“I’m sure we can offer you the processing space to be housed within a Virtuality,” Zaive said. “Wouldn’t you rather—?
“No, thank you. My original has been through more virtualities, downloads and re-incorporations than he cares to think about. Any selves he sends out such as myself are quite inured to the thought of personal deletion so long as we know our original persists somewhere.” The Space Marshal smiled, and knew that he looked resigned as he did so. “And even if not … this has been a very long war, and I am very tired, in all my iterations. Death no longer seems so terrible a thing, on any level.”
“That may,” the blue bird said, “be just as well.” For once though, its tone was less than cutting.
“Indeed,” Vatueil said. He looked round them all. “Thank you for listening. Goodbye.” He looked at the chandelier and nodded.
He winked out of existence.
“Well,” Zaive said.
“Do we take this at face value?” the silver-skinned avatar asked.
“It fits well with what we know,” the wooden dummy said. “Better than most sims.”
“And do we trust the Space Marshal?” Zaive asked.
The bird made a snorting sound. “That errant, ramshackled ghost?” it said scornfully. “He’s known of old; I doubt he even remembers who he used to be, let alone what he believes in or most recently promised.”
“We don’t need to trust it to incorporate the import of its information into our calculations,” the silver-skinned female said.
The thin male avatar looked at the chandelier. “You need to tell your accident-prone agent to stop wasting time and get to where she’s supposed to get to, preferably without, this time, getting any more innocent people killed. Stop the Y’breq woman killing Veppers.” The man turned to the blue bird with the orange-red cloud hanging over it. “Though of course that won’t be necessary if SC would just tell the Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints to stop indulging whatever bizarre fantasies of gallantry, vicarious revenge or just devilment it’s currently revelling in.”
“Don’t look at me,” the Scar Glamour’s avatar said, flapping indignantly. “That bastard excuse for a picket ship’s got nothing to do with me.” The bird cocked its head and looked up at the orange cloud. “You’d better be listening,” it squawked. “You’ve got the contacts; you talk to the GSV that spawned that particular Abomination; get it to try and bang some sense into the bug-fuck shrapnel that makes up what passes for a Mind in that demented machine.”
… good night, good night, good night.
A chill struck her skin. She wanted to shiver, but felt too lethargic; all swaddled, lost in a warm, baking fug.
What sounded like a real voice came clanging in, unwelcome. “Hello! Anybody in there?” it said. “Anybody alive?”
“Huh?” She heard herself say. Great; now she was hallucinating, hearing voices.
“Hello!”
“Yes? What? Hello to you too.” She was talking, not sending, she realised. That was weird. It took a few moments, but she got her eyes open, unsticking them. She blinked, waited for every-thing to swim into focus. Light. There was light. Dim, but it looked real. Face plate of helmet; internal visor screen, currently showing just static, but enough to reveal that both her inner and outer suits seemed to have expanded around her, and chilly draughts of air were flowing over her exposed body, raising goose-bumps. She could breathe! She took some deep, satisfying breaths, luxuriating in the feel of the cold air entering her mouth and nostrils, and her rib cage being able to expand as far as it could.
“Auppi Unstril, that right?” the voice said.
“Umm, yes.” Her mouth felt clogged, sticky; all gummed up like her eyes had been. She licked her lips; they felt puffy and over-sensitive. But just being able to lick them felt so good. “Who you?” She cleared her throat. “Who am I talking to?”
“I’m an element of the Culture Abominator-class picket ship Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints.”
“An element?”
“Element five.”
“Are you now? Where did you come from?”
What Abominator class? she thought. Nobody had mentioned an Abominator-class ship. Was this real? She still wasn’t sure that this wasn’t just some very lucid dream. She found the nipple on the end of the helmet’s flexible water tube, sucked on it. The water was cool, sweet, beautiful. Real, she told herself. Real water, real chill on the skin, real voice. Real real real. She felt the water coursing down inside her, chilling her throat, oesophagus and stomach as she swallowed.
