Protective resemblance has always been a major key to our survival. This is shown by the oral tradition as well as by the earliest written records that we have preserved. The mimicry our ancestors learned from insects helps protect us from the attacks of the wild Outsiders. Observation of insects tells us, however, that the survival value of this device remains low unless we perfect it and combine it with many other techniques, especially new techniques that we must constantly search out. To spur us on the way, we must think always of Outsiders as predators. They will attack if they find us. They are sure to find us someday and we must prepare for this. Our preparation must include both defensive and offensive characteristics. In offensive weapons, let us always keep the insect as our model—the weapon must condition any attacker against repeating acts of violence against us.
The vibration of the Hive began somewhere far down below the aerie and reached upward and outward with shock waves that would register on seismic recorders all around the planet. When it stopped, Hellstrom thought: Earthquake! It was a fearful prayer in his mind, however, not a recognition. Let it be an earthquake and not the destruction of Project 40!
He had just begun to relax from the recapture of Janvert not twenty minutes ago when the vibration began.
The aerie stopped creaking and there was a moment of abnormal silence, as though all of the workers of the Hive held their breath simultaneously. In that moment, Hellstrom moved through the aerie’s gloom, noting that the lights still functioned, the screens still glowed. He said, “Damage reports, please. Somebody get me Saldo.” The note of calm command in his own voice surprised him.
Within seconds, they had Saldo on a screen at the right side of the arc. Hellstrom could see a section of a wide gallery behind Saldo, dust settling there.
“They held me!” Saldo greeted him. The younger man looked shocked and just the smallest amount cowed. One of the big symbiotes who attended the researchers moved in behind Saldo then and thrust him aside. The scarred, ebony features of a researcher filled the screen. A pink palm came up in front of the face then and the fingers winked in Hive-sign.
Hellstrom translated aloud for those around him who could not see the screen.
“We do not appreciate the distrust represented by your observer with orders to delay the power connection for our project. Let the alarm you felt be a small sign of our displeasure. We could have warned you to expect it, but your behavior did not deserve such warning. Recall the resonance we all felt in the Hive and rest assured that the effect was of an order many thousands of times greater at the locus of our projected impulse. Project 40, except for some small refinements which may include damping the local feedback, can be judged a complete success.”
“Where was the locus of your projection?” Hellstrom asked.
“In the Pacific Ocean near the islands that the Outsiders call Japan. They will observe a new island there shortly.”
The big face moved out of the screen’s range to be replaced by Saldo.
“They restrained me,” Saldo protested. “They held me and ignored my orders. They connected the power and wouldn’t let me call you. They disobeyed you, Nils!”
Hellstrom flashed a “calm yourself” sign and, as Saldo fell silent, said, “Complete the loose ends of your observation, Saldo. Assemble a report, including development time for the refinements they mention, then report to me personally in full.” He signaled to close the communication, turned away.
The Hive had its defensive-offensive weapon, then, but with it came many other problems. The crisis disturbance that had spread all through the Hive had left its mark on the researchers. Their ordinary irritability had been amplified into a species of revolt. There was damage to the Hive’s interdependence system. This might buy them the time to recover, though. Whatever else it needed, the Hive needed long periods of undisturbed time most of all. The big changes devoured great blocks of time. He could see this when he compared himself to the new breed. Hellstrom held few illusions about himself. He really preferred to vocalize, and Hive-sign always represented a strain on him, but for some of the new breed, this pattern was reversed. Hellstrom knew he took an unhealthy enjoyment in the possession of a distinct name and an Outsider-like identity, but most of the Hive’s workers were free of this bondage.
I am a transitional form, he told himself, and someday I will be obsolete.
From the Hive Manual.
Freedom represents a concept that is tied inextricably to the discredited abstract of individualism/ego. We sacrifice none of this freedom to gain our more efficient, reliable, and convenient basic human stock.
Merrivale stood on the balcony outside his second-floor motel room waiting for daylight. It was cold, but he had dressed in a Highlands-made gray woolen sweater with a high turtleneck. It was thick enough to protect him even when he leaned against the iron balustrade. He puffed thoughtfully on a cigarette, listening to night sounds. There were distant footsteps out in the parking lot and a murmur of voices from a room down the balcony where a light had come on a few minutes ago.
A door below him opened, sending yellow light in a great splashing fan across the courtyard to the blue edge of the swimming pool. A man strode out into the light, peered upward.
Merrivale, looking down, recognized Gammel and expected the FBI man might have a report on the earth shock. The quake, a distant rumbling that had filled his room with primitive fears, had awakened Merrivale almost forty-five minutes earlier. Gammel already had been awake and in the room downstairs they were using as a command post. Merrivale had him on the house telephone in a few seconds, demanding, “What was that?”
“Felt like an earthquake. We’re checking out whether there was any damage. You okay?”
Merrivale had turned on his bedside light. There was power, at least. He glanced around his room. “Yes, I’m fine. Doesn’t seem to be any damage here at all.”
Some of the motel’s other tenants had been on the balcony and in the courtyard when Merrivale went out, but most had returned to their rooms by now.
Gammel, recognizing Merrivale on the balcony, motioned for him to come down. “Hurry it up.”
Merrivale stubbed out his cigarette, crushed it underfoot, and headed down the balcony toward the stairs. There was something tensely alarming in Gammel’s manner.
Merrivale made it down to the first-floor room in a swift ten seconds, taking the stairs two at a time, not bothering about noise. He plunged through the door Gammel was holding open from the inside, heard the door slam behind him.
It wasn’t until he was fully into the room, seeing the three men clustered around a table that held a radio transceiver and a telephone with the receiver off the hook, that Merrivale began to get a full sense of how truly wrong things had gone.
There was a bed against the wall behind the table, its covers thrown off and dragged part way into the room. An ash tray had fallen off the table and lay ignored in its spilled contents. One of the men around the table still wore pajamas, although Gammel and the others were fully dressed. Light came from two floor lamps pulled close to the table. All of the men, including Gammel, were focused in some way on the telephone with its receiver off. Two of the men were actually staring at the phone. The man in pajamas was looking from the phone to Merrivale, back to the phone, and to Merrivale. Gammel was pointing at the instrument while he glared at Merrivale.
“Dammit to hell! They knew our number!” Gammel blared.
“What?” Merrivale was taken aback by the accusatory tone.
“We had that phone put in late yesterday,” Gammel explained. “It’s a private line.”