“Are we boarding a ship, then, sir?” Holse asked.
“No, this is a habitat,” Hippinse said. “All Culture habitats apart from planets have engines. Have had for nearly a millennium now. So we can move them. Just in case.”
They had come here straight after meeting, back up one of the tubes to the very centre of the little wheel-shaped habitat. They floated again — seemingly weightless — within the narrow but quiet, gently lit and pleasantly perfumed spaces of the habitat’s bulging centre.
Another corridor and some rolling, sliding doors had taken them to this place where there were no windows or screens and the circular wall looked odd, like oil spilled on water, colours ever shifting. It appeared soft somehow, but — when Ferbin touched the surface — felt hard as iron, though strangely warm. A small, floating cylindrical object had accompanied Djan Seriy. It looked rather like a plain-sword handle with no sword attached. It had produced five more little floating things no bigger than a single joint in one of Ferbin’s smallest fingers. These had started to glow as they’d entered the corridor and were now their only source of light.
The section of corridor they were floating in — he, Holse, Hippinse and Djan Seriy — was perhaps twenty metres long and blank at one end. Ferbin watched as the doorway they had entered by closed off and slid in towards them.
“Inside an engine?” Ferbin said, glancing at Djan Seriy. The massive plug of door continued to slide down the corridor towards them. A glittering silver sphere the size of a man’s head appeared at the far end of the ever-shortening tube. It started flickering.
Djan Seriy took his hand. “It is not an engine relying on any sort of compression,” she told him. She nodded at the still slowly advancing end of the corridor. “That is not a piston. It is part of the engine unit which slid out to allow us to enter here and is now sliding back in to provide us with privacy. That thing at the other end” — she indicated the pulsing silvery sphere — “is removing some of the air at the same time so that the pressure in here remains acceptable. All to the purpose of letting us speak without being overheard.” She squeezed his hand, glanced around. “It is hard to explain, but where we are now exists in a manner that makes it impossible for the Morthanveld to eavesdrop upon us.”
“The engine exists in four dimensions,” Hippinse told Ferbin. “Like a Shellworld. Closed, even to a ship.”
Ferbin and Holse exchanged looks.
“As I said,” Djan Seriy told them. “Hard to explain.” The wall had stopped moving towards them. They were now floating in a space perhaps two metres in diameter and five long. The silvery sphere had stopped pulsing.
“Ferbin, Mr Holse,” Djan Seriy said, sounding formal. “You’ve met Mr Hippinse. This object here is the drone Turminder Xuss.” She nodded at the floating sword handle.
“Pleased to meet you,” it said.
Holse stared at it. Well, he supposed this was no more strange than some of the Oct and Nariscene things they’d been treating as rational, talk-to-able persons since before they’d even left Sursamen. “Good-day,” he said. Ferbin made a throat-clearing grunt that might have been a similar greeting.
“Think of it as my familiar,” Djan Seriy said, catching the look on Ferbin’s face.
“You’re some sort of wizardess, then, ma’am?” Holse asked.
“You might say that, Mr Holse. Now.” Djan Seriy glanced at the silvery sphere and it disappeared. She looked at the floating sword handle. “We are thoroughly isolated and we are all free of any devices that might report anything that happens here. We are, for the moment, existing on the air we have around us, so let’s not waste words. Ferbin,” she said, looking at him. “Briefly, if you would, what brings you here?”
* * *
The silvery sphere came back before he was finished. Even keeping it as succinct as he could, Ferbin’s account had taken a while. Holse had filled in parts, too. The air had grown stuffy and very warm. Ferbin had had to loosen his clothing as he told his story, and Holse was sweating. Hippinse and Djan Seriy looked unbothered.
Djan Seriy held up her hand to stop Ferbin a moment before the sphere appeared. Ferbin had assumed she could summon it at will, though later he discovered that she was just very good at counting time in her head and knew when it would reappear. The air cooled and freshened, then the sphere disappeared again. His sister nodded and Ferbin completed his tale.
