Excession c-5

by Iain M. Banks

  "I told you who sent me," she said, her voice cold. "A Mind. With the help… well, it looks more like collusion now, actually," she said with an insincere smile, "of my home world's Mind." She took a deep breath, then set her lips in as tight a line as their fullness would permit. "I had my own warship for grief's sake," she said bitterly, addressing the stars on the screen ahead of them. "Is it any wonder I thought it was all SC-arranged?"

  She glanced back at the silent drone, then looked at him again.

  "Now we're told our ship's fucked off and we've to keep quiet about where we are. And the sort of trouble we had getting you off Tier…" She shook her head. "Looked like SC to me… not that I know that much, but the machine thinks so too," she said, jerking her head to indicate the drone again. She looked him down and up. "Wish we'd left you there now."

  "Well, so do I," he said, trying to sound reasonable.

  She'd got to Tier a few days before him, sent to look for him, in effect given a blank cheque and yet not able to find out where he was the easy way, through just asking; hence the business with the pondrosaur. Which made sense if it wasn't Special Circumstances which had sent her, because it was SC who had been looking after him on Tier, and why would they be trying to kidnap him from themselves? And yet she'd had her own warship, apparently, and been given the intelligence that had led her to Tier to intercept him in the first place; information SC would naturally restrict to a small number of trusted Minds. Mystifying.

  "So," she said. "What exactly were you supposed to be doing after you left Tier, or was this rather pathetic attempt to reclaim your lost youth by trying to seduce women who looked like an old flame the totality of your mission?"

  He smiled as tolerantly as he could. "Sorry," he said. "I can't tell you."

  Her eyes narrowed further. "You know," she said, "they might just ask us to throw you outboard."

  He allowed himself to sit back, looking surprised and hurt. A little shiver of real fear did make itself felt in his guts. "You wouldn't, would you?" he asked.

  She looked forward at the stars again, eyebrows gathered, mouth set in a down-turned line. "No," she admitted, "but I'd enjoy thinking about it."

  There was silence for a while. He was conscious of her breathing, though he looked in vain at the attractively sculpted chest of her suit for any sign of movement. Suddenly, her foot clunked down on the carpet beneath her jewel-encrusted boot. "What were you supposed to be doing?" she demanded angrily, turning to face him. "Why did they want you? Fuck it, I've told you why I was there. Come on; tell me."

  "I'm sorry," he sighed. She was already starting to blush with anger. Oh no, here we go, he thought. Tantrum time again.

  Then the drone jerked up into the air behind them and something flashed round the edges of the module's screen.

  "Hello in there," said a large, deep voice, all around them.

  VII

  [stuttered tight point, M32, tra. @4.28.883.4700]

  xGSV Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The

  oLSV Serious Callers Only

  I regret to inform you that I have changed my position concerning the so-called conspiracy concerning the Esperi Excession and the Affront. It is now my judgement that while there may have been certain irregularities of jurisdiction and of operational ethics involved, these were of an opportunistic rather than a conspiratorial nature. Further, I am, as I have always been, of the opinion that while the niceties of normal moral constraints should be our guides, they must not be our masters.

  There are inevitably occasions when such — if I may characterise them so — civilian considerations must be set aside (and indeed, is this not what the very phrase and title Special Circumstances implies?) the better to facilitate actions which, while distasteful and regrettable perhaps in themselves, might reasonably be seen as reliably leading to some strategically desirable state or outcome no rational person would argue against.

  It is my profoundly held conviction that the situation regarding the Affront is of this highly specialised and rare nature and therefore merits the measures and policy currently being employed by the Minds you and I had previously suspected of indulging in some sort of grand conspiracy.

  I call upon you to talk with our fellows in the Interesting Times Gang whom you have — unjustly, I now believe — distrusted, with a view to facilitating an accord which will allow all parties to work together towards a satisfactory outcome both to this regrettable and unnecessary misunderstanding and, perhaps, to the conflict that has now been initiated by the Affront.

