"It can be staved off, slowed down, by my eating foods lacking in any nutrition suitable for the virus." I gestured to the empty dishes. "In that way I retain my humanity. Drugs also inhibit it, but I don't have any of those with me. Without either, infected humans can transform into chimerical creatures that are a random combination of Spatterjay fauna."

"But that's not all, is it? There's some additional problem…"

I had no idea how she worked that out. "I believe you are one question ahead of me already. My question remains: what is your driving force?"

Rhodane tilted her head as if listening to something. The Brumallian chatter remained audible in this room, though muted. I had already noted the pherophones on the walls and wondered just how deep was Rhodane's understanding of their complex language. "The answer to that will have to wait," she announced. "The other Consensus Speakers are almost ready for you." She stood, then beckoned to me as she headed for the door.

"Finishing on your question," I said. She turned to gaze at me as I stood up. "My problem, Rhodane, is caused by a second virus that's killing the first. In essence my problem is mortality."

Her eyes widened in shocked appreciation, or maybe disbelief, as she absorbed the implications. She then gave me this quid pro quo: "And your question, David. I don't know the answer, yet I cannot shake the feeling that you yourself are perhaps the best person to discover it."

"Yes…" It was opaque to me at that moment, yet I knew the answer lay within my reach. Information fumarole breach…Corisanthe Main…

"When we return I have something you should see," she said.

"Let's hope I'll be allowed to return."

"Yes, let's."

She opened the first door of the airlock, and we stepped inside. After a moment the temperature abruptly dropped, as if someone had just opened a fridge nearby. Shortly the outer door clonked and she pushed it ajar. As we stepped out, my lungs tightened and my eyes began watering. Two quofarl stood waiting for us.

Rhodane led off and I followed, the two big guys falling in behind me. My lungs began to ease; I wiped my eyes, cleared my nose. It seemed almost like a touch of hay fever that quickly passed. Rhodane led me in the opposite direction to the one we came in by, heading towards a stone stair that wound up and up. Eventually we turned off that to enter a short corridor terminating at an armoured door. I noted a lot of cable trunking and sealed boxes affixed to the walls on either side, probably control circuitry, fuses or relays, I surmised.

Rhodane halted before a pherophone located beside the door, inclined her face towards it for a moment, whereupon the door immediately unlocked and she pushed it open. Inside, three Brumallians were sitting on a low horseshoe-shaped couch semi-circling a single low steel chair with head rest and arms. I noted the eyelets and metal tags on the chair for affixing straps and guessed its previous occupants did not always enjoy their sojourn there. No straps in evidence now, however. Scanning the room I noted a square port positioned directly above the chair and others positioned around the walls, so wondered what weapons would be trained on me while I spoke.

As well as the pherophones ranged around the walls, there were many other devices pointing probes and recording heads towards the chair. I guessed they were going to do more than broadcast just sound and vision footage. Doubtless there was instrumentation here to measure the beat of my heart, the electrical activity of my brain, every smallest movement, and even my pheromonal emissions. The place felt like a combination of interrogation chamber, hospital scanning room and holovision studio. Without awaiting further instruction, I went over and sat down in the chair. Rhodane walked past and joined the other three on the couch, while the two quofarl squatted on the floor right behind me.

Silence fell. I considered breaking it, then turned aside on hearing the door open, and watched as the last of the five Speakers entered. Now they could begin.

"What is your name?" asked the male sitting just to Rhodane's right.

"David McCrooger."

"What is your title?"

"On this occasion. Consul Assessor."

"What are you?" asked another.

"That is a question you will have to elaborate."

They did, at length, even going into biological detail. My extended reply in turn contained more detail than I had given Rhodane. They then moved on to ask me about the Polity and my position within it, about the AIs that govern it, about Geronamid, the full extent of the Polity and its history since their ancestors departed. Every now and again they threw a completely outfield question at me like, "Is St Paul's Cathedral, in the City of London on Earth, still standing?" To which I replied that indeed it was, though much of its original stonework was covered by diamond film and much of its structure supported by nano-carbon filaments. I realised they were then confining themselves to historical stuff so as to build a picture of the present-day Polity. When it seemed they had that sufficiently pegged, they moved on.

"Does the Polity need to expand in order to maintain its stability?"

"Not any more."

"Why, then, did the AIs send you here?"

Motivation? Damn! Why did the AIs do anything? Why did they stay to rule the Polity when they could move on into realms of mind that humans could hardly understand? "Expansion is no longer required for economic reasons, but humans and AIs both need to expand their horizons. I suppose that doesn't really answer your question? OK, it has become our policy that when out-Polity civilisations are encountered, we first establish dialogue with them, assess them carefully, then offer them inclusion. If they reject this offer, we leave them alone."

"But being rejected here by Fleet, you have not departed," Rhodane observed.

"The dialogue we establish is not just with the few who rule."

"As we understand it, you only have one line of communication open, and that's with only a select few of the ruling class on Sudoria."

"Dialogue can take many forms, and has yet to be fully established, and I am still assessing."

"One man cannot see everything."

"Yes, I'm aware of that. We abide by the strictures imposed by our hosts because that is a price we are prepared to pay to gain a foothold amongst them, so as to properly establish a dialogue and to make a full assessment. Approached in any other way, the cost in human suffering could be great."

"Why does Fleet so fear you they're prepared to destroy one of their own ships in order to be rid of you?"

"I think you can work that out for yourselves."

"Why has the Polity not tried to establish dialogue with us here on Brumal?"

"I believe I already covered this ground with Rhodane, but I shall reiterate. You are not irrelevant to the Polity," I explained. "But making you a relevant issue in the eyes of the Sudorians, by establishing an apparently independent dialogue with you, would put you in danger from Fleet and endanger our chances of establishing a foothold on Sudoria."

From then on the tenor of their questioning slowly began to change. They became more keenly interested in my knowledge of the situation here, specifically my knowledge of Sudorian technologies and capabilities, and the politicising between the various power blocs on the other world. I started to feel rather uncomfortable with all this, since the information they sought was obviously more of a military nature than that relating to me.

"If we were to be attacked by the Sudorians, would the Polity support us?"

"No."

"You would support the Sudorians?"

"No."

"What would you do?"

"One of two things: either leave you to kill each other, or stop you killing each other."