Polity 2 - Hilldiggers (22 page)

Silence fell. I considered breaking it, then turned aside on hearing the door open, and watched as the last of the five Speakers entered. Now they could begin.

“What is your name?” asked the male sitting just to Rhodane's right.

“David McCrooger.”

“What is your title?”

“On this occasion. Consul Assessor.”

“What are you?” asked another.

“That is a question you will have to elaborate.”

They did, at length, even going into biological detail. My extended reply in turn contained more detail than I had given Rhodane. They then moved on to ask me about the Polity and my position within it, about the AIs that govern it, about Geronamid, the full extent of the Polity and its history since their ancestors departed. Every now and again they threw a completely outfield question at me like, “Is St Paul's Cathedral, in the City of London on Earth, still standing?” To which I replied that indeed it was, though much of its original stonework was covered by diamond film and much of its structure supported by nano-carbon filaments. I realised they were then confining themselves to historical stuff so as to build a picture of the present-day Polity. When it seemed they had that sufficiently pegged, they moved on.

“Does the Polity need to expand in order to maintain its stability?”

“Not any more.”

“Why, then, did the AIs send you here?”

Motivation? Damn! Why did the AIs do anything? Why did they stay to rule the Polity when they could move on into realms of mind that humans could hardly understand? “Expansion is no longer required for economic reasons, but humans and AIs both need to expand their horizons. I suppose that doesn't really answer your question? OK, it has become our policy that when out-Polity civilisations are encountered, we first establish dialogue with them, assess them carefully, then offer them inclusion. If they reject this offer, we leave them alone.”

“But being rejected here by Fleet, you have not departed,” Rhodane observed.

“The dialogue we establish is not just with the few who rule.”

“As we understand it, you only have one line of communication open, and that's with only a select few of the ruling class on Sudoria.”

“Dialogue can take many forms, and has yet to be fully established, and I am still assessing.”

“One man cannot see everything.”

“Yes, I'm aware of that. We abide by the strictures imposed by our hosts because that is a price we are prepared to pay to gain a foothold amongst them, so as to properly establish a dialogue and to make a full assessment. Approached in any other way, the cost in human suffering could be great.”

“Why does Fleet so fear you they're prepared to destroy one of their own ships in order to be rid of you?”

“I think you can work that out for yourselves.”

“Why has the Polity not tried to establish dialogue with us here on Brumal?”

“I believe I already covered this ground with Rhodane, but I shall reiterate. You are not irrelevant to the Polity,” I explained. “But making you a relevant issue in the eyes of the Sudorians, by establishing an apparently independent dialogue with you, would put you in danger from Fleet and endanger our chances of establishing a foothold on Sudoria.”

From then on the tenor of their questioning slowly began to change. They became more keenly interested in my knowledge of the situation here, specifically my knowledge of Sudorian technologies and capabilities, and the politicising between the various power blocs on the other world. I started to feel rather uncomfortable with all this, since the information they sought was obviously more of a military nature than that relating to me.

“If we were to be attacked by the Sudorians, would the Polity support us?”

“No.”

“You would support the Sudorians?”

“No.”

“What would you do?”

“One of two things: either leave you to kill each other, or stop you killing each other.”

An abrupt gear shift occurred then with, “How do Polity citizens entertain themselves? Do they like music?”

Weird, but I was beginning to sense how Consensus thinking outside this room swayed the questions they posed, and realised that such abrupt changes resulted from the speakers here catching up moment by moment with Consensus opinion. It reassured me to learn that the Brumallians, as a whole, had now become bored with the subject of war and instead wanted to know about music. There followed a long question and answer session about the arts. The sciences next, with many attempts to obtain hard facts from me, which led on into medical technology. But then the questioning abruptly segued into history and the Prador War. It all now seemed more like general conversation than interrogation. By the time I started fidgeting in the chair and was looking round to see if there was a toilet nearby, the session came to an abrupt end with a single question.

“Why should Brumallians want to join the Polity?”

