As she dressed, Fancy admitted to herself that she felt hungry and she wondered if Peruge had money to buy breakfast. She enjoyed the thought of exotic Outsider food, but she had not prepared herself with money from Hive stores before sneaking out. A warm coat, the male breeding hype, and the bicycle, but no money.
I was in a hurry, she thought, and she could not suppress a joyful giggle. The wild Outsider males were such fun when one hyped them, as though their suppressed breeding energies had been stored up for just such an occasion.
As he watched Fancy dress, Peruge found his original worries returning. What had driven her to his bed? Breeding? What nonsense! She had come into possession of an undoubted aphrodisiac, though. He couldn’t deny this. His own behavior in the night gave ample testimony to this.
Eighteen times!
Something was very sick up there at that farm.
Breeding!
“Have you had any babies?” he asked.
“Oh, several,” she said, then realized it had been wrong to admit this. Her own training in Outsider sex inhibitions had been explicit on that score. Her personal experiences had reinforced the training. Now, it was a potentially dangerous admission. Peruge had no way of knowing how old she was. Old enough to be his mother, no doubt. That Hive difference between appearance and age was one of the things that could never be shared with Outsiders. She felt an abrupt resurgence of Hive caution.
Her answer astonished him. “Several? Where are they?”
“Oh – with friends.” She tried to act casual and unconcerned, but now she was fully alert. Peruge must be diverted. “You want to breed some more?” she asked.
But Peruge was not to be shunted from this fascinating disclosure. “Don’t you have a husband?”
“Oh, no.”
“Who fathered your several children?” he asked, then realized he probably should have asked about fathers, plural.
His questions increased her nervousness. “I don’t want to talk about it.” Admitting that she’d borne children had been a mistake. Hive consciousness restored other memories of the night with Peruge, as well. The Outsider had made interesting admissions while in the throes of breeding ecstasy. There had been, for a time, a level of his deepest awareness completely open to her. Moving with an elaborate show of casualness, she crossed to the bicycle, took up the long fur coat, held it over her arm.
“Where are you going?” he demanded. He forced his legs off the edge of the bed, let them fall to the cold floor, which restored some of his energy. His head whirled with fatigue and there was now an aching in his chest. What the hell had been in that shot? She’d really used him up.
“I’m hungry,” she explained. “Can I leave the bicycle while I go out and eat? Maybe we can breed some more later.”
“Eat?” His stomach rebelled at the thought.
“There’s a cafe just down the street,” she said. “I’m very hungry –” she giggled, “after last night.”
She at least has to come back and get her damned bicycle, he thought. And he realized he was no match for her in his present weakened condition. He’d have a reception committee ready for her when she did return, though. They were going to unravel the mystery of Nils Hellstrom, and the beginning of the thread was named Fancy.
“Just down to the cafe,” he said, as though he were explaining it to himself. He recalled seeing the neon sign.
“I like an – breakfast,” she said and swallowed in a sudden chill. Nervousness had almost tripped her into saying an “Outsider” breakfast. Outsider was a word one did not use with Outsiders. She covered her slip, asking, “Do you have any money? I sneaked out in such a hurry last night I didn’t bring any.”
Peruge missed her stumbling phrase, gestured to his trousers on a chair across the room. “Hip pocket. Wallet.” He put his head in his hands. The effort of sitting up had taken a frightening amount of his reserves, and the chest pain and headache left him confused. He realized it was going to require a tremendous will to stand up. Maybe a cold shower would help. He heard Fancy fumbling for the money, couldn’t bring himself to look at her. Take it all! Damned bitch!
“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, fo
r 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.
“Our surveillance workers did not know what was happening until it was too late,” Saldo explained. “Fancy had emerged earlier and they were lulled into a sense of complacency. A closed truck drove up. Four men went into Peruge’s room and two of them emerged with the bicycle. They were driving away before our people could get across the street and try to stop them. We pursued, but they were prepared for that and we were not. Another truck blocked our pursuit and let them get away. They were at the airport and the bicycle was gone before we could catch up.”
Hellstrom closed his eyes. His mind felt clotted with foreboding. He opened his eyes and said, “And all this time, Fancy was down the street at the restaurant eating Outsider foods.”
“We’ve always known how she is about that,” Saldo said. “It’s a defect.” He made the vat sign, eyebrows raised questioningly.
