Hilldiggers

by Neal Asher

  – Uskaron

  McCrooger

  From the grobbleworm stall, Rhodane led the way alongside the canal. The noise of the hive city was a continuous roar in the background and it seemed to mostly consist of Brumallian chatter. I supposed that those living here came to tune it out like any other city dwellers tune out noise, but Rhodane soon disabused me of that notion. Halting shortly after we left the stall, she tilted her head, listening for a moment, then informed me, ‘The Consensus acknowledges and accepts your presence.’

  ‘As a Speaker for the Consensus do you also speak for all the people here in this city?’

  She glanced at me, raising an eyebrow. ‘No.’

  ‘I see, do you then speak for a council of representatives of these people?’

  ‘No.’ She was smiling now.

  I guess until then I had not truly considered what this ‘Consensus’ might be. In the back of my mind I had toyed with the idea of it being some democratic council of regional representatives, rather like the Sudorian Parliament, and that, as is always the case in politics, the term ‘consensus’ was distorted to fit reality rather than being used to actually describe it.

  ‘Rhodane, what is the Consensus?’

  ‘It is the Brumallian consensus.’

  ‘So you speak for all Brumallians on this planet?’

  ‘No,’ again that smile, ‘I speak for the consensus of all Brumallians on this planet.’

  ‘So there are no real rulers?’ I suggested.

  ‘None.’

  ‘I am surprised.’ An understatement, as I simply did not believe her.

  ‘What then do you have in the Polity?’

  ‘Rulers and ruled – just like everywhere else.’

  As we moved on, I noticed Brumallians studying me, but without surprise now – more out of curiosity regarding something about which they had already been informed. It occurred to me that if news travelled so fast in the hubbub, and in the pheromones in the air, there would be no need of media here to ill-inform public opinion. It tired me even thinking about it. Where were the controls? Could a touch of xenophobia spread amidst the citizenry, and thereby cause the Consensus to decide – or rather to be – that the best place for a Polity Consul Assessor was the bottom of the sea with lead weights tied around his feet?

  We reached a stairway, cut into the rock and leading up from the canal path. The two quofarl stepped ahead of us and began to climb.

  ‘I have to admit,’ I told Rhodane, ‘that I’m not entirely sure that I yet grasp how this society works. How would such a society initiate action that is good for the society as a whole, yet disliked by most of its members?’

  ‘Ah, but what is good for Brumallian society is never disliked by it.’

  ‘What if there was a plague here and it became necessary to kill three-quarters of the population in order to save the remaining quarter?’

  She shrugged. ‘Either the three-quarters would die to save the society, or there would be a Consensus schism.’

  ‘A schism?’

  ‘It has been theorized but has never yet happened.’

  ‘Are the mentally deficient part of the Consensus?’

  ‘Yes, though the irretrievably retarded are not allowed to live beyond their first year.’

  ‘Do the more intelligent Brumallians wield more influence in the Consensus?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ah . . .

  ‘Good ideas spread,’ she added.

  Oh.

  ‘How are false memes controlled?’ I asked.

  ‘Consensus factual comparison destroys them.’

  I thought about that for a while, then asked, ‘Do Brumallians ever lie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But lies cannot survive Consensus?’

  ‘They cannot.’

  I considered some of the political ideologies that had caused massive human suffering a thousand or more years ago on Earth. Those ideologies arrived before their time, and it seemed their time was here and now. I could see just one tiny aberration in this classless, democratic, communal society, and she was walking beside me.

  ‘So you need speakers like yourself to communicate with non-Brumallians. That such a position even exists indicates that not all Brumallians can understand the likes of myself. That’s something I think reinforced by the fact that you, a Sudorian, have risen to such a key position. A speaker could easily lie about what I say, and what she says to me.’

  Rhodane ran a finger along the ridging on her jaw-line. ‘All 840 speakers can both hear and see us.’ She then gestured to objects mounted on the walls: hemispheres with spirals of holes cut into them, of woody composition and slightly distorted, organic. ‘Machines can auto-translate Sudorian, so those interested can sense our exchange.’

  ‘Who decides what to broadcast?’

  ‘It is all broadcast, and available to all. Individuals can decide what they want to listen to.’

  ‘Who decides when to act if . . .’ I paused, realizing I was heading for a circular discussion. ‘Don’t tell me: the Consensus decides.’

  I realized that I would be much interested in learning more of the history of these people, since they must have gone through some traumatic upheavals before the controls – like the weighted governors on ancient steam engines – were firmly established in their society. But, of course, it was more than that. Most human societies within the Polity still carried the burden of having evolved from small hunter-gatherer communities. Here their alterations had been so drastic that little of that original blueprint might remain, and all those things imposed on previous human societies, to maintain order, here might be integral to the people themselves. What would be their next evolutionary rung to achieve? I wondered. How to improve further the well-oiled machine of Brumallian society? As I saw it, individuality needed to be removed, turning each of them into something little better than an ant functioning on hard-wired imperatives, so the society became the individual: a single mass mind.

