Hurricane (Hive Mind Book 3) Page 14

  Lucas shrugged. “However, the Hive Gold Commander has asked us to consider taking our unit to the sea farm, so we have to do that. I’m calling an immediate meeting so we can discuss this properly.”

  Lucas worked on his dataview for a minute, and then we headed out of our apartment. We met Adika in the corridor outside, and Buzz on our way to meeting room 4. Megan was already sitting at the meeting room table waiting for us, and I was puzzled to see Rothan was at her side.

  Lucas seemed to notice my expression. “I’ve asked Rothan to join us because he knows far more about Outside than the rest of us. Now we’re just waiting for … Ah, here’s Nicole now.”

  Nicole had a health condition that varied from one day to the next. She’d arrived on foot to the last couple of meetings, but she was using her powered chair today. Adika moved the empty chair next to me away from the table, and Nicole positioned herself in the space. I noticed her face had the strained look around the eyes that meant she was in pain.

  I leaned to whisper in her ear. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” said Nicole. “The early meeting took me by surprise. I’d timed my medication to take effect later, but the pain relief will start working soon.”

  “I apologize for the early start,” said Lucas. “There’s been a second death at the sea farm, so Gold Commander Melisande has asked us to consider taking the unit there. I have a number of concerns about this suggestion. The main one being that even if we take the entire unit to the sea farm, and set up a base in their miniature Hive that they call the Haven, we probably won’t be able to find our target.”

  “You’re being rather negative about this, Lucas,” said Adika. “We’ve established that sea farm minds are confusing and hard to read, so Amber won’t be able to do random searches for the wild bee among the twenty thousand people in the Haven. You and your Tactical team can surely do a better job than Sea Farm Security at narrowing down the suspects though.”

  “I’m not convinced we’ll be able to do as well as Sea Farm Security, let alone better,” said Lucas. “Telepath Units constantly monitor Hive areas for warning signs that show a wild bee is either emerging or already active. In the majority of cases, those warning signs will match one of an established set of classic patterns, each of which has its list of predictors.”

  I raised a hand. “What’s a predictor, Lucas?”

  “Each of these classic patterns has shown up in thousands of past cases in our Hive. Analysis of those cases for common elements has given us a set of predictions about the wild bees displaying that pattern of behaviour. For example, the predictors for one pattern might be that the wild bee involved is virtually always of a certain sex, and age group, and in most cases will progress in a specific way.”

  I nodded. “So that tells you what type of wild bee you’re looking for and how urgent it is to catch them?”

  “Exactly,” said Lucas. “The predictors don’t work perfectly, because random personal factors can drastically influence the actions of a wild bee, but they are a good guide. In rare instances, a pattern isn’t centred on a wild bee, but on someone who creates wild bees by generating extreme stress in the people around them.”

  He pulled a face. “Our last chase was complicated by the fact we knew the first victim was a classic stress generation type. We made some wrong assumptions back then, but we’ve already made far bigger mistakes in this case. We expected there to be large differences between sea farm society and that at the Hive, but we didn’t realize those differences could be as fundamental as people being able to choose whether or not they go through Lottery.”

  “That was a shocking discovery,” muttered Adika.

  “It was,” said Lucas. “It showed that we don’t know the basic factors underpinning sea farm social dynamics. We’ll have problems judging the boundaries between normal sea farm behaviour and warning signs. Even if we get those boundaries correct, the patterns of warning signs will be totally different from those here in the Hive.”

  “Do the people in Sea Farm Security have their own set of patterns and predictors?” asked Buzz.

  “They don’t appear to use any equivalent methods at all,” said Lucas. “The population of the sea farm is so small compared to the Hive, that they seem to operate on a similar basis to a teacher knowing from bitter past experience which child in their class is the most likely to have broken something.”

  He sighed. “So we have no understanding of sea farm society. We have no patterns or predictors to guide us. We don’t even have any detailed records of past cases at the sea farm, just lists of suspects and notes on which one was discovered to be guilty. We could ask the people in Sea Farm Security for more information, but I’m concerned that their repeated failures are because our target is a member of their ranks and is tampering with their records.”

