He could understand that wandering around in here with only ambient radiations to impinge upon the augmented senses might well induce terror if you were of a sensitive nature. They’d found much of what they’d hoped to find; enough for his mission, sufficient to save a thousand or so other souls. Almost certainly not enough to fulfil his hopes. He looked about. It appeared they had removed all the sensory and monitoring equipment they’d been using to inspect the wreck of the privateer Winter Storm.
He felt a shudder through his boots. He glanced up to the side, as the sliced-off bow of the ship was put back in place. Enclosed, in this ship of the dead. At last.
~ Isolation established, it says, said a voice in his head. The machine in his backpack produced a faint vibration.
~ It says the proximity of the suit’s systems are interfering with its instruments. You’ll have to switch your com off. Now it’s saying, Please remove the pack from your back.
~ Will we still be able to talk?
~ You and I will be able to talk to each other, and it’ll be able to talk to me.
~ All right, he said, slipping the pack off. ~ The lights are all right? he asked.
~ They’re just lights, nothing else.
~ Where shall I put—he started to say, but then the pack went light in his hands and began to tug away from him.
~ It wants us to know it has its own motive power, the voice in his head informed him.
~ Oh, yes, of course. Ask it to work fast, would you? Tell it we’re pressed for time because there’s a Culture warship braking towards our position as we speak, coming to-
~ Think that’ll make any difference, Major?
~ I don’t know. Tell it to be thorough, too.
~ Quilan, I think it’ll just do what it has to do, but if you really want me to-
~ No. No, sorry. Sorry, don’t.
~ Look, I know this is hard on you, Quit. I’ll leave you alone for a bit, okay?
~ Yes, thanks.
Huyler’s voice went off-line. It was as though a hiss right on the boundary of hearing had suddenly been removed.
He watched the Navy drone for a moment. The machine was silvery grey and nondescript, like the pack from an ancient space suit. It floated silently across the near-flat floor, keeping about a metre off its surface, heading for the near, bow end of the ship to start its search pattern.
It would be too much to ask, he thought to himself. The chances are too remote. It was a small miracle we discovered anything at all in here, that we are able to rescue those souls from such destruction a second time. To ask for more… was probably pointless, but no more than natural.
What intelligent creature possessed of wit and feeling could do otherwise? We always want more, he thought, we always take our past successes for granted and assume they but point the way to future triumphs. But the universe does not have our own best interests at heart, and to assume for a moment that it does, ever did or ever might is to make the most calamitous and hubristic of mistakes.
To hope as he was hoping, hoping against likelihood, against statistical probability, in that sense against the universe itself, was only to be expected, but it was also almost certainly forlorn. The animal in him craved something that his higher brain knew was not going to happen. That was the point he was impaled upon, the front on which he suffered; that struggle of the lower brain’s almost chemical simplicities of yearning pitched against the withering realities revealed and comprehended by consciousness. Neither could give up, and neither could give way. The heat of their battle burned in his mind.
He wondered if, despite what he’d been told, Huyler could hear any hint of it.
~ All our tests confirm that the construct has been fully recovered. All error-checks have been completed. The construct is now available for interaction and downloading, the sister technician announced in his head. She seemed to be trying to sound more like a machine than machines ever did.
He opened his eyes and blinked into the light for a moment. The headset he wore was just visible from the corners of his eyes. The reclined couch he lay on felt firm but comfortable. He was in the medical facility of the Mendicant Sisters’ temple ship Piety. Across the racks of gleaming, spotless medical gear, near the side of a stained, battered-looking thing about the size of a domestic chill cabinet, the sister technician talking to him was a youngster with a severe expression, dark brown fur and a head which had been partially shaved.
~ I’ll download it now, she continued. ~ Do you wish to interact with it immediately?
~ Yes, I do.
~ A moment, please.
~ Wait, what will it—will he—experience?
~ Awareness. Sight, in the form of a human-compensated feed from this camera. She tapped a tiny wand protruding from the headset she wore. ~ Hearing, in the form of your voice. Continue?
~ Yes.
There was the very faintest impression of a hiss, and then a sleepy-sounding, deeply male voice saying:
~… seven, eight… nine… Hello? What? Where is this? What is this? Where-? What’s happened?
It was a voice that went from slurred sleepiness to suddenly fearful confusion and then on to a degree of control within just a few words. The voice sounded younger than he’d been expecting. He supposed there was no need for it to sound old.
~ Sholan Hadesh Huyler, he responded calmly. ~ Welcome back.
~ Who is that? I can’t move. There was still a trace of uncertainty and anxiety in the voice. ~ This isn’t… the beyond. Is it?
~ My name is Called-to-Arms-from-Given Major Quilan IV of Itirewein. I’m sorry you can’t move but please don’t worry; your personality construct is currently still inside the substrate you were originally stored within, in the Military Technology Institute, Cravinyr, on Aorme. At the moment the substrate you’re inside is aboard the temple ship Piety. It’s in orbit around a moon of the planet Reshref Four, in the constellation of the Bow, along with the hulk of the star cruiser Winter Storm.
