Hilldiggers (polity)

by Neal Asher

  "She is not infected with either virus…probably," said a voice.

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

  Tigger materialised 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 your 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 synthesise 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 Spatterjay 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 recognise 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 th
e 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 realised he would not 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!"

  Yishna could feel herself flushing with anger. "Hardly you; I should think you were still pissing your bed when Fleet destroyed Brumal."

  He swung at her again, but this time Yishna raised both her forearms, scissoring them with his wrist between. Bones broke with a satisfactory crunch. She grabbed and pulled him into her and, turning, spun him over her hip into two of the guards behind her. Still turning she raised her foot off the ground and cannoned it into the temple of another guard. To her left: a weapon being raised. Leaping in close, she drove the heel of her hand into that guard's nose, and he flew backwards over the table. Behind her, the others were recovering. Probably she would be gunned down as she went for them, but—

  The door slammed open. "Enough!" bellowed Pilot Officer Clanot. "Lower your weapons!" Struggling to his feet the Lieutenant did not seem to be listening, as he tried to draw his side arm left-handed. Clanot drew his own weapon, stepped in close and brought it down hard against the side of the man's head. Now Duras entered, followed by two more crew and a third figure Yishna recognised at once.

  "You four, return to your berths right now!" Clanot ordered. He reholstered his gun, his hand shaking. As the four guards exited, he turned to Yishna, keeping his gaze fixed firmly upon her face. "Please clothe yourself, Yishna Strone."

  "I didn't know you had joined the Exhibitionists," said Dalepan. The Ozark containment technician, clad in a spacesuit, leant back against the door jamb with his arms folded.

  Yishna shot him a wry look and began to pick up her clothing.

  "It is precisely this kind of behaviour," observed Duras, "that causes people to fall out of sympathy with Fleet."

  "They will be punished," said Clanot, gazing down at the unconscious Lieutenant.

  "Will they? After we have left this ship?"

  Clanot looked up. "There are those in Fleet who do not like what is happening now."

  "Not nearly enough of them."

  "Yes." Clanot looked down again.

  Now once again dressed, Yishna tossed her belongings into her bag and shouldered it. "It's time for us to depart, I think," she said.

  "Yes, I'm very much afraid it is," Duras replied.

  Orduval

  He gazed out at the setting sun, its light hazed above the desert like angel dust, and a weary sadness infected his mood as he reviewed recent events. His book had very much changed public—and thus parliamentary—opinion about the Brumallians and about Fleet. He understood how the effect of its publication had killed Fleet's political manoeuvring to have the U-space link closed down, and that, without that same effect, Fleet would have had the power to prevent the Consul Assessor coming here. But in the end it had been too late, for he calculated that if he had published it five years earlier, things would have been very different now.

  "Oh, Harald, what are you doing?" he asked the desert, but the question was rhetoric into the abyss, for he knew the answer.

  Had public opinion been swayed only a little more against Fleet and in favour of the Brumallians, Parliament would not have returned to Fleet its wartime prerogatives, and Fleet would not then have been able, without consultation and a vote, to bomb a Brumallian city. On such little things turn catastrophic events.

  Orduval wished Tigger would return, but supposed the Polity drone was wrapped up in business more important than keeping Orduval informed. He did not himself believe the Brumallians had launched the attack that resulted in the Consul Assessor's death. He understood that many on Sudoria did not believe it either, and like him could not decide which of the two, Fleet or Combine, was the guilty party. Tigger could tell him, and had already told him so very much.

  "I have finally ascertained the cause of your debility, and I am amazed," Tigger informed him during their last meeting, just before the drone's departure for Brumal.

  "If you could explain?" Orduval suggested.

  "You knew I was coming today, even though I did not tell you I
would be coming."

  Orduval felt a moment's bewilderment. Yes, Tigger was right. He had turned off his console, put it to one side and walked out here fully expecting Tigger to be waiting—and never questioned that impulse.

  "Some structures in your brain are sensitive to U-space," the drone explained. "Interestingly, the first fit you ever experienced happened precisely on one of the occasions when I arrived back here from Brumal."

  Orduval knew that Tigger contained in his sphere part a U-space drive which he used in order to zip back and forth between the two worlds.

  "So it's all your fault," he wryly suggested.

  "Not entirely. My arrival on that occasion may have triggered the first feedback loop that resulted in your fit, but the weakness was already there, and such a loop inevitable."

  "I feel a bit more explanation is required."

  "So do I. Far in the past, on Earth, there used to be a long-running debate, often quite heated, concerning so-called psychic powers. Those being the ability to see into the future, to move objects by thought power, to read minds or communicate from mind to mind. It was only some years after the advent of U-space technology that the debate was partially resolved. Most psychic phenomena were then found to be related to a brain configuration that made them sensitive to U-space, and theoretically able to cause localised phenomena related to it."

  "Theoretically?"

  "Cases of the strictly mental phenomena have been documented, but none has been documented regarding the physical phenomena."

  "So I am in some way sensitised to U-space, and this causes my fits—a phenomenon you say is already known about in the Polity. Why then are you amazed?"

  "Because the structures in your brain grew from your DNA blueprint, as do most basal structures in most human brains—meaning nature not nurture. Everything that forms afterwards is nowhere near so dramatic."