Excession

I

Grief, nothing worked! The Fate Amenable To Change’s ordnance directed at the Elench drone ship just disappeared, snatched away to nowhere; it had to react quickly to deal with the collapsing wormholes as they slammed back, now endless, towards its Displacers. How could anything do that? (And had the watching Elench warships noticed?) The little Elench drone flew on, a few seconds away from its home ship.

— I confess I just tried to destroy your drone, the Fate sent to the Appeal To Reason. ~ I make no apologies. Look what happened. It enclosed a recording of the events. ~ Now will you listen? There seems little point in trying to destroy the machine. Just get away from it. I’ll try to work out another way of dealing with it.

— You had no business attempting to interfere with my drone, the Appeal To Reason replied. ~ I am glad that you were frustrated. I am happy that the drone appears to be under the protection of the entity. I take it as an encouraging sign that it is so.

— What? Are you mad?

— I’ll thank you to stop impugning my mental state with such regularity and allow me to get on with my job. I have not informed the other craft of your disgraceful and illegal attack on my drone; however, any further endeavours of a similar nature will not be treated so leniently.

— I shall not try to reason with you. Goodbye and fare well.

— Where are you going?

— I am not going anywhere.

II

The General Contact Unit Grey Area was about to rendezvous with the General Systems Vehicle Sleeper Service. The GCU had gathered its small band of passengers in a lounge for the occasion; one of the ship’s skeletal slave-drones joined them as they watched the view of hyperspace behind them on a wall screen. The GCU was making the best speed it could, rushing beneath the skein at a little over forty kilolights on a gently, decreasingly curved course that was now almost identical to that of the larger craft approaching from astern.

“This will require a coordinated full engine shut-off and Displace,” the small cube of components that was the drone told them. “For an instant, none of us will be within my full control.”

Genar-Hofoen was still trying to think of a cutting remark when the drone Churt Lyne said, “Won’t slow down for you, eh?”

“Correct,” the slave-drone said.

“Here it comes,” said Ulver Seich. She sat cross-legged on a couch drinking a delicately scented infusion from a porcelain cup. A dot appeared in the representation of space behind them; it rushed towards them, growing quickly. It swelled to a fat shining ovoid that rushed silently underneath them; the view dipped quickly to follow it, beginning to perform a half-twist to keep the orientation correctly aligned. Genar-Hofoen, standing near where Ulver sat, had to put his hand out to the back of the couch to steady himself. In that instant, there was a sensation of a kind of titanically enveloping slippage, the merest hint of vast energies being gathered, cradled, unleashed, contained, exchanged and manipulated; unimaginable forces called into existence seemingly from nothing to writhe momentarily around them, collapse back into the void and leave reality, from the perspective of the people on the Grey Area, barely altered.

Ulver Seich tssked as some of her infusion spilled into the cup’s saucer.

The view had changed. Now it snapped to a grey-blue expanse of something curved, like a cup of cloud seen from the inside. It pivoted again, and they were looking at a series of vast steps like the entrance to an ancient temple. The broad shelves of the stairs led up to a rectangular entrance lined with tiny lights; a dark space beyond twinkled with still smaller lamps. The view drew back to reveal a series of such entrances arranged side by side, the rest of which were closed. Above and below, set into the faces of the steps, were smaller doors, all similarly shut.

“Success,” the slave-drone said.

The view was changing again as the ship was drawn slowly backwards towards the single opened bay.

Genar-Hofoen frowned. “We’re going inside?” he asked the slave-drone.

It swivelled to face him, paused just long enough for the human to form the impression he was being treated like some sort of cretin. “… Well, yes…” it said, slowly, as one might to a particularly dim child.

“But I was told—”

“Welcome aboard the Sleeper Service,” said a voice behind them. They turned to see a tall, angular, black-dressed creature walking into the lounge. “My name is Amorphia.”

III

The drone returned to the Appeal To Reason and was taken back aboard. Seconds passed.

— Well? the Fate Amenable To Change asked.

There was a brief pause. A microsecond or so. Then: ~ It’s empty, the Appeal To Reason sent.

— Empty?

— Yes. It didn’t record anything. It’s like it never went anywhere.

— Are you sure?

— Take a look for yourself.

A data dump followed. The Fate Amenable To Change shunted into a memory core it had set up for just such a purpose the mem it had realised what the Excession was, almost a month earlier. It was the equivalent of a locked room, an isolation ward, a cell. More information poured out of the Appeal To Reason; a gushing river of data trying to flood in after the original data dump. The Culture ship ignored it. Part of its Mind was listening to the howling, thumping noises coming out of that locked room.

Information flickered between the Appeal To Reason and the Sober Counsel, an instant before the Fate sent its own warning signal. It cursed itself for its procrastination, even if its warning would almost certainly have gone unheeded anyway.

It signalled the distant, war-readied Elench craft instead, begging them to believe the worst had happened. There was no immediate reply.

The Appeal To Reason was the nearer of the two Elencher ships. It turned and started accelerating towards the Fate. It broadcast, tight-beamed, lasered and field-pulsed vast, impossibly complicated signals at the Culture craft. The Fate squirted back the contents of that locked room, evacuating it. Then it swivelled and powered up its engines. So I am going somewhere, it thought, and moved off, away from the Appeal To Reason, which was still signalling wildly and remained on a heading taking it straight, for the Culture ship.

The Fate raced outwards, powering away from the Elencher vessel and heading out on a great curve that would take it rolling over the invisible sphere that was the closest approach limit it had set. The Sober Counsel was moving off on an opposite course from the Appeal To Reason, which was still following the Culture ship. A direction which would turn into an intercept course if they all held these headings. Oh, shit, the Fate thought.

They were still close enough to each other to just talk, but the Fate thought it ought to be a little more formal, so it signalled.

xGCU Fate Amenable To Change (Culture)

oExplorer Ship Sober Counsel (Whoever)

Whatever you are, if you advance on an intercept course on the far side of the closest approach limit, I’ll open fire. No further warnings.

No reply. Just the blaze of multi-band mania from the Appeal To Reason, following behind it. The Sober Counsel’s course didn’t alter.

The Fate concentrated its attention on the last known locations of the three other Elench craft; the trio which the Break Even had said were all war-configured. The other two couldn’t be ignored, but the new arrivals had to constitute the greatest threat for now. It scanned the data it had on the specifications of the Elench craft, calculating, simulating; war-gaming. Grief, to be doing this with ships that were practically Culture ships! The simulation runs came out equivocal. It could easily deal with the two craft, even staying within range of the Excession (as though that was a wise limitation anyway!), but if the other three joined in the fun, and certainly if they attacked, it could well find itself in trouble.

It signalled the Break Even again. Still nothing.

The Fate was starting to wonder what the point was of sticking around here. The big guns would start arriving in a day or two; it looked like it was going to be in some sort of ludicrous continual chase with the two Elencher ships until then, which would be tiresome (with the possibility that the other three, war-ready Elencher ships might join in, which would be downright dangerous) and, after all, there was that war fleet on its way. What more was it usefully going to be able to do here? Certainly, it could keep a watch on the Excession, see if it did anything else interesting, but was that worth the risk of being overwhelmed by the Elench? Or even by the Excession itself, if it was as invasive as it now appeared to be? Enough of its drones, platforms and sensor platforms might be able to evade the Elenchers for the time it took until the other craft got here; they could keep watch on the situation, couldn’t they?

Ah, to hell with this, it thought to itself. It dodged unexpectedly along the surface of the closest-approach limit, producing corresponding alterations in the headings of the two Elencher ships. It speeded up for a while, then slowed until it was stopped relative to the Excession.

The position it held now was such that if you drew a line between the Excession and the direction it was expecting the MSV Not invented Here to arrive from, it would be on that line too.

The Fate signalled the two Elencher ships once more, trying to get sense from the Appeal To Reason and any reply at all from the Sober Counsel. It was careful to target the last known positions of the Break Even and its two militarily configured sister ships as well, still trying to elicit a response. None was forthcoming. It waited until the last possible moment, when it looked like the Appeal To Reason was about to ram it in its enthusiasm to overwhelm it with signals, then broke away from it, heading straight out, directly away from the Excession.

The Fate Amenable To Change’s avatars began the task of telling the human crew what was happening. Meanwhile the ship turned onto a course at a right-angle to its initial heading and powered away at maximum acceleration. The Appeal To Reason targeted its effector on the fleeing Culture ship as it curved out trying to intercept it, but the attack — configured more as a last attempt to communicate — was easily fended off. That wasn’t what the Fate was concerned about.

It watched that imaginary line from the Excession to the MSV Not Invented Here, focusing, magnifying its attention on that line’s middle distance.

Movement. Probing filaments of effector radiations. Three foci, clustered neatly around that line.

The Elencher ship Break Even and its two militarily configured sister craft had been awaiting it.

Congratulating itself on its perspicacity, the GCU headed on out, leaving the immediate vicinity of the Excession for the first time in almost a month.

Then its engines stopped working.

IV

“I was told,” Genar-Hofoen said in the traveltube, to the blank-faced and cadaverous ship’s avatar, “that I’d be off here in a day. What do I need quarters for?”

“We are moving into a war zone,” the avatar said flatly. “There is a good chance that it will not be possible to off-load the Grey Area or any other ship between approximately sixteen and one hundred plus hours from now.”

A deep, dark gulf of the Sleeper Service’s cavernous interior space was briefly visible, sliding past, then the tube car zipped into another tunnel. Genar-Hofoen stared at the tall, angular creature. “You mean I might be stuck on here for four days?”

“That is a possibility,” the avatar said.

Genar-Hofoen glared at the avatar, hoping he looked as suspicious as he felt. “Well, why can’t I stay on the Grey Area?” he asked.

“Because it might have to leave at any moment.”

