"I thought it was understood I was not to be disturbed while on the set," said Stanton, still wondering if he should give vent to his feelings of outrage.
"It was, sir. And is. But the call's from your personal secretary, sir. She says it's of the utmost importance."
Stanton hesitated, dropped his script back down onto the desk, then started decisively around the side of the desk toward the director. "She had better be correct," he said darkly, brushing by Frank and the crewmen without apology and vanishing into the corridor that led to Robert Lennick's office. There was a brief silence, then a concerted sigh of relief from the men on the set.
"Shall we wait," one of the crewmen asked Frank, "or shoot around this scene and pick it up later?"
Frank spread his hands. "I don'tknow. I have to be sure he's coming back, first—I'll go find out." He told his staff to relax until his return, then hurried out after the President.
A hundred feet down the corridor, he rounded a turn. Up ahead he saw Stanton just entering Lennick's office. Then, without hesitation, Frank ducked into a nearby office, his own, and locked the door on the inside. The lowest drawer of his desk had a false bottom. He triggered the release on this, now, and lifted out the small black earphone-set there, setting it dextrously across his head, magnetic speaker directly over his ear. In the hollow of the now-exposed section was a telephone dial. Frank swiftly spun it through the sequence of Lennick's office number, then sat hunched forward over his desk, listening hard. He heard Stanton pick up the phone, and say, "This is Stanton. What is it?!"
Madge Benedict, his personal secretary, "It's Lloyd Bodger, Junior. You told me to contact you the instant he got out of line again. Well, he has, but good."
"As bad as the other two?" Stanton queried.
"Worse, much worse, sir. Bad enough to make the other two look good by comparison. He was seen, this afternoon, on Ninety-Three-Level, in the company of Andra Corby, the fugitive from hospitalization. You know, sir, the movie star who was injured on the set yesterday."
Something sparked in Stanton's brain, then, and a hard light of comprehension dawned in his eyes. "Wait—Let me think.... Of course! She vanished yesterday from the Temple on Ninety-Five! And Lloyd was there, too. I wonder—" He stopped idle speculation and snapped, "Get me Bodger, quick!"
"His office," Madge told him after a moment on another line, "says he's gone home, and you can—"
"Iknowhe's at home!" Stanton growled, "I just left him there. Get him!"
There was a short silence, then she spoke again. "I'm ringing him, sir. I don't think he's at home. No one answers."
"You know what to do as well as I do!" he said impatiently. "Put a tracer on his Voteplate! See where he's gone to."
Another pause; while Madge coded an inquiry and flashed it to the memory circuits of the enormous Brain beneath the Hive, and received the near-instantaneous reply. "Sir," she replied, "he's taken the lift to Ninety-Three-Level. The same place his son was seen."
"That's odd.... Do you suppose he knows about the Corby girl, too? Or—" Stanton dropped the interrogation; Madge shouldn't be made to think about it. The less she knew, trusted secretary or not, the better. "Skip it," he said abruptly. "Find out for me where they might be going on that level, their hangouts, haunts, and friends...."
Madge found the answers and got back on the line. "Three possible places, sir. Dewey's Bar and Grill, in Sector Three, Miss Grace Horton's Unit, and—"
"Lloyd's fiancee?!" Stanton interjected. "The one who attended the wrong Temple Service last night...."
"I believe she did, sir. We sent out a memo—"
"And she got it this morning! Of course!" said Stanton, exultantly. "And phoned Lloyd right afterwards!"
"I don't follow you, sir—" Madge said, blankly.
"Forget it," snapped the President. "I have all the information I need. And," he added, with belated gratitude, "thank you for calling me, Miss Benedict." He hung up without waiting for her reply.
Huddled over the desk in the dimness of his own office, Frank tore off the earphones, dropped them back into the hollow of the drawer, and re-closed the false bottom. He was out in the corridor again, headed toward Lennick's office, with seconds to spare when Stanton came out.
"Sir," Frank said, turning about and falling into step with him on the way back to the set, "I wonder if you'd care to finish the scene, or should we shoot around it?"
"Shoot around it," Stanton said. "I can't be bothered with the filming, today. Something's come up."
Frank nodded and let his pace slacken, allowing the President to move away from him. After poising on his toes for an undecided second, he whirled and dashed toward Lennick's office. If young Bodger had been seen with Andra, in the same locale where the elder Bodger was now heading—or had even arrived—there was going to be an explosion. An explosion that might sweep Andra, the Bodgers, and the entire anti-Hive movement with it, when Stanton got the wheels of his office in motion.
CHAPTER 11
After thumbing the doorbell the second time, Bodger shifted his hand toward the inner pocket where he kept his Voteplate. The doors of all Units in the Hive were keyed by the Voteplate of the dweller, through a slot above the knob. As Secondary Speakster, Bodger's plate could key any door in the Hive save Stanton's;alldoors opened to the President's Voteplate. Just as his fingers touched the edge of the plate in his pocket, he saw the knob start to turn, and withdrew his hand. The door opened, and his son was standing there.
"Come in, Dad," Lloyd said, standing aside. "Grace will join us in a moment."
The elder Bodger's eyes did not miss the fact that the door to the bedroom was closed, as he entered the parlor. This delayed appearance of Grace, coupled with the delay in their response to his ring, confirmed his worst suspicions. He took the seat Lloyd offered him, leaned back without quite relaxing, and came to the point at once.
