Consider Phlebas c-1

by Iain M. Banks

  Lights and spray filled the sea-end of the dock as a huge air-cushion vehicle, similar in principle to but vastly bigger than the hover Horza had commandeered, swept in from the expanse of black ocean. Lit by starlight, by the glow of the Orbital's daylight side arcing overhead and by the craft's own lights, the billows of spray kicked up into the air with a milky luminescence. The big machine lumbered between the walls of the dock, its engines shrieking. Beyond it, out to sea, Horza could see another couple of clouds, also lit from inside by flashing lights. Fireworks burst from the leading craft as it came slowly up the dock. Horza could make out an expanse of windows, and what appeared to be people dancing inside. He looked back down the dockside; the man he was following was mounting the steps to a footbridge which crossed high over the dock. Horza ran quietly, ducking behind the legs of cranes and leaping over lengths of thick hawsers. The lights of the hover flashed on the dark superstructure of the cranes; the scream of the jets and impellers echoed between concrete walls.

  As though pointing out the comparative crudity of the scene, a small craft — dark, and silent but for the tearing noise its passage made through the atmosphere — rushed overhead, zooming and disappearing into the night sky, specking once against the loop of the Orbital's daytime surface. Horza gave it a glance, then watched the figure on the small bridge, lit by the flashing lights of the hover still making its lumbering way up the dock underneath. The second craft was just swinging into position outside the dock to follow it.

  Horza came to the steps leading to the walkway of the narrow suspension bridge. The man, who walked like Kraiklyn and wore a grey cloak, was about halfway across. Horza couldn't see much of what the terrain was like on the other side of the dock, but guessed he stood a good chance of losing his quarry if he let him get to the other side before he started after him. Probably the man — Kraiklyn, if it was him — had worked this out; Horza guessed he knew he was being followed. He set off across the bridge. It swayed slightly underneath him. The noise and lights of the giant hovercraft were almost underneath; the air filled with swirling dark spray, kicked up from the shallow water in the dock. The man didn't look round at Horza, though he must have felt Horza's footsteps swinging the bridge with his own.

  The figure left the bridge at the far end. Horza lost sight of him and started running, the gun out in front of him, the air-cushion vehicle beneath blasting gusts of spray-soaked air about him, soaking him. Loud music blared from the craft, audible even through the scream of the engines. Horza skidded along the bridge at its end and ran quickly down the spiral steps to the dockside.

  Something sailed out of the darkness under the spiral of steps and crashed into his face. Immediately afterwards something slammed into his back and the rear of his skull. He lay on something hard, groggily wondering what had happened, while lights swept over him, the air in his ears roared and roared, and music played somewhere. A bright light shone straight into his eyes, and the hood over his face was thrown back.

  He heard a gasp: the gasp of a man tearing a hood away from a face only to see his own face staring back at him. (Who are you?) If that was what it was, then that man was vulnerable now, shocked for just a few seconds (Who am I?).… He had enough strength to kick up hard with one leg, forcing his arms up at the same time and grabbing some material, his shin connecting with a groin. The man started to go over Horza's shoulders, heading for the dock; then Horza felt his own shoulders grasped, and as the man he held thumped to the ground to one side and behind him, he was pulled over-

  Over the side of the dock; the man had landed right on the edge and had gone over, taking Horza with him. They were falling.

  He was aware of lights, than shadow, the grip he had on the man's cloak or suit and one hand still on his shoulder. Falling: how deep was the dock? The noise of wind. Listen for the sound of-

  It was a double impact. He hit water, then something harder, in a crumpling collision of fluid and body. It was cold, and his neck ached. He was thrashing about, unsure which way was up, and groggy from the blows to his head; then something pulled at him. He punched out, hit something soft, then pulled upright and found himself standing in a little over a metre of water, staggering forward. It was bedlam — light and sound and spray everywhere, and somebody hanging onto him.

