Look to Windward

Absence of Gravitas

“The point is: what happens in heaven?”

“Unknowable wonderfulness?”

“Nonsense. The answer is nothing. Nothing can happen because if something happens, in fact if something can happen, then it doesn’t represent eternity. Our lives are about development, mutation and the possibility of change; that is almost a definition of what life is: change.”

“Have you always thought that?”

“If you disable change, if you effectively stop time, if you prevent the possibility of the alteration of an individual’s circumstances — and that must include at least the possibility that they alter for the worse — then you don’t have life after death; you just have death.”

“There are those who believe that after death the soul is recreated into another being.”

“That is conservative and a little stupid, certainly, but not actually idiotic.”

“And there are those who believe that, upon death, the soul is allowed to create its own universe.”

“Monomaniacal and laughable as well as provably wrong.”

“Then there are those who believe that the soul—”

“Well, there are all sorts of different beliefs. However, the ones that interest me are those concerning the idea of heaven. That’s the idiocy it annoys me that others cannot see.”

“Of course, you could just be wrong.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“In any case, even if heaven did not exist originally, people have created it. It does exist. In fact, lots of different heavens exist.”

“Pa! Technology. These so-called heavens will not last. There will be war in them, or between them.”

“And the Sublimed?”

“At last; something beyond heaven. And unfortunately therefore useless. But a start. Or rather an end. Or a start, again, of another sort of life, so proving my point.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“We’re all lost. We are found dead.”

“…Are you really a professor of divinity?”

“Of course I am! You mean it isn’t obvious?”

“Cr Ziller! You met the other Chelgrian yet?”

“I’m sorry, have we met?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m asking.”

“No, I meant have you and I met?”

“Trelsen Scofford. We met at the Gidhoutan’s.”

“Did we?”

“You said what I said about your stuff was ‘singular’ and ‘uniquely viewpointed’.”

“I think I hear myself in there somewhere.”

“Great! So, you met this guy yet?”

“No.”

“No? But he’s been here twenty days! Someone said he only lives—”

“Are you really as ignorant as you appear, Trelsen, or is this some sort of bizarre act, perhaps even meant to be amusing?”

“Sorry?”

“You should be. If you paid more than the most passing—”

“I just heard there was another Chelgrian—”

“—attention to what’s going on you’d know that the ‘other Chelgrian’ is a feudal tough, a professional bully come to attempt to persuade me to go back with him to a society I despise. I have no intention of meeting the wretch.”

“Oh. I didn’t realise.”

“Then you’re simply ignorant rather than malevolent. Congratulations.”

“So you’re not going to meet him at all?”

“That’s right; not at all. My plan is that after keeping him waiting for a few years he’ll either get fed up and slope home to be ritually chastised or he’ll gradually become seduced by Masaq’ and its many attractions in particular and by the Culture and all its wonderful manifestations in general, and become a citizen. Then I might meet him. Brilliant strategy, don’t you think?”

“You serious?”

“I’m always serious, never more so than when I’m being flippant.”

“Think it’ll work?”

“I neither know nor care. It’s just amusing to contemplate, that’s all.”

“So why do they want you to go back?”

“Apparently I’m the true Emperor. I was a foundling swapped at birth by a jealous godmother for my long-lost evil twin, Fimmit.”

“What? Really?”

“No, of course not really. He’s here to deliver a summons for a minor traffic violation.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Drat, you guessed. No, the thing is I have this secretion that comes from my anterior glands; every Chelgrian clan has one or two males in each generation who produce this substance. Without it the males of my clan can’t pass solids. If they don’t lick the appropriate spot at least once per tidal month they start to experience terrible wind. Unfortunately my cousin Kehenahanaha Junior the Third recently suffered a bizarre grooming accident which left him unable to produce the vital secretion, so they need me back there before all the males in my family explode from compressed shit. There is a surgical alternative, of course, but sadly the medical patent rights are held by a clan we haven’t acknowledged for three centuries. Dispute over a mistimed bid caused by an involuntary eructation during a bride-bidding auction, apparently. We don’t like to discuss it.”

“You… you’re not serious?”

“I really can’t get a thing past you, can I? No, it’s really about an unreturned library book.”

“You really are just kidding me now, aren’t you?”

“Yet again you’ve seen right through me. It’s almost as though I needn’t be here.”