“Is where I came from relevant?” the voice said. “My whole was pretending to be a Torturer class earlier, if that helps.”
“Ah. Are you rescuing me, Element five?”
“I am. Currently I have Displaced nano-dust working to repair what I can of your Module. It should be ready to power up again in a few minutes. You could then make your way to the nearest base, which would be the near-planet monitoring unit five; however, in the light of the recent hostile actions I think it might be wiser and even safer if you join me, coming within my field enclosure. Your choice.”
“What would you do if you were me?”
“Oh, I’d stick with me, but then I’m bound to say that, aren’t I?”
“I suppose you are.” She drank more of the precious, beautiful water. “But I will stick with you.”
“Wise choice.”
“How is everybody else? Are you rescuing the others? There were twenty-three other microship pilots and nearly forty others, plus the people on the Hylozoist. How are they?”
“The Hylozoist lost four crew, one person was killed when the near-planet monitoring unit five was damaged. Two of the Module/microship pilots were killed, one in a collision with a fabricary, the other burning up within the atmosphere of Razhir. The other pilots have been, are being or shortly will be rescued.”
“Who were they? Who were the two pilots who died?”
“Lofgyr, Inhada was the one killed in the collision with a fabricary and Tersetier, Lanyares died when his ship burned up within the atmosphere of the gas giant.”
Backed up, she thought. He was backed up. It’s all right; he can come back. It will take time and even though he might not be exactly the same person, he’ll be mostly the same person. Of course he’ll still love you. He’d be a fool not to. Wouldn’t he?
She found that she was crying.
“Bettlescroy. I understand you’ve been looking for me.”
“Indeed I have, Veppers. You look well for a dead man.”
The image of the GFCF Legislator-Admiral on the little flat-screen comms computer wavered a little. The signal was weak, multiply scrambled. Veppers sat with Jasken in a small room in one of his emergency safe houses in Ubruater city, a few blocks and the width of a ribbon-park away from the main town house.
The safe house – one of several prepared long ago, just in case the wrong politicians or judges got into positions of real power and started making things uncomfortable for creative, buccaneering business people who didn’t always do things the conventional way – had shielded comms links to the systems in the town house. As soon as they’d arrived – both in the uniforms of paramedics – Veppers had taken a shower, scrubbing any remaining radioactive soot or ash out of his hair and skin, while Jasken had woken up the slightly archaic equipment in the study and started trawling the news channels and message systems. The series of urgent calls and messages from Legislator-Admiral Bettlescroy-Bisspe-Blispin III had been hard to ignore.
“Thank you,” Veppers told the angelic-looking little alien. “You look as you always do. What’s our situation?”
A wavering smile on the little alien’s face might have been distorted or exaggerated by the lo-fi screen. “Your situation is that you need to tell me, now, Veppers, where our targets are. It is more than urgent; it is crucial. All we’ve planned and worked for now depends on this.”
“I see. All right. I’ll tell you.”
/> “That comes as a great, if absurdly belated, relief.”
“Though, first, I am – as you might imagine – quite interested in finding out who tried to blow me out of the skies on my own flier, over my own estate.”
“Almost certainly the NR,” Bettlescroy said quickly, waving one hand as though this was hardly worth mentioning.
“You’ve obviously given the subject considerable thought, ally,” Veppers said quietly.
Bettlescroy looked exasperated. “The NR seem to feel you have betrayed them in some way. Though just possibly it was the Flekke, sub-contracting in some way, ever anxious to please. And the Jhlupians might feel wronged, too. Your friend Xingre seems to have disappeared, which probably means something. We will do all we can with all the resources we can afford to devote to the matter to find out who might have been responsible; however the targets are still – by far – the most important issue outstanding here.”
“Agreed. But first, your situation. I’ve got a little out of touch here; what’s happening?”
Bettlescroy seemed to be trying to control itself. “Perhaps,” it said calmly, “I have not indicated as forcefully as I might that the target information is of vital importance right now!” it said, almost screaming the last two words.
