Polity 2 - Hilldiggers (23 page)

The screen blanked again, the holding graphic reappeared and remained in place for some minutes before the officer in question appeared.

“You are calling from Defence Platform One?” asked the Lieutenant.

“I certainly am.”

“And you wish to know why we are holding our present position?”

“I certainly do.”

“Well...I did not get your name?”

“Kurl.”

“Well, Kurl, when Parliament decides Orbital Combine must be informed of every Fleet manoeuvre, then you will have every right to pose such questions. Until then, such questions are not only impertinent but a security risk.”

Kurl shrugged. “I'm only asking what Commander Spinister will be asking Dravenik sometime soon.”

“That is Captain Dravenik to you, civilian.”

Tightly, Kurl replied, “It may have escaped your notice, but this is a military defence installation.”

“Yes, though it would seem there are those who do not consider it as efficient as a hilldigger. For your Commander's information, we are here for planetary defence as an added precaution since that Brumallian missile attack on one of our ships. This has been approved by Parliament. Thank you for your interest.”

The screen blanked again.

“Approved by Parliament?” said Kurl, leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head. He glanced across at Cheanil, then looked at the display she was studying. One screen showed the present locations of all the personnel aboard the platform. “I guess I should inform the Commander,” he added.

Cheanil shook her head and began groping under her console for something. “No, I don't think you'll be doing that.”

“Huh?” Kurl wondered what she was now doing. If she was having trouble with her equipment, she should get Grant up here. Then again—Kurl checked her display—Grant was in the refectory with some of the other techs, and probably halfway through a bottle of kavis by now. “Why won't I be doing that?”

“Because you'll be dead,” said Cheanil, sitting upright and pointing at him the silenced handgun she had retrieved from under her console.

“What do—?”

The gun made a triple thunk and an iron fist slammed into Kurl's chest hurling him from his chair. Lying on the floor, struggling for breath, he just could not believe this was happening. Cheanil came to stand over him, pointing the gun down at his forehead. Brief light ignited inside the barrel. It dropped a blackness on Kurl that would never end. Cheanil returned to her seat and pulled the two spare clips from where she had taped them under her console two hours earlier. She had rather liked Kurl and therefore regretted the necessity of killing him, but she did not feel the same about the others. Commander Spinister, the other officers and the station techs were all definitely and arrogantly Orbital Combine people. All of them felt that Fleet, which had kept the Brumallians from their throats for a century, was now obsolete. Cheanil felt that the ease with which Harald had organised her penetration of Combine, her promotion to coms officer aboard this station and her smuggling of arms aboard were all proof of how wrong they were. Though, admittedly, Harald was no ordinary Fleet officer.

Cheanil picked up her console and checked its screen. With the radio link established to the station computer, she could now see clearly where everyone was, and thus plan her actions accordingly. Grant and eight other technicians occupied the refectory, Spinister and four others were in bed, and a four-person crew was conducting maintenance on the maser array outside. Cheanil entered the lift to the rear of the operations room and took it down to the living area. Stepping out she could hear Grant and the rest of them roaring with laughter or speaking with that stepped-up volume that bottles of kavis tended to provide.

Entering her own quarters she quickly pulled out her case from under her bed, input its lock code and hinged it open. As she hoisted out the Fleet-issue disc carbine, power pack and spare magazines, she again wondered at Harald's brilliance. Combine Security was by no means a pushover, yet he had gone through it like it just wasn't there. There seemed something almost supernatural about his abilities...not that Cheanil believed in anything like that. Strapping on a harness to carry the power pack and the magazines, she considered this further affirmation of Fleet superiority, and some sign of just what Fleet could achieve under the right leadership: in other words Harald.

