“That is the sort of thing Hub Minds can’t help get worried about,” the avatar said, hoisting one silvery eyebrow. “A trillion tons of ship capable of accelerating like an arrow out of a bow coming close enough to the surface for me to feel the curve of the fucker’s gravity well if it wasn’t fielded out.” It shook its head. “GSVs,” it said, tutting as though over a mischievous but cute child.
“Do you think they take advantage of you because you used to be one?” Kabe asked. The giant craft seemed to have come to a halt at last, filling about a quarter of the sky. Some wispy clouds had formed underneath its lower surface. Concentric shells of field showed up as barely visible lines around it, like a set of cavernous nested bubbles floating in the sky.
“Damn right,” the avatar said. “Any native-to-Hub Mind would be baking its fuses at the very thought of letting something that big come inside perimeter; they like ships on the outside where if anything ever did go wrong they’d just fall away” The avatar laughed suddenly. “I’m telling it to get the hell out of my jet stream now. It is, of course, being rude.”
The clouds forming underneath the giant ship started to flow in and flute upwards; the Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall was starting to draw away. Clouds boiled up around it like a million contrails forming at once, and lightning flickered between the blossoming towers of vapor.
“Look at that. Ruining the whole morning.” The avatar shook its head again. “Typical GSV. That little display had better not stop my nacreous clouds forming this evening or there’ll be big trouble.” It looked at Kabe. “Come on; let’s ignore this show-off and go below. I want to show you the engines on this thing.”
“But, Cr. Ziller; your public!”.
“Is back on Chel and would probably pay good money to see me hung, drawn and burned.”
“My dear Ziller, that is exactly my point. I’m sure what you say is a gross if understandable exaggeration, but even if it were remotely true, quite the opposite applies here; on Masaq’ there are huge numbers of people who would gladly give their own lives to save yours. It is them I was referring to, as I’m sure you well know. Many of them will be at the concert tonight; the rest will all be watching, immersed.
“They have waited patiently for years, hoping that one day you might feel inspired to complete another long work. Now that it has finally happened they cannot wait to experience it as fully as possible and pay you the homage they know you deserve. They are desperate to be there and hear your music and see you with their own eyes. They crave to see you conduct Expiring Light this evening!”.
“They can crave all they like but they’re going to be disappointed. I have no intention of going, not if that suppurating piece of desk-fodder is going to be present.”
“But you won’t meet! We’ll keep you separate!”.
Ziller stuck his big black nose up toward Tersono’s pink-blushed ceramic casing, causing the drone to shrink back from him. “I do not believe you,” he told it.
“What? Because I’m from Contact? But that’s ridiculous!”.
“I bet Kabe told you that.”
“It doesn’t matter how I found out. I have no intention of trying to force you to meet Major Quilan.”
“But you’d like it if I did, wouldn’t you?”.
“Well … ” The drone’s aura field suddenly rainbowed with confusion.
“Would you or wouldn’t you?”.
“Well, of course I would!” the machine said, wobbling in the air with what looked like anger, frustration or both. Its aura field looked confused.
“Ha!” Ziller exclaimed. “You admit it!”.
“Naturally I would like you to meet; it is absurd that you haven’t, but I would only want it to happen if it occurred naturally, not if it was contrived against your expressed wishes!”.
“Shh. Here comes one now.”
“But—!”.
“Shhl”
Pfesine Forest, on Ustranhuan Plate—which was about as far away from the Stullien Bowl as it was possible to get without leaving Masaq’ altogether—was famous for its hunting.
Ziller had journeyed there from Aquime late the night before, stayed in a very jolly hunting lodge, woken late, found a local guide and gone to neck-jump Kussel’s Janmandresiles. He thought he could hear one of them coming now, shouldering its way through the dense bush bordering the narrow path directly beneath the tree he was hiding in.
