Arthur Herzog
    The Swarm
    

    
    First published in Great Britain 1974 by
    William Heinemann Ltd
    This edition published 1976 by Pan Books Ltd,
    Cavaye Place, London SW10 9PG,
    in association with William Heinernann Ltd
    3rd printing 1976
    (D Arthur Herzog 1974
    ISBN 0 33U 24686 0
    Printed in Great Britain by
    Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk



    The bees sustained flight, its powerful sting, its intimacy with
    flowers and avoidance of all unwholesome things, the attachment
    of the workers to the queen - regarded throughout antiquity as
    the king - its singular swarming habits and its astonishing
    industry in collecting and storing honey and skill in making wax.
    two unique substances of great value to man, but of mysterious
    origin, made it a divine being, a prime favourite of the gods, that
    had somehow survived the golden age or had voluntarily escaped!
    from the garden of Eden with poor fallen man for the purpose
    of sweetening his bitter lot.
    
    W, M- WHEELER, SocialLifie Among the Insects
    
    BEE-STING DEATHS IN AFRICA ON RISE
    Local Strain More Vicious than European Variety
    JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) - Bees are becoming
    a serious danger in South Africa.
     One naturalist calculates that swarms of angry bees have caused
    more deaths during the last decade in this, country than any other
    form of wild life - including lions and snakes.
    [New York Times, 8 May 1966]
    
    DEADLY BEES ATTACK AFRICAN MARCHERS:
    BOYISBADLYSTUNG
    MARYKNOLL, N.Y. - A strange story of a deadly assault by a
    swarm of bees on a Palm Sunday procession has been reported
    by Sister Rose Leon, a nurse and one of the Maryknoll Sisters
    stationed in ShinyoDga, Tanzania, a small town not far from
    Lake Victoria.
     'The procession of Christians was advancing across the fields
    toward the church,' the sister related, 'when a swarm of bees
    attacked us.
     'The hundreds of people screamed and ran.
     'One little crippled boy on crutches fen and the bees descended
    upon him. He screamed and screamed. At least six men tried to
    carry him but were bitten so badly they dropped him and ran
    away themselves . .
    [Religious News Service, 27 May 1966]
    
    VICIOUS BEES TERRIFY SOUTH AFRICANS:
    5 KILLED BY STINGS
    JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Notoriously vicious bees,
    apparently irritated more than usual by hot weather, have terri-
    fied South Africans with angry attacks in the last six months.
     Five people were stung to death. Hundreds of others suffered
    painful stings. Pet dogs and other animals died in the onslaught.
     People fleeing in panic before swarms of bees in several cases
    dived into swimming pools or public fountains to escape the
    invaders.
    [Knickerbocker News, Albany, 1 June 19661

    




    INVASION BY AGGRESSIVE HONEYBEES IS FELT
    By Boyce Rensberger'
    t A vast army of fierce African honeybees, the descendants of 26
    swarms accidentally released in Brazil 15 years ago, has spread
    through much of South America and threatens eventually to
    invade North America, a committee of experts commissioned by
    the National Academy of Sciences has found.
     `Ihe African bees, a strain of the species common to the
     Americas, are virtually identical to the American variety in
     appearance but quite different in behaviour. They are much more
     aggressive and more likely to attack in swarms,
     [New York Times, 22 Jan 19721
    
    ENTOMOLOGY
    Danger from the African Queens
    Apiculturist Warwick Kerr figured he had some perfectly goo(l
    reasons for bringing 20 African queen bees into his native Brazil
    nine years ago. Though it is known to be ferocious, the African
    bee produces 30 per cent more honey than either the Italian or
    the German bee that long dominated Brazilian beekeeping.
    Besides, Kerr planned to crossbreed his Africans to produce a
    more gentle bee. What he got instead was a bee with a disposition
    so nasty that it now threatens the lives and livelihood of almost
    every beekeeper in eight states of Brazil - to say nothing of count-
    less other Brazilians,
    [Time, 24 Sept 1965]
    
    PERU WAGES DRIVE ON BEES
    LIMA, Peru, 15 June (Reuters) - Emergency measures are being
    taken here to prevent an invasion of deadly African bees from
    Brazil, the Agrarian Defence Directorate said today.
    [New York Times, 16 June 19681        ar
    
    DREAD AFRICAN BEE ACOMIN'?
    THIS BREED WON'T BUZZ OFF
    WASHINGTON (UPI) - Evil-tempered bees that sting man and
    beast for the apparent pleasure of causing pain threaten to invade
    North America.
     The African bees migrated from their native land to Brazil in
    1956 and spread rapidly over an area about equal to the con-
    tinental United States.
     The warning about a possible invasion northwards came from
    Dr M. J. Ramsay, a research scientist at the Agriculture Depart-
    ment. He announced that $40,000 in contingency funds will be
    made available - at the urgent request of the American Bee-
    keeping Federation - to study the problem and see what can be
    done to prevent its spread into Central and North America.
    [Miami Herald, Tues, 20 July 1971 ]
    
    Brazil Menace
    KILLER BEES ARE HEADING FOR U.S.
    WASHINGTON (AP) - Swarms of ferocious honeybees that
    have been known to kill both humans and animals are moving
    toward the United States from Brazil at the rate of 200 miles a
    
     There seems to be no natural barrier to block the bees, and they
    could be in North America within four to six years, says a study
    financed by the Agriculture Department.
    
     The most alarming and best-known characteristic of Brazilian
    bees is their aggressiveness,' according to the report.
    (Chicago Daily News, 24 Aug 1972]



    I The African queens

    1 A picnic
    
    Several facts concerning the incident near Maryville, New York,
    need to be underscored.
     The ' day was unusually warm for late September.
     Asters, goldenrod and other late-blooming flowers grew in
    profusion.
     There were picnickers - a family named Peterson - whose
    provisions included sugar in various forms; as it turned out, too
    much sugar for their own good.
     Taking full advantage of the weather, wild bees were frantically
    gathering nectar and pollen before winter descended and shut off
    their supply until spring.
     Leaving their car on the road, the Petersons struggled with
    their picnic things through the woods: Bin, stout and genial;
    Mary, small and wiry; the children, Karen, twelve, Tim, ten,
    Randy, six - all blond and big for their ages. The family dis-
    covered they had the spot to themselves. A copse of soft maples,
    alders and willows opened into a grassy clearing that ended at a
    small stream. Birds babbled and insects strummed.
     The children played, and Bill, sprawled in a camp chair,
    listened to a ban game on the radio. Mary, who wanted the sun,
    undid the top buttons of her blouse and smeared herself with
    sweet-smelling skin lotion. Her skin was pale. All summer long
    the meteorological pattern had been the same: hot and sunny on
    weekdays, rainy on weekends - marvellous for things that grow,
    but terrible for people.
     When lunchtime came, Bill stretched a tarp on the grass and
    set up the card table. They had been in a hurry to leave, and
    Mary let them throw what they liked into the picnic box. She
    frowned at the nutritional catastrophe that had been assembled.
    Hamburgers, hot dogs, buns, condiments, leftover pizza, potato
    chips, pretzels, cheese wafers, Slim Jims, macaroni salad,
    powdered doughnuts, marshmallows, Crackerjacks, nuts, candy
     Oreos, Fig Newtons, cupcakes, soft drinks ...
      Someone had built a crude fireplace with rocks. Bill shook ir
    charcoal, squirted a runnel of fluid and ht a match. White smok
    rose straight up. Karen and Tim were throwing the ball just ove
    little Randy's head, but soon the kids arrived at the table with
    their mouths open, like young birds. Always the greediest, Karen
    grabbed the potato chips, attacked the cellophane package with
    her teeth and inserted grubby fingers. Mary yanked the bag away
    but the situation was already out of hand. Tim had ripped the
    top from the Crackerjack box, and Randy had expertly torn the
    tab from a can of Coke. 'You kids,' sighed Mary. 'I give up.'
    'Can I have some honey, Mother?' Karen asked. 'Honey is
    good for you. It gives you energy.' The question was a formality.
    Without waiting for an answer she smeared butter on a bun and
    held the jar upside down until honey gushed tawnily.
     'Troops won't wait, Bill,' Mary called. 'My, it is buggy today.'
    She took the aerosol can and shot a warning burst of insecticide
    at the bushes.
     When the coals glowed under mantles of white ash, Bill put
    the bright red patties stippled with fat on the grill, pressing each
    with his spatula. He ordered a phalanx of franks. Around the
    edges of the grill he laid the pale faces of the buns. Holding a
    beer, he sat on his haunches and watched the falling fat erupt
    into tiny flames.
     He had just turned the burgers when Karen discovered the
    bee. She had forgotten to put the lid on the jar, and when she
    clapped it down the bee was a prisoner on the glass wall. 'I
    caught a bee'
     Tim ran up. 'That's a big bee.' It was the size of a large marble,
    black with rows of tufted orange hair on its rear section. 'Maybe
    it's a bumblebee.'
     'It's a honeybee,' Karen said firmly. 'We had a beehive in a
    glass box at school.' She showed the bee to her mother.
     Mary stared at it apprehensively. She didn't know much about
    bees, but it looked enormous to her. 'Maybe it's a queen.'
     'Queen bees don't just fly around, Mother,' Karen said. 'They
    only fly to mate.'
    
     Randy wanted to inspect the bee too. He snatched the jar from
    Karen's hands and ran a few steps with it. The bee came to life.
    From inside the jar it made a startlingly loud noise, almost like a
    growl, high-pitched and sharp as a sting. Zeeeeeeeee. Ziiiiiiiii.
    The buzz frightened Randy, who let the honey-slick jar slip from
    his fingers. It shattered on a log and the bee escaped. Furious,
    crying, Randy began to kick the log.
     'Stay away from the glass,' Bill ordered. 'We'll clean up later.
    Chow's on.'
     The parents sat in their camp chairs while the kids sprawled
    on the tarp, holding up their plastic plates and Styrofoam cups
    for more. They had reached the ice cream-cookie-marshmallow
    stage when Tim noticed a dozen bees congregated around the
    shards of the honey jar. More bees prowled around the little pile
    ,of rubbish the kids had thrown on the grass near the tarp. Every
    now and then a bee rose in the air and flew like a dart towards
    the trees. Bravely, Tim tried to shoo the bees away, but they
    buzzed queerly and gave no ground.
     Bees circled over the table too, hovering over the powdered
    doughnuts and Fig Newtons, retreating, returning, coming ever
    closer.
     'I don't like these bees,' Mary said. She stood up, took her
    magazine and sat on the grass by the stream, determined to,
    efijoy the day. Bill moved his chair and radio away from the
    table, while the children threw a Frisbee. The clearing seemed to
    throb like a living tissue with the hum of insects.
     Mary looked up and saw that her youngest child was scurrying
    towards her, jerking his head and arms in an unnatural way. He
    cried, 'A bee is chasing me!'

     Mary got up quickly and went to him. 'They're just bees,
    Randy. They won't hurt you if you don't hurt them,' she said.
    The boy threw his face convulsively against her stomach while,
    inches away, a bee zoomed by, screaming like a tiny jet fighter.
     Following it with her eyes, she saw that the table was crowded
    with bees running over the food with stiff legs. Mary inched
    'closer. 'They're into everything,' she whispered. 'Those are just
    not natural bees.'
     At her side, Karen said in a small voice, 'I thought bees ate
    only pollen and nectar. Those bees are pigs, just like us kidsl,
     'I don't get it,' Mary said, watching the bees crawl on th
    sweet things, seeming even to scrape at the Styrofoam cups ii
    their hunger. She dared to snatch the insecticide can from th
    table, jabbed the button and held it down until her thumb w
    white from the pressure. 'Go way! Go way, bees!' she yelled.
     The bees appeared to go crazy. They rose and fell, swirled A
    the air, rolled in bunches on the ground. A few bees hurled themF
    selves into the white-hot charcoal, exploding like little s
    Above, the bee cloud grew. With its angry fringes and turbul
    centre, it looked like a miniature storm.
     Hunched over the radio as he listened to an important pl
    Bill -was oblivious to everything. 'Goddammit, Daddy,' M
    said sharply, 'turn off the radio. Let's get out of here.'
     Bill switched off the radio. When he did, it became appa
    that the radio, instead of causing, had only masked the t
    source of the noise in -the clearing. A roar like a chain saw
    operation rose from the bushes, the trees, the very ground.
    Petersons raised shocked faces - the sky was black with bees.
     'Leave the picnic things,' Mary shrieked. 'Children, run "
     Randy raced for the car, while Tim headed for the stre
    Karen screamed, 'A bee's in my hair!' and with frantic
    tures tried to pull it out. She screamed again. As if she had
    touched by fire, a sharp weal rose abruptly on her neck.
    sound in the clearing changed, almost resembling a deep org
    note. Zuuuuuuuuuummmmm. Bees swooped from the sky. Bill' -
    hand shot to his arm, then to his shoulder. He dropped the radio
     Mary was running towards them, but wavered and stopped
    confused by the whirling shadows and hideous sound
    ZUUUUUUUUUMMMMM. Bees brushed all over her, on he,
    arms, down her cleavage, even flying under her skirt. Desperate
    she tried to brush them away, but a hundred lances seemed to
    punch everywhere into her body. Her eyes puffed and her
    nostrils began to close. A strange aching filled her chest and
    breathing came hard. She opened her mouth to scream but received
    on her tongue a swab of pain. As she fell, she asked herself what
    would become of the children.
    
    
    
    I
    
    2 The National Academy 
    
    On Monday the warm weather continued down the eastern sea-
    board. It was 70 degrees by 8am, according to the radio. Dr John
    Wood decided to bike to work.
     Over breakfast Wood had a characteristic debate with himself.
    His companion of the night before, a pert young woman, had
    departed earlier while he slept. She was the latest in a long series
    of women who had given up on Wood. They Red him well
    enough - too much, it seemed; the trouble had to do with the
    time he had for them - namely, little. Between women and work
    Wood always chose the latter, neglecting the former, whose
    reactions were then predictable. 'Must learn to relax and play
    more,' Wood told himself for the nth time. Then, as usual, the
    day swallowed him up.
     In Wood's scientific circles there was nothing unusual in the
    fact that his bike, a three-hundred-dollar Peugeot with ten gears
    and centrefold brakes, was worth as much as his car, an old
    Volks. After parking the bicycle in the garage he climbed the
    stairs to the Great Hall, with its green-bronze portals decorated
    with the signs of the zodiac, pillars of green Italian marble,
    elaborately domed ceiling, and the painting of Prometheus Bound
    on the far wall. Wanting a temple to the Great God Science, they
    had built one. The National Academy of Sciences was the sort
    of place that called a courtyard an arboretum and its cafeteria
    a refectory. The temple was implacably, irretrievably sedate.
    Sometimes Wood wished it provided a bit more action,
     As usual, the Washington Post stared from his desk, where
    the divisional secretary left it each morning. Wood stared back
    at it with something nearing real dislike. He had a theory that
    newspapers were owned by pharmaceutical companies and
    printed expressly to increase the sales of tranquillizers. The
    trouble was that the papers got people stiffed up about all t
    wrong things, ignoring the ones that mattered. Wood always put
    off reading the paper as long as he could, and sometimes happily
    he forgot to read it at all. Today, with fifteen minutes' yawning~
    before his Monday meeting with Hubbard, he had no excuse.
     He was an inveterate reader of the colourful filler items at the,
    bottoms of pages, which often interested him more than the'
    major news: 'Sea Lion Gives Birth to Quints'; 'Fernme-Lib
    Wife Jails Hubby on Alimony Rap'. His eyes stopped at a small headline.
    
        FAMILY ATTACKED BY BEES - TWO KILLED
    MARYVILLE, N.Y., 26 Sept (AP) - A family of five on an
    outing in an isolated spot by a stream were attacked by bees here.
    Mr and Mrs William Peterson died as the result of bee bites.
    Their three children were also attacked, one, Karen, age 12,
    severely.
     The local coroner, Dr David P. Znac, speculated that both
    adults had allergies to bee bites, which can be fatal. About 30~
    deaths a year in the U.S. are attributed to bites from bees, waspst
    and hornets.
     What caused the bees to attack is not known.
    
    Wood's characteristic reaction to information that troubled him
    was to back away from it temporarily and give his intuition a
    chance to operate. Also, at that moment he felt a surge of very
    real fear. His only immediate response concerned the reporter's
    ignorance. Bees don't bite, he thought, they sting, as he himself
    had good cause to remember. He worked quickly to the end of'
    the paper, then found himself studying the bee item more closely.
    Wood was not an entomologist, much less a bee man. But he
    was an environmental biologist with knowledge in many areas,
    including a bit of melittology, and to him the facts presented
    had an odd ring. A mass attack indicated honeybees, not solitary
    bees, but honeybees don't usually swarm so late in the year. Still,
    it had been hot. Wood's impression (an erroneous one, it turned
    out, though shared by many others) was that most bees lived in
    beeyards, so what were they doing out in the wilds? And, he
    believed, the chance of two people in the same family having fatal
    anaphylactic reactions to bee stings was small.
     But what bothered Wood most was that mass attacks by
    honeybees were extremely rare, except in the case of one singular
    bee race. On impulse, Wood clipped and filed the article.
     Wood served at the National Academy as Chief Staff Officer of
    the Division of Environmental Sciences. Sheldon Hubbard, the
    Executive Officer, was his boss. Every Monday the two men met
    to review the work of their unit, which acted as a kind of trouble-
    shooter, trying to spot environmental crises before they arose.
    Entering Hubbard's office, Wood found it empty and was glad.
    The bee killings had upset him. He wanted a minute to calm down.
     Shelly Hubbard's personality reached out from the office walls
     wife, kids, dog, degrees, honorary degrees, photos of Hubbard
    with Willard Lightower, the Academy's president, with Soviet
    scientists, receiving the Pudlo Award for distinguished zoological
    research, shooting a rifle, grinning over a golf trophy. He was a
    many-faceted scientist and his lush talents spread from machinery
    to military history. He was also an egomaniac, whose biggest
    disappointment was to have failed to achieve international renown.
     Wood's liking for the older scientist did not blind him to
    Hubbard's shortcomings. As a bureaucrat Hubbard could be
    slow to act, reluctant to change course, prideful and stubborn.
    He let his ego get in the way and had too much confidence in his
    own judgement. To Wood, Hubbard's real talent was innovation.
    He should have remained a bench scientist, Wood thought, and
    not yielded to the flimsy attraction of power his job offered.

     Hubbard's attitude towards the younger scientist, with whom
    he had a good-natured rivalry, was not completely favourable
    either. He called Wood (along with the generation of younger
    scientists he represented) a mere calculating machine - sharp,
    shrewd, cool, but without blood or bile. Wood knew this descrip-
    tion contained some truth.
     Fifteen minutes late, as usual, Shelly Hubbard bustled in. To
    Wood, Hubbard resembled his own zoological speciality, the
    beetle. At fifty-two he was short and massively broad, with a
    bulging chest. He had almost no neck at all, and his round head,
    seemed to pivot directly on his sloping shoulders. Two fringes of
    black hair stood up on the sides of his bald dome like antennae,
    Habitually, and in line with his coleoptera character, Hubbardl
    rubbed his hands together with a rustling sound or created suck-li
    ing noises by making a vacuum between his palms.
     Hubbard dropped weightily into a chair at the conference tabler
    across from Wood, surveying the pile of work before them bale.
    fully. Wood asked him about the weekend golf. Hubbard made
    face and said he had shot in the low 90s. Then Hubbard asked,
    'Hey, could you fill in for me at the entomological society this
    week, John? I'd rather play golf. I've had meetings to here.' He
    placed his hand on the top of his bald head.
     'Sure,' Wood said. 'I want to talk to Gerston anyway.'
     'Good. Those new results of his are the scariest thing since
    Frankenstein's monster. Speaking of which, we have a few in
    the deck this morning.'
     A foot high, the pile consisted of evaluations, proposals,
    strategies, requests from government agencies and the like, with'
    Wood's recommendations stapled to each. The first was a report
    prepared by a group of southern scientists, destined for the US
    Department of Agriculture. It said that the canary-winged para.
    keet and the Amazon parrot, both of which had been accidentally
    released in Florida, posed a serious threat to fruit crops. The.,
    scientists recommended immediate action. Wood had said yes;
    Hubbard said yes, and the proposal was cleared for the Academy Is
    Programme Review Committee.
    The next item concerned 'superrat', as British newspapers
    called it jokingly. Knowledgeable scientists hardly thought
    superrat a joke. Rats, like other animals, had developed resistance
    to conventional poisons; then an anticoagulant called warfarin
    had been developed which caused rats to bleed internally and die.
    Here, scientists thought, was a poison to which no resistance was
    possible, and yet, a few k;,enerations later, rats became resistant to
    warfarin too. Warfarin-resistant rats had even been found in
    upstate New York. But the British warfarin-resistant rat had
    taken a further evolutionary jump. As though it thrived on the 11
    poisons used against it, it had become about one-fourth larger
    than ordinary rats and could chew through plaster walls. Stories
    (unsubstantiated) had it that superrat would stand up to a cat or
    small dog and fight to the death. Whether or not these reports
    were true, no doubt existed about the rat's aggressiveness.
     Now the Environmental Protection Agency wanted a study ork
    what to do about superrat if it ever reached American cities. In
    crowded ghetto areas it could cause havoc.
     Hubbard shudd ered. 'I have a thing about rats. Remember
    what Orwell said in 1984 - that everybody has one thing he is
    afraid of? In the book there was a prisoner who seemed unafraid
    of anything, and they put a cage on his head with a hungry rat in
    it. He broke. Just the suggestion of rats has that effect on me.'
     Wood was totally unmoved by rats. He wondered idly if rats
    ate beetles. 'One thing I'm curious about,' he said, 'is why sud-
    denly increased size seems to lead to heightened aggressiveness.
    That's been observed in insects too. Could the same be true of
    man? We're growing larger.'
     But Hubbard seemed eager to change the subject. 'Give that
    proposal top priority. Send it direct to Lightower.' He made the
    squishing noise with his hands. -
     In this way they inched through the stack with Hubbard giving
    assent to almost everything Wood proposed. Later Wood was to
    speculate on what might have happened in the matter of the
    African bees if Hubbard hadn't stubbornly wished to prove to
    Wood that he was still capable of saying no, and if the McAllister
    proposal hadn't been near the end of the pile, when Hubbard
    always grew restless. Nothing different, surely. Still, it was tempt-
    ing to wonder whether a few vital weeks might have been saved.
     F. W. McAllister, apiologist, or bee man, from Kansas Uni-
    versity and a member of the National Academy, had been part of
    the team sent by the Academy to Brazil a few years earlier to
    study the African honeybee and write a report. This bee pre-
    sented something of a puzzle. It was undeniably vigorous.
    Compared with the bees of European descent that populate the
    Americas, it got out earlier in the morning, worked harder during
    the day, and stayed out later in the evening. For this reason it was     capable of producing almost twice as much honey as the bees of 
    the Americas. But it was also extremely aggressive and prone to 
     unprovoked mass attacks on humans and livestock. It had a high 
     rate of reproduction, and because of the crowding that followed 
     swarmed frequently and at great distances. It liked to live in the wilds.     
     In 1956 a Brazilian entomologist had imported African bees
    with the idea of crossbreeding them with Brazilian bees and
    creating a bee family as industrious as the Africans but as 
    as the European bee. The first lot of African bees had been
    disastrous. one reason was the bees extreme sensitivity to
    DDT en route and arrived in Brazil dead. The 
    second lot of African bees had been collected at random, without, 
    regard to screening out the more vicious ones. At any rate, the   
    bees arrived in Brazil.- Before the crossbreeding experiments were
    completed an unbelievable series of errors resulted in the escape of
    twenty-six swarms headed by African queens. Entomologists had
    been sure that the aggressive African gene would be quickly diluted
    in the vastly larger gene pool of Brazilian bees. They were Wrong
     The bee - Apis mellifera adansonii - proved biologically cun-
    ning as well as irascible. It was an invader. Settling under a 
    beehive, African bees would enter, kill the reigning queen and
    replace her with their own. Soon, having reproduced to the point
    of crowding, some Africans would swarm and settle in the wilds. 
    The Africans seemed to prefer trees for their hives, but they were
    capable of attacking an anthill, driving out the ants and remodel-
    ling the hill for themselves. As many as a hundred African hives
    per square mile had been counted. Because of its vitality, skill at 
    robbing other bees of -their honey stores, and most of all its
    genetic dominance, adansonii had accomplished a biological 
    miracle. Like the Huns, it swept forward.-In a single decade the
    twenty-six swarms and their descendants had suppressed and
    Africanized the whole bee population of Brazil. Almost all
    Brazilian bees could now be called African.  
        
     Wood could almost see Hubbard's mind working. He bought
    a theory that even if the Africans came in, American bees
    would kill them the moment they showed in a hive. Usually it
    was hopeless to argue with Hubbard when he'd made up his
    mind, but Wood thought this issue was worth the effort. 'That
    insect's a dangerous customer,' he said in his faint drawl
    'McAllister's right - we don't know nearly enough about it yet.
        
      'What makes you so sure it won't mutate out okay?' Hub-
      bard asked. 'It's already turned peaceable in southern Brazil.'
   'And what makes you think it'll stay that way?' Wood asked
    in turn. 'It's our job to worry about it.'
         Hubbard said stubbornly, 'You worry about it. I won't. Case closed!
         Wood hesitated. 'Did you read about the bee killings in upstate New York?'
         Hubbard's deep-set eyes stared from under upswept brows.
         'Yes. So what?'
          'Where else have you heard about mass attacks like that?'
          Hubbard grinned. 'You believe they're Africans?'
         'I'm just saying that's how Africans act in Brazil. Maybe a few
         have gotten in, yes. It's possible.'
         'Africans in any form would have been reported long ago.
         Those bees are in South America, and they won't get visas. Forget
         them.' He was looking at Wood with a quizzical expression.
         'Hey, John, I think you've got a bee complex, like mine about
         rats. Bees frighten you, don't they?'
          Thrown off guard, Wood said, 'Why do you ask?'
          'Look at your fingers.'
         Wood glanced down in surprise and saw that his fingernails
         were drumming an involuntary tattoo on the tabletop. He ad-
         mitted he had an irrational fear of bees.
         'Lots of people do, but not me,' Hubbard said. 'I like the little
         critters. I admire their social organization and ethos. Apis tries
         harder.'
    
     The walls of Wood's office were hung with touristy colour photo-
     graphs of Washington attractions, like the Capitol and the cherry
     blossoms. They had been there when he arrived five years before,
     and he had never bothered to replace them.
     One wall contained a large bulletin board with the names of
     Wood's principal projects in large printed letters.
    
GULF COAST SUPERPORTS
     THE BIOSPHERE AND SUPERSONIC TRANSPORT AIRCRAFT
     ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT, CENTRAL CALIFORNIA WATER PROJECT
    STUDY OF THE EFFECTS OF THE DALLAS-FORT WORTH REGIONAL
    AIRPORT ON DEVELOPMENT OF THE NORTH TEXAS URBAN COMPLEX
    
    COMMITTEE TO DEFINE CRITERIA FOR IDENTIFYING WILDERNESS
    AREAS
    
    Five years ago there hadn't been such projects because few people
    were sufficiently future-oriented then. Even people who should
    have known better sometimes hadn't. Even now they often acted
    shortsightedly. At that moment Wood was thinking of Hubbard.
     John Wood was thirty-five, six feet tall, thin, with a straight
    nose, blue eyes, angular cheeks, an affable but controlled mouth
    and a military set to his shoulders. He had the sort of face women
    reacted to, but on the second look, not the first. He hadn't
    married , he told himself, because he hadn't found the right girl.
    Actually, he did his best to stay out of love.
    
    
     Wood was from Arizona. He had gotten his PhD in biology
    at Harvard, put in two years in the army on secret scientific 
    research, eriaerging as a captain, returned to Harvard for post-
    doctoral work in environmental studies and become a Junior
    fellow. He had no real liking for laboratory research, or the
    'bench', as scientists put it, and no real inclination to teach. The 
    job at the National Academy was tailor-made for his aptitudes -
    a strong analytic mind, a good Memory, a talent for diplomacy
    and a deep understanding of the meaning of modern technology.
    It had been Wood who was responsible for establishing the
    National Academy committee which concluded that a large fleet
    of supersonic transports might lower ozone levels in the upper
    atmosphere and expose the world to intolerable amounts of
    radiation.
     Wood also had a flair for ideas, which, in his business, trans-
    lated as an ability to anticipate trouble. He thought of this as his
    private Distant Early Warning System.
     If Wood's personal DEW line was activated now, he had to
    Put what Hubbard had called his 'bee complex' into the equation.
    Wood did not regard himself as especially complicated, but he
    had this quirk. As a child on his father's small ranch near Tucson,
    he had been riding when a bee stung his horse on the nose. 
     Wood's small, square office left little room to pace. He took a
    Jew steps to and from the window, picked up the phone and called
    McAllister at Lawrence, Kansas. The entomologist answered.
     'Sorry. No dice, Mac,'Wood said.'Hubbard won't be budged.
    He thinks there's a good possibility the Africans will turn out to
    be nice guys.'
     McAllister had a high-pitched voice. It sounded resigned. 'Fat
    chance. He'll talk out of the other side of his mouth when the
    goddamned things cross the Rio Grande. He can't just sit around
    and hope for a favourable mutation.'
     'He wanted to know why the bee was more peaceable in
    southern than northern Brazil. I didn't have any real answer.
    The north is tropical, the south isn't. That's not it,' McAllister said. 
   'The bee colonies in the south are larger and stronger. They put up more of a fight.
    They succumb eventually. Those Africans are bastards, I tell you-' 
   'It -might have helped if you'd told me this before.
    Wood said suddenly, 'Did you hear about what happened at 
    a place called Maryville?'
     McAllister said he hadn't. When Wood explained, the apiol-
    ogist whistled so loudly Wood thought there was trouble on the
    line. 'That's exactly how our African friends behave.' He paused
    'But I can't see any possibility of them getting to New York     State.'
     , Suppose an African were found. Could it be identified easily?'
     'Maybe. There's been so much interbreeding between bees that
    it's hard to know one from another. In theory, adansonii ought
    to be a little smaller than American bees, but that's uncertain too,
    Even Bill Birch at the Smithsonian had trouble certifying the
    California bees as genuine Africans.'
     'California bees?' Wood said quickly.
     'The ones that came off a ship at Richmond.'
     'What happened?' Wood said, feeling suddenly disturbed.
     To Wood it seemed that McAllister's high-pitched voice had
    risen higher. 'Well, in '72, at Richmond, near San Francisco
    dock workers found bees in the hold of a ship. Bees can travel
    by ship, you know, or practically any other way. Containerized
    shipping is ideal for them - they build combs right in the con-
    tainers. By the time the Agriculture guys got there, the bees had
    swarmed. They were found on a dock and gassed. The whole
    thing is something of a mystery, because the ship had come from
    Japan. It had stopped earlier in San Pedro, so maybe the bees
    jumped to this ship from another ship there. One ship at San
    Pedro had been in Guatemala, but the Africans aren't supposed
    to have reached Guatemala yet. The specimens were sent to Birch
    at the National Museum. He's tops at identifying insects, and he
    says they're African.'
     Wood said sharply, 'Did they find the queen?'
     McAllister seemed uncomfortable. 'As a matter of fact, they
    didn't, no.'
     Wood said, 'Well, the implication is that they may have gotten
    in, either in that instance or others.'
     'California's a long way from New York.'
    
     'There are no real facts to go on, and I didn't want to over-
    load my argument,' McAllister piped. He sounded defensive.
     Wood said, 'Well, I guess it wouldn't have affected Hubbard's
    decision. And the possibility that the African's in is very remote.'
     'On the order of zero,' McAllister answered.
     'Still, I'd like to be sure.'
        The Beekeeper

    Henry David understood bees - at least before this summer he
    had thought so. The bees had been acting strangely, and had
    confused, even frightened him a little, although he didn't like to
    admit it to himself, In one sense, at least, bees were like people: 
    give them half a chance and they stole. You could spot a delin- 
    quent bee by its appearance. Creeping through small holes in
    neighbouring hives to avoid detection by guards posted at the 
    main entrance, a robber bee literally scraped the hair from its
    body. He had never seen so many robber bees before.        
     And then there was the propolis, a resinous substance bees 
    collect from tree buds and use to keep the hive walls smooth and
    waterproof. Out in the wilds bees need propolis, but it is a bee.
    keeper's nightmare. To keep a hive functioning he must scrape it
    off. This summer propolis production had been greater than ever before.
    
     Finally, that summer, he had lost bees. Henry David could
    usually forestall swarming. Even when he failed, the bees would
    By to a nearby branch or fence post, and while they sent out
    scouts to decide what to do next, it was a simple matter to
    recapture them. Not these bees. No less than twenty-five swarms
    had absconded without warning, streaking off like arrows and
    not turning back. Ordinarily, the loss would have mattered, but
    this summer, with ten tons of honey to sell, David hadn't cared.
    Still, he wondered what had become of them. Perhaps they were
    the property of another beekeeper by now, perhaps because a
    bee hunter had captured them - he hoped so. Most probably
    however, they were holed up in a hollow tree somewhere, hungry
    and despondent, having taken with them only six days' 
    supply. An old adage crossed his mind:
    
    a swarm of bees in May is worth a ton of hay.
    a swarm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon.
    a swarm of bees in July ain't worth a fly.
    
    Bees that absconded in late July, as his had, didn't have time
    prepare for winter. They would die.
     Henry David could feel winter in the air, and there was work
    to do. He had about four hundred colonies, each in its own hive.
    Each had to be checked out, and a sugar solution given though
    that had an insufficient honey supply for winter. At the first hive
    a bee stung David on the hand. Preoccupied, he had been
    moving faster than he ought. Henry David didn't really mind
    Bee stings, he felt sure, were the reason he hadn't a trace of
    arthritis or rheumatism although he was close to seventy. Care-
    fully, he removed the sting. Left in, it would continue to pour
    poison ever deeper into the flesh. Long immune to bee venom
    his flesh would not swell. But no matter how often you had been
    stung, it always hurt.
    
    4 The Entomological Association
    
    The annual meeting of the American Entomological Association,
    held this year in New York, attracted about two thousand
    scientists from many disciplines. From Wednesday through
    Saturday at the Hilton Hotel they would sit on folding chairs,
    listen to papers, exchange ideas, attend cocktail parties and look
    for jobs, funding and sport. It was a convention like any other.
     Looking over the thick printed programme, John Wood was
    struck by the tenor of the proceedings. The tone seemed almost
    military - like that of a council of war. There was continual
    emphasis on the offensive-defensive quality of the struggle be-
    tween the insect world and human beings. For the first time
    science was peering deeply into the sociobiology of insects, and
    the findings were not reassuring. The insects had evolved sophis-
    ticated systems of communications, organization and control that
    seemed, more and more, to parallel those developed by human
    beings. Nor were insects so locked into hereditary patterns as
    had been thought. Many insects appeared to be startlingly
    flexible, and changing rapidly.
     This was the point raised by Robert Gerston, PhD, Columbia
    University, at a panel session the first afternoon. Gerston was an
    old friend of Wood's from Harvard. A vanishing kind, Gerston
    did entomology in the field when most other entomologists were
    studying biology in a lab. He was a six-foot-four, rawboned man
    with a battering ram of a nose. Recently he had concluded a field
    trip to South Vietnam, where he had collected a large number of
    grasshoppers. Cornell scientists had reported tentatively that the
    grasshopper Romales microptera was able to secrete a froth that
    contained a chlorinated compound. Since these compounds were
    almost absent in nature, the scientists deduced that the grass-
    hoppers were absorbing it and using it as a defence weapon.
   
   Wood's -angular face wrinkled in concentration. He said
   'The implications are staggering.'
   'It's a little like equipping the insect world not just with   conventional weapons but with atomic bombs to use against each
  other. I just can't imagine the results for them.'
   
     When the questions were over, Wood beckoned to Gerston
    with his finger. Gerston followed him into the hall, where they
    sat down. They chatted a moment about Gerston's new baby,
    and then Wood drawled softly, 'I had a call from the science
    editor of the Times. He wanted to know if your findings were
    accurate.'
     Gerston frowned. 'I wish they weren't.'
     'I told him they were, though. You said on the phone there
    was something else.'
     Gerston peered down the hall. Then he said, 'Well, in a way
    there is. I mean, it's not the sort of thing you necessarily want to
    commit to paper. Once you've written it, you sound as though
    you believe it, no matter how you hedge. Know what I meanT
     Wood said he did.
     Gerston uncrossed his long legs. 'You understand how the
    study was conducted? We caught a large number of grasshoppers
    and brought them back. The secretion was obtained by gently
    squeezing individuals and collecting the froth and the excreta.
    What we got was a few drops of fluid, which were carefully
    analysed. The herbicides showed up clearly. That wasn't all.' He
    paused.
     Wood said, 'Go on.'
     'Well, in addition to the defoliant compounds there was DDT.
    I don't mean merely an unassimilated residue - there has to be
    some of that, because the Vietnamese use the stuff. This DDT
    was combined with the grasshoppers' defensive substances, just
    as the herbicides were. The quantity was,n-iinute, and I'm not
    prepared to publish anything without more research. But there
    is now evidence that 'hoppers have learned to use insecticides for
    defence. I thought I'd let you know.'
    Wood said the obvious. 'Or for us.'
    
    At scientific conferences like these Wood always floated, drifting
    from panel to panel, listening to the arguments. In one, there was
    a spirited discussion in progress. An entomologist argued that
    the small size of insects was their greatest evolutionary asset. It
    enabled them to survive every catastrophe. Another accused him
    of being old-fashioned. Recent electron-n-ticroscope studies of
    ant brains revealed them to be complex mechanisms with extra-
    ordinary refinements in brain tissues that could be compared only
    to the most complex human electronics. Insects, this entomologist
    said, are smarter than we think.
     A brilliant young geneticist, Walter Krim, got up to argue that
    long-term adaptation by man to permit him to compete success-
    fully for scarce resources might require that he become smaller,
    perhaps half his present size. Wood admired the man's temerity.
    Krim, he judged, was only five-foot-five.
     Wood stopped at the doorway to one conference room, not
    because of what he heard but because of what he saw. A lithe,
    dark-haired young woman was presenting statistics on what she
    claimed were increased deaths among California farm workers.
    She had barely finished when the scientists began to attack her
    arguments, driving her close to tears. It was her figure, not
    figures, that had got to them, Wood thought, smiling, and
    moved on.
     He saw her again that evening at the cocktail party held to
    kick off the conference. She stood by herself, collected, but look-
    ing nowhere in particular, in a room overwhelmingly male.
    Perhaps it was her guarded expression that put the scientists off,
   or perhaps it was her looks that made them shy, She was excep-
    tionally attractive. Tall and slim, she had flat, almost Indian
    cheeks, olive skin, long, narrow eyes, a butterfly mouth, and a
    high forehead with thick black hair pulled above it. Give 
    scientists a few drinks and they'd be all over her, Wood thought.
    Dr Amaral explained that she had concentrated her effort in
    Pul Yolo County, California. She spoke, in addition to     Portuguese and English, perfect Spanish, and she talked with the      workers, most of whom were Chicanos. There were many stories
    of sickness and death, she said - too many.
    It was not part of her job, but instinct had brought her     to the county medical seat. She asked to see the death records of
    Chicano farm workers, and was refused - why, she did not know.
    
