Hellstrom''s Hive by Frank Herbert
“What do you mean?”
“I’m still wondering about our own casualties – up at the Sisters.”
“Oh – yes, of course. That was in the report I had at Portland. There’s still nothing conclusive or I’d have mentioned it. The fire played bloody hob with the wreckage. It could’ve been lightning and a fuel explosion. They said the pilot should’ve gone up through the Columbia Gorge, but he was trying to save time by flying direct.”
“They haven’t ruled out sabotage?”
“They have not. High probability if you ask me. Damn stupid kind of coincidence, don’t you think?”
“We’re acting on that assumption,” Gammel said.
“What’ve you done with your eleven men and the patrol?” Merrivale asked.
“I’ve dispatched three cars – two men each. One of the Oregon Highway Patrol cars with three officers was sent around to the south. That’s going to take a little time. For part of that trip they will be out of range of the radio relay equipment.”
“But what are these three cars doing?”
“We’ve set up a communications base in the motel at Fosterville. The cars are maintaining contact with that base at regular intervals. My cars are deployed between Fosterville and the farm, and they –”
“Two cars between town and the farm?”
“No, three cars. The OHP car is a fourth. My three cars are deployed in a wide surveillance pattern – one on a Forest Service road to the east and the other two spaced along the actual road to the farm. They were instructed to approach no closer than two miles.”
“Two miles?”
“Correct, and they were told to stay in their cars.”
“But two miles –”
“When we’re fairly certain of what we’re doing and what we’re up against, we don’t mind taking risks,” Gammel said. “But this case appears to be nothing but uncertainties.” He spoke in a level voice, trying to hold his temper. Merrivale’s carping was becoming insufferable. Didn’t he realize he might be wearing Gammel’s own handcuffs before another twenty-four hours was out? They might have to arrest Merrivale just to save the FBI’s neck. What did this bastard expect?
“But two –”
“You’ve lost how many people in there?” Gammel demanded, not trying to hide his anger now. “Twelve? Fourteen? I’m told there were nine people in that team you sent in today and you lost at least one team before that. Do you take us for morons?”
“Fourteen, counting Dzule Peruge,” Merrivale said. “Your ability to count is unimpaired.” In the dim green light of the dash, he noted a muscle working along Gammel’s jaw and the tense-knuckled way the man gripped the wheel as he drove.
“So we have one certainly dead, thirteen missing, and our own planeload down in the Sisters; that’s twenty in all. You dare ask me why I haven’t sent my people in there after yours? If I had my way, we’d have a regiment of marines on hand and we’d be doing just that, but I don’t have my way. Why don’t I have my way? Because this whole thing smells of a lash-up by your people! And if it explodes, we’re not going to get burned in the blast. Is that clear enough for you? Is that open enough?”
“Bloody pack of cowards,” Merrivale muttered.
Gammel suddenly swerved the car off the road onto the parking strip, skidded to a stop in gravel, set the hand brake with an angry rasping of its latch, and turned off the lights and the motor. He whirled on the seat to face Merrivale. “Look, you! I understand the hot seat you’re on; at least, I have a good idea of the bind you’re in. But my agency has not been in this from the first, although it should have been! Now, if that turns out to be a nest of commies up there, we’ll mop it up and have all the help we need. If it turns out to be an arm of a major industry in this country trying to protect a new invention from the vultures you represent, that is an entirely different ball game.”
“What do you mean - industry – new invention?”
“You know goddamned well what I mean! We didn’t sit around on our asses accepting you people as our only source of information.”
If they have the whole story, why’re they still helping us? Merrivale wondered.
As though he’d heard the question, Gammel said, “Our position in this is to try to keep the shit from hitting the fan. You rub dirt on your outfit and you rub dirt on the whole government. Now, if you’ve been sent out here as a patsy, I can sympathize. But there’s no sense in our fighting each other. If this thing’s ready to blow and you’re here to take the rap, you’d better level with me right now. Are you?”
