Hilldiggers

by Neal Asher

  ‘You are dying,’ someone said matter-of-factly. ‘The best analogy I can give is that the cold war inside you between the two viral forms has now turned hot. They are eating up your physical resources in order to destroy each other.’

  ‘Thanks for that,’ I slurred, my mouth sticky and foul, since a rat seemed to have crawled into it and died.

  ‘Sprine seems to be the only answer.’

  I considered that often an answer that older hoopers retained as an option, but one they spent their very long lives avoiding. For some reason I remembered my mother calling up viral codon repair options on our house computer, since I was then of an age to decide whether I wanted to suffer the old genetic throwbacks of acne rosacea and asthma, to which I was prone. Of course I chose to be perfect – don’t we all.

  ‘Don’t really want to die just yet,’ I muttered.

  ‘Then sprine it will have to be.’

  I tried to yell then, but it came out as a whimper. I tried to fight free of my lead suit, but to no avail. Then came some kind of schism: the me fighting for life and another me analytically inspecting past memories. I remembered that terse individual aboard a sailing ship on Spatterjay telling me, ‘Now you’re buggered.’ Then, with seemingly no transition I was standing on Crematorius, the Mercury station from which they launched the bodies of the dead into the sun.

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘That is not a question you need to ask,’ my father replied.

  No, it wasn’t – just one I would have to face in the future. It was accepted wisdom that, though it was possible to live forever, people reaching their second century often got bored with life. Ennui killed them. Sometimes it was utterly conscious – a quiet suicide at home or else something often spectacular and messy – other times it manifested in an impulse towards increasingly dangerous pursuits. My mother took up free climbing without aug link, locator or any of the usual safety equipment. She did Everest, many of them do, but her attempt at the Eiger resulted in the mess now sealed inside a glass coffin, ready to be fired into the sun.

  Of course, born to my parents when they were in their fifties I hit my similar watershed fifty years after that funeral. I lost interest in U-space mechanics, which I had been pursuing avidly for about thirty years, and decided I would like to go sailing. Inevitably I chose to go sailing on oceans full of lethal predators, which were located on the planet Spatterjay. But I survived and, after a further 400 years, discovered that ‘long habit of living’ of which the Old Captains there are so fond.

  I did not want to die. I didn’t want sprine. Sprine means death to those infected by the Spatterjay virus. Sprine on the blade of a dagger . . .

  ‘Screw you! Screw you and your shag-nasty woman. I’ll eat your fucking eyes!’ He was big, a 300-year-old hooper who had thrown his Captain’s wife over the side of the ship, so it wasn’t exactly murder. She would continue drifting through the ocean, body stripped down to bone, but alive and forever suffering, unless someone rescued her, or until her mind went. The penalty remained the same, however. The Captain stepped up to him as he struggled against chains and manacles thick enough to hold an elephant, and drove the sprine-tainted dagger up under his ribcage.

  ‘Oh,’ said the hooper. ‘Oh bugger.’

  Black fluid flowed from the wound. He began shuddering as if being electrocuted, splits developed throughout his body and slowly he began to fall apart, like a building being dismantled brick by brick. And in the end all that remained of him was a pile of steaming offal.

  Sprine.

  My suffering lasted four days, every hour filled with hallucination and many memories I would rather not recall. Slowly, very slowly, I began to return to myself-disparate fragments of my mind slowly melding together until I became conscious. My body burned. Someone had sanded off the outer layer of my skin and injected chilli oil into my depleted veins. Gritty eyes finally open, I surveyed my surroundings.

  The room looked like the inside of a walnut shell, but green and yellow, with light permeating the walls. Nil gee, I noticed. I was strapped down to some organic pulsing object that smelt of clams. Something sucked at my anus and I could feel the intrusion of a catheter. Hoisting myself up a little, I saw a ribbed tube snaking down from between my legs and disappearing into the living mattress. But this wasn’t what riveted my attention, for I hardly recognized my own body. It was starveling thin, ribs plainly evident under sagging skin, and jaundice-yellow. Great. Only as I lay back did I feel something squirm on my face and at the back of my throat. Tubes retracted from my nostrils and flipped aside like beached sand eels. I saw them being sucked back into the grey veined flesh pillowing my head.

