Neal Asher - Hilldiggers

"If I was going to hit him, I'd use my fist, not that bloody thing," she said.

He grinned and tossed the baton back to her, then led the way across the Bridge, his companion falling in neatly behind her. Shortly they reached the stairs leading up into the Admiral's Haven, whereupon the scar-faced guard waved her ahead. As she climbed, she felt a sudden nervousness at meeting Harald again. But once she reached the top of the stairs, shock displaced that feeling.

For a moment she thought a ghost had appeared to haunt her, for Harald looked as cadaverous as Orduval had done during his later years in the asylum. Yet this was certainly Harald: the hard uncompromising expression, the long blonde hair tied back, that blank re-engineered eye. She noted the sealed wound on his head, but there was no way of knowing how serious that injury had been.

"Come in, sister." Harald gestured to a low chair directly facing the sofa he had risen from.

Rather than sit as instructed, Yishna walked over to the narrow window giving her a view across the hilldigger's exterior. She felt no connection with him, none of that sliding into a strange fugue state that usually happened between the Strone siblings when they met after being apart for a while. Was that because the Worm had now gone, or was it a side-effect of his head injury?

"How are you, Harald?" she asked, then winced at such a commonplace.

"I've been better," he replied drily. "I see we both bear our war wounds, so how did you receive yours?"

"I was shot by Combine security officers while trying to break into that Ozark Cylinder."

"Then we both have the distinction of having been shot at by our own side. But now is not the time for civilities; those are only for the civilised, I'm told. You have something to say to me?"

Gazing out across the hilldigger, Yishna felt a sudden panic. Out there lay the three Corisanthe stations, containing hundreds of thousands of Sudorians. All Harald needed to do was pick up his control glove and send some codes, and all of them would be gone. She took a shaky breath.

"The Worm," she began, "started affecting the Sudorian people from the moment we captured it, then some little while after that, it began to manipulate them." She turned towards him. "Indirect evidence of this is the distorted society to be found on Corisanthe Main, and the levels of mental illness on Sudoria itself. Bleed-over was direct evidence of its reach extending beyond the supposed containment canisters. I have my suspicions that Director Gneiss is himself evidence of that same reach."

"Really," he said.

"Really," she replied. "You know that Sudorian mental-illness rates are ridiculously high. And the Shadowman? If we had been thinking straight we would soon have recognised that for what it was. It was simply the Worm trying to present a human face, perhaps the more easily to twist us to its will."

"But I have never seen a Shadowman in my life."

"No, because the Worm's communication with us is so much more direct, for we too are direct evidence of its reach."

"And at some point you'll explain your obscure assertions."

"Our mother," she continued doggedly, "had her womb standard-monitored for conception. She conceived us during a fumarole breach on Corisanthe Main." She turned towards him. "Now that you are the Admiral you have access to all Fleet's secrets, so you will know precisely what is meant by a fumarole breach?"

Harald nodded carefully. "I do know."

"Then add to that the knowledge that she conceived us actually within the Ozark Cylinder where the breach occurred."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. And after giving birth to us she didn't die in an accident. Combine covered up the true details. She stepped out of an airlock without wearing a spacesuit, and then detonated a home-made explosive strapped against her body. They never managed to recover even bits of her."

Harald did not look as shocked as she had hoped—just slightly puzzled.

"And the relevance of this?" he suggested.

"Who was our father?" she countered.

"Does it matter?"

"It matters because I don't think our real father was human at all."

Harald smiled in that superior manner of his and crossed his arms. She noticed he wasn't now wearing his control glove, and momentarily speculated on the possibility of killing him hand to hand. But no, Harald had always beaten her and he always would. He was the best of the four of them—the most perfect example of what they were all meant to be.

"I feel I should point out the absolute requirement for sperm in such matters," he said.

I'm not going to get through to him. He's playing with me.

"Maybe there was sperm involved, but something alien had much more of an influence on our conception, and on our subsequent development, than any merely human father."

"Evidently," said Harald.

Yishna was momentarily stunned. There was no sarcasm in his voice; he wasn't ridiculing her. He just seemed to be agreeing with an established fact.

Evidently.

He continued, "I've thought more about this since our last conversation. I've thought about it a lot. The connections I've worked out take that fact beyond mere coincidence. You've now confirmed some of them for me, and given me others to ponder. It strikes me as highly likely that the Worm was sentient and that, after healing sufficiently to break away from its prison, it instead chose to remain there and toy with us—to wreak vengeance upon us." He paused for a moment, unfolded his arms and began reaching for something at his belt, then abruptly snapped his hand away in irritation. "In fact we've been manipulated by it."

"Precisely," said Yishna, feeling a loosening in her chest.

"So precisely what relevance does this have to our situation now?" Harald asked.

Her sense of relief was short-lived. "Don't you see yet? This whole conflict was caused by the Worm!"

"I do not see that. Yes, I see the Worm's manipulation of us, but that was just an aggravating factor. This conflict has really been about Combine scrabbling for power, and thus weakening the effectiveness of Fleet at a time—with this Polity now barging its way in—when we need to remain strong."

She had failed. He was obstinately holding to his beliefs, no matter their source.

"You don't really believe that," she protested. "I think you're just afraid of what will happen to you if you stop now."

Anger twisted his face—that last shot that had gone home. He turned away, then lowered his gaze. She saw he was now looking at his control glove, which rested on a table nearby.

"To face this new threat from outside, the Sudorian people need to be united under a single force," he said.

"The Polity is not a threat to us, Harald." Her hands down at her sides, she walked over towards him. "I've spoken with their Consul Assessor, and I know that for sure. Do you doubt my judgement?"

He glanced at her. "Did you know that their machines are already lurking here among us?"

And so he slid into his paranoia. What a mess must have been churning around in his mind while ensconced up here in this disconnected Haven. Maybe he had felt the Worm's departure. Or maybe it did not matter either way. It was so difficult to abandon faith for hard reality. He stepped nearer to the table, stooping to reach for the glove.

Yishna took a long step forward, then brought her foot up in a hard arc, the toe of her boot directed towards his face. He dropped into a squat, as if only ducking, but his leg swept out just above floor level at her other foot. She managed to avoid it, but retreated slightly off balance, bringing her one usable arm up defensively, anticipating his attack. He snapped himself upright, one fist shooting out. He wasn't close enough to hit her, yet something slammed into her guts, sending her staggering backwards. Suddenly she could no longer breathe and her legs felt weak. There came a cracking sound as something hit her leg, and it gave way. Collapsed on the floor, she gazed in bewilderment at her knee: broken open, bone and blood. She peered down at the blood soaking into her clothing from a wound low down on the right of her belly.