    She may be excitable, but she's thorough, she's persistent
    Wood thought. 'People dislike uncertainty. They insist on
    answers, even if they are pat answers or the wrong answers, he
    said to her. He suggested that she interview the families of the
    deceased. If she could find a good reason to doubt the coroner in
    a number of cases, she would have a basis for challenging the
    county's version of the facts. Maria said she would try.
    
       
     A friend, in Europe on a sabbatical, had given Wood the use
    of a West Side apartment, and there they went. Of Wood's
    experience that night he told no one, not even Maria.
    He kissed her brow, cheeks, neck, burying his lips in skin the
    colour of light rum, in hair the texture of boll cotton. Approv-
    ing, entering her, he had the sensation that he flew, ever higher,
    drawn inescapably by his queen.
    
    Friday evening Wood suggested that they skip the last (alway
    boring) session of the conference, rent a car and take a drive.
    Maria could see a little of the Eastern countryside. Wood said
    vaguely that there was something he wanted to do.
     The West Side apartment had a terrace that overlooked
    Central Park. The endless summer was over; Wood's arm around
    her, Maria shivered under her wrap. South were the Essex House, the
    Plaza Hotel, the RCA Building - symbols of American power
    and wealth, most prominent of which was the General Motors
    Building, white marble front rising in a sheer plane towards the
    dark sky. New York, for all its flaws, had to be regarded as a
    monument, the way the pyramids must have seemed to the
    ancient world. He wondered if New York would stand as long as
    the pyramids had stood. There was no reason why not, and yet
    tonight he had a foreboding that the city was vulnerable.
     That night, after they made love, he had another dream.
    Angry bees chased him across an endless Dali desert, tormenting
    him, scorching him, until, wounded and dying, he fell. Towering
    over all was an enormous compound eye - the eye of an insect -
    on a stalk. In terror, moaning and sweating, he put his face into
    Maria's bare shoulder and smelled her skin, which seemed to
    calm him even in his sleep.
    
        5 Maryville
    
    Anxious to preserve the mood of their brief idyll, John Wood
    had put off telling Maria about the bees in Maryville. Now, on
    the Taconic Parkway in a rented car, he did. She was from Brzil
    and might know something about the Africans.
     Maria Amaral took a short breath. 'In Brazil the apiaries have
    been moved far from the cities. Some have barbed-wire
    and signs that say "Danger - Keep Out". The beekeepers can
    work the hive only at night, the bees are so vicious. The govern-
    ment passed a rule that African bees were to be exterminate4
    but rescinded it when they realized that meant all the bees. They
    are still trying to introduce European bees into the hives to
    crossbreed, but so far they haven't succeeded. The African drones
    are too fast and too strong for the European ones, I believe. I
    remember a terrible day when I was in school. It was a country
    schoolhouse on my father's estates. The bees attacked in the
    playground and we ran inside. They kept us holed up for
    hours there. You could hear them banging against the door and
    windows as they tried to get in.' She shuddered. 'Finally they left.'
    
    'Let's hope they're right - that there's no chance the Africam
    have come here,' John said. Maria said that she seemed to
    remember hearing a good deal of talk about bees behaving,
    strangely on the West Coast. John's lean face showed nothing
    but his fingers drummed on the steering wheel.
    
    His eye noted an open garbage dump. He also saw second-growth
    timber, which indicated farming had ceased in these parts. He
    classified the area as economically depressed. Only a few
    blocks long, the main street of Maryville had the usual
    assortment - a movie house, a few bars, some rooming houses,
    a bowling alley, an antique store that probably had bargains, a
    laundromat, a five-and-dime, a drugstore. There was a handsome
    ice cream parlour with a plate-glass window and a white ginger-
    bread front, which looked as though it were the centre of Mary-
    ville's social life.
    Wood parked the car, pausing to admire a lovely old tree in
    the town square. He went into the ice cream parlour to find a
    phone. Teen-age kids crowded noisily in booths. Wood had
    brought the newspaper clipping from Washington. He looked up
    David P. Znac in the phone book.
    Dr David P. Znac would be happy to see them in his office
    down the street. When Wood opened the door a buzzer sounded
    in the back of the house. They entered a reception room panelled
   in what John called, in a low voice, 'snotty pine'. There was a
    desk but no receptionist. He decided Znac was the sort of doctor
    who waited around Saturday afternoons for whatever business
    happened to come along. It wouldn't be much.
    A TV set was tumed off, and Znac emerged in his shirt sleeves,
    a middle-aged man with a pencil-size moustache. The butt of a
    small revolver protruded from his belt. John introduced Maria,
    and Znac examined her with obvious admiration. He led them to
    his office, and Wood, after they had sat down, repeated what he
   had said on the phone. He looked at Znac's revolver and said,
    'Any special reason for that?'
    Znac said with quick bitterness, 'Six months ago fellow down
   the road, a veterinarian, was held up in his office - teen-age thugs,
   we think - and shot to death. Never caught them, though.'
   
    Just as Maria had done in California, John was now pursuing 
    an investigation that was outside the normal limits of his job,
    But Wood wanted to rule out any chance that the bees that had
    attacked near Maryville were Africans. Whatever they were, those
    bees were still at large.
     Maryville. Pop. 2,073 a small sign announced. John observed.
    'It didn't use to happen before,' Znac said. 'But now it does.
    Can't blame drugs, either. We don't have a real problem like
    that. It's something deeper - some weakening of the prohibition
    against taking a human life. But I'm a doctor, not a philosopher.
    
    He took a homemade cigarette from a case and lit it. 'Lots of folk
    forget that Mother Nature goes right on out there without us desensitized.' He shrugged.
    I'm willing to bet there are as many wild bees in these parts as
    there are in beeyards. These woods are perfect for them. Ask
    any bee hunter.'
     'Bee hunter?' Wood asked.
     Under the moustache Znac's grey teeth mocked the scientist
    for being a city yokel. 'It's a sport. I do it myself. You find a
    hive in the woods and claim the honey. A wild colony attacked
    the Petersons. The nearest beeyard, old man David's, is ten miles
    from the place.'
     'But bees don't normally attack like that,' Wood said.
     'Normally' Znac glanced at his watch, evidently decided it was
    time, reached into his desk, pulled out a bottle of bourbon
    paper cups, and glanced at Maria, who, to John's surprise
    nodded. He poured a splash in each cup. 'I've never heard of it
    happening, but it happened. Maybe a bear - though, really, I
    doubt that. Not many bears hereabouts any more. Tree carul
    down, more likely. Bees build in hollow trees that are alive, but
    maybe this hive made a mistake and picked a dead one. Or maybe
    the tree was weakened by the windstorm we had here a little
    while ago. There they were, no home for winter, no time to
    make another, and feeling desperate and mean. So they were
    resting in a hollow log, and the kid comes along and kicked it.
    Out they come, fighting mad. I wouldn't call it normal exactly,
    but there has to be some explanation.'
    The doctor's doubts about his own theory showed. But, Wood,
    thought, as Znac had said, what's normal? 'The cause of death
    in both cases was a fatal allergic reaction?'
     Znac nodded slowly. 
    
     'That's harder. Mary took maybe a hundred hits. As few as
    fifty can be fatal. She saved the kids in.a way - the bees concen-
   Ftrated on her. She looked like she'd been worked over by a
    cactus. Stings all over, even in her mouth. Cause of death was
    definitely the venom in her bloodstream. But I'd be willing to
    bet she had an allergic shock reaction, which was why she
    couldn't run away. So anaphylaxis can be considered the cause
    of death here too.,
     Wood had decided that Znac wasn't a bad sort, but he suffered
    from a problem - drinking, maybe. 'You seem to know your
    stuff, Dr Znac,' he said.
     'Try to. Too many coroners don't. Most of them aren't even
    doctors. I bet a- lot more people die from bee stings than are
    reported. They're put down as heart attacks. Even doctors can
    make mistakes. A bee sting could be under the hair and not seen.
    The doctor thinks it's a heart attack and gives digitalis. It's wrong.
    Curtains.'
      Dr Amaral looked up sharply.
      'How are the kids?' Wood asked.
     'The boys are okay. Tim swam across the stream and Randy
    ran to the road, where Himmel, the garbage man, found him.'
    He laughed. 'They have a lot of crazy stories.'
      'Stories?' Wood said.
     'That those bees were as big as golf balls, that the bees ate
    plastic, that the whole sky was black with bees. It must have been
    pretty awful. I don't blame them for exaggerating.'
      'And the girl?'
    'She's still laid up. She got it worse than the boys, and
    sometimes have complicated neurological after effects from so
    thing like this. She'll be all right.' It seemed to Wood that a
    flicker of anxiety crossed Znac's face.
     'I'd like to talk to them.'
     'I don't know what they can tell you, but I don't see any
    reason why not.'
     They finished the drinks in the paper cups. At the office door
    John stopped. 'Where do you think those bees are now?'
     Znac crossed the room and looked at a thermometer in the
    window. 'It's about fifty. The hive will be huddled in 
    trying to keep warm. They don't have food. They won't harm
    anybody now. When it drops a few degrees they'll die.'
     The waiting room was still empty. As they passed out the front
    door they could hear the sudden roar of Znac's TV.
    The small clapboard house was * two blocks away. The kids were
    staying with Mary Peterson's older, widowed sister. Thelma
    Billings appeared to be a woman accustomed to sorrow. She
    seemed constantly on the verge of wringing her hands.  
     'Terrible, awful,' she said to them. 'Those poor kids. The
    funeral expenses. Oh Jesus.' She didn't bother to ask the reason
    for the visit, as though too numb to care.
     John Wood waited with Maria Amaral in the living room
    while the woman fetched the boys from the backyard. It Was a
    dark room filled with bric4-brac. Past the hallway another
    doorway led to what looked to be a bedroom with drawn blinds
    where, he guessed, Karen lay in bed.
     Both boys had reddish welts on their faces and marks on their
    arms that would have passed for bruises, but they appeared
    normal otherwise, if subdued. When they were seated on the horse-
    hair couch, Wood said, 'Boys, try to tell me about last Sunday'
    The boys told how the family had gone on a picnic, how Kam
    caught a bee in a honey jar, how Randy dropped the jar on the
    log, how some bees came, how more bees came, how Karen got
    one stuck in her hair which stung her, how Mommy was running
    to help, how Mommy and Dad were dead now.
    'You poor children,' Maria said.
    
    'What were the bees like?' John asked. Maria glared at him,
     but he persisted.
     'They were big,' Tim said. He made as large a circle as he
    could with the thumb and forefinger of one hand.
     'Not that big.'
     'Oh, yes, they was,' Randy cried. 'Like marshmallows. Bigger
    even.,
     'And loud. Like a waterfall,'Tim insisted. 'They rushed around
    Re they was crazy. They made funny bunches, like grapes.'
     'They flew into the fire,' Randy said.
     John smiled. 'Bees don't fly into fires.'
     'But they did! And they burned up!' Randy shouted. He
    looked at his brother for confirmation.
     Tim nodded solemnly. 'And what they ate. Cookies, cake, ice
    cream.'
     'Even hamburgers,' Randy added.
     'He doesn't mean hamburgers,' Tim said condescendingly.
    'But I saw them eat plastic cups.'
     'Bees don't eat plastic, Tim,' John said sol" dy.
     A small voice behind them said, 'These ones did.'
     The scientists whirled. Maria said, 'Oh my God.'
     Weari6g boy's pyjamas, Karen stood behind them, propping
    herself against the doorframe. Her face was ashen grey, her eyes
    half shut. Dark-red lines etched her swollen cheeks. Her lips
    were puffed. One of her arms was swollen to the size of an adult's.
    Maria went quickly to her, drawing her close. 'Are you all right,
    child?' she asked.
    'I'm dizzy and my stomach hurts.' It seemed to Wood that
    Karen wheezed. 'I itch inside.'
     'She vomits once in a while and she walks funny,' Thelma
    Billings said worriedly.
    Maria took a few steps back. 'Walk to me, dear.'
     Karen started towards her, with effort. 'We ate too many
    sweets and didn't take our vitamins,' she said in a small, high,
    singsong voice. 'That's why the bees punished us. Those awful
    bees! My poor Mommy was trying to come to me, but the bees,
    the bees . . .' She started to sob.
     Maria hugged her close. Tears rose in her eyes. 'Sweet little
    darling.' She stared at John. 'Karen, come in the bedroom, I
    want a look at you.'     
     'I know how you feel,' John said to the boys. He expained    how bees had chased and stung him when he was ten. 'But you          
    mustn't be scared of bees for the rest of your life, or-'              
    started to say, but didn't, 'you'll have bad dreams.'
     Randy had started to wail. 'I wish Mommy was back,'
    said, half to himself. Tim said nothing, but his upper lip quivered.
    Wood sat down on the couch between them with his arm
    around their shoulders.
     Maria came out, shaking her head.'She's had a severe reaction
    no doubt about that. Probably she still has a small amount
    venom in her system. Beyond that . . .' She trailed off.
     'Is there any danger?' Wood asked.
     'I don't think so, but still I wonder if she should be kept
    at the hospital.'
     'Znac said she'd be okay. He seems to understand bee stings
     'Yes,' Maria said, 'he seems to. Still, I wish I knew more about
    bee-sting reactions.'
     Both had misgivings when they left. At the door, Wood asked
    Thelma Billings where to find the picnic site.
    Wood insisted that Maria wait for him at the antique store.
    there was trouble, he said, he could get out faster alone. 
    She accepted his decision. But his real reason was that he did
    not want her to see his fear.
     Warily he worked his way through the woods, turning his head
    this way and that. The bee chase of his childhood was so vivid
    his mind that he could hear the buzz in his ears. At one point,
    longer certain whether the whine of the bees was in his head
    real, he was tempted to return to the car, and had to steel himself
    to continue. The clearing hummed faintly, but there was no sign
    of bees.
    
    Once he heard a noise that seemed both near and far
    away. It sounded like the shrill buzz of a tiny machine. He
    searched the clearing and the bushes, but the noise grew fainter,
    now louder, eluding him, until at last it faded altogether. A
    cricket, maybe.
    Wood rose, feeling absurd. The boot belonged to a man with
    long greasy ha r and a pepper-and-salt stubble. He wore a derelict
    combination of old clothes and carried a fishing pole. Even in the
    open air Wood could smell the alcohol from four feet away.
    'Need a hand, niister?' the man said suspiciously.
     Wood decided to be straightforward, and explained that he
    was a scientist and looking for specimens of the bees that had
    attacked a family here.
     The man took his remarks in his stride. 'Never find 'em,' he
    announced. 'Birds eat 'em. So do ants, skunks, and I don't know
    what all.'
     'Live around here?' Wood asked.
     'Do, as a matter of fact. It was me who found little Randy.'
   'Ali, you're Mr Himmel, then.'
     'Am. Tend the town dump, couple of miles from here. Got to
    go close up pretty soon.'
     'Did you see the bees that attacked the Petersons?' Wood
    asked.
     'Nope.'
     Wood tried again. 'Did you hear thern?'
     'Nope.' He paused. 'Too far away.'
     'Where did they come from, do you think?'
     'Escaped from a beeyard, maybe. There are some around here,
    though pretty far away. Could be wild too.'
     'Are there a lot of bees in the woods?'
     'Sure. Why not?'
     This line of questioning was getting nowhere. John started to
    leave, then said quickly, 'How's life at the dump, Mr Himmel?'
     'Oh, same. Always tell people the same thing - papers and
    plastic to the right, food garbage to the left, metal over by the
    hill. Every week I burn the stuff. Once a year we bulldoze it under.
    I find a nice bottle sometimes, or a good pair of boots' - he
    glanced at his own - 'and for kicks sometimes I shoot rats.'
    Wood saw it all too well. This was the kind of untreated gar-
    bage dump the Environmental Protection Agency was trying to
    legislate out of existence. 'Have a lot of bees T he asked.
     Himmel scratched the stubble on his cheek with a grimy
    fingernail. 'Yes, I guess so. More this summer than last, come to
    think of it. Stay away from 'em myself.'
     'Anything different about them?'
     The finger was probing his ear now. 'Nope. Well ... only that
    they're always into that damn plastic.'
    
    Not fifty yards away, high in a hollow spruce, a few large b es
    stood quietly at a narrow hole. The aperture of the hole had been
    reduced by the addition of two horizontal pillars that would
    serve to keep small animals out. The bees had built these pillars.
    In the setting sun they gleamed yellow-white, with a touch of
    blue.
     The hollow inside the tree had been lined with the same
    material, so smooth that it looked as though it had been polished.
    It filled every chink and covered every rough spot. Waterproof
    and windproof, it was ideal insulation.
     The bees had worked fast, taking advantage of the exception.
    ally good weather that had saved them. Hanging from the top of
    the hollow and secured at the bottom were combs six feet long,
    packed with honey, hundreds of pounds of it. Upon this comb,
    buzzing faintly, massed a hundred thousand bees.
     A chill evening breeze stirred the forest. The last guard bee at
    the entrance hole went in. The bees on the comb moved closer
    together, into a ball, and the ones,on the outside began gently to
    fan their wings for the proper circulation of heat from the massed
    bodies of the bees. The bee furnace had been ignited. The hive
    was ready for winter.
    
    John took Maria to Kennedy Airport in a cab. She was returning
    to California and then to Brazil for the Christmas holidays; he
    was trapped in Washington - and that was that.
    
    In the city of New York a public-relations man named Perry
    Goodall kept bees for a hobby in his town house on the East
    Side. The bees lived in a glass hive fastened to the bare brick wall
    of the living room, which opened onto the backyard.
    Other bees lived in Manhattan, Goodall knew, in abandoned
    buildings, holes in walls, hollow spaces between roofs and ceilings.
    But he was the only real beekeeper in Manhattan. The Museum of
    Natural History had had a beehive once, but had gotten rid of it
    to avoid liability for bee stings. Goodall had laughed when he
    heard of this. His bees had never stung, would never sting. They
    harmed no one, not himself, his wife, his children or his guests,
    Goodall liked to frighten by covering his face with bees
    over his face like a beard.
    In winter Goodall fed the bees a sugar solution, but the rest of
    year they foraged in his backyard, those of the neighbours,
    and probably in Central Park. One afternoon in early October
    Goodall got a call from his wife. She'd heard on the radio that
    a bee swarm was festooned on a traffic signal at Broadway
    and Seventy-second Street, with Walk and Don't Walk blinking
    underneath it. Crowds and TV crews had assembled.
    They were Goodall's bees, all right, he learned that evening.
    But by the time he got there the bees had been collected by a
    Brooklyn beekeeper summoned by the police. Custom has it that
    stray bees are the property of the finder, like salvage.  
    The loss of half his bees didn't matter. Goodall had a house in
    Connecticut where he kept more. In the spring he would replace
    the ones that had eloped. Still, he wondered why his little hive
    had abandoned him. Perhaps the beehive was too small for them,
    but it seemed ungrateful of the bees.
    
    Others lost more than bees.
     Outside Palo Alto a Japanese truck gardener had been spread-
    ing fertilizer on rows of winter vegetables. He was found
    facedown in a furrow. The symptoms -contracted pupils, tearing 
    blue skin, papilloedema, loss of sphincter control - indicated
    organophosphate poisoning, which confused the coroner, who
    said to himself, 'The Japs know how to handle pesticides.'
    
    Indian summer in Delaware. An excitable businessman,
    convinced the car he had been sold was a lemon, argued with the
    dealer in the lot. Suddenly he clapped his hand to his neck as if
    he had been shot, took a few steps, and collapsed on the hood of
    his automobile. 
   
    'Dr Znac? This is John Wood at the National Academy. Are you there?'
    'I'm here.'   
        'Tell me, Dr Znac, how are the children?
    Znac said finally, 'The boys are fine.' Another pause. 
      In ten cases a bee sting had occurred within a month of death.'
  'In three out of ten cases death had been preceded by a bee similar to the Peterson family.'
     'You mean a single bee sting or a couple - not a mass attack?'
     'That's what they said, yes. One or a few.'
     What a lucky break, he thought, that a person who spoke
    Spanish had undertaken this investigation. 'Is it usual for farm
    workers to be stung by bees?'
     'I asked about that. It is not usual, but it is not unusual either.
    It seems to be more usual lately than it had been before. The
    workers are becoming frightened of the bees. Quite a few have
    gotten sick for reasons they don't understand, and they associate
    their illness with bee stings. But I haven't told you everything.'
    'Dr Wood, Karen is dead.
    She died a week after you left.'
     It was Wood's turn to pause. Znac would be feeling on slippery
     ground because of possible misdiagnosis and treatment, and
   Wood was not in a position to help him out. 'Cause of death?'
    
    Znac phrased his answer formally. 'Karen Peterson passed
    away unexpectedly. Cause of death appeared to be a delayed
    toxic reaction to bee venom. The condition is rare but not
    unknown. It appears in the medical literature.'
     Could the symptoms have resembled anything else?'
    Znac's voice lost the hollow tone - the coroner in him was
    coming out, 'Strange you should ask that. Yes.  
    Karen displayed motor dislocation that almost resembled
    menmgitis or even chemical poisoning. Her skin  had a  
    bluish tinge. But her blood showed nothing I could find.' 
     Wood thanked Znac and hung up, He took five or six quick 
    trips to the window and back, and then called Gerston at 
    Columbia. It took almost an hour to find him.       
     'Your grasshoppers who learned to use DDT -could annother
    insect master a similar stunt?'             
     'Anything's possible. Which insect?
     'Bees,' Wood said
     'Honeybees' 
     Gerston sounded startled. 'Let me think. But nobody uses DDT anymore.'.                                                       'I meant an organophosphate, like mcthyl parathion.'
     'Good God! Let's see. Bee stings have three components.A
    lubricant for a sting, an alkaline substance that softens up 
    flesh, and the sting itself, which delivers the venom. 
    phosphate would be meaningless as a lubricant. In alkaline 
    solution it would be neutralized. It would have to be part of the
    venom itself.'                                                   
                                            
    
    At the beginning Wood had worried that African bees
    entered unseen and in small numbers. If they had, they were
    precursors of a much greater invasion expected from the South
    and it was vital to understand how the bee was faring in
    America. He had come away from Maryville concerned that the
    bee had mutated to a larger size.
 'You probably don't realize it, but the Allergy Foundation of America runs a yearly census
 on fatalities from bites and stings of all kinds. I happen to be
 chairman of the committee this year. In each state we have an
  allergist who acts as a reporter, gathers statistics, and sends them on.
  Eventually they go to the Bureau of Vital Statistics. In
    volunteer operation of this kind, nothing is up to date, as you
    can imagine. We can run as much as two years behind.'
     Wood shifted impatiently, and Fine seemed to notice. He
    opened the folder and gazed at what Wood could see was A group
    of numbers. Then he went on. 'About thirty deaths a year are
    reported as caused by hymenoptera - bees, wasps, yellow jacket
    - over half of them by bees. I don't know what to think about
    these so-called African bees of yours. I'm extremely sceptical.
    do know for a fact that, from a statistical point of view, there
    has been a dramatic rise in deaths from honeybee stings. The
    figures I have are, indeed, two years old. They show that death
    from honeybee stings have doubled.'
     Wood was not surprised. 'Deaths due to anaphylaxis toxicity?'
     'The distinction is meaningless. Anaphylaxis is the result of
    poisoning. Toxicity covers the whole thing.'
     'Have you given out these figures?'
     'They've been disseminated in bulletin form to allergists. Just
    gone out, in fact. Other than that, no. For one thing, we're work
    ing with very small numbers. Then, I don't have any answers
    Are bees turning aggressive, so that they sting more? Are people
    more sensitive to bee stings than formerly? Is medical reporting
    getting better? There's no point sounding an alarm until we know
    where we are.'
     'Tell me, Dr Fine, would it be possible to set up a kind of
    alert? Call it a "bee watch". What I had in mind was an infor-
    mation setup, so that your correspondents could inform you more
    or less at once when a bee-sting fatality has occurred.'
     'It could be done.' Fine looked at him curiously. 'But whyT
     'Well, I hope I'm wrong, but it seems possible that more an
    more people are going to die of bee stings.'
     Wood had thus far refrained from telling Fine the notio
    improbable as it still seemed, of the toxic bee. He did so now
    Fine shook his thin head incredulously. Wood persisted. 'If th
    were such a bee, what would the sting symptoms look like?'
     'I guess you mean, what diseases or conditions would th
    venom mimic? They would have to be in the general area of bee
    sting and organophosphate symptomatology. Toxic reactions to
    bee venom can include trouble in breathing, nervousness,
    cyanosis, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, unconsciousness. Organo-
    phosphate poisoning symptoms can include chest pains, nervous-
    ness, cyanosis, nausea, vomiting, unconsciousness, unconscious
    defaecation. The actual cause of death in both cases is likely to be
    respiratory failure coupled with a severe cardiovascular reaction.
    I suppose doctors could confuse the two. Coroners certainly
    could - they aren't necessarily doctors, you know.'
     'There's a test, though - right?'
     'Yes. For anticholinesterase agents. Do you know about
    them?'
     'Just vaguely.'
     'Well, acetylcholinesterase, or AChE, terminates transmitter
    action at the nerve endings when the need for it is finished. If
    AChE is inactivated, transmission continues, with dire results.
    The fact that they are anticholinesterase agents is what makes
      ophosphates so dangerous. Their extreme toxicity led the
      ans straight to nerve gases, which are anti-AChE agents.
    It's a simple matter to test for low levels of AChE, which is the
    basic clinical means for discovering organophosphate poisoning.'
     'But in the case of a bee sting, no one would think to make
    such a test.'
     Fine rubbed his chin. 'They wouldn't, no.'
     'Or in a heart attack.'
     'No. I realize what you're driving at. The heart-attack syn-
    drome can produce similar symptoms. What you're suggesting
    is fearsome. I doubt strongly that it could happen. But you seem
    a sensible young man. I will instigate the "bee watch", as
    you call it. It will have to include a closer examination of deaths.
    Up north the bees hibernate for winter, but in the South they
    ay outside. I'll get, started with my Southern allergists. If any-
    thing is happening, it ought to show up right away.'
    
    At this point Wood, though he lacked final proof, felt he had
    sufficient evidence to take to Sheldon Hubbard. Outlining his
    major points in a memo, he presented them at the Monday
    meeting.
    
    
    1 A bee swarm sounding suspiciously African in its habits
    attacked and killed three people in Maryville, New York.
    2 In a number of cases, deaths of farm workers in Yolo County
    California, were preceded by bee stings.
    3 Nationally, the incidence of deaths from bee stings appears t
    have doubled.
    
    What these things added up to he did not know.
     'That, of course, is the problem,' Hubbard said, rubbing h
    hands. 'It doesn't add up. Each of your propositions can
    challenged as explainable on other grounds.' He proceeded to
    reformulate Wood's propositions:
    
    1 Ordinary wild bees attacked and killed people at Maryville.
    2 A number of farm workers in California happened to be stung
    by bees before dying of other causes. -
    3 The increased incidence of bee deaths is the result of the mass
    exodus to the suburbs, where people have more contact with
    bees, running on lawns with bare feet, etc.
    
    Wood despaired of making headway against Hubbard's
    logic. 'You won't take it seriously, then?'
     'I didn't say that. What I'm saying to you is precisely wh
    Willard Lightower would say to me. I don't want to go to hi
    and say "Here's a three-alarm fire" until I know whether t
    really is one.'
     'There is one,' Wood said.
     Hubbard glared at him. 'So you say. Listen, if you want to
    on gathering information, I won't stop you. But on your t
    Don't let it interfere with your work.'
     Wood glared back. It was the closest he had ever come to rea
    anger towards Shelly Hubbard.
     Wood then settled down to wait. Nothing happened. There
    were no bee incidents reported - not a single one.
    
     Encounters
    
    The absence of bee incidents in the South confused such con-
     scientists as Gerston and Amaral greatly. There seemed
     way to account for it except by saying that the Chief Staff
     Officer of the Division of Environmental Sciences, National
     'Academy of Sciences, a bright, imaginative and pertinacious
     investigator, had been led from one false conclusion to another,
     ending with a hypothesis that was completely false.
     Those few acquainted with the evidence doubted that this was
      More probably, John Wood believed, a key piece in the
      was missing and would be found in due course. In the
      time nothing could be done but wait. Wood was unhappily
    nced that the bee incidents would begin again in the spring.
    would start sooner if the spring was early and warm, as
    meteorologists predicted.
    
    Henry David, the beekeeper, returned from the South in March.
    The maple trees and dandelions had not started to flower yet,
    but they would soon from the look of things. It had been a winter
    in 1973 - warm, with hardly any snow, and once again spring
    would be early. David wondered if the climate was changing -
    everything else -seemed to be.
     Having let the new bees feed for several days to recover from
    the trip, he set about introducing them to his hives. The new
    queens, surrounded -by knots of workers, were in small wire
    cages, each with a plug of hard candy inserted in the side. If the
    new queens had been set loose without formality, the bees would
    have balled them at once because of their protectiveness towards
    the queen they already had. By the time bees on both sides of
    the candy plug had eaten through it, the workers of the hive
    would have gotten used to the smell of the new queen. The
   problem was an old one. Usually the laws of the bee kingdom
    ruled that only one queen prevailed. Two queens would fight to
    the death, and this was the only time the queen used her sting. If
    the bees had a problem, David sometimes thought, that was it -
    the regal one. The very insistence on a single queen mother made
    the bees vulnerable if she died.
     As a practical matter, the law was not always followed to t
    letter. Sometimes, if the colony was large enough, it would'a
    two queens, each ruling half of the kingdom and never venturi
    upon the other half. If the reigning queen was young and vigoro
    David would sometimes hope for the best and permit the ruling
    queen to stay. Old queens, however, he destroyed, pacifying the
   hive with his smoker and removing the queen with his bare fingers
     This was the first change David noticed. The bees were
     abnormally resistant to smoke. Usually, a few puffs quieted them,
     but this spring he had to use his smoker repeatedly to make them
     settle down. He was looking for the queen in the first hive when
     he saw the giants. They must have emerged from the brood cells
     in late February or early March, when he was away. These bees
     were black and orange and nearly an inch long - twice the size of
     the ordinary workers. Not all the bees in the hive were giants,
     but there were enough to make David understand that something
     outside his long experience had occurred.
     Henry David did not have a telephone. If he had, he would
    have notified Dr Znac in Maryville. Znac would know whom to
    report the finding to. He thought about driving into town, but he
    was tired from the trip. He decided to wait a little and see what
    happened. Perhaps these giant bees would prove to be enormous
    producers of honey. Then he would have something really im-
    portant to report.
    
    Perry Goodall brought new bees down in March from his house
    in Connecticut to replenish his urban hive, half of which had
    swarmed. These new bees were different. They seemed to have
    undergone, he quipped, a 'bee change'. They buzzed a lot. They
    flew about seemingly erratically and rolled in bunches in the
    backyard. Sometimes they seemed harder to approach, though
    they were still amenable to the heard stunt. Sometimes he had
    a strange feeling that they were angry about something. The
    children were frightened of them - one of the girls said the bees
    had become larger. Goodall doubted it. He thought once about
    taking some bees to the Museum of Natural History for inspec-
    tion, but ended by laughing at himself. Who but a fool would be
    frightened of bees?
    
         Mrs Adele Terrace, of Oyster Bay, Long Island, gave her maid
    'Thursday afternoons off. The maid, she discovered one Thursday,
    had forgotten to put out the garbage, and Mrs Terrace carried
    the pails behind the high wooden fence.
     Mrs Terrace saw bees buzzing around a can whose lid was
    partially ajar. She picked up a piece of newspaper to shoo them
    away and received in return a single sting on her hand. Mrs
    Terrace had never been stung by a bee before and felt outraged.
    She called her physician, who came at once. He knew Mrs
    Terrace.
     Still, although Mrs Terrace frequently suffered from ills the
    doctor diagnosed as imaginary, he was puzzled this time. The
    finger swelled and so did Mrs Terrace's face. He supposed she
    had a bee-sting allergy, but she had received only one sting, and
    a light one at that. She was in bed for three days.
     At the Tuesday bridge game Mrs Terrace told her friends
    about the incident. She wanted a local ordinance banning bees
    from Oyster Bay. 'I say, kill the bees,' she insisted. 'They're up
    to no good, and will only end by lowering property values. None
    of us wants that.'
 
    A Wisconsin woman hung towels on the line to dry. How white
    they looked in the sunshine!
     About to go indoors, she noticed a clot of bees around the
    water dripping from the towels. A few bees flew into the garage
    or over the back stoop, returning to the clot. She had a hunch
    they were planning something, like settling down on her property.
    Taking a broom, she tried to scare them away, but the bees began
    flying in circles above her head. Frightened, she ran inside, but
    left the kitchen door open. Her husband found her body th
    evening. She had been badly stung by bees, but the coroner was
    sure she had died from shock. Taking no chances, he called in a
    local allergist to have a look.
    Drunk, he walked along the dark Rhode Island highway, waving
    his arms and singing, aimed for the cabin in which his wife waited
    and would continue to wait. Once he staggered onto the road by
    mistake and narrowly missed being smeared by a truck. Alarmed
    in spite of the booze, he crashed into the bushes, intending to
    find a place to lie down and sleep it off. He stopped to take a 
    leak, still singing. The song changed to a scream. His body was
    not discovered for several days.
    
     The 'bee watch' had been established nationwide by now; in
    Washington, Fine put two more marks in his pad, followed by a
    question mark.
    
    The young woman had been warned against hitchhiking - in
    fact, the laws of Colorado expressly forbade it. But not for the
    reason that sent her into a coma on the side of the road. An
    ambulance rushed her to a county hospital, where an alert
    physician noted the welts on her scalp underneath her hair. He
    took a chance; adrenalin would have been just the wrong treat-
    ment for overdose. Within minutes the young woman revived.
     Three days later, having reached California, she collapsed and 
    died without warning. The medical examiner was confounded.
    The symptoms resembled encephalitis, but he could find no trace
    of the disease. Then, in her wallet he found a card from a 
    hospital warning that the girl was allergic to bee stings.        
   
    
    In California they emerged early in the warm spring. This
    colony had located in the Big Sur, on the rocks by the sea, where
    on weekends it practised a combination of encounter techniques,
    sexual liberation and just plain nudity.
     Newspaper attention fastened on the nudity angle, with little
    thought as to why bees attacked. The nudists lying on the rocks
    had covered themselves with lotions and oils, and perhaps the
    sweet aroma brought the bee swarm. At once a function of cloth-
    ing became apparent, the protection of private parts. There were
    six people on the rocks.
    
    It was Saturday again, and Dr David P. Znac sat alone in his
    office. Business was bad. A new clinic had opened down the road,
    and besides, as he knew, there was a rumour around that Znac
    had been guilty of a serious misdiagnosis in the case of the
    Peterson girl, and might lose his job as coroner. Znac thought
    bitterly that he might be the first doctor in history to go on
    welfare.
     He held the bees responsible. They had tricked him in some
    way, and he wanted to get back at them. It occurred to him
    suddenly to go on a bee hunt. The hour was early and there
    nothing to keep him in town except the bottle.
     Taking up a bee tree was hard on the hunter but harder on
    the bees. Early spring, before the foliage had grown thick
    when the bees were hungry, was the best time of the year.
    colony that had survived the winter was bound to be strong. You
    tracked the bees to their hive and emblazoned your initials
    the-bee tree. This established the hive as yours. You returned
    with a helper or two in the fall. You needed a veil
    because the bees fought bitterly for their home. When the tree
    came down, you invaded the hive and took the honey, perhaps a
    hundred pounds or more. With luck you might capture the hive,
    but mostly, spent and demoralized, the bees dispersed in the
    woods to die.
    
     In these parts bee hunting was an old sport - Znac's bee box
    had belonged to his father. The equipment required was simple,
    Not even a veil and gloves were required for the first operation,
    because bees in the spring were peaceable. Besides the box, yot
    needed only some honey, a watch, a piece of honeycomb, a little
    anise, a camel's-hair brush, a little jar of paint and patience,
    Sometimes you could track a bee tree in an hour, but sometimes
    it took two days.
     Znac had nobody to say good-bye to - his wife had left him
    his children were grown and gone. Taking his equipment, he
    hung an Out to Lunch sign on the door and drove to the woods.
    Then he started to hunt.
     The first step was to catch a bee. He searched, found one
    taking nectar in a patch of flowers, and caught it with a quick
    upward motion of the box, shutting the lid. The bee box - about
    the size of a cigar box - had two compartments, with a movable
    slide between them to permit access from one compartment to
    the other. Each compartment had a glass window that could be
    shuttered over. Znac opened the window of the rear compartment
    in there, attracted by the light. 
     The honey-loaded bees came out, flying in slowly expanding
    circles and figure eights, until all flew off in the same direction,
    with Znac rolling on his back as he tried to follow them with his
    eyes. Ne repeated the exercise until all the bees in the box were
    gone. Now he had to wait.
    He recognized the shrill sound of the returning honeybee
    instantly, separating it from the other noises of the forest. The
    bee found the box, darted around it, disappeared, and whizzed
    back, hovering like a helicopter over the comb, until at last it
    descended. Znac sighed with relief; the beeline was started. This
    time, though, lie took the camel's-hair brush, and as the bee was
    feeding, daubed it quickly with a spo ' t of white paint. Other bees
    followed, and he daubed them too, glancing at his watch.
     lie could imagine the scene at the hive, high in a tree and
     probably hidden from view. This early in the year food would
     not be plentiful; the scouts, now confident of the location of
     food, would be reporting it. They would do this by means of the
     waggle, or honey dance, moving in a circle if the food was less
    
     than one hundred yards away, and in a gradually fuller figure
     eight if it was farther, pointing the precise direction with the
     line joining the two, loops of the figure eight. Waggling their
     tails as they danced, they could indicate the exact location of
    food as far as two miles distant. Following these directions, other
     bees would find the food, fill up on it, and aim unerringly back
     to the hive, a calculation that for a human would require a stop
     watch, a compass and vector calculus.
      in ten minutes the first marked bee returned - a big fellow,
     Znac now noticed. Znac figured the honey dance had taken about
    two minutes.. A bee flies at about fourteen miles an hour. That
    meant the hive was approximately a mile away.
    
