Consider Phlebas

by Iain M. Banks

  He tried telling himself he was mistaken, that it wasn’t really her, that he was tired and confused and getting paranoid, seeing things. But he knew it was Balveda, though sufficiently altered so that probably only a close friend or a Changer could possibly recognise her, but definitely her, alive and well and probably armed to the teeth . . .

  He got up, mechanically, still staring straight ahead. He took off the wet clothes and went out of the cabin, down to the wash area, where he left the clothes to dry and cleaned himself up. Back in the cabin he found a robe and put it on. He started inspecting the small, packed space and finally came across a small voice recorder. He flicked it back and listened.

  ‘. . . ahhh . . . including, ahh, Yalson,’ Kraiklyn’s voice said from the small speaker in the machine, ‘who I guess was, umm . . . in her relationship, with ahh . . . Horza Gobuchul. She’s . . . been pretty abrupt, and I don’t think I’ve had the support from her . . . which she . . . which I ought to get . . . I’ll have a word with her if it goes on, but, ahhh . . . for now, during the repairs and such . . . there doesn’t seem much point . . . I’m not putting off . . . ah . . . I just think we’ll see how she shapes up after the Orbital’s blown and we’re on our way.

  ‘Ahh . . . now this new woman . . . Gravant . . . she’s all right. I get the impression she might . . . ah, need . . . need a bit of ordering around . . . seems to need discipline . . . I don’t think she’ll have, ah, too much conflict with anybody. Yalson, especially, I was worried about, but I don’t think . . . ah, I think it’ll be fine. But you can never tell with women, ah . . . of course, so . . . but I like her . . . I think she’s got class and maybe . . . I don’t know . . . maybe she could make a good number two if she shapes up.

  ‘I really need more people . . . Umm . . . things haven’t gone all that well recently, but I think I’ve been . . . they’ve let me down. Jandraligeli, obviously . . . and I don’t know; I’ll see if maybe I can do something about him because . . . he’s really sort of just been . . . ahh . . . he’s betrayed me; that’s the way . . . that’s what it is I think; anybody would agree. So maybe I’ll have a word with Ghalssel, at the game, assuming he arrives . . . I don’t think the guy’s really up to standard and I’ll tell Ghalssel as much because we’re both . . . in the same, ah . . . business, and I’m . . . I know that he’ll have heard . . . well, he’ll listen to what I have to say, because he knows about the responsibilities of leadership and . . . just, ah . . . the way I do.

  ‘Anyway . . . I’ll do some more recruiting after the game, and after the GSV takes off there’ll be some time . . . we have enough time still to run in this bay and I’ll put the word out. There’s bound to be . . . a lot of people ready to sign on . . . Ah, oh yeah; mustn’t forget about the shuttle tomorrow. I’m sure I can get the price down. Ah, I could just win at the game, of course—’ The small voice from the speaker laughed: a tinny echo. ‘. . . and just be incredibly rich and—’ The laughter came again, distorted. ‘. . . and not give a fuck about any of this crap any more . . . shit, just . . . ha . . . give the CAT away . . . well, sell it . . . and retire . . . But we’ll see . . .’

  The voice faded. Horza switched off the machine in the silence. He put it down where he had found it, and rubbed the ring on the small finger of his right hand. Then he took off the robe and put his – his – suit on. It started talking to him; he told it to turn its voice off.

  He looked at himself in the reverser field on the locker doors, drew himself up, made sure the plasma pistol strapped to his thigh was switched on, pushed the pains and tiredness to the back of his mind, then went out of the cabin and up the corridor to the mess.

  Yalson and the woman who was Balveda were sitting talking in the long room, at the far end of the table under the screen, which had been turned off. They looked up when he came in. He went over and sat a couple of seats down from Yalson, who looked at his suit and said, ‘We going somewhere?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Horza said, looking briefly at her, then switching his gaze to the Balveda woman, smiling and saying, ‘I’m sorry, Ms Gravant; but I’m afraid, having reconsidered your application, I have to turn you down. I’m sorry, but there’s no place for you on the CAT. I hope you understand.’ He clasped his hands on the table and grinned again. Balveda – the more he looked the surer he was that it was her – looked crestfallen. Her mouth opened slightly; she looked from Horza to Yalson then back again. Yalson was frowning deeply.