“So you really don’t know why they want you back?”

“Well, what reason could there possibly be?”

“Don’t ask me!”

“That’s just what I was thinking!”

“Hey; why not just ask?”

“Better still, as it’s you who seems to care, why don’t you ask the one you charmingly call the Other Chelgrian to tell you why they want me back?”

“No, I meant ask Hub.”

“Well, it does know everything, after all. Look, there’s its avatar over there!”

“Hey, right! Let’s… Oh. Ah, see you, then, ah… Oh, hi. You must be the Homomdan.”

“Well spotted.”

“So, what does this woman actually do?”

“She listens to me.”

“She listens? Is that it?”

“Yes. I talk and she listens to what I say.”

“Well? So? I mean, I’m listening to you now. What does this woman do that’s so special?”

“Well, she listens without asking the sort of question you’ve just asked, frankly.”

“What do you mean? I was just asking—”

“Yes, but don’t you see? You’re already being aggressive, you’ve made up your mind that somebody just listening to somebody else is—”

“But is that all she does?”

“More or less, yes. But it’s very helpful.”

“Haven’t you got friends?”

“Of course I have friends.”

“Well, isn’t that what they’re for?”

“No, not always, not for everything I want to talk about.”

“Your house?”

“I used to talk about things with my house, but then I realised I was just talking to a machine that not even the other machines pretend to think is sentient.”

“What about your family?”

“I especially do not want to share everything with my family. They figure largely in what I need to talk about.”

“Really? That’s terrible. You poor thing. Hub, then. It’s a good listener.”

“Well, I understand, but there are those of us who think that it only seems to care.”

“What? It’s designed to care.”

“No, it’s designed to seem to care. With a person you feel that you’re communicating on an animal level.”

“An animal level?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s supposed to be a good thing?”

“Yes. It’s sort of instinct to instinct.”

“So you don’t think Hub cares?”

“It’s just a machine.”

“So are you.”

“Only in the widest sense. I feel better talking to another human. Some of us feel that Hub controls our lives too much.”

“Does it? I thought if you wanted to have nothing to do with it, you could.”

“Yes, but you still live on the O, don’t you?”

“So?”

“Well, it runs the Orbital, that’s what I mean.”

“Yeah, well, somebody’s got to run it.”

“Yes, but planets don’t need anybody to run them. They’re just sort of… there.”

“So you want to live on a planet?”

“No. I think I’d find them a bit small and weird.”

“Aren’t they dangerous? Don’t they get hit by stuff?”

“No, planets have defence systems.”

“So those need running.”

“Yes, but you’re missing the point—”

“I mean, you wouldn’t want a person in charge of stuff like that, would you? That’d be scary. That would be like the old days, like barbarism or something.”

“No, but the point is, wherever you live you can accept that something has to be minding the infrastructure, but it shouldn’t run your life as well. That’s why we feel we need to talk amongst ourselves more, not to our houses or to Hub or drones or anything like that.”

“That’s deeply weird. Are there a lot of people like you?”

“Well, no, not many, but I know a few.”

“Do you have a group? Do you hold meetings? Have you got a name yet?”

“Well, yes and no. There have been a lot of ideas for names. There was a suggestion we call ourselves the fastidians, or the cellists, or the carboniphiles, or the rejectionists or the spokists, or the rimmers or the planetists or the wellians or the circumferlocuans or circumlocuferans, but I don’t think we should adopt any of those.”

“Why not?”

“Hub suggested them.”

“…Sorry.”

“…Who was that?”

“The Homomdan ambassador.”

“Bit monstrous, don’t you think?… What? What?”

“They have very good hearing.”

“Hey! Cr Ziller! I forgot to ask. How’s the piece?”

“…Trelsen, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“What piece?”

“You know. The music.”

“Music. Oh yes. Yes, I’ve written quite a lot of that.”

“Oh, stop joshing. So, how’s it coming along?”

“Do you mean generally, or did you have a particular work in mind?”

“The new one, of course!”

“Ah yes, of course.”

“So?”

“You mean at what stage of preparation is the symphony?”

“Yes, how’s it coming along?”

“Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Yes. It’s coming along fine.”

“Oh. Great! Well done. Look forward to hearing it. Great. Right.”