     By this time he had established the general line of the bee
    flight back to the hive. It was time to move. Holding the box
    crowded with bees, he moved about a hundred yards to the left
    and opened the box again. Soon he had established a new bee-
    line, which, when triangulated with the first, gave him a fair idea
    of where the bee tree was.
     He had been fortunate so far. He might have failed to find a
    bee, or the bee might have refused the honey or might not have
    returned to the box. But locating the tree was not easy. Hour
    after hour he caught bees, fed them, marked them, and changed
    locations, following the bees along until at last he looked up and
    saw the hole in the tree with a glittering of wings around it.
     At that moment Znac realized the bee trail had taken him
    close to where the Peterson family had been attacked. Perhaps
    he had known it all along. Conceivably, he could still have
    escaped, but he chose instead to walk to the tree. He had just
    finished blazing his initials on the bark when a roar filled the
    woods.
    
    Two days later, in Washington, Dr Fine wondered if a bee-sting
    suicide was conceivable. There had already been a bee incident
    at Maryville. Who, in that vicinity, would deliberately hunt a
    wild hive except a fool? And a medical doctor was not likely to
    be a fool; at least, Fine hoped not.
     He had gathered enough evidence to prove that deaths from
    bee stings, though. the symptoms did not always square with the
    classic symptomatology, were up - and sharply. The evidence
    was no longer inconclusive. It was Friday. On Monday he would
    talk to John Wood to say that his allergists had assembled the
    evidence. Wanted now was the killer.
    
    
    Identification
    
    Dreams have often been interpreted as signposts to the future,
    signals sent by the unconscious mind as a foreshadowing of things
    to come. The nearer John Wood moved towards the crisis that
    engulfed him the more frequent the bee dreams became, until his
    nights were tortured by them.
     On Saturday, 2 April, Wood accepted Hubbard's invitation to
    play golf at the Chevy Chase Country Club. The place was too
    stuffy for Wood's taste, but Hubbard did not leave much room
    to refuse. Every so often he dragooned Wood into golf on the
    grounds that he lacked a partner, although Wood always sus.
    pected golf to be part of Hubbard's long-range campaign to show
    the younger scientist who was boss. Hubbard was the better
    player, but on good days Wood could keep up.
     'How's that for an old zoologist?' Hubbard said, watching
    his drive carry the ball over the fairway and onto the green. He
    wiped his round pink face with a handkerchief and beamed.
     Determined, Wood addressed the ball with every inch of-
    strengt4 he had. It was a good drive, except that it began to veer
    dangerously to the left, ending in a clump of trees. Wood scowled.
     I'm just tense, he told himself. The bee thing is getting to me.
    Waiting, waiting, for ~vhat I'm not quite sure.
     The two men wheeled their carts to the next tee, and Wood
    went off to find his ball. Unable to locate it at the edge of the
    copse, he struggled through some bushes, furious with himself.
    It would take him two shots, probably, to get on the green again
    if he found the ball at all. Then, in a pile of leaves, he saw it. At
    the same moment he heard the sound.
     if he hadn't been alert for the sound he probably would not
    have isolated this particular thrum from the other insect noises
   in the copse; it was barely audible. But he knew he had heard it
    before. it was a high-pitched buzz, almost like that which a.smalf
    machine would make. Of course - in the clearing at Maryville!
     Then he saw it. Hovering over a cluster of spring wild flowers
    was a honeybee - the streamlined shape left no doubt about that,
    Black with o " range markings, it was by'far the largest bee Wood
    had ever seen.
     Stealthily he backed out of the clearing, forced his way through
    the bushes and ran to Hubbard at the hole.
     'Penalty, huh?' the beetle laughed.
     'Shelly, give me your glove. Quick.'
     Wood, right-handed, wore a light leather glove on his left
    hand; Hubbard, left-handed, wore his golf glove on his right
    hand. Hubbard blinked at him and removed the glove. Without
    waiting for questions John ran back to the trees. Hubbard
    started to follow, but Wood yelled, 'Stay back.'
     If he was about to confront an African swarm, he wanted to
    face it alone. A pulse beat in his temple and his hands shook but
    Wood could not back off now.
     He almost hoped the bee would be gone but he found it,
    proboscis buried deep in a flower. His body prickled dryly from'
    the memory of stings. He inched forward warily, fighting his own
    reluctant muscles, glancing to see if other bees were in the
    vicinity. This one appeared to be by itself.
     When Wood's gloved hands were poised on either side of the
    flower, the bee, as if alerted, suddenly emerged, about to take
    off. Wood clapped his hands together, hard but not hard enough
    - as if fear had put a drag on his reactions. Just before its death
    the bee managed to use its barb. The sting carried through the
    light leather of the glove into Wood's palm. Pain stabbed to his
    elbow.
     'God,' he gasped.
     Staggering a little, he fought his way out of the copse and onto
    the green, where Hubbard waited, leaning on his driver. Seeing
    Wood's face, he gawked.
     Wood showed Hubbard the dead bee he carried in his gloved
    palm.
     'Son of a bitch,' Hubbard said. He took the bee. 'What is it,
    a carpenter bee?'
    
     Hubbard was not an easy man to convince, Wood removed
    the glove and showed the beetle his wounded palm. 11 believe
    carpenter bees don't sting,' he managed to say.
     Hubbard stared long and hard at the bee. 'Whatever it is, I
    don't like it.'
     in the clubhouse Wood threw up, and then he felt all right,
    except for his hand, which he bathed in cold water. If the bee
    was toxic, he had evidently gotten a low dosage - either that or
    sensitivity varied, he reasoned. Meantime Hubbard called Birch
    at the Smithsonian, who said he would wait. it was decided that
    Wood would go alone - both men were not needed. Wood said
    he was up to it.
     He was grinning insanely as he drove the Volks downtown.
    Whatever was to happen, he had on this day accomplished some-
    thing important to himself. He had conquered his bee phobia.
    
    The naturalist placed his amber-framed glasses low on his nose
    and stared at the specimen, lips pursed.
     'It's a giant honeybee, no doubt about that,' he said. 'Which
    family it's descended from is another matter. Identification from
    dead specimens can be bard, sometimes impossible. Apis mellifera
    is represented in the Old World by numerous subspecies, several
    of which have been introduced to the New World, where a
    great deal of interbreeding has taken place. The same has hap-
    pened in Brazil with the Africans. Still, structural characteristics,
    colour features and size of specimens can be sufficiently diagnostic
    in their aggregate to make reliable identification possible. But no
    one characteristic or feature can be counted on to clinch the
    answer. In all, there are more than fifty characteristics to took
    for, if you care to wait.' He pulled sharply on his ear. 'I will say
    that this is the goddamnedest bee I ever saw.'
     For the next hour. Bill Birch worked in almost utter silence.
    First he mounted the bee on a pin thrust through the forward
    part of the body, just right of centre. From metal cabinets he
    removed clear plastic boxes containing mounted and labelled
    bees, which he compared with the specimen, occasionally taking
    the unidentified bee to the window for a better look. Once in a
    while he looked up references in a thick book.
    
     Birch then put the bee under what he said was a bino
    dissecting microscope, rolling it over and over, tabulating char
    teristics on a pad. Finally he dissected a wing 
    and placed it between microscope slides. The slides in the
    downward projector that showed the wing image on graph 
    beneath. Birch marked the wing measurements and made a series
    of dots. The graph was then compared with other graphs he to
    from a folder. 'Come over here,' Birch said to Wood at last.
     The naturalist turned a knob and the image below the projector
    grew larger. Wood noted that the wing was heavily veined and
    curious hooklike terminations. 'There are eighteen vein in
    sections in a bee's fore wing,' Birch said, 'and a number of a
    which I have measured with a protractor. These hooks are called
    hamuli. The general configuration of the bee - large wings
    compared with body size, the length of the legs and the tongue,
    the number and colour of the dorsal rings on the abdomen - tell
    me something. But the vein structure and especially the 
    number of hamuli, which tie the wings together, did it. I'm sure.
    Yes, there is no doubt about it. I thought at first it might
    the giant Indian honeybee, but it isn't. Only one bee group has a
    wing configuration of this kind. I could run the taxonomy out on
    a computer, but I don't need to. This big fellow is adansonii, the
    African honeybee.'
     The two men stood looking at each other. 'But the size,' Wood
    said at last.
     'This is a hybrid - no, I have to say mutated version. Adan.
    sond's cousin, if you like. Where did you find it?'
     , Practically right here in Washington - Chevy Chase.'
     Birch stared and said quietly, 'So it's gotten in.'
     'Yes. The question is, how many of these things are here?'
     'No. I think the question is, how long have they been her eV
    Birch corrected him. 'In its pure form Apis meffifera adansonh
    Latreille - to use its full name - is about ten per cent smaller than
    domestic bees. Its small stature gives it agility, making escape
    from enemies easier. This bee has sacrificed agility for some other
    survival characteristic - I have no idea what. Of course, it could
    be a freak, a single mutant. But that's unlikely.'
     'Yes.'
    
    'And the mutation is almost bound to have happened here,
    ot in Brazil. Giants there would have been reported or spotted
    'coming in. It has to have been here a while. This sort of change
     doesn't happen overnight.'
     'How many years would it take, as a guess, I'd say on the order of five. 
    The Africans reproduce faster than our queens. Let's say three generations every summer.
    That may be pushing it, but maybe not. Yes, five years ought to allow for this
    big insect to emerge. There would have to be a lot of them. The
    African queens lay maybe double the number of eggs that our
    queens do, therefore they swarm more. Their fantastic population
    growth is another survival characteristic, because their enemies
    deplete them. But here they wouldn't have their classic enemies,
    and the buildup would be unbelievable.'
     'All the Afro-American hybrids wouldn't have to be giants,
    would they?'
    "Definitely not,' Birch said. 'Every generation would be in a
     different stage of transition from one, form to another. By the
    
    fifth year many bees might have some but not all of the charac-
    teristics of the new bee. They might be aggressive, say, but not
    appreciably larger in size than domestic bees. But sooner or later
    they'd all go the same route - towards this new insect.' He held
     the pin carrying Wood's bee.
     New insect? Wood said.
     'We discover about six thousand new insects a year. This will
    have to be classified as one of them. It's a mutation of great
    iniportance in'terms of pedigree. It needs a new name. Tradition-
    ally, the name of the discoverer of a new insect has his name
    attached to it. How about Apis tnelflf~ra Woodii? No - we should
    keep the African family name. Adansonii Wood.'
     'No,' John Woo& said. He was thinking of the Peterson
     family. 'I'd like to name it after a town - Maryville.'
     'A.M. adonsonii Maryvillis it is,' Birch said, holding the bee up
     to the light. It was.a prophetic choice of nomenclature.
    
    The Monday meeting between Hubbard and Wood took place
    in Willard Lightower's office. The president of the National
    Academy of Sciences was a noted administrator as well as
    physicist, quick to move when he had the facts. His square frame
    was impassive as he listened to Shelly Hubbard's presentation.
     'It appears,' Hubbard said from deep in a leather wing chai,
    'that we are confronted with still another accidental import, this
    one equipped with a nasty disposition and a special dislike
    human beings. It's our old friend the African honeybee,
    has been spreading in South America. How it got . I'd like to
    know, and how long it has been in I don't know
    that there has been a rash of incidents throughout
    involving hostile bees, and the connection must be
    coincidental. The bee apparently exists in this
    country, but changed from its South American cousin -
    larger - and we have learned that increased-size mutations
    lead to heightened aggressiveness. A second and really
    ominous finding is that this new bee can be toxic and may be able
    to cause death with a single sting!
     Lightower looked at the photograph of the President of the
    United States over the fireplace. 'What would you have me do?'
    he asked slowly.
     it was Wood's turn. 'We believe there ought to be a working
    umt set up immediately to study this phenomenon and recom-
    mend action. Speed is essential. There's no reason to think the
    Africans have infiltrated the American population - the invaders
    probably still exist in isolated pockets. But if the African bees
    do become dominant, the implications are very grave.'
     Lightower said, 'The bee - or an earlier versi f
    have come in undetected over the Mexican bor
    others will too. This group might be the a
    mass invasion from the south.'
     'Invasions have happened before,' Hubbard said. 'Painted 
    butterflies coming in from Mexico in the late eightees
    made a cloud a mile wide that passed overhead for
    three straight days. There must have been trillions of them.'
     'Of course, the resistance of the domestic bee population count
    for something, doesn't it?' Lightower asked.
     Wood said, 'But the introduction of Africans into our
    hives would soften that resistance.'
    
    Lightower mused. 'Africans
    armed with poison darts. unprovoked stingings, mass attacks,
    casualties - can you imagine how people would react? They'd
    just kill off all bees regardless of what they are. Already there is
    a growing intolerance for bees. People are frightened of them,
    as reflected in local ordinances against beekeeping. We have one
    here in Washington. And the press will have a field day. People
    don't realize that bees are absolutely vital to the economy. They
    account for the pollination of five or six billion dollars' worth of
    plants a year. And let me tell you something even you boys don't
    know. It's classified, but I'll reveal it anyway. At Oak Ridge a
    area was subjected to radiation that cleared it of all animal
    fe, including insects. Projections were then made as to the future
    of plant life without insects, especially bees. It showed that not
    only would some forms of plant life die off but that in the end
    there would be no vegetation to speak of at all.'
    Lightower stopped, as though to let his point sink in. 'Okay,
    I think you have something. Get a group together. But keep it
    secret. If your work is known at this stage, it could start a panic.
    Don't use the word "bee" in the title.'
     'How about simply capital B Group?' Wood said.
     B Group it was.
    
    Two mornings later, on Wednesday, 6 April, six men were seated
    around Hubbard's conference table. In addition to Wood and
    Hubbard there were McAllister, Krim, Gerston and Fine.
    Together they represented the best in their disciplines.
    Hubbard chaired. He had scribbled a few notes on a pad and
    looked at them, a glint- in his deep-set eyes. 'I know you're
    keen to get down to business, but before we do, there is something
    to settle. It's a matter of nomenclature. How do we identify
    "the enemy ? is it to be " her " or " him " ? Bees are predominantly
    female insects, but I can't help thinking of war as a male occu-
    pation. Let's call the enemy 1611imlo.,
     The group concurred, though Wood smiled slightly.
    Wood added, 'Besides, it's a mistake to think of him in
    traditional terms. The Africans are just as much the enemy of the
    A -- h- as they are our own.'
    'Agreed,' McAllister said in his high-pitched voice. 'I think
    one of our first steps ought to be to make contact with the
    Department of Agriculture. USDA ought to get out a circular
    to beekeepers warning them against bees that act or look strange,
    They ought to be reported.'
     Gersten stretched his long arms. 'But not destroyed. We're
    going to need specimens. Lots of them.'
     'Live ones,' Krim said, his voice sounding muffled, as if it
    passed through his beard. 'I can't do genetic work with a dead
    insect.'
     Staring at the nervous little man, Wood had to remind himself
    he was one of the world4s leading geneticists.
     'I need live insects for toxicity studies too,' Fine remarked.
     'The Africans will show up at apiaries. Don't worry, we'll bring
    some back alive,' McAllister said.
     Gerston said, 'Sooner or later we'll have to start killing them,
    I suppose pesticides are out?'
     'Only as a last resort,' Wood said. 'The politics of DDT make
    it almost impossible to use. People are dead set against it.'
     'Besides,' Fine said, 'if this bee has indeed learned to metabolize
    organo phosphates, one would only be giving it exactly what it
    wants.'
     'The best defence is still to change the gene pool,' Krim said.
     'Perhaps,' Wood answered. 'But we're still going to need the
    most sophisticated control techniques available.'
     'Maybe juvenile growth inhibitors will do the job,' McAllister
    said.
     'We could go the screwworm-fly route and drop sterilized
    males,' Gerston advised.
     Hubbard looked at the paper on which he had been making
    notes. 'We must have information on the biology of the bee -
    its distribution, rate of rep roduction, toxicity, genetic makeup,
    susceptibility to various means of control. We need also to under-
    stand the feasibility of line-rearing our own bees - we may have
    to breed our own bees to use against the Africans. That means a
    facility of some kind, with a lab. Maybe a big facility. I'll see what
    I can do about designing one. The question is where to put it.
     
    'He looked at Wood. 'It's premature, I know, but why don't you
    nose around ? Just in case.'
     Wood was thinking that Sheldon Hubbard had a mechanical
    challenge before him and could not resist it. In a previous experi-
    ment he had proved the feasibility of rearing beetles for use
    against other beetles. Now he wanted to do it with bees. 'All
    right,' he said.
     Hubbard took a new sheet of paper, scribbled on it, and passed
    it to Wood, who, sat on his right.
    
    B Group: Line responsibilities
    Facility requirements
    Testing, Behavioural
    characteristics
    Genetics
    Toxicology, Immunology,
    Epidemiology
    Specimen collection
    Radiation sterilization techniques
    
    Sheldon Hubbard John Wood
    F. W. McAllister
    
    Walter Krim
    George Fine
    
    Robert Gerston
    
    Hubbard said, 'One man in this group is not overworked.' He
    gazed at Wood. 'We need a coordinator. Why don't you take
    that job, JohnT
     Wood said, 'Okay by me.' Taking the paper, he added the job
    to the list and passed it on.
    
     When the list reached Fine, his pale face obj&cted. 'It's too
    much. It will be hard work for me. I'm not as young as the rest
    ,,of you, and a real bee-sting antitoxin has never been developed,
    much less one for a bizarre venom - if this proves to be the case.
    On the spread question, better find yourself an epidemiologist.'
     'Anybody know a good oneT Hubbard asked.
     Wood hesitated, then drawled, 'I do. A woman. She's a
    Brazilian and knows a lot about our, African friends.'
     Gerston said, 'I'm all for having a woman. Even better if she9s
    pretty. Any problems with the Official Secrets ActT
     Wood looked embarrassed. 'I don't think so, no. I checked it
    out.'
     'Uh-huh,' Hubbard murmured gleefully.

     It was noon. Wood realized he was now the coordinator. 'Let's
    break and meet again tomorrow. By then everybody ought to
    have a report on how he proposes to do his job. In case any of
    you thinks we have plenty of time,' he said seriously, 'you could
    be wrong.'
    
    The entries on Wood's personal long-distance telephone bills
    were a guide to Maria's movements - Davis, CaliL, Davis, Calif.,
    Davis, Calif., Sdo Paulo, Brazil, Sdo Paulo, Brazil, Sdo Paulo,
    Brazil, Davis, Calff., Davis, Calif., etc. This time he called her on
    the office phone.
     'I found an African,' he said simply.
     There was silence on the line. 'You mean a live one, there in
    Washington?' she said, as though not really believing him.
     'Yes. Now we have the proof we've been waiting for. We
    going into action. Can you shake looseT
     'You mean come?' she said excitedly. She thought a moment.
    'It will take me a few days.'
     'I can't wait.'
     'Should I bring anything?'
     'Just your pheromones.'
     Then, in his tiny office, Wood placed a series of cans, usmig
    Lightower's authority. That afternoon found him at the Pentagon.
    
    Brigadier General Thaddeus W. Slater, Jr, USA, of the Advanced
    Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defence, was
    polite but unhelpful. Wood wished that Hubbard had come with
    him - the beetle carried weight. But Hubbard was occupied in
    designing the bee facility.
     A beefy, red-faced man, Slater reminded Wood of a British
    sergeant major circa 1890. 'Bees, you say. I remember a movie
    about driver ants, starring Charlton Heston, I think. Anything
    like thatT
     'Nothing like that,' Wood said.
     'I have to tell you that it would take a national emergency to
    pry one of our joints loose. My bosses, the four-star generals, look
    at military property as their own.'
    
     'What's happening at Fort Detrick?' Wood asked.
     Slater looked at him with curiosity. 'Detrick's stopped doing
    biological warfare, and there's some unused space and lab equip-
    ment. There's even an army communications centre. But you'd
    need the authority of the President to get it.'
     'Well, we'll see,' Wood said. .
     'Do that.' Slater touched Wood's arm at the door. 'A thought
    occurs to me. Do you know that bees have been used in warfare
    almost since it started? The Greeks and Phoenicians catapulted
    beehives at the enemy. Bees were used for defence - medieval
    towns dropped bees from the walls on the attackers. If a bee got
    inside a man's armour, you can imagine the effect. In the Russo-
    Japanese War the Japanese used bees for sending messages -
    they'd attach tiny papers to them. The Germans in East Africa
    released bees against the British in World War One.'
     Wood turned around. 'What do you have in mind? Sounds as
    though you've done a feasibility study.'
     'Correct. We sent a team of entomologists to the Far East to
    investigate the possibility of using chemicals to set off beehives
    against the Vietcong, who have been known to use swarms against
    the South Vietnamese. I believe the boys wrote a paper.* We
    finally decided it wasn't practicable, even if bees wouldn't be ruled
    out as a weapon under the biological warfare provisions of the
    Geneva Convention. That's a murky area. But these bees of yours
    - sounds like a couple of million dropped by plane would do real
    damage.'
     Wood said, 'They may do real damage, General Slater, here.'
    
    The meeting on Friday started just after lunch. Hubbard went
    first, with the others scheduled to follow - though as it turned
    out only Hubbard was destined to give a report that day.
     Sheldon Hubbard unrolled a long sheet of butcher paper on
    the conference table. Sketched there was what looked like the
    letter E.
    
     'This,'he said, rubbing his hands, 'is a design for a bee factory.
    It's easy to assemble - prefab modular housing units for the
    greenhouses wil I do the trick. The facility is designed for assembly-
    line-rearing queens, drones and workers - assuming we had need
    for all three. Queens - virgins, I imagine - will be brought from
    the South and fertilized here.' He touched the vertical shaft of
    the E. 'The eggs they lay are moved - by conveyor belt, that
    should be easy - along these three rows for the number of days
    required.' He pointed to the horizontal shaft of the E. 'Finally
    they emerge at the end as adult bees. And every day a new lot of
    bees begins on the line. So you have a continuous laying and
    maturation system, just as occurs in a beehive.'
     'How wide is the conveyor belt?'
     'Figure six feet. Standard.'
     Krim began calculating quickly, using whole numbers to the
    tenth power. McAllister had a smile on his face. Krim looked up
    and tugged on his beard. 'Quite a factory, Shelly. Do you know
    how long it will have to be?'
     Hubbard's expression was glum. 'How long?'
     'About eight hundred miles.' They all smiled, except Hubbard.
    'That'll be quite a conveyor belt. Think we can get it built by
    Christmas'
     McAllister was cackling. 'You must be thinking about beetles,
    Shelly. There are four thousand worker bee cells per square foot.'
     Hubbard looked shattered. 'How long does that make the
    factory'
     Krim said quickly, 'Only eight miles long.'
     Hubbard said, as if to change the subject, 'Well, where will
    the facility be located'
     Wood said, 'I've an idea - Fort Detrick, Maryland, where the
    BW research labs used to be. The setup would be ideal.'
     McAllister glanced quickly at him. 'How do you know?'
     'I checked around,' Wood said. He paused, then added,
    'Besides, I used to work there.'
     Except for Hubbard, who knew about Wood's background,
    they stared at him in surprise and even horror.
     'You worked there' Krim said.
     'Yes. I was assigned to the BioLabs during my military service.'
    
     Further reactions were cut short by the arrival of the divisional
    secretary. She seemed embarrassed. 'I'm sorry to break in. I keep
    my radio on softly when I type. You gentlemen are conferring
    about bees. I thought you would want to know that bees are
    attacking a town in New York State.'
    
    9 The swarm
    
    Testimony before the House Environmental Preparedness Sub-
    committee, 6 July, throws light on the events at Maryville.
    REP. JAMES WATKINS (D.Ore., Chmn) Mr Himmel, you are, or
    were, a sanitation officer at Maryville, New York?
    RUDOLPH HIMMEL I am, Sir.
    WATKINS We are trying to determine if a national emergency
    exists, so please weigh your answers carefully.
    HIMMEL Yes, Sir.
    WATKINS Was there any warning before the bees attacked the
    town ?
    HIMMEL Nope. Not exactly.
    WATKINS Please explain.
    HIMMEL Last fall, family up there was attacked and parents killed
    by bees. Then Dr Znac, our coroner, got it in the forest. At the
    dump ...
    WATKINS Go on.
    HIMMEL At the dump - I mean refuse-disposal system - been
    seeing a lot of bees. Clouds of them. I kept away from them.
    Queer bees, they was. Big [deleted]. Sorry.
    WATKINS Strike the profanity from the records, please. Con.
    tinue.
    HIMMEL Seen bees before, feeding on fruit, broken honey jars -
    you know. But these bees like plastic too.
    WATKINS You have an open dump?
    HIMMEL People come and throw garbage in it. Hours are nine to
    six on weekdays, nine to twelve on Sundays.
    WATKINS I don't plan to use it myself. [Laughter] What would
    bees be doing with plastic?
    HIMMEL Don't know. They dig away at Styrofoam with their ... claws.
    WATKINS 'Mandibles' is the word, I guess. What would they be
    doing with Styrofoam?
    HIMMEL I don't know. Taking it home. Building something.
    WATKINS Why do you say 'building'?
    HIMMEL What else would they do with it?
    WATKINS Please explain the exact circumstances leading to the
    attack.
    HIMMEL Well, like I said, the folks in town were nervous. There
    seemed to be more and more bees around all the time. It wa~
    Friday, about noon, during school lunch hour. The kids were
    throwing rocks.
    
    The bee tree in the town square had been there as long as anyone
    in Maryville remembered. Some said the nest had been there
    when the town was founded, over two hundred years before, bui
    the tree might have been unoccupied part of the time. The hole
    was high enough in the tree so that you would never have seen it
    unless you knew where to look, and you could have lived in
    Maryville without being aware of the hive at all. But everybody
    was.
     No one knew whether it happened by accident or as an act of
    revenge. Of course there had been the newspaper stories about
    bee attacks, and here at home the tragedies of the Petersons and
    Dr Znac. When the stone entered the hole the kids at the base of
    the tree stood silent and uncertain, as though they had dared the
    gods and must risk the consequences.
     Nothing happened immediately. Then the tree began to emit a
    kind of whine, as though.the bee hole were its mouth - Ziiiiiiiiii.
    An endless black jet streamed from the hive and rose into the sky.
     Townspeople came out of the shops to look, staring up in
    awe. Nobody could recall having seen bees fly this way, turning,
    wheeling, rising, dipping, like a huge kite or a magic carpet. it
    was a fantastic sight, and they stared.
     All at once the. bee cloud descended. A roar, faint at first,
    then overwhelming, filled the square. Zutniuutimiummmm.
    ZUUUUUUUUUMMMM. Bees dropped like hailstones.
    Howling dogs ran and collided. The people in the square dashed
    for cover.
    
     Some were lucky, some not. A woman made it to her car, and
    sat in terror behind closed windows as bees crashed against the
    windshield like small stones. Covering his eyes, a man careened
    into the plate-glass window of a haberdashery, cracking it. He
    remained there, impaled.
     The sound of the bees seemed to rouse other hives. From the
    woods around town bee swarins; appeared on the horizon like
    squadrons of minuscule bombers on a mission.
     The bees seemed to concentrate on the ice cream parlour.
    People ran in and locked the door behind them, while, outside, a
    man with bees clustered on his face and arms pounded the plate.
    glass door in vain before he staggered off, screaming. A few beet
    had entered with the people, and there was pandemonium inside
    the parlour as people tried to kill the bees, upsetting glasses and
    dishes as they flailed around them with newspapers and maga.
    zines. Bees drummed against the thick windows, leaving clumps
    of liquid and hair.
     Perhaps those in the ice cream parlour might have weathered
    the bee storm. But a foolish. and frightened customer exited the
    back way, leaving the door open, and bees entered. They banged
    into the shiny pots on the rack. Stung, the short-order chef upset
    a fat-filled skillet on the grill, and a fire started. Flames, smoke
    and ranging bees forced the people in the ice cream parlour out
    into the street, where the massed bees hovered.
     Tim and Randy Peterson had been among the knot of boys at
    the tree, one of whom had cast the stone. The two ran to Thelma
    Billings' house, two blocks away. The noise from the square was-
    audible and appeared to be getting louder. Thelma closed the
    doors and windows, but soon bees were knocking against them
    Thelma did the one thing she could think of - she put the boys
    on the bed, lay down beside them, pulled the blankets over their
    heads, and prayed.
     The first bees entered through the chimney, and then came the
    tinkle of broken window glass.
     Bees roared over a silent town.
    
    It was late afternoon when a chartered plane brought Wood and
    Gerston to the nearest airport, at Wappingers Falls, New York,
    where a rental car waited. About a half mile outside town a
    state-police barricade stopped them, but Wood showed his NAS
    credentials and they were allowed to proceed. On the outskirts
    of Maryville they put on veils and protective clothing, but the
    precaution proved needless.
    
    'Fifteen.'
     Not all the bees were dead. Some, plainly spent, huddled in
    helpless clumps on the street. Gerston got out, and Wood drove
    quickly to Thelma Billings's house. He found what he had feared.
    When he returned to the square he said to the trooper, 'Eighteen'.
     They were sawing the magnificent elm in the square, . as if to
    punish it for harbouring the enemy. The tree fell with a crash,
    breaking at the spot where the hive was. Wood went over.
    Underneath the sticky masses of honey and comb a bluish-
    
     An unearthly'quiet hung over Maryville. A neat row of bodies,
    faces covered, lined one side of the square. A few tortured shapes
    still lay in the street. A crust of bees covered the road, crunching
    under the tyres. Rolling down the window of the station wagon,
    Wood motioned to a state trooper who carried a cyanide gun.
    'All over?'
     'Gone. For good, I reckon.' He gestured towards the second-
    growth timber at the edge of town. His face was grey.
     'How many deadT Gerston asked.
     'Fourteen, and still counting. Many others are stung bad.' He
    watched a woman being carried on a stretcher from a store.
    
    yellow substance gtinted in the late afternoon sun. Wood took
    a piece and examined it thoughtfully before placing it in his
    pocket.
     Gerston was arguing with an old man in a windbreaker.
    Between them stood dozens of sacks filled with bees. The old
    man had a portable smoker. He had gathered the bees himself.
     Gerston, towering over the old man, said, 'But these bees are
    vitally needed for research.'
     'They're mine,' the old man protested.
     Wood untied a sack and carefully pecked inside. The bees
    were alive. 'A beekeeper?' he said.
     The man nodded. 'Henry David's the name, sir.'
     'Where's your beeyard?'
    'About ten miles up the road
      'These wouldn't likely be your bees, would they? From te
     miles away?'
     'Who knows these daysT Henry David said. He looked de-
    jected. 'A lot of my bees have swarmed. If it keeps up, all I'll
    have left is the dumb ones.'
     'Dumb onesT Gerston asked.
     'Freak bees. No good for anything. Just collect pollen, but no
    honey. They're pets.'
     'Dumb bees,' Gerston repeated.
     'Anyway, with bees it7s finders keepers. You know that,'David
    wailed.
     Gerston's expression said that he considered Henry David to
    be mentally defective, like his dumb bees. 'You want to keep
    bees - after thisT He waved an arm.
     'I don't know why the bees did it. They don't attack me like
    that,' the man said.
     'We'll buy the bees,' Wood said in a tone that left no room
    for argument. He took out his wallet, counted some bills and
    handed them to the old man, who did not protest. Gerston began
    carrying the sacks to the station wagon. Wood looked carefully
    In the open sack again. Most of the bees seemed to be of normal
    size, but a few were giants Re the one on the golf course. He
    said to the old man, 'Take my advice, Forget about your bee-
    yard. Find something else to do.'
    
    Detrick

    10 Battle plan
    
    'I wish now to turn to a final matter,' said the President of the
    United States, staring straight into the television camera. 'As
    you know, a town in the great state of New York has suffered a
    terrible tragedy, and American hearts go out to the good people
    of Maryville, where twenty-four people died. Assistance is being
    provided by the state and federal governments already, although
    I know that nothing can undo the suffering that has been caused.
     'Many of you have been alarmed by the appearance of these
    apparently hostile bees, and that is understandable. There have
    been rumours of dangerous bees in almost every locality in the
    United States. These rumours are false - I repeat, false - the
    product of excited imaginations. On the basis of scientific infor-
    mation, I report to you that the aggressive bees are localized in
    a few areas in our country, from which they will not be allowed
    to spread. Some of the finest scientists in America are now at
    work on the best ways and means to control and eradicate this
    insect.
     'This they will do, rest assured. Your government is fully
    behind them.
     'Therefore, I urge calm. I request all Americans to go about
    their daily lives without fear.
     'Thank you and good night.'
    
    A week after Maryville, Wood collected Maria Amaral at Dulles
    Airport outside Washington. Striding towards him in a black-
    and-white-checked pants suit and large, round dark glasses, she
    stood out in the stream of arriving passengers like an oil painting
    among watercolours. John had began to wonder how real his
    feelings for Maria were. 
      'Nice trip?' he asked her.
      'I hardly remember,' she said, pressing close to him.
     Driving to Detrick in the old Volks, John filled in the detaih
    missing from the newspaper articles. Following Maryville, Hub.
    bard and Wood had gone to the White House and briefed the
    President, who had then issued a classified directive authorizing
    B Group to requisition whatever government facilities and equip.
    ment were required and to spend up to $25 million (a figure that
    would later be revised upwards). B Group's existence would
    remain secret for the time being, to protect it from the public and
    the press; it was designated as a task force, operating under the
    US Army. With great effort, Wood had been able to get a clear.
    ance for Maria, under the title Foreign Scientific Observer.
     After Maryville, B Group's mood had changed from concern
    to alarm. Following the President's lead, the public was treating
    the bee invasion as a freak biological phenomenon, interesting
    but inconsequential. B Group felt otherwise. 'The worst of it is
    time,' John told Maria. 'In June the African population will
    double at the least. By the end of the summer who knows how
    'large it will beT
     'But they do not like cold. Won't they die during the winter?,
    Maria asked.
     'I wish I knew.'
     At the post's entrance the Volks stopped -briefly at a small red.
    brick guard shack that bore the words 'Fort Detrick'. Civilian
    guards, who had replaced the military police when the BW pro.
    gramme was closed out, had been replaced by MPs once more. It
    was night now, but deep in the cluster of structures ahead lights
    blazed. 'Building Five Seventy-one,' Wood said cheerfully to
    Maria. 'Here is where you'll work, eat and sleep - all with me.'
     'When do I startT she said, smiling.
     'You mean the work? Now, I'm afraid.'
     She sighed and gazed at the massive building. 'What did they
    do here before?'
    
    Fort Detrick, 805 acres large, lay just to the northwest of the
    historic town of Frederick, Maryland, where, during the Civil
    War, Barbara Frietchie according to a famous poem, said, I Shoot,
    if you must, this old grey head, but spare your country's fiag.,
     The fort had been an airport and was leased to the Maryland
    National Guard in 193 1. Its name had been changed to 'Detrick',
    in memory of the Guard's late flight surgeon. In 1940 Detrick was
    leased to the federal government to use as a pilot-training centre.
    In 1943 it was announced that Detrick would be used by the
    Army's Chemical Warfare Services.
     One of the best-kept American secrets of World War Two was
    that Detrick had become the primary United States centre for
    research and development in biological warfare. I
     In 1942 the National Academy of Sciences reported secretly
    that biological warfare was unquestionably feasible, and urged
    that research and development for both offensive and defensive
    biological warfare begin. Work started at Detrick in 1943 in a
    spirit of urgency. Allied intelligence indicated that the Germans
    and the Japanese were also investigating the possibilities of BW.
     After World War Two, as the Cold War accelerated so did BW
    research. At the peak of its activity, in 1966, two thousand
    civilians were employed in the BW programme. Most worked in
    the supersecret area behind the 'inner fence' in large drab build-
    ings that housed thousands of laboratory animals, costly experi-
    mental gear and elaborate safety equipment. Detrick had a
    million-volt X-ray machine, a million-litre test sphere, or'8-ball',
    with -walls of steel an inch and a quarter thick, for aerobiological
    research, electron microscopes, ultramodern research labs. A
    giant computer served the programme.
     In 1969 President Nixon announced that the United States
    would discontinue offensive BW research and destroy its stock-
    piles. In 1971 he announced that much of the old BioLab facilities
    would be converted to cancer research, though research on
    infectious diseases that might be used in wartime against the
    United States, or cause problems for troops, went on. The cancer
    programme was under way, but some of the buildings, filled with
    equipment and miles of bare tubing, stood broodingly empty,
    without heat or light. One of these, four storeys high, built to
    house animals for '8-ball' tests but completed too late to be used,
    was Building 571.
     When Wood had finished describing Fort Detrick's past,
    Maria's smooth face was impassive. 'But you know so much
    about this Fort Detrick. How is that?'
     Wood hesitated, then said, 'I worked here once, in the mid-
    nineteen-sixties, as an experimental biologist, though I really
    functioned as an administrator.'
     She stiffened. 'Didn't you feel guilty about such a thing?'
     He shrugged. 'Not really. There seemed need of it.'
     "And now?'
     He would only say, 'Times have changed.'
    
    The fourth and third floors of the building contained'the living
    areas; the second the lab and experimental hives; the first the
    bee-rearing facility; and the basement the cafeteria and command
    room.
     The schedule for the scientific team called for a daily meeting
    in the command room - large, square, windowless, with bare
    walls, a blackboard, a lectern, a screen, a projector, a computer
    console and a table and folding chairs. This room would be
    headquarters for the most complex, sophisticated war on insects
    ever mounted.
     The scientists, all wearing long lab smocks with ID badges,
    gathered a little before 10am, by which time they had been at
    work for several hours and needed a break. A uniformed soldier
    served coffee, and classical music came over the sound system.
    Today's selection was 'The Flight of the Bumblebee'. Wood
    smiled; it was one of Gerston's jokes.
     At 10 sharp the music went off, and Wood opened the meeting,
    Present were Maria, Krim, McAllister, Gerston and Fine - all
    but Sheldon Hubbard, who could not be pried loose from the
    bee-production area overhead.
     The general strategy had been developed in long meetings
    between various members of the group immediately after Mary.
    Ville. Wood said, 'All of you, except Dr. Amaral, are familia,r
    with various aspects of the plan; now you will see it in its entirety,
    The important thing is to coordinate our efforts so as to insure
    that information each of you has will. reach others among you.
    who may need it.'
     Wood paused as though to underscore the point. Slides had
    been prepared. He dimmed the lights with the rheostat on the
    wall and went to the projector. The first slide flashed on the
    screen.
    
