Hilldiggers (polity)

by Neal Asher

  Harald grimaced. Of course he should not become complacent. Three of the captains here, Ildris, Lambrack and Coleon, objected to his assumption of the Admiralship, and others remained undecided. If a total of six captains objected the whole issue would have to go through the laborious Fleet electoral process. Harald had no patience with that possibility. He turned from the window and headed for the stair.

  The Bridge now worked with smooth efficiency, despite the many replacements Harald had made. Ship's Security had been totally under his control for some years now, and though its officers had found it necessary to break a few heads and confine some members of the crew, only three deaths had resulted since he took control.

  Jeon now sat before her own console at Firing Control, and he stopped beside her.

  "Still nothing?" he enquired.

  "Nothing—we have a clear run."

  Harald nodded, unclenched his teeth, then called up data from Carmel. He saw that six of the captains were now aboard, so it was time for him to get over there before they had a chance to talk to each other face to face for any length of time. He was sure of his power aboard Ironfist, and was now ready to confirm it over Fleet.

  From the Bridge, Harald headed down to one of the transport bays, where he picked up his retinue of Ship's Security personnel. Aboard the shuttle, during the short journey over to Carmel, he considered his future actions.

  Long before recent events, groundsider opinion had been turning against Fleet, especially with Orbital Combine now offering the possibility of travel throughout the system. Immediately before those events, Parliament was debating about how to conduct an investigation into the missile attack on Inigis's ship, and Combine was proving open and amenable. However, the murder of Admiral Carnasus and the destruction of Blatant by Defence Platform One would inevitably swing public opinion to Fleet's side. It may have been twenty years since the end of the War, but paranoia still held sway on the planet Sudoria. The change in opinion would in turn influence those groundsider representatives who held seats in Parliament, and the majority of the vote. Harald fully expected to win the vote he had ordered Fleet representatives to call for in Parliament—and for control of the defence platforms to be handed over to Fleet. Of course, Orbital Combine would refuse to actually hand over control, which meant Harald could then do what needed to be done.

  The clonk of docking clamps snapped him out of his reverie. He unstrapped and pulled himself through the nil-gee vessel towards the airlock, but allowed his guards to move out ahead of him and secure the immediate area. He clambered through the lock, and beyond it dropped to the wide gravity floor, where he eyed stacks of equipment and squads of station assault troops—probably awaiting their ride aboard Desert Wind. Then he turned and focused his attention on Station Supervisor Harnek, who awaited with a pale and worried expression.

  "There's been a killing," said the man.

  "Who?"

  "Captain Ildris was found dead in his quarters only minutes ago. Poison, we think."

  Harald absorbed that and wondered just what to make of it. Ildris was one of those firmly set against him assuming the Admiralship, but Harald himself had not ordered the man killed. It struck him that there were those in Fleet who might be rather too enthusiastic in their support of him.

  "Have you any idea who did it?" he asked, while tracking information himself via his headset.

  Harnek looked wary. "I was preparing to start an investigation, but thought it best to wait until you arrived. Perhaps you would prefer your own people to conduct it?"

  Harald felt himself tensing up again, and glanced down at his clenched right fist. He carefully unclenched it, breathed evenly and summoned calm. Of course Harnek wanted Harald to conduct any investigation—the man obviously thought Harald had ordered the murder of Captain Ildris.

  "Be assured, Harnek," he said tightly, "that I have every confidence in you and want no less than the truth to be revealed. Investigate this murder and be certain that if you find the culprit he will be punished."

  Harnek looked doubtful. "As you will…Admiral."

  "Now, the other Captains?"

  "They're waiting in the Desert Lounge." Harnek gestured to the door to a nearby corridor and led the way.

  As they moved off, Harald immediately instructed Ironfist's Security to get teams aboard Ildris's ship, Resilience. He then checked on the whereabouts of Franorl, and discovered the Desert Wind was not due in for another day. He opened a link to that ship and was shortly speaking to Franorl himself.

  "No great loss," Franorl replied upon hearing the news.

  "It could turn others against us," Harald replied. "When you get in, I want you to check out the Captain-in-Waiting aboard Resilience."

  "But of course."

  Harald took the lift at the end of the corridor, which opened into the foyer of the Desert Lounge. He handed his headset and glove over to one of his guards, then forced a relaxed mien before entering through the foamed steel doors. Immediately general conversation subsided and a silence descended. Harald saw five Captains present along with some of their staff. Lambrack was one of them, but Coleon seemed to be missing. Harald headed over directly.

  "It's good to meet you again, Lambrack." Harald fist-saluted over his side arm, then held out his hand.

  Lambrack returned the salute but ignored the hand. "Yes, it's interesting to meet you again, Harald. You've risen in the world."

  "Not entirely through choice," Harald replied, lowering his hand.

  "You know, I knew Lieutenant Alun well, and last I recollect he would have laid down his life for Admiral Carnasus," said the Captain.

  Harald was thoroughly aware that everyone else was listening intently.

  "That was the appearance he liked to give, certainly. But Alun was attracted to power and wealth. He would have done nothing so drastic, I suspect, had not the Admiral found out he was passing information to Combine."