  ‘But—’ Balveda began.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Yalson said angrily. ‘You can’t just—’

  ‘You see,’ Horza smiled, ‘I’ve decided that we need to cut down on the numbers on board, and—’

  ‘What?’ Yalson exploded, slapping the table with the palm of her hand. ‘That’s six of us left! What the hell are six of us meant to do . . . ?’ Her voice trailed off, then came back lower and slower, her head twisting to one side, her eyes narrowing as she looked at him – ‘. . . Or have we just struck lucky in . . . oh, a game of chance perhaps, and don’t want to cut in more directions than absolutely necessary?’

  Horza looked briefly at Yalson again, smiled and said, ‘No, but you see I’ve just re-hired one of our ex-members, and that does alter the plans a bit . . . The place I had intended to slot Ms Gravant into in the ship’s company is now filled.’

  ‘You got Jandraligeli to come back, after what you called him?’ laughed Yalson, stretching back in her seat.

  Horza shook his head.

  ‘No, my dear,’ he said. ‘As I would have been able to tell you if you hadn’t kept interrupting, I just met our friend Mr Gobuchul in Evanauth, and he’s keen to rejoin.’

  ‘Horza?’ Yalson seemed to shake a little, her voice on an edge of tension, and he could see her trying to control herself. Oh gods, a small voice inside him said, why does this hurt so much? Yalson said, ‘Is he alive? Are you sure it was him? Kraiklyn, are you?’

  Horza switched his gaze rapidly from one woman to the other. Yalson was leaning forward over the table, her eyes glittering in the mess-room light, her fists clenched. Her lean body seemed tensed, the golden down on her dark skin shining. Balveda looked uncertain and confused. Horza saw her start to bite her lip, then stop.

  ‘I wouldn’t kid you about it, Yalson,’ Horza assured her. ‘Horza is alive and well, and not very far away.’ Horza looked at the repeater screen on his suit cuff, where the time showed. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m meeting him at one of the port reception spheres in . . . well, just before the GSV takes off. He said he had one or two things to work out in the city first. He said to say . . . ahhh . . . he hoped you were still betting on him . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘You’re not kidding!’ Yalson said, her face creasing with a smile. She shook her head, put a hand through her hair, slapped the table softly a couple of times. ‘Oh . . .’ she said, then sat back again in her seat. She looked from the woman to the man and shrugged, silent.

  ‘So you see, Gravant, you just aren’t needed right now,’ Horza told Balveda. The Culture agent opened her mouth, but it was Yalson who spoke first, coughing quickly and then saying.

  ‘Oh, let her stay, Kraiklyn. What difference does it make?’

  ‘The difference, Yalson,’ Horza said carefully, thinking hard about Kraiklyn, ‘is that I am captain of this ship.’

  Yalson seemed about to say something, but instead she turned to Balveda and spread her hands. She sat back, one hand picking at the edge of the table, her eyes lowered. She was trying not to smile too much.

  ‘Well, Captain,’ Balveda said, rising from her seat, ‘you do know best. I’ll get my gear.’ She walked quickly from the mess. Her footsteps merged with others, and Horza and Yalson both heard some muffled words. In a moment, Dorolow, Wubslin and Aviger, gaily dressed and looking flushed and happy, piled into the mess, the older man with his arm around the small, plump woman.

  ‘Our captain!’ Aviger shouted. Dorolow held one of his hands at her shoulder.
She smiled. Wubslin waved dreamily; the stocky engineer looked drunk. ‘Been at the wars, I see,’ Aviger went on, staring at Horza’s face, which still showed signs of being in a fight, despite his internal attempts to minimise the damage.

  ‘What has Gravant done, Kraiklyn?’ Dorolow squeaked. She seemed merry, too, and her voice was even higher than he remembered it.

  ‘Nothing,’ Horza said, smiling at the three mercenaries. ‘But we’re getting Horza Gobuchul back from the dead, so I decided we didn’t need her.’

  ‘Horza?’ Wubslin said, his large mouth opening wide in an almost exaggerated expression of surprise. Dorolow looked past Horza at Yalson, the look on her face saying, ‘Is this true?’ through her grin. Yalson shrugged and looked happily, hopefully, still slightly suspiciously, at the man she thought was Kraiklyn.

  ‘He’ll be coming aboard shortly before the Ends leaves,’ Horza said. ‘He had some sort of business in the city. Maybe something shady.’ Horza smiled in the condescending way Kraiklyn sometimes had. ‘Who knows?’

