Hilldiggers

by Neal Asher

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

  ‘Rhodane,’ she replied.

  ‘You already knew my name when you met me, so I’m presuming you know a fair amount more about me and where I come from. Perhaps you can tell me what you’ve learned so far, and I can fill in the gaps?’ I suggested.

  ‘We’ve known for some time that my former people have been communicating with the Polity, but we learnt only recently that a Consul Assessor was being sent. Only within the last day did we hear what you’ve now confirmed.’

  ‘Your former people? Do you now consider yourself a Brumallian?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘That’s . . . unusual.’

  ‘Not as much as you might think. Many Sudorians have come here, abandoning their old allegiances to join the Brumallians. This place is an oasis of sanity. Now, perhaps you could explain the exact purpose of a Consul Assessor?’

  On considering my own experiences before arriving here, I wondered if ‘oasis of sanity’ might be more than just a throwaway comment.

  The canal cut its way through land cloaked with tough thorny bushes of gnarled grey twigs laden with red and green spheroids which were either berries or something equivalent to leaves. Ahead squatted two pylons, rising either side of where the watercourse cut through a ridge. They were topped with elliptical structures rimmed with windows – likely either watchtowers or weapons platforms. To my right something suddenly rose squalling from the bushes. It looked like a huge headless bat with a whip tail and light blue skin. I briefly glimpsed a folded-in mouth pouting horribly from its forequarters, before it dropped from sight again.

  ‘The title “Consul Assessor”,’ I told Rhodane, ‘is an amalgam. I’m ostensibly here to set up a Consulate on Sudoria, though it is quite possible I won’t manage that very quickly. During the interim I am to assess the situation here, and report on it back to the Polity.’

  ‘How will you report to the Polity?’

  ‘Through the comlink established on Sudoria.’

  ‘You could have set up a Consulate here, so why there?’

  It was a rather silly question, but I have known for longer than I care to think that even silly questions can elicit useful information. I decided to be brutally honest. ‘Because the Sudorians nearly bombed the Brumallians back into the Stone Age and’ – I glanced at her – ‘your new compatriots are no longer a power in this planetary system. To establish a Consulate here, the Polity would need Sudorian permission, which we would not get.’ I studied her for a reaction, but behind that visor her expression remained opaque to me. ‘Were we to establish a Consulate here without Sudorian permission, that would only lead to conflict.’ I left it at that, not adding that conflict was something we wanted to avoid, because I did not want this conversation to lead to questions about what circumstances might provoke us not to avoid conflict.

  We passed on through the ridge below the two pylons, and slowed to a halt in the first of a system of locks. Below us lay an area forested on its further rim and circled by the distant jut of pylons like those behind us. Within this lower area were many mounds of spill, chimneys belching smoke or steam, and large oblate buildings muscling from the ground like fungi. Canals and roads, busy with barges and wheeled transport, networked all of this, in places disappearing underneath some of the buildings, or spearing off into the forest. I saw all of this only briefly, as once the first set of gates closed behind us, the water inside the lock began to drain, quickly raising twenty-foot lock gates to cut my view. These eventually opened to allow us into the next lock, from where I now noticed huge earth movers working the spill piles down below, before my view was again cut off. Another three locks followed before the system finally released us out onto the canals I had spied from above.

  ‘Tell me about the Polity,’ Rhodane instructed.

  This I did, though not painting the Polity in too glowing colours. The general populace of Sudoria must still resent the Brumallians, so I did not want this Consensus Speaker – and adopted Brumallian – enthusiastically advocating further contact with us, since that might cause just the opposite reaction from her ‘former people’.

  The canal cut straight through a muddy landscape on which grew fungal growths like those I had first encountered beside the forest river, but here speared through with stands of plants similar to horsetails. The bleach reek became stronger, but there were other odours as well: a farmyard smell consisting of decaying excrement and warm animal bodies on a winter morning; something resinous as in a pine forest, probably from those horsetails; and other astringent odours usually associated with some sort of chemical plant. The air was also noticeably warmer – the temperature having risen by at least five degrees – which of course tends to make things smellier.

