~ They might wish to make an example of us.
~ We are too far down the Involved pecking order to be worthy opponents, Quilan. There would be no honor for them in punishing us further. We have already been punished as innocents. All you and I are trying to do is even up that earlier damage.
~ I worry that we may be being as blind to their real psychology as they were to ours when they tried to interfere. With all their experience, they were wrong about us. We have so little training in second-guessing the reactions of alien species; how can we be so certain that we will get it right where they failed so dismally?
~ Because this matters so much to us, that’s why. We have thought long and hard about what we’re going to do. All this began exactly because they failed to do the same thing. They have become so blasé about such matters that they try to interfere with as few ships as possible, with as few resources as possible, in search of a sort of mathematical elegance. They have made the fates of entire civilizations part of a game they play amongst themselves, to see who can produce the biggest cultural change from the smallest investment of time and energy.
And when it blows up in their faces, it is not they who suffer and die, but us. Four and a half billion souls barred from bliss because some of their inhuman Minds thought they’d found a nice, neat, elegant way to alter a society which had evolved to stability over six millennia.
They had no right to try to interfere with us in the first place, but if they were determined to do it they might at least have had the decency to make sure they did it properly, with some thought for the numbers of innocent lives they were dealing with.
~ We still may be committing a second mistake upon a first. And they may be less tolerant than we imagine.
~ If nothing else, Quilan, even if there is some retaliation by the Culture, however unlikely that might be, it doesn’t matter! If we succeed in our mission here then those four and a half billion Chelgrian souls will be saved; they’ll be admitted to heaven. No matter what happens after that they’ll be safe because the Chelgrian-Puen will have allowed them in.
~ The Puen could allow the dead in now, Huyler. They could just change the rules, accept them into heaven.
~ I know, Quilan. But there is honor to be considered here, and the future. When it was first revealed that each of our own deaths had to be balanced by that of an enemy—
~ It wasn’t revealed, Huyler. It was made up. It was a tale we told ourselves, not something the gods graced us with.
~ Either way. When we decided that was the way we wanted to lead our lives with honor, don’t you think that people realized then that it might lead to what looked like unnecessary deaths, this instruction to take a life for a life? Of course they knew that.
But it was worth doing because in the long run we benefited as long as we maintained that principle. Our enemies knew we would not rest while we had deaths unavenged. And that still applies, Major. This is not some dry bit of dogma consigned to the history books or the string-frames in monastic libraries. This is a lesson that we have to keep reinforcing. Life will go on after this, and Chel will prevail, but its rules, its doctrines must be understood by each new generation and each new species we encounter.
When this is all over and we are all dead, when this is just another piece of history, the line will have been held, and we’ll be the ones who held it. No matter what happens, as long as you and I do our duty, people in the future will know that to attack Chel is to invite a terrible revenge. For their good—and I mean this, Quil—-for their good as well as Chel’s, it’s worth doing now whatever has to be done.
~ I’m glad you seem so certain, Huyler. A copy of you will have to live with the knowledge of what we are about to do. At least I’ll be safely dead, with no back-up. Or at least not one that I know about.
~ I doubt they’d have made one without your consent.
~ I doubt everything, Huyler.
~ Quil?
~ Yes?
~ Are you still on board? Do you still intend to carry out your mission?
~ I do.
~ Good fellow. Let me tell you; I admire you, Major Quilan. It’s been an honor and a pleasure to share your head. Just sorry it’s coming to an end so soon.
~ I haven’t carried it out yet. I haven’t made the Displace.
~ You’ll do it. They suspect nothing. The beast is taking you to its bosom, to the very center of its lair. You’ll be fine.
~ I’ll be dead, Huyler. In oblivion. That’s all I care about.
~ I’m sorry, Quil. But what you’re doing … there’s no better way to go.
~ I wish I could believe that. But soon it won’t matter. Nothing will.
• • •
Tersono made a throat-clearing noise. “Yes, it is a remarkable sight, isn’t it, Ambassador? Quite stunning. Some people have been known to stand here or sit here and drink it in for hours. Kabe; you stood here for what seemed like half a day, didn’t you?”.
“I’m sure I must have,” the Homomdan said. His deep voice echoed around the viewing gallery, producing echoes. “I do beg your pardon. How long half a day must seem for a machine that thinks at the pace you do, Tersono. Please forgive me.”
“Oh, there is nothing to forgive. We drones are perfectly used to being patient while human thoughts and meaningful actions take place. We possess an entire suite of procedures specifically evolved over the millennia to cope with such moments. We are actually considerably less boreable, if I may create a neologism, than the average human.”
“How comforting,” Kabe said. “And thank you. I always find such a level of detail rewarding.”
“You okay, Quilan?” the avatar said.
He turned to the silver-skinned creature. “I’m fine.” He gestured toward the sight of the Orbital surface sliding slowly past, gloriously bright, one and a half million kilometers away but apparently much closer. The view from the gallery was normally magnified, not shown as it would have been if there was nothing between viewer and view but glass. The effect was to bring the interior perimeter closer, so that one could see more detail.