~ There you are. Ah. You say you’re a major. I was an admiral-general. I outrank you.
The voice was perfectly under control now; still deep, but clipped and crisp. The voice of somebody used to giving orders.
~ Your rank when you died was greater than mine now, certainly, sir.
The sister technician adjusted something on the console in front of her.
~ Whose are those hands? They look female.
~ Those belong to the sister technician who is looking after us, sir. Your point of view is from a headset she’s wearing.
~ Can she hear me?
~ No, sir.
~ Ask her to take the headset off and show me what she looks like.
~ Sir, are you-?
~ Major, if you would.
Quilan felt himself sigh. ~ Sister technician, he thought. He asked her to do as Huyler had asked. She did, but looked annoyed about it.
~ Sour-looking, frankly. Wish I hadn’t bothered. So, what has been happening, Major? What am I doing here?
~ A great deal has been happening, sir. You’ll be given a full historical briefing in due course.
~ Date?
~ It is the ninth of spring, 3455.
~Just eighty-six years? I expected more, somehow. So, Major, why have I been resurrected?
~ Frankly, sir, I do not entirely know myself.
~ Then, frankly, Major, I think you’d better rapidly put me in touch with somebody who does know.
~ There has been a war, sir.
~ A war? Who with?
~ With ourselves, sir; a civil war.
~ This some sort of caste thing?
~ Yes, sir.
~ I suppose it was always coming. So, am I being conscripted? Are the dead being used as the reserves?
~ No, sir. The war is over. We are at peace again, though there will be changes. There was an attempt to rescue you and the other stored personalities from the substrate in the Military Institute during the war—an attempt I was involved in—but it was only partially
successful. Until a few days ago we thought it had been completely unsuccessful.
~ So; am I being brought back to life to appreciate the manifest glories of the new order? To be re-educated? Tried for past incorrectness? What?
~ Our superiors think that you may be able to help with a mission that lies before both of us.
~ Before both of us? Uh-huh. And what exactly would that mission be, Major?
~ I can’t tell you that at the moment, sir.
~ You seem worryingly ignorant to be the one who’s pulling all the strings here, Major.
~ I’m sorry, sir. I believe that my current lack of knowledge may be a safety procedure. But I would guess that your expertise regarding the Culture could be of some help.
~ My thoughts on the Culture proved politically unpopular when I was alive, Major; that’s one of the reasons I took the offer of being put into storage on Aorme, rather than either die and go to heaven or keep banging my head against a wall in Combined Forces Intelligence. Are you telling me the top brass have come round to my point of view?
~ Perhaps, sir. Perhaps just your knowledge of the Culture would prove useful.
~ Even if it’s eight-and-a-half decades old?
Quilan paused, then expressed something he’d been preparing for some days, since they’d rediscovered the substrate.
~ Sir, considerable thought and great effort went into both retrieving you and preparing me for my mission. I would hope that no part of that thought or effort was either wasted or without point.
Huyler was silent for a moment. ~ There were about five hundred others besides me in that machine in the Institute. Did they all get out, too?
~ The final figure for those stored was nearer a thousand, but yes, sir, they all appear to have come through, though only you’ve been revived so far.
~ All right then, soldier, perhaps you should start by telling me what you do know about this mission.
~ I know only what you might call our cover story, sir. I’ve been induced to forget the real mission goal for the time being.
~ What?
~ It’s a security measure, sir. You’ll be briefed with the full mission details and you won’t forget them. I ought to remember gradually what my mission is anyway, but in the event that something goes wrong, you’ll be the back-up.
~ They frightened somebody might read your mind, Major?
~ I imagine so, sir.
~ Though, of course, the Culture doesn’t do that.
~ So we’re told.
~ Extra precaution, eh? Must be an important mission. But if you can still remember that you have a secret mission in the first place…
~ I am reliably informed that in a day or two I’ll even forget that as well.
~ Well, all very interesting. So, what would that cover story be?
~ I will be on a cultural diplomatic mission to a world of the Culture.
~ A Cultural cultural mission?
~ In a sense, sir.
~ Just an old soldier’s lame joke, son. Relax that frozen sphincter a bit, won’t you?
~ I’m sorry, sir. I need to have your agreement both to undertake the mission and to be transferred into another substrate within myself. That process may take a little time.
~ Did you say another machine inside you?
~ Yes, sir. There is a device inside my skull, designed to look like an ordinary Soulkeeper, but able to accommodate your personality as well.
~ You don’t look that much of a fat-head, Major.
~ The device is no larger than a small finger, sir.
~ And what about your Soulkeeper?
~ The same device functions as my Soulkeeper too, sir.
~ They can make something that clever that small?
~ Yes, sir, they can. There probably isn’t time to go into all the technical details.
~ Well I beg your pardon, Major, but take it from an old soldier that war in general, and limited personnel missions in particular, are often all about the technical details. Plus, you’re rushing me, son. You have the advantage of being at the controls here. I’ve got eighty-six years of catching up to do. I don’t even know that you’re telling me the truth about any of this. It all sounds suspicious as hell so far. And about this being transferred inside you. You trying to tell me I don’t even get my own god-damned body?
