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."
I realised that I would be much interested in learning more of the history of these people, since they must have gone through some traumatic upheavals before the controls—like the weighted governors on ancient steam engines—were firmly established in their society. But, of course, it was more than that. Most human societies within the Polity still carried the burden of having evolved from small hunter-gatherer communities. Here their alterations had been so drastic that little of that original blueprint might remain, and all those things imposed on previous human societies, to maintain order, here might be integral to the people themselves. What would be their next evolutionary rung to achieve? I wondered. How to improve further the well-oiled machine of Brumallian society? As I saw it, individuality needed to be removed, turning each of them into something little better than an ant functioning on hard-wired imperatives, so the society became the individuaclass="underline" a single mass mind.
A few Brumallians passed us as we climbed the stair. A clatter of mandibles:
"They didn't get the—"
"— smell right."
"It's changed—"
"— clothing decaying and—"
"— physical change and—"
"— dubious—"
"— personal hygiene."
"Hey, I'm standing right here and I can understand you!"
My comment just seemed to accelerate their conversation which, from the moment they appeared, also drew in Rhodane and the two quofarclass="underline"
"Very Sudorian—"
"— slow as a—"
"— gnubbet."
"And really really dangerous."
Laughter.
As we left the stair the noise increased and I realised, on looking around, that we must now be entering a high-density living area. The huge upright cylinder cave was filled with light provided by powerful lighting bars mounted in a framework that cut across a hundred feet above the floor. The surrounding walls glittered with windows, and out jutted numerous balconies, many of them filled with greenery. Vines laced the walls too, though I saw very few flowers and wondered if flowers, in view of one of the Brumallian methods of communication, might be considered too 'noisy'. The smell here was one I would describe as complex, and only here did I notice its subtle changes reflected in the rise and fall of audible Brumallian chatter. I felt thousands of pairs of eyes observing me, knew myself to be the subject of many local conversations, as well as the topic of a huge conversation being conducted by millions.
"We go this way," said Rhodane, gesturing along a path nearby.
This gravelled walkway turned sharply to the left, where it met a canal and ran alongside it. Only upon seeing the waterway did I realise that what I first took to be buildings scattered about the cavern floor were in fact the deckhouses of barges crowding a canal network. Intervening spaces were filled with gardens, gazebos, circular hothouses and thousands upon thousands of Brumallians: men, women and children, who were often riding on the backs of creatures like, but never entirely like, the one that had earlier pinned me to a muddy river-bank. Many of these people walked upright but, when convenient, some went down on all fours to put on speed. I found that particularly disconcerting, since this method of locomotion seemed to dispel what remained of their humanity. Walking along with Rhodane and the two quofarl, I constantly expected us to end up trapped amid curious crowds, but the way ahead always remained clear.