Cheanil plugged in the carbine's power lead and watched the indicator lights on the weapon step up to optimum. Selecting a magazine of fragmentation discettes, she slotted it into place underneath the tongue-shaped barrel, and felt a whirr as the load backed up to the breech. She took a slow, calming breath then opened her door and peeked out. No one in the corridor. Another check of her console revealed that one of the techs had retired from the drinking session and returned to her quarters. Hopefully she would have collapsed into drunken sleep, but Cheanil would have to be careful since the doors to those quarters would be at her back. Walking quietly she advanced down the corridor to the refectory entrance and looked inside. Grant and the rest were playing cards, some of them were smoking strug and tobacco, and thankfully, at tables drawn together and cluttered with bottles of kavis and bowls of snack-beetles, they all sat as a close group.

“Cheanil!” Grant spotted her and began to stand.

Cheanil replied by stepping inside and opening fire, drawing her weapon across. Twenty discettes hissed from the flat barrel, unravelling into razor peelings of metal as they travelled. Two of the group, sitting with their backs to her, slammed forward, their heads disappearing in a shower of brain and bone. Three next to Grant shot backwards, their chairs toppling over, pieces of gory flesh, broken glass and game cards hailing beyond them. Grant's guts and most of his backbone exploded out behind him, and he hurtled back to land in two separate halves. Only one man now remained alive—still sitting at his chair at the table, his mouth gaping. He had time only to glance down to see his entire arm missing below the shoulder before Cheanil fired again. Then he, his chair and part of the table turned into a cloud of bloody splinters that coated the wall behind.

“Will you please keep the noise—”

Turning, Cheanil notched down the firing rate and triggered once. The woman, who only yesterday had tried to proposition her, slammed back inside her sleeping quarters, leaving an extended star-shaped splash of blood and flesh particles along the corridor wall. Cheanil checked her in passing: no need for another shot. Now for those hopefully still asleep.

Heading back down the corridor, Cheanil called up a new display on her console: this one showed the locking code to each set of quarters—obtained by another of Harald's wonderfully intricate programs. Three died on their sleeping mats, the fourth as he was vomiting kavis and snack-beetles into his toilet. Saving Commander Spinister for last, Cheanil was disappointed to find him still in his bed. It seemed to her that she should at least say something.

“Commander,” she began. “Commander, I've come to wake up both you and Orbital Combine.”

He turned over and stared up at her bleary-eyed. “What are you doing in here, Cheanil?”

“I just told you.” She raised her weapon.

His arm came round and up. Something fisted her kidney and spun her back from the doorway. Recovering, she fired back blind into the room, then kept firing as she staggered towards the door again. Spinister managed to rise to one knee before she finally spread him all over the walls. Stepping back, she gasped and looked down at the hole that had been ripped through her just above the hip.

Damnation, she should not have been so unprofessional.

Four yet to deal with. Cheanil wiped blood from her console screen and saw they were still outside, working on the maser. Even if they came in now, it would take them half an hour to unsuit. It meanwhile took her a quarter of an hour to find a medical kit, plug her wound and seal it under a sticky patch, and then inject a local anaesthetic and anti-shock drugs. Returning to the control centre she took the weapons-control chair—the Commander's place—and on one screen viewed the four figures gathered around the maser. They were all inside the forty-foot-wide dish, replacing some of the reflective cells. It was a minor job, however, that would not affect the functioning of the weapon. Cheanil plugged in her console and, using more of Harald's programs, took control. A small test burst to check positioning of the central unit was all she required. Cheanil watched the sudden frantic motion of the four figures. Their suits grew fat and taut, and by the time steam and smoke burst from developing leaks, the four were no longer moving. Microwaved above boiling point, their own fluids impelled them tumbling away from the station.

Now Cheanil opened a secure communications channel.

“I am in position,” she said, “though I am injured and estimate I will only remain useful to you for a maximum of five hours.”

Harald gazed coldly at her from the screen. The image was a recorded one, animated to suit his words, since she knew he would really be communicating with her via his coms helmet. “Disappointing, Cheanil. How did you manage to get yourself injured?”

“I allowed myself a moment of grandstanding, and for that I apologise.”

