Consider Phlebas c-1

by Iain M. Banks

  Maybe I should just pack it in; leave. Tell them to shove their war. Trouble is… I like all this…

  She looked at one of her hands, golden brown in a beam of sunlight. She opened and closed it, looking at the fingers. Three… to seven… She thought of an Idiran hand. Depending…

  She looked back, over the shadow-strewn plain towards the distant mountains, and sighed.

  5. Megaship

  Vavatch lay in space like a god's bracelet. The fourteen-million kilometre hoop glittered and sparkled, blue and gold against the jet-black gulf of space beyond. As the Clear Air Turbulence warped in towards the Orbital, most of the Company watched their goal approach on the main screen in the mess. The aquamarine sea, which covered most of the surface of the artefact's ultradense base material, was spattered with white puffs of cloud, collected in huge storm systems or vast banks, some of which seemed to stretch right across the full thirty-five-thousand-kilometre breadth of the slowly turning Orbital.

  Only on one side of that looped band of water was there any land visible, hard up against one sloped retaining wall of pure crystal. Although, from the distance they were watching, the sliver of land looked like a tiny brown thread lying on the edge of a great rolled-out bolt of vivid blue, that thread was anything up to two thousand kilometres across; there was no shortage of land on Vavatch.

  Its greatest attraction, however, was and had always been the Megaships.

  "Don't you have a religion?" Dorolow asked Horza.

  "Yes," he replied, not taking his eyes away from the screen on the wall above the end of the main mess-room table. "My survival."

  "So… your religion dies with you. How sad," Dorolow said, looking back from Horza to the screen. The Changer let the remark pass.

  The exchange had started when Dorolow, struck by the beauty of the great Orbital, expressed the belief that even though it was a work of base creatures, no better than humans, it was still a triumphant testimony to the power of God, as God had made Man, and all other souled creatures. Horza had disagreed, genuinely annoyed that the woman could use even something so obviously a testament to the power of intelligence and hard work as an argument for her own system of irrational belief.

  Yalson, who was sitting beside Horza at the table, and whose foot was gently rubbing the Changer's ankle, put her elbows on the plastic surface beside the plates and beakers. "And they're going to blow it away in four days" time. What a fucking waste."

  Whether or not this would have worked as a subject-changing parry, she did not get a chance to find out, because the mess PA crackled once and then came clear with the voice of Kraiklyn, who was on the bridge: "Thought you might like to see this, people."

  The view of the distant Orbital was replaced by a blank screen onto which there then appeared a message in flashing letters.

  WARNING/SIGNAL/WARNING/SIGNAL/WARNING/SIGNAL/WARNING: ATTENTION ALL CRAFT! VAVATCH ORBITAL AND HUB WITH ALL ANCILLARY UNITS WILL BE DESTROYED REPEAT DESTROYED MARAINTIME A/4872.0001 EXACT (EQUIVALENT G-HUB TIME 00043.2909.401: EQUIVALENT LIMB THREE TIME 09.256.8: EQUIVALENT lDIRTIMERELATIVE QU'URIBALTA 359.0021: EQIVALENT VAVATCHTIME SEG 7TH.4010.5) BY NOVALEVEL HYPER-GRID INTRUSION AND SUBSEQUENT CAM BOMBARDMENT. SENT BY ESCHATOLOGIST (TEMPORARY NAME), CULTURE GENERAL SYSTEMS VEHICLE. TIMED AT A/4870.986: MARAINBASE ALLTRANS… SIGNAL SECTION END… SIGNAL REPETITION NUMBER ONE OF SEVEN FOLLOWS:…………………… WARNING/SIGNAL/WARNING/SIGNAL/WARNING…

  "We just ran through that message shell," Kraiklyn added. "See you later." The PA crackled again, then was silent. The message faded from the screen and the Orbital filled it again.

  "Hmm," Jandraligeli said. "Brief and to the point."

  "Like I said." Yalson nodded at the screen.

