Hellstrom's Hive

It took Hellstrom’s number-two camera crew almost six hours to shoot the new lab sequence with mice and wasps. Even then, Hellstrom was not satisfied that they had the proper effect on film. He had become very sensitive to the artistic merit of what they created. He expected the rushes to be far short of what he had hoped for in this sequence. The demands for excellence he was making now went far beyond the implicit knowledge that quality brought more income to the Hive. He wanted quality for the thing itself, just as he wanted it for every aspect of the Hive.

Quality of specialists, quality of life, quality of creations—all were interrelated.

Hellstrom had the boom lift him to the aerie after they finished shooting, trying to conceal his worries over the latest reports on the night sweep. Because he had been in this sequence, he had been tied to the set during the most important part of the sweep. It was still many hours to dawn and the problem had not been solved: the female who had accompanied their captive intruder remained at large.

One of the Hive’s chief concerns had always been to produce workers who could “front” for them with the Outside, incorruptible workers who would not betray even by chance what lay beneath Guarded Valley and its surrounding hills. Hellstrom wondered now if they might not have uncovered a breeding defect somewhere in the personnel charged with the sweeps. The male intruder had been picked up easily beyond the bordering trees of the west meadow. A sweep detail had enveloped the van-camper almost immediately afterward, but somehow they had missed the female. It didn’t seem possible that she could escape, but none of the sweepworkers had even smelled her trail.

Many key security workers were in the aerie command post when Hellstrom entered. They noted his entrance, but stayed at their jobs. Hellstrom scanned the dimly lighted room with its arc of repeater screens, its little clutches of workers discussing the problem. Saldo was there, dark in the manner of his breeder mother, Fancy, but with the harsh hawk features of his Outsider father. (That was one thing Fancy did well, Hellstrom reminded himself. She bred Outside at every opportunity and the resultant new genes were prized by the Hive.) Old Harvey’s post at the security console had been taken over by a younger male of Fancy’s line. He took the name of Timothy Hannsen in his Outside guise. Hannsen had been chosen as a front because of penetrating good looks that tended to overpower the conscious balance of Outsider females. He also had a sharply incisive mind which made him particularly valuable in a crisis. That was true of many in Fancy’s line, but particularly so of Saldo. Hellstrom had high hopes for Saldo, who had been taken on as a special educational charge by Old Harvey.

Hellstrom paused inside the door to gauge conditions in the aerie. Should he take over? They would defer to him at the slightest indication that he was assuming command. Brood mother Trova’s decision had never been really questioned. They always sensed how much more potent was his commitment to the Hive, how much more effective his decisions. They might disagree at times, and occasionally even prevail over him, but there remained a subtle air of deference even when they voted him down in the Council. And when, as often happened, his view later proved to have been the correct one, his hold on them became even stronger. It was a situation toward which Hellstrom maintained a constant mistrust.

No worker is perfect, he told himself. The Hive itself must be supreme in all things.

Old Harvey stood against the wall at Hellstrom’s left, arms folded, his face underlighted by the glowing screens, giving the illusion that he had been cast from green stone. There was movement in his eyes, though. Old Harvey was watching the room critically. Hellstrom crossed to his side, glanced once at the dewlapped old face, then at the consoles. “Any sign of her yet?”

“No.”

“Didn’t we have her under constant infrasurveillance?”

“Radar and sonics, too,” Old Harvey muttered.

“Did she have instruments to detect us?”

“She tried to use her radio, but we jammed it.”

“That alerted her, then?”

“Probably.” Old Harvey sounded tired and displeased.

“But no other instruments?”

“The vehicle had a small radar-type speed-trap warning device. I think she may have detected our surveillance that way, too.”

“But how could she slip through our sweep?”

“They’re reviewing the tapes again. They think she could’ve gone searching for her companion and been lost in the general confusion our sweep created on the instruments.”

“The sweep would’ve picked her up despite that.”

Old Harvey turned, looked directly at him. “So I told them.”

“And they overruled you.”

Old Harvey nodded.

“What do they believe happened?” Hellstrom asked.

“She took a calculated risk and went right into the midst of our searchers.”

“Her smell would’ve given her away!”

“So I said, and they agreed. They then suggested she slipped away from the truck to the north, using it as a shield. Their thought is that she walked softly to hide her movements in the background static. There was a time gap between darkness and when our sweep reached her vicinity. She could’ve done it. She had two choices: get away or slip up on us from another direction. They think she’s out there stalking us.”

“And you don’t agree with that?” Hellstrom asked.

“Not that one,” Old Harvey said.

“Why?”

“She wouldn’t slip up on us.”

“But why?”

“We hit her hard with the low frequency. She was twitchy and nervous all afternoon, much too nervous to come for us.”

“How do you know what her reserves of courage might be?”

“Not that one, Nils. I watched her.”

“She didn’t look like your type, Harvey.”

“Make your joke, Nils. I watched her most of the afternoon.”

“So this is no more than your opinion from personal observation?”

“Yes.”

“Why aren’t you pressing that opinion?”

“I did.”

“Given your choice, what action would you take?”

