“That - ahh –” Merrivale pulled at his chin. “That’s a bit sticky. I’m sure you understand the delicacy of our position in all of –”
“I don’t understand it,” Janvert said. “What’s happened to Porter?”
“That’s one of the things we hope Carlos can ascertain,” Merrivale said.
Depeaux turned a speculative look on Janvert, returned his attention to Merrivale, who had sunk back into apparent concentration on the blueprint map.
“Porter’s missing?” Depeaux asked.
“Somewhere around this farm,” Merrivale said. He looked up as though just noticing Depeaux. “Presumably.”
From recorded comments of brood mother Trova Hellstrom.
Some threat is good for a species. It tends to stimulate breeding, to raise the level of awareness. Too much, however, can have a stupefying effect. It is one of the tasks of Hive leadership to adjust the level of stimulating threat.
As the sun moved lower behind him on the hill above Guarded Valley, Depeaux took care that the light did not outline him. There were both advantages and disadvantages in such light. It tended to throw some details of the farm into relief – the fencelines, the paths on the opposite hillside, the weathered boards on the barn’s western face.
There still had not been one sign of human activity outside the buildings and no sure indication of humans within them. The irritating hum continued to issue from the barn and Depeaux had exhausted his speculations on what it might be. He had opted tentatively for air conditioning and wished he could enjoy that relief from the hot afternoon in the dusty grass.
A long, cold drink, that’s what I need, he told himself.
The fact that the farm fitted all of the reports and the descriptions (including Porter’s) did not really say anything for it.
Depeaux scanned the valley once more through his binoculars. There was a peculiar waiting air to the emptiness of the place, as though forces were being marshaled to fill the farm with life.
Depeaux wondered what Hellstrom did with his farm’s products. Why was the entire area so devoid of human activity? There’d been no vacationers or picnickers on the dirt road to the valley – although the area seemed attractive enough. Why were the Fosterville residents so closemouthed about Hellstrom’s farm? Porter had been intrigued by this, too. This was a hunting area, but Depeaux had seen no deer sign and not one hunter. The stream obviously held no attraction for fishermen, but still . . .
A Steller’s jay flapped into the tree behind Depeaux, called once with its raucous voice, then flew across the valley into the trees of the far slope.
Depeaux watched the bird’s flight with peculiar interest, realizing it was the first higher life form he’d seen in Hellstrom’s valley. One damned jay! That was some record for a day’s work. But he was supposed to be a bird watcher, wasn’t he? Just a simple little old vacationer, a traveling salesman for the Blue Devil Fireworks Corporation of Baltimore, Maryland. He sighed, worked his way back to the oak’s shade. He had studied the maps, the aerial photographs, Porter’s descriptions, all of the accumulated reports. Every detail had been committed to memory. He scanned his back trail with the binoculars. Nothing moved in the tall grass of the open area or in the trees beyond it. Nothing. The oddity of this became increasingly demanding of his attention.
One damned jay?
It had been a thing long inserting itself into his awareness, but now he focused on it to the exclusion of all other considerations. One bird. It was as though animal life had been swept away from the region around Guarded Valley. Why hadn’t Porter mentioned that? And the grazing cattle down there to the north toward Fosterville. No fence kept them from approaching the farm, but they kept their distance.
Why?
In that instant, Depeaux recognized what it was that had made the farm’s fields appear so strange to him.
They were clean.
Those fields had not been harvested. They had been swept clean of every stalk, every leaf, every twig. An orchard occupied the upper reaches of the valley and Depeaux crawled back to study it through the binoculars. There were no bits of rotten fruit on the ground, no culls, no leaves or limbs – nothing.
Clean.
But the tall grass remained all around on the perimeter hills.
Hellstrom’s own addenda to the dietary notes.
The key workers must, of course, take the supplemental leader foods without fail, but it is equally important that they keep up their intake from the vats. It is here that we get the markers that maintain our awareness of mutual identity. Without the chemical sameness provided by the vats, we will become like those Outside: isolated, alone, drifting without purpose.
By late afternoon, Depeaux had become almost obsessed with the desire to find something animal and alive in the valley. But nothing stirred there and the sun had moved several long notches toward the horizon.
Perhaps another vantage point, he thought.
The longer he stayed on the hill above the farm, the less he liked his cover story. Bird watcher, indeed! Why hadn’t Porter mentioned the absence of animal life? Insects, of course: the grass was alive with them, crawling, buzzing, flitting.
Depeaux slid and crawled away from the crest, got to his knees. His back ached from all of the unnatural movement. Grass burrs had invaded his collar, under his belt, under his stockings, up his sleeves. He managed a smile, half grimace, at his own discomfort; he could almost hear Merrivale commenting, Part of the price you pay for engaging in this line of work, old bean.
Son of a bitch!
Porter’s careful reports had indicated no guards posted outside the farm’s perimeter, but that was just one man’s account. Depeaux asked himself how he felt about his position in the open under the oak. You stayed alive in this business by trusting only your own senses ultimately – and Porter was missing. That represented an important piece of information. It could be innocent or ominous, but it was safer to believe the worst. At the worst, Porter was dead and the people of Hellstrom’s farm were responsible. Merrivale believed this. He’d made that clear, and the secretive bastard could have information to confirm it without any of his agents being the wiser.
