The State of The Art c-4

by Iain M. Banks

  Not that the Lev was any less prick-like, and anyway, no doubt if the Admiral had been coming down by the tube Kaddus and Cruizell would have told me to shoot it down; holy shit. I shook my head.

  I was holding a long glass of jahl — Vreccis City’s cheapest strong booze. It was my second glass, but I wasn’t enjoying it. The gun chattered on, speaking to the sparsely furnished main room of our apartment. I was waiting for Maust, missing him even more than usual. I looked at the terminal on my wrist; according to the time display he should be back any moment now. I looked out into the weak, watery light of dawn. I hadn’t slept yet.

  The gun talked on. It used Marain, of course; the Culture’s language. I hadn’t heard that spoken for nearly eight standard years, and hearing it now I felt sad and foolish. My birthright; my people, my language. Eight years away, eight years in the wilderness. My great adventure, my renunciation of what seemed to me sterile and lifeless to plunge into a more vital society, my grand gesture… well, now it seemed like an empty gesture, now it looked like a stupid, petulant thing to have done.

  I drank some more of the sharp-tasting spirit. The gun gibbered on, talking about beam-spread diameters, gyroscopic weave patterns, gravity-contour mode, line-of-sight mode, curve shots, spatter and pierce settings… I thought about glanding something soothing and cool, but I didn’t; I had vowed not to use those cunningly altered glands eight years ago, and I’d broken that vow only twice, both times when I was in severe pain. Had I been courageous I’d have had the whole damn lot taken out, returned to their human-normal state, our original animal inheritance… but I am not courageous. I dread pain, and cannot face it naked, as these people do. I admire them, fear them, still cannot understand them. Not even Maust. In fact, least of all Maust. Perhaps you cannot ever love what you completely understand.

  Eight years in exile, lost to the Culture, never hearing that silky, subtle, complexly simple language, and now when I do hear Marain, it’s from a gun, telling me how to fire it so I can kill… what? Hundreds of people? Maybe thousands; it will depend on where the ship falls, whether it explodes (could primitive starships explode? I had no idea; that was never my field). I took another drink, shook my head. I couldn’t do it.

  I am Wrobik Sennkil, Vreccile citizen number… (I always forget; it’s on my papers), male, prime race, aged thirty; part-time freelance journalist (between jobs at the moment), and full-time gambler (I tend to lose but I enjoy myself, or at least I did until last night). But I am, also, still Bahlln-Euchersa Wrobich Vress Schennil dam Flaysse, citizen of the Culture, born female, species mix too complicated to remember, aged sixty-eight, standard, and one-time member of the Contact section.

  And a renegade; I chose to exercise the freedom the Culture is so proud of bestowing upon its inhabitants by leaving it altogether. It let me go, even helped me, reluctant though I was (but could I have forged my own papers, made all the arrangements by myself? No, but at least, after my education into the ways of the Vreccile Economic Community, and after the module rose, dark and silent, back into the night sky and the waiting ship, I have turned only twice to the Culture’s legacy of altered biology, and not once to its artefacts. Until now; the gun rambles on). I abandoned a paradise I considered dull for a cruel and greedy system bubbling with life and incident; a place I thought I might find… what? I don’t know. I didn’t know when I left and I don’t know yet, though at least here I found Maust, and when I am with him my searching no longer seems so lonely.

  Until last night that search still seemed worthwhile. Now Utopia sends a tiny package of destruction, a casual, accidental message.

  Where did Kaddus and Cruizell get the thing? The Culture guards its weaponry jealously, even embarrassedly. You can’t buy Culture weapons, at least not from the Culture. I suppose things go missing though; there is so much of everything in the Culture that objects must be mislaid occasionally. I took another drink, listening to the gun, and watching that watery, rainy-season sky over the rooftops, towers, aerials, dishes and domes of the Great City. Maybe guns slip out of the Culture’s manicured grasp more often than other products do; they betoken danger, they signify threat, and they will only be needed where there must be a fair chance of losing them, so they must disappear now and again, be taken as prizes.

