Hilldiggers

by Neal Asher

  Yes, they were different, Rhodane knew, but were her siblings different in the same way as herself? Did they feel in their minds that inner hollow, like a hunger that could never be satisfied? Was the acquisition of knowledge to them like an addiction to the opiate extracts derived from strug, the pink rock fern? Did they feel that hollow expanding, and in danger of encompassing their minds in a dank black depression, if they were not constantly in the process of learning something new to feed its hunger every day? Did they fear that adulthood would find them drugged into placid stupidity inside one of those colour-fully painted institutions like the one standing just over there?

  The skirl drew close to Rhodane’s right sandal, so she peered down at it and said, ‘Hello, little fellow, how does the sand taste today?’

  The skirl froze, so she tapped her fingers against her upper leg, knowing the creature would pick up the vibration through its highly sensitive feet. The skirl raised the central visual section of its head, its two blue eyes revealed at first slitted, then opening wide. It spread its pearly wing cases as it turned, flicked out its sand-scoop wings and they blurred into motion. Emitting the sound after which it was named, it skated off down the dune, spraying Rhodane with sand as it went and causing her to close her nictitating membranes in reflex. Rhodane leapt to her feet and ran after it – trying in her own small way to understand why other children found this game so fascinating. After fifty yards she could feel sweat growing slick on her body. After a hundred yards the creature disappeared from sight.

  Rhodane crouched by the hole into which the creature had disappeared and brushed sand away around it, revealing the curve of the underground nest. Calculating from the exposed curve by eye she estimated the spherical nest to be about eight feet in diameter – home then to about a hundred skirls, their own separate segments of the nest filled with their young. Skirls were a strange mix of the social and the independent. When they reached Rhodane’s present age, many of the females drew together to weave a communal nest with fibres extruded from their spinnerets. This task took them many years, but once the nest was completed they emitted certain hormones into the air to attract males. Rhodane now mentally reviewed the molecular structure of that same hormone. When the males arrived, a mating frenzy ensued, the males dying in the process. The females then partitioned the nest and laid their own eggs each in their own designated areas. Thereafter began the long process of raising the young, feeding them with a protein soup refined from the skirls’ own microscopic diet. Fascinating . . . at least for a little while.

  Rhodane stood up and moved away, scanning around for something else to interest her. But she knew this whole area, and its ecology and biology, so very well now. She would therefore return home, study the new disks Utrain had obtained from the library, and thus try to stave off the hollow blackness awaiting in her mind. Utrain had promised to take them to the Ruberne Institute tomorrow, so perhaps something there would help her to feel that all her choices were not yet exhausted.

  – Retroact 5 Ends –

  Tigger

  This endless watching since the end of the War was enough to drive a drone to distraction. Corisanthe Main had developed a strange paranoiac society, as if the Worm were some alien splinter inside the body of humanity here, and all those living aboard the station were the crusty resultant mess of humanity’s immune reaction to it. This malaise also seemed to be reflected upon the planet below, with increasing proportions of its population ending up in either asylums or cultist churches. Though maybe the reverse applied, and Corisanthe Main’s weird culture merely reflected what was occurring below it. Since the end of the War, the proportion of the population suffering mental illness at some point in their lives had grown to three out of four, and one in four of them ended up permanently committed to an asylum. One manifestation of such illness was thecommon hallucination of some dark menacing figure who had grown in popular culture into the Shadowman. Since the publication of Uskaron’s book, these illnesses had been put down to ‘societal guilt’ and the Shadowman was described as the Sudorian conscience. It was a worrying phenomenon that Tigger had studied closely, but drawn no conclusions from.

  The technologies being constantly developed aboard Corisanthe Main, and quickly applied there, made his scanning difficult, and trying to scan the Worm itself was like trying to shine a torch through a brick. Watching the human dramas played out aboard offered some entertainment, but even with the distinctly odd Director Oberon Gneiss running the station, even that began to pall. So, without asking Geronamid, since he knew what the AI’s answer would be, Tigger often went to find entertainment elsewhere, and not necessarily down on Sudoria.

  On the surface of Brumal the drone was deepgeoscanning some recent developments in one growing hive city when Consul Assessor David McCrooger arrived. At last things were starting to get interesting.

  David McCrooger . . . Tigger pondered that. The newcomer having been a long-time resident of Spatterjay was interesting enough but, damn it, he was also an Old Captain! Admittedly the man had captained a sailing ship there for only a short time, but he was still on a par with legendary names like Captains Ambel, Drum and Ron, who were all now entering the second millennium of their long lives. So, what might one expect from such a character? To begin with he would be unreasonably strong and durable – such men were reputed to possess greater physical strength than Golem androids, and they could easily withstand injuries that would instantly kill other humans. He might also be incredibly knowledgeable and wise. Though that was not a given, even for someone who lived so long, many of them were, and Geronamid would never have employed anyone stupid for such a task.

