Hurricane (Hive Mind Book 3) Read online

  Lucas glanced around at his Tactical team members. “When we learned about the risk of our Hive being sanctioned, and the threat to Morton’s life, we discussed the possibility of another Hive being involved in the sea farm incidents. We decided the sea farm’s remote location on our coastline made it vulnerable to the actions of enemy agents, but they were extremely unlikely to make this sort of attack.”

  He sighed. “Now we’ve stumbled across something as suspicious as the Admiral of the sea farm thinking of a phrase in a different language, we need to re-examine our logic.”

  “We know the Admiral can’t be an enemy agent himself,” said Kareem, “because Amber would have seen that in his mind. He could have learnt that phrase from someone who is an enemy agent though.”

  “I’d still argue against these incidents being the work of an enemy agent,” said Gideon. “I could believe another Hive might try sabotaging our sea farm in an attempt to get our Hive sanctioned, but an enemy agent would surely carry out a few terrifying attacks rather than spend months organizing a long series of incidents.”

  “I agree,” said Emili. “Every time an enemy agent arranged an incident, there’d be a risk of them being caught, which would lead to their Hive suffering massive penalties from Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement.”

  “What would another Hive gain from getting us sanctioned anyway?” asked Lucas. “I’ve had discreet conversations with our contacts in both Hive Politics and Hive Trade. They say we’re on good terms with all our neighbouring Hives, and aren’t engaged in any fierce trade rivalries.”

  “We aren’t on good terms with Hive Genex,” said Hallie pointedly.

  Lucas laughed. “No, we aren’t. However, Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement is currently carrying out a full-scale investigation of Hive Genex.”

  Emili nodded. “Hive Genex isn’t going to try engaging in sabotage when they’ve got a horde of inspectors questioning their reasons for every aircraft flight, every trade deal, and every personnel exchange in the last twenty years.”

  “There may be a simple explanation for the Admiral knowing that phrase.” Lucas tapped at his dataview. “I’ll send Juniper a message asking her to call me. Hopefully, it won’t take her long to get somewhere she can be unobserved and …”

  Lucas was interrupted by his dataview chiming. “That was remarkably fast. Rather than spend time making introductions, can my Tactical team go down the far end of the room so Juniper only sees Amber and me?”

  People changed position, and Lucas projected the image of Juniper on the wall of the room. She was holding her dataview in her right hand and looking at the screen, so I could only see her head and shoulders. She was huddled in a thick jacket, with her hair blowing about her face, and I could glimpse a background of pebbles, sand, and sky behind her.

  “Juniper, are you alone and away from surveillance cameras?” asked Lucas.

  “Yes, sir,” Juniper replied at high speed. “The moment I saw your aircraft arrive, I headed for the beach, because I thought you’d want me to call you. Sea Farm Security can’t have any surveillance equipment on beaches because it would get destroyed when the tide comes in, and I’ll be able to see anyone coming from a long distance.”

  She paused for breath. “The aircraft hangar staff are telling everyone you brought three nosies with them. Is one of them the nosy who read my mind?”

  “Yes,” said Lucas. “I’ve brought three nosies with me, but I expect the one who read your mind will be doing most of the work.”

  “You must have brought a lot of other people with you as well to need seven transport aircraft. Why did you have such a huge number of fighter aircraft escorting you?”

  “The fighter aircraft were intended to show the sea farm population that the Hive was taking their problem seriously,” said Lucas. “Did that work?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Juniper eagerly. “The sky was black with aircraft, and the sound of their engines was like thunder. We’d never seen anything like it. What happens next? Do you want me to come to the Haven to help you, sir?”

  “I want you to stay in the background for the moment, observing people’s reactions for me, and helping us with general information. I’ve got some questions for you right now. The Admiral will be making a live broadcast from the seawall in Harbour this afternoon. I intend to join him and say something myself. Does that seem a good idea?”