  For myself, I intend to go into a retreat for some time, starting immediately from the end of this signal. I shall no longer be in a position to correspond; however, messages may be left for me with the Independent Retreats Council (ex-Culture section) and will be reviewed every hundred days (or thereabouts).

  I wish you well and hope that my decision might help precipitate a reconciliation I devoutly wish will happen.

  [stuttered tight point, M32, tra. @n4.28.883.6723]

  xLSV Serious Callers Only

  oEccentric Shoot Them Later

  Meat. Take a look at the enclosed bullshit from the AOANL'sA (signal enclosed). I almost hope it's been taken over. If this is the way it really feels, I'd feel slightly worse.

  oo

  [stuttered tight point, M32, tra. @4.28.883.6920]

  xEccentric Shoot Them Later

  oLSV Serious Callers Only

  Oh dear. Now we're both really under threat. I'm heading into the Homomdan Fleet Base at Ara. I suggest you seek sanctuary as well. As a precaution, I am distributing locked copies of all our signals, researches and suspicions to a variety of trustworthy Minds with instructions that they only be opened on the event of mV demise. This I also urge you to do. Our only alternative is to go public, and I am not convinced we have sufficient evidence of a non-circumstantial nature.

  oo

  This is despicable. To be on the run from our own kind, our own peer Minds. Meat, am I miffed. Personally I'm running for a nice sunny Orbital (DiaGlyph enclosed). I too have deposited all the facts on this matter with friends, Minds specialising in archiving and the more reliable news services (I agree we cannot yet bruit our suspicions abroad; there probably never was a proper moment for that, but if there was, the war has negated its relevance), as well as the Sleeper Service, in what has become my daily attempt to contact it. Who knows? Another opportunity may present itself once the dust has cleared from around the Excession — if it ever does; if there is anyone left to witness it.

  Oh well; it's out of our fields now.

  Best of luck, like they say.

  VIII

  The avatar Amorphia moved one of its catapults forward an octagon, in front of the woman's leading tower; the noise of solid wooden wheels rumbling and squeaking along on equally solid axles, and of lashed-together wooden spars and planks flexing and creaking, filled the room. A curious smell which might have been wood rose gently from the board-cube.

  Dajeil Gelian sat forward in her fabulously sculpted chair, one hand absently tapping her belly gently, the other at her mouth. She sucked at one finger, her brows creased in concentration. She and Amorphia sat in the main room of her new accommodation aboard the GCU Jaundiced Outlook, which had been restructured to mimic precisely the lay-out of the tower she had lived in for nearly forty years. The big, round room, capped by its transparent dome, resounded — between the sound effects produced by the game-cube — to the noise of rain. The surrounding screens showed recordings of the creatures Dajeil had studied, swum and floated with during most of those four decades. All around, the woman's collected curios and mementoes were placed and set just where thev had been in the tower by its lonely sea. In the broad grate, a log fire crackled exuberantly.

  Dajeil thought for a while, then took a cavalarian and shifted it across the board to the noise of thundering hooves and the smell of sweat. It came to a halt by a baggage train undefended save for some irregulars.

  Amorphia, sat b
lackly folded on a small stool on the other side of the board, went very still. Then it moved an Invisible.

  Dajeil looked round the board, trying to work out what all the avatar's recent Invisible moves were leading up to. She shrugged; the cavalry piece took the irregulars almost without loss, to the sound of iron clashing on iron and screams, and the smell of blood.

  Amorphia made another Invisible move.

  Nothing happened for a moment. Then there was an almost subsonic rumbling sound. Dajeil's tower collapsed, sinking through the octagon in the board in a convincing-looking cloud of dust and the floor-shaking sound of grinding, crunching rocks. And more screams. A lot of the important moves seemed to be accompanied by those. A smell of turned-over earth and stone-dust filled the air.

