Makako was replying: “This seems to involve all the queens on the Main Continent, sir, and I wouldn’t call it a ‘skirmish.’ I’d call it an all-out war. The carnage is unbelievable!” Her wide-eyed expression reinforced her dismay.
“Has she said what started that?” Perry demanded, eyes glued to the scene. “Is the Moon Base in any danger?”
Osullivan shook his head as the Asimov could be felt surging forward in star-speckled space until the stars blurred.
“There’s no way the queens can reach the Moon Base. Remember? We destroyed their spheres and scouts. Makako has reported that they’ve reopened their mines, but ore must be hard to find. New shafts have been sent down. On all the continents, by the way.”
“There must be far too many queens, sir,” Makako was reporting now. “I’ve counted forty separate battlefields and several queens contesting ground in one.”
“Nothing you can do about it, Commander,” Osullivan said by way of reassurance, and then turned to Perry. “Prime, please make contact with Earth Prime whether he’s at Blundell or Callisto. He needs to know about this. We really do need a telepath at every installation, even if he or she only receives.” The last was said in a low murmur of regret.
“There’s never enough to go round, sir.... Lieutenant Balidovino.” Perry turned toward the duty engineer. “I’ll need to draw on the generators for this distance.”
“As you need, sir,” Balidovino replied, fingers poised on the pressure plates of his engineer panel.
“Yeoman, my compliments to Commander Voorhees, and I’d like him on the bridge as soon as possible,” Osullivan added, rubbing his jaw without moving his eyes from the battle.
“Yes, doubtless they’ll want an evaluation from the science officer,” Perry said, crossing his arms on his chest. Then he closed his eyes as he telepathically leaped the long distance to Earth.
Quite imposing in that attitude, Osullivan thought, surprised at his own observation. Perry was no more powerfully built than any of the other Primes Osullivan had met, but there was an aura about the dark-haired, sharp-featured Betelgeusian that made him appear much bigger and ineluctably more powerful.
“My apologies, Earth Prime.” Perry spoke aloud as well as telepathically so that Osullivan knew what was said. Replies would come back, through his mouth but in Jeff’s voice. “But a situation has developed on Xh-33 that you should see through my eyes.” Perry opened his. There was a slight pause, and then Perry’s voice deepened, closer to Raven’s tone. “So that’s what happens when queens do not migrate. An awesome sight. Hmmm, and these creatures are much larger than those that were found by the Washington on Arcadia. Yet that is a much older colony and hasn’t yet overburdened its planet’s resources. A puzzle, what? Captain Osullivan?” Perry turned to Osullivan with a slight grin, encouraging response.
Lieutenant Commander Jan Voorhees came striding onto the bridge and stopped dead when he saw what was on the main screen, his eyes widening.
“A puzzle indeed ...” Osullivan waved a helpless hand at the scene and the hideous, unceasing massacre, with broken limbs and scattered parts oozing viscous internal liquid.
“This is one time”—Raven’s voice came through Perry’s mouth—“when we allow the conflict to proceed. Ask Makako to keep recording. I’m calling up our own xenbees to ‘see’ this through me.”
“Sir,” Voorhees murmured to the captain, “we should get pheromone readings ... once they’ve stopped fighting. That could be vital information.”
“Quite right, Mr. Voorhees,” Jeff Raven’s voice replied, startling the man. Earth Prime chuckled through his link to Perry. “However, even if Humans have been able to move among Hivers without being noticed, I recommend hazmat gear and full masks.”
“Of course, sir, since we don’t know what effect such violent pheromones, even poisonous gases from all those visceral parts, could have on Humans,” Voorhees said, running a nervous hand through thinning blond hair. “And if the prevailing winds happen to carry the stink to the other continents ... well, I hate to speculate what reaction would occur.”
“Good point,” Jeff Raven said. “I’ll mention that to our experts. We have, by the way, discovered a T-10 in the perfumery business who has volunteered to lend us his nose in identifying the smells. He’s supposed to be good at more than the flowery stuff.” Perry’s voice dutifully echoed the amusement in Jeff Raven’s tone, and one of Perry’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “My xenbees are rubbing their hands in an excess of delight to know we can get samples of the dominant pheromones. Preferably as soon as possible after the battles end.”
“I’ll have a team standing by either from here or from the Moon Base, but I request permission to lead it.” Voorhees deferentially looked at his captain, who nodded permission. Then Voorhees turned to Perry. “Is that possible, Prime?” Perry nodded. “Respond in your own time, Commander Makako.”