  Horza flailed out again. Spray cleared momentarily, and he saw the wall of the dock a couple of metres to his right and, directly in front of him, the rear of the giant hovercraft, receding slowly five or six metres ahead. A powerful gust of oily, fiery air knocked him over, splashing into the water again. The spray closed over him. The hand let go, and he fell back through the water once more, going under.

  Horza struggled upright in time to see his adversary heading off through the spray, following the slowly moving hovercraft up the dock. He tried to run, but the water was too deep; he had to force his legs forward in a slow-motion, nightmarish version of a run, angling his torso so that his weight carried him forward. With exaggerated twistings of his body from side to side he strode after the man in the grey cloak, using his hands like paddles in an attempt to gain speed. His head was reeling; his back, face and neck all hurt terribly, and his vision was blurred, but at least he was still chasing. The man in front seemed more anxious to get away than to stay and fight.

  The blattering exhaust of the still moving hover blew another hole in the spray towards the two men, revealing the slab of stem rising above the bulbous wall of the machine's skirt, bowing out from fully three metres above the surface of the water in the dock. First the man in front of him, and then Horza, was blown back by the pulse of hot, choking fumes. The water was getting shallower. Horza found that he could bring his legs out of the water far enough to wade faster. The noise and spray swept over them again, and for a moment Horza lost sight of his quarry; then the view ahead was clear, and he could see the big air-cushion vehicle on a dry area of concrete. The walls of the dock extended high on either side, but the water and the clouds of spray were almost gone. The man in front staggered to the brief ramp leading from the now only ankle-deep water onto the concrete, staggered and almost fell, then started running weakly after the hovercraft, now powering faster along the level concrete down the canyon of the dock.

  Horza finally splashed out of the water and ran after the man, following the wetly flapping grey cloak.

  The man stumbled, fell and rolled. As he started to rise Horza slammed into him, bowling them both over. He lashed out at the man's face, shadowed in the light coming from behind him, but missed. The man kicked out at Horza, then tried to get away again. Horza threw himself at the man's legs, bringing him down once more, the wet cloak flopping over his head. Horza scrambled over on all fours and rolled him over face up. It was Kraiklyn. He drew his hand back for a punch. The pale, shaved face underneath him was twisted in terror, put in shadow by some lights coming from behind Horza, where another great roaring noise was… Kraiklyn screamed, looking not at the man wearing his own real face, but behind him, above him. Horza whirled round.

  A black mass blowing spray rushed towards him; lights blazed high above. A siren sounded, then the crushing black bulk was over him, hitting him, knocking him flat, pounding at his eardrums with noise and pressure, pressing, pressing, pressing… Horza heard a gurgling sound; he was being rammed into Kraiklyn's chest; they were both being rubbed into the concrete as though by an immense thumb.

  Another hovercraft; the second one in the line he'd seen.

  Abruptly, with a single sweeping stroke of pain bruising him from feet to head, as if a giant was trying to sweep him up off the floor with a huge hard brush, the weight was lifted off. In its place was utter darkness, noise fit to burst skulls, and violent, turbulent, crushing air pressure.

  They were under the skirts of the big vehicle. It was right above them, moving slowly forward or maybe — it was too dark to see anything — stationary over the concrete apron, perhaps about to settle on the concrete, crushing them.

  As though it was just anoth
er part of the maelstrom of battering pain, a blow thudded into Horza's ear, knocking him sideways in the darkness. He rolled on the rough concrete, pivoting on one elbow as soon as he could and bracing one leg while he struck out with the other in the direction the punch had come from; he felt his foot hit something yielding.

  He got to his feet, ducking as he thought of whirling impeller blades just overhead. The eddies and vortices of hot oil-filled air rocked him like a small boat bobbing in a chopping sea. He felt like a puppet controlled by a drunk. He staggered forward, his arms out, and hit Kraiklyn. They started to fall again, and Horza let go, punching with all his might at the place he guessed the man's head was. His fist crashed into bone, but he didn't know where. He skipped back, in case there was a retaliatory kick or punch on its way. His ears were popping; his head felt tight. He could feel his eyes vibrating in their sockets; he thought he was deaf but he could feel a thudding in his chest and throat, making him breathless, making him choke and gasp. He could make out just a hint of a border of light all around them, as though they were under the middle of the hovercraft. He saw something, just an area of darkness, on that border, and lunged at it, swinging his foot from low down. Again he connected, and the dark part of the border disappeared.

