Hilldiggers

by Neal Asher

  ‘It can be the only rational explanation,’ said Yishna, calming down.

  ‘Prove it, then,’ said the Director, and cut the connection.

  – Retroact 12 Ends –

  McCrooger

  ‘How does it work?’ I asked as I stepped from Rhodane’s bathroom, clad in Brumallian dungarees and a thick shirt of canvas-like material. The boots had not fitted me, but my feet were tough enough to manage any surface.

  ‘You’ll talk and we Consensus Speakers will listen and question you. Originally there used to be twenty Speakers present, but this was found to be too confusing for anyone not a Brumallian.’

  Rhodane was sitting in one of the shell-shaped chairs, and gestured to the other one facing her across a low table. I sat down, and eyed the drink and two large dishes of food on the table before me.

  ‘Please, help yourself. I’ve already eaten.’

  Sliding the two dishes over towards me, I decided to dispense with the eating bowl and just hunched over and tucked in. In the typical manner of hosts everywhere she had provided more than she expected me to eat. Broiled creatures looking like crayfish steamed on one dish while the other was heaped with segments of some potato-like vegetable sprinkled with stuff like grated carrot but peppery and hot.

  ‘We usually remove their shells before eating them,’ she noted wryly. She herself sipped something similar to the cool minty concoction she had provided for me, though the temperature of hers must have been higher, judging by the steam.

  ‘I’m very hungry,’ I told her between mouthfuls.

  She nodded – perhaps considering me barbaric – then stood up and wandered away for a while. Had I continued without food for long enough, she would then truly see my barbaric side. I ate literally everything, noting her bemused expression when she returned. I licked my fingers clean and wiped them dry, then with a muted belch pushed the dishes away.

  ‘Including yourself, how many Speakers will there be?’ I asked.

  ‘Do you need any more to eat?’ she asked in return.

  ‘For the moment, no, thank you.’

  ‘There will be five of us. We’ll maintain our link with the Consensus by wearing earpieces and through the pherophones in the walls. The others are trained to respond to you as individuals – hence my being able to become a Speaker so quickly, since I didn’t require that special training. However, you’ll have to accept that when it comes to important decisions, or ones requiring further analysis, any response you receive will not be the definitive one. We Speakers might say yes, but the Consensus no. It’s quite difficult for the Brumallian Consensus to communicate down on the Sudorian level.’

  ‘Down?’ I sat back, feeling my digestion writhing as it went to work.

  Rhodane grimaced. ‘Even I am only now beginning to understand the true range of Brumallian language. One spoken word can possess all the same verbal inflexions of a similar word spoken in Sudorian, but in the process of speaking it they can load it with additional nuances and twist its meaning further by signing and emitting pheromones. One word in itself can contain everything a Sudorian would need an entire sentence to convey.’

  ‘And their sentences?’

  ‘Enough meaning to fill a small book. But it’s the precision that’s important to Brumallians; they don’t often misunderstand each other.’

  ‘Hence their success in creating a society without leaders?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She paused to sip her drink – and I to sip mine and contemplate her.

  ‘Why are you actually here, Rhodane?’ I eventually asked.

  ‘Why’re any of us here?’ she countered.

  I winced, not wanting to play that silly game.

  She gave a tired smile. ‘Many Sudorians come here to carry out research, or to work in the Fleet ground bases. It’s not that unusual to find people like myself here.’

  I didn’t believe her for a second. She had yet to explain her comment about being both Sudorian and Brumallian. I rather suspected I knew the explanation already, and that no other Sudorians here would be Speakers as they did not possess sophisticated biotech growing on and inside their faces.

  ‘You’re a researcher, basically?’

  She stared at me very directly, then said, ‘My brother Harald is Admiral Carnasus’s top aide and therefore wields a great deal of power. My sister Yishna is similarly the right hand of Director Oberon Gneiss on Corisanthe Main. Orduval, my other brother, could also have been very influential had it not been for the constant fits he suffered. He disappeared. I too have disappeared, in my way, and can be considered a failure too.’