  Adika gave a depressed grunt.

  Lucas turned to Rothan. “I’ve asked Rothan to join us because he grew up as a member of the Hive Ramblers Association.”

  Rothan looked slightly embarrassed.

  “Although technically classed as a non-conformist group, the Ramblers Association provides the Hive with a useful pool of people that Lottery can assign as Outside workers,” Lucas continued. “The Hive therefore permits Ramblers Association camping groups to call in at outlying supply stations, including the sea farm, to collect basic items such as food. I’m hoping Rothan has heard some useful facts about the sea farm from other members.”

  “I’ve only been to the sea farm twice,” said Rothan nervously.

  Lucas stared at him in disbelief. “You’ve actually been to the sea farm yourself? Why didn’t you mention that earlier?”

  “Because you’re interested in sea farm society, and I don’t know anything about that,” said Rothan. “I was only six years old on the first trip, so all I remember is spending time on the beach, and how one of the sea farm boys called me a mole and kept blinking at me.”

  “Juniper said a mole was an animal that lived underground,” said Lucas.

  Rothan nodded. “We don’t have moles in Hive parks. Possibly because their digging would damage the drainage system. I’ve never seen a mole outside the Hive either, but I have seen the little mounds of earth where moles had been digging burrows.”

  “From what Juniper told us, calling someone a mole is an insult,” said Lucas. “She also claimed that calling someone a daylight mole is a term of respect, but I’m not sure she was being truthful about that.”

  “Back when I was six years old, I didn’t know why the boy was calling me a mole, but I could tell by the way he said it that he was being rude,” said Rothan. “I called him some insulting names in return, and we ended up fighting, falling in a stream, and …”

  Rothan shook his head. “Well, I was twelve years old on my second trip to the sea farm, so I remember more about that. It took us four days to get there, we spent a week by the coast, and then took five days to get back because we took the longer route with more spectacular scenery.”

  He paused. “That was my last long camping trip with my family. Once I moved to Teen Level, I could only sneak away for a couple of days at a time.”

  Megan looked puzzled. “You say that camping trip lasted sixteen days. That was a very long time for your parents to be away from their work.”

  “My parents are Outside workers,” said Rothan. “They’re assigned to the Hive itself rather than one of the supply stations, but all Outside workers have the same working pattern. A few weeks on duty and then a few weeks break.”

  “That seems a remarkably generous arrangement,” said Megan.

  Her remark annoyed me, because it seemed to imply Rothan’s parents weren’t making a proper contribution to the Hive, but I reminded myself of my new rule against criticizing Megan and kept quiet.

  “I think it’s perfectly reasonable for people to be allowed long breaks to recover from the immense stress of working in the conditions Outside,” said Nicole.

  “It’s not
really that stressful,” said Rothan. “Anyway, the long breaks made it easy for my parents to go on camping trips. The only difficulty was making excuses for my brother and me to miss school.”

  “Given your memories of visiting the sea farm when you were twelve, what’s your opinion of my concerns?” asked Lucas. “Do you think I’m being too negative?”

  Rothan grimaced. “I’m not sure you’re being negative enough. As I said, I know nothing about sea farm society, but I do know about the physical layout of the sea farm. You seem to have misunderstood the basic arrangement there. It’s true that everyone at the sea farm has apartments in the miniature Hive called the Haven, but most of them don’t live in those apartments. They only use them when they take refuge in the Haven during major storms.”

  We all looked at Rothan in bewilderment. “Why don’t people live in their apartments?” asked Lucas, in a strained voice.

  “Because they prefer somewhere above ground with windows,” said Rothan. “There are what they refer to as houses scattered across a large area of countryside surrounding the Haven. Normally, only one family will live in each house.”

  Lucas ran his fingers through his hair. “Exactly how large an area of countryside are we talking about, Rothan?”