“I take your point,” Veppers said smoothly. “The targets will be with you very shortly. But I need to know what’s happening.”
“What’s happening, Veppers,” Bettlescroy hissed, sitting so close to the screen camera at its end that its face appeared distorted, almost ugly, “is that a fucking Culture hyper-ship that can split up to become a fleet of ships is laying waste to our fucking war fleet of ships even as we speak and even as you, unbelievably, continue to waste time. It’s destroying thousands of them each minute! Within a day and a half there will be no more ships left! And this despite the fact that I took it upon myself to order that all the fabricaria able to do so start manufacturing ships, not just the proportion we originally agreed on.”
Veppers assumed a look of pretended hurt. “Going back on our agree—?” he began.
“Shut up!” Bettlescroy shouted, one tiny fist thudding down on the desk beneath the screen. “The Culture vessel has also already worked out how to get the fabricaria-built ships to set about destroying each other, which might result in the ships annihilating themselves even quicker; within a matter of hours. It would appear only to be holding back from this course because it fears some of the ships might accidentally or mistakenly damage the fabricaria, a consequence it wishes to avoid if possible, to preserve the – and I quote – ‘unique techno-cultural monument that is the Tsungarial Disk’. That’s so thoughtful, don’t you think that’s so thoughtful? I think that’s so fucking thoughtful.” Bettlescroy stared out of the screen at them with a fierce, unnatural smile that held no humour whatsoever. “However, this thing, this wonderful super-powerful ‘ally’ that we suddenly discovered we had, now blithely tells us it will hold this tactic in reserve and meanwhile continue to target the ships itself for the sake of ‘engagemental accuracy’ and to ‘minimise collateral damage’, though frankly my fellow officers and myself strongly suspect it’s really doing so because it’s enjoying itself so much, just as it appeared quite heartily to enjoy disposing of nearly a third of our naval fleet on its approach to the Tsung system. I hope this is giving you some small, modest, indicationary idea of just how powerless we are out here at the moment, Veppers, old fellow, while we wait for your precious fucking targets.
“Meanwhile, we are continuing to deal with our pretend smatter outbreak, which has proved trickier than we anticipated, and are ourselves even having to destroy some of the fabricaria-built war fleet we worked so hard to create, just to make it look convincing to the Culture that we really are all just chums and allies fighting on the same jolly side.
“Oh! And I nearly forgot; an NR ship is causing havoc on/in/all over Vebezua! Yes! Another ship, possibly a Culture ship, possibly another Culture warship, was last heard of high-tailing it out of the Vebezua system, possibly having delivered some-thing or somebody, and possibly now departing there with the intention of joining in all the fun out here at the Disk and depleting our once-fine fleet of ships even quicker. And the NR themselves are making deeply suspicious noises, bordering on outright hostile noises, when it comes both to ourselves and you, Veppers, and are only not helping to destroy our short-lived war fleet because they want to see how fast and how ably the Culture vessel-fleet does so; valuable intelligence, we are given to understand. Though of course the presence and presumed hostility of the NR does mean that any of our ships that might escape from the vicinity of the Disk itself may well find themselves being picked off by the NR.
“There. That is the fucking situation. I face shame, humiliation, demotion, court martial and ruin, and – oh, please do believe me, dear Mr. Veppers – if such a fate befalls me I shall do everything I possibly can to make sure that you fall with me, cherished ally and co-conspirator.”
Bettlescroy took a deep breath, drew itself up and, collecting itself, it seemed, made a calm, expansive motion with its hands. “Now,” it said. “I can’t really imagine how many more of our ships have been laid waste while I have been speaking but I imagine the number comes to some several thousand. Please, Veppers, if we are to salvage anything, anything at all from what is increasingly looking like a calamitous venture and an utterly hopeless situation, tell us where the targets are. At least some of them, at least the nearest ones, given that we will have so few ships, so ill-equipped and so slow-moving, by the time you get round to finally telling us where …” Bettlescroy paused, “… the fucking …” it paused again, taking another deep breath, “… targets …” one last pause, “… are.”
