would have been standing there at that window to the north were he in Hellstrom’s place.

Hellstrom turned and recognized Saldo making his way through the green gloom. “Saldo!” he said. “Is there something to report?”

Saldo moved close to Hellstrom and, speaking in a low voice, explained why he had left the lab.

“Are you sure they’re about to test it?”

“It looks that way. They’ve been stringing the power cables for several hours. They didn’t bother with power cables on the other models until they were about to test.”

“How soon?”

“That’s difficult to say.”

Hellstrom moved back and forth a few paces restlessly, fatigue visible in the controlled precision of his actions. He stopped in front of Saldo. “I don’t see how they could be testing it this soon.” He rubbed his chin. “They said the new model would have to use the entire gallery.”

“They are using the gallery, all of it, and fans and a strange construction of pipes that they are connecting down the entire length of the gallery. They’re supporting the pipe on anything they can collect—chairs, benches—it’s a very strange thing they’re building. They even took a heavy-duty pump from level-forty-two hydroponics. They just went right in, disconnected it, and took it. The hydroponics manager was upset, as you can imagine, but they merely said you’d authorized it. Is that true?”

“In essence,” Hellstrom said.

“Nils, do you think it likely they’d behave this way unless they were about to test and were reasonably sure of success?”

Privately, Hellstrom agreed with Saldo, but there were other considerations, and he had not yet dared to let himself hope. The specialists’ behavior might be a reflection of the upset that had spread throughout the Hive. Hellstrom did not think this likely, but it was possible.

“Shouldn’t you go down and make a personal inquiry?” Saldo asked.

Hellstrom sympathized with the impatience that had brought Saldo up from the lab. It was an impatience shared by many in the Hive. Was anything to be served by going down there now himself, though? The specialists might not tell him anything. They were naturally wary of predicting the outcome in any project. They spoke of probabilities when they did speak, or of possible consequences in certain “lines of development.” It was understandable. Experiments had been known to turn upon the experimenters. An earlier test model in Project 40 had created an explosive plasma bubble which had killed fifty-three workers, including four researchers, and had spread havoc two hundred feet in a side gallery at level thirty-nine.

“What power-drain figures did they give Generation?” Hellstrom asked. “How much diversion do they require?”

“The generation specialists asked, but were told the computation is not complete. I’ve posted another observer in Generation, however. Surely, the researchers must ask for the diversion.”

“Will Generation make an estimate based on the size of the power cables being used?”

“As much as five hundred thousand kilowatts. It could be less, though.”

“That much?” Hellstrom took a deep breath. “Researchers are different from the rest of us in many ways, Saldo. They were bred for a rather narrowed vision, a concentration of intellect. We should be prepared for the possibility of a disastrous failure.”

“A dis—” Saldo fell into stricken silence.

“Prepare to evacuate the area for at least three levels around the test gallery,” Hellstrom said. “You are to post yourself in Generation. Tell the managing specialist not to connect the power cables until I have given permission. When the researchers come to make the power arrangements, call me. Ask them then, if you’re able, what range and error factor they are estimating for the project. Get the power figures and, at the same time, order the evacuation of the galleries. We will risk no more workers than necessary.”

Saldo stood in subdued awe. He felt depressed, rebounding from his former pride. None of these precautions had entered his mind. He had thought only to argue Hellstrom into one particular course of action. The stratagem of stationing an observer in Generation with the authority to delay the power hookup, however, filled the demands of Saldo’s own plan and did far more.

“Perhaps you’d better send somebody with more imagination and ability to Generation,” Saldo said. “Maybe Ed—”

“You are the one I want in Generation,” Hellstrom said. “Ed is a seasoned specialist with long experience Outside. He can think like an Outsider, which you cannot. He also has had sufficient tempering that he seldom overestimates his own capabilities, nor underestimates them. In a word, he is balanced. If we are to survive these next hours, we require this quality above all others. I trust you to carry out my orders carefully and completely. I know you can and will. Now, get back to your station.”

Saldo’s shoulders came up and he looked at Hellstrom’s fatigue-lined features. “Nils, I didn’t think—”

Hellstrom interrupted in a softer tone. “In part, it is my fatigue being short and severe with you. This is something you should have taken into consideration. You could have called me on the internal system without leaving your post. A true leader considers many possibilities before acting. If you were ready for leadership, you would have thought to conserve my energies, as well as your own. You will grow into this ability, and the delay time between your consideration of many courses and your decision to act correctly will grow shorter and shorter.”

“I’m going back to my post at once,” Saldo said. He turned, started across the room. As he moved, voices were raised at the observer stations. A garble of sound could be heard coming over one of the communicators. An observer could be heard asking, “Who else is there to take charge?” Another garble erupted from the communicators. “One at a time!” the observer shouted. “Tell them to hold their stations. If too many of us are running around without coordination, we’ll just get in each other’s way. We’ll take charge of the search from here.”

The observer, a young female subleader-in-training, whose face appeared an oval mask of shock in the light from her screen, lifted herself half out of her chair to peer across the bank of instruments at Hellstrom. “One of the captives has escaped in the Hive!”

Hellstrom was at her side as soon as he could get there in a thrusting rush across the room. Saldo hesitated at the door.

“Which one?” Hellstrom demanded, bending over the observer.

“The one called Janvert. Shall we dispatch workers to—”

“No.”

Saldo spoke from the door. “Nils, should I—”

“Get to your station!” Hellstrom called, not moving his gaze from the screen in front of the young observer. A frightened guardworker appeared on the screen, a young male with the shoulder mark of dronedom. “Which level?” Hellstrom demanded.

“Forty-two,” the worker on the screen said. “And he has a stunwand. I don’t see how he could—he killed two workers, the ones who said they were sent to - to—at your orders to—”

“I understand,” Hellstrom interrupted. They were the specialists he had sent down to bring Janvert to sufficient alertness for use as an envoy. Something had gone wrong and Janvert had escaped. Hellstrom straightened, gazing at the workers around him in the aerie. “Awaken your replacements. Janvert has been Hive-marked. No common worker would recognize him as an Outsider. He can move anywhere in the Hive without attracting attention. We have a double problem. We must recapture him and we must not upset the Hive any more than it already is. Make that clear to every searcher. Send your replacements after Janvert with a physical description. Issue Outsider guns to at least one worker in each search party as long as the guns last. I don’t want stunwands used in the Hive under these circumstances.”

“You want him dead and in the vats then,” a worker behind Hellstrom said.

“No, I do not!”

“But you said—”

“One gun with each party,” Hellstrom said. “The gun is to wound him in the legs only if nothing else can be done to stop him. I want him taken alive. Do you all understand that? We need this Outsider alive.”