Taken aback by Gammel’s sudden stop and attack, Merrivale sputtered a moment; then, “Now, see here! If you –”
“Are you here to take the rap?”
“Of course not!”
“Bullshit!” Gammel shook his head. “You think we don’t have our own suspicions about why your boss took the short road to hell?”
“The short road to –”
“Jumped out of that goddamned window! Are you their patsy?”
“I was sent here with the understanding that you would provide full cooperation until we could field new teams,” Merrivale said, speaking stiffly. “I don’t find your present attitude cooperative in the least.”
Still not mollified, Gammel said, “Tell me – yes or no – do you have new information that dramatically alters your original assessment?”
“Of course not!”
“Nothing new to tell me?”
“I will not be cross-examined by you,” Merrivale protested. “You know as much about this situation as I do. More! You’ve at least been on the scene.”
“I hope you’re telling the truth,” Gammel said. “If you aren’t, I personally will supervise whatever action we have to take to fry you.” He turned, restarted the car, eased back onto the highway. He turned on his lights as he moved and they startled a big black and white cow that had wandered onto the verge. It galumphed ahead of them for several hundred feet before diving off into the open grassland beside the road.
Considerably subdued and now frightened at the position he might be in if he had no cooperation at all from the FBI, Merrivale said, “I’m truly sorry if I’ve offended you. As you can imagine, I’ve been under somewhat of a strain. First the Chief’s death and then the orders to take over here personally. No sleep really since this all started.”
“Have you eaten?”
“On the plane from Chicago.”
“We can get you something at our headquarters in the motel.” Gammel reached for the microphone under the dash. “I’ll have them lay on coffee and sandwiches. What would you –”
“No need for that,” Merrivale said, feeling somewhat better. Gammel obviously was trying to get them back on a friendly footing. That made sense. Merrivale cleared his throat. “What sort of action plan have you devised?”
“We do only a minimum in the dark. We wait for morning and reconnoiter in daylight and under constant radio contact with base. That’s clearly indicated until we find out what the hell has happened up there. We can’t trust the local law yet. I’ve even been told to play it cool with the OHP. Our primary concern is to clarify some of this water that’s been badly muddied up to now.”
Muddied by our people, of course, Merrivale thought. The FBI were still a bunch of bloody snobs. He said, “Nothing more tonight?”
“It didn’t strike me as advisable to run any more risks than absolutely necessary. We’ll have more muscle by morning, anyway.”
Merrivale brightened. “More people?”
“Two marine choppers coming up from San Francisco.”
“You ordered them?”
“We’re still covering for you,” Gammel said. He turned, grinned. “They are for surveillance and/or transportation only. We stretched our good-will account considerably to get them with no better explanation than we could give at the time.”
“Very well,” Merrivale said. “Portland told me you had no telephone contact with the farm. Is that situation the sa
“The line’s out,” Gammel said. “Probably cut by your people when they went in. We’ll have a repair crew out in the morning. Our own people, of course.”
“I see. Then I concur with your field decisions, subject, naturally, to review when we reach your headquarters. They may have more recent information.”
“They’d have called me,” Gammel said. He tapped the radio under the dash, thinking: They’ve sent a stuffed shirt. He’s a patsy for sure and the poor bastard may not even know it.
From the Hive Manual.
As a biological mechanism, human reproduction is not terribly efficient. When compared to insects, humans appear grossly inefficient. The insect and all the lower life forms are dedicated to species survival. Survival comes through reproduction, through mating. Males and females of all life forms other than man are drawn together in the direct and singular interest of reproduction. For the wild forms of humankind, however, unless the setting is right, the perfume is right, the music is sweet – and unless at least one partner feels loved (a singularly unstable concept) by the other – the reproductive act may never occur. We of the Hive are dedicated, therefore, to freeing our workers from the concept of romance. The act of procreation must occur as simply, as naturally, and as obliviously as eating. Neither beauty, romance, nor love must figure in Hive reproduction – only the demands of survival.