He looked over at his guide, a stocky little guy in antique camouflage gear who was squatting on another bough five meters away. He was nodding and pointing in the direction of the noise. Ziller held onto a branch above him and peeked down, trying to see the animal.
“Ziller, please,” the drone’s voice said, sounding very odd in his ear.
The Chelgrian turned sharply to the machine floating at his side and glared at it. He held one finger to his lips and shook it. The drone went muddy cream with embarrassment. “I am talking to you by directly vibrating the inner membrane of your ear. There is no possibility that the animal you—”.
“And I,” Ziller whispered through clenched teeth, leaning very close to Tersono, “am trying to concentrate. Now will you fucking shut up?”
The drone’s aura blanched briefly with anger, then settled to gray frustration mixed with spots of purple contrition. It quickly rippled into yellow-green, indicating mellowness and friendliness, hatched with bands of red to show it was taking this as a bit of a joke.
“And will you stop that fucking rainbow shit?” Ziller hissed. “You’re distracting me! And the animal can probably see you too!”.
He ducked away as something very large and mottled blue passed underneath the branch. It had a head as long as Ziller’s whole body and a back broad enough to have accommodated half a dozen Chelgrians. He stared down. “God,” he breathed, “those things are big.” He looked over at his guide, who was nodding down at the animal.
Ziller gulped and dropped. The fall was only about two meters; he landed on all fives and was at the beast’s neck in one bound, swinging his feet over its neck on either side of its fan-like ears and grabbing a handful of its dark brown crest mane before it had time to react. Tersono floated down to accompany him. The Kussel’s Janmandresile realized it had something stuck to the nape of its neck and let out a deafening shriek. It shook its head and body as vigorously as it could and charged off along the path through the jungle.
“Ha! Ha ha ha ha ha!” Ziller yelled, clinging on while the huge animal bucked and shook beneath him. The wind whipped past; leaves, fronds, creepers and branches went zinging by, making him duck and dodge and gasp. The fur around his eyes pushed back in the breeze; the trees to either side of the path passed in a blue-green blur. The animal shook its head again, still trying to dislodge him.
“Ziller!” the drone E. H. Tersono shouted, riding the air just behind him. “I can’t help noticing you aren’t wearing any safety equipment! This is very dangerous!”.
“Tersono!” Ziller said, teeth rattling as the beast beneath him went thudding along the winding trail.
“What?”.
“Will you bugger off?”.
There was some sort of break in the canopy ahead, and the animal’s pace increased as it went downhill. Pitched forward, Ziller had to lean way back toward the thing’s pounding shoulders to stop himself from being pitched over the animal’s head and trampled underfoot. Suddenly, through the trailing fronds of moss and pendulous leaves, there was a glint of sunlight from the forest floor. A broad river appeared; the Kussel’s Janmandresile thundered down the path and through the shallows in great kicking lines of spray, then threw itself into the deep water in the center, ducking down and buckling its front knees as it went to throw Ziller off head first into the water.
• • •
He woke up spluttering in the shallows, being dragged on his back toward the river bank. He looked up and behind and saw Tersono pulling him with a maniple field colored gray with frustration.
He coughed and sp
at. “Was I out for a bit there?” he asked the machine.
“A few seconds, Composer,” Tersono said, hauling him with what looked like enormous ease up onto a sandy bank and sitting him up. “It was probably just as well you went under,” it told him. “The Kussel’s Janmandresile was looking for you before it crossed to the far side. It probably wanted to hold you under or drag you to shore and stamp on you.” Tersono went behind Ziller and thumped his back while he coughed some more.
“Thank you,” Ziller said, bent over and spitting up some of the river water. The drone kept thumping away. “But don’t,” the Chelgrian continued, “think this means I’m going to go back to conduct the symphony in some fit of gratitude.”
“As if I would expect such graciousness, Composer,” the drone said in a defeated voice.
Ziller looked around, surprised. He waved away the machine’s field doing the thumping. He blew his nose and smoothed his face-fur down. “You really are upset, aren’t you?” he said.