“You will proceed with the utmost caution, keeping in mind at every juncture our need to determine precisely what has happened to Porter.”
The son of a bitch probably already knows, Depeaux told himself.
Something about the emptiness of the region spoke of hidden dangers. Depeaux reminded himself that agents who leaned too heavily on the reports of others often ended up dead, sometimes in painful and ugly fashion. What was it about this place?
He swept his gaze around his back trail, saw no sign of movement or watching eyes. A glance at his watch told him he had slightly more than two hours before sunset. Time to get to the head of the valley then and scan the length of it.
Bending low at the waist, Depeaux got to his feet and, in a crouching trot, moved swiftly toward the south below the concealing ridge. His breathing deepened easily with the effort and he thought for a moment that he wasn’t in such bad condition for a man of fifty-one. Swimming and long walks weren’t the worst recipe in the world, and he wished he were swimming that instant. It was dry and hot under the ridge, the grass full of nose-tickling dust. Desire for a swim did not bother him greatly. Such wishes had come often in the sixteen years since he’d moved up from an office clerk in the Agency. He usually passed off the fleeting desire to be elsewhere as an unconscious recognition of danger, but sometimes it could be attributed to no more than bodily discomfort.
When he’d been a mere clerk in the Baltimore office, Depeaux had enjoyed his daydreams about working as an agent. He’d filed final reports on agents “wasted in action” and had told himself that if he ever got to be an agent, he would be extremely cautious. That had not been a hard promise to keep. He was, by nature, careful and painstaking – “the perfect clerk,” some of his fellows carped. But it was painstaking care that had led him to commit the
farm and its surroundings to memory, to note possible cover (little enough of that!), and the game trails through the tall grass indicated on aerial photos.
Game trails but no visible game sign, he reminded himself. What kind of game ran these paths? It was another note added to his increasing sense of caution.
Depeaux had once overheard Merrivale commenting to another agent, “The trouble with Carlos is he plays for survival.”
As though old Jollyvale didn’t do the same! Depeaux told himself. The man hadn’t reached his present eminence as operations director without an eye for the main line.
Depeaux could hear the faint trickling of the waterfall. A clump of madronas stood at the invisible line on Depeaux’s mental map, marking the northernmost reach of Hellstrom’s valley. Depeaux paused in the shade of the madronas and made another survey of his surroundings, paying special attention to his own back trail. Something about that open area – nothing moved in it, but Depeaux made a decision then and there to wait for darkness to cover his return across that space.
Thus far, it had not been too bad a go, he told himself. Just that faintly disquieting sense of an unknown danger. The second examination of the valley from this upper vantage point should not take too long. Perhaps he might reconsider and go back by daylight to the bicycle and an early check-in with Tymiena at the van. Perhaps. That first sense of decision to wait for darkness had gone deeply into him, though.
Play it safe, he reminded himself. Play for survival.
He turned left briskly, unslung his binoculars, and slipped up through a stand of oak and madrona to a clump of oily green bushes behind the rock face of the valley’s upper limit. The tinkling waterfall was quite noisy off through the undergrowth. At the bushes, Depeaux dropped to all fours, tucking the binoculars under his shirt and cinching the pack tightly against his right side. He went through the now-familiar stalking crawl, turning partly onto his left side to protect the binoculars and keep the pack off the ground. The bushes ended presently in a short rock lip which exposed a lengthwise view of Guarded Valley.
As he brought out the binoculars, Depeaux wondered idly where the “wild” Indians had been slaughtered. The noise of the waterfall was quite loud about fifty feet to his right. He rested on his elbows, brought up the binoculars.
The farm buildings were farther away from him this time and the large barn-studio concealed all but the western wing of the house. A crooked stretch of stream was clearly visible from this new vantage. Its surface remained mirror calm, as though stagnant, reflecting the trees and brush at its verge. The view opened up at the valley’s far end, revealing the rolling grasslands and clumps of trees, the patches of distant cattle.
Why wouldn’t the cattle venture nearer into the rich grass closer to the end of the valley? There was nothing visible to keep them away: no fence, no ditch – nothing.
Depeaux became aware of a vehicle moving in a dust cloud far off beyond the cattle. That was the narrow track he and Tymiena had taken. Who was coming down there? Would they see the van-camper? Tym would be out there with her paints drawing pictures of the stupid landscape, of course, but still . . . Depeaux focused his binoculars on the dust, made out presently a large covered truck. It was following the crazy meander track toward the valley and moving fast. He tried to locate Tymiena, but the hill to his left blocked off that vista, and they’d taken the camper into tree shade along a side road. The oncoming truck might not come close enough to see her. It made no difference, anyway, he told himself. A strange excitement gripped him.
He brought his attention back to the farm buildings. Surely, someone would come out and greet the truck. He would get his first look at the occupants of this odd place. He studied the scene intently.
Nothing moved within the valley.
They must hear the truck. He could hear it himself even from this greater distance and above the waterfall’s intrusion.
Where were the farm’s occupants?
