Hilldiggers

Finally I returned to yellow daylight, but my eyes did not even get time to grow accustomed to it before something big, heavy and smelling of boiled hammerwhelks, slammed me down into the mud.

Yishna—on Corisanthe Main

After stepping from her quarters Yishna paused to breathe in the metallic air of Corisanthe Main, then turned to the two Ozark containment technicians. The OCTs were a power aboard this station, and wore their own distinctive uniform of sticksole slip-ons, knee and elbow protectors, and a garment tube covering them only from thigh to solar plexus. This tube of tough fabric sported numerous pockets and tool loops, and was cinched around the waist with a wide belt into which they tucked their armoured gauntlets—markings on the gauntlets denoting their rank. When she first saw these people it a

"DalepanOCT. EdellusOCT." She acknowledged them both, though her gaze lingered on Dalepan, the male. He nodded to her, his thumbs still hooked into his belt, but said nothing. Edellus gri

"Are you carrying any com hardware or storage mediums?" Edellus asked Yishna.

"No, I am not." Silly question really, since the importance of not taking anything along into a containment cylinder that could be appropriated by a worm segment had been hammered into her from the moment she stepped off the inter-station shuttle.

"Are you mentally prepared for bleed-over?"

"I am prepared." That one was easy since it required a singularity of purpose, tight focus and no distracting emotional problems: on the whole an attitude of mind that described herself and her siblings only too well. However, not having yet experienced 'bleed-over', she did not quite know what to expect.

"Then follow us."

Walking behind the two techs, she felt the almost ceremonial air about all this. An intensity, a strangeness, existed on this station, and people who stayed aboard for any length of time changed in odd ways—the OCTs were a good example—so that the society here differed considerably from that of other Orbital Combine stations. Yishna wondered if this might be the result of bleed-over occurring outside the Ozark Cylinders. She decided it seemed likely.

Her quarters being located on the lower level of the station, they had to take a lift tube up to reach Centre Cross. The shaft was nil gee, so they had to pull themselves down into three of the four buggy chairs and strap themselves in. After ensuring each and every buckle was secure, Dalepan tapped a button on his chair arm, and the buggy revolved to close off their entry point, before shooting up through the shaft, cramming them back into their chairs at one gravity. Only when the buggy slowed to approach the Centre Cross did the necessity for the straps become evident, as their bodies rose against them. After halting, the buggy then revolved towards the exit, and they unstrapped.

Yishna felt her excitement and trepidation growing. This was it: she was finally here. Stepping out after the two OCTs, she studied the Centre Cross Chamber. The roof was lit with star lights, giving the entire place a mystical air. Throughout the massive space, study units like lev-tram carriages were suspended on jointed crane arms, their occupants visible poring over touch-screens. Cables hung in liana loops between these units, and also co

The two OCTs demonstrated their facility in nil gee by going down on all fours and moving fast and easy along the tube cage leading to Ozark Three. Yishna felt clumsy and awkward as she followed them, receiving constant bangs to her elbows and knees which demonstrated why the OCT uniform necessitated those knee and elbow pads. Shortly they reached the secure lock where Dalepan and Edellus took out their control batons and relayed to it their input codes, then stepped back expectantly. Yishna pulled herself forward, hurriedly removing her baton from her belt cache, and twisted its ring controls to her input code, and sent that too. The heavy door—a great bung of solid iridium steel—thumped and hinged open. They passed through this, then through another smaller door—with similar security—finally reaching a small anteroom where breather masks were provided to cope with the inert gas that filled the containment cylinder they were about to enter.

As Yishna do

"Some ca

Yishna released the woman's wrist. "Bleed-over?"

"We say it is the very thoughts of the Worm affecting us all by telepathic inductance. Those who style themselves more rational than us tell us telepathy is a myth, and that the Worm does not think, but they can offer no other explanation for the phenomenon."

Yishna would normally have pointed out that such rationalisations were ever the excuse for religion, and when things remained unexplained that was simply because no rational explanation had yet been found. There was no need to attribute such phenomena to the kind of mystical sources beloved of cultists. But instead she said nothing, for now her normal rationality and love of empiricism deserted her.

Another door admitted them to the sca

The invisible muttering crowd seemed packed shoulder to shoulder all around her, but just slightly out of phase with the reality she knew. She heard occasional distinct words, "location…compression…death…" and began to feel a terrible anger, yet Yishna had always considered anger a destructive emotion and had trained herself to avoid it. Thoughts started surfacing in her consciousness. She saw Orduval having his first fit on the floor of the Ruberne Institute museum, remembered eating sage cake with blueberry jam, began making random calculations, wondered about starting a lesbian relationship with Edellus and considered strangling Director Gneiss because he knew too much about her. She could make co