I had been waiting for that. “Because there are now no wars in the Polity, and very little crime. Every citizen is wealthy beyond measure and our medical technology is such that everyone there has a good chance of living forever.”

They fell silent for a very long time, then Rhodane stood up. “Thank you, Consul Assessor David McCrooger. The quofarl will conduct you to your accommodation. We have much to consider now.”

And so I was escorted away.

—RETROACT 14—

Gneiss—on Corisanthe Main

The station OCTs came here to the Blister to relax, as did security personnel and researchers. But that separation by definition of the groups within the station was something imposed by Orbital Combine and never really adhered to here aboard Corisanthe Main. This nil-gee area seemed a microcosm of the entire station, visibly displaying its oddities. The furniture within the Blister had been transformed beyond the exigencies of gravity and turned into baroque tangled sculptures in which the personnel lolled while drinking, eating, smoking strug and occasionally coupling. This exotic environment all surrounded a vaguely globular central swimming pool at the juncture of numerous cables, which also bound together the surrounding chaotic tangle. In the mass of water, naked figures swam, their features obscured by masks and breathers. People occasionally drowned there—a strange way to die aboard a space station—but Director Gneiss, who stood at the door viewing the scene, had never contemplated closing it down. He calmly surveyed the occupants of this area, and defined them, but not by their Combine titles. There the first-stage Exhibitionists, there second- and third-stagers. There Suffocant Supplicants, Endurers and Indolants. And over there was Dalepan, who had once been an Exhibitionist and had moved on to become a Cognisant. Of course, Gneiss had often felt the pressure to fall too easily into one of these groups. He resisted this and in the end his classification had remained simply 'Station Director'—a seeming subcult all its own.

The Director launched himself from the grav floor of the corridor, rising up into the tangled and comfortable chaos. He grabbed a curved strut resembling the horn of some ancient beast, pushed himself through a structure seemingly fashioned of a giant's bones, then settled down beside Dalepan, hooking his legs around the curving beam on which the Cognisant OCT rested with a hexagonal glass drinking cell, like a section from a large quartz crystal, clutched in his hand.

“Director,” said Dalepan lazily. “I would offer you alcohol but I know you'd never take anything likely to soften that shell you live inside.”

“I thought Cognisants avoided that poison too?” Gneiss observed.

“I'm a neophyte, so I'm allowed my lapses.”

“How generous of them.”

“Yes.” Dalepan rolled his eyes. “But returning to the subject of your shell, Director, how can any of us know if there is anything inside it?”

Gneiss did not reply, that being a question he often posed to himself. He was also thoroughly aware that the drink Dalepan had been imbibing contained intoxicants beyond mere alcohol. He gazed steadily and coldly at the man, wondering if he would still be able to get any sense out of him, or even if he might be able to obtain more than sense.

“What can I do for you, Director?” Dalepan asked, finally sobering up a little under Gneiss's wintry gaze.

“The Polity is sending a Consul Assessor here,” Gneiss replied.

Dalepan pushed himself upright, as best he could in relation to the curving beam, set his drink cell spinning weightlessly beside his head, and obviously made some effort to return himself to a more sober state. This struck Gneiss as very unlikely to happen, since he had now recognised the seared plastic smell of a particularly powerful hallucinogen based on a combination of strug extract and a cortical stimulant. Dalepan probably even thought he was hallucinating both Director Gneiss and this conversation.

“We use a slightly altered form of coconut oil on the surface of our pool.” Dalepan pointed to where a swimmer frog-kicked his way through blue water. “It cuts down on evaporation and also increases refractivity.” He gestured to a nearby cable. “Some of these are hollow, and through them water is removed, then cleaned and returned. If we left it untended and prevented swimmers from using it, this pool would soon turn stagnant.”

Stagnant? Gneiss analysed the unfamiliar usage of the word, and shortly realised why it was unfamiliar. Pools never grew stagnant on Sudoria, for they evaporated long before that could occur. The Sudorian language still contained a lot of words like that, because they derived from Earth languages: words that now seemed surplus to requirements. Of course, such a word would find much use on Brumal, where pools lasted longer.

