The avatar shook his head, looked at the ambassador. “Kids, eh?”
Twenty-eight
She was in her sleeping pod, the aching fruit within its dark enfolding confinement, when whatever happened, happened.
She had been slowly stretching herself, extending one wing and then the other – creakingly, with much joint-grumbling and tendon-grating and what felt like even the leathery fabric of her wings protesting – then rotating her neck as best she could, against what felt like the gravel filling her vertebrae, then flexing first one leg and then the other, hanging by a single clawed talon each time.
Then, without warning, there was a sort of shiver in the air, as though the shock wave of a great explosion far away had just passed by.
The pod around her started to shake. Then it froze, somehow, as though the blow that had struck it had been cancelled from reality rather than allowed to ring on through the fabric of her great dark roost.
She knew immediately there was something odd and unprecedented about it, something that hinted at outside, at an existential change to her surroundings, maybe even to the Hell itself. She thought of the glitch, the silver mirror-barrier, the patch where the landscape had been deleted, smoothed over.
She had lost count of how many thousands she had dispatched since she had been brought back here. She had meant to keep count, but had baulked at scratching a mark for each death on the interior surface of her roost – she had considered this – because it just seemed so cold. She’d attempted to keep count in her head, but then lost it a few times, and then for a long time had thought that it didn’t matter. The last figure she remembered was three thousand eight hundred and eighty-five, but that had been a long time ago. She had probably killed at least that number again since.
The pain grew each time, after each killing, each release, every day. She existed in a sort of continual haze of aching limbs and over-sensitive skin and grinding sinew and ever-cramping internal organs. She liked to think that she ignored it, but she couldn’t really. It was there all the time, from when she woke to when she fell, moaning, grumbling, asleep. It was there in her dreams, too. She dreamed of bits of her body falling off or developing their own lives, tearing themselves off her and flying or falling or walking or slithering away, leaving her screaming, bereft, bleeding and raw.
Every day it was a struggle to let go of the upside-down perch, quit her roost pod and scour the blackened, pox-addled lands beneath for a fresh soul to release. She was getting later and later, these days.
Once she had flown for the joy of it; because flight was still flight, even in Hell, and felt like freedom for somebody who had grown up a devoutly ground-dwelling quadruped. Providing one got over one’s fear of heights, of course, which somehow – since the long-ago days when she’d grown old within a convent perched on a rock – she had.
Once she had loved to go exploring, fascinated to find the parts of Hell she hadn’t discovered before. She was almost invariably horrified by what she found, no matter where she looked, but she was fascinated nevertheless. Just the geography, then the logistics, then the hatefully sadistic inventiveness of it all was enough to captivate the inquiring mind, and she had made full use of her ability to fly over the ground that lesser unfortunates had to crawl, limp, stagger and fight over.
No longer. She rarely flew far from her roost to find somebody to kill and eat, and usually waited until she felt such pangs of hunger that she no longer had any real choice in the matter. It was a delicate balance and a tricky choice, trying to decide whether her grumbling, empty guts were causing her more discomfort as the day went on than the ever-present shoals and flocks of aches and pains that seemed to squall through her like some bizarre parasitic infection.
Her status as a soul-releasing angel had slipped, she suspected. People came from all around to be blessed by her, but there was not the same level of worship she had enjoyed before; she no longer appeared almost anywhere, to anyone. Now you had to be able to make your way to near where she lived. That changed things. She had become a localised service.
She suspected the demons had finally got wise and were arranging for certain individuals to be more or less presented to her for death and release. She did not want to think what unlikely favours or perverse rewards the demons exacted for this. And, frankly, she no longer cared. She was glad that it really did seem to release this or that particular soul from its suffering, but all the same, it was just what she did, what she had no choice but to do.
The last interesting thing had been when she’d gone to see the uber-demon. She’d been wondering about the glitch she’d discovered, the patch of hill and cliff and factory that had simply disappeared, and – after what had felt like weeks of mulling it over – had finally summoned up the strength to fly to where the vast demon sat and ask it what had happened.
“A failure,” he’d roared at her, as she’d flapped painfully in front of him, still careful not to get too close to those terrible, body-crushing hands. “Something went wrong, wiped everything from that area. Landscape, buildings, demons, the tormented; all just ceased to be. Released more of the undeserving wretches in a blink of an eye than you’ve set free in all the time you’ve worked for me! Ha! Now fuck off and stop troubling me with matters even I have no control over!”
Now this.
She felt different. The pod she was hanging in felt different, and it was as though all the pain she had taken on was evaporating. A sort of back-surge of relief, well-being – almost sexual, nearly orgasmic in its contrasting intensity – washed through her, sloshing back and forth within her as though she was the hollow presence here, not the pod-roost. The sensation slowly lost energy and dampened down, leaving her feeling clean and good for the first time in longer than she could recall.