  ‘There,’ Wubslin said, looking unsteadily at Aviger over Dorolow’s stooped frame. ‘Maybe that guy was looking for Horza. Maybe we should warn him.’

  ‘What guy? Where?’ Horza asked.

  ‘He’s seeing things,’ Aviger said, waving one hand. ‘Too much liverwine.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ Wubslin said loudly, looking from Aviger to Horza, and nodding. ‘And a drone.’ He held both hands out in front of his face, palms together, then separated them by about a quarter-metre. ‘Little bugger. No bigger’n that.’

  ‘Where?’ Horza shook his head. ‘Why do you think somebody might be after Horza?’

  ‘Out there, under the traveltube,’ Aviger said, while Wubslin was saying:

  ‘Way he came out of that capsule, like he expected to be in a fight any second, and . . . aww, I can just tell . . . that guy was . . . police . . . or something . . .’

  ‘What about Mipp?’ asked Dorolow. Horza was silent for a second, frowning at nothing and nobody in particular. ‘Did Horza mention Mipp?’ Dorolow asked him.

  ‘Mipp?’ he said, looking at Dorolow. ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘No, Mipp didn’t make it.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Dorolow said.

  ‘Look,’ Horza said, staring at Aviger and Wubslin, ‘you think there’s somebody out there looking for one of us?’

  ‘A man,’ Wubslin nodded slowly, ‘and a little, tiny, really mean-looking drone.’

  With a chill, Horza recalled the insect which had settled momentarily on his wrist in the smallbay outside, just before he had boarded the CAT. The Culture, he knew, had machines – artificial bugs – that size.

  ‘Hmm,’ Horza said, pursing his lips. He nodded to himself, then looked at Yalson. ‘Go and make sure Gravant gets off the ship, quickly, all right?’ He stood up and got out of the way while Yalson moved. She went down the corridor to the cabins. Horza looked at Wubslin and motioned the engineer forward towards the bridge, with his eyes. ‘You two stay here,’ he said quietly to Aviger and Dorolow. Slowly they let go of each other and sat down in a couple of seats. Horza went through to the bridge.

  He pointed Wubslin to the engineer’s seat and sat down in the pilot’s. Wubslin sighed heavily. Horza closed the door, then quickly reeled through all he had learned about the procedures on the bridge during the first weeks he had been aboard the CAT. He was reaching forward to open the communicator channels when something moved under the console, near his feet. He froze.

  Wubslin peered down, then bent with an audible effort and stuck his big head down between his legs. Horza smelled drink.

  ‘Haven’t you finished yet?’ Wubslin’s muffled voice said.

  ‘They took me off to another job; I only just got back,’ wailed a small, thin, artificial voice. Horza sat back in his seat and looked under the console. A drone, about two thirds the size of the one which had escorted him from the elevator to the CAT’s bay, was disentangling itself from a jumble of tine cables protruding from an open inspection hatch.

  ‘What,’ Horza said, ‘is that?’

  ‘Oh,’ Wubslin said wearily, belching, ‘same one that’s been here . . . you remember. Come on, you,’ he said to the machine. ‘The captain wants to do a communication test.’

  ‘Look,’ the little machine said, its synthesised voice full of exasperation, ‘I have finished. I’m just tidying everything away.’

  ‘Well get a move on,’ Wubslin said. He withdrew his head from underneath the console and looked apologetically at Horza. ‘Sorry, Kraiklyn.’

  ‘Never mind, never mind.’ Horza waved his hand. He powered up the communicator. ‘Ah . . .’ He looked at Wubslin. ‘Who’s controlling traffic movements around here? I’ve forgotten who to ask for. What if I want the bay doors opened?’

  ‘Traffic? Doors opened?’ Wubslin looked at Horza with a puzzled expression. He shrugged and said, ‘Well, just traffic control, I suppose, like when we came in.’

  ‘Right,’ Horza said; he flicked the switch on the console and said, ‘Traffic control, this is . . .’ His voice trailed off.

  He’d no idea what Kraiklyn had called the CAT instead of its real name. He hadn’t got that as part of the information he’d bought, and it was one of the many things he had meant to learn once he’d accomplished the most immediate task of getting Balveda off the ship, and with luck following a false trail. But the news that there might be somebody looking for him in this bay – or anybody, for that matter – had rattled him. He said, ‘. . . This is the craft in Smallbay 27492. I want immediate clearance to leave the bay and the GSV; we’ll quit the Orbital independently.’