The man looked away, swearing softly. There was a war on, he supposed, but even so, this was typical SC. First the Grey Area was allowed on board the Sleeper Service when he’d been told it wouldn’t be, and now this. He glanced back at the avatar, which was looking at him with what could have been curiosity or just gormlessness. Four days on the Sleeper. He’d thought earlier, stuck on the module, that he’d be grateful when he could leave Ulver Seich and her drone behind on the GCU while he came aboard the Sleeper Service, but as it turned out, he wasn’t.

He shivered, and imagined that he could still feel Ulver’s lips on his, from when they’d kissed goodbye, just a few minutes earlier. The flash-back tremor passed. Wow, he thought to himself, and grinned. That was like being an adolescent again.

Two nights, one day. That was all he and Ulver had spent together as lovers. It wasn’t remotely long enough. And now he’d be stuck aboard here for up to four nights.

Oh well. It could be worse; at least the avatar didn’t look like it was the one he’d slept with. He wondered if he was going to see Dajeil at all. He looked at the clothes he was wearing, standard loose fatigues from the Grey Area. Wasn’t this how he’d been dressed when he and Dajeil had last parted? He couldn’t recall. Possibly. He wondered at his own subconscious processes.

The tube car was slowing; suddenly it was stopped.

The avatar gestured to the door that rolled open. A short corridor beyond led to another door. Genar-Hofoen stepped into the corridor.

“I trust you find your quarters acceptable,” he heard the avatar say quietly, behind him. Then a soft rrrng noise and a faint draught on his neck made him look back in surprise. The traveltube had gone, the transparent tube door was closed and the corridor behind him was empty. He looked about but there was nowhere the avatar could have gone. He shrugged and continued on to the door ahead. It opened onto a small lift. He was in it for a couple of seconds, then the door rotated open and he stepped out, frowning, into a dimly lit space full of boxes and equipment that somehow looked vaguely familiar. There was a strange scent in the air… The lift door snicked closed behind him. He saw some steps over to one side in the gloom, set into a curved stone wall. They really did look familiar.

He thought he knew where he was. He went to the steps and climbed them.

He came up from the cellar into the short passageway which led to the main door on the ground storey of the tower. The door was open. He walked down the passageway to it and stood outside.

Waves beat on the shining, sliding shingle of the beach. The sun stood near noon. One moon was visible, a pale eggshell half hidden in the fragile blueness of the sky. The smell he’d recognised earlier was that of the sea. Birds cried from the winds above him. He walked down the slope of beach towards the water and looked about. It was all pretty convincing; the space couldn’t really be all that big — the waves were perhaps a little too uncomplicated, a little too regular, further out — but it certainly looked like you were seeing for tens of kilometres. The tower was just the way he remembered it, the low cliffs beyond the salt marsh equally familiar.

“Hello?” he called. No answer.

He pulled out his pen terminal. “Very amusing…” he said, then frowned, looking at the terminal. No tell-tale light. He pressed a couple of panels to institute a systems check. Nothing happened. Shit.

“Ah hah,” said a small, crackly voice behind him. He turned to see a black bird, folding its wings on the shelf of stones behind him. “Another captive,” it cackled.

V

The Fate Amenable To Change let its engine fields race for a moment, running a series of tests and evaluation processes. It was as if its traction fields were just sinking through the energy grid, as if it wasn’t there. It tried signalling, telling the outside universe of its plight, but the signals just seemed to loop back and it found itself receiving its own signal a picosecond after it had sent it. It tried to create a warp but the skein just seemed to slide out of its fields. It attempted Displacing a drone but the wormhole collapsed before it was properly formed. It tried a few more tricks, finessing its field structures and reconfiguring its senses in an attempt at least to understand what was going on, but nothing worked.

It thought. It felt curiously composed, considering.

It shut everything down and let itself drift, floating gradually back through the four-dimensional hypervolume towards the skein of real space, propelled by nothing more than the faint pressure of radiations expelled from the energy grid. Its avatars were already starting to explain the change in the situation to its human crew. The ship hoped the people would take it calmly.

Then the Excession seemed to swell, bulging as though under an enormous lens, reaching out towards the Culture ship with a vast enclosing scoop of presence.

Well, here we go, the ship thought. Should be interesting…

VI

“No.”

“Please,” the avatar said.

The woman shook her head. “I’ve thought about it. I don’t want to see him.”

The avatar stared at Dajeil. “But I brought him all this way!” it cried. “Just for you! If you knew…” Its voice trailed off. It brought its feet up onto the front of the seat, and put its arms round its legs, hugging them.

They were in Dajeil’s quarters, inside another version of the tower’s interior housed within the GCU Jaundiced Outlook. The avatar had come straight here after leaving Genar-Hofoen in the Mainbay where the original copy of the tower — the one Dajeil Gelian had spent forty years living in — had been moved to when the ship had converted all its external spare mass to engine. It had thought she would be pleased that the tower had not had to be destroyed, and that Genar-Hofoen had finally been persuaded to return to her.

Dajeil continued watching the screen. It was a replay of one of her dives amongst the triangular rays in the shallow sea that was now no more, as seen from a drone which had accompanied her. She watched herself move amongst the gracefully undulating wings of the great, gentle creatures. Swollen, awkward, she was the only graceless thing in the picture.

The avatar didn’t know what to say next.

The Sleeper Service decided to take over. “Dajeil?” it said quietly, through its representative. The woman looked round, recognising the new tone in Amorphia’s voice.

“What?”

“Why don’t you want to see him now?”

“I…” she paused. “It’s just been too long,” she said. “I think… I suppose for the first few years I did want to see him again; to… to—” she looked down, picking at her fingernails. “—I don’t know. Oh, to try and make things all right… grief, that sounds so lame.” She sniffed and looked upwards at the translucent dome above her. “I felt there were things we needed to have said that we never did say to each other, and that if we did get together, even for a little while, we could… work things out. Draw a line under all that happened. Tie up loose ends; that… that sort of thing. You know?” she said, looking bright-eyed at the avatar.

Oh, Dajeil, thought the ship. How wounded about the eyes. “I know,” it said. “But now you feel that too much time has passed?”

The woman smoothed her hand over her belly. She nodded slowly, looking at the floor. “Yes,” she said. “It’s all too long ago. I’m sure he’s forgotten all about me.” She glanced up at the avatar.

“And yet he is here,” it said.

“Did he come to see me?” she asked it, already sounding bitter.

“No, and yes,” the ship said. “He had another motive. But it is because of you he is here.”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “No; too much time…”

The avatar unfolded itself from the seat and crossed to where Dajeil sat; it knelt down before her, and hesitantly extended one hand towards her abdomen. Looking into her eyes, it gently placed its palm on Dajeil’s belly. Dajeil felt dizzy. She could not recall Amorphia ever having touched her before, either under its own control or under the Sleeper Service’s. She put her own hand on top of the avatar’s. The creature’s hand was steady, soft and cool. “And yet,” it said, “in some ways, no time has passed.” Dajeil gave a bitter laugh. “Oh yes,” she said. “I’ve been here, doing nothing except growing older. But what about him?” she asked and suddenly there was something fierce about her voice. “How much has he lived in forty years? How many loves has he had?”

“I don’t believe that signifies, Dajeil,” the ship told her quietly. “The point is that he is here. You can talk to him. The two of you can talk. Some resolution might be achieved.” It pressed very lightly on her belly. “I believe it can be achieved.”

She sighed heavily. She looked down at her hand. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know. I need to think. I can’t… I need to think.”

“Dajeil,” the ship said, and the avatar took her hand in both of its. “Were it possible, I would give you as long as you could desire, but I am not able to. There is some urgency in this. I have what might be termed an urgent appointment near a star called Esperi. I cannot delay my arrival and I would not want to take you with me there; it is too dangerous. I would like you to leave in this ship as soon as possible.”

She looked hurt, the Sleeper thought.

“I won’t be forced into this,” she told it.

“Of course not,” it said. It attempted a smile and patted her hand. “Why not sleep on it? Tomorrow will be soon enough.”

VII

The Attitude Adjuster watched the attacking craft fall amongst the founding shield of ships; they had no time to move more an fractionally from their original positions. Their weaponry did their moving for them, focusing on the incoming target it plunged into their midst. A scatter of brightly flaring missiles preceded the Killing Time, a hail of plasma bubbles accompanied it and CAM, AM and nanohole warheads cluster munitions burst everywhere around it like a gigantic firework, producing a giant orb of scintillations. Many of the individual motes themselves detonated in a clustering hyperspherical storm of lethal sparks, followed sequentially by another and another echelon of explosions erupting amongst the wave of ships in a layered hierarchy of destruction.

The Attitude Adjuster scanned the real-time reports coming back from its war flock. One was caught by a nanohole, vanishing inside a vast burst of annihilation; another was damaged beyond immediate repair by an AM munition and dropped behind, engines crippled. Fortuitously, neither were crewed by Affronters. Most of the rest of the warheads were dealt with; the fleet’s own replies were fended, detonated or avoided by the attacker. No sign of the craft using its effectors to do more than cause interference; flittingly interrogating and probing amongst the collected mass of ships. The focus of its attention had begun near the centre of the third wave of craft and was spirally erratically outwards, occasionally flicking further out towards the other waves.

The Attitude Adjuster was puzzled. The Killing Time was a Torturer class Rapid Offensive Unit. It could be — it ought to be — devastating the fleet for these instants as it tore through it; it was capable of —

Then it realised. Of course. It was a grudge.

The Attitude Adjuster experienced a tingle of fear, merged with a kind of contempt. The Killing Time’s effector focus was a few ships away now, spiralling out towards the Attitude Adjuster. It signalled hurriedly to the five Rapid Offensive Units immediately around it. Each listened, understood and obeyed. The Killing Time’s effector focus flicked from craft to craft, still coming closer.

