The pilots – all part of Veppers’ general staff, with other, part-time duties – were well paid, especially if they won their battles, and the risk of real injury and even death made the sport more interesting for the spectators.
Today’s match was a team game: two ships to a side, the winning team being whoever was first to sink four of their opponents. The first thing the six sets of ships had to do was find each other; each ship started individually from one of the dozen floating boat-houses scattered round the perimeter of the watery complex at any of several dozen randomly chosen locations.
The miniature naval battle itself – ship against ship or fleet against fleet, guns flashing and roaring, smoke drifting, shots landing, pieces getting blown off the ships, fountains of water bursting into the air when a torpedo hit – was only part of the delight of watching, Veppers found. Much of the enjoyment came from having this god-like overview of the whole battle arena and being able to see what the men in the ships couldn’t see.
Most of the islands and the channel banks were too high to see over when you were sitting in one of the miniature battleships; however, from the network of aqueducts above, pretty much every part of the watery maze could be seen. It could be almost unbearably exciting to see ships converging on the same pool from different directions, or to watch a damaged vessel, limping home and nearly there, being caught by another ship lying in wait for it.
“You should have smoke, you know, Veppers,” Fuleow told him as they all watched the ships cruise down the channels leading away from their starting points. They went at different speeds, some favouring high speed to get to some tactically important pool or junction before anybody else, some favouring a more stealthy approach; where the geography allowed, you could learn a lot by causing few waves yourself but watching for signs of the wakes of others as you passed side channels. “You know; from their funnels. That would make it look more realistic, don’t you think?”
“Smoke,” Veppers said, raising the pair of binoculars to his eyes. “Yes. Sometimes we have smoke, and they can put down smoke-screens.” He lowered the glasses, smiled at Fuleow, who had not been to one of these displays before. “Makes it hard to see from up here though, that’s the trouble.”
Fuleow nodded. “Ah, of course.”
“Don’t you think you ought to have pretty little bridges linking all the islands?” Auer asked.
Veppers looked at her. “Pretty little bridges?”
“Between the islands,” she said. “Little arched bridges; you know, bowed. It would look so much prettier.”
“Little too unrealistic,” Veppers informed her, smiling insincerely. “Also, they’d get in the way of the shells; too many ricochets. There are wading routes between the islands for when the staff need to access them; sort of submerged paths.”
“Ah, I see. Just a thought.”
Veppers went back to watching his own two ships. They had been started far enough apart for it all to look convincingly random, though a quiet word had been had to let the two pilots know where the other was starting out from, so they were beginning with a slight advantage over the other five teams. Their pennants were silver and blue, the Veppers’ family colours.
One of his ships chanced upon one of the Red team, powering down a channel forming the stem of a T-junction just as the other vessel was crossing ahead, allowing it to loose a salvo from its A and B turrets. Veppers always favoured ships with two forward-facing turrets and one rear-facing; it seemed more attacking, more adventurous. It also meant that a broadside consisted of nine shells rather than eight.
It was the first proper engagement of the afternoon. Cheers rang out as the targeted ship rocked to one side under the fusillade; bits of superstructure spun off the vessel as it lost its signalling lights. Two dark holes appeared near the waterline at mid-ships. Veppers ordered a round of celebratory cocktails for all. Arriving at the next tower, with its encircling girdle of water and choice of three different viaducts to take, the three barges split up and went their separate ways.
Veppers was in control of the first barge, steering it with pedals at his feet and ignoring the pleas of his passengers to watch the ships they’d placed bets on so that he could watch the progress of his own vessels.
There was a roar and some lady-like screams from some distance away as another two ships met side-on just beneath, but even closer than in the first engagement; one rammed the other, forcing it sideways onto a sandbank through the attacking vessel’s momentum and trapping it there, firing point-blank into its super-structure; shells whizzed away, ricocheting.
The grounded vessel brought all four twin-gun turrets to bear and let off a broadside that blasted into the other ship’s command citadel, where the torso, shoulders and head of the opposing pilot would be. Veppers, watching through his binoculars, made a whistling noise.
“That looks like it could well hurt!” Raunt said.
“The poor man’s just inside there!” Auer said.
“They sit in an armoured tub,” Veppers told her. “And they wear flak vests. Yes, Jasken?” he said as the other man leaned in towards him, Enhancing Oculenses glittering in the sunlight.
“The house, sir,” Jasken said quietly, nodding.
Veppers frowned, wondering what he was talking about. He looked towards the distant mansion and saw a small dark arrow-head shape lowering itself towards the central courtyard. He brought the binoculars up in time to see the familiar alien craft disappearing behind the stonework. He put the field glasses down.
“Fuck,” he said. “Chooses his moments.”
“Shall I ask him to wait?” Jasken said, his mouth very close to Veppers’ ear.
“No. I want the news, good or bad. Call Sulbazghi, get him to come too.” He looked behind. They were a lot closer to the tower to their rear than the one ahead. They’d disembark there. He put the barge into full astern. “Sorry ladies, gentlemen,” he shouted, over questions and protests. “Duty calls. I must go, but I shall return. To collect my winnings, I imagine. Sapultride, you’re captain.”
