“I’m taking five dollars,” she said. “Is that all right?”
I often pay more, he thought. But she obviously was no regular whore, or she’d have taken more.
“Sure, anything you need.”
“Should I bring you coffee or something?” she asked. He really did look sick. She found herself worrying about him.
Peruge swallowed an upsurge of nausea, gestured weakly. “No—I, uh—I’ll get something later.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“All right, then.” His appearance worried her, but she reached for the door handle to let herself out. Perhaps he just needed a little more rest. She called cheerfully as she opened the door, “I’ll be right back.”
“Wait,” he said. He dropped his hands from his face, lifted his head with an application of conscious effort.
“Did you change your mind about my bringing you something?” she asked.
“No. I—just-wondered. So we bred. Do you expect to have a baby by me?”
“I certainly hope so. I’m right at the top of my fertility.” She smiled disarmingly and added, “I’m going to go eat now. I’ll be back before you know it. Everybody says I’m a fast eater.”
She went out, closing the door briskly behind her.
Fast breeder, too, he thought. Her answer only added to his confusion. What the hell had he run into? A baby? Was this what Carlos had discovered? He had a sudden vision of the dapper Carlos Depeaux held in some subterranean bondage by Fancy and her friends, a continual hyped-up orgy with that mysterious aphrodisiac for as long as it lasted. Or for as long as Carlos lasted. It’d be a continual orgy of breeding, babies on an assembly line. Somehow, he could not imagine Carlos in that role. Certainly, he couldn’t see Tymiena in it or even Porter. Tymiena had never struck him as the motherly type. And dry-as-dust Porter ran from intimate encounters with women.
Hellstrom was involved in something to do with sex, though, and it was probably dirty as hell.
Peruge rubbed a hand across his forehead. The motel had provided an in-room coffee maker with paper packets of instant brew. He lurched to his feet, found the equipment in the closet alcove beside the bathroom door, heated water, and made two cups. He drank it much too hot. His mouth felt scalded, but it gave him a lift and reduced the throbbing in his head. He could think a bit more clearly now. He put the front door on the chain latch and got out his transceiver.
The second signal burst at the mountains brought contact with Janvert. Peruge’s hands were unsteady, but he pulled a chair up to the window, rested the equipment on the sill, and set himself grimly to the task of reporting. They exchanged code-recognition signals and Peruge launched himself into the whole story of his night with Fancy, sparing nothing.
“Eighteen times?” Janvert sounded unbelieving.
“As nearly as I can remember.”
“You must’ve had some time.” The beam transceiver failed to mask Janvert’s tone of cynical amusement.
“Don’t give me any crap,” Peruge growled. “She shot me full of something, an aphrodisiac or something, and I was just a big, eager bundle of flesh. See if you can keep this on a professional level, will you? We have to find out what it was that she gave me.” He glanced down at the bruise on his arm.
“How do you propose doing that?”
“I’m going up there today. I may brace Hellstrom about it.”
“That might not be too wise. Have you checked with HQ?”
“The Chief wants—I’ve checked!” Christ! It was too difficult to explain that the Chief had ordered direct negotiations. This development couldn’t change that. It only added to the things to be introduced in the negotiations.
“You play it cool,” Janvert said. “Remember, we’ve three people missing already.”
Did Janvert take him for an idiot, for Christ’s sake?
Peruge massaged his right temple. God, his head felt empty, as empty as his body. She’d really drained him.
“How’d this dame get down from the farm?” Janvert asked. “Nightwatch didn’t report any car headlights out that way.”
“She rode a bicycle, for Christ’s sake! Didn’t I already tell you that?”
“No, you didn’t. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”
“I’m just a little tired.”
“That I can understand.” There he went with the goddamned humor again! “So she rode a bicycle. You know, that’s interesting.”
“What’s interesting?”
“Carlos was a bicycle nut. The Portland office said he took a bike with him in the van. Remember?”
Peruge glanced back at the bicycle leaning against the wall. He did remember now that Shorty mentioned it. A bicycle. Was that possible? By any stretch of good fortune, could that set of flimsy wheels be linked to Depeaux? “Do we have a serial number or anything else to identify Carlos’s bicycle?” he asked.
“Maybe. There might even be fingerprints. Where’s this bicycle now?”
“Right here in the room with me. I’m bike-sitting while she gets breakfast.” He recalled his original resolve, then. Christ Almighty! His mind was going! “Shorty,” he barked, some of his old strength returning for a moment, “you get a team down here as soon as you can. Collect this bicycle, yes, but we have to get our hands on Fancy for a long and thorough interrogation.”
“That’s more like it,” Janvert said. “DT is right here listening to us and he’s all hot to go.”
“No!” DT had to stay there and keep an eye on Janvert. The Chief had been explicit about that. “Send Sampson’s team.”
“DT is seeing to it. They’ll be on their way in just a minute.”
“Tell them to hurry, will you? I only know one way of delaying this dame and, after last night, I’m really not up to it.”
The words of Nils Hellstrom.
I remember my childhood in the Hive as the happiest period, the happiest experience a human could ever enjoy. Nothing I really needed was denied me. I knew that all around me were people who would protect me with their lives. It came to me only gradually that I owed these people the same full measure of payment were it ever demanded of me. What a profound thing the insects have taught us! How different it is from the wild Outside opinions about insects. Hollywood, for instance, has long contended that the mere threat of having an insect crawl on one’s face is enough to make a grown man beg for mercy and tell every secret he ever knew. Philosopher Harl, the wisest of his specialty among us, tells me that from childhood nightmares to adult psychosis, the insect is a common horror fixation in the Outsider’s mind. How strange it is that Outsiders cannot look beyond the insect’s great strength and efficient face to see the lesson embodied there for us all. Lesson one, of course, is that the insect is never afraid to die for his brethren.
“How could they let those—those Outsiders get away with that bicycle?” Hellstrom stormed.
He stood almost in the center of Hive Central Security, a chamber deep within the Hive that could tap into and repeat the data collected from any of its internal and external sensors. The room lacked only the positive direct visual backup of the barn aerie to make it the most important security post in the Hive. Hellstrom often preferred this backup post to the aerie. The sense of bustling workers whose activities spread outward all around gave him a feeling of protection that he believed helped his thought processes.
Saldo, who had made the report, shuddered under the combined weight of Hellstrom’s wrath and of complex personal knowledge not only of the danger this development brought, but of the judgment error that went directly back to the prime male. Saldo was shaken in his innermost being. If only Hellstrom had heeded the words of warning. If only . . . But it would not be wise to remind Hellstrom of this as yet.