    COMMUNICATION INTERFERENCE
    SUBVERSION
    MIND CONTROL
    PHYSICAL ATTACK
    CHEMICAL WARFARE
    GENETIC WARFARE
    
    'Note,' Wood went on, 'that what is outlined here corresponds
    to modern warfare in its most advanced form. We, will attack the
    ~nemy on every level, from his reproductive system to his adult
    life and the very genes he carries.' He pressed a button, and
    another slide appeared.
    
    Five-Stage Plan
    PHASE ONE: 'BEE' COCKTAIL
    PHASE TWO: PROJECT QUEEN
    PHASE THREE: PROJECT BRUSH FIRE
    PHASE FOUR: PROJECT STERILE MALE
    PHASE FIVE: DESTRUCTION
    PHASE SIX: URBAN DEFENCES
    
    Wood said, 'Each phase of the operation will reduce the enemy
    in numbers and strength. By the fifth phase the enemy ought to
    be weakened to the point where he can be picked off, more or
    less hive by hive. It would be useless to go out in the woods and
    try this now - the enemy is simply too strong. There are too many
   of him.' He glanced at the outline. 'The beauty of the plan is that
    it avoids mass use of pesticides.'
     He pressed the button again, and the screen said:
    
    Bee Cocktail
    AMERICAN FOULBROOD
    INSECT GROWTH REGULATOR (IGR)
    ANTIPHEROMONE SUBSTANCE
    
    Wood continued: 'This will be the first weapon deployed, in
    mid-May. Thousands of packets containing these substances in
    honey solution will be dropped over infested areas. They should
    kill some of the larvae, interfere with the development of others,
    and mess up the bees' communications system. I'll make the
    cocktail my responsibility.'
     McAllister's high-pitched voice interrupted. 'Hold it. You
    mean to drop AFB ? I didn't know that. What about the apiaries?
    You'll infect them too.'
     -'No. Beekeepers will be notified to start giving their bees
    Terramycin and sulfathiozole early.'
     'The honey will be unfit to eat.'
     Wood drawled, 'Well, there won't be any honey from these
    areas.'
     McAllister said stubbornly, 'The other ingredients in the cock-
    tail may get into the domestic hives as well.'
     'We'll be dropping in the forests. If worse comes to worst,
    and we do kill off domestic bees in some areas, then we must.
    New York, say, will be without apples for a year, because there
    won't be any pollination. The trees will survive.,
     McAllister groaned. Wood changed the slide.
    
    Project Queen
    LINE-REARING QUEENS
    NEGATIVE SURVIVAL CHARACTERISTICS
    
    Wood said, 'The queens will be the first factory-bred bees to
    emerge. Like the others, hundreds of millions will be'dropped
    by helicopters over the infested areas. They will mate with the
    Africans, enter the hives and do battle with the African queens.
    Some must prevail for the scheme to work. The idea is that they
    will pass on defects to their progeny, and that their queens and
    drones will similarly breed and increase the defective population
    until enough Africans have enough bad genes to make them self-
    destructive.'
     Negative survival characteristics involved genetic surgery. That
    was Krim's department, and the short young geneticist was
    shaking his beard. Colonies of defective bees were about to be
    flown from the experimental apiary at the University of California
    at Davis. They had droopy wings and flew poorly. It was plain
    that Krim had doubts about feasibility.
    
    Wood showed another slide.
    
    Project Brush Fire
    LINE-DEARING WORKERS
    
    STIMULATE AGGRESSION
    
    'We'll drop factory-reared workers - hundreds of millions of
    them - keyed up with the attack pheromone. They win be our
    foot soldiers. They will be chemically compelled to search for
    and attack any beehive in the vicinity. If they do their 3ob, they
    ought to reduce the African population,' Wood explained. 'This
    will be McAllister's area.'
    
    Project Sterile Male
    LINE-BEARING DRONES
    STERILIZATION
    
    'Gerston's baby,' Wood said. Hundreds of millions of drones
    would be mass-produced at the facility and sterilized. They, too,
    would be dropped from the air. Mating with African queens, they
    would insert useless sperm in them. The queens, when filled,
    would not mate again, but would be unfertilized, and would thus
    lay only drone eggs.
     'That's it. In something like this you have to try everything
    you can and hope some of it works. In my opinion, any one of
    these control techniques should do the job. Then trained bee
    wardens will enter the forests and finish them off. It's pretty neat,
   if you ask me.'
     Fine had been taking notes. He glanced at them. 'You've only
    gone to Phase Five. If the, wild bees are as good as dead, why do
    we need Phase Six - " Urban Defences " V
     'There's always the chance the bees will get through. You have
    to consider it,' Wood answered.
     'And attack the central cities ?'Fine asked. He looked appalled.
     'A chance, yes,' Wood said slowly.
    

    11 Spread
    
    The following morning the same group assembled again. Maria
    Amaral had been up almost all night working with the Detrick
    computer via the console. Behind the glasses her dark eyes looked
    tired.
     Using data about bee incidents gathered by Fine's allergists,
    who had been rechecking suspicious deaths, the computer had
    made certain assumptions about the density of the Africanized
    bee population throughout the United States. Because deaths
    from bee stings had been more or less uniform until three years
    before, it was assumed that the giant mutants, the toxic bees,
    had first emerged at that time, though undoubtedly in small
    numbers. A careful review of suspicious case histories, even an
    exhumation of bodies in some cases, proved conclusively that
    many deaths attributed to heart attacks, organophosphate
    poisoning or even standard anaphylactic shock had in fact been
    caused by the strange African sting. Deaths from bee stings had
    been increasing at a rapid rate since, but more in some areas than
    others. A computerized map of the United States was flashed on
    the screen.
     Maria tapped the map with a pointer. The scientists still tended
    to concentrate on her rather than on what she was saying, a fact
    that infuriated Wood. She tapped again. 'The total number of
    incidents that we now attribute to African bees is nearly one
    thousand. Such incidents have occurred in many places. Isolated
    instances are marked with Xs.' She moved the pointer to the
    shaded places. 'But the preponderance of incidents has occurred
    in three areas, which would indicate that the Africans are con.
    centrated there. As you can see, these areas are in the northwest,
    north-central and northeast parts of the country.'
     Maria took a sip of water. Wood knew she was under great
    strain. A miscalculation made by the computer on the basis of
    faulty material she had given it could be costly. 'You will note
    that the main movement of the bees appears to be north to south,
    based on the casualty patterns.'
     'Is there any way to calculate the speed of spreadT Wood
    asked.
     'It is only a guess. The computer estimates the main body is
    presently spreading out at a rate of perhaps a hundred miles a
    year.'
     'That's slower than they've moved in Brazil,' McAllister
    objected.
     Amaral answered, 'The rate of advance may change as the
    population builds.'
     'When does the computer bring the bees into a major city?'
    Wood asked.
     Amaral pressed some keys on the console. The map faded and
    the screen said:
    
    PROJECTED ARRIVAL DATES
    AFRICANIZED BEES
    NEW YORK TWO YEARS PLUS
    CHICAGO TWO YEARS PLUS
    SAN FRANCISCO TWO YEARS PLUS
    
    Wood said quickly, 'Of course, the defence scheme hasn't been
    built into the computer's predictions.'
     'No. Of course not,' Amaral said.
     The IS' in 'PLUS' continued to flash until Maria gave the
    machine more instructions, and the map returned.
     Nobody spoke for a moment, and then McAllister piped, 'It's a
    singular thing. It's all wrong.'
     Wood felt dazed. 'It is. I had always assumed there were two
    possible avenues of invasion - by ship and over the Mexican
    border. But the ship theory, slim as it was, doesn't account for
    the concentration in the Midwest, unless we assume the bees
   came in through the St Lawrence Seaway. From the look of it,
    there aren't enough hostile bees in Texas to support the idea of a
    border crossing in force.'
     They stared at the map, and then Maria said, 'It isn't as it is
    in Brazil either. In my country the bees spread fastest to the
    tropical parts. But there are no incidents in your South at all.
    You'd expect Africans in the South.'
     Wood said, 'Yes, it's puzzling. It's north to south, all right.'
     'But where did these bees come from? What are they?' Maria cried.
     An idea began to grow in Wood's mind. 'Could they have
    travelled after they were in the United States?'
     McAllister reached the right conclusion first. He snapped his
    fingers. 'The US mail. It's plain as day. The breeders.'
     Wood said, 'Yes, that's got to be it. African bees are being
    bred in the South and shipped north and west to beekeepers to
    replace their stocks. And that breeder or breeders imported them.'
    
    A single tube of bee semen would have been enough.
     Or a nucleus of bees - a queen, a few drones. A cigarette 
    case with air holes cut in it would have sufficed.
     Or a piece of comb, with a queen, workers and brood cells.
    In 1922 the United States had prohibited the import of foreign
    bees because they were bringing with them a tiny eight-legged
    tick called the Acarine mite. But it was perfectly legal to import
    bee brood or semen. USDA discouraged the practice in the case
    of Africans; still, some greedy breeder, in Brazil for a conferenee
    or a buying trip, realizing that the new bees in Brazil were superb
    producers of honey, could have bought African bees from a
    Brazilian bee man who himself doubted the true nature of
    adansonfl. If he had purchased semen, it would have been even
    easier.
    In a single morning an experienced bee man could squeeze a
    hundred or so drones andcollect their sperm in a test tube. A
    small quantity would fertilize any number of queens. A queen is
    anaesthetized with carbon dioxide, then she is clamped on a small
    rack, and semen is inserted into her vagina with a small syringe.
    'There are a few breeders who know how to do that,' Mc-
    Affister observed. 'One large breeder might have been enough.
    He could produce thousands of queens with African blood and
    ship them north. He might keep some African stock on hand for
    rebreeding, so he goes right on producing and shipping hybrid
    African queens.'
    Wood asked, 'But why didn't the northern beekeepers who
    got the Africanized bees have trouble with their offspring? They
    haven't reported any.'
    Krim rose to his full five-foot-five and began to pace. He said
    in his slurred, seemingly arrogant fashion, 'We shouldn't use
    the word "breeder". Not enough is known about bee genetics to
    breed them; we know a lot more about breeding horses. "Rearer"
    is more exact. The bee rearer has a queen who herself is a hybrid
    of Africanized Brazilian bees. She's a half-breed. She mates. Her
    offspring may be only one-quarter African. They are also a
    minority in a temperate climate. All three factors could operate
    in making the African's violent nature disappear temporarily.
       
    But don't forget that the African strain is dominant. All experi-
    ence shows us that.'
     'For me that still doesn't quite clarify the long status quo in
    northern beeyards,' Wood said.
     'Maybe they have to reach certain levels in the population
    before they assert themselves,' Gerston commented.
     Maria said, 'It is true that in Brazil small colonies are not so
    excitable. Further, these Africans have a tendency to abscond
    when the population grows. When a hive becomes African, it
    In I oves out to the jungle.'
     McAllister waved his hands. 'The Africans don't cluster like
    our bees. They wouldn't make it through winter.'
     'Pure Africans,' Krim corrected him sourly. 'These bees also
    have the genetic information of American bees.'
     From the pocket of his lab smock Wood took a plastic box. In
    it was the hive lining, or propolis, taken from the tree at Mary.
    ville. 'The sample has been carefully analysed, and there's no
    doubt about it. These bees have developed the capability to use
    Styrofoam in their building materials. It's simple to work with,
    and it must improve their insulation enormously. It might make
    wintering simple.'
     Krim said, 'That confirms it. The purer Africans, and their
    next evolutionary phase, the giants, would appear first in the
    wilds. There they'd build up rapidly. Natural breeding habits
    would make the wild drones mate with the hive queens, so you'd
    be Africanizing or re-Africanizing the American hives, though
    more slowly. At some point all bees, whether wild or in hives,
    would turn African. I don't know when that point is.'
     Wood said, 'All right. But what about that beekeeper in the
    South? He's raising queens, and queens don't sting, so he
    wouldn't notice anything unusual. But what about the queen's
    worker progeny? Wouldn't he notice their aggressiveness?'
     'Breeders keep stock in small colonies,' McAllister pointed
    out.
     'And even the southern United States is more temperate than
    tropical Brazil,' Amaral said in her low, urgent voice' 'That
    would pacify them, too, until they acclimatized.'
     'But his queens are crossbreeding with their own drones. Their
        progeny would also be getting more African all the time,' Krim
    said.
     'And therefore more dangerous. We ought to find this Southern
    breeder at once - but how? There must be hundreds of them,'
    Wood said.
     Gerston remarked, 'He's probably in an isolated area to protect
    his hive from other lines. And if his bees did turn aggressive, he'd
    probably want to suppress the news. But I think we'll get wind of
    him.'
     'Where?' Wood said.
     'From the local coroner.' Gerston's expression said, And he
    deserves it.
    
    12 The bee factory
    
    Though Maria had been on the premises over thirty-six hours,
    she had not had time to look around. When the meeting ended,
    Wood said to her, 'Hubbard wants to give you a guided tour. I
    better warn you - is he proud of his bee factory!'
     Its official name was Apicultural Research and Development
    Facility, but the scientists called it the 'bee factory'. With con-
    struction under way, lights blazed all night, bringing questions
    but no answers from Detrick, whose inner fence was as tightly
    sealed as during bacteriological-warfare days. But some foreign
    governments had been told the truth to avoid suspicion that
    American BW research had been reactivated. These govem-
    ments began to watch the American experiment closely.
     There was no time to devise new equipment. Rather, the tech.
    niques had to grow out of previously existing technology and
    knowledge of insects, especially knowledge about the most
    studied insect of all, the honeybee.
     After his embarrassment at having planned a factory that
    would have to be at least eight miles long, Hubbard had re-
    designed it, withcharts on bee development before him and a
    team of architects and engineers at his side. For the zoologist,
    the facility had to meet several criteria. It had to be quick to
    assemble, therefore using easily available equipment. Above all
    it had to function effectively from the beginning. To correct mis-
    takes and start over could make the effort too late to help.
     'I believe that his first and fundamentally most important
    decision,' Wood told a reportei some time later, 'was to avoid
    automation here. Things that we might have been able to do
    with machinery we did by hand. It enabled us to get into pro-
    duction at the start of May.'
     They found Hubbard on the factory floor above, supervising
    the installation of a long line of large incubators. Waving, he
    flew over, his lab coat flapping and the two antennalike projec-
    tions of his hair standing straight up. To Wood, Hubbard had
    never looked happier.
     'Welcome!' he boomed. 'Come to have a peep at my lair?
    Don't gqt many visitors, you know.' Without waiting for an
    answer, he took Maria's arm and led her along, with Wood
    trailing behind. 'Well, I am the last person in the world to use
    hyperbole like "miracle". I certainly won't claim that what we
    are about to accomplish here is a miracle. I will only say that
    nobody, nobody, has succeeded in doing anything remotely like
    it. We are going to assembly-line-rear bees. What's more, we will
    manufacture a billion of them a month.'
     'A billion?' Maria cried, winking at Wood. 'But how is that
    possible?'
     Hubbard chuckled. 'I'll show you. At this minute you are in
    the middle of a giant beehive.'
     Maria twisted her head, and Wood's eyes followed hers.
    Around them were incubators, glass panels, metal carts, tubing,
    piles of plastic boxes and plastic squares. 'A beehive?' she said.
     'Come over here.'
     They entered a large area bathed in yellow light, separated
    into th ree sections by glass partitions. In each were long rows of
    shelves, ten feet high, containing small wire cages. 'This is the
    laying area,' Hubbard explained. 'Each of the three sections is
    colour-designated - blue for queens, white for drones, brown for
    workers. Got that?'
     'Blue for queens, white for drones, brown for workers,' Maria
    repeated dutifully.
     Hubbard said with visible excitement, 'We are in the process
    of procuring queens from Southern breeders. They will arrive in
    a few days, about twenty thousand of them. We don't expect all
    our queens to survive or prove out as egg-layers, but we need
    only about sixteen thousand laying queens to meet our daily
    quota of eggs.'

    'Will the queens have already been fertilized?'Some - by 
    the breeders - but not all. There isn't time. The
   virgin queens arriving here will be fertilized by artificial in.
    semination. Look.'
     Hubbard led them to a large chamber filled with banks of work
    tables holding rows of small machines. These devices would be
    used for the artificial insemination of queens, the zoologist
    explained.
      , Then what happens?'
     'The queens will be permitted to produce one kind of bee only
    - either workers, drones, or other queens. The laying queens will
    have no choice in the matter.'
     Hubbard picked up one of the wire cages and removed from it
    it piece of plastic somewhat less than a foot square. The plastic
    was covered with hundreds of tiny indentations. He said, 'Any
    plastics manufacturer can turn out these platens by the millions,
    The indentations correspond to the brood cells on a comb.' He
    left them briefly and returned with two more platens. 'See, the
    indentations are of different sizes. The largest ones are queen
    cells, the smallest worker cells. The queen drops her eggs into
    these cells. The eggs are precisely the same. The ones dropped
    in the large cells become queens, the ones left in the small cells
    become workers. Our queens are divided into three groups. Each
    gets one kind of platen to lay on.' He glanced at the platen with
    medium-size cells. 'Ah, but do you understand how a queen
    produces dronesT
     'Not exactly,' Maria confessed, showing even, white teeth.
    Wood smiled too.
     Hubbard, clearly delighted, explained. 'Well, once a qpeen
    has mated, she carries in her body all the sperm she needs for life.
    There are so many surprising things about bees, but none more
    so, for my money, than the fact that the queen chooses, in some
    fashion we don't understand, to fertilize some eggs with sperin
    but not others. The eggs she leaves unfertilized become drones.
    We will leave some queens deliberately unfertilized. The unfer.
    tilized queens will lay drone eggs in the medium-size cells.'
     Maria inspected the platen. 'But there are so many cells. How
    long does it take a queen to fill thern?'
     'Each platen,' Hubbard said, 'contains about two thousand
    cells, which corresponds to the queen's daily laying capacity. All
    day she crawls over the platen filling up the cells. Each day the
    platen is removed from this covered slot and a new one is
    inserted.'
     Maria shook her head. 'I have so many questions. Who feeds
    the queensT
     'Each queen will be accompanied by a group of workers. the
    workers feed from tubes of sugar-water and a pollen sub~itute
    stuck in the sides of the cages. Then the workers feed the laying
    queens.'
     'Why is it so hot in hereT
     'The temperature - which is ninety-six degrees Fahrenheit -
    and the relative humidity - seventy per cent - correspond exactly
    to hive conditions. We're testing the equipment at the moment.
    Come outside.'
     Outside the laying area it was cool again. Hubbard pointed
    back. 'Now, as you saw, there are three laying areas. In the
    worker, or brown, area all the platens have the small cells. In the
    drone, or white, area all the cells are drone-size, and in the queen,
    or blue, section all the platens have the large cells.'
     Maria shook her ' head in confusion, and Hubbard grinned.
    Finally Maria said, 'So a queen becomes a queen solely by virtue
    of brood-cell sizeT
     Hubbard answered, 'No.' He pointed to three rows of massive
    incubators, each row separate and paintedwhite, blue, or brown.
    These incubators, which already existed at Detrick, were square
    ten-foot boxes, containing 1,000 cubic feet of space. Hubbard
    explained that each could comfortably hold 1,200 platens on
    racks from floor to ceiling. Each would hold 2,400,000 eggs.
    There were less than 100 incubators in all.
     'Wheeled on the carts to the properly colour-coded incubators,'

    Hubbard continued, 'the eggs enter the larval phase. Now they
    must be fed. On the floor above are vats which have been set up
    to feed nutrients down through tubes to the incubators, which
    contain nebulizers, or diffusion devices, which spread the
    nutrient evenly, so that it settles into the larval cells. Now, to
    answer your question, all larvae get the queen substance, royal
    jelly, for three days. Then the workers and drones get a high-
    protein nutrient called beebread, but the queens go on receiving
    royal jelly for three more days. The rich diet seems to be what
    makes queens out of them;, the larger cell siie is merely to
    accommodate their bodies. The food we serve here will be
    synthetic, of course.' Shelly Hubbard rubbed his hands.
     'It is certainly ingenious,' Maria said encouragingly. 'What
    happens next?'
    
     'Well, on the ninth day after the egg is laid, in the case of
    queens and workers, and the eleventh for the drones, the larvae
    pupate. In the hive the cell is sealed,, but it has been discovered
    that if temperature and humidity are ideal, an exterior covering
    will suffice. When the larvae are ready to pupate, the platens are
    placed in lightweight plastic boxes, three platens, or six thousand
    bees, to a box, in a colour-coded storage area.' He pointed to the
    dim recesses of the building. 'When the bees reach pupation they
    will be stored, and then dropped on the enemy. It'll work; there
    is no doubt that we can actually produce a billion bees a month,
    But these won't be your normal civilian bees. My bees will be
    soldiers, bred to fight.'
     Wood spoke for the first time. 'And win, we hope.'
    
    After John and Maria had left, Hubbard started an animated
    conversation with an insect-growth specialist about the possi-
    bility of using a chemical combination to speed up the develop.
    ment of the factory-created bees. Suddenly Gerstonran up.
     Gerston had been on the phone all morning supervising the
    purchase of the last of the twenty thousand queens. Such a
    number was well within the capability of the breeders, but it did
    mean depleting their stocks and hurting their production capacity.
    Some were reluctant to sell, but when necessary Gerston twisted arms.
     He had been querying breeders about their stocks - he did not
    want to buy Africans by accident.
     'I found one,' he said to Hubbard.
     'Found whaff the beetle asked sharply. He did not like to be
    interrupted.
     'A tribe of Mau Maus. In Florida!
     Hubbard understood at once. 'What about the breeder?' he
    asked. 'He must have been the one to start all this.'
    
    'That's how I located the Mau Maus. The breeder and his
    family were just found dead.'
    The scene was not hard to imagine - official vehicles screaming
    down a Florida highway. Evacuation of the area. Gas masks,
    cyanide guns. There would be countless such skirmishes before
    the battle began.
    
    13 Toxicity
    
    George Fine was tired. He had been working since 6am in the
    experimental hive, and as if the problems confronting him were
    not already complicated enough, there had been a row with
    Sheldon Hubbard.
     He could see Hubbard now through the glass partitions, his
    two wings of dark hair standing straight up. The zoologist, in his
    white lab coat, seemed to be everywhere at once as he drove the
    bee factory to completion. His energy was inexhaustible. George
    Fine envied him that.
     The experimental hive and the lab area were located on the
    second floor of the building. All interior structures built for the
    facility Were glass, and so were the hives, which were equipped
    with Detrick safety features. It had been done rapidly - too
    rapidly, in Fine's opinion. Meticulous as always, he had gone
    over the hive complex almost bolt by bolt, investigating every
    feature. He thought the doors to the chambers where the bees
    were kept opened the wrong way - in. He even objected to the
    handles and catches, which appeared flimsy to him. In his haste
    to get rolling, Hubbard had cut comers.
     Fine had trouble getting Hubbard to slow down long enouA
    to hear him out. Finally he was able to explain his position,
    Hubbard, deep-set eyes glowering with annoyance, replied that
    Detrick had always used inward-opening doors for its animal
    labs. As for the handles, he did not expect the bees to be using
    them, . he said. Stiff with humiliation, Fine went b~ck to his
    experimentt
     He had never worked with bees, but the techniques he would
    need wererelatively simple and easy to master.* The bees brought
    from Maryville had been subdued with carbon dioxide and
    separated into two categories - the Afro-Americans and the giant
    mutant bees. Building 571 was attached to the million-litre test
    sphere once used at Detrick for aerosol testing. The hive area had
    been built adjacent to the 8-ball, with connecting passages, so
    that the bees could fly through ports into the sphere itself, which
    became their flying area. The bees, by instinct, would always
    return to the same hives.
     The bees occupied room-sized chambers in which standard
    wood Langstroth hives bad been placed, with combs filled with
    honey, and pollen hung on the back walls, which opened into the
    flying area. There were flowers in large pots to simulate a natural
    environment.
     Fine now donned a personnel safety suit that had been used in
    experimental research at Detrick. It was all in one piece, made of
    soft translucent plastic, except for the clear-plastic window in the
    head-hood portion which could be opened. Only one change had
    been made from the original design, and that because of B
    Group's decision to use cyanide in the event that bees got into
    the pass-through chambers. The suit had been provided with a
    backpack oxygen canister. The canister not only provided air
    for breathing but also maintained a positive air pressure within
    the suit, thus protecting the wearer if cyanide was released in the
    chamber.
     This suit also had another important advantage. The bee that
    had stung Wood through a light leather glove had taught B
    Group that ordinary clothing was not adequate protection. The
    surface of the plastic suit was too smooth for a bee sting to
    lodge in.
     Fine stepped into the pass-through airlock, which looked like
    a shower stall, carefully shutting the outer door behind him. He
    then reopened the inner door and entered the chamber of the
    giant bees. The routine would be the same on leaving; if bees
    got into the airlock, it could be flooded with cyanide by pressing
    a button. The safety procedure took seconds, and guaranteed
    that no bees would escape.
     Fine carried with him an oblong box; about three feet
    long and a foot wide, covered with a grid of steel wires over a
    polyethylene sheet. A cord extended from the box. Fine plugged
    the cord into a socket and then pressed a switch. The wires were
    charged with exactly three volts at a frequency of fifteen cycles
    per second.
     A large black bee with orange markings emerged from the
    hive, hovered over the box, and lit on the wires, which shocked.
    The bee immediately stung 'the wires and flew away. A second
    bee did the same. By the time a half dozen bees had stung the
    wires the bees' alarm-de~ence pheromone had been set off to the
    hive; the odour, contained in the sting, conveyed the presence of
    an enemy. Now the bee horde streamed out in earnest.
     Fine, standing ignored in the comer, was treated to a breath-
    taking display of African fury. Again and again the aroused
    Africans attacked with their barbs, lowering their abdomens
    and stabbing the wires. The war chant, ziiiiiiiii, filled the
    chamber..
     At last Fine turned off the gadget. The exhausted bees returned
    to the hive. Not one followed him into the chamber.
     Having removed his safety suit, Fine studied the polyethylene
    sheet. The stings had passed between the wires and penetrated
    the thin sheet, leaving some barbs, but not nearly as many as
    Fine expected. Probably five thousand bees had stung the poly-
    ethylene, but no more than a hundred had lost their stings - itself
    a commentary on the exceptional strength of the giants which
    would live to sting again. The venom coating the underside of
    the sheet was a brown, viscous liquid that gave off a dry, banana-
    like odour - the smell of the alarm pheromone in the sting.
    Volatile, it dried in a few minutes, and Fine carefully scraped the
    brown, gummy residue into a glass vial.
     He then began a long chemical analysis. First, the venom went
    into a centrifuge, which separated out any contaminating foreign
    matter, such as stingers or bits of wing material. Next came
    infrared analysis, which provided a crude chemical profile.
    Finally, and most important, Fine used the computerized gas-
    chromatograph, mass-spectrometer system. A benzene solution
    of the -venom was injected into the instrument, which then
    separated the venom components and analysed each by molecular
    fragmentation. The results appeared as a tracing, and Fine saw a
    clear difference from standard bee venom. Standard bee venom
    had seven peaks - this tracing had eight.
    it was this eighth substance that interested George Fine. He
    queried the computerized instrument for more information on its
    nature. The machine was quiet for a second, and then the print-
    out began. The computer printed its prompts in capital letters,
    and Fine responded with his directions and inquiries in numbers
    and lower-case letters.
    
    OPERATION.MODE: MS Print
    FILE NAME: mg5-4
    scAN: 403
    BACKGROUND FILE: mg5-4
    SCAN.
    
    Fine paused, re-examined the tracing, and then responded with
    165'. The computer went on.
    
    100-
    90-
    80-
    70-
    60-
    50-
    40-
    30-
    20-
    10-
    0,
    _k
    0 10   20     30 40   dO     710   810  90 IDO 110 120
                 SPECTRUM NUMBER
    
    Figure 111: Spectrographic analysis - toxic bee venom. (Courtesy
    Estate of Dr George Fine)

    MULTIPLIER:
    BASE PEAK:
    
    Because he had taken a standard default option, Fine ignored
    these prompts and waited.
    
    LOWER THRESHOLD PER CENT: 0.05
    
    With the parameters set, Fine was ready. He pushed two keys on
    the instrument, which began to hum and chatter. The recorder
    and its mechanical pen produced a bar graph of peaks associated
    with the unknown eighth substance; then the printer typed out a
    listing of all the numerical values associated with the peaks.
     The toxicologist had no way of knowing what substance the
    bar graph and all the numerical values described. For that he
    would have to rely on another computer, a much larger one.
    Taking all the information with him, Fine walked down two
    flights of metal steps to the basement command room. It was late
    and the windowless chamber was empty. The console there was
    linked not only with the Detrick computer but also, by telephone
    terminal, with an even larger one at the National Institutes of
    Health near Washington which keeps on its reels a central
    chemical-compound data bank - the most complete in the world.
     Fine dialled a phone number that served to link the console
    with the NIH computer. The machine became activated, saying:
    
    SCIENCE IS DEAD LONG LIVE THE COMPUTER
    
    Fine swore. Late at night, in the cheerless command room, he
    had no stomach for the silly jokes programmers insisted on
    feeding the machines.
     The computer then listed by name and number the functions
    it could perform. There were sixteen of them.
     The machine paused, humming quietly while awaiting Fine's
    instructions. The toxicologist thought a moment and then typed
    back '5'.
     The machine said:
    
    NHLI MASS SPECTRAL SEARCH SYSTEM
    PROGRAMME: YOUR NAME AND COMPANY PLEASE
    USER:
    
    Fine said
    
    Apicultural Research and Development Facility,
    Ft Detrick, Maryland
    PROGRAMME: PLEASE TYPE YOUR 3 INITIALS
    USER:
    
    It so happened that George Fine did not have a middle name.
    He typed 'gf'.
     The machine repeated on the printout:
    
    PROGRAMME: PLEASE TYPE YOUR 3 INITIALS
    USER:
    
    Again Fine cursed. If he did not give himself a middle initial the
    machine would refuse to proceed. He typed 'gnf'.
     Satisfied, the machine said:
    
    PROGRAMME: TO SEARCH FOR PEAKS, TYPE PEAKS
    TO SEARCH FOR MOLECULAR WEIGHT, TYPE MW
    TO SEARCH FOR PEAKS WITH MF, TYPE PNIF
    TO SEARCH FOR MOLECULAR FORMULA~ TYPE MY
    TO PRINT OUT PEAKS/INTENSITIES, TYPE SPEC
    TO PERFORM A SIMILARITY COMPARISON, TYPE SIM
    TO PLOT SPECTRA ON DISPLAY TERMINAL, TYPE PLOT
    TO LIST THE MSDC CODES, TYPE LIST
    TO EXIT FROM THE PROGRAMME, TYPE OUT
    USER:
    
    Fine paused, though only momentarily, and then typed 'peaks'.
    The machine responded:
    
    PROGRAMME: MASS SPEC PEAK AND INTENSITY SEARCH
    USER: INTENSITY RANGE FACTOR FOR THIS SEARCH IS?
    
    Fine answered 13 '. The computer gave additional instructions
    for the search input:
    
    CR TO EXIT, 1 FOR ID O/NAMES OR FOR ID, MW, MF AND NAME
    USER:
    
    Fine turned to the foot-long sheet of yellow paper containing the
    printout of numerical values for the unknown eighth substance.
    
    He scanned it rapidly and then typed '219, 100'. 
    
    PROGRAMME: FOUND 296 SPECTRA WITH m/E PEAK: 219
    USER: 108, 25
    PROGRAMME: FOUND 150 SPECTRA WITH M/E PEAK: 108
    USER: 77, 22
    PROGRAMME: FOUND 24 SPECTRA WITH m/E PEAK: 77
    
    Carrying on a dialogue with the computer in. this way, Fine
    gradually narrowed the range of possibilities. Then, as the
    computer came back with its routinely prompt 'USER', Fine
    responded with '231, 19', and the machine balked.
    
    PROGRAMME: THERE ARE NO SPECTRA IN THE OPEN FILE WITH
    THAT COMBINATION OF M/E PEAKS AND INTENSITIES DISREGARD
    PEAK OF 231 AND CONTINUE (CON) OR EXIT (OUT)?
    USER:
    
    It seemed useless to continue with the open file, but Fine had
    no intention of exiting. Without hesitation he typed:
    override. access,closed file.
    
    The computer reacted immediately.
    
    PASSWORD
    
    For the third time since he began the search Fine swore. Damn
    passwords, damn secrecy. His irritation receded as abruptly as it
    flared. No sooner had the computer typed 'PASSWORD' than it,
    automatically began preparations to Fine's response.
    First it typed five double-spaced Xs:
    
    X X X X X
    
    Then it typed five double-spaced Os directly over the Xs:
    
    19 0 0 0 0
    
    It repeated the process with a number of other characters, until
    the five aieas looked almost like solid black squares:
    
    Iff R Iff Iff It
    
    Now it was ready for Fine to type the password. Typed on those
    black areas, the individual characters of the password would not
    be visually recognizable. But the electronic message they trans-
    mitted to th; computer when he typed them would gain him
    access to the closed file. He typed B Group's password, 'kilbel,
    over the five black squares.
     The computer replied almost immediately:
    
    PROGRAMME: FOUND ONE SPECTRA WITH MIE PEAK: 98
    REP M/E PEAKS 219 108 77 231
    USER: GIVE ID AND NAME
    PROGRAMME: DESIGNATION CLASSIFIED. FOUND IN FILE UNDER
    FILE zP-10960A. EDGEWOOD ARSENAL, MD.
    USER:
    
    Fine sat back, flabbergasted. The information could mean only
    one thing. Edgewood Arsenal is to chemical warfare what
    Detrick had been to BW. The substance that the. deadly toxic
    fraction in the bee sting resembled more closely than any known
    substance in the world was an agent developed for chemical
    warfare.
    It was now Ilpm on Saturday evening, too late to contact
    Edgewood. George Fine, sitting in the bare-walled room, was
    suddenly depressed. The news he had received was frightening -
    so much so, that he decided not to tell the others until he had
    the facts. He was also lonely. His only real exchanges of the
   day had been with machines, and he longed for his wife, who
    had died a little over two years before. Wearily, Fine turned to
    the keyboard and typed his response to the computer's last
    prompting:
    
    out
    
    He left before the tireless machine finished informing him how
    much time and money he had spent.
    

    14 Ethogram
    
    Sunday. Same place. Same lab smocks (clean in the morning).
    Though more tired, same faces - except for Sheldon Hubbard's.
    He could not be torn from the bee factory.
     Gerston burst in with the Washington Post. Wood glanced at
    the headline. 'My God V he said. They crowded around.
    
                           AIFRO BEES STING CITRUS TOWN
                               42 Dead, 37 Wounded
    
    GROVEVILLE, Fla. (AP) - African honeybees today devastated
    this peaceful town, with 42 persons dead and 37 wounded.
     Of the dead, 23 were elementary-school children.
     Near Groveville is a large plant for making canned orange
    juice. Orange rinds, waiting to be incinerated, appear to have
    originally attracted the large bee swarm.
     When the bees were-sighted the plant was closed at once, and
    workers fled the scene in their cars.
     One worker, William Masters, 35, was stung to death, however,
    when he came too close to the bees. His brother Robert, 45, also
    worked at the plant. Apparently crazed with grief, Robert Masters
    climbed into a bulldozer and drove it into the mound of orange
    pulp. Robert Masters was also stung to death. ,
     State Department of Agriculture personnel, armed with cyanide
    equipment, had already been summoned. When they arrived, the
    bees had already abandoned the scene. Authorities speculate that
    their hive was or is in nearby swampland. But instead of returning
    there, the bees, buzzing loudly, wheeled towards the town of
    Groveville.
     They concentrated their attack on an elementary school that
    was being used for a Little League baseball game. 
    
     Children in the playground were attacked first. The survivors
    ran inside. Adults closed doors and windows.
     The school is fully air-conditioned for summer use, but the
    system was being repaired. An intake vent was open. Into this
    vent the bees poured, emerging in the classroom through the air-
    conditioning ducts.
     The results were frightful. The children and parents used the
    only weapons they had at hand - school books - to no avail.
     The surviving bees then departed.
     One previous mass attack by the deadly African bees has been
    reported in Florida.
     Authorities fear there may be more.
     A single funeral for all the dead is to take place on Wednesday.
    
