“He has four.” The avatar looked thoughtful. “That is a lot of vaso-congestive tissue to support.”
“I suppose.”
“Again, minimal processing involved; just enough to do its job and no more. Everything else was just dumb matter; process-free.”
“So, nothing.”
“Nothing relevant, as far as I can tell.” The avatar smiled at Cossont. “So, onwards and outwards to Ospin and the Dataversities.”
She found herself smiling back. “One request?” she said.
“What?”
“Could you keep that look?”
“If you like.” Berdle looked puzzled. “Why?”
“It suits – well, it just looks good.”
The avatar shrugged. “Okay.”
“Are you still being affected by those sexually stimulating compounds?” Pyan asked through her earbud.
Cossont used a finger to flick one corner of the creature. It yelped and unwound itself from round her neck, flapping away from her in a flurry of melodramatic movement.
“The Culture craft continues to adhere to local legal velocity limitations but is about to leave the atmosphere,” the combat arbite Uhtryn said. “If it is to be engaged, this would be the last chance.”
Colonel Agansu felt like he was suspended in space just above the planet of Xown, staring down at its brown/green land, the white-lined coast of Hzu and the green/blue waters of the sea. The Girdlecity was a thick dark rim round the world, hazing and disappearing to the horizon in each direction. He watched the dot that was the Culture module rising quickly upwards through the atmosphere.
“Count down that time, would you, Uhtryn?” he asked the arbite. “What do we have from the Girdlecity?”
“Eight seconds. Screen just coming in.” As the combat arbite spoke the words, a virtual screen appeared in front of Agansu, showing, from above, an elegant piazza with a small Culture craft sitting on it and two people walking away from it. “Two people: male unidentified, female … Cossont, Vyr. Lieutenant Commander reserve, the Fourteenth. Seven. Additional: mattiform familiar or pet present, wrapped round the female’s neck.”
“Where did they go?”
“As projected, the airship Equatorial 353. It has shielding making it impossible to surveille from outside. They spent twenty-two minutes inside. Six. Additional: male figure negative bio. Likely avatar, type unclear. Probing resistant without sensorial aggression.”
Colonel Agansu watched the tiny Culture ship rise towards space, seemingly almost straight at him. Of course, he was not really exposed to the void; he was floating instead within his virtual environment, deep inside the 7*Uagren. He spent most of his time here now, revved up to maximum speed, absorbed by the utterly fascinating view of space ahead and around, as enhanced by the ship’s sensor arrays. The full radiation spectrum was signified by textures implicit in the spread of colours, information in every form leapt out when you inspected something, and vectors and relative speeds were displayed around every object.
When not gazing out, fascinated, at this, the colonel dived deeper into the data reservoirs, trying to find and match up any details of relevance to the mission. This contributed relatively little in absolute terms to the efforts the ship’s own subsidiary AIs and virtual-crew data-mining specialists and their sub-routines were making, but it was still worthwhile additional work, and had the effect of continually reinforcing his own understanding.
He spent little time genuinely in his own body now, conscious of lying on the couch beside the combat arbite, buried deep in the ship. He was still aware that his physical body resided there and was being looked after – fed, evacuated, made to twitch so that his muscles did not start to atrophy – but he really lived in this virtual environment now; he felt cleaner and more pure in here, somehow, and quicker (though still so much slower than the ship crew!). The combat arbite Uhtryn had begun to help him.
“Colonel,” the captain of the Uagren communicated, “that Culture ship’s getting ready to head off. We need to decide whether we’re going to keep on following or not.”
“Who might be—?”
“Five,” Uhtryn said.
“—on the airship?”
“It is the location for a long-term celebration,” the arbite told him. “No known participants known to be known to the female.”
“Spool up, Captain,” Agansu said. “Make us ready to go.”
“Spooling up.”
“Everything on the female?”
“Musician,” Uhtryn said. “Classed resident of Girdlecity, Xown, Section Kwaalon Greater Without 3004/396. Absent from residence for the past six nights. Four. Girdlecity systems unable to provide more data on recent whereabouts. Female’s mother is Warib—”
“Any sign they picked anything up from the airship?”
“No. Additional: data from Girdlecity interior accessed. Screen, audio.” The same couple were visible from some distance away, standing on a long balcony set into the side of a messily accoutred and barely moving red airship. They were talking to somebody with an odd-looking face and wearing a strange combination of semi-military clothing. A hissy, slightly phased version of a woman’s voice said, “We’d … to talk to The Master of … Revels …” There was another word a little later, but it was too faint to catch. “Three.”
“Improve on that final word she says?”
“Already fully processed; unable to improve. Data AIs indicate hypothesised title ‘The Master of the Revels’ probably refers to one Ximenyr, artist, nominal spokesperson for ‘The Last Party’ as long-term celebration known.”
Agansu had to decide what to do: follow the Culture ship or investigate where the avatar and the female had gone and who they might have seen. In theory both could be accomplished, but only if he entrusted one of the tasks to somebody else, and he was loath to do this. He might go down to the planet himself and investigate this Master of the Revels fellow while the combat arbite stayed with the Uagren, or he might stay with the ship as it continued to follow the Culture vessel and delegate the on-planet job to some other entity from the ship – as well as the various different types of combat and other arbites, it held androids capable of passing for bio, all fully programmable.
