Hilldiggers (polity)

by Neal Asher

  At first it was easy, but with each step I felt my skin and flesh beginning to sag on my bones, and breathing started to become an effort.

  Pausing, I asked, "When we reach the bottom will the spin acceleration be the same as Brumal's gravity?"

  "Yes," replied Rhodane from below.

  I had hoped otherwise.

  Nearing the bottom of the ladder the soles of my feet hurt as they came down on the rungs, and for a moment I visualised myself walking along that skull-cobbled street, then my hands began to ache from holding up my abruptly enormous weight. It felt to me as if my internal organs were being sucked down towards the bottom of my torso, only suspended in place by threads and weak sheets that could tear or break at any moment. My leg muscles burned with lactic overload and my testicles seemed to have turned into lead shot. Finally reaching the floor, I swung round to the wall and rested my back against it. I really wanted to sit down, but knew that if I did so I would not be able to get back up again.

  "Can you continue?" asked Rhodane.

  I nodded very carefully, frightened that too vigorous a response might damage my neck. She stared at me for a long moment until I realised my gesture had been wasted—not being emphatic enough for her to recognise.

  "I can," I said.

  As she moved on, I stepped out from the wall and turned to follow her. Slog and Flog, recently departing the ladder, moved in either side of me and gripped a biceps each. I felt that protest now would be foolish, because it seemed unlikely I would be able to manage any distance at all down here on my own.

  Rhodane led the way into a kind of dormitory, with beds jutting from the wall like bracket fungi, and sporting those familiar organic mattresses. Tottering through the door after her, I could think of nothing to say, I was so unutterably weary. She merely gestured to one of the beds, onto which Slog and Flog released me. I hauled up my legs, then…nothing.

  Yishna

  Leaning her forehead against a port of the inter-station shuttle—the cool glass soothing the burn inside her skull—Yishna observed a landing craft departing Corisanthe II, and knew Duras was aboard and now on his way back to the planet's surface. He might well achieve all he intended down there, but she suspected it would not be enough. A conflict between Fleet and Combine seemed unavoidable, no matter what votes were won in Parliament. As the shuttle turned, she took her head away from the port, then pulled herself over and down into the chair beside Dalepan, and strapped herself in.

  "What preparations are being made?" she asked.

  "All the quadrant guns are now operational," said Dalepan, as he guided the shuttle towards the distant speck of Corisanthe Main. "Presently all other weapons systems are being checked, as are all the safety protocols." He gestured to the spacesuit he wore. "Everybody works wearing one of these now."

  "If it comes to us ever needing them, we'll probably have lost," said Yishna.

  "Perhaps so, but we also have a few surprises awaiting the hilldiggers—should they attack. Gneiss has only just informed me that Orbital Combine has been working in secret to build and develop gravity-disruptor weapons, which are also being installed on the Corisanthe stations and on some of the defence platforms. We are also launching stealthed space mines, and Fleet is being ordered to stand off by a million miles."

  "Which Fleet will not do."

  Dalepan nodded, then went on, "I think the largest imponderable concerns directed and undirected weapons. All the stations of Orbital Combine are a sitting target so Fleet could remain far out and pound us with inert missiles fired by linear accelerator. If we reply in kind, the hilldiggers merely need to be moved."

  "Collateral damage," said Yishna, understanding at once.

  "Precisely. If they bombard us from a distance, a proportion of their missiles will inevitably strike Sudoria. Is Harald prepared to countenance that? How far is he prepared to go to win?" Dalepan gazed at Yishna queryingly.

  "I don't know," she replied, and then began to consider what might be her brother's objectives, and just what he might do to attain them.

  Upon their arrival at Corisanthe Main, they were forced to wait until sufficient precautions were taken before the shields shut down. While this was being done, Yishna observed a maintenance vessel approaching the station, clutching in its multiple grabs some kind—of—massive engine. Space all around it was filled with suited figures and installation pods. After the shields shut down, a computer-controlled maintenance sphere mounted with a missile launcher came out to escort them in. Upon docking, five heavily armed OCTs came aboard to check over their ship before she and Dalepan could disembark.

  Once inside the station, he told her, "Stay healthy," before moving off. She smiled her thanks, but had to wonder about that comment. Certainly she had not been too healthy when last she left this place, and now, upon her return, felt a growing fear that she might once again become the troubled person she had been then. Shaking her head angrily she set out, two of the armed OCTs staying to escort her to the Director. From them she discovered that all Worm research had been stopped—the containment cylinders locked down under a security protocol, but thankfully not one for a physical breach, she realised, because, after her own interference, that would have meant the containment cylinders had long departed the station. Everyone she saw on the way was wearing either spacesuits or emergency survival suits and seemed to be moving at an accelerated pace.

  In his office the Director had the same question for her as Dalepan had asked aboard the shuttle.

  "I've considered this," she replied, "and come to the conclusion that, just like myself, my brother is prepared to do anything to attain his goals."