The rate it was sliding past at also gave a false impression; the Hub’s viewing gallery section revolved very slowly in the opposite direction to the world’s surface, so that instead of the entire Orbital taking a day to pass in front of the viewer, the experience commonly occupied less than an hour.
• • •
~ Quilan.
~ Huyler.
~ Are you ready?
~ I know the real reason they put you aboard, Huyler.
~ Do you?
~ I believe I do.
~ And what would that be, Quil?
~ You’re not my back-up at all, are you? You’re theirs.
~ Theirs?
~ Of Visquile, our allies—whoever they are—and the military high-ups and politicians who sanctioned this.
~ You’ll have to explain, Major.
~ Is it supposed to be too devious for a bluff old soldier to have thought of?
~ What?
~ You’re not here to give me somebody to moan to, are you, Huyler? You’re not here to provide me with company, or to be some sort of expert on the Culture.
~ Have I been wrong about anything?
~ Oh, no. No, they must have loaded you with a complete Culture database. But it’s all stuff anybody could get from the standard public reservoirs. Your insights are all secondhand, Huyler; I’ve checked.
~ I’m shocked, Quilan. Do we think this counts as slander or libel?
~ You are my co-pilot though, aren’t you?”.
~ That’s what you were told I was to be. That’s what I am.
~ In one of those old-fashioned, manual-only airplanes the co-pilot is there, at least partly, to take over from the pilot if he’s unable to perform his duties. Is that not true?
~ Perfectly.
~ So, if I changed my mind now, if I was determined not to make the Displacement, if I decided that I didn’t want to kill all these p
eople … What? What would happen? Tell me. Please be honest. We owe each other honesty.
~ You’re sure you want to know?
~ Quite perfectly.
~ You’re right. If you won’t make the Displace, I make it for you. I know exactly the bits of your brain you used to make it happen, I know the precise procedures. Better than you, in a way.
~So the Displace takes place regardless?
~ So the Displace takes place regardless.
~ And what happens to me?
~ That depends on what you try to do. If you try to warn them, you drop down dead, or become paralyzed, or undergo a fit, or start babbling nonsense, or become catatonic. The choice is mine; whatever might arouse the least suspicion in the circumstances.
~ My. Can you do all that?
~ I’m afraid so, son. All just part of the instruction set. I know what you’re going to say before you say it, Quil. Literally. It’s only just before, but that’s enough; I think pretty quickly in here. But Quil, I wouldn’t take pleasure in doing any of that. And I don’t think I’m going to have to. You’re not telling me you just thought of all this?
~ No. No, I thought of it a long time ago. I just wanted to wait until now to ask you, in case it spoiled our close relationship, Huyler.
~ You are going to do it, aren’t you? I won’t have to take over, will I?
~ I haven’t really had those hours of grace at the beginning and end of each day at all, have I? You’ve been watching all the time to make sure I didn’t give any sign to them, just in case I had already changed my mind.
~ Would you believe me if I told you that you did have that time without me watching?
~ No.
~ Well, it doesn’t really matter anyway. But, as you might imagine, I will be listening in from now on, until the end. Quilan, again; you are going to do it, aren’t you? I won’t have to take over, will I?
~ Yes, I’m going to do it. No, you won’t have to take over.
~ Well done, son. It is truly hateful, but it does have to be done. And it will all be over soon, for both of us.
~ And many more besides. All right then. Here we go.
• • •
He had made six successful Displacements in a row within the mock-up of the Hub which had been constructed within the station orbiting the sun-moon of the airsphere. Six successes out of six attempts. He could do it. He would do it.
They stood within the mock-up of the observation gallery, faces lit by the image of an image. Visquile explained the thinking behind his mission.
“We understand that in a few months’ time the Hub Mind of Masaq’ Orbital will mark the passing of the light from the two exploding stars that gave the Twin Novae Battle of the Idiran War its name.”
Visquile stood very close to Quilan. The broad band of light—a simulation of the image that he would see when he really stood in the viewing gallery of Masaq’ Orbital Hub—seemed to pass in one of the Estodien’s ears and out the other. Quilan fought the urge to laugh, and concentrated on listening intently to what the older male was saying.
“The Mind that is now that of Masaq’ Hub was once embodied within a warship which played a major part in the Idiran War. It had to destroy three Culture Orbitals during the same battle to prevent them falling into enemy hands. It will commemorate the battle, and the two stellar explosions in particular, when the light of first one and then the other passes through the system Masaq’ lies within.
“You must gain access to the Hub and make the Displacement before the second nova. Do you understand, Major Quilan?”.
“I do, Estodien.”
“The destruction of the Hub will be timed to coincide with the real-space light from the second nova arriving at Masaq’. It will therefore appear that the Hub Mind destroyed itself in a fit of contrition due to its guilty conscience over the actions it was responsible for during the Idiran War. The death of the Hub Mind and the humans will look like a tragedy, not an outrage. The souls of those Chelgrians held in limbo by the dictates of honor and piety will be released into heaven. The Culture will suffer a blow that will affect every Hub, every Mind, every human. We will have our numerical revenge and no more, but we will have that extra satisfaction that costs no more lives, only the additional discomfiture of our enemies, the people who, in effect, carried out an unprovoked surprise attack on us. Do you see, Quilan?”.
