It was during the term of President Andrew Barnaby, just before the election of 2000, that the Hive was completed. The newsreel shots of the ten flying city-sections were the most thoroughly viewed of any prior television programs, including the four unsuccessful moon-shots in the attempt, early in the eighties, to build a lunar city. The site of the city's permanent location was a plateau high in the Rockies, at a point a few hundred miles south-by-southeast of Seattle. The reason for the choice of site was the location of the world's largest mechanical brain at that point; the running of the million-and-one functional parts of the Hive could not be left to the uncertainties of a human agency. It would have required the full time of a tenth of the population of the Hive to keep its multitude of lights, elevators, communication-systems, synthesizers, air-conditioners, and power units in coordinated operation. The job of running the Hive was turned over to the Brain, completely.
That any damage could occur to the Brain was impossible, President Barnaby pointed out to the nation during the gala inauguration ceremonies of the indestructible city. When the threat of nuclear war still hung over the world, he told his listeners, the Brain was prudently constructed in the heart of the mountain on which the Hive now rests, its entrance being protected by a ceiling twenty-five feet thick, of concrete and lead, which could close hermetically tight and successfully block any power in possession of civilized man. Further, the Brain was self-sustaining, needed no maintenance, and possessed enough electronic memory-cells to record a complete history of mankind for a millennium to come.
The ceremonies completed, and Lloyd Bodger installed as second-in-command to a city that as yet had no first-in-command, but one thing remained to be done: Populate the city. And here again, the dream of Lester Murdock ran into an unexpected snag: The first million people selected to dwell in the Hive were hospitalized in a week's time, due to a mass outbreak of what the nation's foremost doctors diagnosed as a combination of claustrophobia and anthrophobia, a sort of panic at the thought of being sealed into something with a vast throng of people. In vain did Bodger and Barnaby try to point out the benefits of the Hive: It was never too hot, never too cold, spacious, airy, bright, and a strong element of ultraviolet in the lighting made the breeding of disease germs impossible. It was a paradise of scientific achievements; anybody should be happy to live there.
Both men being persuasive to the extreme, another wave of determined urbanites was installed in the Hive, people specially selected for their acute mental balance, plus an emotional tendency toward seclusiveness. The result, while it took a month to develop this time, was the same. The United States apparently had a multi-billion-dollar white elephant on its hands. Even Barnaby, in one last attempt to sway the public, taking them on a televised tour of the wonderous city, was taken by a sudden spasm of fright, and dropped his hand-microphone from fingers that trembled violently. His shouted groan to his guards, "Get me out! Get me out of here—!" had a devastating adverse effect on the public psychology, and Barnaby—smart enough to know that the unthinking public would blame him personally for Murdock's program—tactfully withdrew his name from the ballot for the upcoming election, in order that his party might have a fighting chance to win. The city of Helox, the magnificent Hive, seemed doomed to lie untenanted high in the mountains until the crack of doom.
And then Bodger—who alone was unaffected by the Hive, perhaps due to his ingrained rapport with things which were destined to live forever—thought of children. "Why not," he begged the American people in a telecast which was Barnaby's last official concession to the development of the Hive, "let me have the orphans, the unwanted children of the nation! A child's psychology cries out for what the Hive can offer. Freedom from adult supervision, the chance to blend with a group conformity, all the while having the secure feelings of guaranteed food and shelter." The ensuing Vote was split almost directly down the middle; not enough to carry the proposition, yet not enough to quell it. The difficulty became apparent when a mass gathering of educators converged on Washington, bitterly protesting Bodger's plan. The nub was that no provision had been made for the children's minds; nor, they insisted, could be, since the Hive's peculiar effect on adults precluded the presence of teachers. And commuting to an exterior locale for schooling was defeating the whole scheme of the Hive: self-sufficiency.
"If that is the sole objection," Bodger informed the leaders of this group, "it can be overcome with ease. Have you all forgotten the gigantic pool of knowledge encased in the Brain beneath the Hive, more knowledge than any three of you possess in concert? Schooling can be direct from the Brain, tapping its near-endless informational resources."
The educators, partially won over, still insisted that such a plan removed the personal touch from education. The individual child would not be able to question the Brain when things proved too difficult for comprehension, nor would there be opportunity for after-school meetings with teachers for discussion of individual difficulties.
"But we will have teachers," said Bodger. "Robots, each one able to tap the Brain for information, yet each a separate individual, able to cope with the children one by one."