  ‘I’ve met Yishna. Your elder sister?’

  ‘We’re all precisely the same age: quadruplets conceived on Corisanthe Main during an information fumarole breach. We were born there, then transported planetside after our mother, Elsever, died in some stupid accident.’

  She had just told me something important, yet I could not decide what it was. Perhaps I could integrate it at a later time. ‘Did you feel a need to disappear . . . to escape some kind of pressure?’

  Rhodane set her drink down on the table and sat back with her fingers interlaced below her breasts. She gazed up at the ceiling for a moment, then directly at me. ‘So how is it, with Fleet’s ban on Polity technology, that you manage to watch us so closely?’

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘Why do you suppose we do?’

  ‘I’ve already analysed much of what you’ve said and done, and it seems quite evident that your knowledge of us extends beyond what has been transmitted via the U-space link on Sudoria.’

  ‘If you’re capable of such analysis, then surely you can answer your own question?’

  She nodded mildly. ‘Of course, while we regressed and had to start over again after arriving here, you kept on progressing? So you possess technology we are unable to detect?’

  ‘Small regressions, but nothing on the scale of what happened here. And as for the technology you mention, I can’t comment.’

  ‘I see . . .’

  I was slowly coming to realize I was dealing with a formidable intelligence here. I felt her analysis of me went beyond that comparison between my overt knowledge and what I could have learnt from the transmissions from this system to the Polity. As we had talked she had been providing just enough for me to grasp a point, where she wanted me to. This showed she had made a deep assessment of my intelligence, and perhaps knew more about me than I would like. ‘You still haven’t answered my question, Rhodane.’

  ‘Why am I here?’ She smiled, reached up and began running her finger over the ridged skin on her jaw-line. ‘Well, I am here because here is where my driving force impelled me, just as Yishna’s impelled her to Corisanthe Main, and Harald’s sent him to Fleet. I was not trying to “disappear”, but I feel I’ve managed to do so.’

  ‘What is this driving force you mention?’

  ‘I think it only fair that I ask some questions too.’

  ‘Ask, then.’

  She leant forwards. ‘There used to be much dispute amidst Sudorian biologists about what the human strain was like before we began tampering with ourselves, but in recent years we’ve agreed on a basic format. Yet my contacts on Sudoria tell me you’re not even close to that format. I’ve learnt from them that you are strong enough to toss about Fleet personnel and snap the locking mechanisms in armoured space doors, and I myself saw you toss a three-hundred-pound quofarl about twenty feet. You can eat grobbleworms and breathe the poisonous atmosphere beyond that door. What are you, exactly?’

  ‘Human.’

  ‘Not good enough.’

  ‘Very well. I am both human and hooper. I was born and lived a substantial portion of my life in the Sol system, but I eventually made my home on a world called Spatterjay. On that world an alien virus infects all indigenous life forms. Humans can become infected too. This virus roots inside us and grows as a fibre connecting to other cells, gradually networking through the body in a fibrous mass and at the same time
perpetually maintaining it. But the virus also caches, and engineers, the genetic blueprints of its various hosts. Should I be harmed or my environment change, the virus can change me to its optimum physical form for survival. For me those changes could be very nasty, because the bulk of additional genetic material the virus has cached – and uses for such changes – is of its original hosts, the Spatterjay leech and other creatures on that world. A mutality exists between leech and virus: virally infected prey becoming a perpetually reusable food resource for the leeches, whilst the leeches themselves continue to spread the virus.’

  ‘So by coming here you risked that “nasty” change?’ Rhodane could not keep the fascination out of her expression.

  ‘It can be staved off, slowed down, by my eating foods lacking in any nutrition suitable for the virus.’ I gestured to the empty dishes. ‘In that way I retain my humanity. Drugs also inhibit it, but I don’t have any of those with me. Without either, infected humans can transform into chimerical creatures that are a random combination of Spatterjay fauna.’

