"That block you put in?"
"More than that."
"You've done something else?"
"Where's your star, Orduval?"
Looking inward, Orduval felt his mind was closed like a fist. The white star, that point at the centre of his being, seemed now to be missing.
Tigger continued, "I made surgical alterations—very small ones. I've stuck a device in your skull that shifts the balance of your neurochemicals closer to that possessed by your brother Harald. From this device a mycelium is growing which will finally complete the job. I designed it all myself."
Orduval felt an instinctive urge to protest, but immediately rejected it. He held no love for experiencing the alternative to what this entity had done to him.
"So what now, you're going to keep me prisoner?"
"No, you can bugger off if you want, and we won't meet again for some years."
Orduval knew he could not walk away from all this, so wondered just how well this entity knew the workings of his mind. The questions were building up inside him, like the preparatory quakes before a volcanic eruption. "What do you want me to do, then?"
"I want them to think you dead. If you like I can give you a new identity, though I'd have to give you a new face too."
Orduval smiled at the metal tiger and gestured back towards the cave mouth. "If you can continue to provide for my more prosaic needs, Tigger, I will be happy to stay here for now."
The cat grinned back.
7
After the first two generations of Sudorian pioneers, the technology for tank-growing human beings was still in use, but with an increasing lack of expertise in that area and a dearth of resources it became a risky affair, with a less than fifty per cent chance of success. We needed people, though, for without a certain population density the establishing of many of the basic requirements of civilisation becomes impossible. In those early years women were applauded for their contribution to society as mothers. There was no real marriage at the time, though casual partnerships were formed and, continuing with the system used for the tank grown, children were communally raised in creches, whilst the mothers went back to work and to further pregnancy. Inevitably patriarchalism raised its ugly head and things began to change. The first such change was when the Planetary Council made abortion illegal. The second change was when the Orchid Party—highly patriarchal from the beginning—and the growing representation of the Sand Churches attempted to extend the law further to prohibit contraception. For eighty years women were incrementally and increasingly restricted by new laws and amendments to existing ones. It was only during the War, with the formation of the Woman's League and its landmark inclusion in Parliament, that this trend was reversed. However, patriarchalism is still prevalent, mostly among the personnel of Fleet.
— Uskaron
McCrooger
From the grobbleworm stalls Rhodane led the way alongside the canal. The noise of the hive city was a continuous roar in the background and it seemed to mostly consist of Brumallian chatter. I supposed that those living here came to tune it out like any other city dwellers tune out noise, but Rhodane soon disabused me of that notion. Halting shortly after we left the stall, she tilted her head, listening for a moment, then informed me, "The Consensus acknowledges and accepts your presence."
"As a Speaker for the Consensus do you also speak for all the people here in this city?"
She glanced at me, raising an eyebrow. "No."
"I see, do you then speak for a council of representatives of these people?"
"No." She was smiling now.
I guess until then I had not truly considered what this 'Consensus' might be. In the back of my mind I had toyed with the idea of it being some democratic council of regional representatives, rather like the Sudorian Parliament, and that, as is always the case in politics, the term 'consensus' was distorted to fit reality rather than being used to actually describe it.
"Rhodane, what is the Consensus?"
"It is the Brumallian consensus."
"So you speak for all Brumallians on this planet?"
"No," again that smile, "I speak for the consensus of all Brumallians on this planet."
"So there are no real rulers?" I suggested.
"None."
"I am surprised." An understatement, as I simply did not believe her.
"What then do you have in the Polity?"
"Rulers and ruled—just like everywhere else."
As we moved on, I noticed Brumallians studying me, but without surprise now—more out of curiosity regarding something about which they had already been informed. It occurred to me that if news travelled so fast in the hubbub, and in the pheromones in the air, there would be no need of media here to ill-inform public opinion. It tired me even thinking about it. Where were the controls? Could a touch of xenophobia spread amidst the citizenry, and thereby cause the Consensus to decide—or rather to be—that the best place for a Polity Consul Assessor was the bottom of the sea with lead weights tied around his feet?
We reached a stairway, cut into the rock and leading up from the canal path. The two quofarl stepped ahead of us and began to climb.
"I have to admit," I told Rhodane, "that I'm not entirely sure that I yet grasp how this society works. How would such a society initiate action that is good for the society as a whole, yet disliked by most of its members?"
"Ah, but what is good for Brumallian society is never disliked by it."
"What if there was a plague here and it became necessary to kill three-quarters of the population in order to save the remaining quarter?"
She shrugged. "Either the three-quarters would die to save the society, or there would be a Consensus schism."
"A schism?"
"It has been theorised but has never yet happened."
"Are the mentally deficient part of the Consensus?"
"Yes, though the irretrievably retarded are not allowed to live beyond their first year."
"Do the more intelligent Brumallians wield more influence in the Consensus?"
"Yes."
Ah…
"Good ideas spread," she added.
Oh.
"How are false memes controlled?" I asked.
"Consensus factual comparison destroys them."
I thought about that for a while, then asked, "Do Brumallians ever lie?"
"Yes."
"But lies cannot survive Consensus?"
"They cannot."
I considered some of the political ideologies that had caused massive human suffering a thousand or more years ago on Earth. Those ideologies arrived before their time, and it seemed their time was here and now. I could see just one tiny aberration in this classless, democratic, communal society, and she was walking beside me.
"So you need speakers like yourself to communicate with non-Brumallians. That such a position even exists indicates that not all Brumallians can understand the likes of myself. That's something I think reinforced by the fact that you, a Sudorian, have risen to such a key position. A speaker could easily lie about what I say, and what she says to me."
Rhodane ran a finger along the ridging on her jaw-line. "All 840 speakers can both hear and see us." She then gestured to objects mounted on the walls: hemispheres with spirals of holes cut into them, of woody composition and slightly distorted, organic. "Machines can auto-translate Sudorian, so those interested can sense our exchange."
"Who decides what to broadcast?"
"It is all broadcast, and available to all. Individuals can decide what they want to listen to."
"Who decides when to act if…" I paused, realising I was heading for a circular discussion. "Don't tell me: the Consensus decides."