The night-shrouded countryside around the farm appeared asleep to Hellstrom as he scanned it from the aerie. Darkness blotted all of the familiar landscape and there was only the distant glimmer of Fosterville’s light on the horizon. The Hive beneath him had never felt more silent, more charged with the tensions of waiting. Although the oral tradition spoke of early confrontations when the whole Colony Movement (as it was called then) faced extinction, the Hive had never faced a greater crisis. The thing had happened in such natural stages that Hellstrom, looking back, experienced a sense of the inevitable. The Hive’s population of almost fifty thousand workers depended for their continued existence upon the decisions that Hellstrom and his aides made during the next few hours.
Hellstrom glanced over his shoulder at the swamp-fire glow of cathodes, the screens that watched over the Outsiders who’d come up from Fosterville just after dark. Three unmarked cars were parked out there in the rangeland now, little more than two miles away. A fourth car, identified as from the highway patrol, had been with them at first, but it was laboring its way around to the south of the valley now. The only track open to it there was the old Thimble Mine road and that came no closer than ten miles to the south of the valley unless its occupants took to the open country. Hellstrom suspected the vehicle might have four-wheel drive, but the character of the land to the south was such that the OHP car could not get closer than three miles from the Hive’s perimeter at best.
The aerie’s workers, sensing the weight of decision on Hellstrom, had lowered their voices and moved softly.
Should I use Janvert as a mediator? he wondered.
But mediation should begin from a position of strength and the Hive had only a bluff. The secret of the stunwand might be something valuable to offer. Janvert had seen it in action. He would know, too, about the Hive’s mastery of human chemistry. He had his own reactions to verify that. But Janvert could only become the Hive’s enemy if he went out as an envoy. He’d seen too much of the Hive to even consider neutrality.
Hellstrom glanced at the clock behind the arc of surveillance instruments: 11:29 P.M. It was almost tomorrow, and tomorrow was certain to see a showdown. He could sense that in many things, including the watchful waiting of the three cars parked between the Hive and Fosterville. Thinking about the occupants of those cars, Hellstrom felt a need to know what they were doing now. He returned to the observer station and asked a coordinating specialist, whose face looked deathly pale in the green gloom.
“They are remaining inside the cars,” the specialist said. “Their reporting schedules are staggered, about ten minutes apart for any given car. We are confident now that there are no more than two Outsiders in each car.”
Waiting for daylight, Hellstrom realized. He said as much.
“It’s the general opinion here,” the specialist said. “That middle car is only about twenty-five yards from one of the hidden exits, the one at the end of level-two gallery.”
“You’re suggesting we try to bring in the Outsiders?”
“It would give us answers to some questions.”
“It also might ignite a general attack. I think we’ve pushed our luck as far as it will go.” Hellstrom rubbed the back of his neck. He felt worn-out, running on nerve. “What about the car that’s going around to the south?”
“It’s stuck about where the old mine road starts to cross Muddy Bottom, about eight miles from our perimeter and at least twelve miles from the valley.”
“Thank you.” Hellstrom turned away.
The aerie was quieter now than it had been when he had arrived two hours before. There had been groups of security specialists passing through then, each being briefed for night sweep. All had faded away into the outside darkness now, nothing but signal points on the aerie’s instruments, glowing figures on the screens.
For perhaps the tenth time since taking up station in the aerie, Hellstrom thought: I should rest. I’ll need all of my senses alert by daylight. They will come upon us in the morning, I’m sure. I more than any should be ready for them. Many of us will probably die tomorrow. If I’m alert, perhaps I can save some.
He thought sadly of Lincoln Kraft, whose charred body (hardly enough left to bother taking to the vats) had been removed from the wreckage of one of the attackers’ vans. Kraft’s death made the day’s loss thirty-one.
Just a beginning.
The aerie had moved to a subdued murmur of questioning earlier. The words attack and prisoners had been repeated in many contexts. There’d even been a kind of adrenaline-pumped elation in the aerie, references to “the victory.”
