It was another goddamned default message!
Depeaux glanced at his watch: less than an hour to sunset. The valley and farm had settled back into its disturbing surface tranquility. The place had been rendered even more empty by the brief spurt of human energy from the young women.
What the hell was in that box?
The low sun washed across the ridgetop to his left, shadowing the valley’s depths now, but light reflected from golden grass and leaves on the opposite hillside kept the shadows lucent. Depeaux knew he was in good cover under the dark bushes, but valley and countryside once more had taken on that sense of ominous quiet. He took a deep breath and reaffirmed his decision to wait for night before leaving. This place had all of the atmosphere of a trap. He squirmed backward, deeper into shadows, peered left at the open countryside he would have to cross. The long, low light bathed the field in a golden glow touched with orange. The light cast a definite shadow along the path of crushed grass that marked his trail.
I was a fool to come up that way, he thought.
And perversely: What was Porter’s mistake?
A sense of desperate immobility overcame him. The unexpected muscularity of those seminude young women, the persistent irritating hum from the barn-studio, the unspoken warnings in Merrivale’s briefings and the reports, that internalized vacuum of a valley set against the distant movement of cattle far outside it (why so far?) – everything told him to wait for darkness. He lay for almost an hour, watching, stewing in his own premonitions.
The light dimmed. Low in the west, the sky took on a purple streaming against incandescent orange. The slopes of the valley drifted into a dusky almost blackness where it was difficult to determine if he actually saw details or was remembering them. No lights showed from the farmhouse or the barn. Visibility dropped to only a few feet, but when he crept out from under the bushes there were stars and a far aura of light on the northern horizon. That would be Fosterville, he knew. Still no lights from the farm.
Another default message.
Depeaux felt around him to make sure he was free of the bushes, got to his feet. There was a tension ache in his back. He groped in his knapsack, took out the sandwich in a rattling of paper, unwrapped it, and ate it while he regained his sense of direction. Fosterville’s glow was a good landmark. The sandwich restored him and he took a long swallow of water and secured his pack.
The sense of danger remained.
The illogic of it dominated his consciousness, but he had learned to trust that sense. It was a message contained in everything he had studied about this place – all he had heard and all he had seen – a message, as well, of things not seen and not heard. The combined default message said danger.
Get the hell out of here, he told himself.
He twisted his watchband to bring the luminous dial of its companion compass into view, sighted along it, and set off across the field. As he moved out of the trees, his vision improved and he gained a sense of the long, sloping expanse of dried grass through which he had crept earlier.
The ground was uneven under the grass and he stumbled often. He kicked up dust unavoidably and several times he stopped to repress a sneeze. His passage through the grass seemed to him abnormally loud in the night silence, but there was a faint breeze and, when he stopped, he could hear it soughing in the trees ahead of him. There was a similarity between the two sounds that he tried to improve upon by slowing his pace. He had accumulated more grass burrs and they rasped his skin. Slow movement irritated him, too. He found himself unconsciously picking up speed. Something inside him said hurry.
The luminous dial of his compass and the glowing sky oriented him well, though. He found he could see the occasional trees in the field and avoided them easily. The dark line of thicker trees through which he had come stood out plainly. There would be the game trail to follow through there. He expected to encounter the trail long before his feet actually felt the hard, grassless surface. He crouched then to feel the surface with his hands, tracing the almost worn-down hoofmarks in the dirt. No deer had passed this way in a long while. Those were very old marks; he had noted this earlier, but now it compounded the total message of this place.
Depeaux started to straighten and strike out along the trail when he became aware of a distant swishing in the field behind him. He tipped his head to listen. The swishing sounded neither like someone walking through the grass nor like the wind. It had no definite position – just somewhere back there. Starlight showed nothing but distant shadows which could be trees, the configuration of the land. The sound was growing louder and he felt menace in it. There was something more akin to a susurrant humming in it now than to swishing. He straightened, turned away from the sound, and began trotting along the trail. He found he could make out the track if he peered down at a sharp angle.
Soon, he was at the line of thicker trees, the witch-spread of madronas, and the heavier spacing of pines. The trees reduced the faint assistance of the starlight, and he was forced to slow his pace to a walk. Several times he lost the trail and had to grope for it with his feet. He longed to take out the small flashlight in his pack, but that odd sound had grown even louder behind him. It was a definite hissing-humming now. What made that sound? The noise of countless hoopskirts dragging through grass would not be as mechanical. The image of hoopskirts amused him for a moment, though, until he thought of the seminude young amazons at the farm. Somehow, they were not amusing, even when clad in his imaginary hoopskirts.
He had hidden the bicycle in bushes where the game trail crossed a narrow dirt road. That road led around a low hill and down a long slope to the country road where he had parked the van. The bicycle had a handlebar light and he promised himself he would use that light and ride like hell.
Was that sound behind him louder? What the hell could make such a sound? Was it something natural? Birds, perhaps? The susurrant intrusion now reached out into the grass on both sides of him, as though he were being drawn into the wings of an advancing army. Depeaux had the auditory impression of many creatures moving in a wide fan to enclose him. He tried to increase his speed, but it was too dark; he kept running into trees.