The binoculars had collected dust again. Depeaux paused to reflect on the situation while he applied the linen cloth once more to the lenses. He knew it might appear ridiculous, but the absence of surface activity in the presence of so much evidence that people carried on an active life here filled him with disquiet. It wasn’t natural! Everything was so damned motionless in the valley. He experienced the skin-creeping sensation of being watched by countless eyes. When he rolled over and peered backward through the brush, he could see not one moving thing. Why did he expect trouble from these conditions? He did, though, and his inability to explain the expectation filled him with irritation. What were they hiding here?
Despite Merrivale’s attempts to present this case as a plum for the chosen agent, Depeaux had tasted the sourness of it from the beginning. Shorty Janvert obviously had shared that sense of something profoundly wrong. This thing was sour! And it was not the sourness of green fruit and easy pickings. It was a prickling of the senses that came from knowledge of something overripe and rotten, something stewed too long in its own sour juices.
The truck was just beyond the valley now, making its final climb up the easy slope to the north fence. Depeaux brought his binoculars to bear on it once more, saw two white-clad figures in the cab. They were visible only dimly through sun reflections on the windshield.
And still, no one came from the farm buildings.
The truck turned close to the north fence, revealing large words on its fiat white side: N. Hellstrom, Inc. The machine made a wide turn until it was heading away from the farm, stopped then, and backed up to the gate. Two blond young men emerged from the cab. They trotted briskly to the rear, dropped the gate that extended to a ramp on rollers. They clambered up into the open cave of the bed, slid a tall yellow and gray box from the shadows there. The box appeared heavy from the way they strained. They tipped it onto the gate’s rollers, let it slide swiftly to a jolting, dusty stop on the ground.
What the hell was in that box? It was big enough for a coffin.
The men hopped down, strained against the box until they brought it teetering upright. They walked it then to a position clear of the tail gate, closed up the truck, got back into the cab, and drove away.
The box remained about ten feet outside the north gate.
Depeaux examined the surface of the box through his binoculars. It was taller than the men from the truck and it was heavy. It appeared to be made of wood and was bound by what seemed to be flat metal straps that ran around it from the top to the bottom.
A delivery, Depeaux mused. What in hell could be delivered to this farm in a box that shape?
Hellstrom had his own truck to bring things to the farm, but he didn’t worry about his deliveries waiting in the sun outside his gate. There might be nothing unusual about that, on the surface of it. The Agency’s dossier carried considerable information about Hellstrom’s film company. That was the N. Hellstrom, Inc. Hellstrom was both owner and manager. He made documentary films about insects. Sometimes, Hellstrom’s film efforts were incorporated into quite substantial productions which were distributed through other companies in Hollywood and New York. It was all easily explained until you sat on this hillside and watched the operation, as Depeaux was doing now and as Porter had done before him. What had become of Porter? And why wouldn’t Merrivale permit a straightforward missing person investigation?
There was something else about Hellstrom’s operation.
His nonoperation.
From the Hive Manual.
The relationship between ecology and evolution is extremely close, deeply implicated in organic changes among a given animal population, and profoundly sensitive to the density of numbers within a given habitat. Our adaptations aim to increase the population tolerance, to permit a human density ten to twelve times greater than is currently considered possible. Out of this, we will get our survival variations.
The conference room held an air of detached waiting as Dzule Peruge strode in and took the Chief’s chair at the head of the long table. He glan
ced at his wristwatch as he put his briefcase on the table: 5:14 P.M. In spite of it being Sunday, they were all present, all of the important men and the one woman who shared responsibility for the Agency.
Without any of the usual preparations, Peruge sat down and said, “I’ve had an extremely trying day. To cap it, the Chief called me just two hours ago and told me I would have to deliver his report to you. He had to take care of some questions from upstairs. That, of course, took priority.”
He swept his gaze around the room. It was a quiet and cushioned place, this penthouse board room. Gray curtains covered the double windows on the north side, giving the sun’s afternoon rays a feeling of cool, underwater light as they filtered through to the dark, polished wood of the tabletop.
There were some impatient coughs around the table, but they took the replacement without objection.
Peruge squared the briefcase in front of him, extracted its contents – three thin folders. He said, “You’ve all seen the Hellstrom file. The Chief tells me he circulated it three weeks ago. You will be glad to know that we have now cracked the code on page 17 of the original papers. It was a rather interesting code based on a four-unit configuration that our people tell me was derived from the DNA code. Very ingenious.”
He cleared his throat, pulled one thin sheet from the top folder, scanned it. “Again, this refers to Project 40, but this time distinctly in terms of a weapon. The exact words are ‘a sting that will make our workers supreme over the entire world.’ Very suggestive.”
A man down the table on Peruge’s left said, “Poppycock! This Hellstrom produces movies. That could be a dramatic piece of business for a film.”
“There is more,” Peruge said. “It includes partial instructions for an exchange circuit which our man at Westinghouse assures us is real. He was quite excited by the implications. He called it ‘another key to the puzzle.’ He concedes that it is an incomplete key; where the circuit would fit in the larger scheme is not indicated. However, there was one more item in the coded section.”