  ‘But that’s not all, is it? There’s some additional problem . . .’

  I had no idea how she worked that out. ‘I believe you are one question ahead of me already. My question remains: what is your driving force?’

  Rhodane tilted her head as if listening to something. The Brumallian chatter remained audible in this room, though muted. I had already noted the pherophones on the walls and wondered just how deep was Rhodane’s understanding of their complex language. ‘The answer to that will have to wait,’ she announced. ‘The other Consensus Speakers are almost ready for you.’ She stood, then beckoned to me as she headed for the door.

  ‘Finishing on your question,’ I said. She turned to gaze at me as I stood up. ‘My problem, Rhodane, is caused by a second virus that’s killing the first. In essence my problem is mortality.’

  Her eyes widened in shocked appreciation, or maybe disbelief, as she absorbed the implications. She then gave me this quid pro quo: ‘And your question, David. I don’t know the answer, yet I cannot shake the feeling that you yourself are perhaps the best person to discover it.’

  ‘Yes . . .’ It was opaque to me at that moment, yet I knew the answer lay within my reach. Information fumarole breach . . . Corisanthe Main . . .

  ‘When we return I have something you should see,’ she said.

  ‘Let’s hope I’ll be allowed to return.’

  ‘Yes, let’s.’

  She opened the first door of the airlock, and we stepped inside. After a moment the temperature abruptly dropped, as if someone had just opened a fridge nearby. Shortly the outer door clonked and she pushed it ajar. As we stepped out, my lungs tightened and my eyes began watering. Two quofarl stood waiting for us.

  Rhodane led off and I followed, the two big guys falling in behind me. My lungs began to ease; I wiped my eyes, cleared my nose. It seemed almost like a touch of hay fever that quickly passed. Rhodane led me in the opposite direction to the one we came in by, heading towards a stone stair that wound up and up. Eventually we turned off that to enter a short corridor terminating at an armoured door. I noted a lot of cable trunking and sealed boxes affixed to the walls on either side, probably control circuitry, fuses or relays, I surmised.

  Rhodane halted before a pherophone located beside the door, inclined her face towards it for a moment, whereupon the door immediately unlocked and she pushed it open. Inside, three Brumallians were sitting on a low horseshoe-shaped couch semi-circling a single low steel chair with head rest and arms. I noted the eyelets and metal tags on the chair for affixing straps and guessed its previous occupants did not always enjoy their sojourn there. No straps in evidence now, however. Scanning the room I noted a square port positioned directly above the chair and others positioned around the walls, so wondered what weapons would be trained on me while I spoke.

  As well as the pherophones ranged around the walls, there were many other devices pointing probes and recording heads towards the chair. I guessed they were going to do more than broadcast just sound and vision footage. Doubtless there was instrumentation here to measure the beat of my heart, the electrical activity of my brain, every smallest movement, and even my pheromonal emissions. The place felt like a combination of interrogation chamber, hospital scanning room and holovision studio. Without awaiting further instruction, I went over and sat down in the chair. Rhodane walked past and joined the other three on the couch, while the two quofarl squatted on the floor right behind me.

  Silence fell. I considered breaking it, then turned aside on hearing the door open, and watched as the last of the five Speakers entered. Now they could begin.

  ‘What is your name?’ asked the male sitting just to Rhodane’s right.

  ‘David McCrooger.’

  ‘What is your title?’

  ‘On this occasion, Consul Assessor.’

  ‘What are you?’ asked another.

  ‘That is a question you will have to elaborate.’