The response lag was shortening as the powerful Asimov sped toward the Xh-33’s system.
“Sir,” Makako replied, shaking her head, “I would hate such ... butchery ... to extend to the other continents. Right now the weather system is mild with moderate winds blowing east to the sea. My Met officer says there are rain clouds over the intervening ocean. According to him, we might have as much as thirty-six hours before those winds reach the next landmass. We’ll keep a strict eye on it. Continent Two is nightside and doesn’t show any disturbance ...” Her voice trailed off briefly.
“Have you hazmat gear on the base?”
Another pause. “Yes sir, as well as the crew who placed the remotes in the queens’ collectives. I’ve put them on standby.”
“Very good, Commander. Inform us when ... the fighting is over.”
“Commander Makako, Blundell wants you to copy whatever is already recorded and tube it,” Perry said with Jeff’s voice. “I’ll pick it up myself from your base in fifteen minutes from my mark.... Mark! We need to have some idea of how they fight.”
- “Yes sir,” Makako said, looking toward Perry and rather startled to hear another voice issuing from his mouth. “I’m ordering a copy and it’ll be in a message tube at lock 482, sir, in fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you, Commander Makako. Let’s hope we can stop the ...”
“Butchery? Slaughter? Genocide?” Perry supplied synonyms in his own voice without a trace of emotion. Then once more Jeff Raven spoke through the link. “The queens demonstrate a curious killing rage. Similar to old berserkers. My regards to you, Captain Osullivan.” As soon as those words were out of Perry’s mouth, he altered his stance and nodded to the captain to indicate that he was no longer in contact with the Earth Prime. The generators whined down to a lower level.
“Berserkers?” Osullivan said, turning to Perry. “Yes, an apt term. Organize that landing party, will you, Mr. Voorhees? We want to be ready. Pheromones? How interesting.”
Voorhees saluted and immediately left the bridge to organize his team.
Perry stepped slightly closer to the captain’s chair and said softly, “One thing is certain, sir. Those records may have a salutary effect on those who criticized Admiral Ashiant’s destruction of the spheres.”
“I should certainly hope some good comes of that.” Osullivan waved his hand in the general direction of Xh-33. Then his upper body shivered in a sudden convulsive shake. “Thank you, Prime, for your assistance.”
“You’re welcome, sir.” Perry exited through the door of the short passage from the bridge to the Talents’ lounge.
He went immediately to the alcove that housed the lounge’s refreshment facility and poured a hefty glass of the strongest brandy of a very respectable selection of spirits and wines. He drank it in one gulp.
“Perry?” his wife, Adela, asked sleepily, from the door of their bedroom. “What was that all about? Etienne’s never done that before.”
“A question for Earth Prime that was urgent. Want a drink?” He held up the bottle.
She frowned prettily.
“No, I can go right back to sleep if you’re beside me.” She was a T-3 kinetic, able to ’path when in contact with someone, and then only someone she knew well.
“I’ll be right there, dear,” Perry said, and poured a second but smaller drink. With her beside him to neutralize what he had just seen, he too could go back to sleep.
By morning, Captain Osullivan requested Perry to come to the bridge. The Asimov was already within the Xh-33 system and, with no need for a discreet approach, was still running at top speed. The com screen was scanning the devastated Main Continent on Xh-33, showing the carnage but also a bottom line that gave feeble blips, identifying survivors. Commander Voorhees was dressed in his hazardous material suit, complete with independent oxygen system. He had a compact gas chromatograph lying across his left arm. Four other hazmat-suited figures stood slightly behind him and out of the way of the bridge crew, each carrying a similar device, their attention riveted on the shambles of once green, crop-sown fields.
“It seems to be pretty much over,” Commander Makako was saying over the appalling vista of destruction down on Xh-33. “We know some of the queens have taken refuge in their quarters, and suspect many are injured. Haven’t established how many died, but of course, their ... workers or warriors, or whatever we should call them, were without leadership. While we watched as some fled, a lot of the leaderless were wasted by whatever actively directed queen’s group was nearby. Winds remain moderate. When Commander Voorhees joins us, my surface party’s ready to go.”
Holding up his device, Voorhees said, “It might be a bit clumsy but it’ll give the readings needed,” adding to the captain, who was regarding the instrument with a frown, “Probably selenoaldehydes or selenoketones. I’ve accessed what data we have on queen pheromones. They can vary a lot. Include thioketones at times if there’s enough sulfur around.”
