Sixteen days after the Culture craft had stumbled upon the Excession and six days after the discovery had been made public, the first ship appeared, its presence noted initially within the Fate Amenable To Change's main sensor array. The GCU moved one state of readiness higher, signalled what was happening to the Ethics Gradient and the Not Invented Here, fastened its track scanner on the incoming signal, began a tentative reconfiguration of its remote sensor platforms and started to move towards the newcomer round the perimeter of the Excession's safe limit at a speed it hoped was pitched nicely between polite deliberation and alarm-raising urgency. It sent a standard interrogatory signal burst to the approaching craft.
The vessel was the Sober Counsel, an Explorer Ship of the Zetetic Elench's Stargazer Clan's Fifth fleet. The Fate Amenable To Change felt relief; the Elench were friends.
Identifications completed, the two ships rendezvoused, locally stationary just a few tens of kilometres apart on the outskirts of the safe limit from the Excession the Culture vessel had set.
— Welcome.
— Thank you… Dear holy stasis. Is that thing attached to the grid, or is it my sensors?
— If it's your sensors, it's mine too. Impressive, isn't it? Becomes greatly less so once you've sat looking at it for a week or two, take my word for it. I hope you're just here to observe. That's all I'm doing.
— Waiting on the big guns?
— That's right.
— When do they arrive?
— That's restricted. Promise this won't go outside the Elench?
— Promise.
— A Medium SV gets here in twelve days; the first General SV in fourteen, then one every few days for a week, then one a day, then several a day, by which time I expect a few other Involveds will probably have started to show. Don't ask me what the GSVs will consider a quorum before they act. How about you?
— Can we talk off the record, just the two of us?
— All right.
— We have another ship heading here, two days away still. The rest of the fleet are still undecided, though they have stopped drawing further away. We lost a ship somewhere round here. The Peace Makes Plenty.
— Ah. Did you indeed? About when?
— Some time between 28.789 and 805.
— This is still confidential within the Elench, then?
— Yes. We searched this volume as best we could for two weeks but found nothing. What brought you here?
— Suggestion by my home GSV, the Ethics Gradient. That was in 841. Wanted me to look in the Upper Leaf Swirl Cloud Top. No reason given. Bumped into this on the way there. That's all I know. (And the Fate Amenable To Change thought coldly about that suggestion. The Cloud Top volume was a long way from here, but that meant nothing. What mattered was that it had been given a relatively precise location within the Cloud Top to head for, and been given the subtlest of hints to watch out for anything interesting while en route. Given where it had been when it had received the suggestion from its home GSV, its route had inevitably taken it near the Excession… Thirty-six days had elapsed between the date the Elench knew they might have lost a ship and the time when it had been dispatched on what was starting to look a little like a set-up… It wondered what had taken place in between. Could some Elench ship have leaked word to the Culture? But then how had such a leak apparently produced such accuracy, given that it, a single ship, had practically run straight into the damn Excession, while the Elench had spent two weeks here with seven-eighths of a full fleet and spotted nothing?) ~ Feel free to ask the Ethics Gradient what prompted its suggestion, it added.
— Thank you.
— You're welcome.
— I'd like to try contacting the Excession. This might be where our comrade disappeared. At the least it might have some information. At most, and for all we know, our ship is still in there. I want to talk to it, maybe send a drone-ship in if it doesn't reply.
— Madness. This thing is welded into the grids, both directions. Know anything that can do that? Me neither. I'm not even going to start feeling safe until there's a fleet of GSVs round here. Heck, I was pleased to see you there; Company at last, I thought. Somebody to pass the time with while I sit out my lonely vigil. Now you want to start poking this thing with a stick. Are you crazy?
— No, but we might have a ship in distress in there. I can't just sit here doing nothing. Have you attempted to contact the entity?
— No. I sent back a pro forma to its initial Hello, but… wait a moment. Look at the signal it sent (signal enclosed).
— There. You see? I told you! That was probably an Elench-sourced handshake burst.
— Meatshit. Yes, I see. Well, maybe your pal did find the damn thing first, but if it did, it probably did exactly what you're proposing to do. And it's gone. Disappeared. You seeing where this is leading?
— I intend to be careful.
— Uh-huh. Was your comrade vessel notoriously careless?
— Indeed not.
— Well then.
— I appreciate your concern. Was there any sign of contention in the volume when you got here? Emergency or distress signals? Voyage Event Record Ejectiles?
— There was this, here (material analysis/location enclosed), but if you want to mention any of this stuff on record you'd better make it look like you just stumbled across the debris, all right?
— Thank you. Yes, of course… Looks like one of our little-drones was caught up in something. Hmm. Sort of… smells subsidiary somehow, don't you think?
— Possibly. I know what you mean. It's untidy.
— Back on record?
— Okay.
— I hereby give notice I intend to attempt to contact the entity.
— I beg you not to. Let me make a request that you be allowed to take part in the Culture investigation when it takes place. I'm sure there is every chance you will be welcome to share in the relevant data.
