The Tower and the Hive (36 page)

“It certainly is,” Osullivan said. “Get it recorded and do a spot check on other worker bodies ... or should I call them warriors, if that's what they've put in place of shovels and rakes?” Osullivan turned to his com officer. “Put me on a wide com line. I want to get
all
surface units to check if all the ... workers”—he made an ironic grimace—“are the same.”

The order was duly given and accepted.

 

Makako's fan was also avoiding the stumbling wounded forms that blindly retreated back toward Voorhees, or dragged themselves in the opposite direction.

“Can't tell the players without any markings,” one of her team remarked.

“According to my GC readings, each queen must stink different,” said another, “and boy, am I glad I'm in a hazmat suit and can't smell a thing!”

“Button up,” Makako said firmly.

Then Voorhees's voice came on line just as he and his four entered the facility. “There's a badly wounded queen in here, her egg bulb is collapsed on one side, lost most of her hind legs to the second joint and has only one front arm with palps. She's making for her quarters and there're little scuttlers coming out to assist. They aren't her usual attendants. She'll squash 'em.... No, they're managing, several on each side of a joint. Spread out, men, and let's see how many she has left of her Hive. Miko, you're the shortest—check the waiting area down that right-hand tunnel.”

“Sir, I'm getting heavy concentrations of the selenoaldehydes,” one of his team said.

“I'd expect that inside a collection facility. Wonder what they'll be in the queen's quarters.”

“Off the scale, prolly,” another remarked with a snort.

“Let's get to the queen's quarters. There may be some interesting variations of Hiver patterns on her main screen. You have that recorder, don't you, Hickey?”

“Yes sir, but even with the help she's getting, I don't see how she can make it back. She's oozing with every step.”

“As well for us. The left-hand tunnel leads to her quarters, Hickey. Gallard, stay back and warn us if she gets too close.”

“Not that she has an arm left to do anything with,” murmured Gallard.

“She's not the one who fights,” Hickey replied with disgust. “She's got all them worker-warrior types we saw dead up above.”

“Fighter or not, someone mauled her good.”

The watchers on the ship could see Makako's team working farther away from the landing site. They were some ways from any other collective, stepping across sizable vines which had been ripped from supporting posts, Hiver bodies caught in the tangles.

And so the searching went. When Voorhees's team had exited from the facility, they returned to the shuttle and sent the first reports back to the
Asimov,
then purged the portable GCs for their next stop. Voorhees took the shuttle up, cruising at a low level until they caught up with Makako's point. Then they veered slowly in another direction, landing on top of another facility. There weren't even any corpses around it. The queen's quarters were empty, although Gallard thought he heard tiny scrabblings against one wall.

“The scuttlers, prolly.”

The screens were dead.

“They die when the queen does?” Hickey asked.

“Probably,” Voorhees said. “Concentration in here is only parts per trillion, sir, much lighter.”

 

There were over 240 known Hive facilities on the Main Continent, and battles had been fought in every direction around them as queens led their warrior-workers out to either defend their Hives or attack others. When the massed assaults ended, thirty-two facilities still had queens, some of them badly injured: two were combing through their egg reserves, beginning to fertilize eggs in a valiant attempt to repopulate their Hives. The surface team did not have to physically inspect all of them. Life-form readings, set to queens and the large warrior-workers, showed which facilities had queens and provided a rough assessment of their remaining minions. Recordings had been made of pheromones in a sufficient variety to give the scientists much to study.

Perry lifted the shuttle safely back to the Moon Base. The moment the shuttle doors opened, alarms in the boat deck went off.

“Do we stink that bad?” Gallard asked.

“You do,” was the response of the lieutenant on duty in the base headquarters. “You go through decontam until you register zero on the stinkometer and you guys are thoroughly deodorized. That okay with you, Commander?”

“If we reek enough to set off the alarms, we should clean off before we undress,” Makako agreed, and waved the troops toward the decontam facility. Since the unit held only one person at a time, there was a tedious wait.

“They still stink,” Gallard said, wrinkling his nose at the last man to hang his gear up in the storage closet. “I'll never get rid of that reek.” He felt his hair, rubbed down his arms and legs. “Yuck! Commander, can we use enough water to get really clean?”

“Permission granted,” Makako said, devoutly wishing she had enough cologne left to get rid of the residual smell. She lifted her arm to her nose.

“All in your mind,” Voorhees said, grinning.

“If it is, I'm in real trouble,” Makako murmured to him. “And that shuttle still stinks. We'll have to moor it out in space for days. It's permeated the metal. Gods, those pheromones are pervasive.”

“All in your mind,” Voorhees repeated, enjoying his tease of the commander.

The com unit buzzed for Makako's attention: “Prime Perry says he's moved the personnel carrier to the gym so you won't have to back through boat bay, sir, until it's been deodorized.”

“Thank him.” He held out his hand to Makako. “Pleasure working with you.”

She shook his hand solemnly. “And with you, but gods, how I hope we don't have to do it again.”

“Sir,” the com unit continued, “Met says wind's picking up. What do we do about that? XO says all that smell moving to the eastern continents might be bad.”

Makako groaned. “Get back to the Asimov. We'll have to do something ... maybe seed some clouds and dilute those pheromones. Some of my readings were off the scale and most of 'em were subtly different.”

“I'll tell what comes up in the analysis, soon's I know myself,” Voorhees said and then called for his four to come with him to catch their ride back to the
Asimov.