  ‘Hey,’ I managed weakly. ‘Hey.’

  A vaginal door opened in the wall and Slog stuck his head through. I raised a hand to try sign language, but it shook so much I gave up.

  ‘I’ll get someone,’ Slog clattered, and disappeared.

  My thoughts ran clear but I felt incredibly weak. Obviously I was aboard a Brumallian ship, and that ship was now in space. Had I hallucinated that voice talking about sprine? I thought not, but couldn’t fathom what had happened. The vaginal door parted again and Rhodane entered, pulling herself along by struts jutting out from the wall to reach over beside my bed.

  ‘You’re alive,’ I said.

  She pressed her hand to a bulky lump concealed under her clothing, just over her right hip. ‘The bullet lost much of its momentum, and broke apart as it passed through you. Some fragments penetrated, that is all.’

  I wondered what else might have penetrated her. Like many viruses of Earth the Spatterjay virus could not long survive outside its host. However, a bullet passing through me first and then entering her might serve to infect her with it, or with IF21, or both.

  ‘She is not infected with either virus . . . probably,’ said a voice.

  I recognized it as the same voice that recently talked to me of sprine, and now recognized it from before that. ‘Are you going to keep on hiding?’ I asked in English.

  Tigger materialized at the foot of my living bed. ‘Their own surgeon removed the pieces of the bullet. I used nanoscopic techniques to ensure the removal of any viral fragments, and then screened her blood and other bodily fluids.’

  I tried to hoist myself up again, but could not seem to find the strength even though I was not fighting gravity. Rhodane reached down and touched something beside the bed. The part behind my back folded up smoothly to bring me into a sitting position.

  After a rush of dizziness I said, ‘Perhaps you’d better start with Vertical Vienna,’ switching to speak in Sudorian for Rhodane’s benefit.

  ‘It would seem that Fleet has obtained technology enabling it to detect me despite my chameleonware.’ Tigger now spoke Sudorian too. ‘Ironfist fired a missile at the city – one deliberately hardened so I could not interfere with it from a distance – and when I closed with it, someone aboard that ship pressed the detonation button.’

  ‘Yet you are here,’ I said.

  ‘The smaller portion of me is here,’ Tigger replied. ‘As you will recollect, this form you see before you is not all of me.’

  ‘The sphere,’ I managed.

  ‘Yes. By the time I was again able to move, a second missile had already been fired into Vertical Vienna. Through Brumal coms I was able to track you down and came here to this ship as they were bringing you aboard.’

  I glanced at Rhodane, who was staring at Tigger intently. ‘He revealed himself to you.’

  She turned towards me. ‘You were dying. We sealed your wounds as best we could and made the most of the medical technologies aboard, but to no avail. Tigger then appeared, told us what he was, and took over.’

  ‘What did you do, Tigger? I heard something . . . about sprine.’

  ‘As you have known for some time, any injuries done to you enable IF21 to gain headway within your body. Your gunshot wound caused something like open warfare between IF21 and the Spatterjay virus, both of them using up y
our physical resources in the process. Had I left matters as they were, nothing would have remained of you but the two virus forms, and perhaps a few bones. One of them had to go. I could do nothing about IF21, but sprine effectively kills the Spatterjay virus. I showed the Brumallians how to synthesize that organic chemical, then we fed it to you in very small doses, killing off the Spatterjay virus and enabling IF21 to win the war.’

  I tried to absorb that news, but felt so very tired. ‘But sprine kills . . .’

  ‘It kills the virus. When given in large quantities, the breakdown is so sudden and catastrophic that the body supported by the virus dies as well. However, the small quantities I gave you killed the virus at a rate your body could support. As it died, IF21 then took over the Spatterjay virus’s role in your body, displacing it.’

