Part Seven:
Of Two Minds
All the varied peoples of the Lowcity have their own… eccentricities. Every different type of resident is unique in their own ways, some major and some less so. The Hohi float, the Skitterlings burrow, most Lesh leave such physical activities to their machines. Like any other Lowcity residents, the Golnur are unique- but the most unique trait they possess is possibly the most simple of all: the sheer fact that they do not live in the Lowcity at all. You may think that this is not so unique- there are Hohi, after all, who do not live in the Lowcity. But it is a different matter for the Golnur, and admittedly this trait is also based in a technicality: the Golnur do live in the Lowcity… but also, they do not. And this is, quite certainly, very different to how some Hohi live in the city and some do not. The area where the vast majority of Golnur spend their lives is known to non-Golnur as “The Nest”. It is known to Golnur as “Golnur”, because in their view of the world there is little reason to make a distinction between their territory and themselves. The Nest existed before the Lowcity did, dug into the soil near the subterranean Reservoir by creatures from which the Golnur of today evolved. It is only in recent centuries that contact was made, as conditions on the surface drove the Golnur to burrow deeper and then spread out in all directions. Some may debate whether or not the Nest is part of the Lowcity or merely a close neighbour, and indeed relations with the Golnur are more along the lines of diplomacy between nations than municipal discourse, handled in the vast majority of instances by Lesh diplomats on behalf of the Lowcity as a whole. However, here at the end of the world, people tend to think of the Lowcity as synecdoche for the whole world anyway.
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There are Golnur who never set claw within the main body of the Lowcity at all, but even those who spend the majority of their lives within its tunnels… are also elsewhere, in a way. A way that neither you nor nobody else in the Lowcity can ever fully grasp. Perhaps you could say that, while their bodies are within the Lowcity, their minds are elsewhere. Perhaps you could say that they do not have minds at all, in the way that most would describe them. Many in the Lowcity are of this opinion, comfortably assuming that the Golnur are a more organic form of the automata that the Lesh use and never really thinking to look deeper than that assumption. And again, perhaps it is not so misguided an assumption- but it is an assumption based in other, more faulty assumptions. The fact is, they simply lack a frame of reference from which they can comprehend the true nature of the Golnur.
Once, the Golnur were not unlike what you would think of as ants, simple creatures whose actions were dictated by pheromones and chemical trails, with no minds of their own. That was a long time ago. Now they are not much like ants at all. The average example of what most Lowcity residents think of as “Golnur Drones” has a two-part abdomen with a broad back, a head half as long as their abdomen which features compound eyes and articulated antennae, and six legs. For the most part this will sound familiar, although one may note that the body of an ant should have three sections, not two. There are many key differences, however. Most immediately obvious is their size: a drone may grow as much as six feet long, and nearly a foot tall, although this would be a large example. Another obvious but worthwhile aspect is that- similar to the relationship between Fallen and the things you would call birds- the Golnur still exist, whereas the things you would call ants most likely do not. While ants have been known to engage in minor acts of food cultivation, the Golnur are far more ambitious: it is rare to see a Golnur without some tool or another strapped across its back, as it is rare in the Lowcity to see a Golnur who is not there with purpose. Their minds are far superior to that of their ancestors in that way… and in another far more significant, but far far harder to explain- much less understand. Because the mind of a Golnur, depending on one’s definition… may not be entirely its own.
Again, many Lowcity residents assume that the Golnur behave as a Hive, in that they possess a central controlling intelligence- a Queen, in other words. Others, with a more complete but still far from complete idea of the truth, think of them as more akin to a colossal Difference Engine: each drone is simply a cog in a machine with no real agency or identity of its own, with the Hive as a whole acting purely logically based on the inputs it receives from the outside world. In fact, there is a minor controversy among Umbressi and Lesh historians over which came first: the Lesh theory, or the Umbressi technology of the Difference Engine, with one side arguing that the theory was born out of comparison to the technology and the other that the technology was inspired by the nature of the Golnur. It is not difficult to imagine which group of people tends to be on which side. However, both are based in the belief that this is how the Golnur function at all: an incomplete understanding of the situation. The Golnur are not an unthinking organic machine, and they are not controlled by some omniscient Queen. They are a Hive Mind of sorts, but they are more than a Hive Mind- or perhaps, each individual Golnur is more than just a member of a Hive Mind.