You fool, the Attitude Adjuster thought, almost angry at the attacking ship. It was behaving stupidly, irresponsibly. A Culture craft should not be so prideful. It had thought the venom directed at itself by the Killing Time in its signal to it back at Pittance had been bluster; cheap bravado. But it had been worse; it had been sincere. Wounded self-esteem. Upset that it personally had been subject to a ruse designed to destroy it. As though its enemies cared an iota who it was.

The Attitude Adjuster doubted this was an attack sanctioned by the Killing Time’s peers. This wasn’t war, this was peevishness; this was taking it personally when, if there was anything war could be characterised as being, it was impersonal. Idiot. It deserved to perish. It did not merit the honour it doubtless thought would accrue to it for this reckless and selfish act.

The surrounding warships completed their changes. Just in time. When the attacking ship’s effector targeted the first of those craft, the focus did not flit onto the next as it had with all the rest; instead it stayed, latching on, concentrating and strengthening. The ROU caved in alarmingly quickly; the Attitude Adjuster guessed that it was made to reconfigure its engine fields to focus them inside its Mind — there was a sort of signalled shriek an instant before communication was lost — but the exact nature of its downfall was hidden in an accompanying shower of CAM warheads which obliterated it instantaneously. A mercy; it would have been a grisly way for a ship to die.

But too quick, thought the Attitude Adjuster; it was sure the attacker would have let the ROU — which the Killing Time had mistaken for the Attitude Adjuster — tear its intellect apart with its engines for longer if it had been totally fooled; the CAM dusting had been either a coup de grâce or a howl of frustration, perhaps both.

The Attitude Adjuster signalled to the rest of the fleet, instructing them too to impersonate itself, but even as it watched the ROU which had been attacked alongside it disappear astern in a fragmenting cage of radiations, it began to be afraid.

It had originally contacted the five nearest ships, hoping that the first one found and interrogated by the attacker’s systems would fool the Killing Time into believing it had found the one ship it was obviously seeking.

But that was stupid. It sensed the Torturer class ship’s effectors sweep over the craft on the far side of the hole in the wave of ships which the ROU’s destruction had created.

Insufficient elapsed time, the Attitude Adjuster whispered to itself. The ROU being quizzed at the moment was still reconfiguring its internal systems signature to resemble that of the Attitude Adjuster. The effector sweep flicked away from it, dismissing. The Attitude Adjuster quailed.

It had made itself a target! It should have- HERE IT CAME!

A feeling of—

No, it had gone, swept over it! Its own disguise had worked. It had been dismissed too, like the ROU alongside!

The effector focus jumped to another craft still further away. The Attitude Adjuster was dizzy with relief. It had survived! The plan still held, the huge filthy trick they were pulling was free to continue!

The way to the Excession lay open; the other Minds in the conspiracy would commend it if it survived; the-… but it mustn’t think of the other ships involved. It had to accept responsibility for what had happened. It and it alone. It was the traitor. It would never reveal who had instigated this ghastly, gigadeathcrime-risking scheme; it had to assume the blame itself.

It had wrestled with the Mind at Pittance and pressed it when it had insisted it would die rather than yield (but it had had no choice!); it had allowed the human on Pittance to be destroyed (but it had fastened its effector on his puny animal brain when it had seen what was happening to him; it had read the animal’s brain-state, copied it, sucked it out of him before he’d died, so that at least he might live again in some form! Look! It had the file here… there it went…). It had fooled the surrounding ships, it had lied to them, sent them messages from… from the ships it could not bear to think about.

But it was the right thing to do!

… Or was it just the thing it had chosen to believe was the right thing to do, when the other ships, the other Minds had persuaded it? What had its real motives been? Had it not just been flattered to be the object of such attention? Had it not always resented being passed over for certain small but prestigious missions in the past, nursing a bitter resentment that it was not trusted because it was seen as being — what? A hard-liner? Too inclined to shoot first? Too cynical towards the soft ideologies of the meat-beings? Too mixed up in its feelings about its own martial prowess and the shaming moral implications of being a machine designed for war? All those things, a little, perhaps. But that wasn’t all its fault!… And yet, did it not accept that one had an irreducible ethical responsibility for one’s own actions? It did. And it accepted that and it had done terrible, terrible things. All the attempts it had made to compensate had been eddies in the flood; tiny retrograde movements towards good entirely produced by the ferocious turbulence of its headlong rush to ill.

It was evil.

How simple that reductive conclusion seemed.

But it had been obliged!… And yet it could not say by whom, so it had to accept the full responsibility for itself.

But there were others!… And yet it could not identify them, and so the full weight of their distributed guilt bore down on the single point that was itself, unbearable, insupportable.

But there were others!… And yet still it could not bear to think of them.

And so somebody, some other entity, looking in from outside, say, would have to conclude, would it not, that perhaps these others did not really exist, that the whole thing, the whole ghastly abomination that was this plot was its idea, its own little conspiracy, thought up and executed by itself alone? Was that not the case?

But that was so unfair! That wasn’t true!… And yet, it could not release the identities of its fellow plotters. Suddenly, it felt confused. Had it made them up? Were they real? Perhaps it ought to check; open the place where they were stored and look at the names just to make sure that they were even the names of real Minds, real ships, or that it was not implicating innocent parties.

But that was terrible! Whichever way it fell after that, that was awful! It hadn’t made them up! They were real!… But it couldn’t prove it, because it just couldn’t reveal them.

Maybe it ought to just call the whole thing off. Maybe it ought to signal all the other ships around it to break away, stop, retreat, or just open their comm channels so they could accept signals from other ships, other Minds, and be persuaded of the folly of their cause. Let them make up their own minds. They were intelligent beings no less than it. What right had it to send them to their deaths on the strength of a heinous, squalid lie? But it had to!… And yet, still, no; no it couldn’t say who the others had been.

It mustn’t think of them! And it couldn’t possibly call off the attack! It couldn’t! No! NO! Grief! Meat! Stop! Stop it! Let it go! Sweet nothingness, anything was better than this wracking, tearing uncertainty, any horror preferable to the wrenching dreadfulness boiling uncontrollably in its Mind.

Atrocity. Abomination. Gigadeathcrime.

It was worthless and hateful, despicable and foul; it was wrung out, exhausted and incapable of revelation or communication. It hated itself and what it had done more, much more than it had ever hated anything; more, it was sure, than anything had ever been hated in all existence. No death could be too painful or protracted…

And suddenly it knew what it had to do.

It de-coupled its engine fields from the energy grid and plunged those vortices of pure energy deep into the fabric of its own Mind, tearing its intellect apart in a supernova of sentient agony.

VIII

Genar-Hofoen reappeared, exiting from the front door of the tower.

“Up here,” croaked a thin, hoarse voice.

He looked up and saw the black bird on the parapet. He stood there watching it for a moment, but it didn’t look like it was coming down. He frowned and went back into the tower.

“Well?” it asked when he joined it at the summit of the tower.

He nodded. “Locked,” he confirmed.

The bird had insisted that he was a captive, along with it. He’d thought maybe there was just something wrong with his terminal. It had suggested he attempted to get out the way he had come in. He’d just tried; the lift door in the tower’s cellar was closed, and as solid and unmoving as the stones surrounding it.

Genar-Hofoen leant back against the parapet, staring with a troubled expression at the tower’s translucent dome. He’d had a quick look at each of the levels as he’d climbed the winding stair. The tower’s rooms looked furnished and yet bare as well, all the personal stuff he and Dajeil had added to it missing. It was like the original had been when they’d first arrived on Telaturier, forty-five years ago.

“Told you.”

“But why?” Genar-Hofoen asked, trying not to sound plaintive. He’d never even heard of a ship keeping somebody captive before.

“’Cause we’re prisoners,” the bird told him, sounding oddly pleased with itself.

“So you’re not an avatar; you’re not part of the ship?”

“Na; I’m an independent entity, me,” the bird said proudly, spreading its feathers. It turned its head almost right round, glancing backwards. “Currently being followed by some bloody missile,” it said loudly. “But never mind.” It rotated its head back to look at him. “So what did you do to annoy the ship?” it asked, black eyes twinkling. Genar-Hofoen got the impression it was enjoying his dismay.

“Nothing!” he protested. The bird cocked its head at him. He blew out a breath. “Well…” he looked around at where he was. His brows flexed. “Yes, well, from our surroundings, maybe the ship doesn’t agree.”

“Oh, this is nothing,” said the bird. “This is just a Bay; just a hangar sort of thing. Not even a klick long. You should have seen the one outside, when we still had an outside. Whole sea we had, whole sea and a whole atmosphere. Two atmospheres.”

“Yes,” the man said. “Yes, I heard.”

“Sort of all for her, really. Except it turned out its nibs had an ulterior motive, too. All that stuff; became engine, you know. But otherwise. It was all for her, for all that time.”

The man nodded. It looked like he was thinking.

“You’re him, aren’t you?” the bird said. It sounded pleased with itself.

“I’m who?” he asked.

“The one that left her. The one that was here, with her. The real here, I mean. The original here.”

Genar-Hofoen looked away. “If you mean Dajeil; yes, she and I lived in a tower like this one once, on an island that looked like this place.”

“An-hah!” the bird said, jumping up and down and shaking its feathers. “I see! You’re the bad guy!”

Genar-Hofoen scowled at the bird. “Fuck you,” he said.

It cackled with laughter. “That’s why you’re here! Ho-ho; you’ll be lucky to get off at all, you will! Ha ha ha!”

“And what did you do, arse-hole?” Genar-Hofoen asked the bird, more in the hope of annoying the creature than because he really cared.

“Oh,” the bird said, drawing itself up and settling its feathers down in a dignified sort of way. “I was a spy!” it said proudly.

“A spy?”

“Oh yes,” the bird said, sounding smug. “Forty years I spent, listening, watching. Reported back to my master. Using the Stored ones who were going back. Left messages on them. Forty years and never once discovered. Well, until three weeks ago. Rumbled, then. Maybe even before. Can’t tell. But I did my best. Can’t ask better than that.” It started preening itself.

