Hurricane (Hive Mind Book 3) Page 13

  Lucas paused. “The nosy encountered some unfamiliar concepts when it was reading your mind. That wasn’t an issue in your case since we already knew you were innocent. It could be an issue when the nosy is reading the minds of genuine suspects though. We need to be sure of our facts when deciding whether people are innocent or guilty, so I’d like to be able to call on you for explanations.”

  Juniper nodded. “I can see you need to be sure of your facts, but why are you choosing me to help you? There are people working in the Hive who grew up at the sea farm.”

  “I don’t want to base my decisions on the outdated knowledge of someone who moved from the sea farm to the Hive years ago,” said Lucas. “You have a full current understanding of the sea farm situation, and are highly motivated to catch the person who injured you.”

  “That’s very true,” said Juniper. “I’d be happy to help you in any way I can.”

  “I need to emphasize the importance of secrecy while you’re working with us,” said Lucas. “We have a lethal target harming people at the sea farm. It’s vital that target doesn’t learn anything about our theories or our operating methods.”

  “You don’t need to explain that to me,” said Juniper bitterly. “Sea Farm Security would probably have caught this attacker months ago if it wasn’t for everyone knowing how to dodge their surveillance cameras.”

  “It’s also vital that the target doesn’t learn you’re providing us with information,” added Lucas, in a harsh voice. “This person has already seriously injured you in what appears to have been a random attack. If they discover you’re helping us, they may attempt to kill you.”

  I gasped. When Lucas mentioned getting Juniper to help us, I hadn’t realized it might put her in danger. “We can’t risk that happening.”

  “This is my decision, not yours, Amber,” said Lucas.

  His quelling tone reminded me of the roles we were playing. “Yes, sir,” I said grudgingly.

  “This isn’t Amber’s decision, but it isn’t your decision either, Tactical Commander Lucas,” said Juniper firmly. “This is my decision. I agree that helping you could be dangerous, but I want to do it anyway.”

  I was still worried about involving Juniper, but reluctantly accepted she had a right to make her own decisions.

  Lucas took out his dataview and tapped at it. “I’ve sent you my contact details, Juniper. Whenever I need to speak to you, I’ll send you a message. You must always make sure you’re alone and away from all surveillance devices before calling me. If you suspect you’re in danger at any time, then you should call Hive Defence immediately. State your name and identity code, and tell them you need help. You’ve been flagged for protection, so they’ll send an airborne armed response force to your assistance.”

  I blinked. I’d agreed not to read anyone’s mind while we were with Juniper, but I couldn’t resist touching Lucas’s thoughts for a second. I saw an image of an aircraft sweeping in to land in a forest clearing, and a series of armed figures in Hive Defence uniforms leaping out of the door. I blinked for the second time.

  “An airborne armed response force seems a bit drastic.” Juniper sounded as startled as I was.

  Lucas shook his head. “Not in my opinion. My job is to prevent deaths, so I’ve no wish to cause yours. If you think you’re in danger, Juniper, you will call Hive Defence for help, and that’s an order. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Juniper. “What happens if the fifth group of suspects turn out to be innocent as well?”

  “In that event, my unit will have to start questioning the members of Sea Farm Security about their investigation methods, and suggesting future courses of action. We’ll need as much information as possible if we’re going to come up with useful ideas, which is why I want you to spend the next twenty-four hours finding out all the latest gossip about the incidents at the sea farm.”

  Juniper nodded. “I’ve already been calling friends and collecting information while I was at the Trauma Casualty Centre, but I’ll be able to find out more by speaking to people in person.”

  Lucas raised an eyebrow. “You’ve already been collecting information? Why have you been doing that?”

  “The members of Sea Farm Security weren’t achieving anything, so I thought I’d try to do something myself. Working with you will be even better though.”