Veppers sighed. “Thank you, Bettlescroy. That was really all I wanted to know.” He smiled. “One moment …” He clicked the sound off at the computer and turned to Jasken. On the screen, Bettlescroy appeared to be shouting, and striking the screen at its end with both hands. Jasken had to tear his gaze away.
“Sir?”
“Jasken, I’m absolutely famished. Would you mind seeing what we have in the kitchen here? Just a bite or two and some decent wine. Even water would do … but do look for some drinkable wine. Get something for yourself, too.” Veppers grinned, nodded at the comms unit, where Bettlescroy appeared to be trying to bite the edge of the screen. “I can manage here.”
“Sir,” Jasken said, and left the room.
Veppers watched the study door close, then turned back to the screen and switched the sound back on.
“… Where?” Bettlescroy shrieked.
“Ready?” Veppers asked calmly.
Bettlescroy sat staring at the screen, eyes wide, breathing hard. What might have been spittle disfigured its finely made chin.
“Good,” Veppers said, smiling. “The most important targets – the only ones really worth bothering with now – are easily reached and close by; they’re under the trackways on my estate of Espersium. In fact, come to think of it, somebody – possibly the NR, as you suggest – has already begun the task of destroying them, when they attacked my flier.
“Anyway, to reiterate: every trackway is underlain by what to the untutored eye looks like some sort of giant fungal structure. It isn’t. It’s substrate. Low-power, bio-based, not ultra-fast running, but high-efficiency, highly damage-resistant substrate; anything from ten to thirty metres thick under and amongst the roots, but adding up to over half a cubic kilometre of processing power spread throughout the estate. All the comms traffic to and from it is channelled through the phased array satellite links dotted round the mansion house itself. The ones that everyone still thinks just control the Virtualities and games.
“That’s what you have to hit, Bettlescroy. The under-trackway substrates contain over seventy per cent of the Hells in the entire galaxy.” He smiled again. “Of those we know of, anyway. Used to be slightly more, but very recently I sub-contracted the NR Hell, just to be on the safe side.
I’ve been buying Hells up for over a century, Legislator-Admiral, taking the processing requirements and legal and jurisdictional implications off other peoples’ hands for most of my business life. The majority of the Hells are right here, in system, on planet. That is why I have always felt able to be so relaxed regarding the targeting details. Think you can get enough ships to Sichult to lay waste to my estate?”
“Truly?” Bettlescroy said, gulping, still breathing deeply. “The targets are on your own estates? Why would you do that?”
“Deniability, Bettlescroy. You’ll have to raze the trackways, wreck my lands, blast the satellite links and damage the house itself; maybe even destroy it. That house has been in my family for centuries; it and the estate are inestimably precious to me. Or at least so everybody assumes. Who’s going to believe I brought all that destruction on myself?”
“And yet you … no, wait.” The little alien shook its head. “I have to issue the relevant orders.” The Legislator-Admiral bent over its desk, then looked up again. “That’s all; the trackways of
Espersium, centred on the house?”
“Yes,” Veppers said. “Target away.”
Bettlescroy took only seconds to issue the orders. When it came back it was after a blanked-out delay of a few more seconds during which, Veppers suspected, the Legislator-Admiral had composed itself, smoothed down its scalp scales and wiped its face. Bettlescroy certainly seemed much more like its old glossily imperturbable self when it switched back on.
“You would do this to yourself, Veppers? To your family’s legacy?”
“If it keeps me alive to enjoy my spoils, of course. And the spoils promise to be fabulous; another order of magnitude greater than anything I’ll be losing. The house can be rebuilt, the art treasures replaced, the trackways … well, I’d grown tired of them anyway, frankly, but they could be filled in and re-grown, I dare say. The energy weapons leave negligible radioactivity, hyper-velocity kinetics leave even less, as I understand it, and the missile warheads are clean, aren’t they?”