  “Definitely, sir. All those aircraft … Well, that was very impressive, but also frightening. Everyone was thinking you’d brought hundreds of nosies with you. The aircraft hangar staff have told people there are only three nosies, but you still need to join in the live broadcast to reassure people that a human being is in charge of the force from the Hive.”

  “That’s an excellent point,” said Lucas. “Now I’ve got another question. Is there any reason why someone at the sea farm would use a phrase from a language spoken at a different Hive?”

  Juniper looked surprised. “There are lots of reasons, sir. What phrase is it?”

  “C’est mon coeur qui te parle,” said Lucas.

  Juniper nodded. “People usually use words from another Hive’s language because they’re driftwood themselves, or have a close connection to someone who is driftwood, but that particular phrase has become generally popular at the sea farm. Virtually anyone might use it to emphasize they feel strongly about something.”

  “Can you explain the term driftwood for me?” asked Lucas.

  “Driftwood means pieces of wood that get washed up on the beach. We use the word for people who drift in from other sea farms as well. Sometimes they’re dropped off here by another sea farm’s fishing boat, sometimes they work their passage on one of ours, and sometimes our people drift off to other sea farms as well.”

  “People drift between the sea farms of different Hives?” asked Lucas, in a strained voice. “There aren’t any rules against that?”

  “Well, you can’t go drifting off to other sea farms until you’re eighteen, and people who are imprinted can’t go drifting at all. They have to follow the proper Hive Treaty procedures if they want to go to another sea farm, and that means having their imprints removed.”

  Juniper pulled a pained face. “One of the shepherds in High Fold had his imprint removed before he drifted here last year. People say that he doesn’t know a lot of basic things, like how old he is or whether he can ride a horse.”

  Lucas winced. “Unfortunately, imprints and personal memories become interconnected over the years, so it’s impossible to remove an imprint without damaging all the personal memories that have become associated with it. The longer an imprint has been in place, the more devastating the consequences of removing it.”

  “Anyway, people who aren’t imprinted are free to drift between sea farms if they wish,” said Juniper. “They just have to follow the basic rules laid down by Hive Treaty on movement between sea farms. You take nothing but the clothes on your back, and never talk about your past or the sea farms you’ve left behind you.”

  “What happens if someone breaks those rules?” asked Lucas.

  “Anyone caught bringing technology from another sea farm, or trying to steal technology from ours, has to be handed over to Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement. If someone talks too much about other sea farms, our Admiral sends them drifting again, and I expect the Admirals of other sea farms do the same.”

  “Thank you for explaining about driftwood,” said Lucas. “I’d like you to call me again before the live broadcast starts. That call would be answered by one of my Tactical team members, who would continue talking to you as you watch the broadcast, and relay any helpful suggestions to me.”

  “There’s no problem with me doing that so long as I make sure I’m home in time for dinner with my parents and brothers. My parents get very annoyed if I miss dinner without warning them in advance. They say it’s both inconsiderate and a shocking waste of good food.”

  I blinked, and joined in the conversation. “Do you mean that you live with your
parents, Juniper?”

  “Of course. My parents are both Sea Captains, but they didn’t sail with the fishing fleet this time because they wanted to be here to welcome me home from the Hive. When I’m eighteen, I’ll have the option to ask for a room in one of the hostels, but I’d rather stay with my parents until I have the chance of a house of my own.”

  “Oh,” I said blankly.

  “I’ll expect you to call me later then, Juniper,” said Lucas.

  He ended the call, and I gave him a stunned look. “Juniper is seventeen and still lives with her parents!”

  “Yes, that’s yet another huge social difference between the sea farm and the Hive.” Lucas waved his hands in despair. “We’ll have to leave considering the impact of that until later though. For the moment, we need to focus on the point that unimprinted people are free to drift between sea farms.”

  Lucas ran his fingers through his hair. “That explains a lot of the things which have been puzzling us. The Hive wouldn’t want people drifting between sea farms to take any valuable knowledge or technology with them, so important posts can only be held by people who are imprinted, and the sea farm manufactures basic items themselves.”