The man’s eyes narrowed. “Who were you reporting back to?”

“None of your business,” the bird said, looking up from its preening. It took a precautionary couple of hop-steps backwards along the parapet, just to make sure it was well out of reach of the human.

Genar-Hofoen crossed his arms and shook his head. “What’s this fucking crazy ship up to?”

“Oh, it’s off to see the Excession,” the bird said. “At some lick, too.”

“This thing at Esperi?” the man asked.

“Heading straight for it,” the bird confirmed. “What it told me, anyway. Can’t see why it’d lie. Could be, I suppose. Wouldn’t put it past it. But don’t think it is. Straight for it. Has been for the past twenty-two days. You want my opinion? Going to give it you anyway. I think it’s stooping.” The creature put its head on one side. “Familiar with the term?”

Genar-Hofoen nodded absently. He didn’t like the sound of this.

“Stooping,” the bird repeated. “If you ask me. Thing’s mad. Been a bit loopy the last four decades. Gone totally off the boulevard now. In the hills and bouncing along full speed for the cliff edge. That’s my opinion. And I’ve been round its loopiness for forty years. I know, I do. I can tell. This thing’s dafter than a jar of words. I’m getting away on the Jaundiced Outlook, if it’ll let me. It being the Sleeper. Don’t think the Jaundiced bears me any ill will. Shouldn’t think it does. No.” Then, as though remembering a rich joke, it shook its head and said, “The bad guy; ha! You, on the other hand. You’ll be here forty years you will, chum. If it doesn’t wreck itself ramming this excession thing, that is. Ha! How’d it get you here anyway? You come here to see old perpetually pregnant?”

Genar-Hofoen looked momentarily stricken. “It’s true then; she never did have the child?”

“Yep,” the bird said. “Still in her. Supposed to be hale and hearty, too. If you can believe that. So I was told. Sounds unlikely. Addled, I’d have thought. Or turned to stone by now. But there you are. Either way, she just isn’t having it. Ha!”

The man pinched his lower lip with his fingers, looking troubled.

“What did you say brought you here?” the bird asked.

It waited. “Ahem!” it said loudly.

“What?” the man asked. The bird repeated the question.

The man looked like he still hadn’t heard, then he shrugged. “I came here to talk to a dead person; a Storee.”

“They’ve all gone,” said the bird. “Hadn’t you heard?”

The man shook his head. “Not one of the live ones,” he said. “Somebody without a bod, somebody who’s Stored in the ship’s memory.”

“Na, they’ve gone too,” the bird said, lifting one wing to peck briefly underneath. “Dropped them off at Dreve,” it continued. “Complete download. Upload. Acrossload. Whatever you call it. Didn’t even keep copies.”

“What?” the man said, stepping towards the bird.

“Seriously,” the creature said, taking a couple of hops backwards on the stonework of the parapet. “Honest.” The man was staring at it now. “No, really; so I was told. I could have been misinformed. Can’t see why. But it’s possible. Doubt it though. They’ve gone. That was my information. Gone. Ship said it didn’t want even the copies aboard. Just in case.”

The man stared wildly at it for a bit longer. “Just in case what?” he cried, stepping forward again.

“Well, I don’t know!” the bird yelped, hopping backwards and flexing its wings, ready to fly.

Genar-Hofoen glared at the creature for a moment longer, then spun round, grasping the stones of the parapet with both hands and staring out into the false panorama of sea and cloud.

IX

Then it was in the wrong place. As simple as that.

The Fate Amenable To Change looked around, incredulous. Stars. Just stars. Initially alien, in a way a starscape had never been before.

This wasn’t where it had just been. Where was the Excession? Where were the Elencher ships? Where was Esperi? Where was this?

It called up from-scratch position-establishing routines no ship ever had to call up after they’d run through them in the very earliest part of their upbringing and self-fettling, in the Mind equivalent of infancy. You did this sort of thing once to show the Minds supervising your development you could do it, then you forgot about it, because nobody ever lost track of where they were, not over this magnitude of scale. And yet here it was having to do just that. Quite bizarre.

It looked at the results. There was something almost viscerally relieving about the discovery that it was still in the same universe. For a moment it had been contemplating the prospect of finding itself in a different one altogether. (At the same time, at least one part of its intellect experienced a corresponding flicker of disappointment for exactly the same reason.)

It was nowhere near Esperi. Its position was thirty light years away from where it had been, apparently, a moment ago. The nearest star system was an undistinguished red-giant/blue-white dwarf double called Pri-Etse. The binary lay roughly along that same imaginary straight line that joined the Excession to the incoming MSV Not Invented Here. Where the ship itself had ended up was even closer to that imaginary line.

The Fate checked itself over. Unharmed. Uninvaded, unjeopardised, uncontacted.

It replayed those last few picoseconds while it multiple-checked its systems.

… The Excession rushed out to meet it. It was enveloped in — what? Skein fabric? Some sort of ultradense field? It all happened at close to hyperspace-light speeds. The outside universe was pinched off and in the following moment there was an instant of nothing; no external input whatsoever, a vanishingly minute, perfectly indivisible fraction of a picosecond when the Fate was cut off from everything; no outside sensor data whatsoever. Events within the ship itself had continued as normal (or rather its internal state had remained the same for that same infinitesimally microscopic instant — there had been no time for anything appreciable to actually happen). In its Mind, there had been time for the hyperspatial quanta-equivalents to alter their states for a few cycles; so time had still elapsed.

But outside; nothing.

Then the skein or field substrate had vanished, snapping out of existence to precisely nowhere, disappearing too quickly for the ship’s sensors to register where it had gone.

The Fate replayed that section of its records slower and slower until it was dealing with the equivalent of individual frames; the smallest possible sub-division of perception and cognizance the Culture or any other Involved knew of.

And it came down to four frames; four snapshots of recent history. In one frame the Excession seemed to be rushing out, accelerating out to meet it, in the next the skein/field had wrapped itself almost totally around the ship — at a distance of perhaps a kilometre from ship-centre, though it was hard to estimate — leaving only a tiny hole staring out to the rest of the universe on the opposite side of the ship from the Excession, in the third frame the total cut-off from the universe was in place, and in the next it had gone, and the Fate had moved, or had been moved, thirty light years in less than a picosecond.

How the fuck does it do that? the ship wondered. It started checking that time was still working properly, directing its sensors at distant quasars which had been used as time reference sources for millennia. It also started checking that it was not in the centre of some huge projection, extending its still-stopped engine fields like vast whiskers, feeling for the (as far as anybody knew) unfakeable reality that was the energy grid and minutely — and randomly — scrutinising sections of the view around it, searching for the equivalent of pixels or brush strokes. The Fate Amenable To Change was experiencing a sense of elation at having survived what it had feared might be a terminal encounter with the Excession. But it was still worried that it had missed something, that it had been interfered with somehow. The most obvious explanation was that it had been fooled, that it had been tricked into moving itself here under its own power or been moved to this position via another tractive force over time. The further implication was that the interval when it had been moving had somehow been expunged from its memory. That would be bad. The very idea that its Mind was not absolutely inviolate was anathema to a ship.

It tried to accustom itself to the idea that this was what had happened. It tried to steel itself to the prospect that — at the very least — it would have to have its mental processes investigated by other Minds to establish whether it had suffered any lasting damage or had had any unpleasant sub-routines (or even personalities) buried in its mind-state during the time it had been — effectively — unconscious (horrible, horrible thought).

The check-time results started coming in.

Relief and incredulity. If this was the real universe and not a projection, or — worse still — something it had been persuaded to imagine for itself inside its Mind, then there had been no extra elapsed time. The universe thought it was exactly the same time as the Mind’s internal clock did.

The ship felt stunned. Even while another part of its intellect, an opt-in, semi-autonomous section, was restarting its engines and discovering they worked just fine, the ship was trying to come to terms with the fact it had been moved thirty light years in an instant. No Displacer could do that. Not with something the size it was, not that quickly, not over that sort of distance. Certainly not without even the merest hint that a wormhole had been involved.

Unbelievable. I’m in a fucking Outside Context situation, the ship thought, and suddenly felt as stupid and dumb-struck as any muddy savage confronted with explosives or electricity.

It sent a signal to the Not Invented Here. Then it tried contacting its remotes still — presumably — in station around the Excession. No reply. And no sign of the Elencher ships either. Anywhere.

The Excession was invisible too, but then it would be from this distance.

The Fate nudged itself tentatively towards the Excession. Almost immediately, its engines started to lose traction, their energies just seeming to disappear through the energy grid as though it wasn’t there. It was a progressive effect, worsening as it proceeded and with the implication that about a light minute or so further in towards the Excession it would lose grid adhesion altogether.

It had only progressed about ten light seconds in; it slowed while it still could and backed up until it was the same distance away from the Excession as it had been when it had found itself dumped here in the first place. Once it was there, its engines responded perfectly normally again.

It had made the initial attempt in Infraspace; it tried again in Ultraspace, with exactly the same result. It went astern once more and resumed its earlier position. It tried moving at a right angle to its earlier course; the engines worked as they always did. Weird. It hove to again.

Its avatars amongst the crew started yet another explanation regarding what was going on. It compiled a preparatory report and signalled it to the MSV Not Invented Here. The report crossed with the MSVs reply to the Fate’s earlier signal:

[stuttered tight point, M32, tra. @4.28. 882.8367]

xMSV Not Invented Here

oGCU Fate Amenable To Change

I don’t understand. What’s going on? How did you get to where you are?

oo

[stuttered tight point, M32, tra. @4.28.882.8379]

xGCU Fate Amenable To Change

oMSV Not Invented Here

Thereby hangs a tale. But in the meantime I’d slow down if I were you and tell everybody else coming this way to slacken off too and get ready to draw up at thirty years off the E. I think it’s trying to tell us something. Plus there is a record I wish to claim…

X

The rest of that day passed, and the following night. The black bird, which had said its name was Gravious, had flown off, saying it was tired of his questions.