  We rode on in silence for a while, and then Adika coughed. “We’ll need to jump belt soon, sir. It might be wise for me to carry Juniper off the belt. She clearly isn’t used to transferring on and off belts, and it would be easy for her to hurt her injured arm in a fall.”

  Juniper studied him dubiously. “The problem is that it would be just as easy for someone to hurt my arm by carrying me.”

  Eli turned to face her. “I could carry you, Juniper. My name is Eli. One of my legs was seriously injured a few months ago, so I appreciate how important it is to be careful of your arm.”

  “Oh.” Juniper gave him the concerned look of a fellow sufferer. “Has your leg recovered now?”

  Eli winced. “I still need a follow-up operation to remove some plates.”

  “The doctors reconstructed my left arm as well as they could,” said Juniper, “but the bones were shattered, and the muscles were so damaged that they will never work properly again, so they decided to use an exoskeleton on me.”

  She gestured at the black bands around her left arm. “Once the arm finishes healing, I’m supposed to have an attachment fitted to the exoskeleton to magnify my muscle movements. I’ve been told that will give me more use of my arm and hand, but there’ll still be things I can’t do. It’s especially difficult because I’m left-handed.”

  I grimaced, and Eli made a sympathetic noise.

  “I’d be happy for you to carry me off the belt, Eli,” added Juniper.

  Eli moved to her right side, and lifted her in his arms. We transferred across to the medium and then the slow belt, before stepping off onto the corridor floor in front of some double doors.

  Eli put Juniper down again.

  “Thank you.” Juniper pointed at the sign next to the doors, which stated this was a restricted Hive Defence area. “You won’t be able to go inside the aircraft hangar with me, so I’ll say goodbye now.”

  “We’re authorized to go inside the aircraft hangar with you,” said Lucas.

  “I’m sure you’re authorized to go in there,” said Juniper, “but the red light is on under the sign. They use the same light system at the sea farm aircraft hangar, so I know the red light means the hangar doors are open. You won’t want to see Outside, so you’d better stay here.”

  “That’s a kind warning, Juniper,” said Lucas, “but I’ve been Outside, and so has everyone else that’s here with me.”

  “Really?” Juniper looked far more impressed by this than all the statements about Lucas’s importance. “I didn’t realize you were all daylight moles.”

  “Could you explain the term ‘moles’ to us, Juniper?” asked Lucas.

  “Moles are small animals that live underground.”

  “Ah,” said Lucas. “The Hive is underground, so that makes us moles.”

  “Oh no, I didn’t call you moles,” said Juniper swiftly. “That would be rude. I said you were daylight moles, and that’s a term of respect.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said Lucas. “Can you explain one other term to me? You referred to imprinted status earlier. What does that mean exactly?”

  Juniper had a confused expression on her face, as if she didn’t understand why Lucas needed that explaining. “Well, if people choose to go through Lottery when they’re eighteen then they get imprinted.”

  There was a stunned silence. “Would you mind repeating that?” asked Lucas.

  “If people choose to go through Lottery when they’re eighteen then they get imprinted.” Juniper gave him a worried look. “Being imprinted with a profession gives them imprinted status and an official post at the sea farm.”

  “I see,” said Luc
as, in a strained voice. “You mean that people at the sea farm are allowed to decide whether or not they go through Lottery?”

  “Of course.”

  I was too dazed to speak. I’d grown up knowing it was impossible to avoid Lottery. However nervous I was of the tests, however worried I was about the result, however terrified I was of having my mind imprinted, I would enter Lottery at eighteen because it was inescapable. The idea that people at the sea farm could simply decide not to enter Lottery was shattering.

  “What happens to people who don’t go through Lottery?” asked Lucas.

  “Most of them will have done an apprenticeship, so they have some useful skills,” said Juniper. “They can’t hold an official post, so they have to take whatever oddments of casual work are available to pay for things like accommodation and food.”

  Lucas was silent for a moment. “Given the advantages in having imprinted status, why would anyone choose not to go through Lottery?”