  Wubslin stared at Horza.

  ‘This is Evanauth Port traffic control, GSV temporary section. One moment, Smallbay 27492,’ said the speakers set in Horza and Wubslin’s seat headrests. Horza turned to Wubslin, switching off the communicator send button.

  ‘This thing is ready to fly, isn’t it?’

  ‘Wha—? Fly?’ Wubslin looked perplexed. He scratched his chest, looked down at the drone still working to stuff the wires back under the console. ‘I suppose so, but—’

  ‘Great.’ Horza started switching everything on, motors included. He noticed the bank of screens carrying information about the bow laser flickering on along with everything else. At least Kraiklyn had had that repaired.

  ‘Fly?’ Wubslin repeated. He scratched his chest again and turned towards Horza. ‘Did you say “fly”?’

  ‘Yes. We’re leaving.’ Horza’s hands flicked over the buttons and sensor switches, adjusting the systems of the waking ship as though he really had been doing it for years.

  ‘We’ll need a tug . . .’ Wubslin said. Horza knew the engineer was right. The CAT’s anti-gravity was only strong enough to produce an internal field; the warp units would blow so close to (in fact, inside) a mass as great as the Ends, and you couldn’t reasonably use the fusion motors in an enclosed space.

  ‘We’ll get one. I’ll tell them it’s an emergency. I’ll say we’ve got a bomb aboard, or something.’ Horza watched the main screen come on, filling the previously blank bulkhead in front of him and Wubslin with a view of the rear of the Smallbay.

  Wubslin got his own monitor screen to display a complicated plan which Horza eventually identified as a map of their level of the GSV’s vast interior. He only glanced at it at first, then ignored the view on the main screen and looked more carefully at the plan, and finally put a holo of the GSV’s whole internal layout onto the main screen, quickly memorising all he could.

  ‘What . . .’ Wubslin, paused, belched again, rubbed his belly through his tunic and said, ‘What about Horza?’

  ‘We’ll pick him up later,’ Horza said, still studying the layout of the GSV. ‘I made other arrangements in case I couldn’t meet him when I said.’ Horza punched the transmit button again. ‘Traffic control, traffic control, this is Smallbay 27492. I need emergency clearance. Repeat, I need emergency clearance and a tug straight away. I have a malfunctio
ning fusion generator I can’t close down. Repeat, nuclear fusion generator breakdown, going critical.’

  ‘What!’ a small voice screeched. Something banged into Horza’s knee, and the drone working under the console wobbled quickly into view, festooned with cables like a streamer-draped party goer. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Shut up and get off the ship. Now,’ Horza told it, turning up the gain on the receiver circuits. A hissing noise filled the bridge.

  ‘With pleasure!’ the drone said, and shook itself to get rid of the cables looped round its casing. ‘As usual I’m the last to be told what’s going on, but I know I don’t want to stick around this—’ it was muttering when the hangar lights went out.

  At first Horza thought the screen had blown, but he slid the wavelength control up, and a dim outline of the bay reappeared, showing its appearance on infra-red. ‘Oh-oh,’ said the drone, turning first to the screen, then looking back at Horza. ‘You lot did pay your rent, didn’t you?’

  ‘Dead,’ Wubslin announced. The drone got rid of the last of its cables. Horza looked sharply at the engineer.

  ‘What?’

  Wubslin pointed at the transceiver controls in front of him. ‘Dead. Somebody’s cut us off from traffic control.’

  A shudder ran through the ship. A light blinked, indicating that the main hold lift had just slammed up automatically.

  A draught briefly stirred the air in the flight deck, then died. More lights started flashing on the console. ‘Shit,’ Horza said. ‘Now what?’

  ‘Well, goodbye chaps,’ the drone said hurriedly. It shot past them, sucked the door open and whooshed down the corridor, heading for the hangar stairwell.

  ‘Pressure drop?’ Wubslin said to himself, scratching his head for a change and knotting his brows as he looked at the screens in front of him.

  ‘Kraiklyn!’ Yalson’s voice shouted from the seat headrest speakers. A light on the console showed that she was calling from the hangar.