  A few Brumallians passed us as we climbed the stair. A clatter of mandibles:

  ‘They didn’t get the –’

  ‘– smell right.’

  ‘It’s changed –’

  ‘– clothing decaying and –’

  ‘– physical change and –’

  ‘– dubious –’

  ‘– personal hygiene.’

  ‘Hey, I’m standing right here and I can understand you!’

  My comment just seemed to accelerate their conversation which, from the moment they appeared, also drew in Rhodane and the two quofarl:

  ‘Very Sudorian –’

  ‘– slow as a –’

  ‘– gnubbet.’

  ‘And really really dangerous.’

  Laughter.

  As we left the stair the noise increased and I realized, on looking around, that we must now be entering a high-density living area. The huge upright cylinder cave was filled with light provided by powerful lighting bars mounted in a framework that cut across a hundred feet above the floor. The surrounding walls glittered with windows, and out jutted numerous balconies, many of them filled with greenery. Vines laced the walls too, though I saw very few flowers and wondered if flowers, in view of one of the Brumallian methods of communication, might be considered too ‘noisy’. The smell here was one I would describe as complex, and only here did I notice its subtle changes reflected in the rise and fall of audible Brumallian chatter. I felt thousands of pairs of eyes observing me, knew myself to be the subject of many local conversations, as well as the topic of a huge conversation being conducted by millions.

  ‘We go this way,’ said Rhodane, gesturing along a path nearby.

  This gravelled walkway turned sharply to the left, where it met a canal and ran alongside it. Only upon seeing the waterway did I realize that what I first took to be buildings scattered about the cavern floor were in fact the deckhouses of barges crowding a canal network. Intervening spaces were filled with gardens, gazebos, circular hothouses and
thousands upon thousands of Brumallians: men, women and children, who were often riding on the backs of creatures like, but never entirely like, the one that had earlier pinned me to a muddy river-bank. Many of these people walked upright but, when convenient, some went down on all fours to put on speed. I found that particularly disconcerting, since this method of locomotion seemed to dispel what remained of their humanity. Walking along with Rhodane and the two quofarl, I constantly expected us to end up trapped amid curious crowds, but the way ahead always remained clear.

  We reached a bridge, crossing above barges on which goods were being loaded and unloaded. Someone nearby played a musical instrument rather like a violin, and someone else on a balcony far above supplied a clattering beat either with drums or mandibles. The aroma of boiling grobbleworms wafted across to us, then a smell like roasting chestnuts. Was that the smell of pheromonal communication or just of food? Distantly I observed a procession, with red flags flicking. A funeral, a wedding or something entirely else?

  The path terminated in a stair winding up through the cavern wall, with many exits on all sides into the surrounding accommodations. Hemispheres like a pheromone tannoy system dotted the rock walls all the way up. We entered a low corridor with many arches opening off from it into living quarters, curious residents peeking out at us. No doors, of course. Then, surprisingly appeared a door – which opened to admit Rhodane and me into an airlock swirling with warm air. A second door admitted us into quarters warmer still, where the air seemed finally to take its foot off my chest.

  ‘So how is it you can breathe the air and understand their pheromonal communications, Rhodane?’ I asked, turning to her.

  She touched that ridging on her jaw. ‘Because I am now both Sudorian and Brumallian, in every sense.’

  – RETROACT 12 –

  Yishna – on Corisanthe Main

  The armoured shields had been raised from a quartz window overlooking the outside area between Ozarks One and Two, and a crowd of OCTs had soon gathered there to watch the installation of the fourth quadrant gun. During Yishna’s first months aboard Corisanthe Main, she had swiftly learnt just how secure the station had been made, and just how strange and insular the population aboard had become. But now she was at ease with it all. She surveyed the crowd around her, who by their dress seemed some barbarian horde out of ancient Earth history, spotted Dalepan and Edellus and walked over to join them.

  Dalepan was pensively gazing down at his coworkers outside as they bolted in place the lower section of the massive gas-propellant gun. Edellus, bare-breasted as usual, rested one hand against the quartz window as she peered up towards a crew bringing in the weapon’s five-hundred-foot barrel. Yishna accepted the woman’s naked mammaries with equanimity now, for she had soon discovered Edellus to be the least exhibitionist of the Exhibitionists. Some of those gathered around her here wore garment tubes even cut off above the waist. This was mainly the females, though, since the way a man’s genitals flapped about in zero gee put them in serious risk of damage.

  ‘Dalepan, Edellus.’ She smiled at each in turn. Now having successfully applied for research permissions, she no longer needed to add the OCT title to their names when addressing them. She fully realized how much of a privilege this was, since it meant she was now one of the elite. That set her over and above tens of thousands aboard who would have loved to attain a similar position. Nodding down towards the gun site, she said, ‘Rather excessive that, don’t you think? Surely the Brumallians no longer represent much of a danger.’