"Lloyd, you're making trouble. Lots of it. For yourself, and quite possibly for me, too. I don't like it. But before I take any steps, I want to hear your side of it."
Lloyd sat down facing his father, very uncomfortable inside. He didn't want to inadvertently volunteer more information than his father already had. He could think of plenty of things he'd done since the night before, any one of which was damnable; the safest policy was in determining just what, and how much of what, his father knew.
"I'm not sure I follow you, Dad," he said, pleasantly. "What kind of trouble—"
"Don't fence withme, young man!" said his father. "Unless you're completely brainless, you know what I—" He was about to expostulate on the disgraceful conduct of the evening before, the matter of Grace's having gone up to top level with his son, then decided to let that ride until Grace herself was present. Keeping steely control over his emotions, he said, instead, "The Vote last night, Lloyd. Your plate was credited with aconVote. Are youinsane, Lloyd?! Haven't I told you—!"
Lloyd racked his brain to recall the content of the proposition, but could not. "Maybe I hit the wrong button," he said lamely. "My hand might have slipped."
"The penalty's the same, whatever the basis of your stupid action, and you know it!" his father rasped. "I don't think you are even able to tell me what the propositionwas, are you!" A look at Lloyd's burning face told him the answer. "I thought not," he said, wearily. "I don't know what I'm going to do with you, son. I've tried to keep you in line—"
The entrance of Grace Horton stopped Bodger's tired lament, and both men rose to their feet.
"It's nice to see you Mr. Bodger. Would—Would you like a drink?" Grace offered, nervously.
"I would not—" he said, then softened his curt reply with, "But thank you, anyway, Grace. Maybe later, after I've had my say." Lloyd and Grace looked at one another in numb apprehension of the unknown, then back at Bodger.
"The son of a prominent man," Bodger began, at last finding his approach-path, "has a great responsibility to his father's good name. The Hive, as you both know, has rigid rules regarding—well—amorous conduct, to employ a euphemism, between unmarried persons. Yet, last night, Lloyd—Grace—the two of you were seen going to top level on the public lift, just before Ultrablack."
A short sound from Grace's chair was the gasp that had sucked itself between her lips as the significance of Bodger's words reached her.
Lloyd, for his part, fought but could not control the hot crimson flood that rushed into his features when he met Grace's hurt gaze.
Bodger, misinterpreting both their reactions according to his own notion of the night before, immediately said, "No need to be afraid. A thing like this is better out in the open. I can understand how two young people in love might—"
"Dad!" Lloyd said abruptly. Bodger halted and waited for his son's words. Lloyd, speaking to his father the words that were actually intended for Grace's ears, said, with deep earnest, "It wasn't like that, Dad. She slept on my bed, with her clothes on. I slept on the rug. We—We just had to be together, that's all. I've done nothing you should feel ashamed of."
The sudden smile on Grace's face caught at Lloyd's heart.
"That's a help, son," Bodger said, likewise convinced. "To me, at any rate. The point, unfortunately, is that any persons who observed you going up to our Unit with Grace could not be expected to presume thebest, if you see what I mean?"
"I do, Dad," Lloyd mumbled contritely. "And I wish it had never happened."
"It wouldn't have," Bodger pontificated, "if Grace hadn't gone to the wrong Temple Service. I can see how she might dislike the change in her attendance-period, meaning she'd be unable to attend with you, anymore, but it was the wrong thing to do. If she'd stayed home, none of this would've happened."
The irony of this last statement, while it missed Bodger completely, brought a small, one-syllable burst of laughter from Grace's lips, which she quickly stoppered. Lloyd jumped into the breach swiftly, to distract his father from a dangerous line of conjecture.
"Dad, there was something bothered me last night—In the Temple, I mean, about that fugitive girl?"
"What about her?" said his father, unprepared for the statement to the extent that he made an automatic response without having time to notice he was being diverted.
"The check-up for the girl, Dad. It seemed kind of—I hate to use the word, but it's the only one—inefficient, at least to me."
"The girl had no Voteplate," Bodger said, puzzled. "I should think a check of all Voteplates was efficient enough."
"But why not have the Goons check her description, or her fingerprints, or even check for the scar on her arm?" said Lloyd. "It'd be much simpler, and surer."
Bodger shook his head. "Not at all, Lloyd. A Goon, you must remember, doesn't 'see' as we do. Its television lenses are only geared to recognize streets, Units, sectors, and so on, and to tell Goons from Kinsmen. Anything as delicate as actual recognition of a face would involve the building of a Brain greater in mass than the current one. No, Voteplates were the only answer to identification problems; that's half the reason they exist. As to fingerprints—They will serve in identifying an individual, it's true,ifa person's identity is in doubt. But it takes time, and the fingerprint files are enormous; to do so in trying to locate one person in a full Temple gathering would have taken many hours, and there was a time element involved. The ensuing Service could not begin until the Temple was emptied. Finally, as to the scar—" Bodger looked decidedly uncomfortable, then sighed and said, "—As son of the Secondary Speakster—and future daughter-in-law, Grace—perhaps it's time you were told a fact that is rather embarrassing to the regime, but all too true: In the Hive, people do not always report injuries. While we do not enjoy this mild form of treason to the planned medical facilities of the Hive, we nevertheless tolerate it, for the simple reason that it's bothersome treatingeveryscratch and bruise that occurs, most of which will heal themselves. And so, if we had the Goons check for the girl's scar, we might have found a large number of medical violations among the Kinsmen at the Service. Under that circumstance, we would have to hospitalize everyone; Goons are trained to spot any deviation from a healthy norm beyond a certain degree. It would have been terribly awkward, all around. So the only sure method was—"
Bodger stopped, as though violently stunned. "Lloyd—" Bodger said, his heart hammering with a nameless dread. "Iwas activating the Temple Speaksters last night. I gave the warning about the girl to your Temple. I remember distinctly what I said. And I know I made no mention of the type or location of her injury. No mention at all.How did you know it?!"