Every individual Golnur is linked, although that is an inadequate word for the depth of the connection they have. Every individual Golnur is their own person with their own personality, although that discredits the importance of their connection with their fellows. And, in what may be the most crucial aspect of the Golnur mind but is certainly the hardest to grasp, that specificity of self is malleable, almost modular. Part of every Golnur’s mind is always elsewhere, in a collective realm conjured by their collective will. This realm, confusingly, is known as “Golnur”, as it is such an intrinsic part of the Golnur way of life that they see no reason to consider it as separate from the Golnur themselves. This lack of distinction has, naturally, contributed to the difficulties non-Golnur have in understanding the Golnur mind; as such, non-Golnur have taken to calling it the “Runlog”, which isn’t particularly imaginative but it does the job and is the term which will be used here. Within this “Runlog”, the lines and edges of Golnur become blurred, hazy, irrelevant. It is a place where the boundaries that divide can be- must be- shed, giving way to a sort of euphoric collectivism. At any given moment a Golnur individual may tend more or less towards its individual or collective selves, striking a momentary balance between its specific self and the Golnur as a whole as their inclination or the situation demands. It is all but impossible to determine the intellect of a single Golnur, as who could really say where the individual ends and the collective begins. And few have ever tried, because few even know that this dichotomy exists- and the Golnur themselves don’t even understand the question. To them, living solely as an individual is as incomprehensible a concept as their situation is to most others. It must be so lonely, so limiting! Some would go so far as to say they pity the single-minded, wondering how they can possibly live such a small life.
Each Golnur’s relationship to the Runlog is unique, but while it is commonly accepted wisdom that it is impossible to wholly disconnect from the Runlog there are those who… obfuscate parts of themselves from the collective. They retreat into themselves, hiding parts of their cognition from the rest of their species; this is somewhat more than frowned upon, and there is no way to conceal the concealment, as every other Golnur can inherently tell when another is holding back. It is somewhat akin to being known as a Perjurer in other societies: those who hold back parts of themselves from the Runlog are not to be trusted. Not exactly ostracised, but… worthy of distrust, as only those who have done something worth concealing would do so. For the most part this has little material effect on the lives of those who choose to live this way, but today is an exception. Because today, there has been a murder in the Nest.
Murder among the Golnur is rare for a number of reasons. For starters, having a mental connection to those around you tends to lead to the sort of enhanced empathy that precludes such violent acts. Then, there is the increased likelihood of getting caught: one must be very certain of their ability to kill swiftly before attempting to kill someone who can broadcast their identity to the rest of their species. And yet, a body has been found: a young male, just barely past maturity, recently assigned a role as a waste recycler, found dead in a little-trafficked region low in the Nest. It was a quick death, no doubt: a puncture in the back of his head, piercing directly through the exoskeleton and into the vulnerable nerve centre beneath. Quick enough, judging by the fact that no Golnur knew of his death until his body was found, that he had been unable to broadcast his fate into the Runlog. There is a murderer in the Nest, and within moments of the body’s discovery every Golnur knows it. But the knowledge of who the guilty party is does not follow. That information is not in the Runlog, a gap in the fabric of Golnur knowledge as keen and devastating as the hole in the victim’s head. It is disconcerting, disquieting. The search for the guilty party begins swiftly, and the Golnur method of investigation is as precise and brutally efficient as the hole in the victim’s head: across the Runlog, the word is spread that all Golnur who have hidden parts of themselves to the Runlog are to be rounded up. Their secrets will be secret no more.
In one of the largest chambers in the Nest, the secret-holders gather. There is no point in fleeing, as there can be no hiding: their very nature makes them stand out like a bonfire in the dark. Soldier Golnur guard the exits as a precaution, and as a simple but effective display of the consequences for failure to cooperate. All present know what is to happen here- after all, it is written into the Runlog. All present must confess by letting their mind fully reconnect with the Runlog, releasing the memories they had sought to hide into the collective consciousness- including, theoretically, the memory of the murder. If the murderer confesses, then all will be allowed to keep their secrets- though often this experience will scare them into letting down their walls anyway. If the murderer does not reveal themself willingly, however, then the gathered secret-keepers will, one by one, be interrogated. While the old systems of pheromones and chemical communications may have fallen by the evolutionary wayside as the Runlog became their primary method of communication, the Golnur still possess the highly sensitive sensory organs necessary to receive such signals. And now, they are turned against the secret-keepers. One by one the suspects are subjected to an overwhelming sensory onslaught, buffeting them with every signal, every emotion, every instruction that could be imagined. The most primal parts of their minds recoil at the overload, exposed to sensations that have not been felt in generations. And, one by one, they open themselves fully to the Runlog. None can withstand the torment for long, and many are so terrified at the sight of their fellows’ suffering that they give in before their torment even begins. The Runlog fills, momentarily, with the whispers and echoes of suffering- not the sensations themselves, mercifully, but the after-effects, the deep emotional outpouring that results. Many in the Nest are tempted, paradoxically, to shut themselves off from the Runlog until the interrogation is over. But they resist the urge; partly because they fear that doing so would bring suspicion upon them, and partly because they know this is the price they must pay for the suffering of their kin. This is not a thing that is done lightly, but nor is it done with regret. It is what must be done, to find the murderer.