“…Yes, fuck off through the crowd, you cretin. Hope I didn’t use too many technical terms… Oh, hello, Kabe. You still here? How are you, anyway?”

“I am well. And yourself?”

“Beset by idiots. Good job I’m used to it.”

“Present company excepted, I hope.”

“Kabe, if I suffered only one fool gladly, I assure you it would be you.”

“Hmm. Well, I shall take that as I hope you meant it rather than as I suspect; hope is a more pleasing emotion to the spirit than suspicion.”

“Your reservoir of graciousness astonishes me, Kabe. How was the emissary?”

“Quilan?”

“I believe that’s what he answers to.”

“He is resigned to a long wait.”

“I heard you took him walking.”

“Along the coastal path at Vilster.”

“Yes. All those kilometres of cliff-top path and not a single slip. Almost beggars belief, doesn’t it?”

“He was a pleasant walking companion and seems a decent sort of person. A little dour, perhaps.”

“Dour?”

“Reserved and quiet, quite serious, with a sort of stillness in him.”

“Stillness.”

“The sort of stillness there is in the centre of the third movement of ‘Tempest Night’, when the steel-winds fall silent and the basses hold those long, descending notes.”

“Oh, a symphonic stillness. And is this mooted affinity with one of my works supposed to endear him to me?”

“That was the entirety of my purpose.”

“You are a quite shameless procurer, aren’t you, Kabe?”

“Am I?”

“Don’t you feel even the slightest shame at doing their bidding like this?”

“Whose bidding?”

“Hub’s, the Contact Section, the Culture as a whole, not to mention my own enchanting society and splendid government.”

“I don’t think your government is bidding me do anything.”

“Kabe, you don’t know what sort of help they asked for or demanded from Contact.”

“Well, I—”

“Oh, grief.”

“Did I hear our name mentioned? Ah, Cr Ziller. Ar Ischloear. Dear friends, so good to see you.”

“Tersono. You look positively polished.”

“Thank you!”

“And a very pleasant crowd you’ve gathered, as ever.”

“Kabe, you are one of my most important weathervanes, if I may elevate and reduce you at the same time. I rely utterly on you to tell me whether something is genuinely going well or whether people are just being polite, so I’m so glad that you feel that way.”

“And Kabe is glad that you are glad. I was asking him about our Chelgrian chum.”

“Ah, yes, poor Quilan.”

“Poor?”

“Yes, you know; his wife.”

“No, I don’t know. What? Is she particularly ugly?”

“No! She’s dead.”

“A condition that rarely attends an improvement in looks.”

“Ziller! Really! The poor fellow lost his wife in the Caste War. Didn’t you know?”

“No.”

“I think Ziller has been as assiduous in avoiding all knowledge of Major Quilan as I have been in accumulating it.”

“And you haven’t shared that knowledge with Ziller, Kabe? For shame!”

“My shame seems an especially popular subject this evening. But no, I have not. I might have been about to just before you arrived.”

“Yes, it was all terribly tragic. They hadn’t been married long.”

“At least they can look forward to a reunion in the absurd blasphemy of our manufactured heaven.”

“Apparently not. Her implant was not able to save her personality. She is gone forever.”

“How very careless. And what of the Major’s implants?”

“What of them, dear Ziller?”

“What are they? Have you checked him for any unusual ones? The sort of things that special agents, spies, assassins tend to have. Well? Have you checked him over for that sort of thing?”

“…It’s gone quiet. Do you think it’s broken?”

“I think it’s communicating elsewhere.”

“Is that what those colours mean?”

“I don’t think so.”

“That’s just grey, isn’t it?”

“I think technically it’s gunmetal.”

“And is that magenta?”

“More violet. Though of course your eyes are different from mine.”

“Ahem.”

“Oh, you’re back.”

“Indeed. The answer is that Emissary Quilan was scanned several times on the way here. Ships don’t let people aboard without inspecting them for anything that might be dangerous.”

“You’re certain?”

“My dear Ziller, he’s been transported by what are in effect three Culture warships. Do you have any idea how nano-scopically fanatical those things can be about potential-harm hygiene?”

“What about his Soulkeeper?”

“Not scanned directly; that would imply reading his mind, which is terribly impolite.”

“Ah-ha!”

“Ah-ha what?”

“Ziller is worried that the Major might be here to kidnap or murder him.”