— I'm sorry, I have my own reasons for considering the matter urgent.
— Off record again?
— All right.
— My records show you to be — to all intents and purposes — identical to the Peace Makes Plenty.
— Yes. Go on?
— Don't you see? Look, if this thing jeopardised your comrade with no more fuss than an escaped little-drone, what's it going to be able to do now that it's had a chance to pick over the structure and mind-set of your sister craft for at least sixty-six days?
— I have the benefit of being forewarned. And the entity may not have been able entirely to take over the Peace Makes Plenty yet. The ship might be inside there, under siege. Perhaps all the entity's intellectual energies are being absorbed in the maintenance of that blockade. That being the case my intervention may lift the siege and free my comrade.
— Cousin, this is self-delusion. We have already dealt with the issue of the minimal extra safeguarding provided by you having been alerted to the entity's potential danger; the Peace Makes Plenty could hardly have been less prepared. I appreciate your feelings towards your fellow craft and Fleet-mate, but it rends the bounds of possibility to believe that something capable of perpetuating E-grid links in both directions is going to be substantially troubled by craft with the capabilities of ourselves. The Excession has not troubled me but then I did not trouble it; we exchanged greetings, no more. What you propose might be construed as interference, or even as a hostile act. I have accepted a duty to observe and won't be able to help you if you get into trouble. Please, please reconsider.
— I take your point. I still intend to attempt communication with the entity but I shall not recommend that a drone approach be made. I have to put all this to my humans, of course, but they usually concur.
— Naturally. I urge you to argue strongly against sending any object towards the Excession, should your human crew suggest this.
— I'll see which way they jump. This could take a while; they like arguing.
— Don't be in any rush on my account.
/> II
The Torturer class Rapid Offensive Unit Killing Time swung out of the darkness between the stars and braked hard, scrubbing velocity off in a wild, extravagant flare of energies which briefly left a livid line of disturbance across the surface of the energy grid. It came to a local-relative stop a light month out from the cold, dark, slowly tumbling body that was the ship store Pittance, some way beyond the outside edge of the tiny world's spherical cloud of defence/attack mechanisms. It flashed a Permission-To-Approach signal at the rock.
The reply took longer than it would have expected.
tightbeam, M16, tra. @n4.28. 882.1398]
xPittance Store
oROU Killing Time
(Permission withheld.) What is your business here?
oo
[tightbeam, M16, tra. @n4.28.882.1399]
xROU Killing Time
oPittance Store
Just stopping by to make sure you're all right. What's the problem? (PTA burst.)
oo
(Permission withheld.) Who sent you?
oo
What makes you think I had to be sent? (PTA burst.)
(Permission withheld.) I am a restricted entity. I have no duty or obligation to permit any other craft to approach my vicinity. Traditionally Stores are only approached on a need-to basis. What is your need?
oo
There is some activity in the volume which includes your current location. People are concerned. A neighbourly check-up seemed timely. (PTA burst.)
oo
(Permission withheld.) Such concern would be better expressed by leaving me alone. Your visit might even attract attention, all of which I find intrinsically unwelcome. Please leave immediately, and kindly create less of a display on departure than you made on your arrival.
oo
I consider it my duty to assess your current state of integrity. I regret to say I have not been reassured by your recalcitrant attitude. You will do me the minimally polite honour of allowing me to interface with your independent external event-monitoring systems. (PTA burst.)
oo
(Permission withheld.) No! I shall not! I am perfectly able to take care of myself and there is nothing of interest contained within my associated independent security systems. Any attempt to access them without my permission will be treated as an act of aggression. This is your last chance to quit my jurisdiction before I emit a protest-registering signal concerning your unreasonable and boorish behaviour.
oo
I have already composed my own report detailing your bizarre and uncooperative attitude and copying this signal exchange. I shall release the compac immediately if a satisfactory reply is not received to this message. (PTA burst.)
…
Acknowledge signal.
…
Acknowledge signal!
I repeat: I have already composed my own report detailing your bizarre and uncooperative attitude. I shall release the compac immediately if a satisfactory reply is not received to this message. I shall not warn you again. (PTA burst.)
oo
(Permission granted.) Purely in the interests of a quiet life, only on condition that my associate security monitoring systems remain untouched, and under protest.
oo
Thank you; of course.
Under way. Heaving to at 2km from your rotational envelope in thirty minutes.
— Thanks to your delaying tactics, Commander, it probably already suspects something and may well have signalled back to whoever sent it already. Think yourself lucky we have as much as half an hour to prepare; it is being cautious.
They had re-sealed the airlocks from the accommodation section and pumped in some real atmosphere. Commander Risingmoon Parchseason IV of the Farsight tribe had been able to shed his space suit some days earlier. The gravity was still far too mild but it was better than floating. The Commander clicked his beak at the image on the screen presented by the mobile command centre they'd set up in what had been the humans" pool/growing unit. A lieutenant at the Commander's side spoke quietly but urgently to the twenty other Affronters distributed throughout the base's caverns, letting them know what was going on.