    The reports from the allergists and from Fort Detrick's radio
    room, which also had news-wire teletypes, were fed directly into
    the computer, which then summarized them. Maria pressed a
    button and the screen lit up. In south-central Florida, a cold and
    precise X had appeared, devoid of human drama and tragedy.
     It was not far from another X - representing the bee-breeder
    and his family.
     ,So they didn't kill all the Florida swarm after all,' Wood said
    slowly.
     'I guess we should be reading the papers,' Gerston said. 'You
    don't get much of a story from the computer map.'
     'No, we shouldn't be reading the papers,'Wood said forcefully.
    'We have a mission and shouldn't be digtracted from it. The map
    is all the news we need.' He looked at the headline again, shook
    his head and murmured, 'God.' Theii he turned to Fine and
    asked what the toxicologist had learned about the African
    venom.
     Fine said, 'A venom is a complex mixture of substances
    capable of producing a variety of physical and pharmacological
    changes. It is neurotoxic, that is, it disturbs the nervous system
    and also haemolizes the red cells. The two fractions in normal
    bee venom responsible for most of the trouble are phospholipas
   A, which can cause respiratory paralysis, and hyaluronidase, a
    surface-active substance which increases tissue permeability so
   that the venom is spread in the body of the host who receives it.
    Both these fractions are found in cobra venom. Am I going
    too fast?'
     They sat up. Fine took a sip of coffee and continued. 'The
    reason a bee isn't as dangerous as a cobra is that the bee has less
    venom to deliver. It's just that simple.'
     Gerston said, 'The big bees have larger venom sacs. They
    want to be cobras.'
     'No, I don't think so,' Finereplied. 'The African is still a bee.
    By itself, the venom of a giant bee would hurt like hell but it
    wouldn't normally kill. This bee has done something else. It
    has managed to combine phospholipasa A with another chemical
    into a new fraction - I'm still trying to find out what it is, but it
    has something to do with organophosphates, I'm sure.'
     Wood said sombrely, 'How did the African get on to that
    trick?' He looked at Gerston.
     'It's like the Vietnam 'hoppers,' the tall entomologist said.
    'The bee got exposed to a pesticide and learned to metabolize it.'
     'And once they can do that, you know it's a genetic trait,'
    Krim observed.
     Fine objected, 'But not all Africans are toxic. I've established
    that. Only the giants are.'
     They took this in. Krim said, as though thinking out loud,
    'But all Africans are mutating towards giganticism. And when
    they become giants they have the toxic capability. Is toxicity a
    function of size?'
     Gerston answered, 'But not a cause necessarily. It may be that
    they have developed the appetite for organophosphates - if that's
    what we're talking about - but can't metabolize the stuff until
    they get bigger. Then they ingest it, as the grasshoppers do.
    There's plenty of it around, God knows.'
    'But how did they learn such a thing?' Fine wondered.
    Maria said, 'In Brazil farmers have been attacking the Africans
    for years with DDT and organophosphates.'
    'And they learned about pesticides,' Gerston said.
     Krim cut them down. 'Please don't talk about "Jearning". I
    don't believe rapid adaptations or mutations - call them what
    you like - could have been learned. Is it really possible that a fly
    could adapt itself in a couple Of generation- to being resistant to
    DDT? No. Somehow the insects have been preprogrammed,
    They carry potential mutations for a variety of conditions, many
    (f which probably don't even exist yet. It's as though a broad
    range of contingencies had already been planned for. Insects
    seem to immediately develop a survival mechanism for every
    change in the environment.' . s, the African
     Wood said musingly, 'Faced with natural enemle
    bee got vicious. Confronted with cold, it used plastic.'
     'Perhaps its size helps the giant attack and overpower smaller
    
     Wood stared at him. 
    'But they haven't grown larger anywhere else, only here. To me
    that says that here the odds for them are worse. Life is harder.
    Maybe smaller bees succumb more easily to the colder climate.
    Maybe the presence of strong hives requires big bees to over-
    corne them. Clearly, the Africans are getting larger because they
    need to. But exactly what the advantage is to them we're still not
    sure. Let's look at the ethogram. Are you ready, Mac?'
     For the past week in the 8-ball and experimental hives, Mc-
    Allister had been conducting tests on the captive bees from
    Maryville to establish their capabilities. As an experienced bee
    man, he said boastfully, he had no fear of bees, African or any
    other kind. He had tried working some of the smaller Africans
    with his bare fingers, and the painful result was concealed under
    gauze and adhesive tape. McAllister's folly led to a rule laid down
    by Wood: No one could enter the experimental hives without an
    observer present to sound the alarm.
     McAllister's results had been fed to the computer, which
    collated and recorded them, shaping them into a biological
    profile, or ethogram - a catalogue of behavioural characteristics.*
    On the screen words appeared.


    ETHOGRAM FOLLOWS
    APIS MELLIFERA
    ADANSON11 MARYVILLIS
    N 9 DESIGNATES 4 NORMAL'
    NORMAL' DESIGNATES NO
    DIFFERENCE FROM
    EUROBEE CHARACTERISTICS
    a EUROBEE' DESIGNATES
    EUROPEAN-AMERICAN
    SEE
    ADANSONII MARYVILLIS
    ETHOGRAM FOLLOWS
    
    The words faded and new ones appeared.
    
     BODY LENGTH
     QUEEN 2 INCHES
     DRONE 11 INCHES
     WORKER I INCH
     VISUAL ACUITY,
     DAY (N)
     NIGHT (HIGH)
     SOUND PERCEPTION (N)
    GRAVITY PERCEPTION (N)
    TASTE PERCEPTION (HIGH)
     WAGGLE DANCE (N)
    HIVE POPULATION 75,000--100,000
    LEARNING ABILITY APPEARS HIGH (PAVLOVIAN TESTIN
    WING BEATS PER SECOND 420 (WORKER)
    EUROBEE 500 (WORKER)
    FLIGHT SPEED 12 MPH (WORKER) (DFADWIND)
    EUROBEE 14 MPH (WORKER) (DEADWIND)
    EXTENDED
    FLIGHT RANGE 100 MILES
    EuRoBEE 29 MILES
    
    'Ask for a check,, Wood said, staring at the screen. McAllister
    Pecked at the keyboard. The computer repeated:
    
    EXTENDED FLIGHT RANGE 100 MILES
    EUROBEE 29 MILES
    VIBRATION TOLERANCE LOW
    
    FECUNDITY RATE HIGH
    REPRODUCTIVE RATE HIGH
    VENOM TOXICITY LEVEL HIGH
    ABSCONDING POTENTIAL HIG14
    ELITISM CHARACTERISTIC HIGH
    ROBBING PROPENSITY HIGH
    
    HURTROPISM HIGH
    EUSOCIOLITY HIGH
    SWARMING TENDENCY HIGH
    POPULATION GROWTH POTENTIAL HIGH
    END END END
    
    The screen went blank. 'That wraps up the size question,' Wood
    said. 'It's not venom or aggressiveness that's involved so much
    as the ability to travel. His survival mechanism is spread - farther
    and faster than even the African bees in Brazil can travel.'
     'How did you establish the Right range?' Gerston asked
    McAllister.
     'Suspended a bee on a string and had it fly against a jet of air,
    What endurance! You understand he wouldn't fly a hundred
    miles at a clip. He'd have to stop and rest. But he can cover a lot
    of ground when he's swarming.'
     Wood said, 'That sounds like the African bee, all right.'
     'And being larger, he has more storage space to carry food,'
    McAllister added. 'Some swarms might fly great distances. Or
    they could get a lift once the urge to move hits them - on a truck,
    a boat, a railroad car, even a plane. I imagine they can travel at
    night, at least on a moonlit night. They'd cover the country in
    no time at all, They'd be spread thin at first, but would start
    Africanizing the bees in the vicinity, colony by colony.'
     Maria said, 'That squares exactly with the bee-incident
    pattern.'
     'It's like a migrating tribe,' Wood said. 'The main body moves
    slowly, but it's constantly sending out small groups in advance.
    I suppose the "elitism" mentioned in the ethogram means that
    the big Africans, with their pronounced tendency to spread out,
    would be the "opinion makers" in the hives - the rulers. They'd
    lead and the others would follow. It's a group effect.'
    
     'That's true of normal bees,' McAllister said. 'The others
    follow without question, because a hive is eusocial.'
     'I give up,' Gerston said. 'What is "eusocial"?'
     'A high degree of cooperation within the colony. Those
    mutants have it even more than ordinary bees.'
     'They're like scientists, then,' Gerston said, laughing sar-
    castically.
     'Forgive me, but I'm a foreigner. What is "hurtropism"T
    Maria asked. 'Something to do with pain?'
     Wood said, 'Fess up, McAllister. You coined it.'
     "Not exactly. It has to do with fire. The Africans are attracted
    by fire. Dut I meant more than that. They are drawn by bright,
    flickering lights.'
     A thought flashed in and out of Wood's mind before he could
    grasp it.
     'Shall I sum up?' McAllister went on before they broke. 'This
    insect is a very tough customer, determined to spread out and
    able to cooperate effectively with others of his kind. That's an
    enormous advantage.' He stared at the screen. 'I'm beginning
    to wonder if this is a battle science can win.'
     'Of course we'll win,' Wood said angrily.
     The tense mood was broken by the arrival of a uniformed
    soldier carrying a tray with small glasses. 'Compliments of Dr
    Hubbard, sir,' he said to Wood. 'I'm supposed to tell you it's
    bread.'
     Wood relaxed and smiled. 'Beebread. It's the new high-
    protein compound developed by NASA, which our bees will eat
    instead of pollen.'
     Gerston took a sip of the white fluid and wrinkled his long
    face. 'I'm glad I'm not a bee - or an astronaut.'
     At the door Wood whirled suddenly. 'Where do you find
    concentrations of bright, flickering lights? I'll tell you where -
    the cities. That's something we must not forget.'
    
    15 Pressure
    
    During his first hectic days at Detrick John Wood came to
    understand the other scientists better than people he had known
    his whole life. It was not merely a matter of working with them
    fourteen hours a day; he also had a chance to see them under
    the condition in which the basic outline of a human personality
    becomes as clear as the lines on a rubbing - stress.
     Shelly Hubbard, for instance. Wood had served under Hub-
    bard at the Academy for five years, yet only now did he see the
    beetle in full perspective. Wood could only marvel that Hubbard
    had let himself be desk-bound for so long. The zoologist was like
    a genie released from a bottle. He was everywhere. Time after
    time, when problems arose that seemed insurmountable, Hub-
    bard's energy, inventiveness and brilliance found the way. Under
    stress Hubbard prospered, or seemed to.,
     He performed still another service too - one Wood was to
    remember - that of morale-building. It was Hubbard who kept
    encouraging them when their spirits sank. Hubbard had a
    gimmick. At the morning sessions he would sometimes appear
    wearing his Eisenhower jacket from World War Two. Making
    the squishing noise with his hands, his antennalike projections of
    hair standing out from his dome of a head, Hubbard would say
    to them, 'Hang in. We'll do this job, you'll see. Don't forget,
    our enemy is an insect. He may be a fearsome insect, but he is
    still an insect. In no sense is he a match for man.'
     Wood revered Sheldon Hubbard, but he was aware that the
    beetle's gruff decisiveness and demanding ego could be abrasive
    to some. A sensitive individual such as George Fine, for instance,
     Fine, who seemed to possess limited physical strength, must
    have paid a high price for driving himself so hard. He was a
    shy, solitary man who spoke seldom and kept his feelings to
    himself. Wood liked Fine but wrote in his mental notebook a
    word of warning. Fine, the nit-picker, would have to be prodded.
    And he would have to be watched. His secretiveness could lead
    him to keep vital details to himself, details others should know.
     The only scientist about whom Wood had serious worries was
    Walter Krim. Not about his abilities; again and again Krim's
    intelligence illuminated critical areas. But something was bother.
    ing Krim, something that went beyond the young geneticist's
    obvious (and, to Wood, somewhat silly) sensitivity to his height,
    something that had always been there but that was being stirred
    up at Detrick by the pressure all of them were under now.
    occasionally Wood caught a strange, remote gleam in Krim's
    eyes. Behind the brittle outer rim of his intelligence, Wood was
    sure, Krim festered.
     As for John Wood, that he was a natural leader became clearer
    every day. Under pressure he performed well. But he had to use
    self-control to conceal from the scientists how apprehensive he
    really felt. He had a boundless faith in science's ability to function
    when it understood the problems. Was this one, he secretly
    wondered, beyond their capacity to comprehend?
     When Wood first arrived at Detrick, he had toured the fort by
    car, examining other installations there for possible use by
    B Group. He had noticed a large building in front of which was
    a sign reading 'Be Alert for Hazards Everywhere' and another
    over the doorway announcing that this was the US Army
    Strategic Communications Command, East Coast Telecom.
    munications Centre. Then Wood recalled that Slater had men.
    tioned such a facility. On impulse, he went inside.
     A duty officer explained that the upper floors housed a com-
    puterized army communications headquarters. On one part of
    the main floor was a radio setup called MARS-.
     'What's MARS?'Wood wanted to know.
     'Military Affiliate Radio System,' the officer returned. 'It
    serves as a sernipublic radio network between military bases in
    the US. Also, 'servicemen abroad can speak to their families at
    home -on MARS radio. In conditions of national emergency,
    MARS can operate as a disaster network.'
     Interested, Wood asked, 'How does that work?'
    
     'MARS has a club of ham radio operators, some 5,000 of
    them. They can use the MARS frequencies, and we can relay
    messages from here.' He pointed to a bank of equipment bearing
    the letters WAR. 'That's us - Whisky Alpha Romeo.'
     Probing further, Wood learned that the hams could provide
    a unique, instant, widespread reporting service outside normal
    communications channels. And many ham operators were located
    in isolated places. It now occurred to John Wood that the hams
    could be asked to flash messages concerning bee incidents any-
    where in the United States, and a 24-hour Bee Watch went into
    service at Detrick on the MARS frequencies.
     This was one reason why B Group was far better informed
    about the situation than the news media and the general public.
    It also helped explain why B Group felt under increasing pressure.
    For the map in the command room, where incidents were
    recorded, was starting to fill up.
    
    Henry David felt under pressure, too, and from a quarter he
    liked least, the government. It was largely because of his hatred
    of government that he had fled the world, and here was the
    government at his very door.
     A state agricultural worker was supposed to visit him once a
    year to check his colonies for diseases; in actual fact the in-
    spectors came far less frequently. But since the attack on Mary-
    ville, only weeks before, the inspectors had come frequently to
    look for the bees, and they had taken several colonies away with
    them. Like many beekeepers, David gave the bees sulfathiozole
    and Terramycin to protect them against foulbrood. He was told
    to start now instead of waiting until after the honey flow as
   usual. But he had no intention of complying. The honey would
    be rendered unfit to eat. What the processors did with honey was
    bad enough already. Boiling it, they ruined the natural flavour.
     Now, at dusk, he heard a sound, and looking out his trailer
    window, he saw a flashing red light coming down the dirt road.
    The police, he thought, but outside he was amazed to find a small
    truck with 'US Army' stencilled on the side. There were two
    soldiers and both wore side arms.
    
     'Mr David?' one soldier said politely. He carried his cap in
    his hand.
     'I am Henry David!
     'I'm sorry to bother you, sir. I have a purchase order here for
    some bees.'
     Henry David was confused. 'Purchase order?'
     'Yes, sir.' The soldier looked at the paper he held in his hand,
    squinting in the dim light. 'It says here " dumb bees ".'
     'Dumb bees,' David repeated. He recalled having told some.
    one about them - oh, yes, the scientist fellow at Maryville. 'The
    bees that like pollen but gather no honey?'
     'I suppose so, sir. Which bees are they?'
     'In back of the trailer.' Something in the soldier's quick
    expression made David sorry he had given away their location.
    'They're my pets. I don't want to sell them.'
     'I was told you would want to sell them,' the soldier said. He
    clearly meant must sell them.
     'I don't want to,' David said stubbornly.
     'I don't think you understand, sir.' Now Henry David grasped
    the significance of the firearm. 'My instructions are to bring
    back the bees.' He handed Henry David a green US Treasury
    cheque in the amount of five hundred dollars.
     Not another word was exchanged. The soldiers carried screens.
    They screened the hives and carried them to the truck, which
    disappeared down the road. Henry David felt alone and troubled.
    He missed his little pals already. Whatever was to become of
    them, he was sure they would not like it. He stared at the long,
    even rows of quiet beehives in front of the trailer. Suddenly his
    beeyard reminded him of a cemetery.
    
    Krim's job was to try to introduce genetic defects, or negative
    survival characteristics, into the Africans. There were two
    general ways to proceed, each unsatisfactory. The first was to try
    to produce, through X-rays, ultraviolet light, or chemicals,
    mutant bees that might then be crossbred with the Africans. Here
    the trouble, was that Krim had no way of knowing what kind of
    mutation he would get, or whether it would be passed along. The
    second way was to find a mutant strain of bees and cross their
    genetic material with the Africans'. Though Krim could not be
    sure that the defective strain would be strong enough to produce
    mutant Africans, this was the method he decided to use.
     Impatiently Krim waited for the shipment of droopy-winged
    bees that had been sent air express from the experimental bee
    lab at Davis, California. Arrival day came and went, with no
    bees. Krim got on the phone. The bees had been sent. Two days
    later they were found in a freight room at Dulles Airport. Krim
    was right to explode. The bees delivered to Detrick were dead.
     It was Gerston who had thought of the 'dumb' bees during
    the morning meeting.
    Why " dumb " Krim wanted to know.
     'That's what the old beekeeper called them. He's profoundly
    right too. These bees gather pollen but no honey, and therefore
    must be dumb in the deepest sense of the word. They couldn't
    survive a week without outside help. Creatures that set up the
    conditions for their own destruction can only be described as
    stupid.'
     David's bees were requisitioned and arrived at once. In the
    experimental hive McAllister performed preliminary tests on
    these new bees ona crash basis. They were a strange combi-
    nation - gentle with humans, hostile to other bees, and pro-
    foundly stupid.
     Now Krim could get started. Genetic surgery was in its infancy;
    scientists only barely understood how it worked. There were
    almost no technological guidelines to follow. The job would be
    enormously complex, and Krim was exhausted already.
     'What's the time factorT Gerston asked with a concerned look.
     Krim said in his garbled voice, 'If the queens mate with the
    Africans and make it into African hives, they could be respon-
    sible for two or three generations of defective bees by the end of
    the summer. I'd say the negative survival characteristic ought to
    show up in the next few months, if it appears at all.'
    
    The same urgency was experienced by George Fine.
     Edgewood Arsenal had been sticky but finally understood the
    situation and issued Fine the proper clearance. ZP-10960A, it
    revealed, had the chemical name of neodiisophrophylphosph
    fluoridate. Fine understood what that meant.
     .This chemical belonged to a class of substances that affected
    the body by interfering with the function of acety1cholinesterase
    (AChE). AChE, as he had pointed out to Wood, breaks down
    the acetylcholine released at nerve endings, which results in an
    impulse. If these impulses are not terminated, the impulses con-
    tinue to be sent, and the body and brain go out of control. Heart
    rhythm, for instance, is regulated by AChE, and if AChE pro-
    duction is lowered or stopped, the heart begins to beat irregularly,
    causing death.
     Before World War Two only 'reversible' anticholinesterase
    (anti-ChE) agents were known. 'Reversible' meant that the
    conditions caused by the chemical could be reversed by the body
    unless it had been received in a large amount. The effect then
    was temporary. Reversible anti-ChE agents were found in
    poisons used by African tribes. At the beginning of World War
    Two, 1. G. Farben in Germany developed a new class of highly
    toxic chemicals, the organophosphates, first as pesticides, such
    as parathion, then as a chenidcal-warfare agent, namely, the
    famous nerve gas tabun. The extreme toxicity of this gas and its
    relatives, sarin and sonan, was due to their 'irreversible' action
    on AChE, resulting in death.
     Neodiisophrophyl phosphorofluoridate represented an interest-
    ing and important chemical breakthrough. Although the effects
    and chemical structure made it seem to belong to the highly
    toxic irreversible group of compounds, it was in fact a reversible
    agent if you knew the secret. Acute anti-ChE intoxication could
    be countered with a drug called atropine when used in sufficient
    dosages. Atropine did not work well against neodiisophrophyl
    phosphorolluoride, rendering the standard defence against nerve
    gases powerless. What did work, and effectively, was a substance
    developed at Edgewood called protoatropine.
     Production of the new substance had been put on the shelf,
    partly because American warheads were already filled with
    effective chemical-warfare agents and partly because more
    peaceful relations with China and the Soviet Union made a
    development prograrnme for a new weapon seem increasingly
    unnecessary. Nonetheless, Fine was sworn to the greatest
    secrecy. Only he among B Group knew precisely the nature of
    the chemicals he was dealing with. If anything happened to Fine,
    his successor would have to deal again with Edgewood.
     Fine by now had ruled out the development of an antitoxin to
    the bee venom. It might take years. What he wanted was an
    antidote that could be placed in an ampule for autoinjection and
    widely distributed. But before anything was said, protoatTopine
    had to be tested. It might not work, because neodiisophrophyl
    phosphorofluoridate was in a new combination with bee venom.
     Fine made his first tests with white rabbits. He gave the
    rabbits an injection of venom, and followed it up at varying
    intervals with protoatropine. The first rabbit died before Fine
    could give it the antidote. He lowered the venom dosage and
    gave it to another rabbit. This one lived long enough to receive
    thi antidote, but only just.
     In this way he gradually established the antidotes capacity to
    stop venom action in rabbits. The first tests were satisfactory.
    He then proceeded to a larger animal, a dog. Next would come
    rhesus monkeys, which left one step to go - testing the antidote
    on a human being. He wondered who; inevitably, there would
    be some risk.
    
    'CQ, Fort Detrick, Maryland ... CQ, Fort Detrick, Maryland
    ... CQ, Fort Detrick, Maryland. This is Whisky, Eight, Alpha,
    Bravo, Charlie. CQ, Fort Detrick, Maryland . . . CQ, Fort
    Detrick, Maryland!
     The Detrick operator, a sergeant, had been spinning the dial
    across the band to pick up transmissions emanating from any-
    where in the country. When he heard Whisky, Eight, Alpha,
    Bravo, Charlie calling he locked in on the frequency.
     'Hello W8ABC.- This is Whisky, Three, Whisky, Alpha,
    Romeo, Fort Detrick, Maryland,' the operator said in a bored
    voice.
     'W3WAR, this is W8ABC. I'm Harry Brandon on Doer
    Island. I'm in trouble, W3WAR, bad trouble!
     The sergeant looked at the duty officer, who put down a paper-
    back novel and stared across the room.
 

    'What's the trouble, W8ABC? Where exactly is Deer Island?'
    The duty officer signalled to a soldier at a switchboard. It was
    possible to trace the location of a sending station. The officer had
    started this procedure just in case.
     'You've never heard of it. It's a small island in Lake Superior,
    just offshore. I'm about forty miles from Duluth, to the north-east.'
     'Okay, W8ABC. We've found you. What's the trouble?'
     'There's a tremendous swarm of bees outside. They seem to
    want to get in. I can hardly believe it.'
     The sergeant glanced at the officer, who said, 'Ask if he's
    called for help.' The sergeant did.
     I This is my call for help. There's no phone.'
     'Where are you on the island, W8ABC?'
     Southern tip. You can't miss it. Only house. Send a helicopter.
    Send something.' Brandon was frightened.
     The officer began looking up the nearest military base that had
    a helicopter.
     'In motion, W8ABC. Are you alone?'
     'Yes. I came over to do some fishing. Oh God!
     'What is it, W8ABC?'
     I They're beating on the windows. Sounds like a hailstorm.'
     'Any place to hide, W8ABC? Have you a cellar?'
     'No cellar. This is just a summer shack.' There was a sound
    like glass breaking. Brandon said, 'Oh God, here they come.'
    He began to scream.
    . The duty officer and the sergeant looked at each other and for
    a few seconds froze. The sergeant turned back to the microphone.
     'Come in W8ABC. Come in, W8ABC. Come in Whisky,
    Eight, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie,' the sergeant repeated endlessly.
    'Can you hear me ? Can you hear me ?'
    
    16 The 'cocktaW
    
    The aim had been to insulate the scientists from the terror sweep
    in the country, just as the country tried to protect itself from the
     dangerous bees. In vain were both efforts. Fear floated into the
     inner compound at Detrick as if borne on wings.
     McAllister's sister called the entomologist from a small town
     north of Chicago. She neither knew nor cared what experiment
     her brother was conducting in Maryland. It mattered only that,
     as a bee man, he could tell her what to do.
     Rose and her family lived across the street from tennis courts.
     Between sobs she related what she had witnessed from her
     window. She had not even had time to shout warning.
     A bulldozer had been clearing ground for new courts when
     the bees came, silently, as if from nowhere, massing above the
     courts unseen until a player lobbed and, raising his head, saw
     the tennis ball enter the black patch. He screamed. The bees
     descended with the ball.
     Some players made it to the gates, but most got only to the
     fence. One man shinnied up and over in terrible haste as if
     breaking from prison; another, halfway up, stiffened as though
     the fence had electrocuted him and dropped to the hard surface
     below. Others flailed their rackets in a desperate game with the
     lunging bees.
       Six died.
     McAllister's counsel to his sister consisted of one word:
     'Move.'
     But the letter Gerston received affected the Detrick scientists
     still more. It had been forwarded unopened in a larger envelope
     by Gerston's wife, who enclosed a photograph of their daughter.
     Gerston yelped delightedly, passing the picture around the con-
     trol room, but when he looked at the letter his long face puckered.
     
     'God,' he gasped, and read the letter aloud. It was from a ma e
    cousin who taught college in New Mexico.
    
     ... never been through anything so horrible. A dozen people,
    half of them children, swam in a pool. I'd been playing around
    with my kid's face mask and breathing tube, thank God! The
    only warning was this whir - like the rustling of distant leaves. I
    guess those goddamn bees wanted water, because they dipped to
    the pool. The kids naturally panicked, and splashed water at
    them. It was the wrong thing to do.
     There were people around the pool, and seeing what was
    happening, they ran away. Two adults in the pool got out and
    tried to run, but didn't get far. The rest of us stayed where we
    were.
     Even letting the top of your head show above water was risky.
    I could stay down because of the tube, but the others had to come
    up for air. I watched some of it, though. Lucky I had the mask - a
    couple of bees banged against the glass.
     First we all went into shallow water - except one kid, trying to
    swim, didn't make it. She wore water wings, and for the next two
    hours her corpse floated around the pool like some awful buoy,
    still getting stung. The rest of us squatted in the water, sticking
    our heads out like seals and taking huge gasps of air, and then
    ducking under again. I hate to say this, but the bees seemed to
    catch on. When a face emerged they tried to sting it. I can't com-
    municate the horror of people trying to breathe before the bees
    got them - these helpless faces darting out and the bees diving
    at them. One man had this enormous red swelling on his cheek
    and one eye was closed. Actually, he survived - one of three. The
    police didn't dare use gas on the bees because of us, so there was
    no defence whatever. Finally the bees flew away.
     Bob, you're an entomologist. Do something before it's too late
    for all of us.
    
    The scientists drew long breaths. Wood said, 'Did you see the
    New York Times?' He pointed to the editorial.
    
             THE AFRICAN CALAM11TY
    The President in his statement of three weeks ago reassured the
    nation on the menace of the African honeybee. He called it
    small', instructed the nation not to panic, and said that scientific
    experts would soon have the situation under control.
     Clearly; the secrecy cannot be maintained much longer. The
    nation has a right to know what measures are being undertaken
    for its defence.
     Clearly, too, the menace posed by these insect invaders is
    mounting. Reports from over the country tell of attacks by these
    savage creatures and growing apprehension on the part of the
    public.
     It seems to us entirely conceivable that the dangerous bee -
    whose venom can be fatal - could so disrupt agriculture in the
    United States that food shortages and even starvation could
    result. Cities such as New York are entirely dependent on the
    outside for food and are thus especially vulnerable.
     Urban areas sho uld be stockpiling food now. But they are not.
    There is a pervasive optimism about science's capacity to deal
    with this intruder, but we wonder how much this confidence is
    justified.
     Can this bee really be stopped? Could it conceivably render
    this continent uninhabitable for human beings? To such momen-
    tous questions the nation must have answers - and soon.
    
    ,Let's talk about the cocktail,' Wood said tersely.
     The 'cocktail' fell under a category called 'alternatives to
    pesticides'.
     As Wood pointed out, the first defensive weapon used by man
    against his insect enemies was his own hand. Until technology
    -brought the insecticide into being, nothing could compete with
    the human hand in * terms of plain effectiveness.
     The most famous - or infamous - of pesticides is DDT, an
    odourless, colourless, crystalline compound first synthesized in
    1874 but not recognized as an insecticide until the early 1940s.
    Its first notable successes were against clothes moths and lice in
    Swiss refugee camps. It was used on a large scale against a lice.
    borne typhus epidemic in Italy during World War Two, with
    staggering effectiveness. By the mid-1960s American ma 'ac-
    turers were producing 180 million pounds of DDT a year - by
    far the record for a pesticide before or since.
     DDT was thought to be the 'final solution' to the problem of
    harmful insects. But, as Wood knew, even before Rachel Carson's
    Silent Spring called international attention to the dangers of
    DDT to man and the environment, thoughtful biologists had
    warned that insects would soon develop an immunity to the
    substance. Further, they said, this immunity would be hereditary.
    And within a few years after DDT was used on a mass scale,
    mosquitoes, house flies and other insects began to be impervious
    to it. In the Tennessee Valley, flies became DDT-resistant in a
    matter of months. It was also learned that the DDT in the
    environment was increasingly hazardous to man.
     There was another class of pesticides available, the organo-
    Phosphates, which had the same chemical structure as nerve
    gases. They degraded more rapidly than DDT, but they were
    much more immediately toxic than DDT to man and animals.
    I All along scientists had been interested in pesticide alternatives,
    but spurred by ecologists such as Wood, the search accelerated.
     One promising technique was sterilization. In 1916 the ento-
    mologist G. A. Runner reported the sterilization of cigarette
    'beetles with X-rays. It was then learned that insects could be
    sterilized and still not lose the desire to mate. At the US Depart-
    ment of Agriculture a technique was devised by which male
    screwworm flies were raised in captivity, exposed to cobalt-60
    radiation, and dropped by aeroplane over the island of Curagao
    and screwworm-infested areas in Florida. They mated with
    females, which produced infertile eggs. So successful was this
    programine that it is still carried out in Texas, where, during the
    screwworm mating season, the USDA raises and releases 150
    million sterilized males a week.
     For a number of reasons - among them that not all sterilized
    male insects can compete with unsterilized males - new and
    highly original pesticide alternatives have been tried. Wood
    reviewed them.
     One, Wood said, involved the manipulation of insect growth
    patterns. In 1920, investigating the transformation to gypsy moth
    from the caterpillar stage, Polish biologist Stephan Kopec tied a
    slender cord around the caterpillar's middle. The head section
    moulted and pupated normally, but the tail section remained that
    of a caterpillar. There must be, Kopec deduced, a developmental
    substance whose passage from the anterior section had been
    blocked. His microsurgical experiments established the existence
    of such a substance, a hormone.
    Another biologist, a Japanese, Soichi Fuka, found a second
    hormone, without which neither moulting nor pupating occurred.
    He called it ecdysone, from the Greek ekdysis, meaning 'escape'.
    Still a third controlling hormone was discovered by the English
    physiologist V. B. Wigglesworth. It was called simply the
    juvenile hormone.
    Injections of ecdysone brought insects through growth and
    development at a breakneck pace, resulting in premature death.
    When the juvenile hormone was administered, larvae either did
    not metamorphose or grew into intermediate forms incapable of
    reproduction.
    But the hormones would have to be synthesized if they were
    to be employed on a large-scale for insect control. In 1966 a
    simple chemical process was discovered to produce a synthetic
    hormone that, when put into water at a ratio of one part to
    100,000, completely prevented the emergence of adult mosquitoes.
    Finally it was found that hormonal substances that distorted
    insect growth could be developed from trees and plants. In 1964
    a young Czech entomologist, Karel Slarna, working at Harvard,
    hit on the fact that larvae placed on paper towelling failed to
    mature, while those not exposed to the towelling did. The 'paper
    factor' was traced to the balsam tree, used in all American paper
    manufacture. It was deduced that plants might use mimic insect
    hormones as their own means of encouraging or controlling
    insects. Further, the,mimic ecdysones isolated from trees and
    plants proved to be specific. They acted upon some insects but
    not on others.*
     In 1973, Wood noted, the Department of Agriculture, in
    
    An article especially helpful to Wood was Dr Morton Grosser's
    The Control of insects,, Zoecon Corporation 1970 Annual Report.
    Experiments with line-rearing of bees, discovered that a dysone
    made from goldenrod would speed the development of bees,
    Administered in larger quantities than the bees would receive
    from nature, it produced giant larvae that failed to mature.
     There were also the pheromones. Wood traced the history of
    this discovery.
     It had been long known that insects attract each other for
    mating purposes by means of smell. In 1890 the French naturalist
    Jean-Henri Fabre proved that a species of moth could attract
    the opposite sex in the dark. Fabre, however, comparing the
    atmosphere to a huge sink, did not believe such an event could
    occur over any great distance as a result of odour , particles.
    Instead, he assumed the moths communicated by radio waves,
    and in this he was mistaken. Subsequently it was learned that
    the male silkworm moth can detect the chemical attractant
    secreted by the female from a distance of 6.8 miles, orienting
    itself to the female's location against the wind.
     Not merely sex attraction, scientists found, but a number of
    insect activities were governed by chemical messengers, which
    were called pheromones, from the 'Greek pherein ('to carry')
    and horman ('to excite'). They were chemical hot lines carrying
    information vital to survival. They included, in the case of bees,
    alarm (sending the soldiers to battle), aggregation (or colony
    cohesion), trail marking, recognition (through hive odours), and
    the nuptial flight of queens. The queen bee alone secretes over
    thirty kinds of chemical messengers from glands in her head and
    thorax.
     The cocktail,, as Wood and his fellow scientists designed it,
    would carry three ingredients - an antipheromone substance, an
    insect growth regulator, and a disease that killed bees.
     The US Department of Agriculture's experimental research
    station at Beltsville, Maryland, was able to locate quickly a large
    apiary outside Baltimore where American foulbrood had broken
    out. AFB causes infected larvae to shrivel and die. Infected
    larvae from ten hives contained enough AFB spores to infect
    every beehive in the world.
     The insect growth regulator (IGR) was manufactured by
    Zoecon, a California company that specialized in insecticide
    alternatives. To produce IGR on the scale necessary demanded a
    thousand-gallon capacity, which Zoecon had.
    The antipheromone proved the hardest until Wood, in the
    discussion, remembered that spiders exposed to a certain sub-
    stance lost the ability to build webs. The chemical was LSD.
    McAllister thought that minute quantities of LSD introduced
    into the experimental hives might cause the bees to run about
    aimlessly, forgetting to feed the queen or build comb for the
    young. Experiments soon proved him correct. Wood believed
    the LSD would have to be microencapsulated in order to give
    the bees that swallowed it time enough to get back to the hive,
    but experiments subsequently-showed that the bees would return
    to the hive before the drug took effect.
    LSD, AFB spores and IGR would be put into honey. The
    honey went into small plastic receptacles that would break open
    but not shatter on impact. The cocktails - to be manufactured
    by Du Pont in Delaware, which coul d turn them out in three
    weeks - would be dropped by the hundreds of thousands over
    African enclaves. The bees would eat the honey, fly back to the
    hives, and add the regurgitated honey to their stores. In the
    hive, AFB would attack the larvae, the hormones would also
    attack the larvae, and the LSD would disrupt hive activity. A
    bee colony must have homeostasis - that is, it must maintain a
    steady state of self-regulation through internal feedback. LSD
    would change horneostasis to anarchy.
    As Wood remarked to the group when the planning session
    was over, it seemed easy - almost too easy.

    17 A casualty at Detrick
    
    Despite the mounting pressure, each scientist performed the
    tasks assigned to him and tried to help the others as well. Much
    of this work would be- wasted - which they knew and accepted,
    As Hubbard liked to say, in scientific research you paid your
    nickel and took your chances.
     Sheldon Hubbard had good reason to be satisfied, for his bee
    factory was rolling. The queens in the laying area were perform-
    ing like troopers. More than 16,000 had survived, and each day
    they filled 16,000 plastic platens with eggs. Attendants in sterilized
    laboratory gear - blue, white or brown, depending on which line
    they serviced - moved the trays on metal carts to the incubators
    where the eggs would hatch. As soon as the incubators were
    empty, they were cleaned and filled with freshly laid eggs, so the
    process of reproduction and development cofitinued without pause.
     On the surface, Hubbard himself seemed unchanged, making
    the squishing noise with his hands, bobbing his beetle head with
    its antennalike projections of hair. Deep down, though, Hubbard
    was bone tired. He had gone without sufficient food or sleep for
    weeks as he prodded the construction along. He had not told
    anyone, but for the first time in his life he had begun to suffer
    from dizzy spells. He was not young any more, he told himself;
    as soon as the first queens emerged from the blue line he would
    slow up. But in the meantime there was so much to do ...
    
    The Grid Area at Fort Detrick looks from the air like a giant
    target, with large concentric circles around the centre. Over this
    target a HUEY helicopter hovered, dropping light plastic boxes
    from various heights.
    I Each of these boxes, fluttering to the ground, contained live
    American bees. McAllister, in a bee veil, checked the condition
    of the insects as dropped from different heights. Some of the
    boxes contained the alarm pheromone - isopentyl acetate - in
    glass vials. These vials shattered on impact, and the bees rose
    from the boxes in an ugly mood, so ugly that McAllister and his
    assistants had turned and run. McAllister hoped they would rout
    the Africans in the same way.
    
    Walter Krim, the young geneticist, found himself uncontrollably
    tense, even snappish. The experiment he was conducting was
    getting to him. The others, at least, would be able to tell,within
    a reasonable time whether their work had succeeded, but Krim
    nidght not know for months. He might never know.
    The line-reared queens were to be made 'stupi ' and then
    released. They had to mate successfully with African drones,
    breed, and their progeny mate and breed too, before self-
    destructively stupid bees would exist in numbers large enough to
    make a difference. Perhaps two generations would be required,
    perhaps three. It might not happen until the end of the summer,
    or even later. It might not happen at all. Genes were a tricky
    business.
    Normally, Krim would have tested the procedure on gener-
    ations of bees under laboratory conditions, but there was no time
    for that. He would have liked to run a computerized study on
    probability outcomes, but in view of the pressure, decided to
    wait for that. Either it worked or it didn't, Krim told himself
    fatalistically.
    There was, however, certain knowledge that he had to have,
    and Mac McAllister provided it. He made a hasty visit to Henry
    David to ask questions and conducted tests in the 8-ball, com-
    bining the information into an ethogram. Though the dumb
    strain reappeared generation after generation, it had not spread
    over Henry David's hives; the reason,'it seemed, lay not in their
    lack of fecundity but in the odd hours the queer bees chose for
    mating ffight5. Finally, as McAllister showed, the drones of this
    tribe were strong and far-ranging.