  Moving on, from geoscanning the living Brumallian hive city to the mountains created by the hilldiggers and those mass graves that lay underneath them, Tigger applied only half his mind to the depressing task – the other half perpetually scanning Fleet coms. His other half warned him of activity amidst those ships above, and the news that the Consul Assessor would be coming to Brumal first, so Tigger decided to hang around. After the missile launched, Tigger flew fast to its launch site, and there observed a covert Fleet military unit moving away from the missile launcher – probably one confiscated at the end of the War – about which Brumallian corpses had been neatly laid out. The covert team was well away before a laser strike from a hilldigger positioned far above. Just enough evidence would be left to fully implicate the Brumallians.

  Tigger separated completely now, his chrome Bengal tiger form peeling away from the sphere and sending the latter up into space, via which he observed the ship in flames as it plunged towards the planet. Continuing to listen in on com traffic, he discovered McCrooger was aboard none of the escape-pods now spreading out into space. Belatedly he detected one single pod splashing down in the ocean, and realized it had been cut out of the communication system. Tigger sent his tiger body bounding in that direction, accelerating to just below the speed of sound and occasionally grav-planing tens of miles above the landscape. Then out over the ocean, neutrally buoyant, paws slapping the waves and jaws grinning a joyful grin.

  – RETROACT 6 –

  Rhodane – in adolescence

  ‘Happy Assumption Day,’ said Rhodane wryly.

  Peering back at her from the flimsy screen, Harald – clad in the foamite uniform of a chief engineer in Fleet – replied, ‘Ah, so all four of us are responsible adults now. Words cannot express the extent of my indifference.’

  Rhodane studied her brother, noting how much he had changed in the six months since they last spoke. Back then he wore his blonde hair in the customary Fleet queue. Now he allowed his hair to grow long all over his head, and wore it tied back. His acerbic features were thinner, if anything, and his mouth was constrained in a strict line that failed to conceal his protruding canines. His pale blue eyes, however, seemed as cold as ever.

  ‘It’s all right for you, but then you escaped the net – as did Yishna,’ Rhodane told him.

  Harald acknowledged th
at with a slight tilt of his head, then added, ‘Though not entirely. We have both been subject to rather patronizing supervision. I at least found the Fleet command structure so much easier to accept than did Yishna her regular psychological assessments.’

  ‘Oh that.’ Rhodane grinned. ‘She’s on her fourth counsellor now. I wonder how long this latest one will last?’

  ‘And I wonder what complete change of career she’ll convince this one to make. The first two returned planetside to study physics, but I’m not quite sure what happened to the third one. Apparently he irritated her immensely, and that was about the last I heard.’

  ‘We’ll be able to ask her directly – her comlink is now establishing.’

  The display before Rhodane divided so that it now showed Harald and Yishna both.

  ‘Happy Assumption Day,’ said Rhodane.

  ‘Yes, equally,’ Harald added.

  Yishna smiled seductively. ‘It’s a happy day now that I can apply myself completely and without interference to my research. My last psyche report was very good, apparently. I necessarily helped in writing it since my counsellor appears to be suffering a nervous breakdown. They’re shipping him planetside soon and I suspect that, after a long rest, he will be taking an inordinate interest in cell biology . . . One for you, Rhodane.’

  ‘We are curious,’ said Harald. ‘What happened to your third counsellor – the one before this one? Didn’t she seriously annoy you or something?’

  ‘She suggested my intelligence was not as high as I myself rated it since it was undermined by my being emotionally retarded. It seems I made the mistake of becoming too involved in my research and not paying sufficient attention to her. She was therefore preparing to recommend to the Director that I be sent to the Threel Asylum, where corrective measures could be undertaken.’

  ‘What happened to her?’ Rhodane asked.

  ‘She’s now a permanent resident of the Threel Asylum herself. My explanations to her of the nature of reality convinced her that there was no further point in her existing. She tried walking out of an airlock without a spacesuit, but since our mother’s day the safety procedures developed have made that a difficult option.’

  ‘As if the asylums aren’t full enough,’ muttered Rhodane.

  ‘True,’ said Yishna, looking slightly discomfited. ‘What of yourself, Rhodane? How goes it?’

  Rhodane replied, ‘Now that I am officially an adult, I can freely accept one of the offers that have been made to me. Standing at the head of the list thus far are researching bioweapons with Fleet, or pharmacology and xenobiology with Orbital Combine. There are numerous positions being offered planetside, but as you must know, they don’t interest me.’

  ‘Which will you go for?’ asked Harald. ‘I hope you realize that bioweapons is not only concerned with new and interesting ways of killing Brumallians.’

  ‘You would say that,’ interrupted Yishna.

  Before this turned into an argument, Rhodane continued, ‘Whichever of those will get me to Brumal quicker. I have made them all fully aware of my main interest.’

  ‘What fascinates you so?’ asked Harald.

  ‘Filling the gulf in my head, Harald. But what fascinates you so much with Fleet, and you, Yishna, with the Worm?’

  Harald shrugged, and Yishna replied, ‘We could always take the view that all life is empty, and so try to end it. We do what we do because we have interests beyond just our own personal existence. Why question this?’

  ‘Because it is the one question we don’t ask,’ came a new voice.

  The display divided again and Rhodane and the others now looked upon the ravaged features of their brother Orduval.