  Director Gneiss gestured to the seat before his desk, swung a screen scroll across on a pivoted arm, extended the flimsy screen, then tapped something into a console before him. Yishna sat eyeing the sensor head mounted in the wall behind him, then his suit helmet resting on the desk beside him. She had yet to collect a suit for herself from the stores. After a moment he gazed across at her, and once again Yishna was struck by how she somehow knew him, yet could never read him. Having been away for a while she had nearly convinced herself that her prior opinion of him had been distorted somehow. But here, now, upon her return, she found him just as unnerving as ever.

  "We have defences against conventional weapons, and possess many such weapons too," he stated. "We also have gravtech weapons of our own; however, there is as yet very little defence against them, and in the end, should they be deployed by either side, very little will remain around Sudoria but the wreckage of the hilldiggers and our stations."

  "But don't the same rules apply to gravtech weapons as to missiles that aren't self-directed, like those fired by linear accelerator?" Yishna interlaced her fingers in her lap and attempted a relaxed mien. She had no doubt that members of the Combine Oversight Committee were watching very closely everything that occurred in this room and logging questions on the screen the Director kept flicking his plastic gaze towards.

  "Your point?" he asked.

  "A gravity-disruptor burst expands like a torch beam—by the inverse square law—so to hit one of our stations without striking Sudoria, that weapon would need to be fired at or below the orbital level of the station." Yishna shrugged. "Should a hilldigger manage to attain such an advantageous position, that would mean it no longer needed to use such a weapon." Gneiss just stared back at her so she continued. "What Harald could do in close with gravity disruptors, he could also manage at a distance, with little danger to Fleet, with missiles fired by linear accelerator. To go back to your original question: I feel my brother will be quite prepared to inflict considerable collateral damage on Sudoria while attaining his goal. But I feel the real question to ask is how much collateral damage to their home planet are those under his command prepared to tolerate?"

  "You make some interesting points," said Gneiss.

  "Harald is not Fleet," Yishna added. "And it is well to remember that there'll be few under his command who do not
have family down on the surface, and even aboard some of the Combine stations."

  "What does Harald actually want?" Gneiss asked. It was another of those questions posed by him that seemed to contain too many perilous levels of meaning.

  "You know the answer to that as well as I do," Yishna replied, deciding to give as good as she got.

  "We are supposing that, like many in Fleet, Harald resents Orbital Combine's growing power?"

  "So it would appear."

  All surface…all ephemeral…

  "He instigated recent unfortunate events so he could use them as an excuse to take away our control of our defence platforms. We are supposing, from his recent actions, that if he cannot attain this end through Parliament, he will resort to force."

  Yishna shook her head. "I feel you're missing the point. If Harald cannot take control of the platforms through Parliament, he'll know that he cannot ultimately take control of them by force. His aim will be to take control of them out of our hands, so he'll attempt to destroy them."

  "And having done that, he will cease?"

  "Of course not. We built the platforms…" Yishna paused, realising that during this discussion she had come to properly understand Harald's aims. "I think that what Parliament decides has become irrelevant. Harald knows that, even with a parliamentary vote going against us, we'll not hand over the platforms."

  "Conflict cannot be avoided, then?"

  "I think not. I think it my brother's intention to smash Combine and then absorb its remnants into Fleet. I talked to Duras about this, who feared his next target might then be Sudoria itself. I doubted that then…now I am not so sure."

  "Do you feel any sibling loyalty?"

  "I am loyal to Combine because it allows me to do those things that most interest me, involving research of the Worm, and now to stand at the fulcrum of events concerning our contact with the Polity. During his petty games, my brother killed the Consul Assessor, and I can never forgive him for that."

  "Your brother will attempt to seize the Worm for Fleet?"

  "If possible. And if not, he'll destroy it." Even as she said the words, a sudden outfield thought occurred to her: It has prepared for this possibility. A simple containment breach, which would be almost inevitable if Corisanthe Main came under heavy attack, and her alteration of the protocols would result in the Ozark Cylinders all being ejected. Then she shook her head. Madness, surely?

  After a long pause while he studied his screen, Gneiss said, "You should go now and draw yourself a spacesuit from stores."

  "What do you want of me now?" Yishna asked, standing.

  "There is much work to be done and you possess so much expertise."

  "You might trust me, but will the Oversight Committee let me stay here?"

  "I have always trusted you, Yishna, for I know what you hold most dear. As for the Committee, they heed my advice. You will now take charge of the research body and find useful employment for it, and you will also act as my troubleshooter, as problems are sure to arise from the new…installations."

  "Thank you." She turned and headed towards the door.

  "One other thing, Yishna," said Gneiss, and she paused and turned enquiringly. "It seems likely that the Consul Assessor is not dead, after all."

  "What?"

  "Though Fleet are now blocking all communication, analysis of some pictures earlier transmitted from our geosurvey satellite clearly shows him on the planet's surface, accompanied by some Brumallians, a short time after his escape-pod sank."

  Yishna felt at first glad, then bitter. What difference did it make to her, to any of them, with what seemed now almost inevitable?

  "That's good news, I guess," she said.