The next morning, after checking that his terminal still did not work and the lift door in the cellar remained locked and unresponding, Genar-Hofoen walked as far along the shingle beach as he could in each direction; a few hundred steps in each case, before he encountered a gelatinously resilient field. The view beyond looked perfectly convincing, but must be a projection. He discovered a way through part of the salt marsh and found a similar force field wall a hundred steps into the hummocks and little creeks. He came back to the tower to wash his boots free of the authentically fine and clinging mud he’d had to negotiate on his way through the salt marsh. There was no sign of the black bird he’d talked to the day before.

The avatar Amorphia was waiting for him, sitting on the shelf of shingle beach sloping down to the restive sea, hugging its legs and staring out at the water.

He stopped when he saw it, then came on. He walked past it and into the tower, washed his boots and came back out. The creature was still there.

“Yes?” he said, standing looking down at it. The ship’s representative rose smoothly up, all angles and thin limbs. Close up, in that light, there was a sort of unmarked, artless quality about its thin, pale face; something near to innocence.

“I want you to talk to Dajeil,” the creature said. “Will you?”

He studied its empty-looking eyes. “Why am I being kept here?”

“You are being kept because I would like you to talk to Dajeil. You are being kept here because I thought this… model would be conducive to putting you in the mood to talk to her about what passed between you forty years ago.”

He frowned. Amorphia had the impression the man had a lot more questions, all jostling each other to be the first one asked. Eventually he said, “Are there any mind-state Storees left on the Sleeper Service?”

“No,” the avatar said, shaking its head. “Does this refer to the ruse that brought you here?”

The man’s eyes had closed briefly. They opened again. “Yes, I suppose so,” he said. His shoulders seemed to have slumped, the avatar thought. “So,” he asked, “did you make up the story about Zreyn Enhoff Tramow, or did they?”

The avatar looked thoughtful. “Gart-Kepilesa Zreyn Enhoff Tramow Afayaf dam Niskat,” it said. “She was a mind-state Storee. There’s quite an interesting story associated with her, but not one I ever suggested be told to you.”

“I see,” he said, nodding. “So, why?” he asked.

“Why what?” the creature said, looking puzzled.

“Why the ruse? Why did you want me here?”

The avatar looked at him for a moment. “You’re my price, Genar-Hofoen,” it told him.

“Your price?” he said.

The avatar smiled suddenly and put out one hand to touch one of his. Its touch was cool and firm. “Let’s throw stones,” it said. And with that it walked down towards the waves breaking on the slope of shingle.

He shook his head and followed the creature.

They stood side by side. The avatar looked along the great sweep of shining, spray-glistened stones. “Every one a weapon,” it muttered, then stooped to pick a large pebble from the beach and threw it quickly, artlessly out at the heaving waves. Genar-Hofoen selected a stone too.

“I’ve been pretending to be Eccentric for forty years, Genar-Hofoen,” the avatar said matter-of-factly, squatting again.

“Pretending?” the man asked, chucking the stone on a high arc. He wondered if it was possible to hit the far force wall. The stone fell, vanishing into the tumbling ‘scape of waves.

“I have been a diligent and industrious component of the Special Circumstances section for all that time, just awaiting the call,” the ship told him through the avatar. It glanced over at him as he bent, choosing another stone. “I am a weapon, Genar-Hofoen. A deniable weapon. My apparent Eccentricity allows the Culture proper to refuse any responsibility for my actions. In fact I am acting on the specific instructions of an SC committee which calls itself the Interesting Times Gang.”

The creature broke off to heave a stone towards the false horizon. Its arm was a blur as it threw; the air made a burring noise and Genar-Hofoen felt the wind of the movement on his cheek. The avatar’s momentum spun it round in a circle, then it steadied itself, gave a brief, almost childish grin, and peered out at the stone disappearing into the distance. It was still on the upward part of its arc. Genar-Hofoen watched it too. Shortly after it started to drop, the stone bounced off something invisible and fell back into the waters. The avatar made a contented noise and looked pleased with itself.

“However,” it said, “when it came to it, I refused to do what they wanted until they delivered you to me. That was my price. You.” It smiled at him. “You see?”

He weighed a stone in his hand. “Just because of what happened between Dajeil and me?”

The avatar smiled, then stooped to choose another stone, one finger to its lips, childlike. It was silent for a while, apparently concentrating on the task. Genar-Hofoen continued to weigh the stone in his hand, looking down at the back of the avatar’s head. After some moments, the creature said, “I was a fully functioning throughput-biased Culture General Systems Vehicle for three hundred years, Genar-Hofoen.” It glanced up at him. “Have you any idea how many ships, drones, people — human and not human — pass through a GSV in all that time?” It looked down again, picked a stone and levered itself upright once more. “I was regularly home to over two hundred million people; I could, in theory, hold over a hundred thousand ships. I built smaller GSVs, all capable of building their own ship children, all with their own crews, their own personalities, their own stories.

“To be host to so much is to be the equivalent of a small world or a large state,” it said. “It was my job and my pleasure to take an intimate interest in the physical and mental well-being of every individual aboard, to provide — with every appearance of effortlessness — an environment they would each find comfortable, pleasant, stress-free and stimulating. It was also my duty to get to know those ships, drones and people, to be able to talk to them and empathise with them and understand however many of them wished to indulge in such interactions at any one time. In such circumstances you rapidly develop, if you don’t possess it originally, an interest in — even a fascination with — people. And you have your likes and dislikes; the people you do the polite minimum for and are glad to see the back of, the ones you like and who interest you more than the others, the ones you treasure for years and decades if they remain, or wish could have stayed longer once they’ve gone and subsequently correspond with regularly. There are some stories you follow up into the future, long after the people concerned have left; you trade tales with other GSVs, other Minds — gossiping, basically — to find out how relationships turned out, whose careers flourished, whose dreams withered…”

Amorphia leant back and over and then threw the stone almost straight up. The creature jumped a half-metre or so into the air as it released the missile, which climbed on into the air until it bounced off the invisible roof, high above, and fell into the waves twenty metres off shore. The avatar clapped its hands once, seemingly happy.

It stooped again, surveying the pebbles. “You try to keep a balance between indifference and nosiness, between carelessness and obsession,” it went on. “Still, you have to be ready for accusations of both types of failure. Keeping them roughly in numerical accord, and within the range experienced by your peers is one measure of success. Perfection is impossible. Additionally, you have to accept that in such a large collection of personalities and stories, there will be some loose ends, some tales which will fizzle out rather than conclude neatly. Those don’t matter so long as there are some which do work out satisfactorily, and especially so long as the ones you have taken the greatest interest in — and have been personally particularly involved with — work out.”

It looked up at him from where it squatted. “Sometimes you take a hand in such stories, such fates. Sometimes you know or can anticipate the extent to which your intervention will matter, but on other occasions you don’t know and can’t guess. You find that some chance remark you’ve made has affected somebody’s life profoundly or that some seemingly insignificant decision you’ve come to has had profound and lasting consequences.”

It shrugged, looked down at the stones again. “Your story — yours and Dajeil’s — was one a little like that,” it told him. “It was I who was instrumental in deciding that you ought to be allowed to accompany Dajeil Gelian to Telaturier,” it said, rising. It held two stones this time; one larger than the other. “I could see how finely balanced the decision was between the various parts of the committee concerned; I knew the decision effectively rested with me. I got to know you and I made the decision.” It shrugged. “It was the wrong decision.” It threw the larger stone on a high trajectory, then looked back at the man as it hefted the smaller stone. “I’ve spent the last forty years wishing I could correct my mistake.” It turned and threw the other pebble low and fast; the stone flew out over the waves and struck the larger rock about two metres before it plunged into the water; they burst into whizzing fragments and a brief cloud of dust.

The avatar turned to him again with a small smile on its face. “I agreed to pretend to become Eccentric; suddenly I had a freedom very few craft ever have, able to indulge my whims, my fantasies, my own dreams.” It flexed one eyebrow. “Oh, in theory, of course, we can all do that, but Minds have a sense of duty, and a conscience. I was able to become very slightly Eccentric by pretending to be very Eccentric — while knowing that I was in fact being more martially responsible than anybody else — and, in appearing to enjoy such Eccentricity with a clear conscience — even enhance my Eccentric reputation. Other craft looked on and thought that they could do what I was doing but not for long, and therefore that I must be thoroughly thoroughly weird. As far as I know, not one guessed that my conscience was kept clear by having a purpose serious enough to compensate for even the most clown-like disguise and regressively obsessive behaviour.”

It folded its arms. “Of course,” it said, “you don’t normally expect to be continually reminded of your folly every day for four decades, but that was the way it was to be. I didn’t anticipate that at the start, though it became a useful and fit part of my Eccentricity. I picked Dajeil up a short while into my internal exile. She was the single last significant loose end from my previous life. All the other stories didn’t concern me so directly, or bore no similar weight of responsibility, or were well on the way to being satisfactorily resolved or decently forgotten through the due process of time elapsing and people changing. Only Dajeil remained; my responsibility.” The avatar shrugged. “I had hoped to talk her round, to cause her to accept whatever it was had happened to you both and get on with the rest of her life. Bearing the child would be the signal that she was mended; that labour would be the end of her travails, that birth mark an end.” The avatar looked away, out to sea for a moment, a frown creasing its brows. “I thought it would be easy,” it said, looking back at him. “I was so used to power, to being able to influence people, ships and events. It would have been such a simple thing even to have tricked her body into giving birth — I could have started the process chemically or via an effector while she was asleep and by the time she was awake there would have been no going back- that I was sure my arguments, my reasoning — grief, even my cherished facility at emotional blackmail — would find scarcely more of an obstacle in her will than all my technologies could face in her physiology.”