  Amorphia looked up almost guiltily. "Sappers," it said, and shrugged.

  Dajeil cocked one eyebrow. "Hmm," she said. She surveyed the new situation. With the tower gone, the way lay open to her heartland. It didn't look good. "Think I should sue for peace?" she asked.

  "Shall I ask the ship?" the avatar asked.

  Dajeil sighed. "I suppose so," she sighed.

  The avatar glanced down at the board again. It looked up. "Seven-eighths chance it would go to me," the avatar told the woman.

  She sat back in the great chair. "It's yours, then," she said. She leant forward briefly and picked up another tower. She studied it. The avatar sat back, looking moderately pleased with itself. "Are you happy here, Dajeil?" it asked.

  "Thank you, yes," she replied. She returned her attention to the miniature tower-piece held in her fingers. She was silent for a while, then said, "So. What is going to happen, Amorphia? Can you tell me yet?"

  The avatar gazed steadily at the woman. "We are heading very quickly towards the war zone," it said in a strange, almost childish voice. Then it sat forward, inspecting her closely. "War zone?" Dajeil said, glancing at the board. "There is a war," the avatar confirmed, nodding. It assumed a grim expression.

  "Why? Where? Between whom?"

  "Because of a thing called an excession. Around the place where we are heading. Between the Culture and the Affront." It went on to explain a little of the background.

  Dajeil turned the little tower-model over and over in her hands, frowning at it. Eventually she asked, "Is this Excession thing really as important as everybody seems to think?"

  The avatar looked thoughtful for just a moment, then it spread its arms and shrugged. "Does it really matter?" it said.

  The woman frowned again, not understanding. "Doesn't it matter more than anything?"

  It shook its head. "Some things mean too much to matter," it said. It stood up and stretched. "Remember, Dajeil," it told her, "you can leave at any point. This ship will do as you wish."

  "I'll stick around for now," she told it. She looked briefly up at it. "When-?"

  "A couple of days," it told her. "All being well." It stood looking down at her for a while, watching her turn the small tower over and over in her fingers. Then it nodded and turned and quietly walked out of the room.

  She hardly noticed it go. She leant forward and placed the small tower on an octagon towards the rear margin of the board, on a region of shore bordering the hem of blue that was supposed to represent the sea, near where, a few moves earlier, a ship-piece of Amorphia's had landed a small force which had established a bridge-head. She had never placed a tower in such a position, in all their games. The board interpreted the move with the sound of screams once more, but this time the screams were the plaintive, plangent calls of sea birds calling out over the sound of heavy, pounding surf. A sharply briny odour filled the air above the board cube and she was back there, back then, with the sound of the sea birds and the smell of the dashing wild sea tangled in her hair, and the growing child continually heavy and sporadically lively, almost violent with its sudden, startling kicks, in her belly.

  She sat cross-legged on the pebble shore, the tower at her back, the sun a great round red shield of fire plunging into the darkly unruly sea and throwing a blood-coloured curtain across the line of the cliffs a couple of kilometres inland. She gathered her shawl about her and ran a hand through her long black hair as best she could. It stuck, held up by knots. She didn't try to pull them out; she'd rather look forward to the long, slow process of having them combed and cajoled and carefully teased out, later in the evening, by Byr.

  Waves crashed on the shingle and rocks of the shore to either side of her in great sighing, soughing intakings of what sounded like the breath of some great sea creature, a gathering, deepening sound that ended in the small moment of half-silence before each great wave fell and burst against the tumbled, growling slope of rocks and stones, pushing and pulling and rolling the giant glistening pebbles in thudding concussions of water forcing its way amongst their spaces while the rocks slid and smacked and cracked against each other.

  Directly in front of her, where there was a raised shelf of rock just under the surface of the sea, the waves breaking on the shallower slope in front of her were smaller, almost friendlier, and the main force of the grumbling, swelling ocean was met fifty metres out at a rough semicircle marked by a line of frothing surf.