“And why do you think this is of any interest to me?”

“We are submersed in a stagnant pool, drowning, trapped.” Dalepan fixed a pinpoint pupil gaze on Gneiss. “You more so than the rest of us.”

“Someone to stir the water?” suggested Gneiss.

Dalepan nodded sagely then grabbed his drink from the air and took a pull from it. For a short while he seemed to be utterly unaware of the Director's presence.

“Do we need the water stirring?” Gneiss wondered. “Many in Combine definitely want further contact with this Polity, but what about us here...and our charge? Should I contest this? Should I fight for the status quo?”

Dalepan's gaze wandered back to him. “Of course not—we're suffocating in here and we need to find the way out.” He focused on the Director completely. “We need to break our stasis—find a way to become fluid again.”

Gneiss nodded and felt something ease inside him. It suited him that by doing nothing, by allowing those others in Orbital Combine to get what they wanted, he might at last be given the opportunity to become freely himself rather than have himself defined by a stubborn resistance to a manipulation he barely comprehended. He smiled to himself—a rare occurrence in itself. It seemed that things might be about to change, quite possibly in a radical manner.

—Retroact 14 Ends—

Much to the disgust of Fleet personnel, many Sudorians have gone voluntarily to Brumal to study and better understand our old enemy. That they have even been able to do so is one indication of both waning Fleet influence and the increase in its perpetual search for a purpose. When Parliament voted for civilian researchers to be allowed to travel there, Fleet commanders could not argue against using warships for transporting those civilians, since the War was undeniably over. The request also enabled Fleet to find a new use for these vessels, and thus seek funding for their maintenance. This steady migration of researchers nearly ended when a typically naive faction of the Orchid Party detonated a nuclear bomb inside a Fleet ground base on Brumal, as a protest against Fleet oppression. Believing the indigenous population to have caused this explosion, the response of the captain of the nearest hilldigger was to launch a missile down into the nearest Brumallian town, incinerating its entire population of 5,000. This shamefully misguided act was then used by Parliament to prevent Fleet clamping down on further migration. A memorial stone was erected in memory of the personnel who died in the Fleet ground base. The burnt-out Brumallian town, however, was quickly filled in and, if you ask now, no one is entirely sure where it was located.

—Uskaron

Defence Platform One

With puzzlement, Kurl studied his screens for a moment then raised his gaze to the thick glass window above which girded the entire operations room. Outside, in the black of space, he could just make out the shape of the hilldigger.

“So what's this all about?” asked Cheanil.

Kurl grinned. “When Fleet start giving me notice of what they'll do next, I'll be sure to let you know. Until then I'm as bewildered as you are.” He paused, checked his displays, then asked, “Who have we got out there?”

“Dravenik on the Blatant. Last I heard he was on Corisanthe Watch.” Cheanil studied something coming up on one of her screens. “Apparently he has been replaced there by Franorl on Desert Wind.”

“Dravenik is next in line for Admiral,” Kurl observed, “and apparently Carnasus has started wearing a cooling hat.”

Cheanil glanced at him. “And what's that got to do with anything?”

Kurl leant back, shaking his head in irritation. “It may be nothing...I don't know. Can you open a com channel to him?”

“I am not sure the Commander would be best pleased. Maybe we should inform him about this, and he should speak to Dravenik.”

“Come on, Cheanil, I've been on this station longer than the Commander and I know what I'm doing. I'll just make a polite enquiry.” He paused for a moment. “Do you want to go and wake up Commander Spinister?”

Cheanil grimaced, input the required information, and one of Kurl's screens blanked for a moment before a channel-holding graphic appeared. Then that abruptly disappeared and a young man wearing a coms headset peered back at him. Kurl realised that this image was also computer-generated, since he was talking to a tacom.

“Hello,” said Kurl. “I'm calling from Defence Platform One, and am obviously curious about why you have positioned yourselves so close to us.”

“I'll pass you on to Lieutenant Crastus.”