Lloyd's lips worked, but he couldn't bring up a syllable from his constricting lungs. Grace, her hands knotted into fists, looked at the carpet, and sat like a marble statue.
Bodger got to his feet, towering over the two of them.
"I'm talking to you, Lloyd. Answer me! How did you know?"
Lloyd's ribs abruptly began to function again, and he drew in what felt like the deepest breath of his life. Then he stood and faced his father, defiantly.
"Because she's here, Dad. Right behind that door! And Andra Corby was the girl in our Unit last night, furthermore.Ihelped her escape from the Temple, with Grace's Voteplate. Now, what are you going to do about it!?"
Bodger fell back into his chair like a crumpling jointed doll, his face shocked and incredulous. "I don't believe it," he said stiffly, pressing his hands upon the chair arms to halt their trembling. "Lloyd, it's not true!"
The bedroom door opened, then, and Andra came out. When Bodger saw her, something inside him cracked, and he suddenly dropped his face into his hands and just groaned. Lloyd was at his side in an instant.
"Dad," he said, gripping the other man's shoulders, "Dad, Ihadto tell you. I've been entangling myself in so many lies since last night—It was the only thing left to do!"
Bodger looked up, wide-eyed with dismay, and shrugged Lloyd's hands away. "Let me think!" he said, hoarsely. "I have to think! Stanton mustn't find this out. I've already covered up for your idiotic Vote, and for your taking Grace—all right, Andra—up to our Unit last night. There has to be a way to prevent your horrible errors being found out. I'll cover, somehow, Lloyd. If I can find a way, I'll cover up, and—"
"Dad—!"
Something in the young man's tone made Bodger stop his frantic raving. He looked into his son's eyes, and saw the question even before Lloyd asked it.
"Whyshouldyou cover up?"
Bodger grabbed at his shattered self-control, and sat up, stiffly. "I—I don't follow you, son."
"I said," Lloyd repeated sadly, "whyshouldyou cover up for me? I'll only be hospitalized for Readjustment, won't I?...Won't I!?"
"Lloyd," Bodger said sickly, getting up and clutching his son's hands, "you're over-wrought, right now, you've been under a strain...."
"All the more reason for my hospitalization, then," Lloyd said, with all the relentless cruelty he could muster in the face of his father's ghastly fright.
"No!" Bodger yelled. "You can't go! You don't understand, Lloyd! I can't explain here."
"There's no need to," Lloyd said, suddenly softening and taking his father by the hands to halt their frenetic quavering. "Your attitude has told me all I want to know. Andra was speaking the truth. Thereareno hospitals, no treatment, no Readjustment. Only death."
"Lloyd—!" Bodger said. "If you only knewwhy—"
"We'dalllike to know why," said Andra, solicitously. "Mr. Bodger, it's no use struggling any more. You have to tell the truth, now, or have your son—and Grace and myself—be destroyed."
"All right," Bodger said. "I will. I'll tell you the whys and wherefores of the Hive. Then maybe you'll—"
"I'm afraid such an extemporaneous educational program is quite impossible," came a voice from the doorway.
Fredric Stanton, just removing his Voteplate from the slot in Grace's door, had his other hand extended toward them. And clutched firmly in his steady grasp was the stubby metal muzzle of a Snapper.
The two men and women stepped backward, slowly, as he advanced into the parlor and shut the door behind him. "I only heard the last few phrases of your conversation, unfortunately," he said. "I think, for the interests of the Hive, that I should hear it all. We'll have to go up to my office, all of us, to get at the truth. I'll have a Goon Squad pick us up, here." He reached for the phone, dialed swiftly, and soon had Madge on the line. He kept the Snapper trained on the group while he spoke, and never took his eyes off them.
"Sir," Madge replied, before he could ring off, "do you think it's wise, bringing Bodger through the streets under guard, I mean?" She sounded greatly concerned. "The Kinsmen—"
Stanton narrowed his eyes appreciatively, and cut her off with, "You're right, of course; it wouldn't do to let public opinion of the regime get any shakier than it is! I can't wait till Ultrablack, however. Start the emergency sirens at once. Allow fifteen minutes for all Kinsmen to clear the streets. Then put on the Emergency Ultrablack."
"Right, sir," Madge said, and hung up.
Stanton smiled, still keeping them covered as he replaced the phone in the cradle. "You'd better be seated," he said congenially.
CHAPTER 12
"You really believe thatBodgeris involved in the anti-Hive movement?" Lennick said dubiously. "It doesn't make sense, Frank! Why should the Secondary—"
"All I know," Frank said determinedly, "is that Stanton was shaken by the news of young Bodger and Andra. It puts me right back on Andra's team, all at once. If Stanton was in the dark, then it's very doubtful that Andra's done anything to betray the movement; the greater likelihood is that she's pulled Juniorourway."