  She clasped her hands palm up on her lap, beneath the bulge of her belly, and closed her eyes. She breathed deeply, the ozone and the brine sharp in her nostrils, connecting her to the sea's salty restlessness, making her, in her mind, again part of its great fluid coalescing of constancy and changefulness, imbuing her thoughts with something of that heaving, sheltering vastness, that world-cleaving cradle of layered, night-making depth.

  Inside her mind, in the semi-trance she now assumed, she stepped smilingly down through her own fluid layers of protection and conformation, to where her baby lay, healthy and growing, half awake, half asleep, wholly beautiful.

  Her own genetically altered body gently interrogated the placental processes protecting the joined but subtly different chemistries and inheritance of her child's body from her own immune system and carefully, fairly managing the otherwise selfishly voracious demands the baby made upon her body's resources of blood, sugars, proteins, minerals and energy.

  The temptation was always to tamper, to fiddle with the settings that regulated everything, as though by such meddling one proved how carefully painstaking and watchful one was being, but she always resisted, content that there were no warning signs, no notice that some imbalance was threatening either her health or that of the fetus and happy to leave the body's own systemic wisdom to prevail over the brain's desire to intervene.

  Shifting the focus of her concentration, she was able to use another designed-in sense no creature from any part of her typically distributed Cultural inheritance had ever possessed to look upon her soon-to-be child, modelling its shape in her mind from the information provided by a subset of specialised organisms swimming in the as yet unbroken water surrounding the fetus. She saw it; hunched and curled in an orbed spectrum of smooth pinks, crouched round its umbilical link with her as though it was concentrating on its supply of blood, trying to increase its flow-rate or nutritional saturation.

  She marvelled at it, as she always did; at its bulbously headed beauty, at its strange air of blankly formless intensity. She counted its fingers and toes, inspected the tightly closed eyelids, smiled at the tiny budded cleft that spoke of the cells" unprompted selection of congenital femaleness. Half her, half something strange and foreign. A new collection of matter and information to present to the universe and to which it in turn would be presented; different, arguably equal parts of that great ever-repetitive, ever-changing jurisdiction of being.

  Reassured that all was well, she left the dimly aware being to continue its purposeful, unthinking growth, and returned to the part of the real world where she was sitting on the pebbled beach and the waves fell loud and foaming amongst the tumbled, rumbling rocks.

  Byr was there when she opened her eyes, standing knee-deep in the small waves just in front of her, wet-suited, golden ha
ir damply straggled in long ringlets, face dark against the display of ruddy sunset behind, found just in the act of taking off the suit's face-mask.

  "Evening," she said, smiling.

  Byr nodded and splashed up out of the water, sitting down beside her and putting an arm round her. "You okay?"

  She held the fingers of the hand over her shoulder. "Both fine," she said. "And the gang?"

  Byr laughed, peeling off the suit's feet to reveal wrinkled pink-brown toes. "Sk'ilip'k" has decided he likes the idea of walking on land; says he's ashamed his ancestors went out of the ocean and then went back in again as if the air was too cold. He wants us to make him a walking machine. The others think he's crazy, though there is some support for the idea of them all somehow going flying together. I left them a couple more screens and increased some of their access to the flight archives. They gave me this; for you."

  Byr handed her something from the suit's side pouch.

  "Oh; thank you." She put the small figurine in one palm and turned it over carefully with her fingers, inspecting it by the fading red light of the day's end. It was beautiful, worked out of some soft stone to perfectly resemble their idea of what they thought a human ought to look like; naturally flippered feet, legs joined to the knees, body fatter, shoulders slender, neck thicker, head narrower, hairless. It did look like her; the face, for all that it was distorted, bore a distinct resemblance. Probably G'Istig'tk't's work; there was a delicacy of line and a certain humour about the figurine's facial expression that spoke to her of the old female's personality. She held the little figure up in front of Byr. "Think it looks like me?"