Hilldiggers

"Please, help yourself. I've already eaten."

Sliding the two dishes over towards me, I decided to dispense with the eating bowl and just hunched over and tucked in. In the typical ma

"We usually remove their shells before eating them," she noted wryly. She herself sipped something similar to the cool minty concoction she had provided for me, though the temperature of hers must have been higher, judging by the steam.

"I'm very hungry," I told her between mouthfuls.

She nodded—perhaps considering me barbaric—then stood up and wandered away for a while. Had I continued without food for long enough, she would then truly see my barbaric side. I ate literally everything, noting her bemused expression when she returned. I licked my fingers clean and wiped them dry, then with a muted belch pushed the dishes away.

"Including yourself, how many Speakers will there be?" I asked.

"Do you need any more to eat?" she asked in return.

"For the moment, no, thank you."

"There will be five of us. We'll maintain our link with the Consensus by wearing earpieces and through the pherophones in the walls. The others are trained to respond to you as individuals—hence my being able to become a Speaker so quickly, since I didn't require that special training. However, you'll have to accept that when it comes to important decisions, or ones requiring further analysis, any response you receive will not be the definitive one. We Speakers might say yes, but the Consensus no. It's quite difficult for the Brumallian Consensus to communicate down on the Sudorian level."

"Down?" I sat back, feeling my digestion writhing as it went to work.

Rhodane grimaced. "Even I am only now begi

"And their sentences?"

"Enough meaning to fill a small book. But it's the precision that's important to Brumallians; they don't often misunderstand each other."

"Hence their success in creating a society without leaders?"

"Yes."

She paused to sip her drink—and I to sip mine and contemplate her.

"Why are you actually here, Rhodane?" I eventually asked.

"Why're any of us here?" she countered.

I winced, not wanting to play that silly game.

She gave a tired smile. "Many Sudorians come here to carry out research, or to work in the Fleet ground bases. It's not that unusual to find people like myself here."

I didn't believe her for a second. She had yet to explain her comment about being both Sudorian and Brumallian. I rather suspected I knew the explanation already, and that no other Sudorians here would be Speakers as they did not possess sophisticated biotech growing on and inside their faces.

"You're a researcher, basically?"

She stared at me very directly, then said, "My brother Harald is Admiral Carnasus's top aide and therefore wields a great deal of power. My sister Yishna is similarly the right hand of Director Oberon Gneiss on Corisanthe Main. Orduval, my other brother, could also have been very influential had it not been for the constant fits he suffered. He disappeared. I too have disappeared, in my way, and can be considered a failure too."

"I've met Yishna. Your elder sister?"

"We're all precisely the same age: quadruplets conceived on Corisanthe Main during an information fumarole breach. We were born there, then transported planetside after our mother, Elsever, died in some stupid accident."

She had just told me something important, yet I could not decide what it was. Perhaps I could integrate it at a later time. "Did you feel a need to disappear…to escape some kind of pressure?"

Rhodane set her drink down on the table and sat back with her fingers interlaced below her breasts. She gazed up at the ceiling for a moment, then directly at me. "So how is it, with Fleet's ban on Polity technology, that you manage to watch us so closely?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Why do you suppose we do?"

"I've already analysed much of what you've said and done, and it seems quite evident that your knowledge of us extends beyond what has been transmitted via the U-space link on Sudoria."

"If you're capable of such analysis, then surely you can answer your own question?"

She nodded mildly. "Of course, while we regressed and had to start over again after arriving here, you kept on progressing? So you possess technology we are unable to detect?"

"Small regressions, but nothing on the scale of what happened here. And as for the technology you mention, I can't comment."

"I see…"

I was slowly coming to realise I was dealing with a formidable intelligence here. I felt her analysis of me went beyond that comparison between my overt knowledge and what I could have learnt from the transmissions from this system to the Polity. As we had talked she had been providing just enough for me to grasp a point, where she wanted me to. This showed she had made a deep assessment of my intelligence, and perhaps knew more about me than I would like. "You still haven't answered my question, Rhodane."

"Why am I here?" She smiled, reached up and began ru

"What is this driving force you mention?"

"I think it only fair that I ask some questions too."

"Ask, then."

She leant forwards. "There used to be much dispute amidst Sudorian biologists about what the human strain was like before we began tampering with ourselves, but in recent years we've agreed on a basic format. Yet my contacts on Sudoria tell me you're not even close to that format. I've learnt from them that you are strong enough to toss about Fleet perso

"Human."

"Not good enough."

"Very well. I am both human and hooper. I was born and lived a substantial portion of my life in the Sol system, but I eventually made my home on a world called Spatterjay. On that world an alien virus infects all indigenous life forms. Humans can become infected too. This virus roots inside us and grows as a fibre co

"So by coming here you risked that 'nasty' change?" Rhodane could not keep the fascination out of her expression.