“No.” Hellstrom shook his head. “Don’t be too quick to discount her value to us. Fancy’s not yet ready for the vats. Where is she right now?”
“Still at the restaurant.”
“I thought I ordered her brought in.”
Saldo shrugged.
Of course, Hellstrom thought. The workers were fond of Fancy and many of them knew about her defect. What harm was there in letting her finish a meal of exotic Outsider food? Fondness could be a defect, too. “Have her picked up and brought back immediately,” he ordered.
“I should’ve ordered that myself at once,” Saldo admitted. “No excuse. I was at my station monitoring our communications with town when – no excuse. All I thought of was hurrying down the gallery to you.”
“I understand.” Hellstrom indicated a communications console ahead of him.
Saldo moved to the station quickly, relayed Hellstrom’s order. It felt good to be taking positive action, but his deeper disturbance was not eased. What did Hellstrom mean with his mysterious allusions to Fancy’s value? How could she possibly help save the Hive with such behavior? But the older ones often did know things denied to the younger. Most of the Hive’s workers knew this. It did not seem possible that Fancy was helping, but the possibility could not be denied in the face of Hellstrom’s positive assertion.
The words of Nils Hellstrom.
There is another respect in which we must guard against becoming too much like the insects upon whom we pattern our design for human survival. The insect has been called a walking digestive tract. This is not without reason. To support his own life, an insect will consume as much as a hundred times his own weight each day-which to each of us would be like eating an entire cow, a herd of thirty each month. And as the insect population grows, each individual naturally needs more. To those who have witnessed the insect’s profligate display of appetite, the outcome is clear. If allowed to continue on his reproductive rampage, the insect would defoliate the earth. Thus, with our lesson from the insect, comes a clear warning. If the race for food is to be the deciding conflict, let no one say it came without this warning. From the beginning of time, wild humans have stood helpless, watching the very soil they nurtured give birth to a competitor that could out eat them. Just as we must not let our teacher the insect consume what we require for survival, we must not launch a similar rampage of our own. The pace of our planet’s growing cycle cannot be denied. It is possible for insects or for man to destroy in a single week what could have fed millions for an entire year.
“We lifted all of the prints we could en route and put everything on a chartered plane to Portland,” Janvert said over the laser transceiver. “The preliminary report says some of the prints match those of the dame’s that we lifted in your room. Have our boys picked her up yet?”
“She got away,” Peruge growled.
Clad only in a light robe, he sat in front of the window, looking out at the morning light on the mountain and trying to keep his mind focused on the report. It was becoming increasingly difficult. His chest ached with a demanding persistence, and every movement took so much energy he wondered each time if there would be any reserves left.
“What happened?” Janvert asked. “Di
d our team slip up?”
“No. I should’ve sent them to the cafe. We saw her come out and head back here, but three men drove up and intercepted her.”
“They grabbed her?”
“There was no struggle. Fancy just jumped into the car with them and they drove off. Our people just weren’t in place. The delay van that helped us get away with the bike wasn’t back yet. Sampson ran out when we saw what was happening, but it all happened too quickly.”
“Back at the farm, eh?”
“I’m sure of it,” said Peruge.
“Did you get a license number?”
“Too far away, but it makes little difference.”
“So she just went along with them?”
“That’s how it looked from here. Sampson thought she looked unhappy about it, but she didn’t argue.”
“Probably unhappy that she couldn’t come back and play with you some more,” Janvert said.
“Stuff that!” Peruge snapped, then put a hand to his head. His brain felt blocked off, not working at all the way it should. There were so many details, and he could feel things slipping away from him. He really needed to take a cold shower, snap out of this fog, and get ready to return to the farm.
“I’ve been referring to the files,” Janvert said. “This Fancy fits the description of the Fancy Kalotermi who’s an officer of Hellstrom’s corporation.”
“I know, I know,” Peruge sighed.
“You feeling all right?” Janvert asked. “You’re sounding a little off your feed. Maybe that shot she gave you –”
“I’m okay!”
“You don’t sound like it. We don’t know what was in that stuff she used to charge you up last night. Maybe you’d better go out for a physical and we send in the second team.”
“Meaning you,” Peruge growled.
“Why should you have all the fun?” Janvert asked.
“I told you to stuff that! I’m all right. I’ll take a shower and get ready to go pretty soon. We have to find out how she did that.”