  That, of course, is why they’re built with inhibiting circuits which only let the weapons work for Culture people (sensible, non-violent, non-acquisitive Culture people, who of course would only use a gun in self-defence, for example, if threatened by some comparative barbarian… oh the self-satisfied Culture: its imperialism of smugness). And even this gun is antique; not obsolescent (for that is not a concept the Culture really approves of — it builds to last), but outdated; hardly more intelligent than a household pet, whereas modern Culture weaponry is sentient.

  The Culture probably doesn’t even make handguns any more. I’ve seen what it calls Personal Armed Escort Drones, and if, somehow, one of those fell into the hands of people like Kaddus and Cruizell, it would immediately signal for help, use its motive power to try and escape, shoot to injure or even kill anybody trying to use or trap it, attempt to bargain its way out, and destruct if it thought it was going to be taken apart or otherwise interfered with.

  I drank some more jahl. I looked at the time again; Maust was late. The club always closed promptly, because of the police. They weren’t allowed to talk to the customers after work: he always came straight back… I felt the start of fear, but pushed it away. Of course he’d be all right. I had other things to think about. I had to think this thing through. More jahl.

  No, I couldn’t do it. I left the Culture because it bored me, but also because the evangelical, interventionist morality of Contact sometimes meant doing just the sort of thing we were supposed to prevent others doing; starting wars, assassinating… all of it, all the bad things… I was never involved with Special Circumstances directly, but I knew what went on (Special Circumstances; Dirty Tricks, in other words. The Culture’s tellingly unique euphemism). I refused to live with such hypocrisy and chose instead this honestly selfish and avaricious society, which doesn’t pretend to be good, just ambitious.

  But I have lived here as I lived there, trying not to hurt others, trying just to be myself; and I cannot be myself by destroying a ship full of people, even if they are some of the rulers of this cruel and callous society. I can’t use the gun; I can’t let Kaddus and Cruizell find me. And I will not go back, head bowed, to the Culture.

  I finished the glass of jahl.

  I had to get out. There were other cities, other planets, besides Vreccis; I’d just had to run; run and hide. Would Maust come with me though? I looked at the time again; he was half an hour late. Not like him. Why was he late? I went to the window, looking down to the street, searching for him.

  A police APC rumbled through the traffic. Just a routine cruise; siren off, guns stowed. It was heading for the Outworlder’s Quarter, where the police had been making shows of strength recently. No sign of Maust’s svelte shape swinging through the crowds.

  Always the worry. That he might be run over, that the police might arrest him at the club (indecency, corrupting public morals, and homosexuality; that great crime, even worse than not making your pay-off!), and, of course, the worry that he might meet somebody else.

  Maust. Come home safely, come home to me.

  I remember feeling cheated when I discovered, towards the end of my regendering, that I still felt drawn to men. That was long ago, when I was happy in the Culture, and like many people I had wondered what it would be like to love those of my own original sex; it seemed terribly unfair that my desires did not alter with my physiology. It took Maust to make me feel I had not been cheated. Maust made everything better. Maust was my breath of life.

  Anyway, I would not be a woman in this society.

  I decided I needed a refill. I walked past the table.

  '… will not affect the line-stability of the weapon, though recoil will be increased on p
ower-priority, or power decreased—'

  'Shut up!' I shouted at the gun, and made a clumsy attempt to hit its Off button; my hand hit the pistol’s stubby barrel. The gun skidded across the table and fell to the floor.

  'Warning!' The gun shouted. 'There are no user-serviceable parts inside! Irreversible deactivation will result if any attempt is made to dismantle or—'

  'Quiet, you little bastard,' I said (and it did go quiet). I picked it up and put it in the pocket of a jacket hanging over a chair. Damn the Culture; damn all guns. I went to get more drink, a heaviness inside me as I looked at the time again. Come home, please come home… and then come away, come away with me…

  I fell asleep in front of the screen, a knot of dull panic in my belly competing with the spinning sensation in my head as I watched the news and worried about Maust, trying not to think of too many things. The news was full of executed terrorists and famous victories in small, distant wars against aliens, out-worlders, subhumans. The last report I remember was about a riot in a city on another planet; there was no mention of civilian deaths, but I remember a shot of a broad street littered with crumpled shoes. The item closed with an injured policeman being interviewed in hospital.

