The given coordinates were checked and there, orbiting Sudoria, was a sphere made of a kind of chain-molecule glass that though not beyond Sudorian science, had simply not been created by it. Taken aboard a ship, this sphere was opened to reveal a communication device that could project holograms, sound and even smells. The first hologram it projected was a three-dimensional blueprint of itself, along with the warning that no one should be too eager with a screwdriver, since some of its components weren't exactly made of matter. Yishna studied the blueprint intently, then felt a sudden overpowering moment of epiphany. She understood it because it related to her work.
U-space.
Yishna immediately contacted Director Gneiss. "U-space, that's the answer, not telepathic inductance! That's what bleed-over is!"
Gneiss gazed at her impassively from the screen, then cracked an insincere smile as he played the part of a man quite accustomed to dealing with erratic brilliance. "As you must be aware, that has already been theorised."
"It can be the only rational explanation," said Yishna, calming down.
"Prove it, then," said the Director, and cut the connection.
McCrooger
"How does it work?" I asked as I stepped from Rhodane's bathroom, clad in Brumallian dungarees and a thick shirt of canvas-like material. The boots had not fitted me, but my feet were tough enough to manage any surface.
"You'll talk and we Consensus Speakers will listen and question you. Originally there used to be twenty Speakers present, but this was found to be too confusing for anyone not a Brumallian."
Rhodane was sitting in one of the shell-shaped chairs, and gestured to the other one facing her across a low table. I sat down, and eyed the drink and two large dishes of food on the table before me.
"Please, help yourself. I've already eaten."
Sliding the two dishes over towards me, I decided to dispense with the eating bowl and just hunched over and tucked in. In the typical manner of hosts everywhere she had provided more than she expected me to eat. Broiled creatures looking like crayfish steamed on one dish while the other was heaped with segments of some potato-like vegetable sprinkled with stuff like grated carrot but peppery and hot.
"We usually remove their shells before eating them," she noted wryly. She herself sipped something similar to the cool minty concoction she had provided for me, though the temperature of hers must have been higher, judging by the steam.
"I'm very hungry," I told her between mouthfuls.
She nodded—perhaps considering me barbaric—then stood up and wandered away for a while. Had I continued without food for long enough, she would then truly see my barbaric side. I ate literally everything, noting her bemused expression when she returned. I licked my fingers clean and wiped them dry, then with a muted belch pushed the dishes away.
"Including yourself, how many Speakers will there be?" I asked.
"Do you need any more to eat?" she asked in return.
"For the moment, no, thank you."
"There will be five of us. We'll maintain our link with the Consensus by wearing earpieces and through the pherophones in the walls. The others are trained to respond to you as individuals—hence my being able to become a Speaker so quickly, since I didn't require that special training. However, you'll have to accept that when it comes to important decisions, or ones requiring further analysis, any response you receive will not be the definitive one. We Speakers might say yes, but the Consensus no. It's quite difficult for the Brumallian Consensus to communicate down on the Sudorian level."
"Down?" I sat back, feeling my digestion writhing as it went to work.
Rhodane grimaced. "Even I am only now beginning to understand the true range of Brumallian language. One spoken word can possess all the same verbal inflexions of a similar word spoken in Sudorian, but in the process of speaking it they can load it with additional nuances and twist its meaning further by signing and emitting pheromones. One word in itself can contain everything a Sudorian would need an entire sentence to convey."
"And their sentences?"
"Enough meaning to fill a small book. But it's the precision that's important to Brumallians; they don't often misunderstand each other."
"Hence their success in creating a society without leaders?"
"Yes."
She paused to sip her drink—and I to sip mine and contemplate her.
"Why are you actually here, Rhodane?" I eventually asked.
"Why're any of us here?" she countered.
I winced, not wanting to play that silly game.
She gave a tired smile. "Many Sudorians come here to carry out research, or to work in the Fleet ground bases. It's not that unusual to find people like myself here."
I didn't believe her for a second. She had yet to explain her comment about being both Sudorian and Brumallian. I rather suspected I knew the explanation already, and that no other Sudorians here would be Speakers as they did not possess sophisticated biotech growing on and inside their faces.
"You're a researcher, basically?"
She stared at me very directly, then said, "My brother Harald is Admiral Carnasus's top aide and therefore wields a great deal of power. My sister Yishna is similarly the right hand of Director Oberon Gneiss on Corisanthe Main. Orduval, my other brother, could also have been very influential had it not been for the constant fits he suffered. He disappeared. I too have disappeared, in my way, and can be considered a failure too."
"I've met Yishna. Your elder sister?"
"We're all precisely the same age: quadruplets conceived on Corisanthe Main during an information fumarole breach. We were born there, then transported planetside after our mother, Elsever, died in some stupid accident."
She had just told me something important, yet I could not decide what it was. Perhaps I could integrate it at a later time. "Did you feel a need to disappear…to escape some kind of pressure?"
Rhodane set her drink down on the table and sat back with her fingers interlaced below her breasts. She gazed up at the ceiling for a moment, then directly at me. "So how is it, with Fleet's ban on Polity technology, that you manage to watch us so closely?"
I raised an eyebrow. "Why do you suppose we do?"
"I've already analysed much of what you've said and done, and it seems quite evident that your knowledge of us extends beyond what has been transmitted via the U-space link on Sudoria."
"If you're capable of such analysis, then surely you can answer your own question?"
She nodded mildly. "Of course, while we regressed and had to start over again after arriving here, you kept on progressing? So you possess technology we are unable to detect?"
"Small regressions, but nothing on the scale of what happened here. And as for the technology you mention, I can't comment."
"I see…"
I was slowly coming to realise I was dealing with a formidable intelligence here. I felt her analysis of me went beyond that comparison between my overt knowledge and what I could have learnt from the transmissions from this system to the Polity. As we had talked she had been providing just enough for me to grasp a point, where she wanted me to. This showed she had made a deep assessment of my intelligence, and perhaps knew more about me than I would like. "You still haven't answered my question, Rhodane."
"Why am I here?" She smiled, reached up and began running her finger over the ridged skin on her jaw-line. "Well, I am here because here is where my driving force impelled me, just as Yishna's impelled her to Corisanthe Main, and Harald's sent him to Fleet. I was not trying to 'disappear', but I feel I've managed to do so."