“I also have four portable GCs,” Makako said, with practically no pause between his words and her response. “We used them when we made our first surveys down there to plant the remotes.”
“I’ve four xenbees to come along from the Asimov to help, if that’s all right.”
“No problem,” she replied. “Main boat bay is cleared except for the shuttle to get us downside.”
The screen switched from the battlefield to Makako in her hazmat gear in the boat bay. her surface team and the shuttle behind her.
“Prime Perry, would you be good enough to ’port the Asimov party to the Moon Base?” Osullivan asked.
“I’ll even give them a boost,” Perry said with a droll grin. The generators whirred and Voorhees and his team disappeared. “When you’re settled, sing out.” He paused, in a listening attitude, and then leaned on the generators.
“They’re here,” Makako said on the screen, blinking her slightly slanted eyes in acknowledgment of their arrival. “Commander Voorhees is now transferring his men to my shuttle.”
“Where do you want to be set down, Commander?” Perry asked.
“Sir?” Makako’s expression was a query.
“See that relatively empty spot, Perry?” Osullivan pointed to the area: a vegetable field that had been trampled down but was clear of corpses. It wasn’t far from a queen’s collecting facility.
“Yes sir. Are you ready, Mr. Makako?”
“As ready as we’ll ever be!” Makako sounded resigned.
“Get us as many samples in and out of the queens’ quarters as possible. I know that the Hivers generally ignore us, but how they’d react now ... is debatable. Keep alert. Is that clear?” Osullivan said.
The baritone of Voorhees chorused with Makako’s lighter soprano in a unison “Yes sir.” The hum from the generators was deeper and Perry reached out and deposited the shuttle. The com officer switched to the planet’s surface, and the shuttle was already in place.
“Neatly done, Perry.” Osullivan settled back into the bridge chair, rubbing his jaw as he watched. “Please inform Earth Prime that Operation Nose is under way.”
“I have, sir, and I’ll just gather my team in the lounge and keep a watch, just in case we have to rescue anyone.”
“Good idea,” Osullivan said.
Balidovino transferred the landing site to the main screen as the figures emerged cautiously from the shuttle and began spreading out. The four under Voorhees’s command headed toward the nearby Hiver facility, while Makako was gesturing for her group to fan out, making for the first of the many piles of inert worker bodies, a dead queen lying on the ground at the forefront. “Hope they don’t need any rescuing.”
Perry nodded and exited through the door to the Talents’ lounge, calling up his team members. He was rather pleased with those unassisted ’ports, especially the shuttle.
Your father would pin your ears back, Perry, came Jeff Raven’s voice in his head.
Perry shrugged. Sorry, Prime. My team would have taken time to assemble, since this wasn’t on today’s schedule.
First law of the Prime is to conserve energy, Perry.
Yes sir.
Perry kept his reply neutral, but he was strong and able for the work he’d just done.
’Path me their reports as soon as they have anything significant to be passed on.
Yes sir.
Especially if that weather front alters and the winds pick up. I get the distinct impression that while pheromones cannot be transmitted in space, they could well affect the entire planet.
Not all the queens died in this fight, sir.
That’s not what interests the xenbees here, Jeff replied, and absented his presence from Perry’s mind.
“What’s the problem?” Adela spoke from their bedroom door. “The team wasn’t due to meet ... Oh, yes. I see. Can I get you something?”
“I can get my own,” he said with a grateful smile. “You get dressed.”
At Osullivan’s quiet command, the main bridge screen was split so that both teams could be observed. As they neared the queen’s collection building, Voorhees and his men had to step around and over dead forms, kicking aside severed limbs. They carefully skirted the few that were struggling back to their Hive, leaving behind yellowish trails of vital fluids. Then Voorhees hunkered down by a dead worker and looked it up and down, lifting one limb and measuring it against his hand span.
“Admiral?” Voorhees spoke into his com unit, turning his head up in a reflex action toward the Asimov and the observers he knew were watching.
“What’s wrong, Voorhees?”
“Sir, if I remember the dimensions of the workers mentioned in Prime Thian’s report on that planet he surveyed ... called it Arcadia, didn’t he?”
“Go on,” the Admiral encouraged him.
“This fellow’s a good twenty centimeters longer in the leg, and its body is at least ten longer. And see ...” Voorhees poked at an extendable limb, hacked off at the first joint. “This one’s got a mallet, hammer...” He prodded it with his finger so that unbroken spikes were visible. “Now that’s a wicked modification, or do I mean mutation?”
“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 Tower and the Hive Page 26