  He paused. “Anything which has to be supplied by the Hive because it can’t be manufactured at the sea farm, such as dataviews, is limited to the simplest models that are available in every Hive.”

  “And aircraft aren’t based at the sea farm, but at the nearby coastal patrol centre,” added Gideon.

  “We’ll have to try to get a list of which people here have drifted in from other sea farms,” said Hallie.

  The Tactical team went back to discussing whether another Hive could be involved in the attacks. I lost track of the conversation because I was still thinking through the fact that sea farm teens lived with their parents.

  When I first arrived on Teen Level as a thirteen-year-old, I’d found the teen lifestyle hard. I’d had a generously sized bedroom in my parents’ apartment on Level 27 of the Hive, so my room on Teen Level seemed horribly cramped. I was used to living with my parents and brother, and now had to live alone among a host of strange teens. I’d struggled to cope on the miserly teen allowance, pined for favourite foods I couldn’t afford to buy, and resented the Teen Level equality rules that forced me to leave most of my possessions behind as too high level.

  I’d adapted though. The teens on my corridor had become my friends, and now I couldn’t imagine a life where I’d stayed living with my parents until I entered Lottery. I’d been a shy, quiet, dutiful child. If I hadn’t had Shanna and Forge sweeping me up into the activities of our corridor group then …

  I became aware of an odd sensation. It felt like an itch that was deep inside my head where I couldn’t scratch it. I’d had this feeling several times before. It didn’t seem to happen to other telepaths, possibly because their telepathy operated on higher levels of the mind than mine. When it happened to me, it always meant one thing.

  I turned my ear crystal to transmit. “I itch!” I shouted. “Someone’s in trouble!”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  “Someone’s in trouble!” I shouted the warning again. “Going circuit.”

  Adika started shouting on the crystal comms too, snapping out a series of orders to the Strike team.

  I closed my eyes, sank down to sit on the floor, and began chanting the names of my Strike team members as I checked their minds. “Adika, Forge, Rothan.”

  Rothan’s mind was nowhere to be found. I panicked, but then remembered Rothan had gone Outside to check our surroundings. I extended my range and found him sprinting along the hillside path, too breathless to speak on the crystal comms.

  Nothing useful I can say anyway. Just have to get back there as fast as I can and …

  Rothan was safe, so I carried on checking minds at full speed. “Eli, Matias, Tobias, Rafael, Zak …”

  Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe. Need to get up, need to get help, but the room is spinning around me …

  “It’s Zak!” I yelled. “He’s alone in the medical room. He can’t breathe. He’s lying down. Trying to stand up but can’t.”

  “I’m heading there now,” said Megan.

  “Megan, stay out of the way,” gasped Adika. “I’ll be there in thirty seconds.”

  “Eli and I just got to the medical room,” said Matias. “We’re going in now.”

  “Hold your breath while you’re in there,” I said urgently. “I think there’s something wrong with the air.”

  Zak was unconscious now. All I could see in his mind were vague, disconnected images that couldn’t help us, so I moved to Matias’s mind to watch events.

  Hold your breath. Hold your breath. Hold your breath.

  I, Matias, was mentally repeating the command to myself. I saw Zak was sprawled across the bed, with his head and arms trailing on the floor. I seized Zak’s arms, Eli took his legs, and we dragged him out of the room. I kicked the door of the medical room shut behind us.

  “We’ve got Zak out, and closed the medical room door again,” I reported.

  Adika came hurtling down the corridor at express belt speed, shoved me aside, and knelt beside Zak. “He’s got a steady pulse, but his breathing is shallow.”

  Megan came running up, her arms full of oxygen masks and their small canisters. She thrust one set at Adika, one set at Eli, and another set at me.

  “I’m fine,” I protested. “I held my breath the whole time I was in the room.”

  “There’s no point in taking chances,” said Megan.