  “I checked a Ramblers Association map of the sea farm before coming to this meeting. It’s divided into four regions, and the total area of countryside they cover is on about the same scale as one level of the Hive.”

  “What?” Megan gave a disbelieving shake of her head. “Why would only twenty thousand people need that much space?”

  “I don’t know,” said Rothan. “I had a vague idea it was something to do with their work, but I never learnt any details about what people did at the sea farm. Our group of ramblers camped close to the Haven, and my family spent most of our time on the beach.”

  He smiled reminiscently. “I remember watching the fishing fleet go out a couple of times, and one day we went to look at a nearby group of houses. Other than that, it was mostly the sea farm food that made an impression on me. Some foods were just the same as here, while others were unnervingly different.”

  Rothan shrugged. “We can easily avoid the food issues by taking our own supplies with us, but the large area covered by the sea farm will complicate our investigation. We travel around the Hive using express belts, moving stairs, and lifts. At the sea farm, there are only a few electric vehicles, limited to running along a single, wide, paved pathway. If you want to go anywhere else, then you have to walk or ride a horse.”

  “What’s a horse?” asked Lucas.

  “It’s a very large animal with four legs. You sit on its back, and it carries you along.” Rothan laughed at our stunned faces. “I saw people riding horses at the sea farm, but never tried it myself. I don’t think it would be realistic for us to travel that way, so we’d have to walk, and you’ve spent enough time Outside by now to know how long it takes to walk to places.”

  “We’d be able to travel using aircraft,” said Adika.

  “Not in severe weather conditions,” said Rothan. “We’re only three weeks away from the New Year festival, so it’s midwinter Outside. We’d need to be prepared for snow, storms, and even hurricane force winds.”

  “What are hurricane force winds?” asked Lucas.

  “Winds that are strong enough to blow down trees and rip the roof from a building,” said Rothan. “That’s why people take refuge in the Haven during major storms. The biggest problem with using aircraft wouldn’t be things like storms though, but the fact everyone on the sea farm would be able to see our aircraft in the sky and know exactly where we go.”

  “Every assumption we make about the sea farm seems to be horribly wrong,” said Lucas. “You’re saying that people knowing our location would be a problem, Rothan. Is that because it would make it easy for our target to avoid us?”

  “Well, that’s a problem too, but my real concern is crowds gathering and posing a threat to Amber,” said Rothan. “If we go to the sea farm, then people will know we have a telepath with us. Wherever a nosy patrol goes in the Hive, there are hostile crowds glaring at them and chanting tables in an attempt to stop them reading their minds. People at the sea farm may go much further though, crossing the line from glaring at us into making physical attacks.”

  Megan gave me an anxious look. “Don’t worry, Amber. I’m sure Rothan is exaggerating the danger.”

  “Rothan is imprinted as a Strike team leader,” said Lucas. “I trust his judgement on subjects such as crowd violence.”

  “I agree that sea farm people could react violently to the idea of having their minds read,” said Buzz. “For citizens of our Hive, the nosies are the grey-clad, benevolent protectors of Hive Duty song number six. That song tells us that nosies may appear frightening, but they keep us safe from people with criminal thoughts. The chorus hammers home the message by repeating that the Hive knows best.”

  Buzz shook her head. “The people of our Hive may hate nosies, but they’ve been socially conditioned to accept their presence peacefully. We can assume that people at the sea farm won’t have been subjected to any such conditioning since nosies never go to the sea farm.”

  I pointed out the obvious. “I wouldn’t be in danger at the sea farm. If anyone tried to attack me, I’d have the Alpha and Beta Strike teams to protect me.”

  “Forty men,” said Lucas grimly. “Forty-one including Adika. Rothan isn’t worried about a single individual becoming violent, Amber, but the possibility of others joining in and the situation escalating into a mass attack.”

  I frowned.