One by one, the suspects open their hearts to the collective, revealing the things that they had suffered so dearly to protect. Thieves. Adulterers. Frauds. They will all pay, eventually, for the crimes they confess to today, but for now there are more dire things to learn. But once the final suspect gives in, revealing her secrets to the Runlog and the echoes of suffering mercifully end, they are replaced with a disquiet even greater than that which met the interrogations. Because, despite the many confessions that were felt today, not one of them was a confession of murder. The killer was not among the Golnur who concealed part of themselves from the Runlog. Justice has not been done. Theories abound as to how this could possibly be the case: perhaps the killer killed themself from the guilt, in some location where their body has not yet been found? Perhaps the killer was not Golnur at all, but some other villain who somehow snuck deep into and out of the Nest without being detected? There are suggestions, hastily retracted, that outside help might be brought into the Nest, that the investigative methods of other Lowcity societies or the collaborative efforts of the Unifiers might find something that the Golnur themselves could not? Consensus is never found, and neither are answers. The mystery of the killer will lurk in the corners of the Runlog for many years to come, in much the same way that rumours claim the killer still lurks in the tunnels of the Nest. A spectre that haunts both worlds, without shape, without reason.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of all, even greater than the death of that young Golnur or the suffering of those accused- some of whom will feel the trauma of that day for the rest of their lives- is that it was all for nothing. The Golnur were never going to find the killer, in no small part because of their very nature. They are mistaken in their belief that fully shutting out the Runlog is impossible- but, in a way, they are not. Severance is possible, but one cannot sever their connection with the Runlog and remain Golnur. This is something most Golnur only discover in the absolute depths of despair, as they feel the presence of all their people and see a future where all they feel from that connection is hate and disgust. It is only in that moment that they find within themselves the capacity for… annihilation. Very very few have ever come back from that ledge, and the killer is not one of them. She lashed out at her lover in an act of passion and rage, and regretted it far too late. And so in a final act of despair, she severed herself from the rest of her kind. And, as it turns out, from her own mind. A Golnur without the Runlog is… incomplete. They are no longer the thinking, feeling being that they once were. In fact, they are much more akin to the ant-like beings from which the Golnur evolved. Just a thing without thought, a machine that exists to eat and follow basic stimuli without knowing what they truly meant. In many ways, exactly what most other residents of the Lowcity already think the Golnur to be.
And as for why the killer was never caught in this state, despite being clearly incapable of hiding… There are two reasons. Firstly, completely cut off from the Runlog as she was, she no longer registered as Golnur to the senses of other Golnur she happened by. Golnur use the Runlog to sense each other more than they know, and a Golnur disconnected from the Runlog registers more as a topographical anomaly than a person, unless one really focuses hard. But there is another, far simpler reason why she was not caught: she left the Nest. Not of her own volition, however. Shortly after she severed herself from the Runlog, while mindlessly searching for food, the killer stumbled onto a pheromone trail. Not a completely uncommon occurrence, as even long after the advent of the Runlog some pheromone signals are still used in limited circumstances. But this is not a trail left by those of the Nest. It leads out of the Nest, out into the Lowcity, where no Golnur will find her. She follows it, without knowing why, on and on to an unknown destination. She doesn’t wonder where she is going, or who laid the trail. She is just a beast of instinct now, all the passion and thought that led her to this state irrevocably gone. Perhaps she will find her destination, eventually, if it exists. Perhaps not. But whatever happens to her, whether that destination is nearby or beyond the city’s tunnels, in every way that counts she is already long gone from the Lowcity.