“Splendid! Do I get a special hat?”
“So, have we decided exactly what it is?” Veppers asked. He, Jasken, Dr. Sulbazghi and Xingre, the Jhlupian, were in the shielded, windowless drawing room in the sub-basement of the Espersium mansion which Veppers used for especially secret meetings or delicate negotiations.
Somewhat to Veppers’ surprise, it was Xingre, the usually reticent Jhlupian, who spoke, the translation filtering from the silvery cushion the alien sat upon, voice pitched to the scratchy, tinkly tones it favoured. “I believe it to be consistent with an inter-membranial full-spectrum cranial-event/state germinatory processor matrix with singular condensate-collapse indefinite-distance signalling ability, Level Eight (Player) in manufacture, bilateral carboniform pan-human sub-design.”
Veppers stared at the twelve-limbed creature. Its three stalk eyes stared back. One dipped down, let itself be cleaned and wetted by its mouth parts, then flipped jauntily upright again. The alien had returned with the thing that had been in the girl’s head, the thing that might or might not be a neural lace. Xingre had had its own techs analyse the device using Jhlupian technology.
If Veppers was being honest with himself he would have to admit that over the handful of days that the device had been with the Jhlupians he had quite happily let thoughts of the thing and its implications slip from his mind. Jasken had been unable to establish any more useful facts about it beyond what they already knew and on the couple of occasions they had talked about it they had largely convinced themselves that it must be a fake, or just something else, maybe alien, maybe not, that had somehow found its way into the furnace.
The alien extended one bright green limb towards Sulbazghi, giving him the device back inside a little transparent cylinder. The doctor looked at Veppers, who nodded. Sulbazghi poured the shimmering, blue-grey thing into his palm.
“My dear Xingre,” Veppers said after a moment, with a tolerant smile. “I t
hink I understood every single word you said there, but, sadly, only as single words. Put together like that they made no sense at all. What are you talking about?” He looked at Jasken, who was frowning mightily.
“I told you,” the alien said. “Probably it is what remains of an inter-membranial full-spectrum cranial-event/state germinatory—”
“Yes, yes,” Veppers said. “As I say, I heard the words.”
“Let me translate,” said Sulbazghi. “It’s a Culture neural lace.”
“You’re sure, this time?” Jasken asked, looking from the doctor to the alien.
“Certainly Level Eight (Player) in manufacture,” Xingre said.
“But who put it in her?” Veppers asked. “Definitely not the clinicians?”
Sulbazghi shook his head. “Definitely not.”
“Agreed,” the Jhlupian said. “Not.”
“Then who? What? Who could have?”
“Nobody else that we know of,” Sulbazghi said.
“Level Eight (Player) manufacture is absolutely certain,” Xingre said. “Level Eight (Player) so-called ‘Culture’ manufacture likely to ratio of one hundred and forty-three out of one hundred and forty-four in total.”
“Almost certainly, in other words,” the doctor said. “I suspected it was from the start. It’s Culture.”
“Only to ratio of one hundred and forty-three out of one hundred and forty-four chances,” Xingre pointed out again. “Additionally, device implantation might have occurred at any time from immediately subsequent to birth event to within last two local years approximately but not closer to present. Probably. Also; only remains of. Very most fine cilia-like twiggings likely burned off in furnace.”
“But the kicker,” Sulbazghi said, “is in the one-time signalling capacity.”
Xingre bounced once on its silvery cushion, the Jhlupian equivalent of a nod. “Singular condensate-collapse bi-event indefinite-distance signalling ability,” it said. “Used.”
“Signalling?” Veppers said. He wasn”t sure if he was simply being slow here or if a deep part of him just didn’t want to know what might be the truth. He already had the feeling he usually got before people delivered particularly bad news. “It didn’t signal her … ?” He heard his own voice trail off as he looked again at the tiny, nearly weightless thing that lay in his palm.
“Mind-state,” Jasken said. “It might have signalled her mindstate, her soul, to somewhere else. Somewhere in the Culture.”
“Malfunction rate of said process betrays ratio of equal to or higher than four out of one hundred and forty-four in total,” Xingre said.
“And that really is possible?” Veppers asked, looking at all three of them in turn. “I mean, total, full … transferring of a real person’s consciousness? This isn’t just a cosy myth or alien propaganda.”
Jasken and Sulbazghi looked at the alien, which sat floating silently for a short while, then – suddenly fixing them with the gaze from one eye each – seemed to realise it was the one they all expected to answer. “Yes,” it blurted. “Positively. A full affirmation.”
“And bringing them back to life; they can do that too?” Veppers asked.
Xingre was quicker this time. After a moment, when nobody else answered, it said, “Yes. Also most possible, availability of appropriate and compatible processing and physique substrate shell being assumed.”
Veppers sat for a moment. “I see,” he said. He put the neural lace down on the glass top of a nearby table, letting it drop from a half-metre up to see what noise it made.
It seemed to fall slightly too slowly, and landed silently.