He wanted to do both at once. He wanted to be in two places at once. In theory this was possible, in a way, using mind-state recording and transcription technology and one of the more specialised androids at the ship’s disposal; he could replicate himself, putting his consciousness into the machine … but he didn’t like the idea – never had – and felt that it constituted a security risk as well; with every copying event, more than one person – one entity, at least – suddenly knew what only he was supposed to know.
Or he could leave a copy of himself on board the ship, perhaps even one living and thinking at the same speed as the virtual crew, while he – this physical body – removed itself from its haven, its little kernel-space in the heart of the ship, and took a small craft down to the surface of the world below.
“Two,” said the combat arbite.
The Culture ship had appeared to be heading somewhere quite different when it had suddenly veered off-course and crash-stopped here at Xown. It had been impossible to tell exactly where it had been heading – ships rarely just flew straight for their destination, choosing to introduce long, random curves into their courses, just to frustrate anybody trying to work out where they were going. It meant they travelled a few per cent further than they would have done taking a perfectly direct route, but it was usually judged to be worth the time penalty.
The Uagren too had had to make an unexpected crash-stop, the very violence of which might have betrayed its presence to the Culture ship. The crew thought they had got away with it, but there was no way to be sure yet.
“One.”
“Captain, you have my mind-state mapped?”
“Yes.”
“Implant it into one of the bio-plausible androids forthwith and send it down to the planet. Have it
walk a little way ahead of the airship, ready to board it on our future signal. Leave a liaise instruction with the local authorities and keep the android updated with—”
“Ze—”
“Stand down. There will be no need to attack or disable the Culture craft.”
“It has left the—” the arbite started to say, then paused. “It is gone; it has been Displaced.”
“Woh,” the disloc officer said. “Look at those distances. Heavy duty.”
“Ship moving off, fast,” the navigation officer said.
“As I was saying; leave a liaise instruction with the local authorities and keep the android updated with all relevant information.”
“Faster than it was.” The captain sounded worried. “Can we stay with that?”
“Marginal,” the drives officer said.
“Random spiralling,” the targeting officer said. “Maybe it did see us.”
“The android mind-state imprinting is not instant,” the external-tech officer told Agansu. “Eighty seconds required from now to disloc for imprint and ready-body.”
“Captain?” Agansu said. “Is there time?”
“Have we eighty seconds to spare before having to move off? Including move then disloc under acceleration, increasing distance?” the captain said. “Nav. Disloc?”
“Talked,” said the navigation officer. “No. Not even twenty.”
“Disloc agrees.”
“Already starting to lose the quarry’s track,” the targeting officer said. “Ninety per cent we can take same general heading and still find, but no guarantees.”
“Track still fading,” the navigation officer said. “It’s building in more random.”
“Eighty-nine per cent.”
“Colonel,” the captain said, “we can’t program the android and be sure we can still follow the ship.”
“Eighty-seven per cent.”
Agansu thought. “Percentage likelihood of reacquiring the Culture ship if we stay to the eighty-second mark?”
“Less than one.”
“Program android,” Agansu said, “despatch back to Xown in small craft?”
“That works. Back here in a few hours.”
“Let’s do that. Please move off immediately, Captain.”
“Moving.”
“Could still plonk the oid now, zap the col’s m-s to it after,” the special tactics officer said. He was, Agansu had noticed, prone to such compressive communication.
“I realise,” Agansu said. “I am unwilling to do that.”
“Your choice.”
“Captain,” Agansu said. “Do you think the Culture vessel has seen us?”
“Too early to tell. It moved off in a hurry, and it did Displace – disloc – the module rather than wait for it, so either it did or thinks it might have, or it’s suddenly in a real hurry.”
“It’d have disloc’d the craft in-atmosphere if it had been in a real hurry, sir,” the disloc officer said.
“Or mo’ff, remote-dee’d the individs, left the mod,” the special tactics officer contributed opaquely.
“All true,” the captain said. “Or fresh news just came in, or it half suspected it had a tail and wanted to catch us off guard. Drives, how smooth was our move-off?”
“Pretty good. In our top centile.”
“Good as theirs?”
“Not quite. That was tight. As efficient a kick-away as I’ve seen.”
“Think we have to assume it might have seen us,” the captain announced. “Suggest we follow anyway, act as though not. Colonel?”
“I agree,” Agansu said, then shifted to a one-to-one private channel. “But, Captain, if it is the case that we have been discovered, was it anyone aboard’s fault?”
“No, not in my opinion, Colonel.”
“Really?”
“Really. We are carving right up hard against the operational envelope of this ship, Colonel, fractions away from our never-exceeds and even a little over the factory settings in some cases where we know she can take it. And the crew are better than the ship; they always are. If our crash-stop alerted the Culture ship this time then you could replay it a million times over with other crews or fresher crews or more experienced crews and it always would; that’s just how the physics works.”
“I take comfort in the loyalty and faith you display towards your crew, Captain.”