  "And no doubt you, being so able with computers, discovered this?"

  "As it happens, no. The Admiral found out through his own agents in Combine. I suspect Alun had been given orders concerning the Admiral that he was not following, and Combine wanted to push him into action. What I've since discovered is that Combine wanted the Admiral dealt with quietly—only Alun's ineptitude led to the shooting."

  "You have proof of this?"

  "I do."

  "Quietly…like poison. Perhaps a potion similar to the one that made Ildris tear out his fingernails against the floor of his quarters?"

  "What are you suggesting?" enquired Harald. "That I would know?"

  Conversation had risen to a mutter, but it was now abruptly stilled.

  "Far be it for me to suggest such a thing."

  Harald stared at him for a long moment, until the man started to look edgy, then said, "I've had enough of such innuendo. If you have accusations to make, then make them. You can present your evidence, and a quorum can decide on it, and then we can move on." Harald paused, still unblinking. "Do you have evidence?"

  "I have none…yet." Lambrack began to turn away.

  "Do not turn your back on me," said Harald quietly.

  "Believe me, that's not something I would ever feel comfortable doing."

  "Very well," said Harald. "Thank you, Lambrack—you have made your position clear. And should Fleet come under the control of Orbital Combine, and they replace you with one of their own lackeys, I hope you will still be happy with that position." He turned away.

  "And now you turn your back on me."

  "I am prepared to trust honourable men, even if they refuse to trust me."

  Lambrack found no reply to that.

  Harald moved on through the crowd, working those in it like any groundsider politician. Two more Captains arrived and upon speaking to them he realised that, despite Lambrack's hostility, there would be no vote concerning his assumption of the Admiralship. He learnt in passing that, after the murder of Ildris, Coleon had returned to his hilldigger and taken it away
from the station. He had run, and it did not seem likely he would be coming back any time soon. They were all scared, it seemed, scared of Harald, and only Lambrack possessed the nerve to show he resented feeling that way.

  "It would appear that there is not sufficient objection to my assumption of overall Fleet command," he said later, addressing them all. "So let me give you a summation of the situation: it would appear there are those in Orbital Combine who feel ready to displace Fleet. They first attempted to sway public opinion against us by conniving with the Brumallians in the assassination of the Polity Consul Assessor, perhaps rightly expecting the groundsiders to blame us for this. They then beheaded us by murdering Admiral Carnasus, and around Sudoria have made their first direct moves against us. I suspect the destruction of the Blatant was also intended to remove another possible leader for Fleet. In such a situation Fleet definitely needs firm leadership." Harald paused and gazed at them all in turn, before continuing:

  "My qualifications took me to the position of Captain-in-Waiting on Ironfist—the highest rank possible with a Captaincy as yet unavailable. Admiral Carnasus made it known that I was to be viewed as an Admiral Candidate. I would like to add that he was also prepared to demote one of you in order to give me such a position—which strategy I refused. Only Dravenik stood higher than me in the ranking system, and he is gone. So I have now assumed the position of Fleet Admiral. I understand that four of you, one now departed in his ship, have lodged objections to my claim. Under Fleet law, six objections are required. I am now Fleet Admiral, and whether you object to this or not, I expect your obedience, and hope in time to gain your respect." Again he paused, studying those captains he knew to have objected.

  "Since Parliament reinstated our wartime prerogatives, Carmel has been brought back online and is now processing materials stored here for twenty years. Over those twenty years all our hilldiggers have depleted their stores of spare parts, weaponry and fissile fuels. My orders to you now are that you make your ships ready, suckle on Carmel and grow strong, for soon we will be going to Sudoria to bring Orbital Combine to account."

  Applause followed, some overly enthusiastic, some desultory.

  It was enough.

  11

  In the century before the War we were growing wealthy and most of that wealth lay in the hands of industrialists and agriculturalists. They used this wealth, and consequent power, to form their own 'parties' and thus gain representation in the Planetary Council. The old parties were pushed aside till the largest proportion of representatives belonged to powerful corporations—their voting strength coming from workers who had signed up to the corporate parties out of fear of losing their jobs or of losing the protection afforded by their corporation's security force. There were also other forms of coercion: "If you leave, remember that our fire service won't be able to help you should your house inadvertently burn down. If you leave, you'll have to find a school for your children and the best schools are those funded by the corporation. And if you decide to join another corporation, well, think again about that fire risk," Though we can criticise this unfairly coercive society now, it's well to remember it created the wealth to take us back into space. It was also this wealth that built the spaceship called The Outstretched Hand. And it was also the drive to acquire more such wealth that equipped it, and that worded the secret orders to its crew.

  — Uskaron

  McCrooger

  I woke up suffering pain even worse than during the brief while I spent slung over Slog's shoulder. My mind seemed to be replaying a random selection of memories as if to entertain itself while I had been unconscious. Someone had enclosed my body in a lead suit and dropped it down into the dark hold of a Spatterjay sailing ship, where the motion made me nauseous—that, and the snakes writhing inside the suit along with me. A dark place loomed and I knew I just needed to relax into it and everything would go away, but every time I started to do that, something jerked me out, like that rasping snore which snaps one out of a doze.

  "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 recognised 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.