  I had my recurring nightmare, reliving the demonstration I was caught up in three years ago; looking, horrified, at a wall of drifting, sun-struck stun gas and seeing a line of police mounts come charging out of it, somehow more appalling than armoured cars or even tanks, not because of the visored riders with their long shock-batons, but because the tall animals were also armoured and gas-masked; monsters from a ready-made, mass-produced dream; terrorizing.

  Maust found me there hours later, when he got back. The club had been raided and he hadn’t been allowed to contact me. He held me as I cried, shushing me back to sleep.

  'Wrobik, I can’t. Risaret’s putting on a new show next season and he’s looking for new faces; it’ll be big-time, straight stuff. A High City deal. I can’t leave now; I’ve got my foot in the door. Please understand.' He reached over the table to take my hand. I pulled it away.

  'I can’t do what they’re asking me to do. I can’t stay. So I have to go; there’s nothing else I can do.' My voice was dull. Maust started to clear away the plates and containers, shaking his long, graceful head. I hadn’t eaten much; partly hangover, partly nerves. It was a muggy, enervating mid-morning; the tenement’s conditioning plant had broken down again.

  'Is what they’re asking really so terrible?' Maust pulled his robe tighter, balancing plates expertly. I watched his slim back as he moved to the kitchen. 'I mean, you won’t even tell me. Don’t you trust me?' His voice echoed.

  What could I say? That I didn’t know if I did trust him? That I loved him but: only he had known I was an outworlder. That had been my secret, and I’d told only him. So how did Kaddus and Cruizell know? How did Bright Path know? My sinuous, erotic, faithless dancer. Did you think because I always remained silent that I didn’t know of all the times you deceived me?

  'Maust, please; it’s better that you don’t know.'

  'Oh,' Maust laughed distantly; that aching, beautiful sound, tearing at me. 'How terribly dramatic. You’re protecting me. How awfully gallant.'

  'Maust, this is serious. These people want me to do something I just can’t do. If I don’t do it they’ll… they’ll at least hurt me, badly. I don’t know what they’ll do. They… they might even try to hurt me through you. That was why I was so worried when you were late; I thought maybe they’d taken you.'

  'My dear, poor Wrobbie,' Maust said, looking out from the kitchen, 'it has been a long day; I think I pulled a muscle during my last number, we may not get paid after the raid — Stelmer’s sure to use that as an excuse even if the filth didn’t swipe the takings — and my ass is still sore from having one of those queer-bashing pigs poking his finger around inside me. Not as romantic as your dealings with gangsters and baddies, but important to me. I’ve enough to worry about. You’re overreacting. Take a pill or something; go back to sleep; it’ll look better later.' He winked at me, disappeared. I listened to him moving about in the kitchen. A police siren moaned overhead. Music filtered through from the apartment below.

  I went to the door of the kitchen. Maust was drying his hands. 'They want me to shoot down the starship bringing the Admiral of the Fleet back on Ninthday,' I told him. Maust looked blank for a second, then sniggered. He came up to me, held me by the shoulders.

  'Really? And then what? Climb the outside of the Lev and fly to the sun on your magic bicycle?' He smiled tolerantly, amused. I put my hands on his and removed them slowly from my shoulders.

  'No. I just have to shoot down the ship, that’s all. I have… they gave me a gun that can do it.' I took the gun from the jacket. He frowned, shaking his head, looked puzzled from a second, then laughed again.

  'With that, my love? I doubt you could stop a motorized pogo-stick with that little—'

  'Maust, please; believe me. This can do it. My people made it and the ship… the state has no defence against something like this.'

  Maust snorted, then took the gun from me. Its lights flicked off. 'How do you switch it on?' He turned it over in his hand.

  'By touching it; but only I can do it. It reads the genetic make-up of my skin, knows I am Culture. Don’t look at me like that; it’s true. Look.' I showed him. I had the gun recite the first part of its monologue and switched the tiny screen to holo. Maust inspected the gun while I held it.

  'You know,' he said after a while, 'this might be rather valuable.'

