He looked to one side. Hide-covered wall; polished wood. A panel or screen showing what looked like an abstract painting. It was an abstract painting; a famous one. He recognised it. Ceiling black, light studded. In front just the screen. Floor carpeted. Looked much like the inside of a standard Culture module so far. Very quiet. Not that that meant anything. He looked to his right.
There were two more seats like his across the width of the cabin - it was probably a cabin and this was almost certainly a nine or twelve person module; he couldn’t see behind to tell. The seat in the middle, the one nearer him, was occupied by a bulky, rather antique-looking drone, its flat-topped bulk resting on the cushion of the seat. People always said drones looked a bit like suitcases but this one reminded Genar-Hofoen of an old-fashioned sledge. Somehow, it gave the impression that it was staring at the screen. Its aura field was flickering as though it was undergoing rapid mood-changes; mostly it displayed a mixture of grey, brown and white.
Frustration, displeasure and anger. Not an encouraging combination.
The seat on the far side of the cabin held a beautiful young woman who looked just a little like Dajeil Gelian. Her nose was smaller, her eyes were the wrong colour, her hair was quite different. It was hard to tell whether her figure bore any resemblance to the other woman because she was inside what looked like a jewelled space suit; a standard-ish Culture hard suit plated in platinum or silver and liberally plastered in gems that certainly glittered and flashed in the overhead lights as though they were things like rubies, emeralds, diamonds and so on. The suit’s helmet, equally encrusted, rested on the arm of her seat. She wasn’t shackled into place in the seat, he noticed.
The girl bore on her face a frown so deep and severe he imagined it would have made almost anybody else look quite supremely ugly. On her it looked rather fetching. Probably not the desired effect at all. He decided to risk a smile; the open-faced helmet he was wearing ought to let her see it.
‘Umm, hello,’ he said.
The old drone rose and flicked round as if glancing at him. It thumped back into the seat cushion, its aura fields off. ‘It’s hopeless,’ it announced, as though it hadn’t heard what the man had said. ‘We’re locked out. Nowhere to go.’
The girl in the far seat narrowed her fiercely blue eyes and glared at Genar-Hofoen. When she spoke, her voice was like an ice stiletto. ‘This is all your fault, you ghastly piece of shit,’ she said.
Genar-Hofoen sighed. He was losing consciousness once more but he didn’t care. He had absolutely no idea who this creature was, but he liked her already.
It went dark again.
IV
[stuttered tight point, M32, tra. @n4.28.882.4656]
xLSV Serious Callers Only
oEccentric Shoot Them Later
It’s war! Those insane fucks have declared war! They’re mad!
∞
[stuttered tight point, M32, tra. @4.28.882.4861]
xEccentric Shoot Them Later
oLSV Serious Callers Only
I was about to call. I just got the message from the ship I requested attend Pittance. This looks bad.
∞
Bad? It’s a fucking catastrophe!
∞
Did your girl get her man?
∞
Oh, she got him all right, but then a few hours later the Affront High Command announced the birth of a bouncing baby war. The ship Phage sent to Tier was standing a day’s module travel away; it decided it had better things to do than hang around on a mission it had never been very happy with even from the beginning. I think the declaration of war came almost as a relief to it. It promptly announced its position to the Steely Glint and was immediately asked to ship out at maximum speed on some desperate defence mission. Bastard wouldn’t even tell me where. Took me real milliseconds to argue it out of confessing all to the Steely Glint and telling it exactly why it was anywhere near Tier in the first place. I was able to persuade it Phage’s honour rested on it keeping quiet; I don’t think it’ll squeal. I let it know I give serious grudge.
∞
But it was Demilled. Hasn’t it just gone back to Phage for munitioning?