What was that sound?
His body was wet with perspiration, fear tight in his chest.
Again, he tried to quicken his pace, tripped and fell full length. The susurrant pursuit stopped. Depeaux lay quietly waiting for a moment, probing with his ears. Nothing. What the hell! The absence of sound was as frightening as its presence had been. Slowly, he got to his feet and, immediately, the noise started again. It was on both sides and behind him. Terrified now, Depeaux stumbled forward, tripping, lurching, crashing through trees, on the trail sometimes and sometimes off it.
Where was that goddamned road where he’d hidden the bike?
The horns of enclosing noise were ahead of him now, on both sides and ahead. Depeaux, panting, stumbling, groped for the flashlight in his pack, found it. Why hadn’t he brought a gun? An automatic even? Something small, like the one Tymiena carried. Damn! What was that noise? He wondered if he dared turn on the flashlight and sweep its beam around him. He couldn’t bring even a little gun! No! His bird-watcher cover ruled against it! He was panting and gasping now. His legs ached.
The road was under his feet before he realized it. He stumbled to a halt, tried to get his bearings in the dark. Had he left the trail just back there? He didn’t believe he could be far from the bushes where he’d hidden the damned bike. It had to be nearby. Did he dare use the flashlight? The hissing-hum enclosed him now. The bike had to be just to his right. It had to be. He groped toward blacker shadows among shadows, stumbled over a bush, and landed in the frame of the bicycle.
Cursing under his breath, Depeaux got to his feet, pulled the bicycle upright, and leaned against it. He could see the road better now: a separation of lightness in the dark, and he thought suddenly how good it would be just to get on the bicycle and coast back to the van and Tymiena. But the hissing-hums had grown loude
r, closing in on him! The hell with them! He yanked the flashlight from the pack, depressed the switch. A beam of light stabbed out into the trees. It revealed three young women clad as the amazons at the farm had been, tight briefs and sandals, but their eyes and noses were hidden behind glossy dark shields the shape of diving masks. Each of them carried a long wand with a whiplike twinned end. The wands made him think of some odd antenna system, but their doubled ends were pointed directly at him and there was no mistaking the menace.
From Nils Hellstrom’s diary.
Sometimes, I realize my name isn’t important. It could be any other grouping of sounds and I’d still be me. Names are not important. This is a good thought. It is precisely as my brood mother and my first teachers said. The name I use represents an accident. It is not the name that might have been given to me had I been born into an Outsider family with all of their usual self-centered individualism. Their consciousness is not my consciousness; their timeline is not my timeline. We of the Hive will do away with names someday. My brood mother’s words convey a deep sense of reassurance in this. Our perfect society cannot allow permanent individual names. They are labels, at best, are names. They are useful only in a transient way. Perhaps we will carry different labels at different stages in our lives. Or numbers. Somehow, numbers feel more in keeping with the intent my brood mother expressed so well.
It was 2:40 A.M. and for almost ten minutes now Clovis had been watching Eddie pace back and forth in the tiny living room of her apartment. The telephone had awakened them from deep sleep and Eddie had answered it. He had come openly to her apartment. The Agency didn’t mind that. It expected certain sexual antics from its people and appreciated it when this activity was kept intramural. Nothing deep and demanding in this sex; just good, energetic bodily enjoyment.
All Eddie had said after hanging up was, “That was DT. Merrivale told him to call. They’ve lost contact with Carlos and Tymiena.”
“Oh, my God!”
She’d gotten out of bed then, draped a robe about her body. Eddie had gone directly into the living room.
“I should’ve answered the phone,” she said now, hoping this would break him out of his deep reverie.
“Why? DT was looking for me.”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“How did he know you were here?”
“He tried my place and nobody answered.”
“Eddie, I don’t like that.”
“Shit!”
“Eddie, what’s the rest of it? What’d DT say?”
He stopped in front of her and stared down at her feet which she had pulled partly under her body when flopping into a chair. “He says we’ve gotta play brother and sister again. Nick Myerlie is going to be our daddy and we’re going on a nice vacation way out in Oregon!”
From Nils Hellstrom’s diary.
Fancy is showing sure signs of unhappiness about her life in the Hive. I wonder if she has, somehow, become conditioned to prefer life Outside. We’ve always worried about that and it does appear to happen sometimes. I’m afraid she’ll try to run away. If she does, I think I will opt for stumping her, rather than putting her in the vats. Her firstborn, Saldo, is everything we had hoped. I do not want the Hive to lose that breeding potential. It’s too bad she’s so good with the insects. We will have to keep close watch on her until the present film is finished. Whatever happens, we cannot send her on any more Outside assignments until we’re sure of her. Perhaps we should give her more internal responsibility for the film. She might grow to share my vision of the film then and be cured of this instability. This film is so very necessary to us. It is a new beginning. With it, and the ones to come, we will prepare the world for our answer to human survival. I know that Fancy shares the schismatic belief. She believes the insects will outlast us. Even my brood mother feared this, but her answer and my refinement of that answer must be developed. We must become more intensely like those upon whom we pattern our lives.