  We finally drew into the shadow of one of the oblate buildings glimpsed earlier, chugged through an arch into the interior, which was lit by the pale sunlight shining through thin translucent walls. The building was filled with the sloshing, sucking racket of water being shifted. Great clams opened and closed rhythmically, spilling foot-wide pipes like a vomit of spaghetti, and all exterior smells were soon drowned out by one I recognized from home: the meaty smell of open molluscs. Our craft motored to a halt in a circular pool, more gates closed behind us, and the water level began to drop fast. Then down a mile-deep pipe we descended into the organic gloom and cacophony of the hive city Recon York.

  Harald

  As he entered the Ironfist’s Bridge, Harald observed with his uncovered eye crewmembers becoming conspicuously busy at their stations. Many feared him, for which he felt both gratified and ashamed. From the moment of his arrival on Ironfist, Harald had climbed with almost unhuman brilliance through the ship’s ranking system, so it had been quite predictable to Fleet commanders that, out of the many candidates, he would be the one to attain the rank of captain-in-waiting. Not so predictable had been his successful pursuit of the role of ship’s tacom. He felt that most other Fleet personnel just did not understand the power inherent in the position of ship’s communications, logistics and tactical officer. But perhaps, after he had finally centralized those various duties aboard Ironfist, creating for himself the rank of Fleet Tacom Commander, some understood too late.

  Harald’s other eye – the covered one with its surgically altered lens, grid-division of the optic nerve and channelling in his visual cortex – gazed upon four separate scenes displayed on the eye-screen shrouding one side of his face. The earphones of his com helmet played audio information he could call up by using the control glove on his right hand, in conjunction with the eye-screen. He could play messages as text, and reply easily by using programs created in the computer modules imbedded in his foamite suit. The non-standard surgical alterations within his skull enabled him to multi-task to a degree unknown to the tacoms aboard other ships, for he could also easily interact with his immediate environment. Still studying those around him, he called up new displays from the multitude of satellites positioned around Brumal. Flicking through views showing nothing but cloud, he paused to study others showing Brumallians moving about on the surface, then moved on to find the one he particularly wanted. This showed a leaf-shaped craft settled down on the ocean, the waves hammering its outriggers.

  ‘Com 324 – status?’ he whispered into the helmet mike, after selecting the correct channel for his demand.

  ‘We are in position. Sonar indicates a depth of one mile and we have found the escape-pod. Difficult retrieval since the weather is kicking up and images from below not so clear, but we are lowering a robot now,’ replied the tacom officer aboard the craft he observed.

  Harald paused, realizing he was clenching his teeth, and deliberately relaxed his jaw before speaking: ‘Let me know the moment you find it,’ and was at once annoyed with himself for having issued a needless instruction. He offlined the relevant screens and comlink, did a personnel search checking the location of Admiral Carnasus, then resumed his walk across the Bridge to the spiral stair leading
up into the Admiral’s Haven – Carnasus spent much time up there nowadays, as Harald increasingly shouldered the burden of the old man’s command. Since the Admiral’s attitude to invasive new technologies was not the best, Harald removed his coms helmet and control glove, along with his side arm, and left them in the security box situated at the foot of the stair. Nothing he could do about his surgically altered eye, since it comprised no single pupil, but a honeycomb of fibre-optic lenses below its flat surface. He climbed up to speak with his superior.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Harald, so what’s the news?’ Carnasus sat in an old wooden chair upholstered with hide that was now worn and cracked. He had moved it to where he could gaze out through the narrow windows overlooking the body of the hilldigger Ironfist. Harald eyed the Admiral’s cooling hat, resting on the floor beside the chair, and surmised Carnasus must have removed it upon hearing him mount the stair. Sympathy and contempt for the old man warred for predominance inside him.