  Gneiss waved a dismissive hand.

  Harald

  Harald sat back, headset placed to one side, smiling gently as he watched the feed arriving direct from Parliament to a screen here in the Haven, then frowning when the image hazed momentarily.

  "What's causing that?" asked Franorl, sprawled in a comfortable chair.

  "Overspill from the EM chaff, presently blocking com to and from Brumal," Harald replied.

  "Can you do anything about it?"

  "Not without ordering the com-block raised."

  They returned their attention to the screen.

  Already four delegates had been expelled for unruliness, but none of them represented either Fleet or Combine. Clearly the delegates on both opposing sides knew that the issues being discussed and soon to be put to vote were vitally important, and expulsion meant a loss of voting prerogative for this day's session.

  "Whose idea was it for them all to wear their uniforms?" Harald asked.

  "Julian felt that, despite the low opinion of Fleet in some quarters at present, the nostalgic attachment to what our uniform once meant would be helpful," replied Franorl.

  "It could backfire on him—many might look upon it as a threat."

  "True, but should we let that worry us?"

  Harald glanced at him. "If Parliament does order Combine to hand the defence platforms over to us, that will ensure obedience amidst our own ranks to the orders I give, once Combine refuses to comply."

  "You still feel your position insecure?"

  Harald relaxed his jaw muscles, since it now felt as if a steel ball had been inserted into each, then smiled and nodded. "Let's say I am not going to make too many rash assumptions. Ah, here's Julian now…"

  They sat back and watched while Lieutenant Julian, like so many delegates before him, stood to deliver a speech that began by decrying the cowardly Brumallian attack on the Fleet ship carrying the Consul Assessor. He then moved on with: "In the interests of Sudoria we have had to take a hard line with the Brumallians, and punished them for their—"

  A Combine delegate interrupted, "Yeah, frying a Brumallian city is always the best option when—"

  Fleet: "Under our restored prerogatives, the retaliatory strike—"

  Combine: "Convenient that any evidence of Combine complicity got—"

  Uproar ensued, and Harald directed his attention towards Chairman Duras, who was sitting with his chin in his hand, his other hand resting on the head of his cane. Finally the Chairman said, "I will have silence now or there will be further ejections." Though he spoke quietly, Combine and Fleet representatives quickly resumed their seats. He then pointed his cane at Julian. "Fleet claims Orbital Combine is complicit with the Brumallians in their attack upon the Consul Assessor's ship, this being an attempt to blacken Fleet and reduce its power. In support it presents evidence implicating Combine in the assassination of Admiral Carnasus, in the alleged attempt to sabotage Desert Wind and in the destruction of Blatant, and now demands that Combine hand over control of all its defence platforms. However, all of this evidence has been gathered and presented by Fleet itself. Orbital Combine claims these events have all been instigated by Fleet, and the evidence implicating Combine has been falsified, because Fleet is jealous of the growing power of Orbital Combine. Let us return to the point: we have no independent evidence of either of these claims." He lowered his cane and sat back and, almost as if being given permission, the delegates began shouting at each other again.

  "He is still highly respected," said Franorl.

  "He would not have been appointed Chairman otherwise," said Harald.

  "We have already voted upon and agreed what seems to be the best course of action following recent events," said Duras, and quiet fell again. "A Fleet intersystem transport, crewed by Fleet but commanded by GDS wardens, will be sent first to the hilldigger Desert Wind, then on to Brumal. Whatever investigations might be required will be conducted by a team provided by GDS. There will also be Orbital Combine observers aboard."

  Franorl glanced at Harald. "Well, we knew that would be the one they'd go for," he whispered.

  Duras finished, "Of course the question remains: what must be done in the meantime?"

  Julian stood up abruptly. "Combine cannot be allowed to retain control of their defence pl
atforms," he insisted. "Though you may doubt the evidence, we in Fleet are absolutely certain of their complicity with the Brumallians."

  "Do you suppose Combine might use those platforms to fire on Sudoria?" asked Duras.

  "That is not out of the question," Julian replied.

  "Why would they attack our home planet if their aim is to displace Fleet?"

  "That is the assumption we make, but it may not be correct. It is our primary duty, has always been our duty and one we have fulfilled well, to protect Sudoria. We cannot allow such an obvious threat to this planet's citizens to go unchallenged."

  Duras nodded slowly. "Then this issue must now, without further debate, be put to the vote."

  Harald abruptly leant forward, something tightening in his stomach. "He knows something," he hissed.

  "Why do you say that?" asked Franorl.

  "He's been delaying that vote all morning, deliberately circumventing Julian every time he's called for it." He glanced at Franorl. "We might lose this."

  "But Duras himself served in Fleet."

  "Yes, he did, but I suspect that subsequent contact with the Polity has changed many of his opinions." Harald sat back. He felt suddenly hot—a stickiness of sweat forming under his foamite uniform. In this one small thing it seemed he had miscalculated.

  "Those in favour of handing over the defence platforms to Fleet, vote now," instructed Duras.