  They did, at length, even going into biological detail. My extended reply in turn contained more detail than I had given Rhodane. They then moved on to ask me about the Polity and my position within it, about the AIs that govern it, about Geronamid, the full extent of the Polity and its history since their ancestors departed. Every now and again they threw a completely outfield question at me like, ‘Is St Paul’s Cathedral, in the City of London on Earth, still standing?’ To which I replied that indeed it was, though much of its original stonework was covered by diamond film and much of its structure supported by nano-carbon filaments. I realized they were then confining themselves to historical stuff so as to build a picture of the present-day Polity. When it seemed they had that sufficiently pegged, they moved on.

  ‘Does the Polity need to expand in order to maintain its stability?’

  ‘Not any more.’

  ‘Why, then, did the AIs send you here?’

  Motivation? Damn! Why did the AIs do anything? Why did they stay to rule the Polity when they could move on into realms of mind that humans could hardly understand? ‘Expansion is no longer required for economic reasons, but humans and AIs both need to expand their horizons. I suppose that doesn’t really answer your question? OK, it has become our policy that when out-Polity civilizations are encountered, we first establish dialogue with them, assess them carefully, then offer them inclusion. If they reject this offer, we leave them alone.’

  ‘But being rejected here by Fleet, you have not departed,’ Rhodane observed.

  ‘The dialogue we establish is not just with the few who rule.’

  ‘As we understand it, you only have one line of communication open, and that’s with only a select few of the ruling class on Sudoria.’

  ‘Dialogue can take many forms, and has yet to be fully established, and I am still assessing.’

  ‘One man cannot see everything.’

  ‘Yes, I’m aware of that. We abide by the strictures imposed by our hosts because that is a price we are prepared to pay to gain a foothold amongst them, so as to properly establish a dialogue and to make a full assessment. Approached in any other way, the cost in human suffering could be great.’

  ‘Why does Fleet so fear you they’re prepared to destroy one of their own ships in order to be rid of you?’

  ‘I think you can work that out for yourselves.’

  ‘Why has the Polity not tried to establish dialogue with us here on Brumal?’

  ‘I believe I already covered this ground with Rhodane, but I shall reiterate. You are not irrelevant to the Polity,’ I explained. ‘But making you a relevant issue in the eyes of the Sudorians, by establishing an apparently independent dialogue with you, would put you in danger from Fleet and endanger our chances of establishing a foothold on Sudoria.’

  From then on the tenor of their questioning slowly began to change. They became more keenly interested in my knowledge of the situation here, specifically my knowledge of Sudorian technologies and capabilities, and the politicizing
between the various power blocs on the other world. I started to feel rather uncomfortable with all this, since the information they sought was obviously more of a military nature than that relating to me.

  ‘If we were to be attacked by the Sudorians, would the Polity support us?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You would support the Sudorians?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What would you do?’

  ‘One of two things: either leave you to kill each other, or stop you killing each other.’

  An abrupt gear shift occurred then with, ‘How do Polity citizens entertain themselves? Do they like music?’

  Weird, but I was beginning to sense how Consensus thinking outside this room swayed the questions they posed, and realized that such abrupt changes resulted from the speakers here catching up moment by moment with Consensus opinion. It reassured me to learn that the Brumallians, as a whole, had now become bored with the subject of war and instead wanted to know about music. There followed a long question and answer session about the arts. The sciences next, with many attempts to obtain hard facts from me, which led on into medical technology. But then the questioning abruptly segued into history and the Prador War. It all now seemed more like general conversation than interrogation. By the time I started fidgeting in the chair and was looking round to see if there was a toilet nearby, the session came to an abrupt end with a single question.

  ‘Why should Brumallians want to join the Polity?’

  I had been waiting for that. ‘Because there are now no wars in the Polity, and very little crime. Every citizen is wealthy beyond measure and our medical technology is such that everyone there has a good chance of living forever.’

  They fell silent for a very long time, then Rhodane stood up. ‘Thank you, Consul Assessor David McCrooger. The quofarl will conduct you to your accommodation. We have much to consider now.’

  And so I was escorted away.

  – RETROACT 13 –