  "I remember…" Wubslin said slowly, staring at the band of brilliant blue and white on the screen, "when I was very young one of my teachers floated a little toy metal boat on the surface of a bucketful of water. Then she lifted the bucket by the handle and held me up against her chest with her other arm, so that I was facing the same way she was. She started to go round and round, faster and faster, letting the spin send the bucket out away from her, and eventually the bucket was straight out, the surface of the water in it at ninety degrees to the floor, and I was held there with this great big adult hand across my belly and everything spinning around me and I was watching this little toy boat, which was still floating on the water, even though the water was straight up and down in front of my face, and my teacher said, "You remember this if you're ever lucky enough to see the Megaships of Vavatch."»

  "Yeah?" Lamm said. "Well, they're about to let the fucking handle go."

  "So let's just hope we're not still on the surface when they do," Yalson said.

  Jandraligeli turned to her, one eyebrow up: "After that last fiasco, dear, nothing would surprise me."

  "Easy in, easy out," Aviger said, and the old man laughed.

  The haul from Marjoin to Vavatch had taken twenty-three days. The Company had gradually recovered from the effects of the abortive attack on the Temple of Light. There were a few small sprains and grazes; Dorolow had been blind in one eye for a couple of days, and everybody had been quiet and withdrawn, but by the time Vavatch came into sight they were all starting to get so bored with life on board ship, even with less of them on it, that they were looking forward to another operation.

  Horza kept the laser rifle which kee-Alsorofus had used, and carried out what rudimentary repairs and improvements the CAT's limited engineering facilities would allow him to effect to his suit. Kraiklyn was full of praise for the one he had taken from Horza; it had lifted him out of the worst of the trouble in the hall of the Temple of Light, and, although it had still taken some heavy fire pulses, it was hardly marked, let alone damaged.

  Neisin had said he'd never liked lasers anyway and wouldn't use one again; he had a perfectly good rapid-firing light projectile rifle, and lots of ammunition. He would carry that in future when he wasn't using the Microhowitzer.

  Horza and Yalson had started sleeping together every night in what was now their cabin, the one the two women had occupied. During the long days of the voyage they had grown closer but spoken comparatively little, for new lovers. Both seemed to want it that way. Horza's body had completed its regeneration after its impersonation of the Gerontocrat, and there was no longer any trace or sign of that role left on him. But while he told the Company that he was now the way he had always looked, he had in fact moulded his body to look like that of Kraiklyn. Horza was a little taller and fuller-chested than his neutral normal, and his hair was darker and thicker. His face, of course, he could not yet afford to Change, but under its light-brown surface it was ready. A short trance and he could pass for the captain of the Clear Air Turbulence; perhaps Vavatch would give him the opportunity he needed.

  He had thought long and hard about what to do now that he was part of the Company, and relatively safe, but cut off from his Idiran employers. He could always just go on his own way, but that would let down Xoralundra, whether the old Idiran was alive or dead. It would also be running away from the war, from the Culture and the part he had chosen to play against it. In addition, at first, there was the idea Horza had been toying with anyway, even before he had heard that his next task was to involve going to Schar's World, and that was the idea of returning to an old love.

  Her name was Sro Kierachell Zorant. She was what they called a dormant Changer, one who had no training in and no desire to practise Changing, and had accepted the post on Schar's World partly as a relief from the increasingly warlike atmosphere in the Changers" home asteroid of Heibohre. That had been seven years before, when Heibohre was already within what was generally recognised as being Idiran space, and when many Changers were already employed by the Idirans.

  Horza was sent to Schar's World partly because he was being punished and partly for his own protection. A group of Changers had plotted to fire up the ancient asteroid's power-plants and take it out of Idiran space, make their h
ome and their species neutral again in the war they could see was becoming inevitable. Horza had discovered the plot and killed two of the conspirators. The court of the Academy of Military Arts on Heibohre — its ruling body in all but name — had compromised between popular feeling on the asteroid, which wanted Horza punished for taking other Changers" lives, and the gratitude it felt towards Horza. The court had a delicate task, considering the not wholehearted support the majority of Changers gave to staying where they were and therefore within the Idiran sphere of influence. By sending Horza to Schar's World with instructions to stay there for several years — but not punishing him otherwise — the court hoped to make all concerned feel their own particular view had carried the day. To the extent that there was no revolt, that the Academy remained the ruling force in the asteroid, and that the services of Changers were in demand as never before since the formation of their unique species, the court had succeeded.