  Dalepan did not turn round. ‘The Brumallians were a serious danger once. Who can say who or what will be a danger?’

  Paranoia was easily engendered in this cloistered and weird environment. Combine security here on Corisanthe Main consisted mainly of OCTs, who were usually more qualified for the job than anyone else. New arrivals from outside either became part of this society or swiftly transferred out, and over time the place had grown somewhat distinct from the rest of Orbital Combine – almost a dictatorship under the distinctly strange Director Gneiss.

  ‘Four big guns, the shielding tech, missile launchers, and twenty one-man attack craft . . . oh, and of course a defence platform being built almost within sight of us . . .’

  Now Dalepan did turn round. ‘You are remarkably interested in Main’s defences.’

  ‘Yes, I’m probably a spy or saboteur.’

  Edellus chuckled. ‘Maybe the former, but definitely not the latter. You would never want this place damaged, or for anything to come between you and the Worm.’

  It was true, since her obsessive studies of bleed-over were only interrupted by sleep, occasional periods of relaxation like this and those damnable visits to the psychologist some Combine do-gooder had foisted on her. She grimaced at the thought of that individual. She had learnt that Director Gneiss was on her side, since he also would rather not have such people aboard and was only acceding to the wishes of his fellows on the Combine Oversight Committee. It struck her as quite likely that she herself was an excuse to get a psychologist aboard, and that the real aim of Oversight was to obtain a professional assessment of the entire population here. And Gneiss appeared even more on her side, now that she had uncovered part of the mechanism of bleed-over, and found a way to record it. Apparently her recordings were now also being copied and passed around by the OCTs, who studied them with something akin to religious awe.

  ‘Agreed,’ said Dalepan humourlessly. ‘But we must always remain aware of danger, for we have a great responsibility here.’

  ‘But what dangers are there now?’ asked Yishna.

  ‘Fleet, the Groundstars, the Orchid Party – and even some elements of Combine itself,’ Dalepan replied.

  ‘And now, of course, there is also the object on Corisanthe III to be taken into account,’ added Edellus.

  ‘You mean the space liner they’re building?’

  Edellus shook her head pityingly.

  Realizing her mistake, Yishna persevered, ‘Object?’

  Dalepan grinned. ‘No, you are no spy or saboteur, Yishna Strone. Either one would have been thoroughly aware of recent events and I see you haven’t a clue.’

  The gun barrel was now descending directly past the window, while suited figures fired gas thrusters attached to its surface to manoeuvre it into position.

  ‘What object?’ Yishna felt suddenly desperate. Something major had occurred and she had missed it. She must not allow herself to go uninformed.

  ‘You tell her,’ said Dalepan to Edellus, before turning back to the window.

  ‘You can call up the full text of their message from the system, but in essence it was: “We are peaceful and we want to talk. You will find the U-space communication device at these coordinates.”’

  ‘U-space?’ Yishna felt as if she had been strolling calmly along a pavement, only to suddenly find herself teetering on the edge of a cliff. ‘Who wants to talk with us?’

  ‘The human race . . . the rest of the human race we left behind in the Sol system and on Earth, and the artificial intelligences it created. They now call themselves the Polity, though that seems a vague description. Parliament is presently debating where to site this device; Combine is fighting to retain it up here, and of course Fleet is demanding it be either handed over to them or destroyed, and that we then begin a full mobilization.’

  Yishna could not speak. She felt locked in place as something seemed to tear inside her head. It felt utterly strange to suddenly find herself taking interest in something not directly related to her studies of the Worm.

  ‘I have to find out more about this,’ she said, only belatedly realizing that those overhearing her did not know what she was talking about, since she was already walking away from the two OCTs. Leaving the crowd behind, and unable to contain her impatience, she broke into a run. The terminal section where she analysed bleed-over lay nearest, so she went straight there and quickly keyed into the public information network. Soon she was reading the text of the message.
It was plain Sudorian, and Edellus had accurately given the gist of it. Some considered it a hoax but, as well as arriving on just about every entertainment console on the planet, this same text apparently also turned up in the secure computer system of the new parliamentary Chairman, Abel Duras.

  The given coordinates were checked and there, orbiting Sudoria, was a sphere made of a kind of chain-molecule glass that though not beyond Sudorian science, had simply not been created by it. Taken aboard a ship, this sphere was opened to reveal a communication device that could project holograms, sound and even smells. The first hologram it projected was a three-dimensional blueprint of itself, along with the warning that no one should be too eager with a screwdriver, since some of its components weren’t exactly made of matter. Yishna studied the blueprint intently, then felt a sudden overpowering moment of epiphany. She understood it because it related to her work.

  U-space.

  Yishna immediately contacted Director Gneiss. ‘U-space, that’s the answer, not telepathic inductance! That’s what bleed-over is!’

  Gneiss gazed at her impassively from the screen, then cracked an insincere smile as he played the part of a man quite accustomed to dealing with erratic brilliance. ‘As you must be aware, that has already been theorized.’