  ‘Happy Assumption Day,’ he added brightly. The shadows around his eyes had grown deeper since Rhodane last saw him, and his face appeared horribly thin, almost skeletal.

  ‘Orduval,’ said Yishna in acknowledgement, but no more than that. None of them bothered to enquire after his health. Why ask about the blatantly obvious and force him to tell comforting lies? She knew that Harald and Rhodane felt as she did, both guilty and relieved. It was ridiculous really: Orduval had fulfilled the mental illness demographic for them of one in four being committed to an asylum, but that did not mean they were now immune.

  ‘They are happening closer together now, aren’t they,’ Harald pointed out succinctly.

  ‘Three or four fits every day,’ Orduval concurred. ‘They won’t tell me here, but it’s not difficult to work it out. If the fits continue at their present rate of increase, and with their present adverse effects on my health, I’ll be dead within a year, either from heart failure or a cerebral haemorrhage . . . But let us return to the questions we don’t ask.’

  ‘Those being?’ Rhodane asked, though reluctantly.

  ‘Why are we what we are?’ asked Orduval.

  Rhodane felt the gulf in her mind widen, a sudden anger suffuse her, then pity. Orduval’s mind was weak, though the impulse that drove them all to excellence lay as strong in him as in the other three of them. It was like strapping a rocket engine to a sand sledge: now this sledge was breaking up. Also, it could not have helped that his consuming interest lay in subjects with no certainty, no definition, which led to existential angst and pointless speculation. Rhodane now felt contemptuous, considering her brother ripe for plucking by one of the planetside cults or the dominant religion down there, the Sand Church.

  ‘It has been interesting talking to you all,’ Harald was staring distractedly to one side, ‘but I have fusion-pellet injectors to strip and lengthy diagnostics to run. Stay well.’ His image blinked out.

  ‘I too have much I must attend to, though I cannot detail it over public com,’ said Yishna, turned glassy-eyed. Her image also blinked out.

  ‘And you next, Rhodane?’ asked Orduval. ‘Some urgent need to go out and study skirls, or to clip your toenails?’

  So easy for him to say such things while confined there in that asylum. She really did have things she needed to attend to. There were those research offers from Combine and Fleet . . . Rhodane suddenly found herself hot and sweating copiously. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘You do, because of the gulf in yourself, and because sometimes you ask those questions that hurt you.’

  Rhodane hesitated with her hand poised over the cut-off switch. With an effort of will she drew the hand back but, almost concurrent with that motion, the blackness in her head expanded. ‘I can’t . . . Orduval.’

  ‘No, you can’t, because you are constrained. You have no choice but Brumal, Rhodane. Once you get there, will you do something for me?’

  ‘What . . . I . . .’

  ‘Look into your gulf and admit to yourself what you see there.’

  Rhodane’s hand slapped down on the cut-off switch, and it seemed that same switch operated simultaneously inside her head.

  Now, back to those offers from Combine and Fleet . . .

  – Retroact 6 Ends –

  McCrooger

  Viral slippage . . .

  Down on its side the pod moved in a way I recognized at once. Water slopping through the hole where I’d removed the hatch below the nose cone, now down beside me, confirmed that this had been a splashdown rather than a dustdown. I felt horribly sick but could not throw up, and feverish, while pain rolled through my body, yet was not centred around my greatest injury. I damned Iffildus and Earth Central, wondering if this was enough to finally tip the balance, then decided I must just continue without any expectation of death.

  Iffildus was a haiman – a human highly augmented with computer hardware – an Earth Central agent and brilliant biophysicist who went rogue. Though the Spatterjay virus makes us practically immortal, as well as very strong and dangerous, on Spatterjay itself there is a natural substance, extracted from the bile ducts of large oceanic leeches, which can kill the virus. It is called sprine and is our get-out clause, our easy way out should the prospect of endless life become unbearable. The investigators supposed Iffi
ldus did what he did because he felt hoopers to be a danger to the Polity. He mutated the virus using advanced nanotech to create a strain he called IF21. I received it in a bite from one of the leeches in his laboratory when I went to find him. Call it a mirror of the Spatterjay virus: it unravels where the original binds, it deconstructs, it produces sprine to kill the original virus, and it grows irrevocably. It is not yet certain that it will kill me, but then it is not certain that walking through the fusion flame of an interplanetary shuttle will kill; it’s just very very probable.

  With great difficulty I wrapped safety straps, attached to a couch, about each hand, then placed my feet against the couch itself and pushed back. The broken bones in both my forearms crunched and grated, and already there came some resistance from the rapid healing that had already occurred, but I gritted my teeth and kept pushing with my legs until both forearms seemed relatively straightened. I held them in that position and began slowly counting down from five thousand, which was usually how long it took for the viral fibres to rebuild enough bone to stand up against the tension of my muscles. All the time I seemed to gaze into a long dark tunnel that was ready to snap shut at any moment. Finally reaching the end of my countdown, I paused for a moment, then dropped back to the floor and unwound the safety straps. With some relief I felt the nausea and pain receding, the tunnel opening and light shining in. Now I really needed something to eat, because already what was known on Spatterjay as ‘injury hunger’ began hitting me.