Lennick frowned doubtfully. "Andra's an attractive girl, Frank, but—"
"Everybody isn't pulled into the movement like you were, Bob. Sex appeal has its uses, but there's also a thing known as intelligence. Bodger and his son are no dopes. If she convinced them—"
"Whyshouldshe!?" Lennick said angrily. "Have to convincethem, I mean! Didn't they, of all people,know?"
Frank stood there with his mouth open, blinking. Then he sat down and stared at the producer, dazed. "I must be getting soft-headed," he murmured after a short hiatus. "Of course they must know.... Still—?" He looked helplessly to Lennick for assistance.
"I know; it doesn't make sense," Lennick nodded. "The only thing to be done is tofindAndra, I guess, and ask her the answers. Conjecture is only taking us in circles."
Frank spoke tautly, his pent-up frustration making his words strained and painful. "Excepting that, as long as Andra's in Grace Horton's sector, we can't go after her. That's not one of the permitted areas on my Voteplate. I'd hate to be caught loitering in that area when the Goons show up for Andra. When they make an arrest, they check on everybody. If only this had occurred later, today, near Ultrablack—"
"Why do you keep stressing Ultrablack?" Lennick asked. "I still haven't even figured out why I was to meet you here tonight just before it was turned on. We'd really be helpless then."
"Bob," Frank said gently, "this is nothing personal, but—Well, when the movement gets a new member, we don't just lay out all our schemes on a red carpet for him. There's a trial period for all new members. You've been on probation for a couple of months, now. The less you know of our plans, our memberships, the less you could spill if you were a plant."
Lennick grinned wryly and shook his head. "I know. That was a real bone of contention between Andra and myself when we'd been engaged nearly six weeks. A wife can't keep secret meetings from her husband very well; he may suspect her outings are something even worse. When I finally pressed her about broken dates, and times she couldn't be reached, and she told me about the movement, I was pretty miffed she didn't trust me with all she knew."
"She couldn't, Bob, you know that. The information wasn't hers to give out, without permission of the rest of us. We could not put our necks in a noose because Andra adores your big brown eyes."
"I'm surprised you're still speaking to me, after yesterday," Lennick said with chagrin.
"Bob, you did what any of us could have done: Nothing. One man can't fight off a Goon Squad. We would have losttwomembers, instead of just Andra, if you'd put up a fuss."
"But about Ultrablack," Bob said, frowning. "I know you people have meetings after Light-of-Day goes off.Howyou do it is beyond me, with the streets alive with Goons, and darkness everywhere, even indoors."
"If there were a chance of rescuing Andra when tonight's Ultrablack came on, I'd tell you, Bob," Frank said sincerely. "It'd give you the chance you didn't have yesterday to do something for her. I think you can be trusted. I trusted you enough, just now, to tell you about the tapped phone."
"You had to," Lennick said with a shrug. "Or else I'd be leery about believing you knew so much about Stanton's private call."
"We set that up ever since Stanton started appearing in our Hive-located scripts. He's always so busy, keeping in touch with his office between takes, that we've kept one jump ahead of the Goons, on occasion. It must drive him nuts, wondering about the raids that never came off."
Lennick got to his feet. "I wish we didn't have to justsithere this way! At this very moment, Andra may be still uncaptured. If she could be warned—"
"She could, if top-level privilege didn't entitle young Bodger's fiancee to an unlisted number. You can go up there if you want, but—I know too much about the movement to risk it. If you're caught, it's unimportant—insofar as the sum of your knowledge, I mean. But I don't dare let myself be taken."
Frank paused, and cocked his head, listening. Lennick, seeing him, did the same. A keening wail penetrated into the depths of the office. "Sirens!" Frank said. "It means there'll be an emergency Ultrablack in fifteen minutes. Or even less, if we did not hear them from the very beginning...."
"You think it has to do with Andra?" asked Lennick.
"No telling," said Frank. "And no telling how long this Ultrablack is for. At normal Ultrablack, I can count on a definite number of hours, but—" He hesitated, then clapped Lennick on the shoulder and said, "Come on, Bob! This may be the chance we were looking for!"
The producer followed him, bewildered, out of the office and down the corridor toward the set. Just inside the set, where the siren-alerted crew members were grabbing their gear together in preparation for swift flight, Frank pulled Bob aside and led him to a door flanking the corridor entrance. "This way," he said, shoving the other man inside and following.
"To the prop room?" Lennick said wonderingly, his mind a pastiche of envisioned secret panels, inter-level tunnels and the like. Frank kept moving down the short hall without replying, so Lennick could only tag impatiently after him, his curiosity at its ultimate. Then they were in the high, barn-like gloom of the prop room, a fantastic collage of canvas backdrops, teeter-piled furniture, swords, pistols, fake-currency stacks, ropes, saddles, bows, arrows, and other oddments of the trade.
Lennick found his bewilderment growing as Frank pushed aside a stack of dusty chairs and then slid aside a tall desert-sky backdrop on oiled rollers. For a horrible instant, Lennick recoiled, his flesh going icy with unthinking fright. Then he relaxed and gave a shiver of relief. "Damn those things!" he grunted. "I forgot we had them stored back here...." Then he looked up and met Frank's gaze, and comprehension dawned on him. "You mean—Them?!"