~ I’m sorry there wasn’t more time to brief you, sir. We thought we had lost you. Twice, in a sense. When we discovered that your substrate had survived, my mission had already been decided on. And yes, your consciousness would be transferred entirely into the substrate within my body; you would have access to all my senses and we would be able to communicate, though you would not be able to control my body unless I became deeply unconscious or suffered brain death. The only technical detail I know is that the device is a crystalline nanofoam matrix with links to my brain.
~ So I’d just be along for the ride? What son of itch-shit mission profile is that? Who’s putting you up to this, Major?
~ It would be a novel experience for both of us, sir, and one that I would consider a privilege. It is believed that your presence and advice would increase the likelihood of the mission’s success. As to who put me up to it, I was trained and briefed by a team under the command of Estodien Visquile.
~ Visquile? Is that old horror still alive? And made it to Estodien, too. I’ll be damned.
~ He sends his regards, sir. I carry a personal and private communication from him addressed to you.
~ Let me hear it, Major.
~ Sir, we thought you might like a little more time to-
~ Major Quilan, I’m mightily suspicious that I’m being shovelled into something pretty damn dubious here. I’ll be honest with you, youngster; it’s not very likely that I’m going to agree to take part in your unknown mission even after I’ve heard Visquile’s message, but I’m sure as shit not going willingly through your ears, up your ass, or anywhere else unless I do hear what that old whoreboy’s got to say, and I might as well hear it now as later. Making myself clear here?
~ Very, sir. Sister technician; please replay the message from Estodien Visquile to Hadesh Huyler.
~ Proceeding, said the female.
Quilan was left alone with his thoughts. He realised how tense he had become communicating with the ghost of Hadesh Huyler, and deliberately relaxed his body, easing his muscles and straightening his back. Again, his gaze swept over the gleaming surfaces of the medical facility, but what he was seeing was the interior of the hull of the ship they were floating alongside, the privateer cruiser Winter Storm.
He had been aboard the wreck once so far, while they were still trying to locate and extract Huyler’s soul from the thousand or so others stored within the rescued substrate, which they’d located in the wreck with a specially adapted Navy drone. He had been promised that later, if there was time, he would be allowed to go back to the wreck with that drone and attempt to discover any other souls the original sweeps had missed.
Time was running out, though. It had taken time to get permission for what he wanted to do, and it was taking time for the Navy technical people to adjust the machine. Meanwhile they’d been told that the Culture warship was on its way, just a few days out. At the moment the techs were pessimistic that they’d get the drone finished in time.
The image of the wrecked ship’s scooped-out hull seemed fixed in his brain.
~ Major Quilan?
~ Sir?
~ Reporting for duty, Major. Permission to come aboard.
~ Just so, sir. Sister technician? Transfer Hadesh Huyler into the substrate within my body.
~ Directly, the female said. ~ Proceeding.
He had wondered if he’d feel anything. He did: a tingling, then a warmth in a small area on the nape of his neck. The sister technician kept him informed; the transfer went well and took about two minutes. Checking it had gone perfectly took twice that time.
What bizarre fates our technologies dream up for us, he thought as he lay there. H
ere I am, a male, becoming pregnant with the ghost of an old dead soldier, to travel beyond the bounds of light older than our civilisation and carry out some task I have spent the best part of a year training for but of which I presently have no real knowledge whatsoever.
The spot on his neck was cooling. He thought his head felt very slightly warmer than it had before. He might have been imagining it.
You lose your love, your heart, your very soul, he thought, and gain—”a land destroyer!” he heard her say, so falsely, bravely cheerful in his mind, while the rain-filled sky flashed above her and the vast weight pinned him utterly. Some memory of that pain and despair squeezed tears from his eyes.
~ Complete.
~ Testing, testing, said the dry, laconic voice of Hadesh Huyler.
~ Hello, sir.
~ You okay, son?
~ I’m fine, sir.
~ Did that hurt you there, Major? You seem a little… distressed.
~ No, sir. Just an old memory. How do you feel?
~ Pretty damn strange. I dare say I’ll get used to it. Looks like everything checks out. Shit, that female techie doesn’t look any better through a male’s eyes than she does through a camera. Of course; what he could see, Huyler could see. Before he could reply, Huyler added, You sure you’re okay?
~ Positive, sir. I’m fine.
He stood within the hulk of the Winter Storm. The Navy drone went back and forth across the strange, almost flat floor of the wreck, searching in a grid pattern. It passed the hole in the floor where the substrate from Aorme had been wrenched out.
In the two days since they’d found the substrate, Quilan had persuaded the techs that it was worth recalibrating the drone to look for substrates much smaller than the one Huyler had been in, substrates the size of a Soulkeeper, in fact. They had already performed a standard search, but he got them at least to try and look more closely. The Mendicant Sisters on the temple ship had helped with the persuading; any chance to rescue a soul had to be pursued to the utmost.
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