  In some ways, Horza had been lucky. He was without friends or influence; his parents were dead; his clan was all but defunct save for him. Family ties meant a lot in the Changer society, and with no influential relatives or friends to speak for him Horza had perhaps escaped more lightly than he had a right to expect.

  Horza cooled his heels on Schar's World's snows for less than a year before leaving to join the Idirans in their fight against the Culture, both before and after it was officially termed a war. During that time he had started a relationship with one of the four other Changers there: the woman Changer Kierachell, who disagreed with almost everything Horza believed, but had loved him, body and mind, despite it all. When he left, he knew it had hurt her much more than it had hurt him. He had been glad of the companionship and he liked her, but he hadn't felt anything like what humans were supposed to feel when they talked of love, and by the time he left he was starting, just starting, to grow bored. He told himself at the time that that was the way life was, that he would only hurt her more in the end by staying, that it was partly for her sake he was leaving. But the expression in her eyes the last time he'd looked into them had not been something he enjoyed thinking about, for a long time.

  He had heard she was still there, and he thought of her and had fond memories; and the more he had risked his life and the more time had elapsed, the more he wanted to see her again; the more a quieter, less dangerous sort of existence appealed to him. He had imagined the scene, imagined the look in her eyes when he came back to her… Maybe she would have forgotten about him, or even be committed to some relationship with the other Changers at the base on Schar's World, but Horza didn't really think so; he thought of such things only as a sort of insurance.

  Yalson made things a little difficult, perhaps, but he was trying not to build too much into their friendship and coupling, even though he was fairly sure it was only those two things to her as well.

  So he would impersonate Kraiklyn if he could, or at least kill him and just take over, and hope he could get round the comparatively crude identity fidelities built into the CAT's computer, or get somebody else to do so. Then he would take the Clear Air Turbulence to Schar's World, rendezvous with the Idirans if he could, but go in anyway, assuming Mr Adequate — the pet name the Changers on the Schar's World base had for the Dra'Azon being which guarded the planet — would allow him through the Quiet Barrier after the Idirans" botched attempt to fool it with a hollowed-out chuy-hirtsi. He would, if at all possible, give the rest of the Company the chance to back out.

  One problem was knowing when to strike at Kraiklyn. Horza was hoping that an opportunity would arise on Vavatch, but it was hard to make definite plans because Kraiklyn didn't seem to have any of his own. He had simply talked of «opportunities» on the Orbital, which were "bound to arise" due to its impending destruction, whenever he had been asked during the journey.

  "That lying bastard," Yalson said, one night when they were about halfway to Vavatch from Marjoin. They were lying together in what was now their cabin, in the darkness of the ship night, in about a half-G on the cramped bedspace.

  "What?" Horza said. "Don't you think he's going to Vavatch after all?"

  "Oh, he's going there all right, but not because there are unknown possibilities for a successful job. He's going for the Damage game."

  "What Damage game?" Horza asked, turning to her in the darkness where her naked shoulders lay on his arm. He could feel their soft down against his skin. "You mean a big game? A real one?"

  "Yeah. The Ring itself. Last I heard it was only a rumour, but it makes more sense every time I think about it. Vavatch is a certainty, provided they can get a quorum together."

  "The Players on the Eve of Destruction." Horza laughed gently. "You think Kraiklyn means to watch or play?"

  "He'll try to play, I suppose; if he's as good as he says he is, they might even let him, as long as he can raise the stake. That's supposed to be how he won the CAT — not off anybody in a Ring game, but it must have been pretty heavy company if they were gambling ships. But I guess he'd be prepared to watch if it came to it. I bet that's why we're all going on this little holiday. He might try and come up with some sort of excuse, or fabricate some op, but that's the real reason: Damage. Either he's heard something or he's making an intelligent guess, but it's so fucking obvious…" Her voice died away, and Horza felt her head shake on his arm.

  "Isn't one of the Ring regulars-?" he said.