“Very well. It is fortunate that the timing I require should still be within that period. Tune into the media channels and keep watch. I will try to contact you again, but if I am unable to, I confirm that you must attack immediately after our retaliatory strike against Brumal.”

“Understood,” Cheanil replied, but now found herself talking to a blank screen.

McCrooger

I waited with a degree of trepidation, but that didn't last, and soon all the effort of the last few days came down on me and I closed my eyes. Some hours later the sound of the airlock opening jerked me out of a deep sleep, as Rhodane entered.

“How did it go?” I asked.

She shrugged. “They asked the questions and you replied.”

“But what is their response to my replies?”

“It will take some time for it all to be processed by Consensus, but there are no quofarl standing guard outside, so it seems you are not considered a threat.”

“I see.” I sat upright, trying to clear my mind. “You told me earlier there is something I should see?”

“Yes, there is.”

“Then perhaps I should see it now, before any quofarl do come to guard me.”

“Yes,” she agreed, with some reluctance, I thought.

She led the way back out into the Brumallian city, turning to the right along the main corridor, then into a side corridor terminating against another spiral stair. Here I noticed the stone was coated with a fine lattice of something like lichen, and saw how the stair was eerily lit by those insectile biolights. Climbing ahead of me, Rhodane began to speak.

“When depression controls the mind, its power increases when the mind remains inactive. It is like a computer virus spreading to occupy unused processing space. You can fight it by keeping busy. There are other ways to fight it: exercising releases endorphins to counter it, or manufactured drugs can be used. Those who suffer learn many such techniques to defeat it, or they go under.”

I could not see her face but understood she was using some rather oblique analogy about her own condition, about what she was. I told her, “In the Polity, few suffer from depression, having had the original genetic fault corrected. Whenever it stems from a later physical or mental problem, microsurgery and nanoscopic techniques can be used to correct it.”

I don't know how high we had climbed by then, but I noticed now a lack of any corridors branching off from this stair, and also a lack of pherophones on the walls.

“So it is always organic?” she asked.

“Usually, yes, though otherwise reprogramming and memory adjustment can be used.”

She halted for a moment. “We don't have the benefit of such technologies.”

The stair finally ended under a cramped dome, where we entered a long cold tunnel running through damp clay that was braced with numerous beams and with sheets of mesh.

“We're not talking about depression, here, are we?” I asked as we strode along.

Ignoring my question she continued, “I suffered from the black pit all my life. Whenever I slowed down, relaxed or stopped, the pit opened and I began my descent. It was related to and part of my other condition, and is an affliction from which neither Yishna nor Harald suffer. It drove me. Orduval was likewise driven and suffered a similar malady, though his problem lay in some other part of his psyche. In his case he just kept overloading and crashing like a computer asked to do too much.”

“It drove you to what?”

“Carnage,” she replied succinctly.

“Why?”

“I don't know...or I am unable to let myself know.”

The tunnel terminated at a single exit door, which was secured by a pherophone and keypad lock. Rhodane stooped for a moment before the pherophone, before inputting some code into the keypad. She then spun a wheel positioned centrally on the door, to admit us to a warmer place, but with air just as lethal to normal humans as that left behind us.

We stepped out on a balcony overlooking an immense dark hall. How far it extended I could not say, since before me the curved surface of some giant object rose to the ceiling, its skin hexagon-patterned over shifting veins, and scaffolds laced all over it. I could, however, see that another of its kind lay beyond it, and more beyond that, until the curve of the side wall concealed all further on. I realised we were just below the planet's surface now, for ceiling panels admitted a glimpse of night sky.

“Let's go down.” She pointed to a nearby stair of prosaic metal, bolted to stone.

“What is this?”

“When I came here I knew only how to sign-speak. They did not allow me down into one of their cities until I could understand their vocal language as well. Their language underlies everything that they are—how their minds develop, and how their society has developed. I didn't realise until recently how language underlies everything that I am.”

“As with us all,” I replied. “How we describe our world informs our perception of it—but I again sense you are hedging around the point.”