It shook its head quickly. “It was not to be. She proved intransigent. I hoped to persuade her — to shame her, indeed- by the very totality of my concern for her, re-creating all you see here,” the avatar said, glancing round at the cliffs, marsh, tower and waters, “for real; turning my entire outer envelope into a habitat just for her and the creatures she loved.” Amorphia gave a sort of dipping sideways nod, and smiled. “I admit I had another purpose as well, which such exaggerated compassion would only help disguise, but the fact is my original design was to create an environment she would feel comfortable within and into which she would feel safe bringing her baby, having seen the care I was prepared to lavish just on her.” The avatar gave a rueful smile. “I got it wrong,” it admitted. “I was wrong twice and each time I harmed Dajeil. You are — and this is — my last chance to get it right.”

“And what am I supposed to do?”

“Why, just talk to her!” the avatar cried, holding its arms out (and, suddenly, Genar-Hofoen was reminded of Ulver).

“What if I won’t play along?” he asked.

“Then you may get to share my fate,” the ship’s representative told him breezily. “Whatever that may be. At any rate, I may keep you here until you do at least agree to talk to her, even if — for that meeting to take place — I have to ask her to return after I’ve sent her away to safety.”

“And what is likely to be your fate?”

“Oh, death, possibly,” the avatar said, shrugging with apparent unconcern.

The man shook his head. “You haven’t got any right to threaten me like that,” he said, with a sort of half-laugh in his voice he hoped didn’t sound as nervous as he felt.

“Nevertheless, I am threatening you like that, Genar-Hofoen,” the avatar said, bending at the waist to lean towards him for a moment. “I am not as Eccentric as I appear, but consider this: only a craft that was predisposed to a degree of eccentricity in the first place would have taken on the style of life I did, forty years ago.” The creature drew itself upright again. “There is an Excession without precedent at Esperi which may lead to an infinitude of universes and a level of power orders of magnitude beyond what any known Involved currently possesses. You’ve experienced the way SC works, Genar-Hofoen; don’t be so naïve as to imagine that Minds don’t employ strong-arm methods now and again, or that in a matter resounding with such importance any ship would think twice about sacrificing another consciousness for such a prize. My information is that several Minds have been forfeited already; if, in the exceptional conditions prevailing, intellects on that scale are considered fair game, think about how little a single human life is likely to matter.”

The man stared at the avatar. His jaw was clenched, his fists balled. “You’re doing this for a single human life,” he said. “Two, if you count the fetus.”

“No, Genar-Hofoen,” the avatar said, shaking its head. “I’m doing this for myself, because it’s become an obsession. Because my pride will not now let me settle this any other way. Dajeil, in that sense, and for all her self-lacerating spite, has won. She forced you to her will forty-five years ago and she has bent me to hers for the last forty. Now more than ever, she has won. She has thrown away four decades of her life on a self-indulgent sulk, but she stands to gain by her own criteria. You have spent the last forty years enjoying and indulging yourself, Genar-Hofoen, so perhaps you could be said to have won by your criteria, and after all you did win the lady at the time, which was all you then wanted, remember? That was your obsession. Your folly. Well, the three of us are all paying for our mutual and intermingled mistakes. You did your part in creating the situation; all I’m asking is that you do your part in alleviating it.”

“And all I have to do is talk to her?” The man sounded sceptical.

The creature nodded. “Talk. Try to understand, try to see things from her perspective, try to forgive, or allow yourself to be forgiven. Be honest with her and with yourself. I’m not asking you to stay with her or be her partner again or form a family of three; I just want whatever it is that has prevented her from giving birth to be identified and ameliorated; removed if possible. I want her to resume living and her child to start. You will then be free to return to your own life.”

The man looked out to sea, then at his right hand. He looked surprised to see he was holding a stone in it. He threw it as hard and as far as he could into the waves; it didn’t travel half the distance to the distant, invisible wall.

“What are you supposed to do?” the man asked the creature. “What is your mission?”

“Get to the Excession,” Amorphia said. “Destroy it, if that’s deemed necessary, and if it’s possible. Perhaps just draw a response from it.”

“And what about the Affront?”

“Added complication,” the avatar agreed, squatting once more and looking around the stones around its feet. “I might have to deal with them too.” It shrugged, and lifted a stone, hefting it. It put the stone back and chose another.

“Deal with them?” Genar-Hofoen said. “I thought they had an entire war fleet heading there.”

“Oh, they do,” the avatar said from beach level. “Still, you have to try, don’t you?” It stood again.

Genar-Hofoen looked at it, trying to see if it was being ironic or just disingenuous. No way of telling. “So when do we get into the thick of things?” he asked, trying to skip a flat stone over the waves, without success.

“Well,” Amorphia said, “the thick of things probably starts about thirty light years out from the point of the Excession itself, these days.” The avatar stretched, flexing its arm far back behind it. “We should be there this evening,” it said. Its arm snapped forward. The stone whistled through the air and skipped elegantly over the tops of half a dozen waves before disappearing.

Genar-Hofoen turned and stared at the avatar. “This evening?” he said.

“Time is a little tight,” the avatar said with a pained expression, again peering into the distance. “It would be for the best for all of us if you’d talk to Dajeil… soon.” It smiled vacuously at him.

“Well, how about right now?” the man said, spreading his hands.

“I’ll see,” the creature said, and turned abruptly on its heel. Suddenly there was a reflecting ovoid, like a giant silver egg stood on its end, where the avatar had been. The Displacer field vanished almost before the man had time to register its existence, seeming to shrink and collapse almost instantly to a point and then disappearing altogether. The process produced a gentle pop.

XI

The Killing Time plunged intact through the third wave of ancient Culture ships; they rushed on, towards the Excession. It fended off a few more of the warheads and missiles which had been directed at it, turning a couple of the latter back upon their own ships for a few moments before they were detected and destructed. The hulk of the Attitude Adjuster fell astern behind the departing fleet, coasting and twisting and tumbling in hyperspace, still heading away from and outstripping the Killing Time as it braked and started to turn.

There was only a vestigial fourth wave; fourteen ships (they were targeting it now). Had it known there were so few in the final echelon, the Killing Time would have attacked the second wave of ships. Oh well; luck counted too. It watched the Attitude Adjuster a moment longer to ensure it really was tearing itself apart. It was.

It turned its attention to the remaining fourteen craft. On its suicide trajectory it could take them all on and stand a decent chance of destroying perhaps four of them before its luck ran out; maybe a half-dozen if it was really lucky. Or it could push away and complete its brake-turn-accelerate manoeuvre to make a second pass at the main fleet. Even if they’d be waiting for it this time, it could reckon on accounting for a good few of them. Again, in the four-to-eight range.

Or it could do this.

It pulled itself round the edge of the fourteen ships in the rump of the fleet as they reconfigured their formation to meet it. Bringing up the rear they had had more warning of its attack and so had had time to adopt a suitable pattern. The Killing Time ignored the obvious challenge and temptation of flying straight into their midst and flew past and round, targeting only the outer five craft nearest it.

They gave a decent account of themselves but it prevailed, dispatching two of them with engine field implosures. This was, it had always thought, a clean, decent and honourable way to die. The pair of wreckage-shells coasted onwards; the rest of the ships sped on unharmed, chasing the main fleet. Not one of the ships turned back to take it on.

The Killing Time continued to brake, oriented towards the fast vanishing war fleet and the region of the Excession. Its engine fields were gouging great livid tracks in the energy grid as it back-pedalled furiously.

It encountered the ROU which had dropped aft with engine damage, falling back towards it as the Killing Time slowed and the other craft coasted onward and struggled to repair its motive power units. The Killing Time attempted to communicate with the ROU, was fired upon, and tried to take the craft over with its effector. The ROU’s own independent automatics detected the ship’s Mind starting to give in. They tripped a destruct sequence and another hypersphere of radiation blossomed beneath the skein.

Shit, thought the Killing Time. It scanned the hyper volumes around itself.

Nothing threatening.

Well, damn me, it thought, as it slowed. I’m still alive.

This was the one outcome it hadn’t anticipated.

It ran a systems check. Totally unharmed, apart from the self-inflicted degradation to its engines. It slackened off the power, dropping back to normal maxima and watching the readouts; significant degradation from here in about a hundred hours. Not too bad. Self-repairing would take days at all-engines-stop. Warhead stocks down to forty per cent; remanufacturing from first principles would take four to seven hours, depending on the exact mix it chose. Plasma chambers at ninety-six per cent efficiency; about right for the engagement system-use profile according to the relevant charts and graphs. Self-repair mechanisms champing the bit. It looked around, concentrating on the view astern. No obvious threats; it let the self-repairers make a start on two of the four chambers. Full reconstruction time, two hundred and four seconds.

Entire engagement duration; eleven microseconds. Hmm; it had felt longer. But then that was only natural.

Should it make a second pass? It pondered this while it signalled the Shoot Them Later and a couple of other distant Minds with details of the engagement. Then it copied to the Steely Glint, without leaving the comm channels open. It needed time to think.

It felt excited, energised, re-purified by the engagement it had undergone. Its appetite was whetted. A further pass would be no-holds-barred multi-destructional, not a series of semi-defensive side-actions while it concentrated on searching for one individual ship. This next time it could really get nasty…

On the other hand, it had inflicted a more than reasonable amount of damage on the fleet for no ship-loss whatsoever and a barely significant degradation to its operational capacity. It had ignored the advice of a superior Mind in wartime but it had triumphed. It had gambled and won and there was a kind of unexpected elegance in cashing in its gains now. To pursue the matter further might look like obsessive self-regard, like ultra-militarism, especially now that the original object of its ire had been bested. Perhaps it would be better to accept whatever praise and/or calumny might now be heaped upon it and re-submit itself to the jurisdiction of the Culture’s war-command structure (though it was starting to have its doubts about the part of the Steely Glint in all this).

