Damnation, she should not have been so unprofessional.
Four yet to deal with. Cheanil wiped blood from her console screen and saw they were still outside, working on the maser. Even if they came in now, it would take them half an hour to unsuit. It meanwhile took her a quarter of an hour to find a medical kit, plug her wound and seal it under a sticky patch, and then inject a local anaesthetic and anti-shock drugs. Returning to the control centre she took the weapons-control chair—the Commander's place—and on one screen viewed the four figures gathered around the maser. They were all inside the forty-foot-wide dish, replacing some of the reflective cells. It was a minor job, however, that would not affect the functioning of the weapon. Cheanil plugged in her console and, using more of Harald's programs, took control. A small test burst to check positioning of the central unit was all she required. Cheanil watched the sudden frantic motion of the four figures. Their suits grew fat and taut, and by the time steam and smoke burst from developing leaks, the four were no longer moving. Microwaved above boiling point, their own fluids impelled them tumbling away from the station.
Now Cheanil opened a secure communications channel.
"I am in position," she said, "though I am injured and estimate I will only remain useful to you for a maximum of five hours."
Harald gazed coldly at her from the screen. The image was a recorded one, animated to suit his words, since she knew he would really be communicating with her via his coms helmet. "Disappointing, Cheanil. How did you manage to get yourself injured?"
"I allowed myself a moment of grandstanding, and for that I apologise."
"Very well. It is fortunate that the timing I require should still be within that period. Tune into the media channels and keep watch. I will try to contact you again, but if I am unable to, I confirm that you must attack immediately after our retaliatory strike against Brumal."
"Understood," Cheanil replied, but now found herself talking to a blank screen.
McCrooger
I waited with a degree of trepidation, but that didn't last, and soon all the effort of the last few days came down on me and I closed my eyes. Some hours later the sound of the airlock opening jerked me out of a deep sleep, as Rhodane entered.
"How did it go?" I asked.
She shrugged. "They asked the questions and you replied."
"But what is their response to my replies?"
"It will take some time for it all to be processed by Consensus, but there are no quofarl standing guard outside, so it seems you are not considered a threat."
"I see." I sat upright, trying to clear my mind. "You told me earlier there is something I should see?"
"Yes, there is."
"Then perhaps I should see it now, before any quofarl do come to guard me."
"Yes," she agreed, with some reluctance, I thought.
She led the way back out into the Brumallian city, turning to the right along the main corridor, then into a side corridor terminating against another spiral stair. Here I noticed the stone was coated with a fine lattice of something like lichen, and saw how the stair was eerily lit by those insectile biolights. Climbing ahead of me, Rhodane began to speak.
"When depression controls the mind, its power increases when the mind remains inactive. It is like a computer virus spreading to occupy unused processing space. You can fight it by keeping busy. There are other ways to fight it: exercising releases endorphins to counter it, or manufactured drugs can be used. Those who suffer learn many such techniques to defeat it, or they go under."
I could not see her face but understood she was using some rather oblique analogy about her own condition, about what she was. I told her, "In the Polity, few suffer from depression, having had the original genetic fault corrected. Whenever it stems from a later physical or mental problem, microsurgery and nanoscopic techniques can be used to correct it."
I don't know how high we had climbed by then, but I noticed now a lack of any corridors branching off from this stair, and also a lack of pherophones on the walls.
"So it is always organic?" she asked.
"Usually, yes, though otherwise reprogramming and memory adjustment can be used."
She halted for a moment. "We don't have the benefit of such technologies."
The stair finally ended under a cramped dome, where we entered a long cold tunnel running through damp clay that was braced with numerous beams and with sheets of mesh.
"We're not talking about depression, here, are we?" I asked as we strode along.
Ignoring my question she continued, "I suffered from the black pit all my life. Whenever I slowed down, relaxed or stopped, the pit opened and I began my descent. It was related to and part of my other condition, and is an affliction from which neither Yishna nor Harald suffer. It drove me. Orduval was likewise driven and suffered a similar malady, though his problem lay in some other part of his psyche. In his case he just kept overloading and crashing like a computer asked to do too much."
"It drove you to what?"
"Carnage," she replied succinctly.
"Why?"
"I don't know…or I am unable to let myself know."
The tunnel terminated at a single exit door, which was secured by a pherophone and keypad lock. Rhodane stooped for a moment before the pherophone, before inputting some code into the keypad. She then spun a wheel positioned centrally on the door, to admit us to a warmer place, but with air just as lethal to normal humans as that left behind us.
We stepped out on a balcony overlooking an immense dark hall. How far it extended I could not say, since before me the curved surface of some giant object rose to the ceiling, its skin hexagon-patterned over shifting veins, and scaffolds laced all over it. I could, however, see that another of its kind lay beyond it, and more beyond that, until the curve of the side wall concealed all further on. I realised we were just below the planet's surface now, for ceiling panels admitted a glimpse of night sky.
"Let's go down." She pointed to a nearby stair of prosaic metal, bolted to stone.
"What is this?"
"When I came here I knew only how to sign-speak. They did not allow me down into one of their cities until I could understand their vocal language as well. Their language underlies everything that they are—how their minds develop, and how their society has developed. I didn't realise until recently how language underlies everything that I am."
"As with us all," I replied. "How we describe our world informs our perception of it—but I again sense you are hedging around the point."
She ignored that, continuing with, "Have you read Uskaron's book?"
"I have."
"I did not really need to read it, because I felt immediately sympathetic to the Brumallians and came to value them more than my own people. What the hilldiggers did to this place angered me, that hideous loss of life angered me. I wanted vengeance." She turned and looked at me. "But as you must realise, David McCrooger, what I want is not necessarily what I want."
We had by now reached the floor. I gazed at dormant biomechanisms clustered like huge iridescent beetles about the base of the nearest of the huge objects, all of which I now saw bore a teardrop shape. The pumps sounded louder here and I could feel their titanic vibration through the floor. Reams of peristaltic pipes entered the base of each object—forcing in nutrients and evacuating waste. To one side, on a large trailer, rested a mechanism consisting both of some biofactured and some plainly manufactured components. It took me only a moment to realise this was a fusion engine, though one of esoteric design. I began to understand what this place was, and wondered what my chances were of getting out alive if we were discovered here.