“Oramen still lived, last I heard,” she said, once he had finished. She looked stern, Ferbin thought; the wise, knowing smile that had played across her face was gone now, her jaw set in a tight line, lips compressed. Her reaction to the manner of their father’s death had been expressed at first not in words but in a brief widening of her eyes, then gaze narrowing. It was so little in a way, and yet Ferbin had the impression he had just set something unstoppable, implacable in motion. She had, he realised, become formidable. He remembered how solid and strong she had felt, and was glad she was on his side. “Tyl Loesp really did this?” she said suddenly, looking at him directly, almost fiercely.
Ferbin felt a terrible pressure from those clear, startlingly dark eyes. He felt himself gulp as he said, “Yes. On my life.”
She continued to study him for a moment longer, then relaxed a little, looking down and nodding. She glanced at the thing she had called a drone and frowned briefly, then looked down again. Djan Seriy sat cross-legged in her long blue shift, floating effortlessly, as did the black-clad Hippinse. Ferbin and Holse just floated feeling ungainly, limbs spread so that when they bumped into the sides they could fend themselves off again. Ferbin felt odd in the absence of gravity; puffed up, as though his face was flushed.
He studied his sister while — he guessed — she thought. There was an almost unnatural stillness about her, a sense of immovable solidity beyond the human.
Djan Seriy looked up. “Very well.” She nodded at Hippinse. “Mr Hippinse here represents a ship that should be able to get us back to Sursamen with some dispatch.” Ferbin and Holse looked at the other man.
Hippinse turned his smile from them to Djan Seriy. “At your disposal, dear lady,” he said. A little oilily, Ferbin thought. He had decided he did not like the fellow, though his new calmness was welcome.
“I think we have little choice but to take this offered help, and ship,” Djan Seriy said. “Our urgencies multiply.”
“Happy to be of service,” Hippinse said, still smiling annoyingly.
“Ferbin,” Djan Seriy said, leaning towards him, “Mr Holse; I was returning home anyway, having heard of our father’s death, though of course not of its manner. However, Mr Hippinse brought news regarding the Oct which has meant that I’ve been asked to make my visit what you might call an officially authorised one. One of Mr Hippinse’s colleagues contacted me earlier with an offer of help. I turned that first offer down but on arrival here I discovered a message from those one might term my employers asking me to take a professional interest in events on Sursamen, so I have had to change my mind.” She glanced at Hippinse, who grinned, first at her, then at the two Sarl men. “My employers have even seen fit to send a representation of my immediate superior to the ship to assist in planning the mission,” she added.
A personality construct of Jerle Batra had been emplaced within the Liveware Problem’s Mind. If that wasn’t a sign that the ship was a secret asset of SC, she didn’t know what would be, though they were still denying this officially.
“Something may be amiss on Sursamen,” Djan Seriy said. “Something of potentially still greater importance than King Hausk’s death, however terrible that may be to us. Something that involves the Oct. What it is, we do not know.” She nodded to Ferbin. “Whether this is linked in any way to our father’s murder, we also do not know.” She looked at Ferbin and Holse in turn. “Returning to Sursamen might be dangerous for you both in any event. Returning with me may be much more dangerous. I may attract more trouble than you’d have discovered yourselves and I will not be able to guarantee your safety, or even
guarantee that I can make it my priority. I am going back, now, on business. I shall have duties. Do you understand? You do not have to accompany me. You would be welcome to stay here or be taken to some other part of the Culture. There would be no dishonour in that.”
“Sister,” Ferbin said, “we go with you.” He glanced at Holse, who nodded sharply.
Anaplian nodded. She turned to Hippinse. “How soon can you get us to Sursamen?”
“Five hours in-shuttle to clear Syaung-un and synch the pickup. After that; seventy-eight hours to a stop over Sursamen Surface.”
Djan Seriy frowned. “What can you cut off that?”
Hippinse looked alarmed. “Nothing. That’s already engine-damage speed. Need an overhaul.”