"There's a panel in the back, where the operator can slide in to run the controls," Frank said. "It'll hold two, if you don't mind crowding."
"Good grief!" Lennick gasped. "I should have guessed!"
"Never mind the self-recriminations," Frank said. "Help me roll this thing out so we can get inside it."
Lennick nodded, and took hold of the jointed metal arm on one side, as Frank did the same on the other. Together, they wheeled the massive torso of the prop-Goon toward the center of the room. As Frank located and opened the neatly disguised panel, Lennick shook his head in doubt.
"There's no force-field, Frank," he said uneasily, "and once Ultrablack sets in—"
"Unlatch the door to the street," Frank said testily, "and stop asking so many questions." As Lennick hurried to comply, Frank added, with less irritation, "The absent force-field's thereasonwe use Goons only after Ultrablack. A Goon won't notice the difference, since it only determines identities by shape, but a Kinsman would, instantly, as you just did. There are no Kinsmen out after Ultrablack, so that's the safe time for us. As for your other worry, about how we'llseeafter Ultrablack, Ultrablack is only the jamming of the visible spectrum by the radiation of inverted light; the compression and rarefaction phases of the light waves are plugged, dovetailed into, by the opposing phases of inverted light. Goons," he said, depressing a switch beside a small cathode-screen inside the hollow body, "see by cutting off the sensitivity of their lenses to light or inverted light, it doesn't matter which. Then the Hive is bright as day-light to them."
Lennick clambered up beside him and helped Frank dog the metal panel shut. Side by side, hunched over the pale blue glow of the screen, they watched the interior of the prop room through the lens-eyes of their grotesque conveyance. When the sirens halted, Ultrablack swept the room from their ken like a velvet curtain. Then Frank turned a dial, and the room reappeared on the screen, like a negative image, with white for black, and vice-versa.
"Now we can go," Frank said, releasing a brake. The prop-Goon began to roll ponderously toward the door to the street, carrying its two perspiring conspirators. "I only wish," Frank said tensely, guiding their movement out into the Kinsmen-deserted street of the sector, "that this thing had Snapper-Beams, too. But I guess an underground movement can't have everything."
CHAPTER 13
The four prisoners sat glumly looking at the impenetrable squares of darkness outside Grace Horton's windows, awaiting the arrival of the Goon Squad. Madge Benedict, without needing to be told, had kept Ultrablack from occurring in the Unit; it was the only area of visible light in the entire nine cubic miles of the Hive. Stanton, his weapon never wavering, lolled against the wall of Grace's parlor, watching their discomfiture with amusement. Of all the group, Andra's pallor was the worst, and Stanton noted this fact with relish.
"I don't expect to glean much from the minds of the others," he said, addressing her directly, "but yours must be a veritable treasure trove of interesting data."
"I don't know why you should think so," Andra said, knowing all the while that fabrication was futile; five minutes under truth serum would prove the President's contention beyond debate. "I'm only one small cog in a wheel greater than your whole Goondom of force!"
"You almost convince me," Stanton said. "But—No matter. I'll know the truth in a few more minutes."
"And then what?" asked Grace. "What happens to us once you've picked our brains of knowledge? If it's death—"
"Grace—" Lloyd said warningly, taking her arm. She turned on him.
"Darling, if we're to die inanyevent, let's die now! At least we'll have the satisfaction that a hundred other people aren't dying afterward, because of us!"
"She's right, Fred," Bodger said, smiling for the first time since his arrival at Grace's Unit. "If you kill us now, you'll never find anything out. At least our lives will have accomplished something, if only continued secrecy about the movement."
"A Snapper Beam needn't kill, if used briefly enough," Stanton said mildly. "If you four prefer dancing an agonized quadrille until the arrival of the squad, you have only to come an inch closer. In fact, unless you return to your chairs at once, I may just do it anyhow, for my own diversion."
"A Snapper Beam," said Bodger, "is effective only so long as it's held upon its victim. Can you play yours four ways at once, Fred? Because, while you're gunning any one of us down, three will be diving for your throat!"
Stanton, before Bodger's statement could bring the others in a unified wave against him, pointed the muzzle of the Snapper directly at the man's chest and pressed the firing stud. A whine of power came from the weapon as the invisible forces lashed out.
And Bodger took two strides forward and smashed his fist into Stanton's face. The President's head snapped back with the unexpected blow, and cracked sharply against the wall. Then, the weapon falling from his limp fingers, he slid to the floor and collapsed in an untidy heap.
Bodger, stumbling back from the fallen body, sagged into a chair, gasping. Lloyd sprang to his side, dropped to one knee beside the chair, staring in unbelief at the shaken man. "Dad!" he blurted, in dazed joy. "You're alive! You're all right!"
"No ..." Bodger said, his eyes bulging as he shook his head, his lips thickening over words that were becoming difficult to formulate. "No, Lloyd. I'm—sicker than I thought."
"What are you talking about, Dad! You just took a dose of power that would've destroyed a healthy human nervous system, and camethroughit! How can you say—"
"Lloyd!" Bodger rasped, clutching his son's arm. "Don't you see? I don't—don'thavea human nervous system, anymore. The thing I've always feared has happened. I—" He coughed, and his skin took on a sickly bluish tinge for a moment, then flushed into a ruddier tone as he took a breath and held himself in rigid control. "The—The Brain. You ... must go to the Brain, Lloyd. I—Can't talk more ... ask it ... why is the Hive...." His voice trailed off, and his eyes closed.
