“How do you propose to open the negotiations?”
“First, I’ll lay it on heavily about the reserves I can call up. I’ll admit that I represent a powerful agency in the government, but I won’t identify us, naturally. After that—”
“No.”
“But—”
“We have three agents probably dead and they—”
“They don’t exist. You said it yourself.”
“Except to us, Dzule. No. You will merely tell them that you represent people who are interested in Project 40. Let them worry about what reserves you may have. They’ve probably killed three people; that, or they’re holding prisoners and—”
“Should I look into that possibility?”
“For God’s sake! Of course not! But the chances are high they’ll be more fearful of what they suspect than of what they know. For all they know, you could have the army, the navy and the Marine Corps standing by with the FBI in reserve. If you need leverage, mention our missing friends, but don’t appear anxious to get them back. Refuse to negotiate on that score. We want Project 40, nothing else. We don’t want murderers or kidnappers or missing people. Is that clear?”
“Very.” And, an empty feeling growing within him, Peruge thought: What if I turn up missing? He thought he knew the answer to this question and he didn’t like it.
“I’ll get those oil people to do what they can,” the Chief said, “but only if it can be done without tipping our hand. Finding out where Hellstrom’s people work doesn’t strike me as too helpful at this point.”
“What if he refuses to negotiate?” Peruge asked.
“Don’t provoke a showdown on it. We still have the board and its forces in reserve.”
“But they’d—”
“They’d take the whole thing and throw us a bone, yes. But a bone is better than nothing.”
“Project 40 could be entirely innocent.”
“You don’t believe that,” the Chief said. “And it’s your job to prove what we both know in this case.” The Chief cleared his throat, a loud, hacking noise over the scrambler. “As long as we have no proof, we don’t have a damn thing. They could have the secret of the end of the world down there, as we led the board to believe, but we can’t move unless we prove it. How many times do I have to say that?”
Peruge rubbed his left knee where he had bumped it against a lightstand in Hellstrom’s studio. It wasn’t like the Chief to repeat a point that many times. What was happening back there in the office? Was the Chief trying to send a subtle message that he couldn’t speak openly?
“Do you want me to find a good excuse for us to pull out of this?” Peruge asked.
There was open relief in the Chief’s voice. “Only if it seems the right thing to do, my boy.”
Somebody’s with him, Peruge realized. It had to be someone accorded a degree of trust, somebody important, but someone who could not be told everything. Try as he might, Peruge could not fit anyone he knew into this description. It should be perfectly obvious to the Chief that his agent in the field had no intention of pulling out. But he was fishing for that suggestion from me. Which meant the someone in the Chief’s office was hearing both ends of the conversation. The cryptic nature of the hidden message in this conversation bespoke extreme caution at headquarters. A call from upstairs. How powerful a man was this Hellstrom?
“Can you say anything about the kinds of toes we may be stepping on?” Peruge asked.
“No.”
“Isn’t it even possible to find out whether Hellstrom’s influence has a purely political base—big contributions to the party, that sort of thing—or whether it’s possible, for instance, that we’re nosing into the affairs of another agency?”
“You’re beginning to understand the problem as I now see it,” the Chief said.
So it’s somebody from another agency with him now, Peruge thought. That could only mean it was one of the Chief’s own people who’d been infiltrated into the other agency. It could mean there were two agencies interested in Hellstrom, or it could mean Hellstrom’s Project 40 was the product of another agency. Investigators could be tripping over each other if this thing were stirred up enough.
“I get the message,” Peruge said.
“When you meet Hellstrom,” the Chief said, “don’t introduce this other possibility yourself. Leave that up to him.”
“I understand.”
“I certainly hope you do—for your own sake as well as mine.”
“Shall I call you back later today?”
“Not unless you have something new to report. Call me immediately after you’ve seen Hellstrom, however. I’ll be waiting.”
Peruge heard the connection close at the other end. He disconnected his scrambler, replaced the telephone on its stand. For the first time in his life, Peruge began to sense what his field agents felt. It’s all very well for him to sit back there all safe and tidy, but I’ve got to go out and risk my neck and he won’t lift a finger if I get chopped!
The words of Trova Hellstrom.
At all cost, we must avoid falling into what we have come to understand as “the termite trap.” We must not become too much like the termite. Such insects, which give us our pattern for survival, have their ways and we have ours. We learn from them, but not slavishly. Termites, never able to leave the protective walls of their mound, come into a world that is completely self-sufficient. And thus it must be with us. The entire termite society is guarded by soldiers. And thus it must be with us. When the mound comes under attack, the soldiers know they can be abandoned outside the mound, left to die buying time for others to make the mound impregnable. And thus it must be with us. But the mound dies if the queen dies. We cannot be that vulnerable. If the mound dies, that is the end of them. We cannot be that vulnerable. The small seeds of our continuation have been planted Outside. They must be prepared to go on alone if our mound dies.
As he returned to the Hive down the long slope of the first gallery, Hellstrom listened for some sound or other message to reassure him that all was well here. No such message came to him. The Hive remained an entity; it still functioned, but the sense of profound disturbance reached all through it. That was the Hive’s nature: touch one part of it and all of its cells responded. The chemistry of their internal communication could not be denied. Key workers, driven by the urgency of their situation, emitted subtle pheromones, external hormones that spread through the common air. The Hive’s filters had been reduced to a minimum to conserve power. The pheromone signals remained for all to inhale and for all to share the common disturbance. Already, signs could be detected that said this situation could not continue without profound and possibly permanent effect on the totality.
His brood mother had warned him once, “Nils, the Hive can learn just as you learn. The totality can learn. If you fail to understand what the Hive learns, this could bring about destruction for us all.”
What was the Hive learning now? Hellstrom wondered.
Fancy’s behavior suggested something demanded by the Hive in its deepest needs. She spoke of swarming. Was that it? They had been working for more than forty years to delay swarming. Had that been a mistake? He was worried about Fancy and had just tried unsuccessfully to find her. She was supposed to be with the shooting crew, but she hadn’t been at her station and Ed had not known where to find her. Saldo had assured him that Fancy was under constant surveillance now, but still Hellstrom worried. Could the Hive create a natural brood mother? Fancy might be a logical choice for this role. What could the Council do if that happened? Should they send Fancy to the vats rather than risk an early swarming? He hated the thought of losing Fancy—that superb bloodline that had produced so many useful specialists. If they could only breed out the instability!