The drone flashed gray again. “Of course I’m upset, Cr. Ziller! You nearly killed yourself there! You’ve always been so dismissive, even contemptuous, of such dangerous pastimes. What is the matter with you?”.
Ziller looked down at the sand. He’d torn his waistcoat, he noticed. Damn, he’d left his pipe at home. He looked around. The river flowed on past; giant insects and birds flitted over it, dipping, diving and zooming. On the far bank, something sizeable was making the deep fractaleaf sway and quiver. Some sort of long-limbed, big-eared furry thing was watching curiously from a branch high in the canopy. Ziller shook his head. “What am I doing here?” he breathed. He stood up, wincing. The drone put out thick maniple fields in case he wanted to lean on them, but did not insist on helping him up.
“What now, Composer?”.
“Oh, I’m going home.”
“Really?”.
“Yes, really.” Ziller squeezed some water from his pelt. He touched his ear, where his terminal earring ought to be. He glanced out at the river, sighed and looked at Tersono. “Where’s the nearest underground access?”.
“Ah, I do have an aircraft standing by, in case you don’t want to bother with the—”.
“An aircraft? Won’t that take forever?”.
“Well, it’s more of a little space craft, really.”
Ziller took a breath and drew himself up, brows furling. The drone floated back a little. Then the Chelgrian relaxed again. “All right,” he breathed.
Moments later a shape that looked like little more than an ovoid shimmer in the air swooped down between the trees overhanging the river, rushed toward the sandbank and came to an instant stop a meter away. Its camouflage field blinked off. Its sleek hull was plain black; a side door sighed open.
Ziller looked narrow-eyed at the drone. “No tricks,” he growled.
“As if.”
He stepped aboard.
• • •
The snow flew up against the windows in swirls and eddies that seemed sometimes to take on patterns and shapes. He was looking out at the view, at the mountains on the far side of the city, but every now and again the snow forced him to focus on it, just half a meter in front of his eyes, distracting him with its brief immediacy and taking his mind off the longer perspective.
~ So, are you going to go?
~ I don’t know. The polite thing would be not to go, so that Ziller will.
~ True.
~ But what is the point of politeness when some of these people will be dead at the end of the evening, and when I certainly will be?
~ It’s how people behave when they’re faced with death that shows you what they’re really like, Quil. You discover whether they really are as polite, and even as brave, as—
~ I can do without the lecture, Huyler.
~ Sorry.
~ I could stay here in the apartment and watch the concert, or just do something else, or I can go to hear Ziller’s symphony with a quarter of a million other people. I can die alone or I can die surrounded by others.
~ You won’t be dying alone, Quil.
~ No, but you will be coming back, Huyler.
~ No, only the me I was before all this will be coming back.
~ Even so. I hope you won’t think I’m being too sorry for myself if I regard the experience as being rather more profound for me than for you.
~ Of course not.
~ At least Ziller’s music might take my mind off it for a couple of hours. Dying at the climax to a unique concert, knowing you produced the final and most spectacular part of the light show, seems a more desirable context for quitting this life than collapsing over a café table or being found slumped on the floor here next morning.
~ I can’t argue with that.
~ And there’s another thing. The Hub Mind is going to be directing all the in-atmosphere effects, isn’t it?
~ Yes. There’s talk of aurorae and meteorite showers and the like.
~ So if the Hub’s destroyed there’s a good chance something could go badly wrong at the Bowl. If Ziller’s not there he’ll probably live.
~ You want him to?
~ Yes, I want him to.
~ He’s little better than a traitor, Quil. You’re giving your life for Chel and all he’s done is spit on all of us. You’re making the greatest sacrifice a soldier can make and all he’s ever done is whine, run away, soak up adulation and please himself. You really think it’s right that you go and he survives?
~ Yes I do.