    These qualifications were vital. A recessive gene would have
    failed to do the job, and so would low fertility. That the dumb
    bees picked funny times to mate didn't matter, Krim thought; it
    was a quirk of a minor sort that would be drowned in the African
    gene pool.
     About this gene Walter Krim made one highly sophisticated
    assumption on which the experiment might stand or fall. He
    chose to interpret the bees' peculiar habit of gathering pollen
    but no honey as a symptom, not a trait on its own. The genetic
    trait that lay behind this habit Krim saw as a sort of -urge to
    racial suicide, and this, rather than any one manifestation of the
    genetic defect, was what Krim wanted to transmit to the Africans.
     The technique known variously as 'genetic surgery', 'genetic
    transfers', 'genetic manipulation', 'genetic engineering', and the
    'genetic hook' had been talked about since the mid-1940s.
    Scientists at Rockefeller Institute (now Rockefeller University)
    in New York City succeeded in extracting genetic material from
    one kind of cell and putting it into another, giving that cell new
    hereditary properties. But the technique was cruclQ; the injected
    material consisted of a mixture of many genes of various types.
    By the 1960s Rockefeller scientists had learned to break up the
    genetic material of a bacterial cell into individual genes, isolating
    specific ones that determined particular cell characteristics.
     It was clear by then that there was a genetic language used by
    all forms of life on the planet, with minor variations. Simple
    genetic messages could be chemically synthesized, and genetic
    surgery. was a reality applied to microorganisms. Genes from
    one s~train of bacteria could be inserted into another. The host
    would then have received a new set of instructions, or genetic
    messages, whose commands, being now part of its physical self,
    had to be followed. Thus the nature of microorganisms could be
    changed.
     Eventually, it was hoped, genetic surgery could be used to
    correct such human defects as mental retardation, diabetes, or'
    sterility by introducing missing genes whose absence accounted
    for the trouble. The best approach seemed to be vircises. A virus
    consists of an outer shell and an inner core of the genetic code
    material, DNA. What a virus does is to enter a cell and force
    that cell to reproduce the virus.
     The genetic transfer had already been accomplished in experi-
    ments with fruit flies at Iowa State. The trouble lay in imprecision.
    It was, so far, impossible to make the hook selectivo - that is, to
    make the virus pick up just the package of chromosomes wanted,
    and only those.
     Now Krim was pushing the technique one step farther. His
    reasoning would be studied for years to come by intelligent
    scientists, but it could be boiled down to this: Since the virus
    was in essence pure DNA, what was the difference between a
    virus and DNA? Perhaps none. The dumb bees from Maryville
    may have had a virus once that entered their cellular system and
    located there permanently, lowering their intelligence. This virus
    was no longer transmissible by ordinary. means, but it still
    existed as part of the bees' genetic code. Therefore, a virus would
    not be needed to spread 'dumbness'. The quality could be trans-
    mitted by using the genetic material of the dumb bees itself. The
    transfer would be direct, not by means of a viral intermediary.
     This was the route Krim decided to take. Henry David's dumb
    bees ended their lives in a crusher and emerged as paste. This
    tissue was carefully reduced by a series of millicron filters and
    washings in a weak benzene. The clear fluid was filtered again,
    and what remained was a dab of white material that looked
    something like plastic. This was pure DNA. It was cultured by a
    standard system and grew. It was then brought to the National
    Institutes of Health near Washington, which cultured it in
    quantity. It would then be added to the royal jelly fed to the queen
    larvae in the bee factory. If it took, the viral-DNA residue would
    invade the cells of the larval queens, and they in turn would
    produce dumb bees. If it took ...
     Maria Amaral had been lent to Krim to help in the experi-
    ment. The two worked side by side in the lab, mostly in silence.
 
    Occasionally, when Krim wasn't looking, Maria watched him -
    apprehensively. Sometimes, too, Krim's uncertain glance stole
    towards her, but his expression was different. Behind the closed
    shutters of his mind Walter Krim was having fantasies - fantasies
    too urgent to ignore. In one he implanted his own genetic
    material in Maria Amaral. In another he was injected with bad seed.
    
    George Fine, test ing the antidote, had completed the series on
    dogs. Anaesthetized with sodium pentobarbitol, they were
    injected -with venom and then the antidote. Electrodes were
    attached from the dog to a physiograph that recorded EKG,
    heart rate, blood pressure, central venous pressure, respiration
    and electroencephalographs, while Fine observed impatiently. if
    one of these vital functions began to fail, Fine injected more
    protoatropim. It did not always work. More than twenty pure-
    bred beagles had died in the experiments.
     Fine was srying to determine what constituted a lethal dosage
    of venom in order to know how much antidote had to be used in
    the ampule or subsequent autoinjector. 'LD 100' meant that all
    the animals died; 'LD 50' that half of them did. Thus the dogs
    received the venom in various quantities, and Fine checked their
    functions with his instruments in terms of both lethality and time.
     At last Fine'determined how much antidote a dog required.
    The next series would use rhesus monkeys, whose physiology
    closely resembled that of a human. Then came the critical test,
    with a human volunteer. In the BW days at Detrick the army
    had what it called Project White Coat, in which soldiers, often
    Seventh Day Adventists, who are opposed to bloodshed, volun.
    teered, after a fashion, to serve as guinea pigs. There would be
    no army volunteers now. Perhaps, Fine thought, something could
    be worked out with a convict in exchange for a parole. He no
    longer expected the experiment to be dangerous, but there was
    always the chance that something could go wrong.
    
    Using live drones, Gerston - with Wood helping him - tested
    the sterilization procedures. The experiment had already proved
    successful: test drones exposed to radiation on their first day of
    adulthood survived, but the sperm they carried was useless to a
    queen. Now it was merely a matter of determining how many
    drones could be sterilized in the large room previously used for
    biological warfare. The walls consisted of a foot of lead ericased
    in three feet of concrete.
     The bees, in plastic boxes, had been placed on glass tables at
    various levels around the room. His footsteps echoing through
    the chamber, Gerston positioned the dosimeters - packets of
    lithium fluoride that would register radiation and indicate any
    blind spots. The proper dosage, it had been determined, was
    50,000 roentgens of gamma radiation from cobalt-60 sources.
    There were six sources buried in the concrete floor, capped by
    heavy lead shields. The cobalt-60 itself was attached to each of
    these shields. The shields fitted exactly into lead wells. Metal
    cables reached from the shields to the ceiling.
    The two men left the room, closing the thick door with the
    electronic controls, The control panel was under a large yellow
    and maroon sign saying Danger - Radiation. When Gerston
    pressed a switch, shields carrying their cargoes of cobalt rose to
    varying heights in the room. Fifteen minutes later Gerston turned
    off the switch, and the cobalt sources slowly settled back into the
    crypts in the floor.
    Gerston and Wood went into the room. As though a cloud had
    settled in the barren chamber, the air was grey and sharp, with
    he crackly smell of ozone.
    Gerston checked the drones. 'Well, they survived. They'll have
    sperm, but their mates won't produce workers - only drones.,
     'And if we're lucky, that'll be the end of the African hives.'
    They stared at each other. The tall entomologist said, 'John,
    you seem worried. It isn't like you.'
    Wood stopped smiling. 'Maybe I am a little. You see right
    through me, Bob.'
    'Well, don't worry. We'll nail those bees. You know, I'm
    starting to hate them.'
    'It wasn't the Africans I was thinking of,' Wood said. 'It's our
    own people. We're working too hard. Were all tired. Somebody
    will make a mistake.'
    
    In the third-floor bedroom John and Maria used, the radio
    carried the news: 'Peculiar stories nobody quite knows the
    meaning of. Attacks by bees in many parts of the country,
    though principally in the northeast, north-mid-central area and
    the northwest. People in these regions have been urged by   the
    Secretary of Agriculture, M. R. Voight, to carry bee veils  and
    gloves with them at all times. Bees are to be avoided if possible,
    he says, and any bees of exceptional size should be reported at
    Once. Voight maintains there is no serious cause for alarm, but
    no one here in Washington can remember a time when the
    government has taken such a keen interest in an insect. Swarms
    of bees have been sighted in flight, one of which, near southern
    Oregon, was so large that it was mistaken for a flock of migrating
    birds. We don't know what it adds up to, but-,
     'Turn that damn thing off, will you?' John said from the
    barrackslike room's sole chair near the single window.
     Maria rolled across the bed and switched off the radio. 'We are
    grumpy tonight,' she laughed.
     6 We are not grumpy. We are edgy, that's all,' John-said.
     'Then we must remove the edge. Come here,' she commanded.
     She wore a pair of his pyjama pants and was naked to the
    waist. Her dark hair, piled up during the day, fell to the small of
    her back. The contrast between her daytime and nighttime selves
    was like her haii - up during the day, down at night - and always
    surprised him..Cerebral, collected, detached as a scientist, in the
    bedroom she slipped into another role as easily as she took off
    her shoes. 'Lie down.'
     He did, and instantly relaxed as her hands moved over his skin.
    'That's delicious.'
     'Poor darling,' she said thoughtfully. 'The pressure on you is
    terrific.'
     'Well, I'm fortunate,' he murmured. 'I have an outlet. I have you.'
     'I do not like being described as an outlet,' she said firmly.
     'All right. Still, when I do tense up, I have you to calm me
    down. The others don't.'
     She rubbed harder, as though her fingers could feel the tension
    that surged through him again. 'Easy,' she said. 'Everything will
    be all right.'
     'Will it ? I feel I should be down there in the facility right now.'
    He yawned. 'But I'm glad I'm not.'
     'How is the edge?'
     'Going.'
     'Don't lose all of it,' Maria said. 'I have need for you.'
    
    Maria's head was on his bare shoulder, her hair spread out on
    his chest almost as if it had been arranged there. Wood was
    burrowed deep into sleep. Then the phone rang. For a moment
    he forgot where he was. He looked blankly at the bare, cell-like
    chamber almost devoid of furniture, at the moonbeams flooding
    the shadeless window, at the dark head on his shoulder. His
    watch said just past midnight. Now he could hear the alarm
    trumpet.
     The phone rang again, and this time Wood picked it up. Fine's
    voice was hoarse. 'It's Hubbard,' he gasped. 'He ... Comedown
    to the hive.'
     Wood put on the bed light. Maria jerked up her head. 'What?'
     I Hubbard,' he said. He dived into his coveralls and shoes -and
    left the room.
    
    In the experimental hive, workmen in protective clothing were
    inside an air lock struggling to open the door to a hive containing
    giant Africans. The door wouldn't budge at first because the
    thick body of Sheldon Hubbard blocked it. The alarm trumpet
    howled.
     As best he could, Fine told Wood what had happened.
    
    George Fine had gone to bed, but preoccupied with the problem
    of antidote, he couldn't sleep. He had gone back to the lab with
    the idea of continuing the venom tests on rhesus monkeys.
     Through the glass partition separating the various sections of
    the facility he had noticed Hubbard pacing distractedly, as
    though thinking out a problem. Fine thought that it probably
    had to do with speeding up development on the bee-rearing lines,
    which Hubbard still wanted to accomplish.

     The man looked exhausted. Fine had not been fond of Shelly
    since their argument, but he told himself that Hubbard had
    better slow down if he expected to make it through the long
    summer. He knew he could have said the same thing about
    himself.
     Fine went back to his microscope. When he raised his head
    again he saw that Hubbard had donned a protective suit. In
    violation of the rule not to enter the hive without an observer,
    Hubbard went inside. Hecarried a plastic case with a dish of
    honey in it, with the obvious intent of capturing a few bees for
    experimental purposes. Fine was curious and began watching
    him through the glass wall separating the experimental apiary
    from the lab.
     Fine saw what happened next in helpless horror. Inside the
    hive Hubbard stopped and shook his head as if he were dizzy.
    Then he stumbled on a flower pot, lurched, and went down, his
    visor catching on the corner of the wooden hive. For a heavy
    man, Hubbard got up fast, and Fine, on his feet, could see why.
    Hubbard had a rip in his headpiece.
     Disturbed by th& impact, the bees rose too, circling Hubbard's
    head and trying to plant their stings in the smooth plastic of the
    suit. Fine, moving hurriedly towards the experimental hive, saw
    Hubbard make a terrible mistake. Instead of heading directly for
    the lock, he tried to cover the hole in the visor with his hand,
    and backed off slowly. Fine, now in the experimental hive section,
    watched what happened next with disbelief. Shelly Hubbard
    was opening his visor! A bee had evidently slipped inside the
    hood and Hubbard was trying to get it out.
     It was at this exact moment that George Fine hesitated. There
    was an emergency button that sounded a trumpet throughout the
    factory area, and he pressed it. Another button would have re-
    leased cyanide inside the hive, but Hubbard had his window open.
    Also, Fine was not wearing a protective suit. The only thing he
    might have done was to enter the lock and open the door for
    Shelly Hubbard, which would have been extremely dangerous
    for George Fine. Perhaps, in that instant available, Fine's mind
    returned to the row with Hubbard; in any case, a second later it
    was too late.
     Hubbard panicked. Fine saw his mouth fly open as though in
    a huge grin. He was screaming a single word -'Help!' Hubbard
    now wrenched the handle to the door of the lock so hard that it
    broke off in his hand. He held it, looked at it, and then the bees
    attacked in mass.
     Hubbard tried to protect his face with his gloved hands, then
    pressed his face against the door. Slowly, his face slid down the
    glass until he was on his knees,,his eyes puffed but open. That was
    where he was when Wood arrived.
     Workmen in protective suits forced the door and dragged
    Hubbard into the lock. The bees that followed them were killed
    with wire swatters. Maria came, examined Hubbard, and pro-
    nounced him dead.
     Fine was close to tears. 'I should have gone in, should have
    gone in.'
     Wood felt numb. 'There was nothing you could have done,'
    he said tonelessly.
     Sheldon Hubbard's obituaries, filled with praise for his scien-
    tific accomplishments, failed to mention his current project, which
    was absurd. The need for secrecy had already ended.
    
    On the way back from Shelly Hubbard's funeral, four days later,
    Wood suddenly began to sob behind the wheel of the car. Maria
    put her hand on the back of his head and held it there. Wood
    kept his wet eyes on the road.
     Approaching Detrick, they could see that something had
    happened. Traffic was backed up and horns screamed. A police-
    man got them through the crowd.
     In the old days at Fort Detrick, vigils against BW had been
    carried on by the Quakers. Now there were pickets again. Some
    carried signs reading Save the Bees, others Kill the Bees. The
    two groups had lined up outside the Detrick gate. They were
    fighting.
    

    18 The enemy grows
    
    A principal objective of the scientists trying to deal with the
    African invaders was to avoid the indiscriminate slaughter of
    bees. Such an event might bring on an agricultural crisis at least
    as serious as the one posed by the Africans.
     The scientists at the bee facility reasoned that if the public
    remained unaware of the large scientific effort being mounted
    at Detrick it might continue to regard the African bees as a
    localized menace, and by the time the peril was public knowledge,
    effective control techniques would already be in operation, allow-
    ing the President to announce that a solution had been found. It
    was in their assumption that the bee crisis could be dealt with on
    a rational level that the scientists made their major mistake. -
     The man responsible for blowing B Group's cover was F. W.
    McAllister.
     Understandably, the people of Frederick, Maryland, were
    curious about what went on behind the new fence circling
    Detrick's inner compound. Workmen who had been employed
    there could give no cogent explanation about what had been
    constructed, except that it had to do, of all things, with bees.
    Getting the facts on the facility at Detrick was a story assigned
    to the top reporter of the local paper, the Frederick Post.
     Fort Detrick's own public-affairs bulletin had routinely re-
    ported the arrival of eminent scientists at the fort, with their
    names and academic affiliations. The reporter picked a name at J
    random. Checking by phone with Kansas University, the reporter
    learned that F. W. McAllister was an entomologist, hymenop-
    terist and apiologist. He was on an extended leave of absence
    from the university.
     The reporter called McAllister directly. He said merely that
    Frederick was honoured to have an outstanding entomologist in
    its midst, and that the Post would like a profile on McAllister
    covering his background and accomplishments. Would he con-
    sent to be interviewed? Foolishly, McAllister agreed.
     McAllister must have had an intimation about what would
    happen, for he said nothing about the interview to Wood. He
    met the reporter at the officers' mess, and over lunch responded
    enough to the reporter's flattery to give him an inkling of what
    went on in the secured building. In a way an inkling was worse
    than the full truth. The reporter was also a stringer for the
    Associated Press. The next day - the morning after Shelly Hub-
    bard's death - a sensationalized account of B Group made front
    pages throughout the country.
     The president of the National Academy of Sciences conferred
    by phone with the President of the United States, and a hastily
    organized press conference was called for 2pm in the Fort
    Detrick theatre, after which the reporters were invited to tour
    the facilities.
     Willard Lightower read a brief statement for the TV cameras
    and turned the meeting over to Wood, who, though profoundly
    disturbed about Hubbard's death, was determined not to show it.
    
    Q Do youmaintain that the African bees can be stopped?
    A I do, yes. We have prepared some very effective counter-
    measures. One of these, a control mechanism we call the 'bee
    cocktail', will shortly be dropped in large numbers by aeroplane
    over the infected areas. We ought to know soon how effeclive it
    is. Then we have other biological defence mechanisms.
    Q Do you feel the bees will reach our major cities?
    A I think they will be exterminated long before that.
    Q Is it true that a member of your group has just been killed by
    the African bees?
    A Yes, I'm terribly sorry to say.
    Q What is your attitude towards American bees? Do you believe
    our bees are loyal?
  A That's one way to put it. We are doing everything in our power
    to preserve the safety of domestic bees in apiaries in the infected
    areas. We think this can be done. So far, most of the country is
    free of the African bees, so there is no major problem. When
    Africans do invade American hives, we're depending on
    keepers to kill them off. On the whole, I'm convinced that
    American bees can be saved.
    Q How many domestic beehives are there in the United States?
    A Something over four million, I believe.
    Q How many bees would that represent?
    A Oh, about two hundred billion, I guess.
    Q There are wild bees too?
    A Yes. In large numbers.
    Q So if they all sided with the Africans, we'd have quite a prob-
    lem, wouldn't we?
    A Nothing remotely like that will happen, I promise you.
    Q Is it conceivable that we're in for some nasty surprises?
    A We've gone over the situation pretty carefully. I think we'll
    take care of the Africans according to plan.
    Q You mentioned 'biological defence mechanisms'. Does that
    rule out pesticides ?
    A We have no plans to use insecticides at present. We think the
    situation can be stabilized without further upsetting the ecological
    balance by mass use of insecticides.
    Q Have you been working up defence measures with the Pentagon?
    A I'm not prepared to go into that as yet.
    
    The response was almost immediate. Predictably, that same
    evening, following the TV news, the Save-the-Bees Coalition was
    born, founded by Perry Goodall, the New York public-relations
    man.
     He called some friends. 'Did you hear what the military is up
    to now? Boy, talk about your overreaction. Next thing, the
    Pentagon will be asking for a bigger Kudget. Won't you join with
    me to save the bees?'
     Goodall had made contributions to certain politicians, who
    agreed to be listed on a letterhead. He designed a button and
    persuaded a leading author to write an article saying that the
    bee scare was the work of the CIA. He began raising money for
    a full-page ad.in the Times.
    
    The Kill-the-Bees Society was organized
    
                           by Mrs Adele Terrace,
    of Oyster Bay, Long Island, who had been stung by a bee and
    had not gotten over the shock. '
     Perhaps John Wood failed to be sufficiently precise, because
    Mrs Terrace's impression was that the scientists were showing
    softness towards the bees. She did not want bees saved, she
    wanted them killed. After all, they stung.
     Mrs Terrace had once been a delegate to a national political
    convention, and she had friends over the country. Having decided
    to act, she did so with verve. She organized a group in Oyster Bay
    and had trunk lines installed in her living room. The calls went
    out.
     These were the two groups Wood saw picketing and fighting
    before Fort Detrick the day of Hubbard's funeral. The national
    media saw them at once as news, and gave them far more space
    than they deserved at the time. Their leaders spoke and people
    listened. Fear won out over conservation; the message that got
    through loudest was 'Kill the Bees'.
    
    Silently, furtively, with torches, they came from Maryville, a
    town that hated bees. While Henry David slept they set fire to
    his hives.
     Henry David woke to the smell of burning woo ' d and honey.
    The becyard was set in a clearing, so there was no danger to his
    trailer or to the trees. But the apiary had been destroyed. From
    one end of the yard to the other the hives were burning like
    funeral pyres.
     Henry David went back to bed and waited for dawn with his
    eyes open. His career was over - he could not start again. He
    had a little money and could move to Florida, but instinct told
    him that was not what he would do. He had always preferred
    bees to people.
     When daylight came he rose, dressed and went outside, as he
    always did. Charred ruins in even rows awaited him. Usuall~ at
    this hour the hives hummed with activity as the bees began the
    day's work, but this morning the clearing was quiet as a crypt.
     Henry David felt a light touch on his hand and looked down
    in surprise. It was a bee. Suddenly there were two, then three,
    then four. He glanced up and saw that bunches of bees filled the
    trees - soundless, immobile bees. In some places the branches
    bent from the weight of hundreds of thousands of bunched bees.
    As he watched, bees detached themselves from the bunches and
    flew to him, settling on his arms, his shoulders, his head. They
    did not sting.
     Little by little Henry David began to feel the weight, and then
    he understood. Peaceful, unafraid, he felt no urge to escape,
    even if he had been able. The bees were all over his face now,
    covering his eyes and nasal passages, gentle but implacable. He
    was becoming short of breath and his old shoulders stooped
    under the mounted bees. Almost caressingly, the bees brought
    the unprotesting Henry David to the ground.
     Henry David felt honoured, not betrayed. The bees reserved
    this rite for royalty. They were balling him, as they balled a queen.
    
    Wood's prediction at the press conference - that no major sur-
    prises -were in store - was bound up in the rationalistic way the
    scientists approached their problem. As far as they were con-
    cerned, they were dealing with an insect enemy; they had not
    foreseen that people might intervene in ways that made their task
    far harder.
     Hundreds of becyards were burned, mostly at night. But the,
    attackers were ignorant about the daily routine of bees- During
    the nectar flow, bees do not sleep. Then a beehive is always active.
     The very vibrations set up by the feet of the"intruders would
    trigger the alarm system; the guards would alert the others. The
    first tendril of smoke would cause the bees to fill up on honey in
    anticipation of leaving their home. Then, as the fire spread, the
    bees streamed forth, Attacking the arsonists meant losing their
    lives for nothing; the hive was lost to the flames, and there was
    nothing left to defend. Instead, the bees escaped to the forest to
    save themselves.
     But not the queen. Once she has started laying, a queen needs
    preparation, grooming, to fly. Perhaps she stayed in the hive
    and perished, wings burning. Perhaps she flew a few feet and
    dropped. Her absence was an important fact.
     Many hiveless bees died, but many did not. During the nectar
    flow, colonies need workers; they will accept homeless, queenless
    bees as their own. And high in the trees in the forests were a
    growing number of African hives. -
     Thus in a matter of a few weeks millions on millions of
    domestic bees without colonies of their own joined the Africans,
    swelling their ranks.. Thanks to man, the enemy forces became
    much stronger than B Group had bargained for or realized.
    

    4 The battle of the bees

    19 The WASPs
    
    The battle of the bees - 'with' is more correct than 'of ', but 'of '
    is what people said - culminated in late August; by then thou-
    sands of encounters and many casualties had occurred, but the
    outcome was not to be settled until the closing moments of the
    conflict in the skies over New York City.
     For the moment the enemy remained in his base areas, or
    moved only very slowly. But according to all reports, the African
    bees were rapidly increasing in number. Buildups such as this
    one always precede an insect migration. The population grows
    until nature can no longer support it, and then the mass move-
    ment of millions or billions of insects begins. A migration of the
    African honeybees, such as had already occurred in Brazil, was
    just what the scientists at Detrick hoped to prevent by reducing
    the population of hostile bees. The first weapon to be deployed-
    was the so-called 'bee cocktail'.
    
    Manufactured by Du Pont in Delaware, the cocktail - a blend of
    aromatic honey, LSD, the insect growth regulator and spores
    of American foulbrood - was ready on schedule in the third week
    of May. Hundreds of thousands were dropped by plane over the
    bee-infested areas. One small package, drifted down in a clearing
    near Maryville, spreading its honeyed fragrance.
     A large black bee with orange tufting appeared, then another,
    and another, hovering around the cocktail. A bee approached,
    retreated, approached and retreated again, without tasting the
    offering. The bees flew away. No one would ever know exactly
    why. A rational explanation existed: flowers were plentiful and
    the bees preferred their natural food. Or perhaps the delicate,
    mandibular sensory apparatus of the bees detected something
    foreign. Or perhaps . . .
    
      'Reports from bee wardens. Been observing the Africans from
    a distance through field glasses. They are passing up the cocktail.
    Don't like it. Maybe we should have added booze,' Gerston said
     Wood's solemn face winced in disappointment. 'Pray for our queens.'
     'Goddamn bees,' Gerston said bitterly. 'Do you suppose they
    suspect something?'
    
    'General Slater to see you, sir,' said the voice on the intercom.
     Wood and Slater had talked on the phone, but this was their
    first meeting since the one at the Pentagon. The general's bulk
    overflowed one of the folding chairs scattered around the table
    in the command room. Still reminding Wood of a British
    sergeant major, Slater asked, 'Everything in hand?'
     'Hard to say. Preliminary observations conducted by the bee
    wardens on the cocktail aren't encouraging. The Afros don't
    seem to like it. Funny, it tested out in the experimental hive,'
    Wood said.
     'You should have gone the pesticide route from the beginning,'
    Slater offered. 'Our planes could have saturated the areas with
    DDT or something else. Still can.'
     'The Environmental Protection Agency won't permit it. I've
    checked. Besides, what would you get? Pesticide-resistant bees?
    And we might mess up the ecology for years to come.' - He
    pondered, screwing up his lean face, trying to think of terms
    Slater would readily understand. 'Suppose nature had a second-
    strike capability, General? Like our missiles. I mean, we keep
    throwing stuff at her, and after a while, in desperation, she starts
    fighting back with weapons of her own.'
     'Like the bees?' The General smiled benignly.
     'Well, yes, like the bees,' Wood grunted.
     'Come, now, what is the word for that? "Anthro-"'
     "'Anthropomorphism." I know - it's a fallacy. Just the same,
    I'm of the school that says we don't know all the laws of nature
    yet. Anyway, I'm convinced that we should use a pesticide only
    as a last resort and when we can kill the bees in large concen-
    trations.'
     'Meaning, around the cities - if they get that far?'
    
     'Yes.'
     Slater said, 'I've been assigned by the Advanced Research
    Projects Agency to look into this matter. Somebody had the
    bright idea sophisticated defence might be needed. Me, rm for
    issuing a bunch of flyswatters.'
     , Bee swatters,' Wood said. 'We Ive already developed them.'
    He went over to another table and returned with a swatter made
    of light metal mesh about the size of a squash racquet.
     'That ought to do it, God knows,' Slater snorted.
     Wood sat back. 'Well, you'd think so, but it's hard to imagine
    exactly what we're facing here. Is it a matter of a few colonies
    terrorizing a neighbourhood? A lot more bee stings than usual,
    and some of them deadly? Or a swaxrn of hundreds of thousands
    of bees in an ugly mood pouncing, as the Afros have done in
    Brazil and here at Maryville ? Or . . .' He trailed off.
     '009
     'Well, I used to dream of bees. I remember one dream where
    there was this enormous eye - a bee eye, maybe - on top of a
    stalk. What does a great big eye in the sky suggest to youT
     'Pie in the sky?' Slater said cheerfully.
     'Not to me,' Wood said, ignoring Slater's -derision. 'It says a
    whole sky full of bees. Almost like locusts.,
     'You've got a vivid imagination for a scientist. I think you're
    still dreaming.' None the less he paused for a moment, playing
    with the metal buttons on his uniform. 'Tell me, what sort of
    characteristics do these bees have that might be used to our
    advantageT
     Wood made a mental scan of the ethogram. 'Lef s see. They1re
    attracted to bright lights.That suggests that one defence might
    be fire. They're usually sensitive to vibrations.'
     'Would sonic beams disorient them in flight?,
     'Maybe. Got oneT
     'I'm not at liberty to say.' Slater laughed again. 'Sonic beams!
    I keep forgetting we're talking about bees. Christ, they're not
    the Chinese or the Russians.'
     'You're a hard man to convince, General,' Wood said. They
    began discussing things bees might not like. Wood came up with
    pollution.
    
    Signs had been posted in bee-infected areas:
    
    WARNING
    
                                    AVOID BEES
                                REPORT WILD HIVES
    
    Teams of men and women scoured the woods. These were the
    'bee wardens', specially trained in killing the dangerous bees.
    They wore thick outergarments, hats, and facepieces not unliker
    fencing masks. They carried ladders, field glasses, swatters, and
    guns that could shoot a small cyanide pellet directly into a hive
    entrance. But their job was not made easier by the African bees.
    Reverting to ancient heritage, they built their hives at the tops
    of trees, where they were hard to spot, much less reach. When
    a bee tree was spotted, the wardens often had to chop it down.
    Few African hives were killed by the wardens. .
     Near Maryville, bee wardens were patrolling the second-
    growth timber without finding hives. Everywhere normal-
    looking bees busily foraged in beds of rife wild flowers, Ignoring
    the humans as they darted about, sipping the sweet nectar of
    flowers. A sleepy hum of insects filled the warm woods. It might
    as well have been the call of Sirens. One warden, seeing how
    peaceful it was, lay down for a second, removed the mask from
    his overheated face, and unbuttoned his shirt. Minutes later he
    was dead.
     At Detrick the MARS facility, operating round the clock,
    crackled with news of bees, and the results were fed to the
    computerized map in the control room. The trend was unmistak-
    able: invaders were stepping up the pace.
    
    It was I June.
     Conscious of their absent teammate, Wood, Amaral, Gerston,
    Fine, McAllister and Krim gathered in the control room in their
    laboratory smocks. The mood was tense, like that of generals
    before a campaign.
     As usual, Maria began with the pointer. 'On the basis of
    information received in the last few days, it looks as though the
    Africans have started to swarm.'
     On the map the change was almost, but not quite, imper-
    ceptible. The southern rims of the bee perimeters had extended
    slightly.
     'Time to move,' Wood said decisively. 'When can we drop the
    queens ?'
     'I'd hoped to give them a few more days flying time in the
    8-ball,' Mac McAllister said. 'I guess we can roll now - not that
    I've a whole lot of faith in this genetic-change stuff.'
    . Krim, however, did. Having started out as a sceptic, the
    geneticist had swung over. He had become convinced that
    Project Queen would succeed, but he had no way even to calcu-
    late the odds until he could design a mathematical model and
    -run it through the computer. But still there had been no time.
    'It'll work, I tell you,' he rasped angrily.
     McAllister shrugged.
    'You're all betting on your own horses, naturally,' Wood
    observed. 'Walter Krim, here, on the queens, Mac on the
    workers, Gerston on his drones. I wonder which one, or ones,
    will prove themselves. It'll be more than interesting to find. out.
    I hope in a couple of weeks we'll be making toasts.'
    Gerston joked, 'Whichever wins, ours are all American bees.'
    He blinked his eyes. 'White Anglo-Saxon Protestant bees - WASPS!'
     They all laughed, even Krim.
     Wood said, 'All right. Here come the WASPS. Godspeed.'
     The mood in the control room was momentarily optimistic.
    
    Of the three lines, the queens had presented the hardest technical
    problems. While the other bees could be stored and fed in boxes,
   the queens needed special handling. During the pupal phase,
    when they were dormant, the queens were separated and placed
    in small wire cages, each with a knot of worker bees to feed
    them. For this operation more human labour had to be employed
    than with the other lines.
     And queens, more than the other castes, must test their wings.
    Before her nuptial flight a queen takes to the air experimentally
    to gain strength and experience. A few days after the queens had
    emerged from pupation they were brought by the thousands to
    the huge test sphere at Detrick, there to fly, while the Africans
    were kept in their hives.
     One group at a time, the cages were opened, and, cautiously,
    a fresh queen stepped outside. Her first flight was short - only a
    few feet. It was soon followed by a second, a third, a fourth, and
    then the queen circled around the huge sphere to the very top. A
    queen would always return to the cage from which it had
    emerged, where its bee family was. The unfailing ability of
    queens to find their own cages, just as they would find the right
    hives in nature, never failed to surprise the Detrick scientists.
     Now the queens, all theoretically carrying defective genes,
    were ready. The tiny cages with food inside were packed in
    lightweight plastic boxes, sent by truck to Andrews Air Force
    Base and by plane to staging areas where the helicopters waited.
    The boxes had been carefully designed and tested. They fluttered
    down, and on impact they shattered and the cages within dis-
    integrated. It was important that the queens no longer had a
    home to return to.
     In search of mates, the queens flew, flooding the air with the
    sex pheromone. Not all the queens found drones (the ones that
    failed eventually died), but some entered the zones where drones
    congregated and were pursued by the hot bee bucks, drawn
    inexorably by the queen's powerful sexuality and eager to
    exchange their lives for a single orgasmic spasm that brought
    both life and death.
     One mated queen, the drone's organ torn from his body and
    protruding from hers, located an African hive. The guard bees,
    seeing the signs of her pregnancy, let her pass, and she entered
    the hive uttering her war cry - seep, seep, seep, she piped. While
    she waited, which was not long, worker bees removed the spent
    tool of the drone from her body. Then over the dim comb
    marched her adversary, a huge African queen, a black-and-
    orange Amazon, murderous with rage, flaunting her sting curved
    like a cutlass.
     The queens sprang at each other in fury, each seizing the
    antenna of the other with her jaws. The head and abdomen of
    each were exposed for an instant to the head and abdomen of
    her rival. They had only to deflect the tips of their abdomens
    and each would have pierced the other with her sting, ending
    the duel in the death of both. Instead, almost as though this out-
    come were forbidden, each queen backed off.
     They circled warily, jostled by workers insisting that combat
    continue until one gladiator was dead. The Amazon was big,
    strong, heavy, but laden with eggs and slow; the 'dumb' Ameri-
    can deft, agile. Again they grappled, belly to belly, backing off
    and circling. The worker bees were,beginning to crowd them
    together, which meant almost certain death for the smaller queen
    in the embrace of the Amazon.
     At last the Amazon lunged. Lifting her abdomen, pointing her
    sting, she struck powerfully - and missed. Momentarily off guard,
    she was perhaps confused. Quickly the smaller bee seized the
    head of the Amazon with her mandibles, and the wings and
    thorax with her legs. She climbed upon the Amazon's body, and
    suddenly, twisting her own body into a ring, plunged her scimitar
    into the Amazon again and again. The African queen shuddered,
    dropped, and was soon dead. The victorious queen lunged this
    way and that, poison dripping from her weapon, seeking other
    opponents. Satisfied there were none, she returned her sting to
    its sheath.
     Without ceremony, worker bees hurled the dead queen from
    the hive. The queen was dead, long live the queen.
     Of this the scientists at Detrick knew nothing. They had
    attempted to introduce a genetic strain of self-destruction into
    ,the factory-made queens, hoping, they would pass it to the
    African invaders. But besides being stupid, Henry David's pets
    had been fierce fighters in their dealings with other bees. At least
    this part of their heritage had been transferred to the line-reared
    queens, and it served them well.
    
    The boxes containing worker attack bees tumbled out of HUEY
    helicopters and fluttered to the ground. When a box struck, a
    vial containing isopentyl acetate was broken and the alarm
    pheromone released.
     In a much more concentrated form than,existed in a hive, it
    transformed the dazed young workers into a buzzing mob, held
    together by their chemically induced perception that other bees
    were trying to rob their honey stores.
     If there were no hives in the vicinity, these bees soon became
    confused and dispirited. If there was a hive around, they attacked
    it.
     Several such boxes landed at the Maryville clearing near the
    remnants of the useless cocktail. The bees, six thousand to a box,
    rose, snarling. Above, high in the tree, was an African hive, with
    guards patrolling the entrance hole.
     An army of conscripts against professionals.
     The big guards stirred at the approach of the small intruders.
    Perhaps a few guard bees went down before the onslaught, but
    then from inside the hive came 'the awful war chant of the
    Africans, ziiiiiiiiii, ZUUUUUUUUUMMM - and the out-
    pouring began.
     The hive returned to normal. On the ground by the tree were
    piled the bodies of thousands on thousands of little American bees.
    
    McAllister was livid. 'Bee wardens report the worker-bee attack
    failed. Our troops fell on their faces. No good, no good at all.
    Why? Why? Why?'
     'The Africans are tough,' Wood said dispiritedly.
     'I hate them - I hate those bees,' McAllister shouted, pounding
    the table.
     'Calm down, Mac,' Wood warned. 'Don't lose your objectivity.'
     'I don't want to be objective. I want to kill the bees.'
    
    Perry Goodall, the bee lover, worried about the mounting
    national intolerance towards bees. He knew about the Africans,
    of course, but more and more he came to believe that the real
    enemies were the idiots who urged killing off bees altogether.
     They were boycotting honey - so effectively that supermarkets
    had stopped carrying the product. Just as well, Goodall thought,
    because there wasn't enough honey to go around.
     The kooks claimed that bees were unnecessary for pollination.
     They said that machines. could do the job as well or better. A
    patent for a pollination machine had already been filed.
     Goodall scoffed. As if the machine could replace a worker
    with hundreds of thousands of years'experience!
     What really worried the public-relations man was the Kill-the-
    Bees Act, now before Congress, which would make beekeeping
    illegal and the extermination of hymenoptera a national policy.
     Goodall decided to act. He announced a rally at Madison
    Square Garden at which he would offer conclusive proof that
    domestic bees were still safe. But he refused to reveal the nature
    of the proof until the actual event.
    
    Dropped exactly the same way as the workers, the sterilized
    drones rose from the box fresh, fed, and ready for action.
     The drones did as drones do - they found congeries of drones
    and joined them, flying in circles as they waited for a queen's
    appearance.
     A queen came - an African queen - flying high and fast,
    spreading her scent. The drones rose to meet her.
     Her first pass was only flirtation, but the second meant busi-
    ness. Higher and higher drove the queen, with the drones spread
    out behind her. She looped, turned and twisted as she flew,
    testing the endurance of the drones. Up, up she went, bent for
    the blue, and now the weaker drones began falling off, to return
    to the staging area and wait for another queen.
     At 75 feet she wheeled contemptuously, waiting for the band
    of drones to reach her level; and a few did, among them sterilized
    drones. But this was no ordinary queen. Again she rose, wings
    shimmering in the sunlight, this time to impossible regions, 80,
    90, 100, 150 feet above the earth. And there she was taken - or
    rather, she took. The mating couple fell slowly in their airborne
    nuptials. The stricken'drone that left his organ in the queen's
    body was a large black bee with orange markings.
     Other drones would have her too - all African.
    