  Juniper’s voice had the carefully polite tone of someone explaining the obvious. “For two reasons. Firstly, people prefer to make their own decisions about their lives rather than hand over their freedom to an automated system, and secondly …”

  She shuddered. “Every year, parents wave goodbye to the aircraft carrying their eighteen-year-old sons and daughters to the Hive. Every year, Lottery decides a few of those eighteen-year-olds will never return to the sea farm. They’re kept working at the Hive for the rest of their lives while a handful of strangers are sent to the sea farm in their place. You might not see any problem in having to spend your life in the Hive, but I couldn’t cope with it.”

  “I assure you there’s no risk of that happening to you, Juniper,” said Lucas. “Lottery would never assign anyone with claustrophobia to live and work in the Hive.”

  “There’s definitely no risk of it happening to me,” said Juniper. “I’m removing my name from the Lottery candidate list as soon as I get back to the sea farm.”

  Lucas raised his eyebrows. “You’d decided to go through Lottery. Why are you changing your mind now?”

  “I only decided to go through Lottery because my dream is to be a Sea Captain, and you have to be imprinted to hold that post,” said Juniper. “Lottery got its name because no one can ever be sure what work it will assign them, but I had every chance of making Sea Captain. I was doing brilliantly on my Apprenticeship of the Seas, and was given the best apprentice award for the last two years. I’d have won it this year as well if it wasn’t for this.”

  She pointed her right forefinger at her left arm. “There’s no hope of me being imprinted as a Sea Captain now because you have to be physically and mentally able to perform every single job on a fishing boat. I’m not interested in any of the other official posts at the sea farm, so there’s no need for me to suffer the ordeal of another month underground to go through Lottery.”

  “So what will you do?” I asked anxiously.

  Juniper sighed. “I’ll finish the last few months of my Apprenticeship of the Seas. By then, my arm should have healed enough for me to have the movement magnification attachment fitted to my exoskeleton, and I may be able to salvage some sort of a future taking casual work as a fishing boat deckhand. For the moment though, I’m going to concentrate on helping you catch the person who ruined my life.”

  She turned to walk into the high-ceilinged aircraft hangar. The vast doors were standing wide open, it was dark Outside, and there was a bitterly cold wind. I shivered, and wrapped my arms around myself in an attempt to keep warm, but Juniper gave a cry of delight and inhaled deeply.

  “Proper air at last!”

  I’d been looking for the promised aircraft, and finally realized it was standing right in front of us. I was used to aircraft being massive, grey objects. This one was small, and what solid parts it had were black, but most of it appeared to be windows.

  A woman wearing a Hive Defence uniform, with the conspicuous pilot’s insignia of silver wings, came up and gazed enquiringly at us.

  “I’m supposed to fly a passenger called Juniper to the sea farm.”

  “That’s me.” Juniper eagerly stepped forward.

  “One of our coastal patrol observation aircraft has been undergoing its annual maintenance. It needs returning to our base near the sea farm now.” The pilot gestured at the aircraft. “Will you be happy to fly in that, Juniper, or will the large windows worry you?”

  “I adore windows.”

  “Juniper was too late for today’s scheduled flight to the sea farm,” said Lucas. “I need her back there tonight to collect information for me, but I don’t want to attract attention to her. Is there any way to avoid people knowing this flight was arranged specially for her?”

  “That’s easy,” said the pilot. “We can just say that Juniper missed the scheduled flight, found out I was returning this aircraft to the coastal patrol base, and hitchhiked back with me.”

  “Hitchhiked?” Lucas made the word into a question.

  “Begged a ride,” said the pilot. “The scheduled flights carry official passengers and supplies between the sea farm and the Hive, but there are often unofficial passengers wanting to travel to visit family members. Sea farm people can travel on the scheduled flights if there’s room, but if they can’t get a spot on a scheduled flight, and there’s a free seat on another aircraft making the trip, then they hitchhike.”