~ That son-of-a-prey-bitch deserves … Well, no. I’m sorry, Quil. I still think you’re wrong about that, but you’re right about what happens to us tonight. It does mean more to you than me. I guess the least I can do is not try to argue the condemned male out of his last request. You go to the concert, Quil. I’ll take my satisfaction from the fact it’ll annoy the hell out of that scumbag.
• • •
“Kabe?” said a distinctive voice from the Homomdan’s terminal.
“Yes, Tersono.”
“I have succeeded in persuading Ziller to return to his apartment. I think there’s just the hint of a chance he might be wavering. On the other hand, I have just heard that Quilan is definitely going. Would you do me—all of us—the possibly incalculably enormous favor of coming here to help try and persuade Ziller to attend the concert nevertheless?”.
“Are you sure I’d make any difference?”.
“Of course not.”
“Hmm. Just a moment.”
Kabe and the avatar stood just in front of the main stage; a few technician drones were floating about and the orchestra were filing off stage after their final rehearsal. Kabe had watched but hadn’t wanted to hear; a trio of earplugs had fed him the sounds of a waterfall instead.
The musicians—not all human, and some of them human but very unusual looking—went back to their rest suite, doing a lot of muttering. They were troubled that one of Hub’s avatars had conducted the rehearsal. It had done a creditable impression of Ziller, though without the short temper, bad language and colorful curses. One might, Kabe thought, have imagined that the musicians would have preferred such an even-tempered conductor, but they seemed genuinely concerned that the composer might not be there for the real performance to conduct the work himself.
“Hub,” Kabe said.
The silver-skinned creature turned to him. It was dressed very formally in a severe gray suit. “Yes, Kabe?”.
“Could I get to Aquime and back in time to catch the start of the concert?”
“Easily,” the machine said. “Is Tersono looking for reinforcements on the Ziller front?”.
“You guessed. It appears to believe I may be of assistance in persuading him to attend the concert.”
“It might even be right. I’ll come too. Shall we underground it or take a plane?”.
“A plane would be quicker?”.
“Yes, it would. Displacing would be quickest.”
“I have never been Displaced. Let’s do that.”
“
I have to draw your attention to the fact that a Displace incurs an approximately one in sixty-one million chance of utter failure resulting in death for the subject.” The avatar smiled wickedly. “Still willing?”.
“Certainly.”
There was a pop, preceded by the briefest impression of a silver field disappearing alongside them, and another avatar stood beside the one he’d been talking to, dressed similarly but not identically.
Kabe tapped his nose-ring terminal. “Tersono?”.
“Yes?” said the drone’s voice.
The silver-skinned twins bowed fractionally to each other.
“We’re on our way.”
Kabe experienced something he would later characterize as like having somebody else perform a blink for you, and as the avatar’s head rose back up after its brief bow, suddenly they were both standing in the main reception room of Ziller’s apartment in Aquime City, where the drone E. H. Tersono was waiting.
16
Expiring Light
The late afternoon sun shone through a kilometer-high gap between the mountains and the cloud. Ziller came out of the bathroom puffing his fur dry with a powerful little hand-held blower. He frowned at Tersono and looked mildly surprised to see Kabe and the avatar.
“Hello all. Still not going. Anything else?”.
He threw himself down onto a big couch and stretched out, rubbing the fluffed-up fur over his belly.
“I took the liberty of asking Ar Ischloear and Hub here to attempt to reason with you one last time,” Tersono said. “There would still be ample time to get to the Stullien Bowl in a seemly manner and—”.
“Drone, I don’t know what you don’t understand,” Ziller said, smiling. “It’s perfectly simple. If he goes, I don’t. Screen, please. Stullien Bowl.”
A screen, out-holo’d, burst into life across the whole of the wall on the other side of the room, protruding just beyond the furniture. The projection filled with a couple of dozen views of the Bowl, its surroundings and various groups of people and talking heads. There was no sound. With the rehearsal finished, some enthusiasts could be seen already making their way into the giant amphitheater.