“You really want to know?”

“I do, or I wouldn’t ask.”

“First, I think she’s slipped down to the northeast among those cattle in the pasture. I’m guessing that she knows cattle. There was something about her—” He wet his lips with his tongue. “If she knows cattle, she could move among them with no problems. They’d mask her smell; they’d provide all the cover she needs.”

“No one here agrees with you?”

“They say those are range cattle and they’d have spooked at the first smell of her. We’d have detected that.”

“And your response?”

“A lot of spooking depends on whether a cow can smell your fear. We know that. We do it ourselves. If she wasn’t afraid of them and moved softly—well, we can’t just close our eyes to that possibility.”

“They don’t want to search among the cattle, though?”

“They’re bothered by the complications of a sweep down there. If we send workers, they’re sure to get out of hand and kill a few cows. Then we have local problems, just the way we have every time that happens.”

“You still haven’t told me what you’d do.”

“I’d send some of us. We’re trained to deal with the Outside. Some of us have lived out there. We have better control over the hunt response during a sweep.”

Hellstrom nodded, spoke his thoughts aloud. “If she’s up here close to us, she hasn’t a rabbit’s chance of getting away. But if she’s down there among those cows—”

“You see what I mean,” Old Harvey said.

“I’m astonished that the others don’t see it, too,” Hellstrom said. “Will you lead the search party, Harvey?”

“Sure. I see you’re not calling it a sweep.”

“I’d just as soon you went out and brought back only one thing.”

“Alive?”

“If at all possible. We’re not getting much from that other one.”

“That’s what I heard. I was down there when they first started questioning him, but—well, that sort of thing bothers me. I guess I lived too long Outside.”

“I have the same reaction,” Hellstrom said. “This is something better left to the younger workers who don’t even know the concept of mercy.”

“Sure wish there was some other way,” Old Harvey said. He took a deep breath. “I best get about the—search.”

“Choose your men and see to it.”

Hellstrom watched the old man move out into the room, and he thought about the often sheer perversity of the young. The old possessed a special value for the Hive, a kind of balance that could not be denied. This incident was a sure demonstration of their value. Old Harvey had known what to do. The young workers had not wanted to venture out into the night themselves, though, as common workers did, and they’d decided it was unnecessary.

Several of the younger male and female apprentices and the security workers of middle years had heard Hellstrom’s conversation with Old Harvey. They made a shamefaced show now of volunteering for the search.

Old Harvey picked some of them, instructed them briefly. He made a special point of naming Saldo as his second-in-command. That was good. Saldo displayed a devoted respect for Old Harvey and it was surprising that the younger worker had not taken his teacher’s side. This came out in the briefing when Saldo said, “I knew he was right, but you wouldn’t believe me, either.” Apparently Saldo had sided with his teacher, but the others had lumped them both in one bag. Ever conscious of his role as educator, Old Harvey chided Saldo for this remark. “If you thought that, you should’ve given your own arguments, not mine.”

The troop filed out of the room properly chastened.

Hellstrom smiled to himself. They were good stock and learned quickly. One had only to give them the correct example. “In age is balance,” as his brood mother had been fond of saying. Youth, to her, represented an extenuating circumstance which had always to be taken into account.

The words of Nils Hellstrom.

Of the billions of living things on earth, only man ponders his existence. His questions lead to torment; for he is unable to accept, as the insects do, that life’s only purpose is life itself.

Tymiena Grinelli had not liked this assignment from the beginning. She hadn’t objected so much to working with Carlos (they’d combined forces many times in the past) as she did to the time she would spend with him when they were not working. Carlos had been flashingly handsome in his youth and had never accustomed himself to the gradual wearing away of his compelling attraction to women.

She had known that the off-duty association would be a constant bout of sortie and repartee. Grinelli didn’t fancy herself as a femme fatale, but she knew from experience her own magnetism. She had a long face that might have been taken as ugly were it not for the personality behind it. This shone through overlarge and startlingly green eyes. Her body was slender, the skin pale, and there was about her an air of profound sensitivity that fascinated many men, Carlos among them. Her hair was a dark red-auburn and she tended to keep it confined in tight hats or berets.

Tymiena was a family name and its original Slavic meaning had been “a secret.” The name described her manner. She held herself in constant reserve.

Merrivale had alerted her sense of danger originally by assigning only the two of them to the case. She had not liked what she had read in Porter’s accounts and in the reports accumulated under the label of “The Hellstrom File.” Too many of these reports had been second or third hand. Too many of them were semiofficial. They smacked of amateurism. Amateurs were a deadly indulgence in this business.

“Only two of us?” she’d objected. “What about the local police? We could file a missing-person report and—”

“The Chief does not want that,” Merrivale had said.

“Did he say so specifically?”

Merrivale’s face darkened slightly at any reference to his well-known propensity for personalized interpretation of orders. “He made himself abundantly clear! This is to be handled with the utmost discretion.”