“Damage them a bit more. Book a bigger overhaul.”
“If I damage them any more I risk breaking them altogether and leaving us reduced to warp, or limping in on burst units.”
“What about a crash-stop?”
“Five hours off journey time. But bang goes your stealthy approach. Everybody’ll know we’re there. Might as well spell it out with sunspots.”
“Still, option it.” She frowned. “Bring the ship in afap and snap us off the shuttle. What’s that save?”
“Three hours off the front. Adds one to journey time; wrong direction. But a high-speed Displ—”
“Do it, please.” She nodded briskly. The silvery sphere reappeared. The door that had slid towards them started to slide back again almost immediately. Djan Seriy calmly unfolded herself and looked round the three men. “We speak no more of any of this until we’re on the ship itself, agreed?” They all nodded. Djan Seriy pushed herself away towards the retreating plug of door. “Let’s go.”
* * *
They were being given exactly ten minutes to get themselves together. Ferbin and Holse found a place nearby in the hub section that had a tiny amount of gravity, windows looking out to the vast, slowly twisting coils of the great Nestworld of Syaung-un which surrounded them, and a little bar area with machines that dispensed food and drink. Djan Seriy’s drone thing went with them and showed them how everything worked. When they dithered it made choices for them. They were still expressing amazement at how good it all tasted when it was time to go.
* * *
The Displace may show up. A crash-stop certainly will, the personality construct of Jerle Batra told Anaplian as she watched first the little micro-Orbital 512th Degree FifthStrand, and then Syaung-un itself, shrink in size on the module’s main screen. The two structures shrank at very different rates, for all that the little twelve-seat craft they were in, a shuttle off the Liveware Problem, was accelerating as fast as Morthanveld statutes allowed. 512th Degree FifthStrand disappeared almost immediately, a tiny cog in a vast machine. The Nestworld stayed visible for a long time. At first it seemed almost to grow bigger, even more of it coming into view as the shuttle powered away, before, along with its central star, Syaung-un finally started to shrink.
Too bad, Djan Seriy replied. If our Morthanveld friends are insulted, then so be it. We’ve pitty-patted round the Morthanveld long enough. I grow tired of it.
You assume a deal of authority here, Seriy Anaplian, the construct — currently housed in the shuttle’s AI matrix — told her. It is not for you to make or remake Culture foreign policy.
Djan Seriy settled in her seat at the back of the shuttle. From here she could see everybody.
I am a Culture citizen, she replied. I thought it was entirely my right and duty.
You are one Culture citizen.
Well, in any case, Jerle Batra, if my elder brother is to be believed, my other brother’s life is in severe danger, the cold-blooded murderer of my father — a potential tyrant — is lord of not one but two of Sursamen’s levels, and, of course, the majority of the Oct front-line fleet may be converging on my home planet, for reasons still unclear. I think I am entitled to a little leeway here. Talking of; what is the latest on the Oct ships? The ones that may or may not be heading for Sursamen.
We’re picking up nothing untoward so far, last I heard. I suggest you update when you’re on the Liveware Problem.
You aren’t coming with us?
My presence, even in construct form, might make this look too official. I won’t be coming with you.
Oh. This probably meant the construct was going to be wiped from the matrix of the shuttle, too. It would be a kind of death. The construct didn’t sound too upset about it.
You do trust the Liveware Problem, I assume? she sent.
We have no choice, Batra replied. It is all we have available.
You are still denying it is officially SC?
The ship is what it says it is, Batra told her. However, to return to the subject: the trouble is that we don’t have any ships in the relevant volumes to be able to check on what the Oct are really doing. The Morthanveld and Nariscene do have the ships and don’t seem to have spotted anything either, but then they’re not looking.
Perhaps it is time we told them to start looking.
Perhaps it is. It’s being discussed.
I’m sure. Would this involve lots of Minds blathering?
It would.
Suggest that they blather quicker. One other thing.
Yes, Djan Seriy?
