“You goddamned idiot! Will you stop making stupid suggestions like that?”
Merrivale glared at the base of the telephone. “Shorty, I must ask that you moderate your tone and your passions. This—this hive, as you call it, sounds like the very kind of subversion that we must—”
“I’m calling the president!” Janvert said. “You know I can do it. You gave me the Signal Corps number and code yourself. He’ll answer, too. You and the Agency can go plumb straight to—”
“Shorty!” Merrivale was outraged and abruptly fearful. This thing was getting completely out of hand. Janvert’s fanciful warnings might have some substance in them—the military would find out about that quickly enough—but a call to the president would have widespread repercussions. Heads would roll. They bloody well would!
“Calm yourself, Shorty,” Merrivale said. “Now, listen to me. What assurance do I have that you’re telling me the truth? You describe a pretty desperate situation which I find extremely difficult to believe. If it is anything even remotely resembling what you describe, however, it clearly calls for a military solution and I’ve no alternative but to—”
“You asshole!” Janvert snapped. “Haven’t you understood a single thing I’ve said? There won’t be any world for your damned military solution to take place on if you make one wrong move now! There won’t be anything! These people can blow the planet apart, or pulverize any piece of it they choose. You couldn’t break through to them in time to prevent that. The planet’s at stake—the whole planet, do you understand me?”
Gammel reached out, grabbed Merrivale’s telephone arm, and shook it to demand attention. Merrivale looked at him.
Gammel held up a sheet of paper on which he had written, “Go along with him. Ask personal inspection visit. Until we’re sure, we cannot take chances.”
Merrivale pursed his lips in thought. Go along with him? That was madness. Blow up the world, indeed! He said, “Shorty, I’m sure my own profound doubts about this—”
Abruptly, Gammel dropped his earphones, grabbed the telephone out of Merrivale’s hand, thrust him aside, and motioned for two of his aides to hold Merrivale.
“Janvert,” Gammel said, “this is Waverly Gammel. I spoke to you a few minutes ago when you first called. I’m a senior agent with the FBI. I’ve been listening to your conversation and I, for one, am ready to go along with—”
“They’re just stalling!” Merrivale shouted, struggling with the agents who held him. “They’re bluffing, you fool! They can’t—”
Gammel put a hand over the receiver and addressed his men. “Take him outside and shut the door.” He returned to his conversation with Janvert, explaining, “That was Merrivale. I’ve had him forcibly removed. Under the circumstances, I suspect he must be insane. I am going to come out to that—that hive myself and I am going to look at whatever it is you can show me to substantiate this weird story. I will ask that any action from this end be delayed until I report back, but I will put a time limit on that. Do you understand all of that, Janvert?”
“You sound like somebody with a few smarts, Gammel,” Janvert said. “I thank God for that. Just a minute.”
Hellstrom bent close to Janvert, spoke in a low voice.
Janvert said, “Hellstrom says you can come out here under those terms and will be permitted to report back in person. It’s my opinion that you can trust him.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Gammel said. “Tell me exactly where I report at that farm.”
“Just come to the barn,” Janvert said. “That’s where it all begins.”
As Janvert replaced the telephone in its cradle, Hellstrom turned away, wondering why he no longer felt tired. The Hive was going to get its big block of time. That seemed obvious. There were a few among the wild Outsiders who could be reasoned with—people such as this Janvert and the agent on the telephone. Such people would understand the implications of the Hive’s new stinger. They would recognize the need for change. Things were going to change in this world, too. Hellstrom knew what his own course had to be. He would bargain with the Outsider government for conditions under which the Hive could continue its mimic existence unobserved by the wild masses. The secrecy could not last indefinitely, of course. The Hive itself would see to that. They were going to swarm before long and there was nothing the Outsiders could do to prevent that swarming. Swarm would follow swarm thereafter and the wild ones would be assimilated and pushed back into smaller and smaller portions of the planet they shared now with tomorrow’s humans.
From Joseph Merrivale’s report to the Agency board.
As you know, we are effectively blocked from any further active participation in this matter, a decision the short sightedness of which we all recognize. We are consulted on the problem from time to time, however, and I can give you some idea of how things are proceeding in Washington.
My own private guess at the moment is that Hellstrom will be permitted to continue with his filthy cult, at least for the time being, and he may even be allowed to continue making his subversive films.
The seesaw of the official debate is polarized around the following two opposing viewpoints:
1. Blast them out and damn the consequences. This is a minority viewpoint which I share, but it is losing adherents.
2. Stall for time by making a secret agreement with Hellstrom, thereby keeping knowledge of the Hive from the public, while at the same time mounting a massive research program aimed at the destruction of what is coming to be called in official circles “the Hellstrom horror.”