She found that she had let go of the perch, but was still hanging where she had been. Her body seemed different too; no longer so great and terrible and fierce; no longer Hell’s dark angel of release. Trying to look at it, she realised she couldn‘t really see what she had become instead, either; it was as though everything about her had become pixelated, smoothed out. She had some sort of body, but it somehow contained all the possibilities of every sort of body: four-legged mammal, two-legged mammal, bird, fish, snake … and every other type of being, including ones she had no names for, as though she was some brand new embryo, cells so few and so fixated on simple, continual multiplication that they had not yet decided what to become.
She floated to the limit of the pod. It all looked and felt different: smaller, quieter – completely silent – and without the stink she realised had been in her nostrils for as long as she’d been back. The air in here now was probably completely neutral, odour-free, but that absence smelled like the sweetest, freshest mountain meadow breeze to her after what she’d been used to for so long.
There was, however, no exit, no way out of the pod, even where the hole at the foot had been. This troubled her less than she would have anticipated. The walls of the pod were neither soft nor hard; they were untouchable. She reached for them but it felt as though there was some perfectly clear glass between her and them. She struggled even to tell what colour the walls were.
Such relief, such relief, no longer to be in pain. She closed her eyes, feeling things wind up, wind down, go into a sort of static, stored, steady state.
Something was happening; something had happened. She would not even start to think about what it might be or what it might imply or mean. Hope, she recalled, had to be resisted at all costs.
A sort of buzzing filled her body and her head. Behind her already closed eyes she felt herself starting to drift away. If this was death, she had time to think – real, full, proper, no-waking-up-from death – then it was not so terrible.
After all that Hell had made her suffer and made her witness and made her complicit with, she might finally be getting to die in some sort of peace.
Too good to be true, she thought woozily. She’d believe it when … well
…
xGSV Dressed Up To Party
oPS Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints
NR possibly labouring under all-too-accurate apprehension re YN’s true mission. As was, anyway; YN since deactivated from our POV, traces removed, memories wiped (diaglyph details attached). Full deniability now possible. Try to get NR off M,IC’s case.
… I mean by using argument, absolutely not force.
∞
xPS Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints
oGSV Dressed Up To Party
And a fascinating link implied between NR and Bulbitians! Aloof!
∞
xGSV Dressed Up To Party
oPS Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints
That is not your business.
xPS Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints
o8401.00 Partial Photic Boundary (NR ship – assumed)
Greetings. Can’t help noticing you've been combatively interested in some meatball on the good ship Me, I’m Counting. Imagining this isn't start of final applied stage of NR bio-disgust so there must be a specific reason. Care to share? I mean, I've very little time for the horrible, wasteful, bacteria-slathered, germ-infested, shit-filled squishy things myself, but I generally draw the line at trying to incinerate them – the effort/result equation is just woeful.
Smooches.
∞
x401.00 Partial Photic Boundary (NR Bismuth category ship)
oPS Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints
Reciprocated greetings. I am not free to discuss operational matters.
∞
xPS Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints
o8401.00 Partial Photic Boundary
Look, the only non-avatar on the tub is a not-even-neural-laced neuter-gendered human called Yime Nsokyi, of the Culture Quietus Section, currently slowly knitting herself back together after getting half crushed to death by an unhinged Bulbitian. What can you have against her?
∞
x8401.00 Partial Photic Boundary
oPS Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints
I remain unable to discuss operational matters of this nature.
∞
xPS Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints
o8401.00 Partial Photic Boundary
This is the bod who’s famous in the Culture because she turned down SC. She is most certainly not part of SC. I should know; I am part of fucking SC. And – perhaps persuaded by your helpful and refreshing openness and infectious garrulousness – I am able and willing to reveal that she has been sent here specifically to stop what one might term a certain potential loose cannon from interfering with your ally Joiler Veppers. So. From where comes the squabble?
∞
x8401.00 Partial Photic Boundary
oPS Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints
While I remain unable to discuss operational matters of this nature, your information will be both taken into account tac tically and command up-chained.
∞
xPS Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints
o8401.00 Partial Photic Boundary
Right. Spiffing having this little talk. Want to come out to play? Help blow up some smatter?
∞
x8401.00 Partial Photic Boundary
oPS Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints
I am unfortunately unable to re-dispose myself in such an extemporisational manner, especially with regard to the overtures of a non-NR entity; however I am cognisant of the positive intention I deem to be behind said invitation.
∞
xPS Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints
o8401.00 Partial Photic Boundary
Steady.
“Bettlescroy. Happier?”
The little alien, shown in rather better definition on the main screen of Veppers’ hired flier – though the amount of signal scrambling was still obvious – was back to looking as calm as usual.