  ‘So . . . I am no different now . . . just another form of the same virus?’

  ‘I cannot even speculate on that. IF21 was based on the Spatterjay virus, but it is unaffected by sprine and in fact produces it. The changes Iffildus introduced to enable it to do that were substantial. In fact, less than ten per cent of it remains the same as the original virus.’

  ‘So I could die?’

  ‘I just do not know.’

  ‘A risky strategy.’

  ‘It was either that or death. You chose not to die.’

  I closed my eyes. Iffildus’s aim in making IF21 had overtly been to create something that killed the Spatter-jay virus, but had he intended anything beyond that?The Spatterjay virus could cause some horrible transformations; so had that aspect of IF21 been changed? Even if not, IF21 might just die within me, poisoning my body in the process. But at the moment there was nothing I could really do about that; I just had to live with the possibilities. I drifted mentally, only half aware of the bed levelling out again. Then I slept.

  Yishna

  Sudoria now lay within view as the transport decelerated. Gazing through the polished quartz windows, Yishna could just see the thousands of gleaming satellites that made up Orbital Combine, and though glad the journey was over, she felt some trepidation about arriving at her final destination.

  For the Vergillan, a transport for short insystem flights, the run from Brumal to Sudoria had been a long one. As the journey progressed, Yishna began to notice a change in attitude amongst its small crew of twenty Fleet personnel. First polite but distant, they now tended to either avoid her, or were unhelpful bordering on insolent. She suspected that without the Chairman aboard their treatment of her would have been even worse. She recollected a recent conversation with Duras on this subject.

  ‘Just smile and bide your time, Yishna,’ said Duras. ‘Had Pilot Officer Clanot received other instructions concerning you, I believe he would have carried them out by now.’

  ‘That he has not received any other instructions I put down to your presence,’ Yishna replied.

  ‘Undoubtedly.’

  ‘But that may change when we reach Sudoria, since Franorl, aboard Desert Wind, awaits there at Corisanthe Main and, judging by what happened to the Combine observers, he is not averse to taking very direct action.’

  Duras gave an empty smile. ‘But his actions were in response to attempted sabotage by those same observers.’

  ‘Do you really believe that?’

  ‘I have yet to decide what I believe,’ said Duras, ‘but you may put your mind at rest about Franorl. Desert Wind is presently on a course that takes him wide of us, heading out from Sudoria.’

  ‘You learnt this from Clanot?’

  ‘I did. Apparently Fleet is grouping at Carmel.’

  ‘Oh no.’ Yishna felt her legs grow weak. She abruptly sat down in one of Duras’s chairs and tried to figure her way through this latest news. Obviously Harald must be securing his position in Fleet, but that he chose Carmel – the factory station that had supplied much of the munitions during the last few years of the war – was ominous.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Duras asked.

  ‘I am thinking we are on the verge of something regrettable,’ Yishna replied.

  ‘That has been implicit since the moment the Consul Assessor’s ship was struck, and subsequent events only confirm it. I can only say that at present Fleet and Combine still seem to heed the will of Parliament.’

  ‘What do you intend to do when you reach Sudoria?’

  ‘I will continue pushing for an extensive investigation, and in undertaking that try to keep Fleet and Combine from each other’s throats. I will play the political game in the hope that both sides will hold off because of the chance of getting what they want without resorting to bloodshed. I will feed and nurture that possibility for as long as I am able.’

  ‘I don’t think Harald will have much patience with that.’

  ‘Then, as you say, we are on the verge of something regrettable.’

  And there the conversation ended.

  Standing by the viewing windows, Yishna hoisted up the bag containing her few belongings. Since first contact with the Polity and the arrival of the Consul Assessor, Director Gneiss, whatever his own aims, had positioned her at the fulcrum of events, here at the Chairman’s side. Now, with McCrooger dead and war seeming almost inevitable, it was time for her to return to Corisanthe Main, to where she had invested her life. She felt a surge of dread at the prospect – remembering nightmares and darkness – then grew angry. Her feelings back then must have been an aberration, for Yishna could hardly recognize as herself that person sent off from Corisanthe Main to accompany Duras. She quickly dismissed those past episodes from her mind. On Main she would throw herself into the defence of Orbital Combine’s interests, and if that meant her going up against her brother, so be it.