  ‘Good and bad,’ he replied. ‘The Polity Consul survived the Brumallian attack, to reach the surface of the planet intact. We detected him with one of our satellites.’

  The Admiral grimaced at this news. While Harald knew that Carnasus would never have countenanced a direct attack on the Consul Assessor, he would make no objection to the Polity intruder dying inadvertently.

  Harald continued, ‘Our spies informed us that a Combine’ – Harald sneered his next words – ‘geological survey satellite, which we positioned for them, also detected him. However, his escape-pod then sank in deep ocean, so we do not expect to recover him alive. Obviously, since that Brumallian attack, Fleet combat alert has been raised, and Parliament has since restored to us certain wartime prerogatives.’

  ‘The parliamentary vote?’

  ‘Most Orbital Combine representatives voted against, of course, but those planetary parties voting with us gave us a marginal win by two votes, despite the recent changes in public opinion caused by that damned book. Our new prerogatives will remain in place for the duration of the emergency.’

  ‘That’s good?’

  Harald explained, ‘We, being on the front line, can decide when the emergency is over. For the duration of the emergency, we can reinstate our current weapons, and manufacture of new ones at Carmel.’

  ‘Yes, I see.’ Plainly the Admiral did not see.

  Harald strode up beside him and leant against the thick steel window frame to gaze out. ‘What are our aims, sir?’

  Eyes glazed, Carnasus recited, ‘To keep this damned Polity out. We fought long and hard for our freedoms, and I do not intend to see them given up lightly.’

  Harald kept his face expressionless. For the moment he remained loyal to Fleet, and Fleet sat embodied in this man beside him – who nevertheless often needed to be guided along the correct course. But the idea that they had fought then, or now, for ‘freedom’ was laughable at best. A hundred years ago, many sitting in Parliament were industrialists and authoritarian politicians who benefited greatly during the first twenty years of conflict. When the economy nearly collapsed, those same plutocrats began to turn up drive-bolted to rocks out in the Komarl desert, and thereafter the war became one for survival only. And now that damned Uskaron, and his wretched book, had raised questions about why the war had started in the first place, and who was to blame.

  ‘Our first problem,’ he rejoined, ‘is Combine.’ He turned and gazed directly at Carnasus. ‘Their laudable project for building orbital planetary defence platforms is undermining our position as defenders, and to keep the Polity out we must retain power.’

  ‘Yes, Orbital Combine can be very irritating,’ the Admiral observed.

  Harald continued relentlessly, ‘I understand from Captain Inigis’s report that this Polity Consul was very tough, both physically and mentally. The Polity will certainly send another like him, and this time Combine will make sure he gets through safely by sending one of their own interplanetary ships to collect him.’

  ‘They’ve got their own ships?’

  ‘For fifteen years now, sir.’

  ‘Oh . . . yes, indeed.’

  ‘They’ve been challenging our monopoly on interplanetary travel. Now, in order to sway Parliament against us, they’re sowing stories that imply that Fleet is somehow culpable in the death of this Consul. But they wouldn’t even need to do that, since everyone planet-side is asking the same question. Also, some Combine concerns are loudly advertising the fact that they’re building working passenger liners to operate throughout the system, and that too is swaying public opinion, and Parliament, against us.’

  ‘But we are the only space power . . . we must retain power.’ The Admiral began to push himself up from his seat, but settled back readily when Harald stepped forward and pressed a hand gently on his shoulder.

  ‘And we will,’ said Harald calmly, ‘but you have to understand that you will soon need to make some tough decisions about Orbital Combine, its ships and those planetary defences.’

  ‘But why the defences?’

  ‘Because with them,’ Harald explained, ‘Combine can protect its ships and its industrial satellites.’

