Hellstrom's Hive by Frank Herbert Page B

our workers would make them fall by the thousands in the suicidal attempt to insure the future of our kind. But we are few and the Outsiders are many. The unreasoning brutality of nature’s underlying plan must be stayed for this time of preparation. Someday, given the potency of a weapon such as Project 40, we will be able to emerge, and, if our workers die on that day, they will die with reason—through selflessness, not through greed.
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    â€œThey are, as usual, firm and polite, but evasive,” Janvert said, turning from the telephone.
    It was daylight outside Clovis’s apartment now, and she had dressed in preparation for the specific summons they both knew would come soon.
    â€œThey told you to be patient,” Clovis said. She had returned to her favorite position on the long couch and sat with her feet tucked under her.
    â€œAnd one thing more,” Janvert said. “Peruge himself definitely is going to head this team. Old Jollyvale doesn’t like that one bit.”
    â€œYou think he wanted this one himself?”
    â€œGod, no! But he is operations director. With Peruge in the field, Jollyvale can’t give orders. He’s effectively no longer operations director. Now that, he doesn’t like.”
    â€œIt’s definite about Peruge?”
    â€œNo doubt.”
    â€œThat explains why they’re not being very informative.”
    â€œI suppose so.” Janvert crossed to the couch and sat beside her, taking her hand in his and rubbing the warm skin absently. “I’m scared,” he said. “I’m really scared for the first time in this shitty business. I’ve always known they didn’t give one particle of a damn about us, but Peruge—” Janvert swallowed convulsively, “I think he takes a positive pride in how many people he can waste, and he doesn’t care whose people they are, ours or theirs.”
    â€œDon’t let him know how you feel, for God’s sake,” Clovis said.
    â€œOh, I won’t. I’ll be the usual happy-go-lucky Shorty, always ready with a quip and a smile.”
    â€œDo you think we’ll be going out today?”
    â€œTonight at the latest.”
    â€œI’ve often wondered about Peruge,” she said. “I’ve wondered who he actually is. That funny damned name and everything.”
    â€œAt least he has a name,” Janvert said. “The Chief, now—”
    â€œDon’t even think it,” she warned.
    â€œHaven’t you ever wondered if we really work for the government?” he asked. “Or—whether our bosses represent an overgovernment behind the visible one.”
    â€œIf you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about, I don’t want to know anything about it,” she said.
    â€œThat’s a good, safe attitude,” he said. He dropped her hand, stood up, and returned to his restless pacing.
    Clovis was right, of course. This place was bugged. They’d known precisely where to call for him. No helping that: when you worked to make the world a fishbowl, you lived in a fishbowl. The trick was to become one of the fish watchers.

 
    From the Hive Manual. In the selection of workers, breeders, and the various specialists, in the development of a Hive consciousness through all of the chemical and manipulative devices at our disposal, the blueprint of our cooperative society is etched with a potential for permanence that must be monitored with the greatest caution. Here, each generation comes into this world as a continuation of the previous ones, each individual a mere extension of the rest. It is in the consequences of that extension that we must build our eventual place in the universe.
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    As Hellstrom emerged into the open cavern of the studio that occupied most of the north half of the barn, a young woman production assistant, who had been working with a glass-enclosed beehive nearby, saw him and waved to