It drew level with the debris clouds left by the two ships destroyed in the final wave of the war fleet. It let them drop astern.

The wreck of the Attitude Adjuster came tumbling slowly towards it in hyperspace; coasting, slowing, drifting gradually back up towards the skein. Externally, it looked unharmed.

The Killing Time slowed to keep pace with the slackly somersaulting craft. It probed the Attitude Adjuster carefully with its senses, its effector targeted on the other ship’s Mind, ready on the instant. In human terms, this was like taking somebody’s pulse while keeping a gun stuck in their mouth.

The Attitude Adjuster’s weakened engine fields were still tearing at what was left of its Mind, teasing and plucking and forcing it apart strand by strand, demolishing and shredding and cauterising the last remaining quanta of its personality and senses. It looked like there had been a dozen or so Affronters aboard. They were dead too, killed by stray radiations from the Mind’s self-destruction.

The Killing Time felt a modicum of guilt, even self-disgust at what it had forced upon what was still, in a sense, a sister ship, even while another part of its selfhood relished and gloried in the dying craft’s agonies.

The sentimental side won out; it blitzed the stricken vessel with a profusion of plasma fire from its two operational chambers, and kept station with the expanding shell of radiation for a few moments, paying what little respect the traitor ship might be due.

The Killing Time came to its decision. It signalled the Steely Glint, informing the GCV that it would accept suggestions from now on. It would harry the war fleet if that was required, or it would join in whatever stand was to be made near Esperi if that was thought the best use that could be made of it.

It would probably still die, but it would meet its fate as a loyal and obedient component of the Culture, not some sort of rogue ship pursuing a private feud.

Then it slowly ramped its engines back to normal full power, pulling itself forward to a vanishingly brief moment of rest before powering onwards, accelerating hard and setting a hyperbolic course skirting around the fleet’s more direct route, heading for the location of the Excession.

It should still get there before the war fleet.

XII

“What?”

“I said I’ve made up my mind. I won’t talk to him. I won’t see him. I don’t even want to be on the same ship with him. Take me away. I want to leave- Now.” Dajeil Gelian gathered her skirts about her and sat heavily on the seat in the circular room under translucent dome.

“Dajeil!” exclaimed Amorphia, going down on its knees in front of her, eyes wide and shining. It made to take her hands in its but she pulled them away. “Please! See him! He has agreed to see you!”

“Oh, has he?” she said scornfully. “How magnanimous of him!”

The avatar sat back on its haunches. It looked at the woman, then it sighed and said, “Dajeil, I’ve never asked anything of you before. Please just see him. For me.”

“I never asked anything of you,” the woman said. “What you gave me you gave unasked. Some of it was unwanted,” she said coldly. “All those animals, those other lives, those eternal births and childhoods; mocking me.”

“Mocking you!” the avatar exclaimed. “But—!”

Dajeil sat forward, shaking her head. “No, I’m sorry, that was wrong of me.” Now she reached out and took Amorphia’s hands. “I’m truly grateful for all you’ve done for me, ship. I am. But I don’t want to see him. Please take me away.”

The avatar tried to argue on for a while longer, but to no avail.

The ship considered a lot of things. It considered asking the Grey Area — still in its forward Mainbay — to dip inside the woman’s brain the way it had insinuated its way into Genar-Hofoen’s to discover the truth of the events on Telaturier (and to implant the dream of the long-dead captain Zreyn Enhoff Tramow, not that that had proved either required or particularly well done). It considered requesting that the GCU used its effectors to make her want to have the child. It considered Displacing chemicals or biotechs which would force Dajeil’s body to have the child. It considered using one of its own effectors to do the same thing. It considered just Displacing her into Genar-Hofoen’s proximity, or he into hers.

Then it came up with a new plan.

“Very well,” the avatar said eventually. It stood. “He will stay. You may go. Do you wish to take the bird Gravious with you?”

The woman looked perplexed, even confused. “I—” she began. “Yes, yes, why not? It can’t do any harm, can it?”

“No,” the avatar said. “No, it cannot.” It bowed its head to her.

“Goodbye.”

Dajeil opened her mouth to speak, but the avatar was Displaced away at the same instant; the sound it left behind was like a pair of hands giving a single, gentle clap. Dajeil closed her mouth, then put both her hands over her eyes and lowered her head, doubling up as well as she was able to. Next moment there was another, distant noise and from down the winding stairs she heard a thin, hoarse voice cry out.

“Waa! Shit! Grief, where—?” Then there was a confused flutter of wings.

Dajeil closed her eyes. Then there was another, closer-sounding pop. Her eyes flicked open.

A young woman, slim and black haired, was sitting looking surprised in the middle of the floor, dressed in black pyjamas and reading a small, old-fashioned book. Between her bottom and the room’s carpet there was a neat circle of pink material, still in the process of collapsing, air expelling flutteringly round the edges. Around her floated a small snow-storm of white particles, settling with a feather-like slowness. She jerked once, as though she had been leaning back on something which had just been removed.

“What… the… fuck…?” she said softly. She looked slowly around, from side to side.

Her gaze settled on Dajeil. She frowned for a moment, then some kind of understanding imposed itself. She quickly completed her review of her surroundings, then pointed at the other woman. “Dajeil,” she said. “Dajeil Gelian, right?”

Dajeil nodded.

XIII

[stuttered tight point, M32, tra. @4.28.885.3553]

xEccentric Shoot Them Later

oLSV Serious Callers Only

It was the Attitude Adjuster. It is dead now (signal + DiaGlyphs enclosed).

oo

[stuttered tight point, M32, tra. @n4.28. 885.3740] xLSV Serious Callers Only

oEccentric Shoot Them Later

Not a pleasant way to go. Your friend the Killing Time deserves congratulations, and probably merits therapy. However, as I’m sure it would point out, it is a warship. This implicates the Steely Glint; the Attitude Adjuster was its daughter and was demilitarised (supposedly) by it seventy years ago. I trust your friend will treat the SG’s subsequent operational suggestions with a degree of caution.

oo

Indeed. But then as it seems quite enthusiastically intent upon achieving a glorious death at the earliest possible opportunity anyway, it is hard to see what more the Steely Glint can do to place it in further jeopardy. Whatever; we must leave that machine to its own fate. My concern now is that the evidence for the conspiracy is starting to look pretty damning, even if it is still circumstantial. I suggest we go public.

oo

Implicating the Steely Glint while it is in charge of the military developments around the Excession will only make us look like the guilty parties. We must ask ourselves what we have to gain. The war fleet from Pittance is under way and must arrive there in any event; exposing the conspiracy will do nothing to challenge it. The best we might hope for would be the worst for the chances of resisting the Affront’s purpose; that is, the removal from influence and general disgrace of the Steely Glint and its co-conspirators. It pains me to say it, but I still think we must let this sub-sequence of events run its course before we can consider broadcasting our suspicions. Hold for now, and gather what more weight of evidence we might, the better to tip the scales with our accusations when the time does come.

oo

Frankly, I was hoping you would say that. My own instinct (if I may slur my intellect with such an archaic term) was to keep quiet but I suspected I was merely being timorous and so wanted to make the suggestion we publicise with a positive skew, so that you could not be infected by any undue reticence on my part. What of the volume around the E itself? Heard any more?

oo

Imbecile.

Last I heard regarding the Esperi thing itself there was no more news of the ZE’s Stargazers and the FATC was still recovering from the effects of its unexpected trip. Everybody else seems to have taken the hint and is hanging back. Well, except for the Affronter’s borrowed fleet and our old chum of course.

How are things in the realm of our three-legged friends?

Speaking personally, Screce Orbital is as pleasant as could be, and as devoutly un-militarised as one might wish a Peace faction world to be.

oo

No more news then.

Glad to hear Screce is so fair.

The Homomda are most accommodating and gracious hosts. I think I may have lost a couple of my Idiran crew members to the local pleasure-dens for the duration, but otherwise I have no complaints.

Stay safe. And peace, like they say, be with you.

XIV

The briefest of introductions completed, they stood facing each other in the circular room under the translucent dome. “So,” Dajeil said, inspecting the other woman from toe to crown. “You’re his latest, are you?”

Ulver frowned. “Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s mine.”

Dajeil looked as though she wasn’t sure how to answer that.

“Ms Seich, welcome aboard the Jaundiced Outlook,” said a disembodied voice. “I’m sorry this is all so precipitate, but I have just received instructions from the Sleeper Service that you are to be evacuated aboard myself forthwith.”

“Thank you,” Ulver said, gazing round the room. “What about Churt Lyne?”

“It has expressed a desire to stay aboard the Grey Area,” the Jaundiced Outlook told her.

“I thought those two were getting on suspiciously well,” the girl muttered.

Dajeil looked like she wanted to ask something, but in the end said nothing. After a moment she stood up, putting her hand to the small of her back as she did so with a tiny grimace. She indicated the table to one side. “Please,” she said. “I was about to have dinner. Will you join me?”

“I was about to have breakfast,” Ulver said, and nodded. “Certainly.”

They sat at the table. Ulver held up the small book she’d been reading and which she still held in one hand. “I don’t want to be rude, but would you mind if I just finish this chapter?” she asked.

Dajeil smiled. “Not at all,” she murmured. Ulver gave a winning smile and stuck her nose back in the slim volume.

“Excuse me,” said a small hoarse voice from the doorway. “What the fuck’s going on then?”

Dajeil looked over at the black bird Gravious. “We’re being evacuated,” she told it. “You can live in the cellar. Now go away.”

“Well thanks for your hospitality,” the bird spluttered, turning and hopping down the winding stairs.

“That yours?” Ulver asked Dajeil.

“Supposed to be a companion,” the older woman said, shrugging. “Actually just a pain.”

Ulver nodded sympathetically and returned to her book.