  Lucas pressed home his argument. “How big a crowd would it take to overwhelm your Strike team? One hundred people? Two hundred? Three hundred? Even if your Strike team successfully defended you, how many of them would die in the process, and how many other people would they have to kill?”

  I stared at Lucas in shock. He couldn’t be serious about this. I touched the surface level of his mind, and was hit by an ugly series of images of violent crowds. Most of them seemed to be ancient images from unfamiliar places, but one looked like a recent event in our own Hive.

  I didn’t try to find out exactly when and why that event had happened, just pulled swiftly out of Lucas’s mind. I’d found out the only thing I really needed to know. Lucas was deadly serious about the possibility of tense emotions at the sea farm triggering mass violence.

  “I don’t think we need to continue this discussion any longer,” said Lucas. “If our unit went to the sea farm, we’d be unlikely to achieve anything useful, and we’d expose Amber to danger. Gold Commander Melisande will be calling me shortly, and I’ll tell her that …”

  He was interrupted by Adika’s dataview making some loud bleeping noises. Adika checked the dataview screen and raised his eyebrows.

  “Lucas, it seems that Gold Commander Melisande isn’t calling you but coming to talk to you in person. She’s just entered our unit lifts, she’s got Admiral Tregereth of the sea farm with her, and they’re on their way up to join our meeting.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Gold Commander Melisande swept into the meeting room, with Admiral Tregereth trailing behind her. The Admiral was an eye-catching, bulky man in his early sixties. He had oddly crinkled skin on his face, and had defied Hive customs by growing a bushy grey beard that matched his shaggy hair.

  Melisande’s diminutive build, and the way her blonde hair hung in a simple plait down her back, made her look almost childlike in comparison to the Admiral, but somehow her presence instantly dominated the room.

  Adika and Rothan hastily dragged two more chairs up to the table, and we all shuffled closer together to make space for the new arrivals. Melisande didn’t wait for an acknowledgement or welcome from Lucas, just took over control of the meeting herself.

  “Admiral Tregereth has flown here to discuss the situation at the sea farm with us. This second death has made his people lose all faith in Sea Farm Security. They are demanding
the Hive sends nosy squads to hunt down the murderer.”

  She paused. “The Admiral is the only person at the sea farm with an imprint that includes the truth about telepaths, so he appreciates that sending fake nosy squads wouldn’t accomplish anything unless they are accompanied by one of our true telepaths.”

  “Which effectively means Amber,” said Adika “She’s the only one of our telepaths who has been Outside.”

  “Precisely,” said Melisande. “Tactical Commander Lucas, have you considered the possibility of your unit flying to the sea farm?”

  “We’ve just discussed it in detail, Gold Commander,” said Lucas. “We concluded that moving to the sea farm wouldn’t help us achieve anything we couldn’t do from here, and there was a risk of us encountering crowd violence that endangered the life of our telepath.”

  “The people of the sea farm have specifically requested assistance,” said Melisande, “so should not be hostile when that assistance arrives.”

  “Some of them may want assistance, perhaps most of them want assistance, but there are bound to be a few that don’t,” said Lucas. “Even those who are most volubly demanding help might baulk at the actual sight of a nosy, and we would have to publicly display people dressed as nosies. We must maintain the nosy myth at the sea farm, because if the people there learned the truth about telepaths, the information would inevitably spread to the Hive.”

  “I studied your report on your encounter with the sea farm girl, Juniper,” said Melisande. “The approach you took with her, of emphasizing your own status while pretending Amber is an unimportant interpreter, seems to be a viable method of protecting Amber at the sea farm.”

  “Amber would still be at significant risk of either being accidentally revealed as a telepath, or being caught up in random crowd violence, and I repeat that we would achieve nothing by going to the sea farm.” Lucas waved both hands in a gesture of helplessness. “There’s a good reason why problems at the sea farm have always been dealt with by Sea Farm Security sending groups of suspects to the Hive. Members of Sea Farm Security have a vastly greater knowledge of the sea farm social structure and its people than we do, so are therefore far more likely to identify the target.”