“You think it wise to capture them?” Old Harvey asked.
“I think it necessary.”
“Perhaps other responses should be considered first.”
“What are you suggesting?” Hellstrom asked.
“Discreet inquiry by our people in the East, while we dissemble for these new intruders. Why should we not invite them in and let them watch our surface activities. They surely cannot prove we are responsible for the disappearance of their fellow.”
“We don’t know that for certain,” Hellstrom said.
“Surely, their reaction would’ve been different if they knew we were responsible.”
“They know,” Hellstrom said. “They just don’t know how or why. No amount of dissembling now will put them off. They’ll keep worrying at us like ants at a carcass. We must dissemble, yes, but we must keep them off balance at the same time. I am keeping our people Outside informed, but my instructions remain that we exercise the utmost restraint and caution there. Better to sacrifice the Hive than to lose all.”
“In your considerations, please note that I disagree,” Old Harvey said.
“Your exception is noted and will not be ignored.”
“They are sure to send others,” Old Harvey said.
“I agree.”
“Each new team is likely to be more skilled, Nils.”
“No doubt of that. But great skill, as we’ve learned from our own specialists, tends to narrow the vision. I doubt very much that these first probes involve the central element of this agency that wishes to know about us. Soon, however, they will send someone who knows all of the things we wish to know about those who come prying into our affairs.”
Old Harvey’s hesitation betrayed that he had not considered this possibility. Presently, he said, “You will try to capture and control such a one?”
“We must.”
“That’s a dangerous gambit, Nils.”
“Circumstances dictate the risk.”
“I disagree even more,” Old Harvey said. “I have lived Outside, Nils. I know them. This is an extremely perilous course you plot.”
“Do you have an alternative with a lower potential risk?” Hellstrom asked. “Extend your plotline before answering. You must think of the ultimate consequences along the sequence of events dictated by our present response. We made a mistake with Porter. We thought him the kind of Outsider we have previously taken and consigned to the vats. It was the wisdom of the sweep leader that brought him to my close attention after his capture. The mistake at that point was mine, but the consequences involve us all. My own regrets do not change the situation one whit. Our problem is complicated by the fact that we cannot erase all of the back tracks that led Porter to us. We have been able to do that before without exception. Our previous successes lulled me into a false complacency. A long history of success does not insure correct decisions. I knew this and yet failed. I will entertain an action to depose me, but I will not change my present decision on a course of action, a course of action that includes knowledge of my past mistake.”
“Nils, I’m not suggesting that we depose—”
“Then obey my instructions,” Hellstrom said. “Although I am a male, I am chief in the Hive at my brood mother’s command. She reckoned the importance of that choice and, thus far, her vision has remained close to actual events. While you’re putting the sonic probes on that woman and her vehicle, check it for the possibility that she may have a child inside.”
Old Harvey sounded hurt. “I’m aware of our constant need for new blood, Nils. Your orders will be obeyed at once.”
Hellstrom released the communications key and Old Harvey’s face disappeared from the screen. Old Harvey might be very old, with a Hive awareness dulled by that early history of Outside life, but he knew how to obey against the dictates of his most basic fears. In this respect, he was completely trustworthy—more than could be said for most of the human species that had evolved Outside, conditioned as they were by the sharp limitations prevailing in what the Hive thought of as “wild societies.” Old Harvey was a good worker.
Hellstrom sighed, aware of the burden he carried: almost fifty thousand dependent workers going about their activities in the Hive warren. He listened with his whole being for a moment, probing for the sense that told him all remained normal in the Hive. It was like the low humming of harvesting bees on a hot afternoon. There was a restful sense to this normalcy and he needed it at times to restore him. But the Hive gave him back no such reassurance now. He felt he could actually sense the disquiet of his own commands spreading throughout the Hive and reflecting back onto himself. All was not well here.
The need for caution had always been a constant pressure on the Hive and every one of its inhabitants. He had his own fair share of this inbred caution, finely tuned by his brood mother and the ones she’d chosen to educate him. He had been against making the documentary movies at first. That was getting a bit close to home. But the Hive aphorism “Who could know more about insects than the Hiveborn?” had overcome his objections and, finally, even he had entered the spirit of the film enterprise without reservations. The Hive always needed that ubiquitous energy symbol, money. The films brought a great deal of money to their Swiss accounts. That money focused on the Hive’s remaining needs for Outside resources—the diamond bits for their drills, for instance. Unlike the wild societies, however, the Hive sought a harmony with its environment, cooperating to serve that environment, thus purchasing the environment’s service to the Hive. Surely, that profound internal relationship that had always supported the Hive in the past would support them now. The films are not a mistake! he told himself. There was about them even a sense of something poetically amusing: to frighten Outsiders in this guise, to show them reality in the form of films about the world’s multifarious insect populations, while a much deeper reality out of that insect mold would feed on the fears it had helped augment.
He reminded himself of the lines he had insisted be written into the script of their most recent film effort. “In the perfect society, there is neither emotion nor mercy; precious space cannot be wasted on those who have outlived their usefulness.”
This new Outsider intrusion made Hellstrom think now, however, of the bee wolf, whose predatory raids must be met with every resource a hive could muster. In the cooperative society, the fate of each could be the destiny of all.
I must go topside immediately, he told himself. I must take personal command at the center of our protective efforts.
Moving briskly, he went out to a nearby communal bath-washroom, showered along with several chemically neutered female workers, used a Hive-made depilatory on his face, and returned to his cell. There, he dressed in heavier Outside garments: tan trousers, a white cotton shirt and dark gray sweater, a light brown jacket over that. He put on socks and a pair of Hive-made leather shoes. As an afterthought, he took a small foreign pistol from a desk drawer and slipped it into his pocket. The Outsider weapon had greater range than a stunwand and would be familiar to the intruders, recognizable by them if a threat were needed.
He went out then, down the familiar galleries and corridors with their hum of Hive activities. The level’s hydroponics rooms were on his way, their doors open to permit easy access for harvesters. He glanced in as he passed, noted now swiftly the routine was progressing. Hide baskets were being filled with soybeans, two workers to a basket. An Outsider might have interpreted the scene as one of confusion, but there was no squabbling, no conversation, no colliding workers, no spilled baskets. Filled baskets were being slid smoothly into the dumbwaiter slots in the far wall, there to go up to processing. Any necessary signals were conveyed by silent hand motions. When examined in the light of Hive awareness, the giant rooms were a collection of evidence, all of which pointed to supremely efficient organization. These were chemically conditioned workers, effectively neutered, none of them hungry (feeding conveyors were only a few steps away down the main gallery), and they worked in the certain awareness that what they did was vital for the entire Hive.