“Bad luck, Veppers!” Sapultride told him when he got back to the naval battle. “Both your ships got sunk!”
Twelve
“Lededje Y’breq,” the avatar Sensia said, “may I introduce Chanchen Kallier-Falpise Barchen-dra dren-Skoyne.”
“Kallier-Falpise for short,” the drone itself said, dipping in the air in what she guessed was the equivalent of a bow or nod. “Though I’ll happily answer to Kall, or even just KP.”
The machine floated in the air in front of her. It was about big enough to sit comfortably on two outspread hands; a cream-casinged, mostly smooth device that looked like something you’d find on the work surface of an intimidatingly well-equipped kitchen and wonder what its function was. It was surrounded by a vague, misty halo that appeared to be various mixtures of yellow, green and blue according to the angle. This would be its aura field – the drone equivalent of facial expression and body language, there to convey emotions.
She nodded. “Pleased to meet you,” she told it. “So you’re my slap-drone.”
Kallier-Falpise rocked back in the air as though hit. “Please. That’s a little pejorative, if I may say so, Ms. Y’breq. I’ll be accompanying you principally for your own convenience and protection.”
“I’m—” she began, then was interrupted by the young man standing at her side.
“My lovely Led,” he said, “I’m sorry I can’t wave you farewell properly, but I must go. Let me …” He took her hand, kissed it, then, after a shake of his head and a wide smile, he held her head in both hands and kissed her face in a variety of places.
He was called Shokas, and while he had proved an attentive and sensitive lover, he had been impossible to shake off come the morning. He’d said he had other things he had to do that day but had insisted on accompanying her here, despite protests.
“Mmm,” she said, noncommittally, as he kissed her. She prised his hands from her face. “A pleasure, Shokas,” she told him. “I don’t suppose we shall ever meet again.”
“Shh!” he said, placing a finger to her lips and his other hand on his chest as he half closed his eyes and shook his head. “However, I must go,” he said, backing off but keeping hold of her hand until the last moment. “You wonderful girl.” He looked round the others, winked. “Wonderful girl,” he told them, then sighed deeply, turned and walked quickly for the traveltube doors.
Well, that was one less. She hadn’t expected so many people. Jolicci was there too, standing smiling at her.
She was in a Mediumbay of the GSV, on a wide gantry fifty metres up a side wall from the deck, the view in front of her filled by the pink-hulled bulk of the Fast Picket The Usual But Etymologically Unsatisfactory; near three hundred relatively slim metres of ancient warship now turned to more peaceful duties, such as ferrying people about the galaxy when they were heading for points not covered by the Culture’s more routine transportation arrangements.
The ship was supposed to be fifteen hundred years old but appeared brand spanking new and – to her – still looked like a round, windowless skyscraper laid on its side. Its rear three-fifths was a single great cylinder, its pale pinkness chevroned with brown. This was its engine, seemingly. Another substantial section held various mostly sensory systems and the roughly conical section at the front would have held weapons when it had been a Psychopath-class Rapid Offensive Unit. The crew section, a thick band on the central spindle squeezed in between the engine and the systems section, looked small for the thirty or so people who would once have formed its crew, but generous for one. It had produced a single solid-looking plug of doorway twenty metres long, which had moved smoothly out towards them then dropped gently down to the gantry’s floor level to provide a sort of gang-plank affording access to the vessel. The ship’s own avatar was another drone, a little bigger, boxy and more thrown-together-looking than Kallier-Falpise.
“Shall we?” she said to it.
“Certainly.” The drone floated to one side and picked up the two small cases of clothes, assorted toiletries and so on which Sensia had given her.
“Farewell, Lededje,” Sensia said.
Lededje smiled at her, thanked her, accepted a hug, then bade a slightly more formal goodbye to Jolicci. She turned towards the ship.
“Just in time. Let me be the last to wish you bon voyage,” a voice said behind her.
She turned to find Demei
sen strolling from the traveltube entrance, smiling thinly. He looked a little less haggard and dishevelled than when Lededje had seen him the evening before. The red jewel at his neck glittered under the lights.
Sensia glared at him. “I thought you left earlier.”
“I did leave earlier, my gracious hostess. I am currently some eighty years or so distant on an acutely divergent course, and travelling only slightly more rapidly than your good self, though still just about within real-time control range, at least for something as intrinsically slow-reacting as a human host. All of which I would hope you’re well aware of.”
“You’re abandoning your puppet here then?” Jolicci said.
“I am,” Demeisen agreed. “I thought now would be as appropriate an occasion as any other to return the fucker to the wild.”
“I have heard some disturbing reports regarding your treatment of this human you’re using, ship,” Sensia said. Lededje looked at the GSV’s avatar. For a small, frail-looking lady with frizzy blonde hair she seemed suddenly invested with a steeliness Lededje found herself glad was not directed at her.
Demeisen turned to Sensia. “All above board, dear thing. I have the relevant releases signed by his own fair hand. In blood, admittedly, but signed. What was I to use – engine oil?” He looked puzzled and turned to Jolicci. “Do we even have engine oil? I don’t think we do, do we?”