Though the 'port was swift, the five men exuded enough residual pheromones to cause the ensign who opened the carrier to recoil with disgust written all over his face.

“Beg your pardon, sir,” he said sheepishly.

“Into the showers, all of you,” Voorhees said. “Tell the captain I'm taking our readings up to the lab. I'll shower again there.”

“Yes sir, but Captain Osullivan's orders were for you to contact him immediately.” The ensign gestured to the boat bay's com unit on the upper level.

“All right,” Voorhees said, resettling the bag of data disks that contained the readings.

“What's this about a bad Met report, Voorhees?” asked Captain Osullivan.

“Winds have picked up. Can we do something about diluting the pheromones it's carrying to the east? I'm on my way to the lab, sir, but I really don't want to bring a pong to the bridge, if you don't mind.”

“Appreciate that, Mr. Voorhees. Report when you're ... deodorized.”

“Yes sir.”

Voorhees then made it straight to the ship's well-equipped laboratory and started his technicians on a preliminary report on pheromones, levels and types. Either the ensign had warned them or constant proximity to lab smells had dulled their olfactory nerves, but none of them so much as wrinkled a nose when he came near them.

“Do a quick assessment and inform Prime Perry when it's ready to be forwarded. We'll do the detailed chemical analyses later.” He caught one of the yeomen by the arm. “Get me a clean shipsuit from my cabin, will you, Naves?”

“Yes sir, right away, sir.” The man jogged out of the lab.

 

A cloud seeding is advisable, Prime,
Perry told Jeff Raven.
The consensus here is that we'd best dilute the pheromones as much with rain as we can before the stench spreads across the eastern continents. I wouldn't like to see such slaughter as on the Main Continent again. The pheromones are diverse and powerful. There is some scuttlebutt that the personnel carrier Commander Voorhees returned in is stinking up the boat deck. I believe he has taken four showers and applied to sick bay for a pungent skin lotion.

Does he really need it? Or is it all in his mind? Jeff
asked.

I've a
message
tube ready for 'portation, sir.
There was an edge of amusement in Perry's voice.
See what your scientists think.

The chromatograms, taken both in the open air and in the queens' quarters that were visited, with and without the occupants, compared with those taken by Prime Thian on the planet Arcadia, kept the lights burning in laboratories and offices all night long. A preliminary report—with many protestations of being a hurried summation and some speculations—was on Jeff Raven's desk by the time he arrived at his office in Blundell Building from Callisto. Copies had been sent to both High Councillors and Prime Elizara. Jeff glanced through the first few pages and 'pathed a call to Thian on the Washington.

Sure, Grandfather,
Thian said, dragging himself from sleep and the comfort of Gravy's warm body.
Right away.

WHAT? That news brought Thian wide awake and he increased his efforts to get into his shipsuit.

No need, sir. I can do it easily enough in gestalt with the
Washington's
generators.

Thian was at his com unit, tapping in Lieutenant Weiman's quarters.

“A
war?”
Such news had as electric a shock on Sam as it had had on Thian.

“Grm is also needed and you're to bring everything you have on Arcadia's queens and any other research you two might have on the Hivers. Please go immediately to the boat bay and get into the personnel capsule. I'll alert the watch officer as soon as I've roused Grm.”

“It's here,” Sam said apologetically. “We were correlating some data and ...” His voice trailed off.

“Great. How long do you need?”

Thian could hear Sam's gulp. “Ten minutes, sir?”

“You're a star,” Thian said with sincere appreciation.

 

Still groggy with insufficient sleep, Sam and Grm found themselves on Earth, in Blundell. The yard supervisor greeted them effusively, hurried them into the great blocky building and turned them over to Gollee Gren.

“Do you have any details about the war, sir?” Sam asked, stumbling along the corridors as the Prime's top assistant escorted them past security and to the high-speed elevator.

“Visual and data files,” Gren said, “are awaiting you. I'd prefer you to see them first before I comment. Prime Raven has called for a meeting with the two High Councillors and other experts at two o'clock.”

“But ... but ... but ...” Sam began, and followed him into the elevator, absently keeping Grm's material from slipping out of the Mrdini's arms.

Gollee turned and grinned at him. “Assimilate what you can in the time you have ... and if a correlation is obvious, make notes of it. We're all trying to absorb what happened yesterday.”

When the doors opened, he waved to the security guards who had come to attention.

“Lieutenant Weiman and the Mrdini Grm,” he said, looking up at the ceiling. “From the Washington, at the request of Prime Raven. I am their escort.”

The guards relaxed. Another came forward with two scintillating disks, which she planted first on Sam's chest and then on Grm's upper arm. As Sam looked down at it, the surface dulled.

“That admits you to this floor only, Lieutenant, Grm. If you need anything, use the com unit in the room,” she said, saluting as she stepped back and gestured down the short hall. “It's set up with what we thought they might need,” she added to Gollee Gren.

“Grand, thanks, Monnie. This way, gentlemen.”

The room had the dead feeling of a high-security facility.

“Yes,” Gollee said with another grin, noticing Sam's happy reaction.

“It's a grand room,” the lieutenant said, glancing around a space that was quadruple the size of his office on the
Washington.
A full com unit with viewing screens above it occupied one wall, a wide sturdy round table with eight chairs were in the center and comformable chairs and a long couch stretched along the other wall. A serving unit was to the left of the entrance.