    20 Deathwatch
    
    After Hubbard's death Fine kept to himself even more than
    before. He laboured endlessly, eating alone and at odd hours.
    His pallor deepened.
     He had recurring thoughts: if, he had been a better scientist,
    the antidote might have been ready and Hubbard's life saved.
    Or if he hadn't still been angry with Hubbard, he might not have
    hesitated just that crucial second outside the glass hive; he might
    have entered and tried to pull the man out. In Fine's mirid, as
    Wood was soon to learn, the rat of guilt gnawed.
     Late one night Fine made his decision.
     The tests on rhesus monkeys had been a disappointment. One
    effect the hyped-up venom had was to stiffen the monkeys'
    musculature. This had serious implications for human beings,
    because a man who had been stung might have trouble getting
    the ampule from his pocket and injecting himself. How much
    and how fast the venom affected human responses was hard to
    judge from laboratory animals. They couldn't tell you, and even
    the eight-channel Hewlett-Packard physiograph recorder had no
    way to measure such a response.
     The other problem had to do with sight. Too much proto-
    atropine seemed to cause a blurring of vision, and even blindness,
    in experimental animals.
     There were, then, practical limits to how much antidote could
    be administered. The proper dosage fell within a narrow range
    - too narrow, conceivably, to work. Given time, Fine might have
    eliminated the blindness factor from the antidote, but there was
    no time. Wood was pushing the toxicologist relentlessly. The
    autoinjector had to be ready for mass distribution, and soon.
     Fine had arranged for a convict volunteer, who was now at
    Fort Detrick under guard. But the trouble was that if Fine
    waited for the volunteer to use the autoinjector himself, the
    venom might kill him, and if Fine administered the antidote to
    the volunteer, the test would not be a true one. There was, in
    other words, a risk, a risk that Fine, in the end, decided to take
    himself.
     He assembled his notes carefully, stage by stage. He gave
    exact instructions on obtaining the clearance for the secret
    chemical, and neatly printed the results of his experiments with
    the lab animals. He inserted into his notes some remarks about
    his guilt feelings in the matter of Sheldon Hubbard's death. Then
    he did something he had not done since boyhood - he prayed.
     In the lab was a couch that Fine used when he wanted to rest.
    He placed the alarm button near it, removed his shirt, pushed
    over the physiograph, and switched it on. A red light flashed,
    and the ten-second timer began to click. Satisfied that the equip-
    ment was working, he attached the blood-pressure coupling to
    his upper arm, and then began attaching electrodes to himself
    with contact fluid and pieces of tape. One went to his temple,
    another to his rib cage, a third to his upper chest. These leads
    would give readings on blood pressure and respiration, and
    would also provide electrocardiograms and electroencephalo-
    grams. These four responses would be enough.
     Fine hesitated a moment, thinking about the laboratory ani-
    mals. But he also thought about his wife, and taking a hypo-
    dermic needle from the table, he injected himself with the exact
    quantity of venom he would have received from the stings of five
    toxic bees - the maximum the antidote could suppress without
    causing blindness. He watched the weal rise on his skin where
    the needle had punctured it. Then he turned his attention to the
    Sanborn vertical recorder, on which the tracings of his responses
    had begun to appear. ~
     Click, click, click - the timer counted the seconds.
     Fine did not have long to wait. Seconds after the injection he
    saw rather than felt his first response. His blood pressure had
    dropped slightly. Then the machine informed him that his heart

    




    rate was rising, and rapidly. It had begun at 80, but leaped to
                                     175

    




    120 beats per minute, then 130. His body sent messages to him
    now: his heart pounded in his chest, he was sweating, and he felv
    jumpy and tense.
     There was a clock on the wall. Approximating the conditiom
    under which a self-injector would be used by an ordinary person,
    Fine had concluded that, from the moment of a sting, a hurt,
    frightened, medically inexperienced person would need about
    60 seconds to get the injector from pocket or purse, pull up a
    sleeve, hesitate because of fear of the injector, and finally put
    the needle in. Fine's heart rate was 140, and,he reached for the
    ampule on the table at 55 seconds.
     Oh God, he said to himself, I can't move.
     His right arm felt strapped to his side. Only with the greatest
    effort could he lean forward and, gripping his wrist with his other
    hand, force his fingers towards the self-injector containing the
    antidote.
     I used too much venom, he thought.
     He had the ampule in his hand, but his aim was off. Three
    times he jabbed and found only empty air. Finally he managed
    to hook the needle into his flesh, pressed the nipple and injected
    himself with antidote.
     Looking at the physiograph again, Fine realized with alarm
    that his heartbeat had reached 160, close to the outer limits. It
    now began to recede ... 140, 130, 120, 110, 100. His brain waves
    showed aberration, but his.mind was functioning normally as
    far as he could tell. His respiration was high, but not abnormally
    so. On a pad he scrawled the exact time at which the antidote had
    been administered.
     The worst is over, his mind said. The antidote works.
     It was at this point in the experiment that something happened,
    or rather, failed to. If the antidote had performed properly,
    Fine's responses should have returned to normal almost at once.
    Looking at the tracing, Fine realized that the four physiological
    responses were hovering on plateaux between normal and alarm-
    ing levels. They refused to recede.
     In fact, they were turning bad. Fine was a man on a physio-
    logical roller coaster, and could only watch. I
     His heart rate rose ... 120, 130, 140, 150. He felt a sharp pain
    176
    
    in his chest. But his eyes were focused on the band recording
    his respiration, and now George Fine knew that his trouble was
    mortally serious. He was losing respiration and was gasping for
    air. With respiration failing, his heart pumped faster, and his
    EKG became erratic from lack of oxygen. The symptoms pointed
    as straight as an arrow to a respiratory arrest within minutes.
    I He had two emergency procedures. One was another dose of
    antidote, though it meant risking blindness; the second was the
    emergency button on the wall. The fresh ampule was within easy
    
    0 t t
    BeeVenom Antidote
    
    Figure IV: Dr Fine's death chart. (Courtesy National Institutes of
    Health)

    




    reach. Fine got it into his fingers and looked at it helplessly -
    his arm was too weak to move. With his last strength he pushed
    his shoulder against the button. Outside the lab door a trumpet
    began to wail through the silent facility.
     Wood's personal DEW line had been sending signals to him,
    and unable to sleep, he heard the trumpet's blast. He reached the
    lab area first and found the machine still clicking, the pens still
    moving across the paper, only now the lines they made were
    straight. Fine was dead - the physiograph left no doubt of that.
    Wood turned it off and looked at Fine's notes, grasping at a
    glance what had happened. He raged inside - at Fine's needless
    sacrifice, at the fact of death and at the caprices of chemistry
    that had decided conclusively there would be no antidote against
    the sting of toxic bees. There was no time left to develop one.
    
    178
    
    21 Crack-up
    
    Swelled by emergifig brood and new arrivals, the hive had
    become too crowded, even for bees, and now in the super-
    organism, the colony, a decision was made and transmitted by
    mass communication. The hive would swarm. Headed by the
    queen, half the bees of the hive, perhaps 50,000 pioneers, would
    seek a new home. The bees left behind would wait for a new
    queen to emerge from their cells, and life in the old hive would,
    continue as before. In perhaps a month, given the bounty of
    nature during the summer and the fecundity of the queen, the
    hive would again divide.
     Meantime, travel preparations had to be made. The queen
    stopped laying and grew thinner, lither, in preparation for a
    long flight. The workers gorged themselves, filling their honey
    stomachs with a week's supply of food.
     Fifty feet over the ground, flying fast, the swarm crossed
    Maryville. Panic swept the streets below - people ran, cars
    crashed - but it was soon understood that the bees were ignoring
    the town as though it did not exist.
     Miles later, on top of a hill, the hive finally settled. Fanning
    out from the branch where the swarm waited in a large ball,
    scouts checked the availability of water and food. Then they
    inspected the trees, the ground, an abandoned shack. They re-
    turned with their recommendations, which were communicated
    by means of the waggle dance. These dances provided very
    precise information not merely about the nature of proposed
    sites but about how strongly each scout felt regarding his own
    discovery. For hours the scouts danced, while the hive weighed
    one proposed site against another, taking into consideration the
    relative enthusiasm displayed by individual scouts. Just before
    dusk the decision was made, and the bees moved high into a
    
    170

    




    comfortable old tree. In a month this hive would divide as well.
     Other hives were swarming - many of them.
    
    As the bees swarmed, action mounted at the MARS facility,
    where a half dozen operators were now needed on every shift to
    take the incoming calls.
     'CQ, Fort Detrick, Maryland ... CQ, Fort Detrick, Mary-
    land. This is Whisky, Six, Foxtrot, Victor, Yankee ... CQ, Fort
    Detrick!
     'Hello W6FVY. This is Whisky, Three, Whisky, Alpha,,
    Romeo, Fort Detrick, Maryland!
     'W3WAR. I'm Albert Potter of Canby, California. In view of
    your interest in bees, I thought you'd like to know a couple of
    swarms passed over my house headed south.'
     'I read-you, W6FVY. Thank you. Goodbye!
    
    'CQ, Fort Detrick, Maryland . . . This is Kilo, Nine, India,
    Lima, X-ray.'
     'Hello, K91LX. This is Whisky, Three, "sky, Alpha,
    Romeo, Fort Detrick, Maryland. Where are you, K9ILX?1
     'Minocqua, Wisconsin. My name is Mrs Olga Sheridan,
    W3WAR. I got the bee bulletin. There are bees flying all over
    around here. They haven't hurt anybody yet.'
     'Thank you, K9ILX. Goodbye.'
    
    'CQ, Fort Detrick. Whisky, One, Hotel, Sierra, Papa calling
    from Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Come in, Fort Detrick.'
     'Okay, WIHSP. What's the trouble?'
     'No trouble. I read all this stuff about African bees. Plenty
    bee swarms moving here, but no trouble. I'm Jonathan Gwenn.1
     'Thank you, WIHSP.'
    
    All this information was absorbed by the computer. A week later
    the control-room map had changed strikingly.
    
    180
    
    Present at the meeting were Wood, Maria, Gerston and Me-
    Allister. Krim was unaccountably absent. Wood scowled.
    'Where's that goddamn Krim?' he muttered. 'We'll hear from
    Maria first.'
     Maria Amaral, like the rest of them, looked exhausted. Two
    profound shocks on top of weeks of little sleep, fresh air, re-
    creation or exercise had left their marks. She dimmed the lights
    and went to the map with her pointer, as she had done so often
    before.
     'Something is happening out there, Vo doubt of it. Hundreds
    of sightings; of swarms have been reported recently to Bee Watch.
    This is true everywhere in the country, even in the South, but
    most concentrations are still small, or seem to be. It's the three
    big ones that must cause the greatest concern. They are spreading
    fastest.,
     'How fast?'
     'About ten miles a week at this point!
     'Any particular direction?' Wood asked, though his eyes told
    him the answer.
     'The heaviest migration is always in a southerly direction. It
    is this leapfrog phenomenon, of course. A swarm flies and settles.
    Then, another and another. Each moves beyond the place of the
    -one before.'
     McAllister said, 'The bees that are left behind when the hives
    swarm return to their former strength. The colony swarms again.
    Then the hive that has already swarmed swarms again. This
    process is duplicated many thousands of times. It's like a suc-
    cession of waves moving out. The way I look at it, the bees could
    quadruple in numbers by the end of the summer if the weather
    stays hot.'
     They hated the wonderful weather. It had been perfect for
    flowers and therefore bees. It meant that the bees' larders were
    full. They would reproduce faster and swarm more frequently.

    




     'When does that farthest edge reach major cities?' Wood
    asked.
     Maria checked the computer. The readout said:
    
    181

    




    PROJECTED ARRIVAL DATES
    AFRICANIZED BEES
    NEW YORK OCTOBER 4
    CHICAGO OCTOBER 10
    SAN FRANCISCO OCTOBER
    
    ~ 182
    
    Wood said sharply, 'What yearT
     'This year,' Maria said.
     They gasped. Wood said with quick bitterness, 'It's all going
    according to plan - the bees' plan.'
     'We've dropped over a billion bees and a million cocktails with
    no result,' McAllister raged, pounding the table.
     Maria said cautiously, 'But the bees do not seem to be attack-
    ing much. Perhaps we have made them peaceable in some way.'
     McAllister looked at her with what seemed to be pity. He
    piped, 'Bees are always gentle during a reproductive swarm. As
    soon as the Africans stop swarming they'll turn vicious once
    more. It won't be long.'
     Turning her smooth face away from McAllister as though to
    hide humiliation, Maria said, 'They seem to be avoiding the
    'towns and staying in the rural areas. The only people who have
    been attacked are faxmers.'
     'That will change too,' McAllister said glumly. 'If they ge
    into the suburbs they'll attack everybody.'
     'Or the cities,' Gerston said. A throb of fear sounded in his
    voice. 'There will be panic like you never heard of. Imagine -
    cities that are already explosive jammed with refugees!'
     'Let's not have any panic here,' Wood drawled. He was trying
    hard to control his anxiety. That the bees had started moving was
    serious news. He wished momentarily that Shelly Hubbard was
    there to help keep their spirits up. Even Gerston's courage was
    faltering.
     McAllister cried, 'Maybe we ought to look into the notion of
    the Kill-the-Bees bunch. Sending out a million people to battle
    the Africans sounds better and better to me.'
     'Stop it, Mac,' Wood said quickly. 'It's a dangerous idea in
    lots of ways, and you know it. The thing to do is to stick to plan
    and keep dropping. Sheer volume may do it.'
    
     McAllister said hotly, 'You're kidding yourself. Those god-
    damn bees of ours - not worth a damn. The workers must have
    been outmatched, the drones outclassed by those big African
    fuckers.' Wood shot him a warning glance, but McAllister
    ignored it. 'As for the mutated queens, that idea is strictly
    screwball, just like Krim.'
     Where the hell is Krim ? Wood asked himself.
     At that point the tiny geneticist entered the room.
    
    Something Wood had said stuck in Krim's tangled brain: 'If
    only we could prove our plan would succeed, we might be able
    to head off a full-scale public reaction. I'm frightened of that.'
    Krim was determined to find such proof.
     The problem was to show why the dumbness-mutation experi-
    ment had a good chance of success. He called this 'the prob-
    ability coefficient of the distribution function of "dumbness"
    within elapsed time frameworks, graduated by mass.' The mathe-
    matics involved would have taken a superior PhD candidate
    perhaps a year. Krim, a genius, had the solution at the end of
    .seven grinding days.
     First Krim had to establish his base lines. He did this by
    contacting the memory bank at NIH, just as Fine had done.
     Working with the computer, he emerged with a reference, an
    article that had appeared in a Soviet scientific journal in 1957,
    by one 1. Podolsky. The Soviets had conducted much dxperi-
    mental work on bees. The article was called 'A Study of Bee
    Elitism', and had been translated. It was rushed to Krim from
    the Smithsonian Institution by car.
     Although the Russian was clearly trying to square his findings

    




    with Communist attitudes towards elitism, the message was clear.
    Even in the advanced socialism of the hives, about 10 per cent
    of the worker bees at any given time acted as leaders; the queen,
    of course, was an egg-laying machine, not a decisionmaker. The
    leaders determined what actions a hive took - such as swarming
    or balling an old queen.
     Fine had reasoned that any gene that would drive a bee
    towards destruction must be ruthlessly dominant; otherwise'it
    could not make itself felt as it had with Henry David's hives.
    
    ~ I
    
    ~ 183

    




    Therefore, if he could introduce the death-wish gene at all, only
    10 per cent of the bees in a hive would have to have it. Such was
    the strength of the gene that these bees would necessarily be the
    leaders.
     But how many colonies had to be converted? Because the
    African colonies, with their strong interhive alarm and defence
    systems, worked more like a single giant hive, Krim reasoned
    that a conversion rate of 10 per cent of the hives would suffice.
    The target, then, was 10 per cent of the bees in 10 per cent of the
    hives.
     That left two variables, time and mass: how long the genetic
    alteration would take, and the amount of genetic material that
    would have to be supplied. The time factor involved dispersion,
    and here Krim relied on what geneticists call gamma distributions.
    He began with the formula
    
    Soo ya-1 e-Y
    0
    
    This he converted to
    
           k-I       k - I (aw)le- 1W
    Pr(W > W) Pr(x = X) = I X!
                      20
    
    I And this emerged after many formulations as
    
        02 = MI(o) - yl = a(a + I)#' - a 2fl2 = afi 2
    
    Krim now possessed a theoretical model of the problem, except
    for the question of mass, which still had to be introduced into
    the equation. This he deferred, on the ground that time and
    distribution factors would determine mass. But to determine
    time and distribution factors he had to convert the equations
    into integers, in order to convey them to the computer in a
    manner that the machine would understand. This was what took
    most of the week.
     The computer provided an inch-thick sheaf of computations,
    summarized by a simple message at-the end.
    
    PROGRAMME: AFRICAN HIVES WELL ACT ERRATICALLY IF
    GENETIC CHANGE OCCURS AMONG 10 PER CENT OF THE BEES
    IN A HIVE. IF 10 PER CENT OF THE AFRICAN HIVES BEHAVE
    
    184
    
    ERRATICALLY, ALL AFRICAN HIVES CAN BE EXPECTED TO ACT
    ERRATICALLY. ASSUMING QUEENS wrrH 'DUMBNESS' GENE
    CONTINUE TO BE DROPPED, PER SCHEDULE, PROBABILITY FACTOR
    FOR SUCCESSFUL OUTCOME OF EXPERIMENT IN TWO MONTHS
    is 50 PER CENT.
    
    It was, then, a fifty-fifty shot - better odds than Krim expected.
    Shaking with exhaustion and excitement, Krim ran to the
    meeting. He was very late.
    
    Watching Krim as the geneticist entered the room, Wood caught
    his breath. Smock rumpled, face deeply lined, Krim looked as
    though he hadn't slept for a week. His red eyes burned queerly.
    At that moment Wood knew that Krim was headed for trouble.
     Ignoring the young geneticist completely, McAllister con-
    tinued, 'Soon the bees will exist in large numbers throughout
    the country. We'll have a permanent pest that will change the
    nature of our society. They'll sting us back to the Stone Age.'
     'I'm scared of those Africaw sons of bitches too,' Gerstob
    admitted. 'I have my wife and new baby in New York to think
    about.'
     Maria pleaded, 'But there's no proof the advance will con-
    tinue. It could easily slow down.'
     'Not unless drastic action is taken,' McAllister insisted. 'More

    




    and more I favour sending an army of people into the woods to
    kill the bees.'
     'A rabble, you mean,' Wood scoffed. 'I won't go along with
    that idea. Our defences may work yet. We've got to be patient,
    hold on tight, and keep dropping bees.'
     Wood, too, had momentarily forgotten Krim. Trembling, the
    geneticist stood up, waving the papers he carried. 'None of you
    knows what he's talking about,' he said in a voice even more
    garbled than usual. 'I have the answer. The mutation has every
    chance ... of ... of ... of . . .' He trailed off, confused.
     'Come on, Walter,' Wood said.
    -McAllister snarled at Krim. 'Oh, for God's sake, shut up.'
     'Success!' Krim screamed at him.
     'in a pig's eye!' McAllister sneered.
    
    185

    




     Wood glared at McAllister, and said to Krim soothingly
    'Calm down, Walter. Explain yourself.'
     Krim attempted to. He was so tired that he had to clutch the
    table for support. The words streamed out. 'Zygote stochastic
    independence heterozygosis Chebyshdv's inequality moment
    generating function random variables conditional probability
    gametogenesis maximum likelihood estimation of parameters
    coefficient of correlation mutation inbreeding rate of decay
    factor dominance ratio meiosis environmental pressure sequen-
    tial probability inbreeding quadratic forms we are now in a
    position to. . .'
     He trailed off and stood there dazed, mouth open, spittle
    dribbling onto his beaxd. What had emerged was an incompre-
    hensible jumble.
     The others gaped at him, speechless. At last McAllister mut.
    tered, 'The pipsqueak is crazy.
     'Pipsqueak!' Krim's tortured mouth managed to say. He
    started to cry, and ran from the room.
     it took them a half hour to find him in the maze of the facility.
    Knees locked to his chin in the foetal position, he was curled up
    near one of the metal shields in the sterilization room as if
    waiting for somebody to pull the switch and flood the room with
    gamma radiation. Wood called the hospital while Maria tried to
    comfort him, but Krim seemed oblivious.
     After Krim, heavily sedated, had been led away by uniformed
    soldiers, Wood returned to the control room and leafed through
    the, thick sheaf of papers. Page after page was covered with
    columns of numbers - the printout was fully as incomprehensible
    as Krim's monologue. Wood shook his head. It didn't occur to
    him to look at the last page, where the computer supplied the
    answer in simple English.
    
    it was several days before the word of the bees' advance reached
    the public. Meanwhile the Save-the-Bees Coalition held a rally
    in the Felt Forum of Madison Square Garden.
     The hall was full, with tickets ranging from $5 to $100 for
    box seats. Even at the latter figure the benefit was worth it,
    considering the talent assembled to perform - rock groups,
    
    186
    
    b
    
    0
    
    0
    
    t
    
    0
    
    e
    
    famous singers, actors, comedians, politicians, intellectuals -
    and there would be Perry Goodall's big surprise. The same
    message was repeated by the speakers, on placards and on
    uttons:
    
    Save the bees
    
    What do we want?' Perry Goodall shouted into the mike.
    'fhe answer came: 'Save the bees.'
     'What's good?'
     'Saving the bees.'
     'What's bad?'
     'Killing bees.'
     'Bees give us what?'
     'Honey 'n' flowers!
     'What do we like?'
     'Honey 'n' flowers!

    




     'What do we need?'
     'Beeeeeeeeeeeees.'
     Then, as the audience chanted 'Save the bees, save the bees,
    save the bees,' Perry Goodall unveiled his surprise. It was the
    bservation hive from his town house, repopulated with bees
    from Connecticut. There came a gasp when the audience realized
    his intention. First he smeared a little honey on his fingers, then
    n his cheeks. Removing the glass side of the hive, he lowered his
    face, picked the queen from the hive, and placed her on his
    cheek. The other bees followed. When Goodall turned to face
    he audience in triumph he wore a full bee beard.
     Perhaps the spotlights frightened the bees, perhaps it was the
    vibrations of thousands of stomping feet. The picture that ap-
    peared on TV sets throughout the land was that of a dead man
    n the floor.
     The audience stampeded. Panic had begun.
    
    The crusade brought hundreds of thousands of citizens from
    very section of the land. They sought a 'final solution' to the
    problem of the bees.
    Wood's word 'rabble' was descriptive. Dressed in makeshift
    protective clothing, carrying whatever weapon they supposed
    
                                    187

    




    would work - flyswaiters, baseball bats, shotguns, kerosene, cans
    of insecticide, even tennis and badminton rackets - they invaded
    the African sanctuaries. With them, and lending his prestige,
    was the emilient entomologist F. W. McAllister.
     They scoured the countryside, shinnying up trees, beating the
    bushes, shoving sticks down holes in the ground. They tried to
    burn down trees selectively - and since they started only seven
    major forest fires, it can be said that in this they almost sue-
    ceeded.
     The Kill-the-Bees crusade claimed that 100 million bees per-
    ished - a figure most observers thought inflated. Also lost from
    stings and in fires were over 500 human lives.
     Its organizers rated the crusade as so successful that plans
    were announced for another. This second crusade, in early
    August, found few bees. The mass migration had begun.
    
    Wood found the sombre overture to Madame Butterfly playing
    in the control room so depressing that he asked to have it shut off.
     Only three remained from the seven original members of B
    Group, and they were not happy. The citizen crusade made
    diverting stories for the media, but the scientists knew that the
    main - and ominous - result of thousands on thousands of well-
    meaning people trooping through woodlands with swatters,
    cyanide guns and torches had been to force the. Africans to
    abscond in search of safer homes. Unlike the mood of a repro-
    ductive swarm, which is gentle, an absconding swarm is vicious
    and aggressive - especially so in the case of African bees. These
    insects, hurtling through the countryside, left terror and death
    in their wake.
     As shown by the computerized map, the bees were fanning
    out, occupying areas more than twice as large as they had before.
    If the advance continued, the bees would soon engulf major cities:
     'Projection, please,' Wood said to Maria.
    
    PROJECTED ARRIVAL DATES
    AFRICANIZED BEES
    NEw YORK SEPTEMBER 4
    
    188
    
    CHICAGO SEPTEMBER 10
    SAN FRANCISCO SEPTEMBER 11
    CLEVELAND SEPTEMBER 13
    DETROIT SEPTEMBER 14
    MADISON S SEPTEMBER 14
    PORTLAND SEPTEMBER 15
    
    'That's enough,' Wood said. The screen went blank.
     Gerston said in a low voice, 'The bees will attack every city in
    America sooner or later. There's no place to hide.'
     'So it looks,' Wood said dejectedly.
     Gerston's big nose was pointed down. He stared at them
    solerimly. Then he took the photo of his wife and daughter from
    his wallet and stared at it also, his forehead wrinkling. 'I have
    to think of my family,' he said. 'I'm getting out.'
     'You mean out of Detrick?' Maria said.
     'I mean out of the United States. This country has had it.'
     Wood nodded. 'I understand. It won't be any fun.'He glanced
    ~it Maria. 'Do you want to go home to *South America T
    
    _V
    
    Pigure V: Computer map, I August. Major concentrations of hostile
    bees. (Courtesy Apicultural Research and Development Facility,
    Fort Detrick, Maryland)

    




    41 stay with you,' she said.
    'And you?' Gerston said to Wood.
     He answered, 'I ... he touched Maria% arm - 'we will
    remain here and continue to direct the drops as long as it's
    possible. When the Africans get here, Detrick will shut down -
    but not until then. Call it crazy if you like, but I still believe we
    have a chance to win.'
    
    I
    
    19(
    
    22.E.ffects
    
    John Wood and Maria, preoccupied by the bee facility, did not
    watch the President's speech on television in July. But the
    President's face was seen by what Nielsen said was the largest
    audience ever to watch a TV programme. He described the rapid
    spread of the deadly bee across the countryside and the havoc
    that accompanied it. The voice warned of the impending arrival
    qf African bees in major cities. It urged discipline, courage and
    W-Solution. It said that America remained great.
    The President then declared a national emergency, and asked
    Congress to grant him powers such as had existed formerly only
   wartime, and in some cases, exceeding even those. There
    d be rationing of food and gasoline. Industrial workers
    told to remain at work no matter what the danger until
    reieased from their jobs by the authorities. A corps of bee
    wardens would be established nationally, and at once, to evacuate
    people if necessary. Looters would be shot.-
    The President failed to say what would be done about the bees.
    At checkpoints on major highways and rail lines, traffic was
    topped and carefully inspected for stowaway clusters of bees,
    with small result. All over the country African bees were spread-
    ing, entrenching, reproducing, swarming again, despite careful
    swch-and-destroy missions to find them.
    The first occupation to suffer seriously because of the Africans
    oul
    ere
    was farming. African bees made the fanner's life miserable and
    dangerous. The rumble of heavy machinery, even the smell of
    meating men and animals, triggered mass assaults by the ram-
    paging Africans, many of which bore deadly stings. A farmer
    could protect himself with special gear issued by the Department
    of Agriculture, but the suits were hot, uriwieldy and uncomfort-
    able, and there was no protection for livestock.
    
    191

    




    192
    
     Besides,, the farmers had their families to think about. Dairy
    farming stopped first, then the production of pigs, beef cattle,
    chickens and eggs in many places. Then farming in whole regions,
    such as the Sacramento Valley in California, ceased under the
    attacks of hostile bees. The immediate result was a catastrophic
    rise in food prices, despite price controls and strict rationing.
     , When the farmers departed, their belongings piled in trucks
    on top of their cars, they were,forced to leave the livestock
    behind. With no one to tend them, the animals soon died. They
    would take years to replace. The farmers went to the small
    towns, but these were quickly besieged by the Africans, and soon
    a large human population was in flight.
     With the towns abandoned, the bee looters appeared. in
    trucks, wearing headpieces, gloves, and leather jackets decorated
    with studs or emblazoned with esoteric symbols, they smashed
    into stores and homes, carrying off anything they wanted.
    Battles between the roving looters and the army became ever
    more frequent. In many towns and smaller cities military garri-
    sons were set up. Between the bees and the thugs, the life of a
    soldier was hell.
     Highways, railroad beds, telephone and electric wires began
    to deteriorate rapidly. Washed-out bridges lay unrepaired. Un-
    tended dams were weakening; soon many would burst.
     On top of this, industrial production began to decline, first
    because of a shortage of raw materials, and then because the
    dangerous bees began to harass ever larger areas. Efforts to keep
    the men at their jobs failed. In Gary, Indiana, for instance, steel'
    production. all but ceased. The stock market, of course, reacted
    violently. But there were those who professed to see a lesson in
    all this, because pollution declined as rapidlyas production, and
    soon the air and the streams began to clear.
     Optimism was short-lived. In unmanned warehouses, drurns
    containing toxic chemicals began to leak or burst. The chemicals
    entered the atmosphere or leaked into the streams. The effect on
    wildlife was catastrophic.
     In large sections of the land civilized life was coming to a halt,
    There were international repercussions too.
     As the weeks passed and the Africans continued to progress,
    
    causing ever greater turmoil, foreign nations became increas-
    ingly dubious about the ability of the United States to control
    the bees. If Americans couldn't stop insects, our allies reasoned,
    what protection could they possibly offer against the Russians or
    the Chinese? Alliances of long standing between the United
    States and its overseas partners were weakened or ruptured. The
    North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for one, collapsed.
     American goods were still allowed to enter other countries,
    but inspection procedures became so elaborate that crippling
    delays ensued, reducing exports and making travelling on
    American transport a chore.
     There was loose talk about an international quarantine, after
    which the retreat of the dollar turned into a rout. Many insisted
    that the United States was througk as a world power, no matter
    what the American President said.\.That, apparently, was the
    opinion of the United Nations, whid~ commenced a frantic
    move from New York to Nairobi. The official reason was that the
    UN ought to be located in a developing country to demonstrate
    concern and goodwill towards the Third World. Unofficially,
    however, it was well known that the UN delegates lived in
    deadly fear of the bees.
     Not all the international response was self-interested or un-
    iriendly. Indeed, lend-lease arrangements with the Common
    Market and the Soviet Union, though the terms were stiff,
    helped avoid famine in the United States. And a group of East
    African nations offered technical assistance in fighting the bees.
    Only Africans, they claimed, had the know-how to deal with
    African bees.
     This offer was harshly refused by the President - too harshly,

    




    perhaps; for in Nairobi a debate began in the General Assembly
    on whether the UN should intervene, even though it meant send-
    ing troops against American wishes. Many felt, some Americans
    among them, that United Nations occupation of the United
    States was the only way to prevent a great power struggle for
    control of the ravished land.
     The African advance continued. One scheme that reached the
    President's desk from the Pentagon called for blanketing the
    nation with thousands of tons of the strongest pesticides. Only a
    
                                     193

    




    last-minute memo from John Wood, pointing out that the dosage
    required to kill the African bees would also kill a third of the
    human population and render huge areas uninhabitable for years
    to come, prevented the activation of this plan.
     Quickly the bees extended their sway, swarming, building hives,
    swarming and building hives again. Soon they entered the
    suburbs, which brought them into continual contact with people
    as the bees foraged in gardens and in garbage cans. The residents
    began to leave in large numbers, and the White House decided
    that evacuation procedures should be put into effect and pesti-
    cides used in key salients.
     One of these salients was Long Island, where an ominous bee
    buildup had been reported, and among those who had to be
    asked to evacuate was Mrs Adele Terrace of Oyster Bay. 'I have
    lived in Oyster Bay since I was born, and I will stay here until I
    die,' Mrs Terrace told the press. True enough, as it happened -
    but the effect of Mrs Terrace's statement was to encourage others
    to fiercely resist evacuation too, in turn delaying the use of
    pesticides until it was too late.
     For John Wood, soon to be working with General Slater on
    the defence of the city, the battle of New York would be critical.
    If the city could not defend itself successfully, neither could the
    United States.
     If the bees could not be destroyed in pitched battle, no area
    would be safe against them. The following spring they would
    return, stronger than before, and it might be too late to root
    them out - ever. Mac McAllister may have helped fulfil his own
    prophecy by joining those who dispersed the bees, but it seemed
    possible, even likely, that the bees could destroy the fabric of
    society, or as McAllister had put it, 'sting us back to the Stone
    Age'.
     The world watched, and it waited.
    
    194
    
    23 Before the battle
    
    It was late August. The air shuttle bringing John and Maria
    from Washington to New York landed at Kennedy Airport.
    LaGuardia, where the shuttle normally came, was'closed because
    African bees had been spotted in the immediate vicinity. Kennedy
    Airport was open only during the day. Airports need beacons and
    runway lights, and bright flickering lights, as the ethogram
    indicated-, attracted African bees.
    The confusion at Kennedy was unimaginable. Thousands of
    people, desperate to get out of the country, stood at long lines
    before the ticket counters. They \9creamed at the harried atten-
    dants and waved money. Planes,14ere departing one after the
    other, after excruciating delays, taking people to Hawaii,
    Europe, the Caribbean - anywhere to escape the bees.
    Wood spotted a tall, familiar figure by the newsstand and
    walked over. Gerston had come up two days before to get his
    wife and child, and he, too, was about to leave.
     'Where toT Wood asked him simply.
    'Alaska. I figure they won't get there for a while.' He looked
    down at his distant feet. 'I want.to apologize again. I hate to
    run out on you, but I don't see that there's much more I can
    contribute, and, frankly, the safety of my wife and kid comes
    first, as I said.'
    'Don't apologize,' Wood said soberly. 'We do what we have
    to do.'
     'Thanks,' Gerston answered. 'Give Maria a kiss.'
    One change in the city could be seen as they drove into Man-
    hattan in a chauffeured car operated by Civil Defence. There
    were plenty of buses but few private cars, which had been
    banned during the emergency; huge banks of parked cars ringed
    the city, where the suburban refugees bad been compelled to
    leave them. The air over Queens was clear.
    
    195

    





    




    196
    
     'It's an interesting thing,' Wood remarked to Maria as they
    entered Manhattan, 'but this is the closest thing to modem war-
    fare Americans have ever experienced. We've fought abroad,
    but we don't know wartime conditions as others do. Now we're
    getting a taste.'
     He was right. Uniformed men and women wearing Civil
    Defence armbands and white helmets equipped with wire mesh
    face shields patrolled the streets. They carried cyanide hand-
    guns and large metal swatters. The old shelter signs, returned
    from retirement, bore the word 'Bee' crudely stencilled over
    'Bomb'. Every block had a bee shelter.
     The streets were packed with pedestrians. 'See haw queerly
    they're dressed!' Maria cried.
     Everyone - male and female - wore high shoes and heavy
    canvas slacks. They wore or carried drab canvas jackets that
    looked like windbreakers except that they were equipped with
    hoods. Each person had a kit hanging from his shoulder or from
    around his waist. It was hot, and the heavy clothing was dark
    with sweat.
     'They look like the Chinese Communists are supposed to look,'
    Wood said drily.
     The car, blowing its horn, was pushing through the pedestrians
    walking in the streets. Suddenly the sirens blew. Wood tapped
    the driver and asked him to stop. It was a drill, from which the
    Civil Defence marking on the car seemed to exempt them.
    At once wardens appeared. They pushed people into a high-rise
    building, using their nightsticks like cattle prods. Others were
    shoved into a subway entrance, which was equipped with a large
    metal screen that could be closed.
     A woman refused to go into the subway. A warden argued
    with her.
     , You have to go, ma'am. It's for your own good. And it's the
    law. No one can refuse to take shelter. Read the instructions.'
    He pointed to papers that he carried on a wire loop.
     She screamed, 'I won't go. I have claustrophobia.'
     'You have whatV He peered at her jacket, leaned forward
    and removed a button Trom under a fold, holding it up. Wood
    saw that it was a button of the now-defunct Save-the-Bees
    
    Coalition. 'One of those freaks, eh?' He blew a shriH whistle
    attached to a cord around his neck.
    A policeman arrived instantly. 'Now, please don't make
    trouble, miss. Go along with- the others,' he said in a tone meant
    to be placating. Then he saw the button and his voice became
    openly harsh. 'Get inside or I'll arrest you. I ought to arrest you
    anyway for not carrying your kit. And take my advice - stop
    wearing that button.'
    Frowning, Wood called the warden to the car and asked to see
    an instruction sheet. Ito, and Maria read it together.
    
    TN'EW YORK CML DEFENCE
    Instructions
    I.In the event of a bee raid, sirens will blow. Persons oil the
    street - on foot or in vehicles - and persons in dwellings not
    certified as beeproof are instructed to take shelter in designated
    areas. Failure to comply is a punishable offence.
    2 Drills will occur as deemed necessary. The above provisions
    will apply.
    3 Beeproof areas: subways and department stores; high-rise
    office buildings; stores built since World War Two; residences
    built since World War Two.. Warning: Window glass in structures
    built before World War Two is not necessarily beeproof. Wood
    shutters in such structures are required.
    4 All persons must carry a kit, visible to Civil Defence officials,
    containing wire face netting, a gas mask, and heavy gloves.
    5 All persons are required to comply with the following clothing
    regulations. All persons, regardless of sex, must wear or carry
    with them at all times when not within a beeproof area a bee-

    




    ecure canvas jacket. All persons must wear bee-secure trousers
    (skirts are expressly forbidden), protective socks and high shoes
    of strong material. Children must wear the same clothing as
    adults. Infants must also be protected.
    6 L~oting during a bee raid or bee drill is severely punishable.
    The police are instructed to shoot to kill.
    Observe the laws - they are for your own good
    
    197

    




    'Gas masks T Wood said, raising his eyebrows. 'They expec
    to spray the town with cyanide?' He began to laugh.
     He looked up to see the warden eyeing him sternly. The warden
    said, 'You'd better get your gear or you'll be arrested.' He strode
    away.
     'Not a very friendly city, is it?' Maria said as they drove off.
     But in that she was not entirely correct.
    