The Commander looked back impatiently, waiting for the servant who'd been sent to fetch his suit the instant the Culture warship had appeared on the other craft's sensors. On secondary screens, he could see suited Affronter technicians, their machines and some slaved drones working on the exteriors of the stored ships. They had about half of them ready to get out and go; a decent fleet, but they needed the rest, and preferably all at once, and as a complete surprise to the Culture and everybody else.
"Can't you destroy it?" the Commander asked the traitor Culture vessel. He glanced at the status of the nearest Affront vessels. Far too far away. They had avoided approaching Pittance in case they could be monitored by other Culture craft.
The Attitude Adjuster didn't like vocalising; it preferred to print out its side of a conversation:
— If it gets to within a few minutes, yes, perhaps. It might have been relatively easy, if I could have caught it completely unawares. However, I doubt that was ever very likely given that it must have been suspicious to come here in the first place and is almost certainly completely out of the question now.
"What about the ships we've cleared?"
— Commander, they haven't been woken up yet. Until I've done that they're useless. And if we wake half of them now they'll have too long to think, too much time to do their own checking around before we need them for the main action. Our project must all happen in a rush, in a state of perceived chaos, panic and urgency, or it cannot happen effectively at all.
There was a pause while the message scrolled along and off the screen, then:
— Commander, I suspect this will be a formality, but I have to ask; do you wish to admit to what has happened here and turn your command over without a fight to the ROU Killing Time? This will probably be our last opportunity to avoid hostilities.
"Don't be ridiculous," the Commander said sourly.
— I thought not. Very well. I shall vector away in the skein-shadow of the rock and try to loop round behind the ROU. Let it enter the defence system. Wait until it's a week inside, no more, and then set everything you have upon it. I urge you again, Commander; turn over the tactical command apparatus to me.
"No," the Commander said. "Leave and do whatever you think will best jeopardise the Culture vessel. I shall allow it to arrive at a point three weeks in and then attack."
— I am on my way. Do not let the ship come within a light week of the store itself, Commander. I know how it will think if it is attacked; this is not some genteel Orbital Mind or a nicely timorous General Contact Unit; this is a Culture warship showing every sign of being fully armed and ready to press matters.
"What, creeping in as it is?" the Commander sneered.
— Commander, you would be amazed and appalled at how few bright sides there are concerning the appearance and behaviour of a warship like this. The fact it's not charging in through the defence screen and metaphorically skidding to a stop is almost certainly a bad sign; it probably means it's one of the wily ones. I repeat; do not wait until it is most of the way into the defence system before opening fire. Assaulted so far inside the defensive field it may well figure that it has no chance of escape and so might as well continue towards you and attack, and at that sort of range it would stand a decent chance of being able to obliterate the entire store and all the ships within it.
The Commander felt almost annoyed that the ship hadn't appealed to his own personal sense of self-preservation. "Very well," he snapped. "Half way in; two weeks."
— Commander, no! That is still too close. If we cannot destroy the ship in the first instant of the engagement it must be presented with a reasonable opportunity to escape, otherwise it may go for glory rather than attempt to extricate itself.
"But if it escapes it can alert the Culture!"
— If our attack is not immediately su
ccessful it will signal elsewhere anyway, assuming it has not already done so. We shall not be able to stop it. In that case, we shall have been discovered… though with any luck that will only put our plans out by a few days. Believe me, the craft's physical escape will not bring the Culture here any quicker than a signal would. You will be putting this entire mission in jeopardy if you allow the vessel to come within more than three light weeks of the store.
"All right!" the Commander spat. He flicked a tentacle over the glowing board of the command desk. The communication link was cut. The Attitude Adjuster did not attempt to re-establish it.
"Your suit, sir," said a voice from behind. The Commander whirled round to find the gelding midshipman — uniformed but not suited — with his space suit in his limbs.
"Oh, at last! the Commander screamed; he flicked a tentacle at the creature's eye stalks; the blow bounced them back off its casing. The gelding whimpered and fell back, gas sac deflating. The Commander grabbed his suit and pulled himself inside it. The midshipman staggered along the floor, half blinded.
The Commander ordered his lieutenant to reconfigure the command desk. From here they could personally control all the systems that had been entrusted by the Culture to the Mind which the traitor ship had killed. The command desk was like an ultimate instrument of destruction; a giant keyboard to play death tunes on. Some of the keys, admittedly, had to be left to trigger themselves once set, but these controls really did control.
The holo screen projected a sphere out towards the Commander. The globe displayed the volume of real space around Pittance, with tiny green, white and gold flecks representing major components of the defence system. A dull blue dot represented the approaching warship, coasting in towards them. Another dot, bright red, on the directly opposite side of the ship store from the blue dot and much closer — though drawing quickly away — was the traitor ship Attitude Adjuster.
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