"Dad," Lloyd said, shaking his father by the shoulders. "Why is the Hivewhat?! Tell me!"
His father opened his eyes and stared unseeing beyond his son. His lips, flecked with spume, worked silently, then he gurgled, "M-medicine ... bathroom ... behind mirror ... I n-need—" His collapse this time was total, his head hanging limply with chin on chest, his arms sliding over the sides of the chair until his wrists touched the carpet.
A thunderous pounding upon the front door brought Lloyd and the two women up short, and they stood frozen with dread as the insistent sound continued. The inner surface of the door was shaking with the blows. "... Goons?" whimpered Grace. "What'll we do if it's the Goons?"
"Stanton's Voteplate!" Andra snapped. "Lloyd, take it, quick, out of his pocket!" Lloyd caught her meaning instantly, and hurried to obey. "Grace, count ten, then open the door. We can't delay longer than that. Lloyd, think fast, and think smart! We're all in your hands, now!"
Lloyd, the plate in his hand, shoved his own into Stanton's pocket and straightened up. "Let them in, Grace," he commanded. "Then both of you keep still and let me talk!"
Grace unbolted the door and stepped back. The six metal bodies of the Goon Squad rumbled loudly as they crossed over the sill and came to a halt before the trio. The Goon in the fore-front of the group, swiveling its glittering telelenses over them, spoke in its cold, emotionless voice, "President Stanton."
Lloyd stepped forward and handed over the Voteplate. The eight-foot metal creature took it, slipped it into its chest-slot and paused; then returned the plate.
"Correct," it said. "Orders."
"Miss Madge Benedict, of my office, to be taken into custody at once, and held incommunicado," said Lloyd, figuring Stanton would be helpless with no contact at top level, so long as Ultrablack prevented his leaving the unit.
The Goon stood silently as this information was relayed to the Brain and thence to the Goon Squad nearest Stanton's office. "Accomplished," it said flatly, after a minute, its dull grey force-field pulsating with incredible energies. "Orders."
"Secondary Speakster Bodger—the man in the chair—to be taken," Lloyd flashed a glance at Grace, who nodded, "along with this woman on my right, to his Unit on Hundred-Level, Unit B, and left there without supervision, by all but one of your squad."
"Orders."
"One of you will escort me and this woman on my left to the Brain, in Sub-Level Three, immediately."
"Orders."
"All orders conveyed," said Lloyd.
CHAPTER 14
Knowing only the sector in which Andra had been seen with Lloyd, but not having access to Grace's address or phone number, Lennick and Frank, in the prop-Goon, arrived at her Unit many minutes after the Goon Squad had left. They found it by the simple expedient of noting—in their white-for-black cathode-screen—the one Unit from whose windows blackness was trying to pour. That meant Light-of-Day was still functioning in that particular Unit, and that in turn meant only the presence of higher-ups.
The door to the Unit lay wide open, but Frank didn't dare roll inside. His conveyance's lack of a force-field would be readily apparent in such close quarters. He halted, instead, a few yards along the side of the Unit, told Bob where the door lay from them, then cut off his motor and the cathode-screen. Ultrablack fell about them like a velvet all.
Bob, following Frank, felt his way out into the near-palpable darkness, found the wall against his fingers, and edged along beside it, fingers feeling for the doorway. A hand upon his chest stopped him, and he waited.
Frank, holding Bob back, leaned carefully toward the open doorway his fingers had just touched, not daring to show any more of himself than he had to to whomever might be inside the Unit. Then, swiftly, he leaned his head out of Ultrablack and blinked at the parlor before him. He saw no one. He closed his fingers upon the front of Bob's shirt, gave a quick tug on it, then let go and stepped into the room. A moment later, Bob was there beside him, squinting against the bright bluish Light-of-Day.
"Maybe it's the wrong Unit," Bob offered. "A malfunction in the Hive mechanismmightkeep this place from Ul—" He shut up and gripped Frank's arm. "Stanton!" he said, pointing beyond the sofa. Then Frank saw the President. Cautiously, the two men approached the still, silent figure and stared down at him.
"What do you suppose happened?!" Bob said, shakily. "Do you think Andra had something to do with this?"
Frank Shawn scratched his head. "You got me. All I can figure is—if Stanton's in a fix like this—he may not have been able to get her picked up. This tableau has the earmarks of turned tables, if you ask me."
"Do we dare waken him and find out?" Bob said, keeping his voice to a library-whisper.
"Not as long as Ultrablack's on. We'd have a hell of a time explaining how we got here," said Frank, shaking his head. He turned to look at Stanton again, and the blood froze in his veins. Stanton's eyes were open, and he was staring at the two of them with glaring hate.
"Howdidyou get here, Kinsman Shawn?!" he demanded. "And you, Kinsman Lennick!" Stanton lifted his head from the floor, awkwardly, and tried to look around. "Bodger! Where is he?" he said, shaken by a sudden return of memory.
"I've got to get to that phone! They're probably on their way to my office right this minute! If they take control—" He choked on the word and lay still, seeing the Snapper—his own—that Frank now leveled at him. "I suppose the two of you know this is high treason?" he said wearily. He lay there fuming at his enforced impotence.
Bob looked at Frank. "What'll wedo?"