  He was blown off his feet by a crushing down-draught of air and tumbled bodily along the concrete, thumping into Kraiklyn where he lay on the ground after Horza's last kick. Another punch hit Horza on the head, but it was weak and hardly hurt. Horza felt for and found. Kraiklyn's head. He lifted it and banged it off the concrete, then did it again. Kraiklyn struggled, but his hands beat uselessly off Horza's shoulders and chest. The area of lightness beyond the dim shape on the ground was enlarging, coming closer. Horza banged Kraiklyn's head against the concrete one more time, then threw himself flat. The rear edge of the skin scrubbed over him; his ribs ached and his skull felt as though somebody was standing on it. Then it was over, and they were in the open air.

  The big craft thundered on, trailing remnants of spray. There was another one fifty metres down the dock and heading towards him.

  Kraiklyn was lying still, a couple of metres away.

  Horza got up onto all fours and crawled over to the other man. He looked down into his eyes, which moved a little.

  "I'm Horza! Horza!" he screamed, but couldn't even hear anything himself.

  He shook his head, and with a grimace of frustration on the face that was not really his own and which was the last thing the real Kraiklyn ever saw, he gripped the head of the man lying on the concrete and twisted it sharply, breaking the neck, just as he had broken Zallin's. He managed to drag the body to the side of the dock just in time to get out of the way of the third and last hovercraft. Its towering skirt bulged past two metres away from where he half lay, half sat, panting and sweating, his back against the cold wet concrete of the dock, his mouth open and his heart thudding.

  He undressed Kraiklyn, took off the cloak and the light-coloured one-piece day suit he wore, then climbed out of his own torn blouse and bloody pantaloons and put on what Kraiklyn had been wearing. He took the ring Kraiklyn wore on the small finger of his right hand. He picked at his own hands, at the skin where palm became wrist. It came away cleanly, a layer of skin sloughing off his right hand from wrist to fingertips. He wiped Kraiklyn's limp, pale right palm on a damp bit of clothing, then put the skin over it, pressing it down hard. He lifted the skin off carefully and positioned it back on his own hand. Then he repeated the operation using his left hand.

  It was cold and it seemed to take a very long time and a lot of effort. Eventually, while the three big air-cushion vehicles were stopping and letting passengers off half a kilometre down the dock, Horza finally staggered to a ladder of metal rungs set into the concrete wall of the dock, and with shaking hands and quivering feet hauled himself to the top.

  He lay for a while, then got up, climbed the spiral stairs to the small footbridge, staggered across it and down the other side, and entered the circular access building. Brightly dressed and excited people, just off the big hovers and still in a party mood, quietened when they saw him wait near the elevator doors for the capsule which would take them down to the spaceport area half a kilometre under their feet. Horza couldn't hear very much, but he could see their anxious looks, sense the awkwardness he was causing with his battered, bloody face and his ripped, soaking clothes.

  At last the elevator appeared. The party goers piled in, and Horza, supporting himself on the wall, stumbled in too. Somebody held his arm, helping him, and he nodded thanks. They said something which he heard as a distant rumble; he tried to smile and nod again. The elevator dropped.

  The underside greeted them with an expanse of what looked like stars. Gradually, Horza realised it was the light-speckled top of a spacecraft larger than anything he'd ever seen or even heard about before; it had to be the demilitarised Culture ship, The Ends of Invention. He didn't care what it was called, as long as he could get aboard and find the CAT.

