Excession

I

Fivetide dived for the bat ball and missed; he thumped heavily into the court wall and up-ended. He lay on his back, wheezing and laughing on the floor until Onceman Genar-Hofoen limbed over to him, extended a tentacle and helped him haul himself upright.

“Fifteen all, I think,” he rumbled, also laughing. He scooped the twittering bat ball up in his racket and ladled it into Fivetide’s. “Your serve.”

Fivetide shook his eye stalks. “Ha! I think I liked you better as a human!”

II

[tight beam, M2, tra. @n4.28.987.2] xEccentric Shoot Them Later

oLSV Serious Callers Only

I still say it was somehow a test; an emissary. We were tried and found wanting. It encountered the worst of what we can be and took itself off again. Probably in disappointment. Possibly in disgust. The Affront were too disagreeable, the Elench were too eager, we too hesitant. Our slow gathering of supposedly wise ones about its vicinity might have proved to be a perfectly reasonable course of action and led to who knows what exchanges, tradings and dialogues, but the entity found itself surrounded by all the trappings of war and may even have understood the manner in which its appearance had been used as part of a plot to entrap the Affront so that they could be laid low and have a Cultured peace imposed upon them. It judged us unworthy of intercourse with those it represented and so abandoned us to our miserable fate. Those noxious simpletons who made up the conspiracy should be cursed for evermore; they may have cost us more than even we can imagine. The displays of contrition and programmes of good works that have been undertaken, even the suicides, cannot begin to make amends for what we have lost! How is Seddun at this time of year? Do the islands still float?

oo

[tight beam, M2, tra. @n4.28. 988.5]

xLSV Serious Callers Only

oEccentric Shoot Them Later

My dear friend, we do not know what the Excession offered or threatened. We know it was able to manipulate the energy grid in ways we can only speculate upon, but what if that was the only form of defence it was able to offer to something like the Sleeper Service? For all we know it was an invasionary beach-head which left us because it was met with forces which it estimated presaged resistance on a scale which would prove too expensive. I admit this is unlikely, but I offer it as a balancing possibility in the hope of righting the list of your pessimism.

At any rate, we are arguably better off than before; a conspiracy has been uncovered, any other zealots thinking of indulging in similar pranks will have been roundly discouraged, and even the Affront are behaving a little better having realised how close they came to being taught such a severe and salutary lesson. The war itself never really got going, there was little loss of life and Affronter reparations for the mischief they did create will serve as a minor but nagging reminder of the liabilities which follow on such aggression for some considerable time to come. The implicit lesson of the Sleeper Service’s effectively instantly produced war machine will similarly not have been lost on any other species who might also have been planning Affronter-like adventures, I suspect.

As to the chance we may have missed, well, call me an old bore if you will, but who knows what changes might have attended a meaningful dialogue with whatever the Excession represented (if it represented anything other than itself — again, we can only speculate).

In all this, the seeming indifference of the Elder civilisations still strikes me as one of the most puzzling aspects of the affair. Were they really just indifferent? Did the Excession have nothing to teach those who have Sublimed? There is much here still to be answered, though I suspect the wait could be long; even infinitely so!

Well, the debate will doubtless continue for a long time to come. I confess I am finding the fame and even adulation that has befallen us somewhat tiring. I’m considering a retreat, after I’ve finished going round apologising to those who were involved without their knowledge in this.

Seddun is beautiful in winter (Visual file enclosed). As you see, the islands float on, even in the ice. Genar-Hofoen’s uncle Tish sends his regards and has forgiven us.

III

Leffid held the lass in his arms and gazed happily out through the yacht’s wide port-screen at the darkness of space. One bright edge of Tier was visible, rotating in all its silent majesty. Leffid thought it had never looked so beautiful. He gazed down at the sleeping face of his angel. Her name was Xipyeong. Xipyeong. What a beautiful name.

It was love this time, he was sure of it; he had found his soul-mate. They had only met the week before, only been together for a couple of nights, but he just knew. Why, for one thing, he hadn’t forgotten her name once!

She stirred and woke, her eyes coming slowly open. She frowned briefly, then smiled, nuzzling him and saying, “Hey, Geffid…”

IV

Ulver reined Brave in. The great animal snorted and came to a halt at the crest of the ridge. She loosened the reins to let the animal put its head down and crop the grass by the rocks. Beyond, the curved land dipped and rose; the ridge looked down over a forest and a winding river then out over rolling downland dotted with houses and coppices of trees. Overhead, one of Phage’s larger lakes glittered in the sunlight.

Ulver looked back to see the rest following behind; Otiel, Peis, Klatsli and her brother and the others. She laughed. Their mounts were picking their way gingerly through the stone-field; Brave had taken it at a gallop.

The black bird Gravious settled on a nearby rock. Ulver grinned at it. “See?” she said, taking a great, deep, happy breath and waving one gloved hand out at the view. “Isn’t it beautiful here? Didn’t I tell you? Aren’t you glad you came?”

“It’s all right, I suppose,” Gravious conceded.

Ulver laughed.

The drone Churt Lyne, also returned to Phage Rock, often wondered if it had made the right decision.

V

They looked around, in the midst of an undreamt splendour.