"I wish I knew!" Frank muttered. "If we knew what had happened, where the others have gone—But we don't, so there's no followup there.... Still, we can't leave Stanton here, now that he's seen us, or it's our necks when he gets free."
"We—" Bob said, hesitantly. "We could make sure hewould notbe able to do anything, later...." He let his voice trail off, Frank caught his meaning after an instant's puzzled frown, and went ashen.
"In cold blood, just like that?" he said softly.
"I don't like it any more than you, Frank.... But—" Bob spread his hands helplessly. "What choice do we have? If we're caught—you especially—the whole movement is doomed." He stood silent, waiting for his answer.
Frank nodded, abruptly. "You're right. It has to be done." Stanton looked from the face of one man to the other, his tongue licking suddenly dry lips.
"Bob—Frank—" Stanton spoke from the floor, his tone weak with dread. "I'm an old man. You wouldn't kill me, would you? I'll do anything—ForgetI've seen you here, even ... anything ... only please don't—!"
"Listen, Frank," Bob said, trembling. "You heard what Stanton said: They've gone to his office. Take the Goon and go after them. I'll stay here with Stanton. If everything works out about the revolt—Fine. If it doesn't—Call me, here. The number's on the phone base. If the balloon goes up—I'll kill Stanton, then. But unless it does—I can't...."
"Okay," Frank said, coming to a swift decision. He noted Grace's number, then went toward the Ultrablack beyond the door. At the threshhold, he turned. "I may not get the chance to phone," he said. "If things go wrong, I mean. Give me half an hour. If I haven't called by then—" He avoided looking at Stanton's perspiring face. "Go ahead."
Bob reached out and took the Snapper. "Good luck," he said. Frank nodded wordlessly, and stepped out into the blackness. In another minute, Bob heard the rumble of the prop-Goon's motors, and then the whir of its wheels on the pavement outside. When it died in the distance, he looked down at his prisoner.
"I'm sorry, sir," he said, "really sorry. It was the only thing to do, while he was here. I knew he wouldn't go through with it. Killing you, I mean." He stooped and helped him up.
"What if he'd agreed!?" Stanton complained, taking his weapon and pocketing it.
Bob looked up, surprised. "I'd have had to kill him, of course. Without your permission, I didn't dare let on in front of him. I thought you'd want me in a position of trust, still. Frank won't alert any other members of the movement against me, this way."
Stanton grunted noncommittally at the statement, and got to his feet. Then he stepped to the phone and dialled Madge Benedict's number. The receiver shrilled in his ear, over and over, as the phone in her office rang. He waited for six rings, then hung up, his face thoughtful.
"Madge is never supposed to leave the phone without my permission during an emergency. Something's happened. They may be up there already.... Theymustbe up there already!"
"What can wedo?" Bob blurted, frightened. "Once they gain control of the Speaksters—"
"That takes time," Stanton said. "They'll have to lift Ultrablack, flash an emergency call to the Temples on the Proposition Screens, and wait until the Kinsmen have arrived to make their announcements. But there's a way to stop them. The Goons. And they're controlled by the Brain—Or by whomever is at the controls of the Brain!" he added with a smile that sent gooseflesh along Lennick's back.
"But how can we get there in Ultrablack?" Bob asked. "If we wait for them to turn it on, we won't have much time before the Kinsmen get to the Temples...." He stopped when he saw what Stanton was doing. The President, from an inner pocket of his coat, had taken a sort of transparent grey oval of some plastic material, and was fitting it before his eyes by means of an elastic strap. When it was in place, he could just barely see the President's balefully glaring eyes. "I didn't know such a thing existed," he said, knowing what the eyeshield was for, suddenly.
"Few people do," said Stanton. "Come on, you young fool! Take my arm and let's get moving!"
Bob took a firm grip upon the President's sleeve, and then the two of them stepped out into Ultrablack. Despite his youth, Bob had a difficult time keeping up with the other man. Stanton was driven by extremely vengeful fires.
CHAPTER 15
The end of the line for the lift was Sub-Level One, just beneath the granite soil on which the Hive rested. Lloyd and Andra emerged there, keeping close to their towering metal guide. Lloyd had only been to the Brain a few times, with his father. He knew very little about its operation. What he did know would have to suffice.
There was a sharp, hard click, as the Goon between them sprouted neat metal cogs on its wheels. Then, the cogs fitting neatly along tread and riser, it guided them down the steep staircase to Sub-Level Two. This level was smaller than any in the Hive itself. A mere twenty-five feet in height, it was filled completely with concrete and lead, save for the ten-by-ten-foot space to which the stairs had led them. In the center of this space was a circular door, on the floor near their feet. The Goon could come no further.
"Orders," it said dispassionately, after lifting the heavy door with one hand and guiding Lloyd to the brink of the gaping hole with the other.
"Return to your squad, and forget where you have brought us."
"Orders."
"All orders conveyed."
The Goon rattled off into the darkness, and Lloyd heard it begin to ascend the stairs once more. He felt for, and found, Andra's arm, and drew her to him. "Careful, now," he cautioned her. "The Brain-control chamber is right under us. We have a hundred-foot climb down a steel ladder, now."
"But I can't see—!" Andra said, holding back.
"There's Light-of-Day below," Lloyd said. "As soon as we start into the chamber, we'll be able to see. Ultrablack never goes on in the Brain." He held her hand tightly as he felt for the top rung with his toe. "Okay, now, I'm starting down. Come a little closer, and take your weight off one leg. I'll guide that foot to the top rung."
