Neal Asher: Hilldiggers

"What you're seeing," I volunteered, "are the results of a viral infection I contracted on a world called Spatterjay. Every native there has it." I gestured to the various rings of bluish scar tissue showing on my skin. "The virus is contracted through the bite of some particularly nasty critters."

It was a half-truth, really, but I doubted they would be able to distinguish the dying virus from the one that was killing it… and killing me too. Even so, as I spoke, a sharp memory returned to me. I stood upon the deck of a sailing ship, and oozing along the planking by my feet was a leech as long as my arm. Blood trickled between my fingers, my hand clamped against the hole where the thing had reamed a chunk of flesh from my stomach. A sailor, dressed only in canvas trousers, his bare skin seeming tattooed with multiple blue rings, glanced at me unsympathetically and said, "Now you're buggered ."

"I'm supposed to believe this?" Inigis asked, snapping me back to the present. "This seems more likely to me to be some form of organic technology. You were warned that no such Polity technologies are allowed here." With finality he pressed a button that ravelled the flimsy screen back into its case, and handed this back to his tacom officer.

"It's not a technology, just viral fibres. Your own biologists should be able to confirm this."

"A normal Polity human was to be sent," he insisted stubbornly.

"I very much doubt Geronamid agreed to that, since very few 'normal humans' exist in the Polity nowadays. Anyway, any Earth-standard human wouldn't be able to survive in your environment. He would have to be thermodapted like yourselves, or kept alive by Polity tech, which of course you won't allow." I shrugged. "One such as myself seemed the politic choice, since I can survive in your environment and, being so obviously unlike you, I'm less likely to arouse suspicion." That was all absolute heirodont shit, of course. Geronamid chose me because I could survive in a wide range of environments—including that of the other inhabited world of this system—and because I possessed other non-technological advantages.

"It will be necessary to confirm this under question—"

The side door opened and two more people pushed into the hold, past the guard stationed there. One was female—the first I had seen, Fleet being so patriarchal—the other a quite old man, stooped and leaning on a gnarled wooden cane with a gold handle. These two did not wear Fleet uniforms. The woman was clad in a tight-fitting bodysuit, which was black from head to foot and revealed all her curves, and a brightly coloured wrap draped around her hips, its pattern a wormish tangle. The aged man wore baggy trousers and other dress with a decided Arabian air, also a skullcap with cooling veins webbed through it and pipes running down into his clothing. Being old he was unable to keep cool, and this was their solution here. I recognised him from com recordings: Abel Duras, Chairman of the Sudorian Parliament. The woman, whose name I did not know, I rather suspected to be a representative of the Orbital Combine.

"What precisely do you think you are doing, Captain?" she said to Inigis. Then she glanced at me with a slight smile, looked me up and down. "No concealed weapons, I see."

I studied her. Lighter-boned than the men, she possessed a pouty soft-faced sexuality emphasised by the kohl round her eyes, lips whitened after the manner of women here, and her black hair long and curly. Despite the adaptation differences she looked like someone I once knew, but when you get to my age most people seem familiar. I wondered if I found her so attractive because her mass of hair de-emphasised the shape of her skull and the jut of her face. She also looked dangerous, probably because of those long canines that protruded over her lower lip even when she closed her mouth.

"Fleet security protocol demands full scanning of the suspect in case he presents a danger to this ship," said Inigis tightly. "I have detected organic Polity technology and must secure him until the danger this represents has been assessed and negated."

"You're overstepping your remit here. Captain…" the woman began, anger penetrating her good humour. She desisted when Duras reached out and clamped a hand on her arm.

The old man nodded to himself for a short moment, then raised his head to focus sharp black eyes on the Captain. "Consul Assessor David McCrooger is not a 'suspect', Captain Inigis, but a representative of the Polity—a human dominion on such a scale that boggles the mind, and one that certainly contains war craft quite capable, I rather suspect, of digging their own hills." He now looked towards me. "Is that not so, Consul?"

I thought about the cities that were now mass graves on Brumal—the only other inhabited world in this system—and pretended ignorance. "Digging hills?"

Duras moved rather quickly for such an old man and, before Inigis could object, strode over to stand before me. "Fleet capital ships are called hilldiggers, because their weapons created mountain ranges on Brumal, but I am sure you've studied the historical files we transmitted and are well aware of this." He turned and stabbed a finger at one of the Captain's aides. "You, go find the Consul Assessor some suitable clothing, and confirm that his cabin is prepared." Duras reached out and grabbed my biceps and, towing me after him, headed for the door.

The snouts of disc-guns wavered in our direction and the Captain seemed about ready to detonate, but I judged him to be overextended and likely in some serious trouble if he pushed this any further. I caught his signal to the guard standing beside the door. The man moved across to block our exit—a delay giving Inigis time to think.

"Yishna," snapped Duras, "remove this obstacle."

The woman moved forward, and the guard, while beginning to turn his weapon towards her, hesitated. She stepped in close, grabbed and flipped him neatly over her hip. He landed with a crash on the floor beside me. Because of the ease with which she did this, I instantly recognised her to be someone to be reckoned with. Combat training had remained obligatory for all Sudorians ever since the War, and the guard, being a member of Fleet and therefore subject to further training, should have been more able than her.

The guard's armour must have absorbed the force of his landing for he still kept hold of his weapon. I saw him swing it, one-handed, up towards Yishna and Duras, pause, then swing it towards me. Was this a standing order, or had Inigis or some other given him instructions over his suit's comlink? Yishna of Orbital Combine attacked one of the guards, at Abel Duras's instigation; the guard's weapon inadvertently fired and blew the head off the Polity Consul Assessor—such an unfortunate incident, but what can you do?

I stooped, quickly grabbed the man's forearms and hauled him to his feet. I could feel the vibration of his suit motors through my hands as he tried to bring the weapon to bear on me fully. It fired a short five-round burst, and shattered metal ricocheted around the hold. Enough—someone could get hurt. I released his left arm, and reached over to take the weapon from his right hand. He punched me with his free hand using the full force of his suit motors. I took that, then I took away his weapon, snapped its power-supply cable and skimmed it away. He tried to bring a knee up into my groin—all reflex now because we'd passed the point where this could have been dismissed as an accident. Tired of this I threw him. His flat trajectory bounced him off the hold wall ten feet away. When he clattered to the ground, he showed no signs of wanting to get up again.

By now the others were closing in, and Inigis began shouting something. Behind me, Duras was cursing. I quickly stepped up beside him, turned the manual wheel on the locked bulkhead door, and pulled it open. Pieces of shattered locking mechanism clattered over the floor. Duras eyed me, glanced at the downed guard…and perhaps wondered if Inigis might have the right idea.