“We believe, and have verified through experiments, that such a scanning process could be carried out without your knowledge. To go any deeper, to discover the memories we will initially hide even from you, this scanning process will have to reveal itself; you will be aware that it is taking place, or at the very least you will know that it has taken place. If that should happen, Major, your mission will end early. You will die.”
Quilan nodded, thinking. “Estodien, has any sort of experiment been carried out on me yet? I mean, have I already lost any memories, whether I agreed to such a thing or not?”
“No. The experiments I mentioned were carried out on others. We are very confident that we know what we are doing, Major.”
“So the deeper I go into my mission the more I’ll know about it?”
“Correct.”
“And the personality, the co-pilot, will it know everything from the start?”
“It will.”
“And it cannot be read by a Culture scan?”
“It can, but it would require a deeper and more detailed reading than that required for a biological brain. Your Soulkeeper will be like your citadel, Quilan; your own brain is the curtain wall. If the citadel has fallen, the walls are either long since stormed, or irrelevant.
“Now. As I said, there is more to tell about your Soulkeeper. It contains, or will contain, a small payload and what is commonly known as a matter transmitter. Apparently it does not really transmit matter, but it has the same effect. I freely confess the importance of the distinction escapes me.”
“And this is in something the size of a Soulkeeper?”
“Yes.”
“Is this our own technology, Estodien?”
“That is not something that you need to know, Major. All that matters is whether it works or not.” Visquile hesitated, then said, “Our own scientists and technologists make and apply astonishing new discoveries all the time, as I’m sure you are aware.”
“Of course, Estodien. What would the payload you mentioned be?”
“You may never know that, Major. At the moment, I myself do not know exactly what it is either, though I will be told in due course, before your mission properly begins. At the moment all I know is something of the effect it will have.”
“And that would be what, Estodien?”
“As you might imagine, a degree of damage, of destruction.”
Quilan was silent for a few moments. He was aware of the presence of the millions of gone-before personalities stored in the substrates around him. “Am I to understand that the payload will be transmitted into my Soulkeeper?”
“No, it was put in place along with the Soulkeeper device.”
“So it will be transmitted from the device?”
“Yes. You will control the transmission of the payload.”
“I will?”
“That is what you are here to be trained for, Major. You will be instructed in the use of the device so that when the time comes you are able to transmit the payload into the desired location.”
Quilan blinked a few times. “I may have fallen a little behind with recent advances in technology, but—”
“I would forget about that, Major. Previously existing technologies are of little importance in this matter. This is new. There is no precedent that we know of for this sort of process; no book to refer to. You will be helping to write that book.”
“I see.”
“Let me tell you more about the Culture world Masaq’.” The Estodien gathered his robes about him and settled himself further into the cramped curl-pad. “It is what they call an Orbital; a band of matter in the shape of a very thin bracelet, orbiting round a sun—in this case the star Lacelere—in the same zone one would expect to find an habitable planet.
“Orbitals are on a different scale from our own space habitats; Masaq’, like most Culture Orbitals, has a diameter of approximately three million kilometres and therefore a circumference of nearly ten million kilometres. Its width at the foot of its containing walls is about six thousand kilometres. Those walls are about a thousand kilometres high, and open at the top; the atmosphere is held in by the apparent gravity created by the world’s spin.
“The size of the structure is not arbitrary; Culture Orbitals are built so that the same speed of revolution which produces one standard gravity also creates a day-night cycle of one of their standard days. Local night is produced when any given part of the Orbital’s interior is facing directly away from the sun. They are made from exotic materials and held together principally by force fields.
“Floating in space in the centre of the Orbital, equidistant from all places on its rim, is the Hub. This is where the AI substrate that the Culture calls a Mind exists. The machine oversees all aspects of the Orbital’s running. There are thousands of subsidiary systems tasked with overseeing all but the most critical procedures, but the Hub can assume direct control of any and all of them at the same time.
“The Hub has millions of human-form representative entities called avatars with which it deals on a one-to-one basis with its inhabitants. It is theoretically capable of running each of those and every other system on the Orbital directly while communicating individually with every human and drone present on the world, plus a number of other ships and Minds.
“Each Orbital is different and each Hub has its own personality. Some Orbitals have only a few components of land; these are usually square parcels of ground and sea called Plates. On an Orbital as broad as Masaq’ these are normally synonymous with continents. Before an Orbital is finished, in the sense of forming a closed loop like Masaq’, they can be as small as two Plates, still three million kilometres apart but joined only by force fields. Such an Orbital might have a total population of just ten million humans. Masaq’ is towards the other end of the scale, with over fifty billion people.
“Masaq’ is known for the high rate of back-up of its inhabitants. This is sometimes held to be because a lot of them take part in dangerous sports, but really the practice dates from the world’s inception, when it was realised that Lacelere is not a perfectly stable star and that there is a chance that it could flare with sufficient violence to kill people exposed on the surface of the world.
“Mahrai Ziller has lived there for the last seven years. He appears to be content to remain on the world. As I say, you will, seemingly, be going there to attempt to persuade him to renounce his exile and return to Chel.”
“I see.”