Dajeil ordered food for two; a slave tray appeared with plates, bowls, jugs and goblets. A couple of floor-running servitors appeared and started clearing up the debris left by Ulver’s sudden Displacement from the Grey Area to the Jaundiced Outlook; the feather-light stuffing from the pillows proved a particular problem. The serving tray started arranging the place settings on the table and distributing the bowls of food; Dajeil watched this graceful, efficient display in silence. Ulver Seich gazed intently at the book and turned a page. Then a ship-slaved drone appeared. It floated by Dajeil’s shoulder. “Yes?” she said.

“We are now leaving the bay,” the Jaundiced Outlook told her. “The journey to the GSV’s external envelope will take two and a half minutes.”

“Oh. Right. Thank you,” Dajeil said.

Ulver Seich looked up. “Would you ask the Grey Area to transfer my stuff here?”

“That has already been accomplished,” the drone said, already moving towards the stairs.

Ulver nodded again, put the book’s marker-ribbon into place, closed the volume and placed it by the side of her plate.

“Well, Ms Gelian,” she said, clasping her hands on the table. “It would appear we are to be travelling companions.”

“Yes,” Dajeil said. She started to serve herself some food. “Have you been with Byr long, Ms… Seich, wasn’t it?” she asked.

Ulver nodded. “Only met him a few days ago. I was sent to try and stop him getting here. Didn’t work out. I ended up stuck on a tiny little module thing with him. Just us and a drone. For days. It was awful.”

Dajeil passed a couple of bowls over to Ulver. “Still,” she said, smiling thinly, “I’m sure romance blossomed.”

“Like hell,” Ulver said, levering a few sunbread pieces from a bowl into her plate. “Couldn’t stand the man. Only slept with him the last couple of nights. Partially boredom, I suppose. All the same, he’s quite handsome. Bit of a charmer, really. I can see what you saw in him. So, what went wrong between you two?”

Dajeil stopped, a spoon poised on the way to her mouth. Ulver smiled disarmingly at her over jaws munching a mouthful of fruit.

Dajeil ate, drank a little wine and dabbed at her lips with a napkin before replying. “I’m surprised you don’t know the whole story.”

“Who ever knows the whole story?” Ulver said airily, waving her arms about. She put her elbows on the table. “I bet even you two don’t know the whole story,” she said, more quietly.

Again, Dajeil took her time before replying. “Perhaps the whole story isn’t worth knowing,” she said.

“The ship appears to think it is,” Ulver replied. She tried some fermented fruit juice, rolling it round her palate before swallowing it and saying, “Seems to have gone to an awful lot of trouble to arrange a meeting between you two.”

“Yes, well, it is an eccentric, isn’t it?”

Ulver thought about this. “Very intelligent eccentric,” she said. “I’d imagine that something it thought worth pursuing like that might be… you know; worthy of concern. No?” she asked with a self-deprecating grimace.

Dajeil shrugged. “Ships can be wrong, too,” she said.

“What, so none of it matters a damn?” Ulver said casually, choosing a small roll from a basket.

“No,” Dajeil said. She looked down, smoothing her dress over belly. “But…” She stopped. Her head went down, and she silent for a while. Ulver looked over, concerned.

Dajeil’s shoulders shook once. Ulver, wiping her lips, threw down the napkin and went over to the other woman, squatting by her and tentatively putting out one arm round her shoulders. Dajeil moved slowly towards her, eventually resting her head on the crook of Ulver’s neck.

The ship drone entered from the winding stair; Ulver shooed it away.

A couple of screens on the far wall lit up, showing what Ulver guessed was the hull of the Sleeper Service, gradually drawing further away. Another couple of screens showed an approaching wall of gridded grey. She guessed the two minutes the drone had mentioned earlier had passed.

Dajeil cried for a little while. After a few minutes, she asked, “Do you think he still loves me? At all?”

Ulver looked pained for a moment; only the ship’s sensors registered the expression. She took a deep breath. “At all?” she said. “Yes, definitely.”

Dajeil sniffed hard and looked up for the first time. She gave a sort of half-despairing laugh as she wiped some tears from her cheeks with her fingers. Ulver reached for a clean napkin and completed the job.

“It doesn’t really mean much to him any more,” Dajeil said to the younger woman, “does it?”

Ulver folded the tear-darkened napkin carefully. “It matters to him a lot now, because he’s here. Because the ship brought him here just for this, hoping the two of you would talk.”

“But the rest of the time,” Dajeil said, sitting upright again and throwing her head and hair back. “The rest of the time, it doesn’t really bother him, does it?”

Ulver took an almost exaggeratedly deep breath, looked as though she was about to vehemently deny this, then sank down on her haunches and said, “Look; I hardly know the man.” She gestured with her hands. “I learned a lot about him before we met, but I only met him a few days ago. In very odd circumstances.” She shook her head, looking serious. “I don’t know who he really is.”

Dajeil rocked back and forward in her seat for a moment, staring at the meal on the table. “Well enough,” she said, sniffing. “You know him well enough.” She smoothed her ruffled hair as best she could. She stared up at the translucent dome for a moment. “All I knew,” she said, “was the person he became when he was with me.” She looked at Ulver. “I forgot what he was like all the rest of the time.” She took Ulver’s hand in hers. “You’re seeing what he’s really like.”

Ulver gave a long slow shrug. “Then…” she said, looking troubled, her tone measured. “He’s all right. I think.”

The screens on the far side of the circular room showed fuzzy grids expanding, swallowing, disappearing. The last field approached, was pierced to reveal a black wash of space, and then — with a smear of rushing stars and the same barely perceptible feeling of dislocation Ulver and Genar-Hofoen had experienced two days earlier when they had arrived on board the Sleeper Service — the Jaundiced Outlook was free of the GSV and peeling away on a diverging course within its own concentric collection of fields.

“And what does that make me?” Dajeil whispered.

Ulver shrugged. She looked down at Dajeil’s belly. “Still pregnant?” she suggested.

Dajeil stared at her. Then she gave a small laugh. Her head went down again.

Ulver patted her hand. “Tell me about it if you want.”

Dajeil sniffed, dabbing at her nose with the folded napkin. “Yes, I’m sure you really care.”

“Oh, believe me,” Ulver told her, “other people’s problems have always held a profound fascination for me.”

Dajeil sighed. “Other people’s are always the best problems to be involved with,” she said ruefully.

“My thoughts exactly.”

“I suppose you think I ought to talk to him too,” Dajeil said.

Ulver glanced up at the screens again. “I don’t know. But if you have even the least thought of it, I’d take advantage of the opportunity now, before it’s too late.”

Dajeil looked round at the screens. “Oh, we’ve gone,” she said in a small voice. She looked back at the other woman. “Do you think he wants to see me?” Ulver thought there was a tone of hopefulness in her voice. Her troubled gaze flitted from one of Ulver’s eyes to the other.

“Well, if he doesn’t he’s a fool,” Ulver said, wondering why she was being so diplomatic.

“Ha,” Dajeil said. She wiped her cheeks with her fingers once more and dragged her fingers through her hair. She reached into her dress and pulled out a comb. She offered it to Ulver. “Would you…?”

Ulver stood. “Only if you say you’ll see him,” she said, smiling.

Dajeil shrugged. “I suppose so.”

Ulver stood behind Dajeil, and began to comb her long dark hair.

— Ship?

— Ms Seich. The Jaundiced Outlook here.

— I take it you’ve been listening. Want to contact the GSV?

— I was listening. I have already contacted the Sleeper Service. Mr Genar-Hofoen and the avatar Amorphia are aboard and on their way here.

— Fast work, Ulver told it, and continued to gently comb Dajeil’s hair. “They’re on their way,” she told her. “Byr and the avatar.”

Dajeil said nothing.

A couple of decks further down in the accommodation section, Amorphia turned to Genar-Hofoen as they walked down a corridor. “And it might be best not to mention that we were Displaced aboard at the same time as Ulver,” it told the man.

“I’ll try not to let it slip,” he said sourly. “Let’s just get this over with, shall we?”

“Definitely the right attitude,” muttered the avatar, stepping into a lift. They ascended to the impersonation of the tower.

XV

Snug, encapsulated in a cobbled-together nest-capsule deep inside the accommodation section of the ex-Culture ship Heavy Messing, Captain Greydawn Latesetting X of the Farsight tribe watched the blip which represented the crippled hulk of the Attitude Adjuster fall astern on the holo display, the screams of his uncle Risingmoon and the other Affronters on the stricken vessel still ringing in his mind. A hazy cloud hung around the blip of the tumbling wreck, indicating where the ship’s sensors estimated the Culture warship — which the Heavy Messing still thought was a Deluger vessel — now was.

With his uncle dead, the fleet was now under Greydawn’s command. The urge to swing the whole assemblage about and bear down on the single Culture ship was almost irresistible. But there would be no point; it was faster than any of their craft; the Heavy Messing’s Mind thought that the Culture ship might have damaged its engines during its run-in to the attack, but even so it could probably still outstrip any of the ships in the fleet, and so all such a course would accomplish would be to draw them away from their intended destination, without even the realistic prospect of revenge. They had to continue. Greydawn signalled to the six other craft which were crewed.

— Fellow warriors. No one feels the loss of our comrades more than I. However, our mission remains the same. Let our victory be our first revenge. The power we gain for our kind as a result of it will purchase the ability to punish all such crimes against us a million-fold!

— The attacker’s duplication of a Culture vessel’s emission signature spectrum and field was astonishingly authentic, the Heavy Messing wrote on one of the screens in front of Greydawn.

— Their abilities have grown while you were asleep, ally, Greydawn told the ship. He felt his gas sac tense and contract as he spoke-wrote the words, ever conscious that anything he said might help give away the huge trick being played on the Culture ships. ~ You see the severity of the threat they now present.

— Indeed, the ship replied. ~ I find it hateful that the Deluger craft killed the Attitude Adjuster the way it appeared to.

— They will be chastised when we are in control of the entity at Esperi, never fear!