  Orbital Combine’s power bases were many – the industrial satellites, their new ships, the defence platforms – but Harald’s focus remained on their heart, which was Corisanthe Main. Because of the alien artefact aboard that station, it was the source of many new technologies, therefore the focus of Combine and its main power base. He needed to get his own people aboard – no easy task what with that place’s elaborate defences and armaments. That his sister Yishna would be aboard, so might be killed in any fighting, just did not impinge upon him at all.

  ‘I will begin making some arrangements. First we must see whether this Consul did indeed die. Apparently the satellite image showed him exposed to the atmosphere down there yet unharmed. We must also recall Captain Dravenik on hilldigger Blatant from Corisanthe Watch, and replace him with Franorl on hilldigger Desert Wind.’ Harald turned to go.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because, in your own estimation, Admiral, they’re the right people for the job that lies ahead. During this heightened state of emergency we should be able to wrest control of the defence platforms from Combine. Ships they can be allowed to control, but those platforms come under our remit. Parliament will certainly agree.’ He continued on his way, the lie tasting sour in his mouth.

  – RETROACT 9 –

  Orduval – in the Desert

  Where the orange sand lay thick across the compacted hogging of the rough track, Orduval paused, the strap of his water carrier already cutting into his bony shoulder. He hoisted the vessel up and studied the display on the solar-powered chiller unit: water temperature thirty Celsius, external temperature eighty-five Celsius. He uncapped the bottle and gulped some of the brackish electrolyte-mixed water, then moved on, his boots sinking an inch into the sand.

  By his estimation the water would last the rest of this afternoon and into the next day; thereafter the heat would swiftly kill him. But to die that way would be unpleasant and only the choice of the most despairing suicide. He would save at least a few mouthfuls of water with which to swallow the pills in the tube that weighed heavy in his pocket, and then only after achieving one other thing: a moment of clarity.

  In many writings they spoke about the trammelling effects of the desert heat and how, near the point of dying, people achieved huge insight and a beatific moment of revelation. Orduval felt sorely in need of such, and thought one of those experiences would be a fine chaser into the abyss. What was he, and what were his siblings? Sometimes, usually just before suffering a fit, he felt himself coming to grips with that mystery, but after the fit ended all surety left him. Only a few days ago, on their Assumption Day, he had spoken with his brother and his sisters about all this, but now, already numerous fits later, he recollected the conversation only vaguely.

  Orduval halted and asked the desert a question: ‘What are we?’

  The star in
his mind seemed somnolent now, so perhaps his choosing to die relieved it of its responsibility to keep him quiet. Walking on, he spoke now to the sky: ‘I need to know that, before the end.’

  He and his siblings forever drove themselves to excellence, and in his estimation some of them had driven themselves beyond their own mental limits, hence Rhodane’s forever nascent depression and his own fits. Why were they like that? Irrationally it seemed to him that it had to be something to do with their mother and her death.

  Orduval halted on the crest of a dune and gazed across the sand sea. Distantly, a rocky mount seemed to float on heat shimmer. He chose this as his destination and tramped down the dune face, sending a skirl wailing ahead of him. Some hours later, the sun low in the sky, the shimmer began to fade, but the mount looked no closer. And now only three-quarters of his water remained. He gazed down at the bottle for a moment, then . . .

  Sand in his mouth and clogged around his eyes, to where his nictitating membranes had cleared it. Sand in his clothing and two skirls sheltering in the shade of his body. The water carrier lay still-stoppered down at the bottom of the dune, so it was lucky he had not been drinking from it when the recent fit struck. Orduval crawled down the dune face to retrieve the precious carrier, the skirls skittering away with their usual racket. He drank thirstily, noting that, with half the water gone now, the chiller worked better on the smaller quantity remaining. Not that he particularly needed cold water now, with the desert temperature plummeting as the sun sank behind the horizon, for the night-time should provide a chilly but bearable fifty-five degrees Celsius. He hauled himself to his feet and climbed back up to the dune peak he had been following. With the stars coming out and his eyes adjusting, he decided to continue towards the mount, since it still remained visible.