  "Ghalssel." Now Horza could feel the light, short-haired head nod against the skin of his arm. "Yeah, he'll be there, if he possibly can be. He'd burn out the motors on the Leading Edge to get to a major Damage game, and the way things have been hotting up in this neck of the woods recently, presenting all those wonderful easy-in, easy-out opportunities, I can't imagine him being far away." Yalson's voice sounded bitter. "Myself, I think Ghalssel's the subject of Kraiklyn's wet dreams. Thinks the guy's a fucking hero. Shit."

  "Yalson," Horza said into the woman's ear, her hair tickling his nose, "one: how does Kraiklyn have wet dreams if he doesn't sleep? And two: what if he has these cabins bugged?"

  Her head turned towards him quickly. "So fucking what? I'm not afraid of him. He knows I'm one of the most reliable people he's got; I shoot straight and I don't fill my pants when it starts getting hot. I also think Kraiklyn's the best excuse for a leader we've got on the ship or are likely to get, and he knows that. Don't you worry about me. Anyway…" He felt her shoulders and head move again, and knew she was looking at him. "You'd settle it up if I got shot in the back, wouldn't you?"

  The thought had never occurred to him.

  "Wouldn't you?" she repeated.

  "Well, of course I would," he said. She didn't move. He could hear her breathing.

  "You would, wouldn't you?" Yalson said. He brought his arms up and took her by the shoulders. She was warm, the down on her skin was soft, and the muscles and flesh underneath, over her slim frame, were strong and firm.

  "Yes, I would," he said, and only then realised that he meant it.

  It was during this time, between Marjoin and Vavatch, that the Changer found out what he wanted to know about the controls and fidelities of the Clear Air Turbulence.

  Kraiklyn wore an identity ring on the small finger of his right hand, and some of the locks in the CAT would work only in the presence of that ring's electronic signature. The control of the ship depended on an audio-visual identity link; Kraiklyn's face was recognised by the craft's computer, as was his voice when he said, "This is Kraiklyn." It was that simple. The ship had once had a retina recognition lock as well, but it had malfunctioned long before and been removed. Horza was pleased; copying somebody's retina pattern was a delicate and tricky operation, requiring, amongst a lot of other things, the careful growth of lasing cells around the iris. It almost made more sense to go for a total genetic transcription, where the subject's own DNA became the model for a virus which left only the Changer's brain and, optionally, gonads — unaltered. That wouldn't be necessary to impersonate Captain Kraiklyn, however.

&nb
sp; Horza found out about the ship's fidelities when he asked the Man for a lesson on how to fly the vessel. Kraiklyn had been reluctant at first, but Horza had not pressed him, and had answered a few of Kraiklyn's apparently casual questions about computers, which followed this request, with feigned ignorance. Seemingly convinced that teaching Horza how to fly the CAT would not carry the risk of him taking over the ship, Kraiklyn relented and allowed Horza to practise piloting the craft on manual, using the rather crude controls in simulator mode under Mipp's instruction while the craft went on its way through space towards Vavatch on autopilot.

  "This is Kraiklyn," the ship PA announced to the mess a few hours after they ran through the Culture transmission warning of the Orbital's destruction. They were sitting around after a meal, drinking or inhaling, relaxing or in Dorolow's case, making the Circle of Flame sign on her forehead and saying the Prayer of Thanks. The big Orbital was still on the mess screen and had grown much larger, almost filling it with its inner surface daylight side but everybody had grown a little blasé about it and now gave it only the occasional glance. All the remaining Company were there save for Lenipobra and Kraiklyn himself. They looked at each other or the PA speaker when Kraiklyn spoke. "I've got a job for us, something I just had confirmed. Wubslin, you get the shuttle ready. I'll meet the rest of you in the hangar in three ship hours, suited up, team. And don't worry; this time there'll be no hostiles. This time it really is you-know-what in and out." The speaker crackled, then went silent. Horza and Yalson exchanged looks.

  "So." Jandraligeli said, leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his neck. The scar marks on his face deepened slightly as he put on an expression of thoughtfulness. "Our esteemed leader has again found us something to employ our slight talents?"

  "Better not be in another fuckin" temple." Lamm growled, scratching the small horn grafts where they joined his head.