∞
Ha! Demilitarised my backup. Fucker left Phage fully tooled. Phage’s own idea, sneaky scumbag. Always was over-protective. What comes of being that geriatric I suppose. Anyway, the Frank Exchange Of Views is cannoned to the gunwales and itching for a brawl, apparently. Whatever; it has gone. Which leaves our lass and the captive Genar-Hofoen floating in a module nearly a day out of Tier with nowhere to go. Tier is requesting - make that insisting - all Culture and Affront craft and personnel leave it for the duration of the hostilities and nobody’s being allowed in. I’ve tried to find somebody else within range to pick them up but it’s hopeless.
A Tier deep-scan inventory has already identagged their module. The Meatfucker is skimming in a day away and the module can make, oh, all of two hundred lights . . . Guess what happens next. We’ve failed.
∞
So it would appear. Was this the aim and is this now the result of the conspiracy? War with the Affront?
∞
I believe so. The Excession is still the more important matter, but its appearance and the possibilities it may open up have been used by the conspiracy to tempt the Affront into initiating hostilities. Pittance is worse, though.
That Pittance has fallen implies entrapment. It points to treachery. The Killing Time believes there was another Culture or ex-Culture ship there; not one of the stored vessels but another craft, something no less old than the stored vessels, but wiser and more experienced; something that’s been around as long as they, but awake all that time.
It believes that this ship was taking the part of the Pittance Mind when it communicated with it on its approach. I suspect it will prove to be a warship which apparently went Eccentric or Ulterior at some point in the last five hundred years and was - supposedly, not actually - demilitarised by one of the conspirators. I have a list of suspects.
The Killing Time suggests that this ship tricked its way beneath the Pittance Mind’s guard and either destroyed it or took it over. The store was then turned over to the Affront. They now have a ready-made instant battle fleet of Culture warcraft tech generations of development beyond their own ships and just nine days’ journey from the Excession. Nothing we can put in place in the time available can stop them.
For what it’s worth, the Killing Time is making all speed for Esperi. Nine days from now we’ll have the Not Invented Here and the Different Tan from the Gang there. The NIH has two operational Thug class ROUs it’s in the process of cannoning-up, a Hooligan LOU and a Delinquent GOU. Another couple of GSVs should be there too if they aren’t diverted because of the war, with a total of five OUs, two of them Torturer class. Eight of Phage’s Psychopath ROUs are bound for the Excession but the rest are down for defensive duties elsewhere to cope with likely threats from Affront battle units. Even those eight won’t get within punch-throwing range of the Excession until two days after the Affront can be there. Bottom line is there are a total of ten warships of various classes capable of making it to the Excession in time to make a stand against the Affront; enough to hold off the entire Affront navy if that was all we were going to be faced with, but simply not capable of holding back more than an eighth of the ships that could come out of Pittance. If they all go straight to the Excession, it will be theirs.
For the record, all the remaining ship stores are breaking themselves open, but the nearest is over five weeks’ travel away. A gesture, that’s all.
Oh, and a few other Involveds have offered help but they’re all either too weak or too far away. A couple of other barbarics are probably going to declare for the Affront once they’ve stopped scratching their heads and worked out what they might be able to get up to with the Culture’s attention diverted, but they’re even less relevant.
And if we were expecting some well-disposed Elders to step into the nursery and confis
cate all our toys and restore order, it doesn’t look very likely so far; no notice taken, as far as anybody can tell.
∞
So. That just leaves our old friend, currently - possibly, probably, almost certainly - also en route. Wild card? Somehow part of the conspiracy? Have we any more thoughts? Come to that, have you had any reply from it? ∞
None, and no. No offence, but the SS is one of the more unfathomable Eccentrics. Perhaps it thinks the Excession requires Storing, perhaps it intends to ram it at that speed, or attempt to plunge into it and access other universes . . . I don’t know. There is some private issue being played out in this, I believe, and Genar-Hofoen fits in somewhere. I have almost given up thinking about this aspect of affairs. I shall continue my attempts to contact it but I don’t think it’s even looking at its signal files. The point is that the war itself takes precedence, with the Excession prioritised beyond that.