“Does that shock you?” Hellstrom asked.
He was a blond man of medium build, whose appearance suggested no more than the thirty-four years Depeaux knew the Agency’s records credited to him. There was a great sense of internal dignity about Hellstrom, a sense of purpose that revealed itself in the way his blue eyes held a direct stare on anything or anyone of interest to him. There was a feeling about him that he contained more energy than he released.
Hellstrom stood in a laboratory confronting his captive, who had been tied into a plastic chair. The laboratory was a place of polished metal and gleaming white surfaces, of glass and instrument dials illuminated by a flat milky light that came from a coving completely around the ceiling’s edge.
Depeaux had awakened here. He did not know how long he had been unconscious, but his mind was still fogged. Hellstrom stood in front of him, and two completely naked women guarded him. He knew he was paying too much attention to the women, another pair of amazons, but he couldn’t help it.
“I see it shocks you,” Hellstrom said.
“Guess it does at that,” Depeaux admitted. “I’m not used to seeing so much naked female flesh around me.”
“Female flesh,” Hellstrom said and clucked his tongue.
“Don’t they mind us talking about them this way?” Depeaux asked.
“They do not understand us,” Hellstrom said. “Even if they did, they would not understand your attitude. It is a typical Outsider attitude, but I never fail to find it strange.”
Depeaux tried a cautious testing pull at the bindings that held him to the chair. He had awakened with his head throbbing, and it still ached. There was a pain right behind his eyes and he had no idea of how much time had passed. He recalled starting to speak to the three young women his flashlight had revealed, then he’d been startled into silence by the sudden awareness that many more similar figures filled the darkness all around him. A confused welter of memories clouded that recollection. God, his mind still felt so thick. He remembered speaking, an innocuous and stupid response brought about by fear and shock. “This is where I left my bicycle.”
Christ! He’d been standing there, holding the damned bicycle, but those opaque diving masks had daunted him. They gave no clue to the eyes behind them or to intentions. The wavering double wands aimed at him could only mean threat. He had no idea what those wands were, but a weapon was a weapon was a weapon. The double wands branched from short handles which the young women gripped with a firm sense of competence. The tips of the instruments emitted a low hum that he could hear when he held his breath, wondering if he dared try to break through the circle. As he wondered, a night bird swooped toward the influttering insects attracted by his flashlight. As the bird swept past him, a figure in the dim area beyond the light raised her double wand. There came a sudden dry hissing, the same sound he had heard all around him crossing the fields. The bird collapsed in the air and plummeted to the ground. A woman scrambled forward, stuffed the bird into a sack at her shoulder. He saw then that many of the women carried such sacks and that the sacks bulged.
“I – I hope I’m not trespassing,” Depeaux ventured. “I was told this was a good area for my hobby. I like – to watch birds.” As he spoke, he thought how stupid that sounded.
What in hell were those wands? That bird hadn’t even flopped once. Hiss-bang! Merrivale hadn’t said anything about this. Could this be Project 40, for God’s sake? Why didn’t the crazy broads around him say something? It was as though they hadn’t heard him – or didn’t understand him. Did they speak another language?
“Look,” he said, “my name is –”
And that was all he could remember, except for another brief burst of that odd hissing-hum off to his left and, yes, the painful sensation that his head had exploded. He remembered that now: explosive pain within his skull. His head still ached as he stared up at Hellstrom. Those wands had done it; no doubt of that. The two women standing guard behind him carried the same weapons, although they weren’t wearing the masks o
f the group that had encircled him.
I’m in the soup, he thought. Nothing to do but brazen it out. “Why do you have me tied up?” he asked.
“Don’t waste our time with the ingenuous approach,” Hellstrom said. “We must keep you secured until we decide how to dispose of you.”
Depeaux, his throat painfully dry, his heart suddenly pounding, said, “That’s a nasty word, that dispose. I don’t like that word.”
Hellstrom sighed. Yes, it had been a poor choice of words. He was tired and it had been a long night and it wasn’t over yet. Damn these Outside intruders! What did they really want? He said, “My apologies. I don’t mean to cause you needless worry or discomfort. But you are not the first person we have caught here in similar circumstances.”
Depeaux experienced an abrupt sensation of deja vu. He felt that he was reliving something half-remembered because it had not been his own experience, but something that had happened to someone close to him. Porter? He hadn’t been all that close to Porter, but . . .
“And you disposed of these others, too?” Depeaux asked.
Hellstrom ignored the question. This was all so distasteful. He said, “Your credentials identify you as a salesman for a fireworks company. One of the others who intruded here worked for this identical company. Isn’t that strange?”
Depeaux forced his words through a dry mouth. “If his name was Porter, there’s nothing strange about it at all. He told me about this place.”
“No doubt a fellow bird watcher,” Hellstrom said. He turned his back on Depeaux. Was there no other way to meet this threat?