"Was that building you mentioned the Sunlight Tower?" he ventured. "They said it was lucky the water all poured down the correct lift shaft, and that it was surprising so small a quantity put out the fire."
The cat shrugged. "I squirted in fire-retardant gas as well, and it broke down into base gases before the investigators got to work. Anyway, those are three examples of how I occupy my time here, within this system, whenever I've got the time to spare, of course. But you, Orduval—"
"What are you?"
"Me—I'm Tigger."
Orduval tasted the name, ran it through the processor that was his brain, checking the ancient languages he knew. "Like…tiger. You're a tiger?"
"Not exactly," Tigger replied.
"Well, you appear to be made of metal."
"Yup, cell-form and pliant," said the tiger proudly.
"You still haven't answered my question. I want to know—" Orduval froze, blankness occupying his mind, though he retained an awareness of time. Minutes passed, but he felt disconnected enough from them to not become too concerned " — what you are." His body ached and slowly his muscles unlocked. The scene had changed. Tigger was now right in front of him.
"Yes," said Tigger, "there'll be no more falling off mountains for you, which is, I have to say, a pretty unhealthy occupation—nor anti-convulsives either. I placed a block to stop the clonus, so the fits will eventually fade. I've got to admit I can't yet figure out what's causing them."
Orduval felt his legs grow weak and shaky, and he slowly sank down until he was sitting in the dust. "What are you?"
"You're a bright spark, Orduval, just like your brother and your sisters. Let me ask you this: do you think that after you lot left it, Earth just ceased to be?"
No more anti-convulsives.
Orduval clamped down on his feelings and tried to understand more clearly what he had just been told. Really, he should have fathomed this being's source once it gave him its name. "You are a technological product of the human race…from Earth."
"Close enough."
Orduval narrowed his eyes, stared at the cat, and made an abrupt reassessment. "You're a product of a product."
"Startlingly fast."
"Does humanity still exist?"
"Now you're getting ahead of yourself. Yes, humanity, in all its wonderful and sometimes repulsive variety, still exists and has spread throughout many star systems, and will soon be coming here."
Orduval began to feel bolder. He stood up. "And do humans tell you what to do?"
"Sometimes they do, though not very often. Generally, the machines rule the Polity. We're better at it."
"Polity?"
"Empire, dominion…call it what you will."
"Why do you bother to rule?"
Again that tiger shrug. "Why not?"
Orduval closed his eyes. He could feel himself absorbing this new data and placing it on hold, ready to apply it to the huge body of knowledge resting in his narrow skull, before making massive reassessments. He replayed the conversation thus far, then asked, "Why am I different? You inferred that rescuing me was a different matter from rescuing all those others."
"I was instructed not to reveal myself or to interfere here. I've been ignoring that order and until now got away with it. You were one of four people—you can guess who the others are—I decided to watch very closely. You would have died here, either quickly from exposure or your injuries, or later from your fits. My intervention will be discovered, though perhaps not for some time."
"You did not need to actually show yourself to me. I'm sure you could have anonymously engineered a scenario similar to the others."
"Similar, maybe. But then there were those fits…"
"What about them?"
"Well, I interfered a bit more than can be covered." Tigger looked to one side, exposing his teeth, then turned back to centre his gaze on Orduval again. "Your problem was interesting to neurologists on Sudoria, in the Orbital Combine stations and in Fleet—mainly because of the notoriety of your three siblings. No engineered scenario would prevent those neurologists getting a bit uptight after seeing the first scan made of your brain after your return home."
"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?"