Hellstrom's Hive (Frank Herbert) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги (ч. 13)

From the permanent minutes of the Hive Council.

Present computations indicate that the Hive will begin to feel swarming pressures when it passes a population of sixty thousand. Without some protection, as Project 40 would offer, we cannot permit such a swarming to occur. For all of the ingenuity provided us by our specialists, we are helpless before the combined might of the Outside, whose killing machines would crush us. The total dedication of our workers would make them fall by the thousands in the suicidal attempt to insure the future of our kind. But we are few and the Outsiders are many. The unreasoning brutality of nature’s underlying plan must be stayed for this time of preparation. Someday, given the potency of a weapon such as Project 40, we will be able to emerge, and, if our workers die on that day, they will die with reason—through selflessness, not through greed.

“They are, as usual, firm and polite, but evasive,” Janvert said, turning from the telephone.

It was daylight outside Clovis’s apartment now, and she had dressed in preparation for the specific summons they both knew would come soon.

“They told you to be patient,” Clovis said. She had returned to her favorite position on the long couch and sat with her feet tucked under her.

“And one thing more,” Janvert said. “Peruge himself definitely is going to head this team. Old Jollyvale doesn’t like that one bit.”

“You think he wanted this one himself?”

“God, no! But he is operations director. With Peruge in the field, Jollyvale can’t give orders. He’s effectively no longer operations director. Now that, he doesn’t like.”

“It’s definite about Peruge?”

“No doubt.”

“That explains why they’re not being very informative.”

“I suppose so.” Janvert crossed to the couch and sat beside her, taking her hand in his and rubbing the warm skin absently. “I’m scared,” he said. “I’m really scared for the first time in this shitty business. I’ve always known they didn’t give one particle of a damn about us, but Peruge—” Janvert swallowed convulsively, “I think he takes a positive pride in how many people he can waste, and he doesn’t care whose people they are, ours or theirs.”

“Don’t let him know how you feel, for God’s sake,” Clovis said.

“Oh, I won’t. I’ll be the usual happy-go-lucky Shorty, always ready with a quip and a smile.”

“Do you think we’ll be going out today?”

“Tonight at the latest.”

“I’ve often wondered about Peruge,” she said. “I’ve wondered who he actually is. That funny damned name and everything.”

“At least he has a name,” Janvert said. “The Chief, now—”

“Don’t even think it,” she warned.

“Haven’t you ever wondered if we really work for the government?” he asked. “Or—whether our bosses represent an overgovernment behind the visible one.”

“If you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about, I don’t want to know anything about it,” she said.

“That’s a good, safe attitude,” he said. He dropped her hand, stood up, and returned to his restless pacing.

Clovis was right, of course. This place was bugged. They’d known precisely where to call for him. No helping that: when you worked to make the world a fishbowl, you lived in a fishbowl. The trick was to become one of the fish watchers.