  'No, it’s worthless to anyone else. It’ll only work for me, and you can’t get round its fidelities; it’ll deactivate.'

  'How… faithful,' Maust said, sitting down and looking steadily at me. 'How neatly everything must be arranged in your "Culture". I didn’t really believe you when you told me that tale, did you know that, my love? I thought you were just trying to impress me. Now I think I believe you.'

  I crouched down in front of him, put the gun on the table and my hands on his lap. 'Then believe me that I can’t do what they’re asking, and that I am in danger; perhaps we both are. We have to leave. Now. Today or tomorrow. Before they think of another way to make me do this.'

  Maust smiled, ruffled my hair. 'So fearful, eh? So desperately anxious.' He bent, kissed my forehead. 'Wrobbie, Wrobbie; I can’t come with you. Go if you feel you must, but I can’t come with you. Don’t you know what this chance means to me? All my life I’ve wanted this; I may not get another opportunity. I have to stay, whatever. You go; go for as long as you must and don’t tell me where you’ve gone. That way they can’t use me, can they? Get in touch through a friend, once the dust has settled. Then we’ll see. Perhaps you can come back; perhaps I’ll have missed my big chance anyway and I’ll come to join you. It’ll be all right. We’ll work something out.'

  I let my head fall to his lap, wanting to cry. 'I can’t leave you.'

  He hugged me, rocking me. 'Oh, you’ll probably find you’re glad of the change. You’ll be a hit wherever you go, my beauty; I’ll probably have to kill some knife-fighter to win you back.'

  'Please, please come with me,' I sobbed into his gown.

  'I can’t, my love, I just can’t. I’ll come to wave you goodbye, but I can’t come with you.'

  He held me while I cried; the gun lay silent and dull on the table at his side, surrounded by the debris of our meal.

  I was leaving. Fire escape from the flat just before dawn, over two walls clutching my travelling bag, a taxi from General Thetropsis Avenue to Intercontinental Station… then I’d catch a Railtube train to Bryme and take the Lev there, hoping for a standby on almost anything heading Out, either trans or inter. Maust had lent me some of his savings, and I still had a little high-rate credit left; I could make it. I left my terminal in the apartment. It would have been useful, but the rumours are true; the police can trace them, and I wouldn’t put it past Kaddus and Cruizell to have a tame cop in the relevant department.

&nb
sp; The station was crowded. I felt fairly safe in the high, echoing halls, surrounded by people and business. Maust was coming from the club to see me off; he’d promised to make sure he wasn’t followed. I had just enough time to leave the gun at Left Luggage. I’d post the key to Kaddus, try to leave him a little less murderous.

  There was a long queue at Left Luggage; I stood, exasperated, behind some naval cadets. They told me the delay was caused by the porters searching all bags and cases for bombs; a new security measure. I left the queue to go and meet Maust; I’d have to get rid of the gun somewhere else. Post the damn thing, or even just drop it in a waste bin.

  I waited in the bar, sipping at something innocuous. I kept looking at my wrist, then feeling foolish. The terminal was back at the apartment; use a public phone, look for a clock. Maust was late.

  There was a screen in the bar, showing a news bulletin. I shook off the absurd feeling that somehow I was already a wanted man, face liable to appear on the news broadcast, and watched today’s lies to take my mind off the time.

  They mentioned the return of the Admiral of the Fleet, due in two days. I looked at the screen, smiling nervously. Yeah, and you’ll never know how close the bastard came to getting blown out of the skies. For a moment or two I felt important, almost heroic.

  Then the bombshell; just a mention — an aside, tacked on, the sort of thing they’d have cut had the programme been a few seconds over — that the Admiral would be bringing a guest with him; an ambassador from the Culture. I choked on my drink.

  Was that who I’d really have been aiming at if I’d gone ahead?

  What was the Culture doing anyway? An ambassador? The Culture knew everything about the Vreccile Economic Community, and was watching, analyzing; content to leave ill enough alone for now. The Vreccile people had little idea how advanced or widely spread the Culture was, though the court and Navy had a fairly good idea. Enough to make them slightly (though had they known it, still not remotely sufficiently) paranoid. What was an ambassador for?