“A discreet local inquiry sounds to me well within that requirement. Porter was in that area. He’s missing. These reports in the file indicate others may have disappeared there. This family of picnickers with the twin babies, for instance, they—”

“A logical explanation has been accepted for every such occurrence, Tymiena,” Merrivale interrupted. “Unfortunately, logic and actuality do not always coincide. Our concern is for the actuality and, in our pursuit of it, we shall utilize our own tested resources.”

“I don’t like their logical explanations,” Tymiena said. “I don’t give one particle of a damn what explanations local dumbheads may have accepted.”

“Our own resources only,” Merrivale repeated.

“Which means we put our lives on the line again,” she said. “What does Carlos say about this case?”

“Why don’t you ask him? I’ve arranged for a briefing at 1100 hours. Janvert and Carr will be here, as well.”

“Are they in this?”

“They’re in reserve.”

“I don’t like that, either. Where’s Carlos?”

“I believe he’s in Archives. You have almost an hour to explore this matter with him.”

“Merde!” she said and swept from the room.

Carlos was no more helpful than Merrivale. The assignment had struck him as “routine.” But then, assignments tended to strike Carlos as cast in some familiar mold. His response was a universal, clerkish thoroughness of preparation: read all of the material, study all of the plans. It had not surprised her that Carlos was in Archives. He had an Archives mind.

The trip to Oregon and the cozy journey in the van-camper had been everything she’d expected. Crawling hands and a crawling mind. She had finally told Carlos that she’d contracted a serious venereal disease on her previous assignment. He refused to believe her. Quite calmly, she’d told him then that if he persisted, she would put a bullet in him. She had displayed the small Belgian automatic she always wore in its wrist holster. Something about the clear calmness of her manner told him to believe this. But he had taken the rebuff in muttering bad grace.

The job was another matter, though, and she’d wished him luck when he took off in his ridiculous bird-watching clothes. All through the long day then, when she’d been fulfilling her part of the cover by painting, she had grown increasingly nervous. There had been no particular thing on which to focus her uneasiness, nothing concrete to explain it. The whole scene bothered her. It reeked of trouble. Carlos had been predictably imprecise about his estimate of return time. It all depended on what he saw in his preliminary scan of the farm.

“Shortly after dark at the latest,” he’d said. “You be a good wife and paint your pretty pictures while I go look for birds. When I come back, I’ll teach you all about the birds and the bees.”

“Carlos!”

“Ahhh, my love, someday I shall teach you to say that exquisite name with true passion.” And the bastard had chucked her under the chin as he took his leave.

Tymiena had watched him zigzag his way up the grass-brown slope into the trees. The day was already warm and filled with that special kind of insect-singing stillness that spoke of more heat to come. Sighing, she had taken out her watercolor materials. She actually was quite a good watercolorist and, occasionally, during the long day she had experienced real involvement in capturing the essence of the autumn fields. The golden browns were particularly warm and inviting.

Shortly after midday, she put her painting aside temporarily and fixed herself a light lunch of sliced hard-boiled eggs and yogurt cold from the camper’s icebox. During the break, although the camper’s interior was oven hot, she stayed inside to check over the instruments. To her surprise, the speed-trap warning, which could be turned on its base and had a null indicator, showed radar activity in the direction of the farm. There was a clear signal aimed at the camper.

Radar surveillance of her from the farm?

She interpreted this as a danger sign and thought of going after Carlos to call him back. An alternative was to warm up the radio and report this development to headquarters. She knew with a sure instinct that headquarters would make light of it. And Carlos had ordered her to stay with the camper. In the end, she opted for neither course. Her own indecision added a frustrating accent to the nervousness that afflicted her throughout the afternoon. The sense of danger accumulated. She felt that something was warning her to get out of there. Leave the camper and get out of there! The camper was a big, fat target.

In the half-light of dusk, she folded up her painting tablet, dropped it and her paints on the cab seat, and slipped into the seat. It took a moment to warm up the radio and she checked the signal monitor, found a search resonance fanning across her own frequency. When she keyed her transmitter, the search resonance homed on her signal and jammed it. The monitor howled with the interference. She slapped the off switch, stared up the dusky hillside toward the farm. The place was not visible from this parking spot, but she felt it out there as a malevolent presence.

There was still no sign of Carlos.

Darkness would be on her within minutes. She felt nervously for the little automatic in its wrist holster.

What the hell was delaying Carlos?

She turned off all of the camper’s lights, sat in the settling darkness. Radar from the farm’s direction. They jammed her radio. This case had turned nasty. She stood up, moved softly to the rear door, slipped out on the side opposite the farm. The van itself would shield her from that searching beam. She dropped to all fours and worked her way swiftly into the tall grass. She had seen cows far down in the pasture below her and she headed for them with a sure instinct. She had grown up on a Wyoming cattle ranch and, although she preferred approaching cattle on horseback, she felt no threat from them. The threat was behind her, somewhere up at Hellstrom’s farm. The cows would offer her a masking confusion, concealment from that radar sweep. If Carlos returned, he’d turn on the camper’s lights. She would see that from a safe distance in the pastureland. Somehow, she did not expect Carlos to return. This whole situation did not make sense, and it had not made sense from the beginning, but she trusted her own instinct for self-preservation.