∞
No offence taken. So we are left with the Affront on the cusp of apotheosis or nemesis.
∞
Indeed. Quite how they intend to use these elderly but still potent warships to take control of the Excession one can only hazard at; perhaps they intend surrounding it and charging admission . . . But they have begun a war which - unless they can somehow gain control of the Excession and exploit it - they can only lose. They have a few hundred half-millennium-old warships; capable of inflicting untold damage let loose in a peaceable, un-militarised if relatively un-populated section of the galaxy, certainly, but only for a month or two at most. Then the Culture gathers the force to crush them utterly, and moves on to rip the Affront hegemony to shreds and impose its own peace upon it. There can be no other outcome. Unless the Excession does come into play. Which I doubt.
Maybe it is some sort of projection; maybe its appearance was not fortuitous but planned. This looks unlikely, I know, but everything else about this has been so cunningly put together . . . Whatever; the argument which everybody had thought was lost at the end of the Idiran War is about to be won. The agreement come to then is in the process of being overturned.
I for one am not going to stand for this. We may have failed to frustrate the conspiracy but it will still be possible to work towards the discovery of the guilty parties involved in its planning and implementation, both during and after the hostilities. I intend to copy all my thoughts, theories, evidence, communications and all other relevant documentation to every trusted colleague and contact I possess. If you have any intention of taking part in the course of action I am suggesting, I urge you to do the same and to relay this advice to The Anticipation Of A New Lover’s Arrival.
I intend to pursue the perpetrators of this unnecessary war for as long as it takes until they are brought to justice, and I am aware both that I will no longer be able to do so without them knowing that I am doing so, and that there is no better circumstance to arrange for the jeopardisation of a fellow Mind than in time of war, when blanket secrecies are imposed, warcraft of every sort are loosed, mistakes can be claimed to have been made, deals done, mercenaries hired and old scores settled.
I do not believe I am being melodramatic in this. I will be under terminal threat and so will anybody else who determines to adopt the same course as I. The conspirators have played exceedingly dirty until this point and I cannot imagine they will do other than continue to do so now that their filthy scheme is on the very brink of success.
What do you say? Will you join in this perilous mission?
∞
How I wish that I could persuade myself, never mind you, that you are being melodramatic.
You risk more than I. My Eccentricity might save me. We have gone this far together. Count me in.
Oh, meat, they never said this would happen when they invited me onto the Group and into the Gang . . .
Hmm. I had forgotten how unpleasant the emotion of fear is. This is hateful! You’re right. Let’s get these bastards. How dare they disturb my peace of mind so just to teach some tentacled bunch of backwoods barbarians a lesson!
V
The battle-cruiser Kiss The Blade caught the cruise ship Just Passing Through on the outskirts of the Ekro system. The Culture craft - ten-kilometres of sleek beauty host to two hundred thousand holidaying travellers of umpteen different species-types - hove to as soon as the battle-cruiser came within range but the Affronter vessel put a shot across its bows anyway, just on general principles. The more determinedly assiduous revellers hadn’t believed the announcement about the war anyway, and thought the missile warhead’s detonation which lit up the skies ahead of the ship was just some particularly big but otherwise unimpressive firework.
It had been close. Another hour’s warning and the Culture ship’s hurried reconfiguring and matter-scavenging engine-rebuild would have ensured its escape. But it wasn’t to be.
The two ships joined. In the reception vestibule, a small party of people met a trio of suited Affronters as they emerged from the airlocks in a swirl of cool mists.
‘You are the ship’s representative?’
‘Yes,’ the squat figure at the front of the humans said. ‘And you?’
‘I am Colonel Alien-Befriender (first class) Fivetide Humidyear VII of the Winterhunter tribe and the battle-cruiser Kiss The Blade. This ship is claimed as prize in the name of the Affront Republic according to the normal rules of war. If you obey all our instructions promptly, there is every possibility that no harm will come to you, your passengers or crew. In case you have any illusions concerning your status, you are now our hostages. Any questions?’