Andra caught herself nodding in the blackness, and said "All right," aloud. She heard Lloyd's feet clumping onto something that clanged dully, and then his hand was taking her gently by the ankle. She let him place her foot on the rung, then gave him a moment to begin his own descent before she followed after him. Three steps down, and she was in bright Light-of-Day, on a shiny tubular ladder whose base looked impossibly far below her. She shut her eyes and clung tightly to the sides of the ladder, then, taking step by cautious step downwards. The rungs, she'd noted, were just about a foot apart. She'd count to one hundred, and if she hadn't reached the bottom by then, she would scream.
When she was just enumerating ninety-seven, Lloyd's hands took her by the waist, and lifted her to the floor. She opened her eyes, disengaged his hands from her body, and then looked around in awe.
Tier upon tier of lightweight metal scaffolding rose on all sides of a twenty-foot-square area of flooring. Riveted across the angles of the scaffolding were coils and condensors, insulators and sparking forks of synaptic wiring, whirling cams and clattering selectors, banks of glowing lights that danced on random pattern, deepset labyrinthine nests of wire that glowed a brilliant orange, then faded to dull grey, then glowed again, accompanied by a rising and falling hum of urgent power.
As Andra's eyes followed the amazing array from ceiling to floor, she was shocked to see that the flooring was not really the solid thing she had supposed; it was, rather, a taut network of heavy cable, really nothing more than a glorified windowscreen, through the interstices of which she caught a vertiginous glimpse of more areas of bright electrical light, dropping away below her feet to incredible distances.
"How bigisthe Brain—?" she said to Lloyd, pulling her eyes from the terror of the empty depths between the frameworks beneath the cable-floor.
"A cubic mile," Lloyd said. "It's self-oiling, self-repairing, self-replacing. And in it are stored all the memories of the Hive from the day it was built."
He led her across the lattice-work flooring to a large flat panel, on which a number of lights shone evenly, without change in their asymmetrical pattern. Lloyd slid open a flat panel half-way down the face of this instrument, and removed a flexible metal band. He sat in the only chair in the chamber, directly before the open panel, and began adjusting the band about the circumference of his head. Andra eyed the metal band and the wires that led from it back into the light-strewn panel with misgivings.
"What are you going to do, Lloyd?"
"Ask the Brain for some answers," he said. Lloyd flipped open the lid of a small keyboard, and started to type, carefully:What is the Hive?
When he'd completed his question, he steadied himself in the chair, closed his eyes, and pressed a small button at the side of the exposed keyboard. Andra took a step back, quite startled as Lloyd stiffened in the chair, his face twitching. Before his closed eyes, the lights on the panel began to flicker on and off, dancing with incredible intricacy, and a weird, high-pitched tootling and tweetling began to echo through the chamber, through the scaffolding, through the entire mechanism of the great Brain. Andra jammed her hands to her ears to shut out the nerve-plucking noise. And then the lights blinked, held steady, and the cacophony of the electronic mind cut off. Lloyd opened his eyes.
"Well?" Andra said, going to him. "What happened?"
"It answered my question!" he said, with bitter disgust. "Told me the population of the Hive, told me it had ten truncated conic tiers, with ten levels in each tier, gave me the names of its officers, industries and short, just about whatanybodyin the Hive already knows!"
"Allthat," Andra marveled. "So quickly?"
"The Brain doesn't spell it out in words, Andra," Lloyd said ruefully. "It implants the information instantaneously in your mind. When it's implanted, the Brain stops feeding your brain, and you come out of the information-cycle with a newmemory. Except that, in this case, there was nothing new to learn."
"If only your father hadcompletedhis instructions."
Lloyd's hands, about to remove the headband while he pondered their dilemma, froze in place, and he grunted in sudden wonder. "You don't suppose," he said, shakily, "thatthisis the question?!"
"W-what?" Andra asked, nervous before his excitement.
"What if the question should be, notwhatis the Hive, butwhyis the Hive!" the young man gasped.
"Do you really think it could give you thereasonsfor the Hive's existence, the absence of hospitals, everything?"
"I don't know," said Lloyd, swiveling in the chair to face the keyboard once more. "But I mean to find out...."
He typed, carefully, the words:Why is the Hive?Andra stood and watched, anxiously, as he depressed the starter-button beside the keyboard again. Again the lights and the eerie whistlings of the Brain arose in maddening crescendo all about her, while Lloyd twitched and shuddered, his eyes clamped rigidly closed, in the chair. And then there was calm again, and silence, and the lights ceased their dance.
Lloyd tore off the headband and spun to face Andra. His eyes were wide with shock, and his jaw gaped imbecilically.
"Lloyd!" Andra took him by the shoulders and shook him, her heart thudding painfully at the apprehension in her breast. "Lloyd, what is it! What happened!"
He blinked, shook his head, and then seemed to see her for the first time. His mouth worked, and then he said, "Iknow, Andra! I know what the Hive is all about!"
"It must be terrible, something terrible," she said, frightened at his intensity. "Your face—your eyes—"
"No!" he said. "Not terrible. Awesome, perhaps, and stunning, but not terrible. Sit down, Andra. I'm going to tell you something that will chill you to the bones—And you're going tolikewhat you hear."