Hellstrom's Hive

As Hellstrom emerged into the open cavern of the studio that occupied most of the north half of the barn, a young woman production assistant, who had been working with a glass-enclosed beehive nearby, saw him and waved to attract his attention. Hellstrom hesitated, torn by the desire to go immediately up to the command post aerie and the recognition of a need to maintain an air of unbroken continuity in Hive-supportive work. He recognized the young woman, of course: one of the lesser crew who could front on occasion for limited contact with the Outsiders who came to look into the film work for legitimate reasons. She was one of the Niles-8 genetic line: poor eyesight in that line which would have to be corrected in the breeding processes. They were also susceptible to Outsider tastes, as was the FANCY line.

He noted that members of the second film crew were standing around the glassed beehive with their arms folded. Everything about the scene spelled a delay. That could be costly. Hellstrom weighed his various problems. Old Harvey could be trusted to obey his orders. The money represented by this film equaled a vital resource. Hellstrom shifted direction in mid-stride, headed toward the production assistant and her idle crew. She had a plain face not helped by large granny glasses and blonde hair pulled back in a severe chignon. But she had a full figure and was obviously fertile. Hellstrom wondered idly if she had been examined yet for her personal breeding potential.

Using her Outsider name, he spoke as he came up to her. “What is it, Stella?”

“We’re having some unexpected trouble with this beehive and I wanted to call Fancy in for assistance, but I was told you have her on another assignment from which she cannot be released.”

“That’s true,” Hellstrom said, realizing that someone had taken him literally in his private instructions to keep Fancy under close surveillance. “What’s happening with your bees?”

“They’re balling on the queen every time we try to get her exposed for photographing. The last time that happened, Fancy told us to call her and she might be able to help.”

“Did she give you an alternative to calling her?”

“She said to try a tranquilizer in their feeder and in their air.”

“Have you done this?”

“We’d like to have them more active.”

“I see. Did Fancy tell you what might be causing this?”

“She thinks it’s something in the air—maybe atmospheric electricity or a chemical emitted by our own bodies.”

“Can we shoot around these bees for now?”

“Ed thinks we can. He wanted to call you earlier and see if you’d be available for one of the lab sequences in which you appear.”

“When would he want to shoot it?”

“Tonight, probably by around eight o’clock.”

Hellstrom fell silent, considering all of his manifest problems. “I think I can be ready for that shooting by eight. Tell Ed to set up for it. I’ve had my daysleep and can work all night if need be.” He turned away; that should keep things here on an even keel, but he saw the bees at once as a metaphor of his own Hive. If the Hive became too upset, things could get out of hand. Workers might take action on their own. He signaled to a boom operator in the center of the studio, pointed to himself and to the loft that gave entrance to the command aerie.

The boom cage on its long arm swung down to the studio floor with all of the silent grace of a mantis reaching for its prey. Hellstrom stepped into the cage and it wafted him upward, swung in a wide arc, and deposited him at the edge of the loft floor. As he stepped out of the cage, Hellstrom reflected on how admirably this device served the needs of both security and cover. No one could get up to the loft without the help of a trusted boom operator, yet it was the most natural thing to think of a boom as an elevator and to use that as an excuse for leaving no other access into the security section.

The loft had been set up with a central well running for half the length of the barn. The other half concealed the outlets for ventilators, with a bypass for visual examination of the valley’s upper reaches. Slide ropes had been coiled neatly at even spacings along the edge of the loft floor, each rope secured to one of the stanchions of the guardrail. The ropes, which the Hive’s workers had practiced on, but had never been forced to use, offered emergency access to the studio floor. Neither the ropes, nor the inner wall behind the walkway, nor the doors into the various security stations were visible from the studio floor.

Hellstrom walked along the open area, noting a slight smell of dust that alerted him to remind the cleaning crews that the studio must be kept free of dust. The catwalk, with its view of the multiple activities in the studio below, led him along the soundproofed wall to an end door with both sound and light baffles.

He let himself into Old Harvey’s station through the dark passage of the baffle. It was gloomy inside and filled with the smells of Outside that came in through open louvers at the end. An arc of green-glowing repeater screens had been installed along the inner wall against a thermite-bomb destruction system that could burn out the entire barn right down to the noninflammable mucilaginous quickplugs that could be triggered to seal off the Hive head. The present emergency made Hellstrom acutely conscious of all these preparations which had been a part of Hive awareness for so many years.

Old Harvey looked up from the console as Hellstrom entered. The old man was gray haired, with a big, forward-thrust face like a Saint Bernard. He even had dewlaps at the edges of his jawline to accent the likeness. His eyes were widely spaced, brown and deceptively mild. Hellstrom had once seen Old Harvey behead a hysterical worker with one sweep of a meat cleaver—but that had been long ago in his own childhood and that hysterical line had been weeded out of the Hive’s breeding stock.

“Where’s our Outsider?” Hellstrom asked.

“He had something to eat a while back, then crawled off the hilltop,” Old Harvey said. “He’s working his way toward the upper end of the valley now. If he stations himself where I think he will, we’ll be able to look out the louvers at the other end and watch him directly with binoculars. We’re keeping all the lights off inside, of course, to reduce the chance that he’ll notice activity up here.”

Good, cautious thinking. “Have you reviewed the Porter material? I noticed earlier that you—”

“I’ve reviewed it.”

“What’s your opinion?” Hellstrom asked.

“Same sort of approach, clothing designed to give him concealment in the grass. Want to bet his cover is he’s a bird watcher?”

“I think you’d win.”

“Too much professionalism about him, though.” He studied one of the console screens over an observer’s shoulder, pointed, and said, “There he is, just as I expected.”

The screen showed the intruder crawling under a stand of bushes to get a view down the length of the valley.

“Is he carrying a weapon?” Hellstrom asked.

“Our sensors indicate not. I think he has a flashlight and a pocketknife in addition to those binoculars. Look at that: there are ants up there on the ledge and he doesn’t like them. See how he’s brushing them off his arm.”

“Ants? How long since we’ve swept that area?”

“A month or so. Do you want it checked?”

“No. Just have it noted that it may be time for another sweep there by a small crew. We need several nests in the newer hydroponics sections.”

“Right.” Old Harvey nodded and turned to relay instructions by hand signal to one of his assistants. Presently, he turned back and spoke musingly. “That Porter was a strange one. I’ve been reviewing what he said. He told us quite a bit, really.”

“He was in the wrong business,” Hellstrom agreed dryly.

“What do you think they’re after?” Old Harvey asked.

“We’ve somehow attracted the attention of an official agency,” Hellstrom said. “They don’t have to be after anything except satisfaction for their own brand of paranoia.”

Old Harvey grimaced, shuddered. “I don’t like the feeling of this, Nils.”

“Nor I.”

“Are you sure you’ve made the right decision?”

“To the best of my ability. Our first step must be to pick up this pair. One of them must know more than the late Mr. Porter.”

“I sure hope you’re right, Nils.”