“I see, Estodien.”
• • •
“Watch, Major Quilan.”
“I’m watching, Estodien.”
They had quit the orbiting space station. He and Visquile were in the two-person runabout. The two alien drones were in a slightly larger cone-shaped black-body craft alongside.
One of the ancient space station’s pressurized containment vessels had suffered a carefully contrived blowout which looked exactly like a chance catastrophe due to long-term neglect. It started to fall away on an altered orbit, its new heading taking it quickly toward the vast outpouring of energies erupting from the airsphere-facing side of the sun-moon.
They watched for a while. The station curved closer and closer to the edge of the invisible light column. The little runabout’s head-up display printed a line across the canopy for each of them, showing where that edge was. Just before the station encountered the column’s perimeter, Visquile said, “That last warhead was not a dummy, Major. It was the real thing. The other end of the wormhole is located possibly inside the sun-moon itself, or possibly inside something very like it, a long way away. The energies involved will be very similar to what will happen to Masaq’ Hub. That is why we are here rather than anywhere else.”
The station never quite hit the edge of the light column. An instant before it would have, its slowly spinning, erratically configured shape was replaced with a shockingly, blindingly bright blast of light which caused the runabout’s canopy to black out over half its area. Quilan’s eyes closed instinctively. The after-image burned behind his eyelids, yellow and orange. He heard Visquile grunt. Around them, the small runabout hummed and clicked and whined.
When he opened his eyes only the after-image was still there, glowing orange against the anonymous black of space and jumping ahead of his gaze every time he shifted it about, trying, in vain, to see what might be left of the stricken, tumbling space station.
~ There.
~ That looked good to me. I think you’ve done it. Well done, Quil.
“There,” Tersono said, placing a ring of red light onto the screen, over a group of lakes in one continent. “That is where the Stullien Bowl is. The venue for tomorrow’s concert.” The drone turned to the avatar. “Is everything ready for the concert, Hub?”.
The avatar shrugged. “Everything except the composer.”
“Oh! I’m sure he is just teasing us,” Tersono said quickly. Its aura field positively shone with ruby light. “Of course Cr. Ziller will be there. How could he not be? He’ll be there. I’m quite certain.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Kabe rumbled.
“No, he will! I’m quite positive.”
Kabe turned to the Chelgrian. “You will be taking up your invitation, won’t you, Major Quilan? … Major?”.
“What? Oh. Yes. Yes, I’m looking forward to it. Of course.”
“Well,” Kabe said, nodding massively, “they’ll find somebody else to conduct, I dare say.”
The major seemed distracted, Kabe thought. Then he seemed to pull himself together. “Well, no,” he said, looking to each of them in turn. “If my presence is really going to prevent Mahrai Ziller from attending his own first night then of course I’ll stay away.”
“Oh no!” Tersono said, aura flushing briefly blue. “There’s no need for that. No, not at all; I’m sure that Cr. Ziller has every intention of being there. He may leave it until the last moment before he sets off, but set off he will, I’m quite positive. Please, Major Quilan, you must be there for the concert. Ziller’s first symphony in eleven years, the first ever première outside Chel, you
, coming all this way, you two the only Chelgrians for millennia … You must be there. It will be the experience of a lifetime!”.
Quilan looked steadily at the drone for a moment. “I think Mahrai Ziller’s presence at the concert is of more importance than mine. To go knowing that I would be keeping him away would be a selfish, impolite and even dishonorable act, don’t you think? But please, let’s talk no more of it.”
• • •
He left the airsphere the next day. Visquile saw him off from the little landing stage behind the giant hollowed-out husk which had provided their quarters.
Quilan thought the older male seemed distracted. “Is everything all right, Estodien?” he asked.
Visquile looked at him. “No,” he said, after what looked like a little thought. “No, we had an intelligence update this morning and our wizards of counter-espionage have come up with two pieces of worrying news rather than the more common single bombshell; it appears that not only do we have a spy amongst our number, but also there may be a Culture citizen here somewhere in the airsphere.” The Estodien rubbed the top of his silver stave, frowning at his distorted reflection there. “One might have hoped they could have told us these things earlier, but I suppose later is better than never.” Visquile smiled. “Don’t look so worried, Major, I’m sure everything is still under control. Or soon will be.”
The airship touched down. Eweirl stepped out. The white-furred male smiled broadly and bowed minutely when he saw Quilan. He bowed more deeply when he faced the Estodien, who patted him on the shoulder. “You see, Quilan? Eweirl is here to take care of things. Go back, Major. Prepare for your mission. You will have your co-pilot before too long. Good luck.”
“Thank you, Estodien.” Quilan glanced at the grinning Eweirl, then bowed to the older male. “I hope everything goes well here.”
Visquile let his hand rest on Eweirl’s shoulder. “I’m sure it will. Goodbye, Major. It’s been a pleasure. Again, good luck, and do your duty. I’m sure you will make us all proud.”