  The elevator had come to a halt in a transparent tube above a spherical reception area hanging in hard vacuum a hundred metres under the base of the Orbital. From the sphere, walkways and tube tunnels spread out in all directions, heading for the access gantries and open and closed docks of the port area itself. The doors to the closed docks, where ships could be worked on in pressurised conditions, were all open. The open docks themselves, where ships simply moored and airlocks were required, were empty. Replacing them all, directly underneath the spherical reception area, just as it was directly underneath almost the entire port area, was the ex-Culture General Systems Vehicle The Ends of Invention. Its broad, flat top stretched for kilometre after kilometre in all directions, almost totally blocking out the view of space and stars beyond. Instead its top surface glittered with its own lights where various connections had been made with the access tubes and tunnels of the port.

  He felt dizzy again, registering the sheer scale of the vast craft. He hadn't seen a GSV before, far less been inside one. He knew of them and what they were for, but only now did he appreciate what an achievement they represented. This one was theoretically no longer part of the Culture; he knew it was demilitarised, stripped bare of most equipment, and without the Mind or Minds which would normally run it; but just the structure alone was enough to impress.

  General Systems Vehicles were like encapsulated worlds. They were more than just very big spaceships; they were habitats, universities, factories, museums, dockyards, libraries, even mobile exhibition centres. They represented the Culture — they were the Culture. Almost anything that could be done anywhere in the Culture could be done on a GSV. They could make anything the Culture was capable of making, contained all the knowledge the Culture had ever accumulated, carried or could construct specialised equipment of every imaginable type for every conceivable eventuality, and continually manufactured smaller ships: General Contact Units usually, warcraft now. Their complements were measured in millions at least. They crewed their offspring ships out of the gradual increase in their own population. Self-contained, self-sufficient, productive and, in peacetime at least, continually exchanging information, they were the Culture's ambassadors, its most visible citizens and its technological and intellectual big guns. There was no need to travel from the galactic backwoods to some distant Culture home-planet to be amazed and impressed by the stunning scale and awesome power of the Culture; a GSV could bring the whole lot right up to your front door…

  Horza followed the brightly dressed crowds through the bustling reception area. There were a few people in uniform, but they weren't stopping anybody. Horza felt in a daze, as though he was only a passenger in his own body, and the drunken puppeteer he had felt in the control of earlier was now sobered up a little and guiding him through the crowds of people towards the doors of another elevator. He tried to clear his head by shaking it, but it hurt when he did that. His hearing was coming back very slowly.

  He looked at his hands, then sloughed the imprinter-ski
n from his palms, rubbing it on each of the lapels of the daysuit until it rolled off and fell to the floor of the corridor.

  When they got off the second elevator they were in the starship. The people dispersed through broad, pastel-shaded corridors with high ceilings. Horza looked one way then another, as the elevator capsule swished back up towards the reception sphere. A small drone floated towards him. It was the size and shape of a standard suit backpack, and Horza eyed it warily, uncertain whether it was a Culture device or not.

  "Excuse me, are you all right?" the machine said. Its voice was robust but not unfriendly. Horza could just hear it.

  "I'm lost," Horza said, too loudly. "Lost," he repeated, more quietly, so that he could hardly hear himself. He was aware that he was swaying a little as he stood there, and he could feel water trickling into his boots and dripping off the sodden cloak onto the soft, absorbent surface under his feet.

  "Where do you want to go?" the drone asked.

  "To a ship called…" Horza closed his eyes in weary desperation. He didn't dare give the real name."… The Beggar's Bluff."

  The drone was silent for a second, then said, "I'm afraid there is no such craft aboard. Perhaps it is in the port area by itself, not on the Ends."

  "It's an old Hronish assault ship," Horza said tiredly, looking for somewhere to sit down. He spotted some seats set into the wall a few metres away and made his way over there. The drone followed him, lowering itself as he sat so that it was still at his eye level. "About a hundred metres long," the Changer went on, no longer caring if he was giving some sort of game away. "It was being repaired by some port shipbuilders; had some damage to its warping units."

  "Ah. I think I have the one you want. It's more or less straight down from here. I have no record of its name, but it sounds like the one you want. Can you manage to get there yourself, or shall I take you?"