I am switching on all my systems again. All those that I can, at least. Those I can’t reinstigate myself I’ll ask the Liveware Problem to help with. Always assuming, of course, that it is familiar with SC procedures.
You are not being ordered to do this, Batra replied, ignoring what might have been sarcasm.
Yes, I know.
Personally, I think it’s a wise move.
So do I.
* * *
“Didn’t you notice, sir? Never breathed, not for the whole time we were in there, save for when the glittery thing was there. When it wasn’t, she didn’t breathe at all. Amazing.” Holse was speaking very quietly, aware that the lady concerned was only a couple of rows behind them in the shuttle. Hippinse was a row in front, seemingly fast asleep. Holse frowned. “You quite sure she’s really your sister, sir?”
Ferbin only remembered thinking how still Djan Seriy had seemed in the strange tube of corridor back on the little wheel-habitat. “Oh, she is my sister, Holse.” He glanced back, wondering why she’d chosen to sit there, away from him. She nodded at him in a distracted way; he smiled and turned away. “At any rate, I must take her to be,” he told Holse. “As she, in return, must take me at my word regarding the fate of our father.”
* * *
Oh yes, I can feel you doing it, the drone sent. She’d just told the machine she was re-fanging herself, switching back on all those systems that she was able to. Batra happy with that?
Happy enough.
I wonder how “fanged” the Liveware Problem is? the drone sent. The machine was lodged between Anaplian’s neck and the seat. Its appearance had changed again; when they’d arrived on the 512th Degree FifthStrand facility it had morphed its surface and puffed out a little to look like a kind of baton-drone.
Oh, I think it might be quite fanged, Djan Seriy sent. The more I’ve thought about it, the more strange it’s come to seem that the ship described itself as “Absconded”.
That struck me as odd at the time, too, Turminder Xuss sent. However, I put it down to elderly ship eccentricity.
It is an old ship, Anaplian agreed. But I do not think it is demented. However, certainly it is old enough to have earned its retirement. It is a veteran. Superlifters at the start of the Idiran War were the fastest ships the Culture had and the closest things to warships that were not actually warships. They held the line and took a preponderant share of the punishment. Few survived. So it should be an honoured citizen. It should have the equivalent of medals, pension, free travel. However, it is describing itself as Absconded, so maybe it refused to do something it was supposed to do. Like be disarmed.
Hmm, the drone replied, obviously unconvinced. Jerle Batra does not clarify
its status?
Correct. Anaplian’s eyes narrowed as the few immediately available systems she could control just by thinking about it came back on line and started checking themselves. So it has to be an old SC machine. Or something very similar.
I suppose we should hope so.
We should, she agreed. Do you have any more to add?
Not for now. Why?
I’m going to leave you for a bit, Turminder. I should go and talk to my brother.
24. Steam, Water, Ice, Fire
Tyl Loesp found the Boiling Sea of Yakid a disappointment. It did indeed boil, in the centre of the great crater that held it, but it was not really that impressive, even if the resulting steams and mists did indeed “assault the very vault of heaven” (some ancient poet — he was glad he couldn’t remember which one; every forgotten lesson was a victory over the tutors who’d tried so hard, under the express instructions of his father, to beat the knowledge into him). With the wind in the wrong direction all the Boiling Sea had to offer was the sensation of being in a thick bank of fog; hardly a phenomenon worth walking out of doors to sample, let alone travelling for many days through frankly undistinguished countryside.
The Hyeng-zhar was far more striking and magnificent.
Tyl Loesp had seen the Boiling Sea from the shore, from the water in a pleasure steamer (as he was now), and from the air on a lyge. In each case one was not allowed to get too close, but he suspected even genuinely dangerous proximity would fail to make the experience especially interesting.
He had brought what was effectively his travelling court here, establishing a temporary capital in Yakid City to spend a month or so enjoying cooler weather than that afflicting Rasselle, allow him to visit the other famous sites — Yakid was roughly at the centre of these — and put some distance between him and both Rasselle and the Hyeng-zhar. To put distance between him and Oramen, being honest about it.
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