  Lucas raised his eyebrows. “I’m surprised people from the sea farm are allowed to beg seats on random Hive Defence aircraft.”

  The pilot shrugged. “It’s perfectly reasonable for people to want to visit relatives. Our coastal patrol base is right next to the sea farm, so we’ve got standing orders to keep on good terms with its people, and the hitchhiking is an easy way to make ourselves popular. The only rule is to do full identity checks before letting passengers on board.”

  The pilot and Juniper went across to the aircraft and climbed inside. The aircraft engines started, and its lights came on. As it lifted off the floor, I saw Juniper waving a happy farewell to us, and automatically waved back.

  We watched the aircraft skim off through the open hangar doors, and its lights recede into the distance, then Lucas lifted both hands to tug at his hair. “The people at the sea farm aren’t just happy about going Outside, they beg rides on Hive Defence aircraft, and make their own decisions about whether or not they go through Lottery.”

  He groaned. “If our target isn’t in the fifth group of suspects, then we’ve got a huge problem. The members of Sea Farm Security may be failing because they’re incompetent, or even be compromised by having our target among their own ranks, but how can we give them any guidance? Our understanding of the sea farm is so bad that we don’t even know what questions we should be asking.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Next morning, I waited until Lucas and I had finished our breakfasts before making a carefully prepared speech.

  “I feel I should read the minds of the fifth group of sea farm suspects now rather than waiting until this evening. Juniper’s mind was nothing like that of a wild bee, and we need to make progress on this case before more people get hurt.”

  Lucas shook his head. “You need the full twenty-four hour recovery time. Juniper wasn’t a wild bee, but reading her mind was still a great strain for you. Her thoughts were full of confusing images and concepts. Her strong character and passionate feelings made a deep impression on you. To make matters worse, you were caught up in her attack of claustrophobia, and relived the traumatic incident where her arm was injured.”

  He paused. “We keep having the same conversation, Amber. The one where you want to push your limits in an attempt to help others. The fact is that we only have five true telepaths in the Hive, and we really need eight. There will always be cases that would benefit from your help. There will always be minds that we urgently need you to read. There will always be a good reason to reduce your recovery time after contact with a difficult mind.”

  Lucas made a neat
stack of our empty breakfast plates. “We can never allow ourselves to take that route. The twenty-four hour recovery time after an emergency run is the absolute minimum time that’s safe for the telepath. Reducing that recovery time could lead to the utter disaster of a telepath breaking under the pressure of contact with too many dangerous minds, and …”

  Lucas was interrupted by a chime from his dataview. He groaned, picked it up, studied the screen, and gave a louder groan.

  “It seems that you won’t need to read the minds of the fifth suspect group anyway.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because there’s been a second death at the sea farm. A man was attacked with a hammer yesterday evening. The people in the fifth suspect group can’t possibly have been involved when they’ve been here at the Hive for three days, so …”

  There was a second chime from Lucas’s dataview. He glanced at the screen, made a despairing sound, dropped the dataview on the table top, and ran both hands through his hair.

  “And now Gold Commander Melisande has decided to intervene personally.”

  I blinked. Gold Commander Melisande had authority over both Hive Defence and Law Enforcement. Telepath Units sent regular status reports to her, but the only time she’d got directly involved in one of our cases before was in response to a request from Lucas.

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Such a long-running case at the sea farm would naturally attract Melisande’s attention, and the news of a second death has made her decide to take action herself,” said Lucas. “Our entire unit recently went to Hive Futura. Gold Commander Melisande has asked us to consider repeating that exercise by flying the whole unit to the sea farm.”

  “Oh.” I frowned. “Is it a good idea for us to go to the sea farm?”

  “My initial reaction is that going blundering into the situation at the sea farm would be a terrible idea. Morton’s unit only suggested we should take over responsibility for it yesterday. All we’ve achieved so far is to establish that neither they nor we have the faintest understanding of its social structure.”