    The car stopped at the former UN building, now mostly empty,
    and Maria went to Bloomingdale's to buy the equipment while
    John conferred with General Slater.
     The army had undertaken the defence of New York. Its head-
    quarters were on the thirty-eighth floor of the building, and the
    walnut-panelled office Slater occupied had been that of the
    Secretary General. Wood looked around approvingly.
     'It's a step up from the Pentagon, General,' he jested.
     'Not bad duty, if I do say so,' Slater answered. To Wood he
    seemed leaner, trimmer, as though he'd gotten in shape for a
    bout. -'I never expected to be back in action again. Think we'll
    see some?'
     'Chances look pretty good to me, judging by Detrick.'
     Appearing in the Frederick area in ever larger numbers, the
    bees had finally attacked the facility and some had gotten in,
    The facility had been evacuated and the remaining line-reared
    bees had been killed. Now the Africans were moving on Wash-
    ington.
     'The computer predicted they'll arrive in the capital ab
    the twenty-fifth of September.'
     'So it's now or never,' Slater said.
     Over the floor lay thick black cables attached to TV A
    machines and several microphones at a long table. There
    teletype, and two maps covered whole walls. One was a map of
                                   about
    
    the city and its environs, the other of Long Island. The latter
    was covered with black pins, which, Wood gathered, signalled
    bee concentrations. -
     Slater went to the Long Island map. 'That's where the big
    buildup is. If they come in, it'll be from Long Island. Swarms
    19.8
    
    have been arriving for a month. They fly in over the Sound -
    they've even been spotted moving at night. In some places you
    can't walk across a potato field without seeing three or, four
    hives - small ones, to be sure, but representing an awful lot of
    bees in the aggregate. Them must be millions of them out there.'
     'What do they live on?' Wood asked. .
     'Well, as you know better than anybody, the weather has
    been such as to give them fantastic food supplies. Still, there
    probably isn't enough food for all those bees. They raid garbage
    dumps and cans and even get into abandoned houses in search
    of food. The population pressure is what drives them on.'
     'That's been the experience elsewhere,' Wood commented.
    'The question is how they will move.'
     'Yes, it's the critical consideration. If they come in more or
    less one swarm at a time, we can stop them without trouble. If
    they move together . . .'
     'I hope you've planned for that contingency,' Wood said
    quickly.
     'Absolutely. Our thinking is predicated on a mass attack by a
    great many bees. I'm convinced we can takecare of them.'
     'May I hear the final procedures?' He knew the battle plan
    but not how it would be executed.
     Slater crossed the room to the giant map of New York City
    and its eastern environs. On it had been drawn a series of con-
    centric rings. 'A number of forward observation posts have
    been positioned over Long Island - trucks with the most ad-
   ced radar, TV and radio equipment, on a twenty-four-hour
       If the bees begin to move, well know, either through
       sightings or from the radar screens. A large swarm will

    




       up on the screens.'
        ,'Wood said.
     v'ce
    an
    alert.
    visual
    show
     'Okay
    'Next the defences come into play. Helicopters, flying out of
    MacArthur and LaGuardia, will go into action.' Slater pointed
    to the outer concentric ring. 'They'll drop coated metal foil
    strips over the swarms. They'll set up vibrations in the air;
    hopefully, the bees' flight patterns will be disrupted.'
    Wood knew he looked dubious, because Slater said hurriedly,
    'That's just the opening gun. If they keep coming, the F-1 11 s go
    
    199

    




    into action. They'll be flying out of Kennedy - all fields will be
    closed to commercial traffic tomorrow at 2400 - and Floyd
    Bennett. The notion is to have them hit the bees at sonic speeds.
    The sonic boom, the jet exhaust, the jet stream - nothing can
    survive that.'
     'You're assuming they'll be high in the air?'
     Slater said, 'They've been swarming at altitudes of over a
    hundred feet. The F-1 11 was designed to come in low. Of course,
    if the bees make it to the city, the planes won't help, because 0
    the buildings.
     'Even so, I think the danger of collision will be high.'
     'We pay a price for everything we do,' Slater said solemnly;
    Wood could tell the General was enjoying himself; his confidence
    had returned.
     Wood asked, 'What next?'
     'There won't be a next,' Slater Answered. 'But if there is,
    we're ready. I mentioned sonic beams once. It's secret, but you
    may as well know. We've developed a supersonic beam that was
    meant to confuse the guidance systems of SAM missiles. The
    machines are in a position on the outskirts of Brooklyn and
    Queens. They won't kill the bees, but they will disrupt their solar
    and gravity orientation. We hope they'll dive right into the
    ground or into buildings.'
     'After that?'
     Slater grinned. 'Well, this one was your idea. As of tomorrow
    at 0700 hours thousands of cars will be moved into position along
    every major traffic artery. They've been wired so that the ignitions
    can be turned on by remote control. We'll pollute the bees to
    death.'
     'Well, it's something we know how to do,' Wood said
     'That ought to be the end,' Slater went on. 'On the absurdly
    small chance it isn't, Piper Cubs are waiting at Butler. They will
    spray a methyl parathion barrier on the far side of the East
    River.'
     'Good God,' Wood said, 'what about the people?'
     'They are being evacuated. And then - come over here.'
     Wood followed the General to the window. Below, an endless
    row of large barges was being pushed into position up and down
    
    the river by tugs. 'As a last ditch,' Slater said, 'the barges will
    be exploded. They're filled with kerosene. It'll turn the river into
    a sheet of flame and smoke. That ought to get any survivors.'
     Wood nodded. 'The plan's ingenious, all right.'
     'It can't fail,' Slater said, looking enormously pleased. 'But
    there's one little surprise left. Designed it myself, if I do say so.,
     'What's that?' Wood asked.
     'A high-intensity strobe light. It'll be located on the RCA
    building and surrounded by high-voltage wires. What few bees
    survive, if any, ought7fbibe drawn to it and to certain, death.'
     'Any danger of blindness to people?'
     'Some,' Slater admitted. 'I think we've got it in hand.' He
    stretched and said expansively, 'You've been working hard.
    Why don' t you take the rest of the day off and see the town?
    You'll find it changed.'
    
    That afternoon, feeling foolish in the strange clothing, John and
    Maria toured the town in the chauffeured car with Civil Defence
    markings.
     Slater was right; the city had changed, and more than its attire.
     Harlem, for instance. Harlem was packed with refugees, white
    refugees who had Red the congestion, the crime and the race
    problem for suburban sanctuaries and exuiban retreats. Now
    they were back in the city they had left, this time jammed into
    tenements and derelict buildings four or five to a room, or
    squatted in tents in Harlem's parks, guarding their silver and
    china. But, oddly, there was little racial tension or stealing. A
    spirit of crisis gripped the city, and as happens at such times,
    humanity unified itself, if only momentarily, in the common,
    defence.
     Central Park housed more than 250,000 people - nobody knew

    




    for sure how in any. They lived in military tents, under army
    supervision, in camps with hastily erected Quonset huts for
    mess halls. It was the same in all the city's parks. Millions of
    people had swarmed into Manhattan from the surrounding areas.
    There was food enough, but just enough.
     Wood asked the driver to stop at a hardware store, where he
    purchased wooden shutters, and then at a supermarket for food.
                                     201

    




    As he and Maria started to get out, the driver said, 'You'll need
    these.' He handed them a packet of food stamps.
     The scientists knew about rationing, but isolated at Detrick,
    they had not been aware how scarce and how expensive were
    certain foods. The steak available was horsemeat, the eggs
    powdered. Milk did not seem to exist except in the concentrated
    form. No fruit. The few half-rotten vegetables offered for sale
    would have been thrown out in other days. New Yorkers, it
    appeared, mostly subsisted on canned beans from Puerto Rico
    and pressed canned meats. There was soft white bread and
    sugary cake in abundance - evidently flour supplies were good.
    Maria observed that i ' f the siege continued, vitamin deficiencies
    would soon appear.
     And yet, as they soon learned, New York was surprisingly gay.
     The couple had decided to give themselves one night on the
    town on the grounds that they had it coming after months of
    confinement at Detrick.
     New York was browned out, and the window of the expensive
    restaurant they chose was covered with a curtain. The place was
    crowded and festive, like New Yeaes Eve.
     'Feels funny,' John said, 'to be back in a city, sitting in a
    restaurant, having a cocktail. I'd just about forgotten such things
    existed. I'd come to think of Detrick as my home. I feel odd, like
    an immigrant.'
    
    202
    
     'It is certainly strange to be in a chic restaurant wearing this,'
    Maria answered, touching her canvas jacket. She glanced at two
    women sitting at the next table wearing the very same jackets.
    'At least I'm not alone.'
     'A toast,' John said, looking into the black eyes across from
    him. 'For just one night let's not talk about the bees.'
     But there was no way to ignore the bees.
     The restaurant had a full menu, and Wood asked the captain
    where the incredibly expensive meats and vegetables came from.
    From Europe, the captain said, with a curious glance, on special
    flights for restaurants. They ordered, and John said to Maria,
    'Well, eat up. All airports around New York will be shut down
    tomorrow. No more restaurants!
     He said this too loudly. The next table overheard the remark.
                                      , I
    
     Two couples sat there - the men older, in canvas jackets; the
    women young, their jackets unzipped. They seemed a little
    drunk, and one of the girls, a blonde who had been staring at
    John's straight profile, said, 'Is it true? No more flights out of
    New York?'.
     John said quickly, 'That's the rumour I heard.'
     One of the men scoffed, 'Everything's a rumour. What can you,
    believe any more? Are the bees coming, or aren't they?'
     'The stock market says they're coming,' said the other man.
    'It went down another -forty points today. It's like 'twenty-nine.'
     John saw a newspaper on a seat and asked to borrow it. One
    word shot out at him -'Terrace'. The headline said:
    
                          MRS TERRACE KILLED BY LOOTERS
                          KB Founder Refused to Evacuate
    
    John returned the paper. He said to Maria, 'How ironic it is."
     The first man was saying, 'If the goddamned bees are coming,
    I wish to hell they'd get it over with. This waiting gets me down.'
     The dark-haired girl said, 'You can still get out. When they
    block the roads with cars tomorrow, you won't be able to, at
    least by road.'
     'Where would I go? It's the same everywhere - bees and more
    bees.' He shrugged. 'I should have gone to Europe, maybe. Now
    it~s too late - if he's right about the airports.'
     He looked at John, who responded with curiosity. 'Why
    haven't you gotten out already?'

    




     The older man said simply, 'I wasn't going to be pushed
    around by a bug. Dumb, huh? It's true of all of us.'
     The blonde girl raised her arms and stretched. The canvas
    jacket fell open, revealing most of her bare breasts. She did not
    appear in the least embarrassed. 'The way I look at it,' she said,
    'the bees are giving us what we deserve. We have a shitty society,
    and they've come to zing us for it.'
     'Come on,' said the brunette. 'You sound exactly like the bee
    freaks.'
     Maria asked, 'What is a bee freak?'
     The older man said, regarding Maria with interest, 'Where
    have you been?'
    
    203

    




     'Away.'
     'Well, the bee freaks emerged out of the Krishnamurti nuts.
    They say the bees were sent by God, who's black, to punish
    America for its selfishness. It's the limit.'
     John had been to this restaurant before. It had never had
    dancing, but now a small combo began to play and, squealing
    merrily, people started to dance.
     Maria smiled. 'You people still seem to have fan,' she said.
     The older man answered, 'It's all we have left. Come on,
    drink up, and we'll have another round. Waiter! Another. For
    them too.' He indicated John and Maria.
     'What are you drinking, sir?'
     'Why, what else?' the man chuckled. 'Stingers, of course.'
     'Stingers!' Maria shrieked. 'Stingers!' They laughed until
    they had to put their heads on the table. They laughed and they
    cried. The long months of tension streamed out of them.
    
    Later that night John and Maria stood on the West Side terrace
    again, as they had on their first evening. The curtained city was
    quiet. On the streets below nothing moved.
     Central Park, filled with the huddled shapes of tents, looked
    like an army before a battle.
     He put his arms around her. 'Perhaps this isn't the time to
    talk about it, but after everything calms down, I'd like to plan a,
    honeymoon. That is, if we get out of this alive.'
     She looked at him, somewhat shocked. 'You doubt that we
    will?'
     'I think there's a chance that we won't. Are you sorry we
    didn't leave, like Gerston T
     'No.' There was silence.
     'You haven't answered me, Maria.'
     'I know.'
     'Still upset because of my old days at Detrick?'
    
     11 guess so. It changed my picture of you. I mean, w 're
    supposed to be scientists, not killers. We're supposed to work
    for the good of man.'
     'Scientists are 'no different fr I om anybody else,' he said uncom-
    
    204
    
    fortably. 'Anyway, I know now that what we did at Fort Detrick
    in biological warfare was wrong.'
     She looked up sharply. 'Yes?'
     'But not the way you think. It isn't wrong to try to defend
    yourself in any way you have to. What's wrong is to forget we're
    not the only living things on the globe.'
     The bright black eyes were gleaming. 'Let's go inside,' she
    murmured urgently. 'And let us try to come out of this alive.'
    
    205

    




    24 The batde of New York
    
    Two days later, at 6.55 in the morning, the telephone rang by
    the bed. Wood picked it up. A male voice said tersely, 'It's
    started. A staff car will pick you up in fifteen minutes, sir.,
     It was 31 August. The Africans were four days ahead of the
    Detrick computer's schedule.
     Maria made coffee hastily while Wood dressed. At seven
    o'clock he could hear the noise of trumpets from Central Park,
    rousing the refugees.
     Slater's large office had become bedlam as technicians hur-
    riedly tested the equipment, checking leads, twisting buttons,
    and adding mikes and TV screens.
     Wood glanced out the window. On the Queensborough Bridge
    he could see an endless line of brown army trucks bringing still
    more refugees into the city. Slater entered the room and came
    over. Wood said, 'Is there a situation report?'
     Slater answered, 'They must have started moving last night.
    All over Long Island bee swarms are in the air, heading in this
    direction.'
     A voice came in so strongly over the loudspeaker that both
    men jumped. 'This is Signal Corps Communications Van
    Seventy-two to HQ. Can you hear me?'
     'Loud and clear, Seventy-two,' said the operator.
     'Something's coming,' the voice said.
     'Where is Van Seventy-two?' Slater called to a man at the
    map.
     'Near Islip.'
     'How fa~ is Van Seventy-two?'
     'Approximately forty miles.'
     Slater said to Wood, 'Can bees fly forty miles?'
     Wood said, 'I'm afraid these bees can.'
    
    206
    
     S~a~&_-went to a mike and pressed the talk button. 'Van
    Seventy-two, this is General Slater. Come in.'
     'Fni here, sir.' .
     'What do you see?'
     'I'm on a hill, sir. I can see what looks like a grey cloud
    coming this way. I'm looking through field glasses. Maybe it's
    only a cloud, sir. It must be a cloud, it's so big. . . Here it comes.
    No, t hose are bees! Jesus, sir, I've never seen anything like it.
    It takes my breath away. You can't imagine it. The sky is black
    from one end of the horizon to the other. Jesus, look at it. They
    cover the sun! It's like an eclipse, they're so thick. Here they are!'
     Slater shouted, interrupting him. 'Give us the video, Seventy-
    two.'
     'I'm trying, sir. We I re having trouble with the camera.'
     'Got a reading on speed?'
     'Yes. The swarm, if I can call it that, is moving at ten miles
    per hour. It's bucking a head wind.'
     'How high is it?'
     'The best reading I can give you is that it ranges from sixty to
    a hundred and ten feet in altitude.'
     'You mean the swarm is fifty feet thick ?'
     'That's what the sonar-radar says.'
     Slater said to Wood, 'Good God. That's unimaginable.'
     Van 72 came in again. 'We've got video for you now.'
     The picture was hazy, but it left nothing to the imagination.
    Heading towards New York was a wall of bees.
     Wood said, 'Let's try to.get some idea of the size of the
    swarm.'
     The operator began checking other Signal Corps vans in the
    area. It was quickly decided that the bee swarm was two miles
    wide, a quarter of a mile long, and fifty feet deep.
     Slater said in a shocked voice, 'That must represent every bee
    on Long Island.'
     Wood said, almost in a whisper, 'And Connecticut and who
    knows where else. They must have been infiltrating to Long

    




    Island in the last few days in unbelievable numbers. There are
    illions of them.'
     , Jesus,' Slater said. He seemed stunned.
    
    207

    




     Wood said, 'Let's get them.'
     The helicopters were airborne from LaGuardia in minutes,
    heading for the swarm. Other helicopters had been assigned the
    job of camera planes, and with their equipment they flanked the
    swarm like cowboys herding cattle. The men in Slater's office
    had a good view of the swarm. It moved slowly but implacably,
    never changing either altitude or direction, progressing always
    towards New York.
     It was now 8am. If the swarm did not stop, it would reach
    Times Square almost exactly at high noon.
     Dozens of helicopters went into battle, dropping millions of
    pieces of twisted foil, which looked on the cameras like ordinary
    TV snow. One helicopter camera located in front of the advanc-
    ing swarm recorded exactly what happened. The swarm was like
    an ocean wave. The wave of bees rose and fell, rose and fell, then
    continued as before.
     Slater looked disappointed. He barked an order. Thirty-tw- 0
    seconds later the first F-1 I I fighter left the runway at Kennedy.
     It had been feared that if the helicopters entered the bee
    stream, the insects would soon clog the intakes and delicate
    valves. No such problem existed with the fighters. Because of the
    speed of the hurtling F-Ills, air piled up in front of them,
    pushing flying objects out of the way. In minutes the first F-1 11
    reached the swarm and entered it, travelling at 750 miles an
    hour, drilling a tunnel into the wave of bees. Where bees had
    been, there was, momentarily, just a hole. Slater smiled for the
    first time that morning.
     Another F-1 11 hit the swarm, then another. On the ground,
    buildings collapsed under the shock waves. The noise, even
    filtered through the sound equipment, was deafening. Cheer
    pervaded the headquarters, but not for long. The swarm began
    to descend.
     At exactly the same speed and in precisely the same direction,
    the swarm now moved just above the earth's surface. But its
    configuration had changed. Ground observers reported it to be
    some two miles wide, twenty-five feet in thickn ess, and a half
    mile long.
     Above it the F-1 I ls wheeled angrily. It was possible for the
    
    ~268
    
    planes to fly this low, but dangerous because of th6 buildings.
    None the less several pilots requested and received permission to
    try. When the second plane crashed, Slater terminated the
    mission.
     At this point something happened for which Slater and Wood
    had not bargained; had they known in advance, the complexion
    of the battle might well have changed. At 10.30am the advance
    ceased abruptly, as though a signal had been given.
     'I don't get it,' Slater said.
     'Where are they?' Wood asked.
     One of the radio crew said, 'Hempstead. Hempstead Lake, to
    be precise.'
     'Let's have an overhead angle,' Wood ordered.
     The camera showed the surface of the lake, dark with bees.
     Wood said, 'There's your answer. They're watering and
    resting.' He snapped his fingers. 'Here's our chance. Poison?
    No, it'll take too long. A bomb! Drop a bomb!
     Fifteen minutes later a fighter-bomber streaked from the
    runway at Maguire Air Force- Base in New Jersey. It arrived
    moments late. The swarm had resumed its journey.
     Quietly, seemingly peaceful as a cloud, the swarm floated
    gracefully, casting an enormous shadow beneath it. The front
    edge of this shadow was approaching the city limits.
     'There's something majestic about them,' Wood said, watch-
    ing the spectacle on the screen. 'If it weren't so awful, it would
    be almost beautiful.'
     'But it is awful,' Slater said. 'I'm activating the sonic beams.'
     These weapons, mounted on flatbed trucks, began zeroing in
    on the swarm, pelting it with supersonic beams. And perhaps

    




    some disoriented bees did crash into the ground or buildings;
    bui what happened was best illustrated by the movement of the
    beam, forwards, overhead, and then aimed at the swarm's rear,
    which disappeared into New York. Like the beams themselves,
    the effect upon the swarm was invisible.
     On every major roadway in Brooklyn and Queens the engines
    of thousands and thousands of parked cars had already roared
    to life, sending thick clouds of exhaust fumes high into the air.
    Dead bees by the thousands quickly littered the cars and the
    
    Ino

    




    210
    
    ground - with no discernible difference. There were just too
    many bees. Methodically, the swarm continued on its way.
     One of Wood's jobs at this point was to see that the Piper
    Cubs releasing pesticide did not stray over the crowded streets
    of Manhattan but remained on the east side of the river, which
    had been evacuated. The sprayed area would be uninhabitable
    for weeks. Tensely he talked back and forth with air controllers.
    The task proceeded without accident. A white mist of methyl
    parathion -now separated Manhattan from the bees like a deadly
    curtain.
     The bees were still an oblong column, two miles wide and a
    half-mile long. All conversation ceased in the big room on the
    top floor of the former site of the United Nations. Every eye was
    fixed on the camera carried by the helicopter flying at a safe
    distance in front of the poisonous white sheet.
     The colour TV picture at the critical moment was stunningly
    clear, and Wood understood at once. The white mist began to
    darken imperceptibly, becoming grey, then solid black. The
    swarm was coming through. The Africans were ignoring the
    pesticide!
     Slater sat with his head in his hands, while Wood looked out
    the window. The radio was quiet, the military TV set blank. The
    men waited in silence. Only one line, represented by the last
    defence perimeter on the map, stood between Manhattan and
    the bees, and in Wood's estimation this system was undepend-
    able.
     On the thirty-eighth floor the roar of exploding barges could
    be heard through the thick plate-glass windows. Staring down,
    Wood saw a river of flame ignite, shooting fiery tongues fifty
    feet into the air, and billows of smoke higher than the UN
    building itself. The room dimmed, as though it were night.
    Outside was a bank of smoke. Wood peered through the window
    with desperate curiosity.
     ""at's going on?' Slater asked without raising his head.
     'Air draught,' Wood said quietly. 'Hot air goes up.'
     'What in blazes do you mean?' Slater came to the window.
     Wood pointed. At first he had thought the spots were specks
    of ash. Then he realized the spots were moving. The bees had
    
    entered Manhattan. They were clustered on the windows of the
    UN building, just outside. In the city, sirens began to bray.
    
    If Wood had any occasion for irony in the coming days it was
    because of Slater's strobe light.
     On top of the RCA building, the gianf strobe light, with its
    incredible intensity, was a continual hazard to public health. Two
    dozen people who had had the misfortune to stare at it as though
    hypnotized had been blinded for life. Others suffered serious
    ,impairment of vision. But not the bees.
    , The strobe light may have attracted the swarm to the Central'
    Park area, but having affived there, it found exactly what it was
    looking for - water in the lakes and reservoir. Bees can carry a
    week's supply of food, but they need water, and Slater unwit-
    tingly had helped them out. Bright, flickering light seemed to
    interest them no longer.
     Then the bees settled on the buildings around the park as
    though they were giant trees. Wood, who had raced back from
    the UN building to be with Maria, could hear the faint rattle on
    his tenth-storey windows. Cautiously he opened the wood shutters
    a crack and at once saw the reason. Big bees were flying against
    the windows trying to get in. They seemed to see him and
    pounded harder.
     Frightened, but convinced that the glass would hold, Wood
    opened the shutter a little wider and peered out. Through the
    crawling black bodies he caught a glimpse of the GM building,
    its once-gleaming front now dark with bees.
     The occupation of New York had begun.
    

    




    There had been casualties at once.
     Almost in a holiday mood, a crowd lined the walkways of the
    East River to watch the destruction of the surviving bees in the
    flames and smoke from the exploding barges. Many simply did
    not believe any bees would make it through the elaborate military
    defences, and regarded the precautions taken by Civil Defence
    as frivolous. Despite the law, these people did not bother with
    protective gear.
    
    211

    




     The draught of hot air pushed up the swarm, but the bees, once
    they were through the barrier, suddenly dropped - hot, furious
    bees. With no warning at all they fell on the crowd like hot
    cinders. Zififfiffl. Many people were fatally stung.
     Watered and rested, the bees reconnoitred the city in search
    of food, leaving early and returning late, as they did in their
    hives. Although enough bees remained in other sections of the
    city to make life hazardous there too, the main body appeared
    to regard Central Park as home, perhaps because of the water.
    They remained concentrated there, to the great anxiety of the
    refugees huddled in tents and facing almost certain starvation if
    the occupation did not soon end.
     In their search for food the bees were rewarded. Uncollected
    garbage waited like a feast. Because of American dietary customs,
    sugar abounded. Pollen proved no trouble for the bees, either, if
    they needed it, for flour has long been fed to bees as a pollen
    substitute, and plenty of old bread and cake lay in the garbage
    cans.
     Army headquarters remained open in a desultory way, but
    Wood stayed in the apartment. He.kept in touch with Slater by
    phone, until, on the second day, phones ceased working when
    operators refused to appear. But there was nothing Wood or
    anyone else could do. No one went out unless he was compelled;
    even if the protective clothing was safe, to have a cloud of bees'
    flying at your facepiece, jabbing at your clothing, was unnerving
    at the least. And returning home, there was always the chance
    that toxic bees would slip in at the door. John and Maria stayed
    in their apartment listening to developments on television. They
    were marooned in the middle of New York.
     One by one, vital services collapsed. - .
     On the second day public transportation stopped and so did
    taxicabs. Motormen and drivers claimed they could not see well
    enough through wire masks.
     Attempts at maintaining health care were mostly abandoned.
    Doctors and ambulances made no more calls; hospitals developed
    elaborate safety procedures, but even so, many patients were
    stung in their beds. In an old people's home a senile woman left
    her window open, and not a single survivor was reported.
    
    212
    
     That there was no mail was the least of New York's worries.
     Much more fearsome was the threat of ch ' olera when water-
    purification crews stopped functioning after being repeatedly
    attacked by bees.
     Electrical service was maintained, but barely. The mayor,
    appearing on television, forbade use of any electricity beyond
    that absolutely necessary. Most people complied, though it
    meant sitting behind closed windows on hot days without air-
    conditioners.
     Perhaps the most unfortunate victims of the bees were the
    poor.
     The bees could shatter old, thin glass, and many poor people
    had no shutters. Crawling on the windowpanes, a bee, searching
    for food, might find a chink in the frame or the caulking, or a
    break in the glass, or a hole that had not been plugged. Letting
    in even one could be fatal. You could not huddle in a closet
    for ever, or perhaps the protective gear was unreachable, or
    perhaps, if there were a half dozen children, there might not be
    time to get them garbed. Again and again panic brought people
    racing to the streets. The waiting bees did the rest.
     New Yorkers existed as isolated units, cut off from one
    another by the bees, atomized and alone.
    
    Maria asked the question everyone asked. 'How long can the
    bees last?'
     John said, 'They can carry a week's supply of food, but they
    must be finding more. It's conceivable that they could stay until
    the cold weather comes, which might be a month.'
     Maria shuddered. 'We'll starve.'

    




     'There will be some food on the convoys,' John reminded her.
    'I'm afraid of no water or electricity.'
     'There's something else that worries me. Going crazy,' she
    muttered. 'My God, it-'s stuffy in here.'
    
    In this fashion the city wound down, amid rotting garbage and
    heat, under the threat of pestilence, thirst, mass suicide, and
    eventually famine, while the bees waited. Nor would other cities
    
    213

    




    be able to provide help, for the bees were approaching them as
    well. To many, it seemed that the end was near. Then, on the
    morning of the fifth day, something happened.
    
    214
    
    The first change noted by John Wood, covered with sweat and
    sitting morosely in the dark, unbearably hot living room, was
    the silence. He had become so accustomed to the constant
    rattle of bees striking the windowpanes that the sudden quiet
    startled him. Inching back the shutters, he saw that the panes
    were free of bees. He pulled the shutters wide. There were no
    bees, and none were flying around the window either. He jerked
    up the casement rapidly, taking great gulps of fresh air, feeling
    the fresh breeze against his skin. Then he saw. Over the park the
    swarm had begun to assemble.
     He called Maria, and, excited but cautious, they stepped out-
    side onto the terrace for the first time in five days. From every
    direction bees scudded over buildings, joining the swarm that
    hovered above the park. Like a collapsing wall, a sheet of bees
    detached itself from the GM building and floated towards the
    gathering swarm, so large by now that it seemed to extend from
    one end of the park to the other.
     The swarm rose and fell, as though restless and indecisive. It
    was making a noise, a deep-throated note, almost a roar 7 almost,
    it seemed to Wood, a chant. As a scientist he had been trained
    not to impute human feelings to the animal world, and yet he
    could not help thinking that the sound of the swarm was almost
    unbearably sad.
     Then, as they watched, the fantastic carpet of bees began to
    rise, slowly, powerfully, majestically. From the military tents in
    the park figures poured, looking up, pointing. People began to
    run from the buildings, gesticulating, cheering hysterically,
    watching as the swarm, graceful as a feather, began to move.
     Heading south, it floated easily over the tall structures facing
    the park, sailing past the RCA building, whose strobe light,
    flickering in empty menace, affected it no more than would a
    burning match. Then it vanished from their sight. Maria went
    in and hurriedly turned on the radio.
    
     'I can see them from here on the Empire State building. Yes,
    here they come. What a sight! My God, they seem to cover half
    the city. A blanket of bees I They are below me now - I can't see
    the streets through the bees. It's as if they were solid, there are
    so many of them. I wonder where they're going. They are still
    moving, they are not turning back. They are not turning back.
    Come in, downtown.'
     'This is Chris Watson at the World Trade C~enter. We've been
    staked out here hoping something like this might happen. It's
    about all there was to hope for, right ? I can see them now
    through my field glasses. Here they come. They are heading
    straight towards me. How gracefully the swarm flies! I don't
    know where they're going, but we may be in for a miracle,
    ladies and gentlemen, and a miracle is what we need. The front
    edge of the swarm is passing now, to the east of me, heading
    towards the Battery. I don't know what their objective is, but you
    folks on Staten Island and in New Jersey better batten down,
    because they're aimed in your direction. They are not turning
    back. They are not turning back! ... They're over the water,
    moving fast. The end of the swarm is passing below me, the
    front edge is almost to the Statue of Liberty! They're overflying
    thattoo. Where are they headed? It looks tome like the Verrazano
    Bridge. Beyond that - I hardly dare to say it - but beyond that is
    the open sea!'
     Observers at the Narrows, where the Upper Bay meets the
    Atlantic Ocean, had the last clear view of the bees. It was foggy
    at sea, and the hastily summoned helicopters soon lost sight of
    the bees in the mist. But one thing was known: the swarm was
    over the ocean.
     On the terrace, John and Maria hugged each other. Maria's

    




    cheeks were wet with tears. 'Did we win? Did poor little Krim's
    transplant really take??
     He shook his head. 'I have this funny, unscientific feeling that
    the bees could have won if they'd wanted to.' In a moment he
    said, 'There's one thing more.'
     'What?'
     'If the bees did it once, they could do it again. I don't want a
    rematch.'
    
    215

    




    Eipilogue
     K_
    
    Delayed by the national reconstruction until January, the next
    annual meeting of the American Entomological Association took
    place once again at the Hilton Hotel in New York, with thou-
    sands of scientists eager to discuss the bee invasion turned away
    for lack of space. It was vital to understand the fate of the
    enemy in order to be sure that human intervention had been
    effective.
     Like the rest of the country, New York was returning gradu-
    ally to normal. Industrial production had been resumed every-
    where, and the nation's economy was creeping slowly back to
    pre-bee levels. Food continued to be short - red meat was absent
    from the banquet tables in the Grand Ballroom. Livestock could
    not quickly be replaced, and the fall harvest had been meagre.
    But, as the entomologists pointed out, the Africans had left
    behind a magnificent bequest. Such was the pollination that must
    have been wrought by the army of bees that crops and flowers
    would grow the following spring in an abundance never known
    before.
     New bees were being imported from Europe - selected with
    the greatest care.
     At the meeting, interest centred on what had caused the.
    Africans to act as they did. Almost simultaneously with the
    disappearance of the swarm over New York, all other Africans
    had flown to water - the sea, lakes, rivers, even reservoirs - and
    drowned there. It was as though the bees carried a self-destructive
    mechanism set to go off at the same time.
     But why?
     Every scientist present seemed to have a theory. Some held
    that the bees, like dinosaurs, had simply become too big to live.
    Others had complicated ideas about psychological stress factors.
    
    217

    




    It was already known that bees could die from too much stress,
    and now some claimed that the extensive patrolling of the in-
    vaders, the disappearance of monogyny - rule by a single queen
    - from the mass swarms, or the difficulty of preparing for winter
    at such a late date had made the bees functionally neurotic and
    suicidal. But the main body of opinion held that Walter Krim's
    work was responsible.
     The survivors of B Group entered the ballroom together.
    Krim was strapped in a wheelchair pushed by F. W. McAllister.
    He had received numerous accolades and awards, but of all the
    deserts of his labours none was sweeter than the humble personal
    apology delivered by the high-voiced entomologist from Kansas
    University. With them were Gerston, Maria Amaral and John
    Wood. The ballroom thundered with applause. Krim, though
    recovering, was still inarticulate, and John Wood went to the
    podium instead. Carefully he reviewed Krim's work, starting
    with the discovery of Henry David's 'dumb' bees and Krim's
    brilliant assumption that the strange behaviour of these bees was
    really symptomatic of an underlying, virus-induced genetic defect
    of a broader kind. Krim had succeeded in straining out the
    defective genetic substance and in transmitting it to the cells of
    the factory-bred queens. These insects had mated with African
    drones, and their offspring carried a new genetic'strain both
    strongly dominant and lethal, as Krim's calculations had
    predicted. In three generations, perhaps only two, this gene,
    carrying its message to the Africans, dictated negative survival,
    meaning death. It had affected the African elite, which had led
    the bees to race suicide.
     Still, as Wood told his hushed audience, Walter Krim's calcu-
    lations had shown a 50 per cent chance of failure. They had
    been lucky that the coin fell on the right side.
     Later that evening John Wood voiced a different possibility.
    Standing on the terrace with his Brazilian bride, he spoke, as he
    had once before, of man's craving for certainty. People demand
    answers, and Krim's answer was the best they had. But, Wood
    said, smiling grimly in the darkness, perhaps science had no
    answer.
    
    Glossary*
    
    Alarm-defence system Defensive behaviour which also functions
    as an alarm-signalling device within the colony. Examples include
    the use by certain ant species of chemical defensive secretions
    that double as alarm pheromones.
    Alarm pheromones A chemical substance exchanged among
    members of the same species that induces a state of alertness or
    alarm in the face of a common threat.
    Altruism Self-destructive behaviour performed for the benefit of
    others.
    Apiary A place where honeybees are kept. Specifically, a group of
    hives.
    Brood cell A special chamber or pocket built to house immature
    stages.
    Colony A group of individuals, other than a single mated pair,
    which constructs nests or rears offspring in a cooperative manner.
    Elite Referring to a colony member displaying greater than
    average initiative and activity.
    Eusocial Applied to the condition or to the group possessing it in
    which individuals display all of the following three traits:
    cooperation in caring for the young; reproductive division of
    labour, with more or less sterile individuals working on behalf of
    individuals engaged in reproduction; and overlap of at least two
    generations of life stages capable of contributing to colony
    labour. This is the formal equivalent of the expressions'truly
    social'or'higher social', which are commonly used with less
    exact meaning.
    Group effect An alteration in behaviour or physiology within a
    species brought about by signals that are directed in neither space
     From Edward 0. Wilson, The Insect Societies (Cambridge, Mass.,
    Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971).

    




    
    219

    




    nor time. A simple example is social facilitation, in which there is
    an increase of an activity merely from the sight or sound (or other
    form of stimulation) coming from other individuals engaged in
    the same activity.
    Homeostasis The maintenance of a steady state, especially a
    physiological or social steady state, by means of self-regulation
    through internal feedback responses.
    Honeybee A member of the genus Apis. Unless qualified
    otherwise, a honeybee is more particularly a member of the
    domestic species A. mellifera, and the term is usually applied to
    the worker caste.
    Insect sociology (imect sociobiology) The study of social
    behaviour and populat ion characteristics related to social
    behaviour in insects.
    Mass communication The transfer of information among groups
    of individuals of a kind that cannot be transmitted from a single
    individual to another. Examples include the spatial organization
    of army ant raids, the regulation of numbers of worker ants on
    odour trails, and certain aspects of the thermoregulation of nests.
    Meliffology The scientific study of bees.
    Monogyny The existence of only one functional queen in the nest
    (opposed to polygyny).
    Odour trail A chemical trace laid down by one insect and
    followed by another. The odorous material is referred to either
    as the trail pheromone or the trail substance.
    Patrolling1be act of investigating the nest interior. Worker
    honeybees are especially active in patrolling and are thereby
    quick to respond as a group to contingencies when they arise in
    the nest.
    Pheromone A chemical substance, usually a glandular secretion,
    which is used in communication within a species. One
    individual releases the material as a signal and another responds
    after tasting or smelling it.
    Piping The sound emitted by young honeybee queens after their
    emergence. It induces return calls ('quacking') from other virgin
    queens still in the royal cells and stimulates swarming behaviour
    by the workers. '
    Propolis A collective term for the resins and waxes collected by
    220
    
    bees and brought to their nests for use in construction and in
    sealing fissures in the nest wall.
    Queen control The inhibitory influence of the queen on the
    reproductive activities of thevorkers and other queens.
    Superorganism Any colony, such as the colony of eusocial insect
    species, possessing features of organization analogous to the
    physiological properties of a single organism. The insectcolony,
    for example, is divided into reproductive castes (analogous to
    gonads) and worker castes (analogous to somatic tissue); it may
    exchange nutrients by trophallaxis (exchange of liquid among
    colony members), analogous to the circulatory system, and
    so forth.
    Swarming In honeybees, the normal method of colony
    reproduction, in which the queen and a large number of workers
    depart suddenly from the parental nest and fly to some exposed
    site. There they cluster while scout workers fly in search of a
    suitable new nest cavity.
    Waggle dance The dance whereby workers of various species of
    honeybees (genus Apis) communicate the location of food finds
    and new nest sites. The dance is basically a runthrough of a
    figure-eight pattern, with the middle, transverse line of the eight
    containing the information about the direction and distance of
    the target.

    




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                                FAMILY ATTACKED BY
                                 BEES -TW.Q-_KILLED
         MARYVILLE, N.Y., Sept. 26-A family
         of five on an outing in an isolated spot
         by a stream were attacked by bees
         here. Mr and Mrs William Peterson
         died as the result of bee bites. Their
         three children were also attacked,
         one, Karen, age 12, severely.
         What caused the bees to attack'is not
         known.
    
   This was the beginning, barely noticed.
    Only a few scientists felt the first
    stirrings of terror. But then the death
    toll began to mount - and terror erupted
    into national panic when great swarms
    of savage bees, deadly killers, blotted
    out the sun as they spread across
    America.
   Now, with the Empire State Building
    black with bees, a crack team of
    scientists race desperately against time
    to fight an enemy they only partly
    comprehend...
   'One of the best science fiction noVels
    of the year - if not the best'
    SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
   'Strikingly convincing' EVENING NEYVS
    'Amust ... very chillingSCOTSMAN
    
    I
    
    FICTION
    0330246860
    U.K.     60P
    Australia$1.75*
    New Zealand $2.05
    Not for sale in Canada
    *Recommended Price
    