— Now this was a view worth risking everything for, the Grey Area sent.

— I think we can all agree with that, agreed the Peace Makes Plenty.

— If they could see us now… mused the Break Even.

VI

Ren ran down the sands and into the water, shrieking and laughing and splashing. Her long blonde hair turned darker in the water and lay stuck to her skin when she ran back out again. She skipped up to where her mother, Zreyn and Amorphia sat on a gaily patterned rug under a lacy parasol. The girl threw herself at her aunt Zreyn, who grinned and caught her, then let her wriggle free and dash off along the beach, running towards a sea bird which had thought to doze off there; it flapped lazily into the air and flew slowly off, pursued by the whooping child.

The girl disappeared round the side of the long, single-storey house which lay in the dunes behind the beach; the decorated edges of its veranda awnings flapped and rippled in the warm breeze coming in off the sea.

On the porch, the image of Gestra Ishmethit sat, peering intently at the partially built model of a sailing ship sitting on a table. The man himself had his own suite of rooms, off one of the Sleeper Service’s warship-stacked General Bays, but he had been persuaded, by Ren, to allow his real-time image to join them most days, and had even started to appear personally for important celebrations. These consisted mostly of Ren’s birthdays, which according to her occurred on a weekly basis.

Zreyn Tramow looked over at Dajeil. “Have you ever thought,” she said, “of asking the ship to re-create the old place where you used to live?”

“There’s still a version of it in that Limited Bay, isn’t there?” Dajeil said, looking at Amorphia. The avatar, which sported a simple black pant-skirt and skin which looked like it would never tan, was holding a long blonde hair up to the sun-line, and peering at it. It realised it was being talked to and looked at Dajeil.

“What?” it said, then, “Oh, yes; the bay where Genar-Hofoen was kept. Yes; the tower’s still there.”

“See?” Dajeil told Zreyn. She rolled along the rug, out of the parasol’s shade, closed her eyes, put her hands under her head and lay on her belly, to even up her tan.

“I meant the whole thing,” Zreyn said, stretching out on the rug. “The cliffs and everything. Even the climate, if that’s possible,” she said, glancing at the avatar, which was still studying the sunlight through one of Ren’s blonde hairs. “Perfectly possible,” it muttered.

“The whole thing?” Dajeil said, grimacing. “But it’s so much nicer like this.” She reached out across the sand and pulled a straw sun-hat over her head.

Zreyn shrugged. “I’d just like to see it do stuff like that, I suppose.” She looked up at the sun-line. “Making and moving all that rock, creating small oceans… You have to remember I don’t take all this… power for granted the way you do.”

Dajeil folded the sun hat’s brim up and squinted at the other woman, who made an awkward gesture.

“Sorry; is my primitiveness showing?”

Zreyn Tramow’s stored mind-state had been woken up to tell her that her name at least had been used in the discovered conspiracy. The Sleeper Service had been uncertain about whether this was really necessary, but it was the sort of thing that extreme politeness dictated, and in the aftermath of the brief war, everybody was being almost exquisitely correct. Besides, it had a hunch that she might find the current civilisational situation interesting enough to be re-born, and it rather liked the idea of instigating such a response. The Sleeper Service had been right; Zreyn Tramow had thought the galaxy sounded like a place worth revisiting and had duly been grown a new body, but then, after the ship had stuck around, impatiently, while the various post-debacle inquiries and investigations had been carried out, she’d asked to go with it when it had announced it still intended to go on a rambling retreat.

Gestra Ishmethit, his mind-state plucked from his dying brain in the evacuated cold of the warship halls in Pittance by the guilt-stricken Attitude Adjuster, appropriated from that craft just before it destroyed itself by the attacking Killing Time and subsequently passed on until it came to rest in the restocked memory vaults of the Sleeper Service, had also been woken up and furnished with a new body by that time; death had neither improved his social skills nor sated his urge for solitude and he too had asked to remain aboard the giant ship.

He, Ren, Dajeil and Zreyn were its only passengers.

“Yes, you’re being a hick; stop it at once,” Dajeil told Zreyn, who shrugged. Dajeil glanced round at the dunes, the golden sand and the bright blue sky. “Anyway, it’s a long journey,” she said. “Maybe we’ll get bored with all this and want it all changed back to the way it was.”

“Just let me know,” Amorphia said.

Dajeil took another look round. “I’m glad I let you talk me into remaking the old place like this, Amorphia,” she said.

“Pleased you like it,” the avatar said, nodding.

“Have you decided where we’re going yet?” Zreyn asked.

The avatar nodded. “I think… Leo II,” it said.

“Not Andromeda?” Zreyn said.

Amorphia shook its head. “I changed my mind.”

“Damn,” Zreyn said. “I always wanted to go to Andromeda.”

“Too crowded,” Amorphia said.

Zreyn looked unconvinced.

“We could go there… afterwards?” the avatar suggested.

“Will we even live to see Leo II?” Dajeil asked, opening her eyes and gazing over at the creature.

The avatar looked apologetic. “It will take rather a long time,” it admitted.

Dajeil closed her eyes again. “You could always Store us,” she said. “Think you could manage that?”

Zreyn laughed lightly.

“Oh, I could give it a try,” the avatar said.