“My crew are loyal to me, Colonel; I am only loyal to the regiment and Gzilt. Also, faith is belief without reason; we operate on reason and nothing but. I have zero faith in my crew, just absolute confidence.”
“Hmm. That is well said. I happily withdraw any suggestion that part of your crew might have been at fault, and I am happy to match and share that confidence.”
“Glad to hear it. Shall we rejoin the congregation?”
“Amusing. Let’s.”
Thirteen
(S -15)
xGSV Contents May Differ
oLSV You Call This Clean?
Hello. Ms Tefwe is en route?
∞
Yes. Transmitted, received and being re-embodied.
∞
And are we any further forward regarding whatever ship or ships might have been helping Mr QiRia in the past?
∞
Barely. I have contacted the Anything Legal Considered and tried again to contact the Warm, Considering. The former appears willing to help but says that it has had no contact with or knowledge of Mr QiRia since visiting Perytch IV twenty years ago with Ms Cossont. The latter seems to be on a retreat or is unavailable for some other reason. I have contacted its original home GSV, the A Fine Disregard For Awkward Facts, and its most recent home/contact, the GSV Teething Problems, requesting both to ask the Warm, Considering to get in touch. I suggest that all interested parties do all they can through any contacts they may have to find and/or contact the Warm, Considering and/or any other ship or entity that might have been helping Mr QiRia recently. The Warm, Considering is the last ship known to have facilitated Mr QiRia in his travels and efforts to stay out of the public gaze, but it might have been superseded. It might also be worth attempting to contact any extant ships or entities known to have helped him before the Warm, Considering. I believe a ship called the Smile Tolerantly fulfilled this role, though I am having difficulty contacting it. Again, any help would be appreciated. I have instigated a search for data on any other such vessels but it has so far met only with subtle obstruction. Whether this may count as some sort of success is moot.
∞
I’ll pass the word along. May I allow your identity to be known by the others?
∞
I suppose so. Sooner or later somebody would have collated my search requests with those doubtless soon to be forthcoming from others and made the connection.
∞
Welcome to the club.
He was always surprised how hard it was to see cities from space. You worked out where they must be from knowing how they looked on maps, but they never leapt out at you in reality the way they did in diagrammatic form. Even when you could make out the city and it was one that you knew well, you sometimes needed help to find where important buildings and landmarks were, even though they ought to be obvious.
Septame Banstegeyn gazed down at what his implants assured him was the location of the parliament complex in M’yon, but without the overlay he’d have struggled to identify it. How important it had always seemed, how important it genuinely was, to the lives of so many, and yet how tiny, how insignificant. He sighed, looked away, took in the whole sweep of the planet of Zyse – well, as much as he could see from the orbital base, which was only a few hundred kilometres up, so incapable of providing a view of the entire globe. Ah, the fabulous solidity of a planet.
Banstegeyn’s World. It had always sounded so good to him, so fitting. So lasting. Now, perhaps, Banstegeyn’s Star instead. It was no sacrifice. Stars could last longer than planets, and – once you had secured the agreement, the commitment of those who would inhe
rit responsibility for them – it cost them nothing, really, to grant such a wish.
Of course, it would never stick unless there was a good reason for such an honour; any idiot could secure some up-and-coming primitive’s agreement that, oh yes, they’d rename a planet or a star after them (and, if they had any sense at all, know in their heart that it was an agreement so easily made because it could be so easily broken), but there was weight to his claim for such an accolade.
He had shepherded a whole people to their destiny; brought them on, shown them what they knew they wanted anyway, or what they would want, in time, even if there had been nobody with the vision and the foresight to show them. Was that not worth a “World” or a “Star”? Even having a star named after oneself didn’t really mean that much; there were hundreds of millions of them in the galaxy, and many had stupid, meaningless or hopelessly obscure names.
In some ways it seemed so little to ask.
“Septame,” a voice said. “Thank you so much for seeing me.” The avatar Ziborlun bowed from the doorway of the spherical observation pod. It smiled, its silver-skinned face lit by the soft glow of the light reflecting from the planet beneath.
“Ziborlun,” Banstegeyn said.
There was a particular way of saying somebody’s name – you pronounced it as you gave a small sigh – that informed them, assuming they had the wit to recognise the sign, that they were being seen as an indulgence, as a duty even, when really you had so many more important matters to attend to. It was in that manner that the septame had said the avatar’s name.
The avatar, being an avatar, picked up the signal immediately; the smile turned self-deprecatory, almost apologetic, and the creature said, “I won’t keep you long, Septame.”
“It is a busy time,” Banstegeyn agreed.
The avatar floated into the pod as the door shushed closed behind it. Ziborlun immediately assumed a very natural and relaxed-looking position, ankles together, knees splayed. It hovered in mid-air a couple of metres away from Banstegeyn, as steady as if it had a metal rod protruding from its back anchoring it to the wall a metre behind. Banstegeyn had never seen anybody maintain such a static position in a weightless environment. Well, it was a ship avatar, he supposed; it ought to be good at this sort of thing. He, on the other hand, was burred onto a drysticky patch near the viewing port by part of his zero-G suit and yet he was still sort of moving around a bit.
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