“The first wave seems to have done what was required of it,” the Legislator-Admiral conceded. “The pursuing element of the Culture capital ship has also continued on past Sichult and appears set on hunting down all the ships; they won’t be returning.” Bettlescroy shook its head, smiled. The image broke up a little, struggling to cope with such dynamism. “There is going to be a lot of space debris around the Quyn system, Veppers. Far less than in the Tsung system, of course, but more troublesome due to the higher amounts of day-to-day traffic around Sichult.” The Legislator-Admiral glanced at another screen. “You’ve already lost numerous elements of your soletta, some important satellites – actually, almost all your satellites, both close and synchronous have had their orbits altered at least temporarily by the gravity wells of the passing ships – and at least two small manned space vehicles including one carrying a party of twenty-plus college students would seem to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time when the ships went past. I hope you’ve been watching the skies; should have been quite a pretty display.”
Veppers smiled. “Happily I own most of the major space-debris-clearing, satellite- and ship-building and soletta-maintenance companies. I expect many lucrative government contracts.”
“I imagine my sorrow for your loss will prove containable. Are you on your way to your estate house? The latest estimates have the second wave arriving between forty and fifty minutes from now.”
“Nearly there,” Veppers said. “Think we saw the last of the missiles landing, close in, a few minutes ago.” He watched Jasken’s side of the screen, where a dark, only half-familiar land-scape was still unrolling towards them, slowing as the flier braked. On either side of the aircraft what looked like gigantic black hedges kilometres high rose up, still growing, into the evening sky. At their bases, spattered wavy lines of craters, some still glowing, were surrounded by the remains of smashed and burning trees, blackened, still smouldering fields of crops, smaller copses, woods and forests just catching alight, and the occasional wrecked and burning farm building. The smoke appeared to hem the flier in and rise even higher, the closer they got. They had seen various ground vehicles on the estate roads, all sensibly fleeing towards the perimeter. Veppers had thought he’d recognised at least one of them after catching a fleeting glimpse of a sleek yellow blob heading away fast along the estate’s main access road.
“That’s my fucking limited edition ’36 Whiscord,” he’d muttered, watching the slim shape disappear behind them through the smoke. “I don’t even let myself drive it that fast. Thieving bastard. Somebody’s in a lot of trouble.”
On the comms, there was silence. Jasken had been trying to contact people at the house since they’d set out, but without success. Elsewhere, it was chaotic; a combination of the disturbed satellites, electromagnetic discharges and pulses associated with the energy weapons, hyper-velocity kinetics tearing through the atmosphere and nukes had left the area around Espersium in utter communicative disarray and sent a systems-deranging shock through the comms of the whole planet.
“Well, I wouldn’t delay,” Bettlescroy said. “The remaining ships of the second wave are being severely harried by the Culture ship-element following them and may not have as much time as we would like to carry out the most precise of attacks. I’d aim to be tens of kilometres away, along or up, when they drop by, just in case.”
“Duly noted,” Veppers said as, ahead, he caught the first glimpse of the mansion house in the distance, surrounded by walls of smoke. “I’ll grab a few precious items, tell any remaining staff they’re free to leave if they wish and be gone within half an hour.” He glanced at Jasken as he cut the connection with Bettlescroy. “We’ve got that, have we?”
“Sir,” Jasken said.
Veppers regarded his security chief for a moment. “I want you to know this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, Jasken.” He’d delayed telling Jasken what was going to happen to the estate until the last moment. He’d thought the man would accept this as just correc
t, standard, need-to-know security procedure, but – now he thought about it – he supposed even the ultra-professional Jasken might feel a little miffed he’d been kept in the dark for so long.
“These are your lands, sir,” Jasken said. “Your house. Yours to dispose of as you wish.” He glanced at Veppers. “Was there some warning for the people on the estate, sir?”
“None whatsoever,” Veppers said. “That would have been idiotic. Anyway, who wanders the trackways? I’ve been keeping them as devoid of people as I can for over a century.” Veppers sensed Jasken wanting to say something more, but holding back. “This was all I could do, Jasken,” he told him.
“Sir,” Jasken said tightly, not looking at him. Veppers could tell the other man was struggling to control his feelings.
He sighed. “Jasken, I was lucky to be able to off-load the NR Hell back to them. They’re one of the few civs still willing to host their own and not care who knows it. Everybody else seems to have got cold feet. Nobody else I took them from would take them back. They were happy and relieved to get rid of them decades ago. That’s why I got such lucrative deals in the first place; they were desperate. I even looked into placing them else-where, quite recently; GFCF put me in touch with something called a Bulbousian or something, but it refused. The GFCF said it would have been too unreliable anyway. I’d never have got the approval of the Hells’ owners. You’ve no idea how tied my hands are here, Jasken. I can’t even just close the substrates down. There are laws that our galactic betters have seen fit to pass regarding what they think of as living beings, and some people in the Hells are there voluntarily, believe it or not. And that’s without taking into account the penalty clauses in the agreements I signed taking responsibility for the Hells, which are prohibitive, even punitive, believe me. And even if I did ignore all that, the substrates under the trackways can’t be switched off; they’re designed to keep going through almost anything. Even cutting down all the trees would only make them switch to the bio energy they’ve stored in the root systems; take decades to exhaust. You’d have to dig it all up, shred it and incinerate it.”