“Whereas your real mission is to facilitate the destruction of Masaq’ Hub and so cause the deaths of a significant proportion of its inhabitants.”
The avatar was going to show him round one of the manufactories, beneath a Bulkhead Range. They were in an underground car, a comfortably fitted-out capsule which sped beneath the underside of the Orbital’s surface, in the vacuum of space. They had swung half a million kilometres round the world, with the stars shining through panels in the floor.
The underground car line spanned the gap beneath the gigantic A-shape of the Bulkhead Range on a monofil-supported sling-bridge two thousand kilometres long. Now the car was hurtling to a stop near the centre, to ascend vertically into the factory space, hundreds of kilometres above.
~ You all right, Major?
~ Fine. You?
~ The same. Mission target just come through?
~ Yes. How am I doing?
~ You’re fine. No obvious physical signs. You sure you’re all right?
~ Perfectly.
~ And we’re still Go status?
~ Yes, we’re still Go.
The silver-skinned avatar turned to look at him. “You’re sure you won’t be bored seeing a factory, Major?”
“Not one producing starships, not at all. Though you must be running out of places to distract me with,” he said.
“Well, it’s a big Orbital.”
“There’s one place I would like to see.”
“Where’s that?”
“Your place. The Hub.”
The avatar smiled. “Why, certainly.”
Flight
“Are we nearly there yet?
“Uncertain. That which the creature said. It meant?”
“Never mind that! Are we there yet?”
“This is hard to know with certitude. To return to that which the creature said. Is its meaning yet known to you?”
“Yes! Well, sort of! Please, can we go any faster?”
“Not really. We proceed as fast as is possible given the circumstances and therefore I thought our time might be employed by the telling of that which you understand from the creature’s sayings. What would you then say was the import of such?”
“It doesn’t matter! Well, it does, but! Just. Oh. Hurry! Faster! Go faster!”
They were inside the dirigible behemothaur Sansemin, Uagen Zlepe, 974 Praf and three of the raptor scouts. They were squeezing their way down a sinuous, undulating tube whose warm, slime-slick walls pulsed alarmingly every few moments. The air moving past them from ahead stank of rotting meat. Uagen fought the urge to gag. They could not go back to the outside the way they had come; it had been blocked off by some sort of rupture which had trapped and suffocated two of the raptor scouts who’d gone ahead of them.
Instead they had—after the creature had said what it had to Uagen and after an agonisingly long and absurdly relaxed discussion amongst the raptor scouts and 974 Praf—taken another route out of the interrogatory chamber. This route initially led deeper and further into the quivering body of the dying behemothaur.
Two of the three raptor scouts insisted on going ahead in case of trouble, but they were squeezing their way through the convolutions of the twisting passage with some difficulty and Uagen was convinced that he could have gone quicker by himself.
The passage was deeply ribbed underfoot, making it hard to walk without supporting oneself on the wet and quivering walls. Uagen wished he’d brought gloves. His partial IR sense could make out little detail here because everything seemed to be the same temperature, reducing all he could see to a nightmarish monochrome of shadows upon shadows; it was, Uagen thought, worse than being blind.
The raptor scout in the lead came to a fork in the passage and stopped, apparently thinking.
There was a sudden concussive thud from all around them, then a pulse of fetid air swirled over them from behind, momentarily overcoming the flow of air from ahead and producing a still greater stench that very nearly made Uagen throw up.
He heard himself yelp. “What was that?”
“This is unknown,” the Interpreter 974 Praf told him. The head wind resumed. The leading raptor scout chose the lower left-hand passage and shouldered its wings down the narrow cleft. “That way,” 974 Praf said helpfully.
I’m going to die, Uagen thought, quite clearly and almost calmly. I’m going to die stuck inside this rotting, bloating, incinerating ten-million-year-old alien airship, a thousand light years from another human being and with information that might save lives and make me a hero.
Life is so unfair!
The creature on the wall in the interrogatory chamber had lived just long enough to tell him something which also might kill him, of course, if it was true, and even if he did get out of here. From what it had said, the knowledge he now possessed made him a target for people who wouldn’t think twice about killing him or anybody else.
“You’re Culture?” he said to the long, five-limbed thing hanging on the wall in the chamber.
“Yes,” it said, trying to keep its head up as it talked to him. “Agent. Special Circumstances.”
Uagen felt himself go gulp again. He’d heard of SC. He’d dreamt about being a Special Circumstances agent when he’d been a child. Dammit, he’d dreamt about being one when he’d been a young adult. He’d never really imagined he’d meet a real one. “Oh,” he said, feeling infinitely foolish even as he said, “How do you do.”
“You?” the creature said.
“What? Oh! Umm. Scholar. Uagen Zlepe. Scholar. Pleased to. Well. Probably not. Umm. I just. Well.” He was fingering the necklace again. It must sound like he was twittering. “Doesn’t matter. Can we get you down from there? This whole place, well, thing, is—”
“Ha. No. Don’t think so,” the creature said, and might even have been trying to smile. It made a gesture with its head like a backward nod, then grimaced with pain. “Hate to tell you. Only me holding this together, such as it is. Through this link.” It shook its head. “Listen, Uagen. You have to get out.”