‘None that I either can’t guess the answer to or imagine you’d answer truthfully,’ the avatar said. ‘Your jurisdiction is accepted under force of arms alone. Your actions while this situation persists will be recorded. Nothing less than the total destruction of this vessel atom by atom will wipe out that record, and when in due course--’
‘Yes, yes. I’ll contact my lawyers now. Now take me to your best suite fitted out for Affront physiology.’
The girl was indignant with a kind of ferocity probably only somebody from the Peace faction could muster in such a situation. ‘But we’re the Peace faction,’ she protested for the fifth or sixth time. ‘We’re . . . we’re like the true Culture, the way it used to be . . .’
‘Ah,’ Leffid said, grimacing as somebody pushed behind him and forced his chest into the front of the bar. He glanced round, scowling, and ruffled his wings back into shape. The Starboard lounge of the Xoanon was crowded - the ship was crowded - and he could see his wings were going to end up in a terrible shape by the time this was over. Mind you, there were compensations; somebody pushed into the bar and squeezed the Peace faction girl closer to him, so that her bare arm touched him and he could feel the warmth of her hip against his. She smelled wonderful. ‘Now that could be your problem,’ he said, trying to sound sympathetic. ‘Calling yourselves the true Culture, you see? To the Tier Sintricates, and even to the Affront, that could sound, well confusing.’
‘But everybody knows we won’t have anything to do with war. It’s just so unfair!’ She flicked her short black hair and stared into the drug bowl she held. It was fuming too. ‘Fucking war!’ She sounded close to tears.
Leffid judged the time right to put his arm round her. She didn’t seem to mind. He thought the better of hinting that in his own small way he might have helped start the war. Sort of thing some people might be impressed with, but not all.
Besides, he’d given his word, and the Tendency had been rewarded for its tip-off to the Mainland with this very ship, currently engaged in the highly humanitarian task of helping to evacuate Tier habitat of all Temporarily Undesirable Aliens, not to mention earning the Tendency some much-needed cordiality credit with a whole raft of other Involveds and strands of the Culture. The girl sighed deeply and held the drug bowl to her face, letting some of the heavy grey smoke tip towards her exceedingly pretty little nose. She glanced round at him with a small brave smile, her gaze rising over
his shoulder.
‘Like your wings,’ she said.
He smiled. ‘Why, thank you...’ (Damn!) ‘... ah, my dear.’
The professor blinked. Yes, it really was an Affronter floating at the far end of the room, near the windows. Suit like a small, tubby spacecraft, all gleaming knobbly bits, articulated limbs and glistening prisms. The gauzy white curtains blew in around it, letting bright, high-angled sunlight flow in waves across the carpet. Oh dear, was that her underwear draped over a hassock in the Affronter’s shadow?
‘I beg your pardon?’ she said. She wasn’t sure she’d heard right.
‘Phoese Cloathel-Beldrunsa Khoriem Iel Poere da’Merire, you have been deemed the senior human representative on the Orbital named Cloathel. You are hereby informed that this Orbital is claimed in the name of the Affront Republic. All Culture personnel are now Affront citizens (third class). All orders from superiors will be obeyed. Any resistance will be treated as treason.’
The professor rubbed her eyes.
‘Cloudsheen, is that you?’ she asked the Affronter. The destroyer Wingclipper had arrived the day before with a cultural exchange group the university had been expecting for some weeks. Cloudsheen was the ship’s captain; they’d had a good talk about pan-species semantics at the party just the night before. Intelligent, surprisingly sensitive creature; not remotely as aggressive as she’d expected. This looked like him, but different. She had a disquieting feeling the extra bits on his suit were weapons.
‘Captain Cloudsheen, if you please, professor,’ the Affronter said, floating closer. It was directly above her skirt, lying crumpled on the floor. Heavens, she had been messy last night.
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