“A time of Fulfillment has come!” Hip cried.
Foxhound XI returned to face Val’s rancor.
“Lost your entire squad again?!” he shouted.
Foxhound coughed and clouded his screen.
“I put them down on fresh spoor—squeak. They went into their tracking frenzy. I have good optic records of the naked prey—usually young females—small coweyes. No apparent problems, but when I returned they were gone… squeak.”
“But what happened to them?” shouted Val, hitting the screen with the palm of his hand to clear the focus.
“There is nothing in my scanners to explain it.”
Val studied the old sensors on the ship. His shoulders drooped. Cataracts on the optics. Demyelination on the sensory webs. Image converters spotty.
“Sorry, old meck,” he said. “Not your fault.”
Val stalked back to his desk console and put in a call for requisition priority. After receiving the usual conciliatory excuses, he exploded.
“I’ve lost over a hundred hunters in the last month alone. Lost without a trace. Not even a dead body! I need some up-to-date equipment here.”
The face on the screen mumbled something about doing the best they could with the material they had. Then it passed his call up another step in the hive hierarchy.
The new face was older—more tired.
“Are the crops in danger, Sagittarius?”
“No, but the hunters…” sputtered Val.
“The crops are your primary concern. Population control is a different department.”
“Population control?” protested Val. “I’m talking about hunters’ lives. We send them out there to protect our crops. The least we could do is give them adequate equipment.”
“I’m afraid you are losing your perspective,” said the tired old face. “You are talking about a death rate of hunters that averages about three per day for the entire sector. The death rate in that same sector from all causes is over 30,000 per day—half of those are suicides. You have five hundred million citizens down there in Orange—three deaths per day is a small price to pay to protect their crops.”
Val relaxed. He didn’t like losing the hunters, but he thanked Olga that he didn’t have the responsibility of cleaning up after all those suicides. That would really depress him. He went back down to the garage and put in overtime cleaning EM retinas and polishing contacts.
Walter didn’t come in for his usual shift, so Val left the Scanner meck in charge and dropped in on Walter at his quarters. He found the fat old man in bed—face ashen gray. Female Bitter rubbed his hands and feet—trying to get her bread-winner back on the job.
“Life span coming to an end?” asked Val callously.
The old man nodded—smiling weakly.
“It was a good life,” said Val. “You did your duty in the hive. Shall I call a Mediteck? Maybe they’ll suspend you before you die. The future generations may—”
Walter’s face changed from gray to purple with exertion.
“My life isn’t over yet,” he protested. “Not quite yet. But I’ll live out the whole span in this generation. Thank you.”
Bitter pleaded: “Let him rest here for a couple days. He will be back to work soon. You’ll see.”
Val understood Walter’s uncertainty over suspension. Few were being rewarmed at the present population density.
“Fine,” nodded Val. “I can manage HC alone for a while. I’ll just move my cot in and keep Scanner company. Buckeye sightings are way down.”
Walter relaxed and dozed off. His old face pinked up a little.
Several days later, fat Walter managed to wheeze in to Hunter Control. He was full up to his neck with Bitter’s herbs and nostrums. His feet and lungs were still full of excess fluids, but he felt he could get more rest in his HC couch without Bitter hovering about. He had to pick his way through irregular piles of junk—boxes, wires, tubes and screens—to get to his console.
Val saw the old man ease into his chair and tilt it back. Two Engineering tecks walked in rolling a big black barrel on a cart.
“What’s all this?” wheezed Walter.
Val looked up from a crude splice.
“It’s some of the gear from Tinker’s quarters. I think we have a working tightbeam here. The magnetic squeeze components have a very fine tuning. We’ve been listening to unauthorized transmissions from Outside. I’d like to get the gear working to transmit too. Maybe we’ll be able to get a fix on them if they focus.”
Walter rested his head back on the cushion. He closed his eyes and asked conversationally: “Pick up anything interesting?”
“Crazy things,” said Val. “I’ll put them through your audio so you can listen. There must be dozens of renegade mecks out there from the number of broadcasts. I can’t understand why a meck would give up his energy socket to run with the five-toeds.”
Walter kept his eyes shut.
“The mecks probably identify with them.”
“Identify?” asked Val, setting down his tools.
“Buckeyes are strong and fast,” said Walter. “Mecks earn their energy by doing a job—Tiller, Door, Garage or whatever. To do a better job they should be strong and fast. It is the quality they admire. A simple association.”
Val scowled. He remembered the Harvester that blew up at the base of Mount Tabulum. There was more than a simple association there. Someone had reprogrammed the meck’s almond.
“A bad circuit,” mumbled Val. “Like the buckeye has a bad gene.”
Walter didn’t answer. He was listening to chants picked up on the tightbeam.
Walter didn’t try to catch all the words the first time through. They were spit fast to the racing jingle of tambourines with a running guitar base. He asked for a flimsy printout—glanced at it with one eye—and shut his eyes again.
“We all know that buckeyes are different,” said Val. “Why sing about it?”
“Maybe it is a singing machine,” suggested Walter.
The next chant was shorter—
Fat Walter coughed and sat up straight—Olga?
“That singing machine sounds like a FO—a Follower of Olga,” he wheezed.
Val finished his wiring and stepped back.
“Remember the Harvester that crushed those two workmen? It was a killer meck—killing in the name of someone or something that didn’t translate. Remember?”