  The Corisanthe stations lay in a widely spaced long triangular formation travelling in orbit. They were originally built as just one station, then were broken into three and shifted to their present orbits shortly after the end of the War. At that time they had been small, but with the previous addition of the Worm canisters and containment cylinders to Main, and the rapid expansion of Orbital Combine since the end of the War, and the growth of all three stations to house burgeoning populations, they were now immense. Soon Yishna saw that their transport was approaching Corisanthe II – a huge cylinder, once the central part of the original single station spun up for gee in the days before the Worm provided them with the technology for artificial gravity, and now nearly drowned in accretions. Further deceleration caused her to reach out and balance herself against the wall.

  ‘Yishna Strone.’

  She turned to see four Fleet personnel awaiting her. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m to escort you off this ship,’ said the Lieutenant in charge, his hand resting on the butt of his side arm.

  ‘I already know the way, so that seems hardly necessary,’ she replied.

  ‘Come with us,’ he insisted, and at that moment Yishna wondered if she would be leaving the ship. The man added, ‘Neither yourself nor Chairman Duras will be leaving by the main airlock. A shuttle is coming out to pick you up.’

  ‘You’re not docking with Corisanthe II?’ Yishna began walking with them, two of the crew, armed with disc rifles, falling in behind her.

  ‘We have little inclination to leave ourselves open to Combine treachery.’

  They reached a lift and descended in it for a couple of floors.

  ‘What do you have in the bag?’ the Lieutenant asked.

  ‘Personal effects.’

  ‘You understand we must check?’ he said.

  ‘No, I do not understand.’

  They drew to a halt and the snouts of their weapons wavered in her direction. She sighed, unshouldered her bag, but before she could pass it over a door opened behind her and they crowded her through it. The bag was snatched from her and slammed down on a nearby table.

  ‘Strip,’ ordered the Lieutenant.

  Yishna eyed him for a long moment. She could protest, she could make demands, try to assert her authority, but she realized he would no
t have placed her in this position if he did not think he could effectively carry through a search. He did not meet her eyes, merely fixed his attention on her bag as he opened it and began sorting through its contents. She glanced at the guards, two of whom were grinning, the other two looking embarrassed. With as much dignity as she could muster she removed her clothes and stood naked before them. For a second she considered making some sarcastic remark about how Fleet personnel found their entertainment, but refrained. Perhaps they were just waiting for some kind of provocation from her.

  ‘Check her clothing, Marks. The rest of you check her personally – make sure she has nothing concealed.’

  They grabbed her firmly and began running a hand scanner over her body. She remained silent and seemingly without reaction even when they dragged her to the table, bent her over it, and conducted an even more intimate search. Finally allowed to stand upright again, she observed one of the guards stripping off a glove.

  ‘You may dress now.’

  Yishna picked up her clothing, observing that the Lieutenant had now separated her belongings into two piles. One of those piles contained anything written or containing data storage, including her control baton. The rest, after a perfunctory scan, went back into her bag.

  ‘I would guess that the Chairman has not received similar treatment,’ she observed.

  The Lieutenant stepped out from behind the table and slapped her, hard. She took it calmly, then just raised her head and stared at him. She knew she could easily take him down, and perhaps one or two of the others, but would probably end up badly beaten or dead. She also knew that if this went any further she would have to do something drastic, because many prisoners had died in such situations, foolishly waiting for them to improve.

  ‘Orbital Combine!’ he spat. ‘We fought and died for Sudoria while you nestled around the planet growing fat and wealthy. Now you think you’re better than us. Worse even than the groundsiders, you lie about the War and you smear Fleet. Now the Brumallian is painted as the poor victim, with Fleet’s boot on his neck.’ He stabbed a finger. ‘You forget what we did!’