  Adika was holding an oxygen mask over Zak’s mouth. “Use the oxygen mask, Matias, or I’ll knock you out so Megan can use it on you!”

  I put the mask over my mouth, hit the button on the canister to trigger the oxygen supply, and then pulled a face at Eli. Several of the other Strike team members had arrived by now and were standing watching us in grim silence. They all looked shocked by what had happened, but Rafael …

  Waste it! I hadn’t realized …

  Adika can’t have spotted it yet, or he’d have yelled at the pair of them so loudly he’d have deafened everyone in the unit. If he sees that devastated expression on Rafael’s face though …

  I grabbed Rafael’s arm and tugged him further down the corridor. I turned my ear crystal to listen only, and reached to adjust Rafael’s as well, before speaking.

  “Relax, Rafael. Zak’s going to be all right.”

  Rafael shook his head. “We don’t know that yet.”

  The part of me that was Matias heard Lucas’s voice speak on the crystal comms. The part of me that was Amber heard Lucas’s voice coming from next to me.

  “Everyone currently inside a room should move out into the corridor now. Close the room door behind you. Don’t open the doors of any other rooms. Don’t touch anything that we didn’t bring with us from the Hive.”

  I was still linked to Matias’s mind, still seeing the view from his eyes, but I felt Lucas pick me up from the floor and hug me against his chest as he carried me out into the corridor.

  “My Tactical team and Amber are all with me and uninjured,” said Lucas. “Nicole will now do a roll call of every other unit member to check they’re safe.”

  Nicole started calling out names on the crystal comms, and a series of voices responded, their tones varying between worried, frightened, and angry.

  Matias was wondering what he should do about Rafael. Zak was still lying on the floor, with Adika holding the oxygen mask over his mouth, and Megan giving him an injection. Rafael was staring at them as if the world was ending.

  Matias took the oxygen mask from his mouth and leaned to whisper in Rafael’s ear. “I’m trying hard not to notice what’s going on between you and Zak, but right now you’re waving a banner over your head. You have to get yourself under control before Adika sees you.”

  He paused. “You know the rules. Strike team members can’t have a relationship with someone on the same team, because in a crisis they might be tempted t
o save their partner rather than the telepath. That means one of you would have to leave the Alpha team, and the Beta team is already at full strength with twenty men, so …”

  Rafael rubbed a hand across his eyes. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, Matias. There isn’t anything going on between Zak and me.”

  Matias didn’t believe him, but I knew Rafael was technically telling the truth. With the one exception of Adika, Lottery had selected all the candidates for my Strike team to be potential partners for me, so they were all attracted to women, but a few were attracted to men as well. I’d read Rafael and Zak’s minds so often that I couldn’t miss the way they felt, but they hadn’t admitted those feelings to each other yet.

  Megan spoke on the crystal comms. “Zak’s condition is stable now. I want Ralston to fly him to the Hive in Aerial one immediately. I’ll care for Zak during the flight and then return here.”

  I left Matias’s mind, pulled back into my own head, and opened my eyes. Lucas was still holding me, looking anxiously down at my face. I smiled at him.

  “You can put me down now.”

  Lucas lowered me onto my own two feet, and I checked my ear crystal was still set to transmit before speaking again. “Megan, you can’t accompany Zak to the Hive. You can’t cope with going Outside to reach Aerial one, and it would take too long for you to go the inside route through the Haven to meet it at the aircraft hangar.”

  “Oh.” Megan made an odd moaning sound of pain. “You’re right, Amber, but none of our other medical staff can cope with going Outside either. I can’t be sedated to be taken to the aircraft, because I’m no use to Zak if I’m unconscious. That means Adika will have to drag me out there.”

  Waste it! Whatever other faults Megan had, I couldn’t fault her dedication to her patients. “That’s a heroic suggestion, but it wouldn’t work. If anyone dragged you Outside by force, then you’d be too traumatized to care for Zak afterwards. We’d better send one of the Strike team with Zak instead. Their imprints include basic emergency medical care.”