“Yes?” At least that was good news. The chamber floor wobbled underfoot as another rumbling detonation shook the puppet-like shapes of the dead and dying attached to the wall. One of the raptor scouts jerked its wings out to steady itself and knocked 974 Praf over. She made a clicking noise with her beak and glared at the offending beast.
“You have communicator?” the creature asked him. “Signal outside the airsphere?”
“No. Nothing.”
The creature grimaced again. “Fuck. Then have to… get away from Oskendari. To ship, habitat; anywhere. Somewhere you can contact Culture, understand?”
“Yes. Why? To say what?”
“Plot. Not a joke, Uagen, not a drill. Plot. Serious fucking plot. Think it’s to destroy… Orbital.”
“What?”
“Orbital. Full Orbital, called Masaq’. Heard of?”
“Yes! It’s famous!”
“They want to destroy it. Chelgrian faction. Chelgrian being sent. Don’t know name. Doesn’t matter. On his way, or will be soon. Don’t know when. Attack happens. You. Get out. Get away. Tell Culture.” The creature suddenly stiffened and bowed out from the wall of the chamber, its eyes closing. A tremendous shudder whipped through the cavity, tearing a couple of the dead bodies from the chamber’s walls to send them falling limply to the quaking floor. Uagen and two of the raptor scouts were thrown onto their backs. Uagen struggled back to his feet.
The creature on the wall was staring at him. “Uagen. Tell SC, or Contact. My name is Gidin Sumethyre. Sumethyre, got that?”
“Got it. Gidin Sumethyre. Umm. That all?”
“Enough. Now get away. Masaq’ Orbital. Chelgrian. Gidin Sumethyre. That’s all. Out now. I’ll try and hold this…” The creature’s head dropped slowly to rest on its chest. Another titanic convulsion shook the chamber.
“That which the creature has just said,” 974 Praf began, sounding puzzled.
Uagen stooped and picked the Interpreter up by her dry, leathery wings. “Get out!” he screeched into her face. “Now!”
They had hit a slightly wider part of the now steeply descending passage when the wind soughing past them from ahead suddenly picked up and became a gale. The two raptor scouts in front of Uagen, their folded wings acting like sails in the howling torrent of air, tried to wedge themselves against the rippling, buckling walls. They began to slide back towards him while Uagen also tried to brace himself against the damp tissues of the tube.
“Oh,” 974 Praf said matter-of-factly from behind and below Uagen. “This development is not an indication of good.”
“Help!” Uagen screamed, watching the two raptor scouts, both still desperately clutching at the passage’s walls, slide closer towards him. He tried to make an X of himself, but the walls were now too far apart.
“Down here,” Interpreter 974 Praf said. Uagen looked down between his feet. 974 Praf was holding onto the ribbed floor, flattened against it as best she could.
He looked up as the nearest raptor scout skidded to within touching distance. “Good idea!” he gasped. He dived. His forehead bounced off the heel spur of the raptor scout. He grabbed at the ribs on the floor as both the raptor scouts slid over him. The wind howled and tugged at his suit, then faded away. He untangled himself from 974 Praf and looked back. A painful-looking tangle of beaks, wings and limbs, the two raptor scouts were wedged further up in the passage with the one which had been bringing up the rear, in the narrow part they had recently forced their way through.
One of the winged creatures clacked something.
974 Praf clacked back, then jerked to her feet and scuttled down the passage. “It is the case that the raptor scouts of the Yoleus will try to remain wedged there and so block the conflagration-feeding wind while we complete the journey which we make to the outside of the Sansemin. This way, Uagen Zlepe, scholar.”
He stared after her retreating back, then scrambled after her. He was getting an odd feeling in his stomach. He tried to place it, then realised. It was like being in an inertia-subject lift or craft. “Are we sinking?” he said, whimpering.
“The Sansemin would appear to be losing height rapidly,” 974 Praf said, bouncing from rib to rib down the steeply pitched floor ahead of him.
“Oh, shit.” Uagen looked back. They were round a bend and out of sight of the raptor scouts. The passage dipped still further; it was now like descending a steeply pitched flight of stairs.
“Ah ha,” the Interpreter said, as the wind tugged at them again.
Uagen felt his eyes widen. He stared ahead. “Light!” he screamed. “Light! Praf! I can see…” His voice trailed away.
“Fire,” the Interpreter said. “Down on the floor, Uagen Zlepe, scholar.”
Uagen turned and flung himself to the steps a moment before the fireball hit. He had time to take one deep breath and try to bury his face in his arms. He felt 974 Praf on top of him, wings extended, covering him. The blast of heat and light lasted a couple of seconds. “Up again,” the Interpreter said. “You first.”
“You’re on fire!” he yelled as she pushed him with her wings and he stumbled down the steps of ribs.
“This is the case,” the Interpreter said. Smoke and flames curled behind her wings as she prodded and pushed Uagen downwards. The wind was growing stronger and stronger; he had to fight against it to make any headway, forcibly walking down the ribbed side of the now almost vertical shaft as though they were somehow back on the level.
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