Again, Hellstrom thought about the three prisoners the Hive now held. It seemed strange to be holding prisoners. Outsider adults seemed naturally to belong to the vats. Only very small children had ever been considered worthy of reshaping for the Hive’s uses. Now – now, there were new possibilities.
Janvert, the most puzzling of the three, had a background in law, Hellstrom had learned through careful questioning. Janvert might be ridiculously easy to wean from Outside ways, provided he could be sufficiently tempered to Hive chemistry. The female, Clovis Carr, was a carrier of aggressive characteristics that the Hive might turn to its advantage. The third one, whose identification papers said he was Daniel Thomas Alden, carried himself like a soldier. There could be valuable characteristics in all of them, but Janvert remained the most interesting. He was small, too, which was desirable in the Hive.
Hellstrom turned back to the observer stations, bent low over the second one from the right. “What about our patrol in the creek bottom?” he asked. “Have they anything new to report on the conversation from that car they’re watching?”
“The Outsiders are still puzzled, Nils. They call this a ‘very strange case’ and they refer occasionally to someone named Gammel, who apparently believes the case is a snafu. What’s a snafu?”
“A foul-up,” Hellstrom translated. “It’s military slang: situation normal all fouled up.”
“Something that has gone wrong, then?”
“Yes. Tell me if they hear anything new.”
Hellstrom straightened, thought of calling Saldo. The younger man had been sent to keep a discreet observation on Project 40, working from one end of the long gallery at level fifty. It was not a good vantage point, because the major work was being conducted toward the middle of the gallery, at least half a mile from the end, but the researchers had shown increasing irascibility after the earlier incident with an “interfering observer.” Hellstrom was counting on Saldo’s intelligence to manage the situation. It was a matter of desperation for them to know in the
We could never get away with a bluff against the Outsiders, Hellstrom told himself. The Hive might gain a little time for itself, might be able to parlay the stunwands to create a temporary belief in a more potent weapon built on the same principle. But the Outsiders would demand a demonstration. And there was always Harl’s warning to consider. The threat to use an absolute weapon put the trigger in the hands of an opponent who might say, so use it! The weapon must be applicable at less than absolute energies, and that must be demonstrable, unmistakably demonstrable. The Outsiders had a saying that fit the situation aptly. “Don’t kid the kidders.” A bluff would not work for long. The Hive would be called – and then what?
The wild Outsiders were very strange, really. They tended not to believe in violence until it was inflicted upon them. They had a saying about this, too. “It can’t happen here.”
Perhaps this was inevitable in a world that based its societies on threat, violence, and illusions of absolute power. How could such people as Janvert be expected to think in more malleable terms, to think of life dependencies and the interlocked relationships of living systems, to think of inserting the human species into the great circle of life? Such concepts would be gibberish to Outsiders, even those who spoke for the new fad – ecology.
From Joseph Merrivale’s private notes.
As per the instructions handed to me at JFK Airport, I arrived late Sunday in Lakeview to establish a preliminary liaison with FBI-SAIC Waverly Gammel, who had set up a base in Fosterville. He took me to Fosterville where we arrived at 2318 hours. Gammel reported having taken no action except minimal surveillance of target area from distance of approximately two miles and involving only four vehicles with nine men. According to Gammel, this was in compliance with his instructions, a statement not in accord with what I was led to believe at the action briefing. Gammel reports no word from any of our team that entered the target area earlier on this date. Gammel evinces doubts that this case involves narcotics. He has seen the preliminary report on the Peruge autopsy. I must protest my dependence on another agency for the manpower to prosecute this case. Divided authority is producing a situation fraught with potential embarrassments and inconveniences. The loose working agreement under which I must perform my duties can only exacerbate present difficulties. Since many actions have already been taken in the field on this case without my knowledge or agreement, I must lodge my formal protest at the earliest opportunity. My capacity in the present contretemps bodes ill for our responsibilities. I must make it clear that none of the conduct in this case has accorded with my own understanding of the decisions required to resolve the situation.