“That would be preposterous.”

“Nevertheless.”

“Ziller, my dear friend, please, if that is what is preying on your mind, have no fears. Kidnap is… I can’t tell you how unlikely. Murder… No. Major Quilan has brought nothing with him more harmful than a ceremonial dagger.”

“Ah! So I might be put to death ceremonially. That’s different. Let’s meet up tomorrow. We could go camping. Share a tent. Is he gay? We could fuck. I’m not but it’s been a while, aside from Hub’s dream-houris.”

“Kabe, stop laughing; you ought not to encourage him. Ziller, the dagger is a dagger, no more.”

“Not a knife missile, then?”

“Not a knife missile, not even in disguise or memoryform. It is simple, solid steel and silver. It’s little better than a letter-opener really. I’m sure if we asked him to leave it—”

“Forget the stupid dagger! Maybe it’s a virus; a disease or something.”

“Hmm.”

“What do you mean, ‘Hmm’?”

“Well, our medicine effectively became perfect about eight thousand years ago, and we’ve had all that time to get used to evaluating other species rapidly to develop a full understanding of their physiology, so any ordinary disease, even a new one, is unable to establish a foothold thanks to the body’s own defences and will certainly be utterly helpless against external medical resources. However, somebody did once develop a genetic signature-keyed brain-rotting virus which worked so quickly it proved effective on more than one occasion. Five minutes after the assassin had sneezed in the same room as the intended victim their brains — and only theirs — were turning to soup.”

“And?”

“So we look for that sort of thing. And Quilan is clean.”

“So, there’s nothing here but the pure, cellular him?”

“Apart from his Soulkeeper.”

“Well, what about this Soulkeeper?”

“It’s a simple Soulkeeper, as far as we can tell. Certainly it’s the same size and has a similar outward appearance.”

“A similar outward appearance. As far as you can tell?”

“Yes, it’s—”

“And these people, my Homomdan friend, have established a reputation for thoroughness throughout the galaxy. Incredible.”

“Was it thoroughness? I thought it was eccentricity. Well, there you are.”

“Ziller, let me tell you a story.”

“Oh, must you?”

“It appears I must. Somebody once thought of a way they might outwit the security of Contact.”

“Serial numbers instead of ridiculous ship names?”

“No, they thought they could smuggle a bomb aboard a GCU.”

“I’ve met one or two Contact ships. I confess the idea has occurred to me, too.”

“The way they did it was to create a humanoid who appeared to have a form of bodily defect called hydrocephaly. Have you heard of such a condition?”

“Water on the brain?”

“Fluid fills the foetus’ head and the brain grows smeared in a thin layer round the inside of the adult’s skull. Not something you see in a developed society, but they had a plausible excuse for this individual having it.”

“A milliner’s mascot?”

“A prophet-savant.”

“I was close.”

“The point was that this individual carried a small anti-matter bomb in the centre of his skull.”

“Oh. Wouldn’t you hear it bumping around when he shook his head?”

“Its containment vessel was tethered by atomic monofil.”

“And?”

“Don’t you see? They thought that by hiding it inside his skull, surrounded by his brain, it would be safe from any Culture scan, because we famously do not look inside people’s heads.”

“So they were right, it worked, it blew the ship to smithereens and I’m supposed to feel reassured?”

“No.”

“I didn’t really think so.”

“They were wrong, the device was spotted and the ship sailed serenely on.”

“What happened? It came loose, he sneezed and out it embarrassingly popped?”

“A standard Mind scan looks at something from hyperspace, from the fourth dimension. An impenetrable sphere looks like a circle. Locked rooms are fully accessible. You or I would look flat to them.”

“Flat? Hmm. I have experienced certain critics who must have had access to hyperspace. Obviously I owe numerous apologies. Damn.”

“The ship did not read the unfortunate creature’s brains — it had no need to scan at such detail — but it was as obvious that he was carrying a bomb as if he’d balanced it on the top of his head.”

“I have the feeling this is all just a long-winded way of telling me not to worry.”

“If I have been long-winded, I apologise. I was seeking only to reassure you.”

“Consider me reassured. I no longer imagine that this piece of shit is here to assassinate me.”

“So you’ll see him?”

“Absolutely no fucking way whatsoever.”

“All Through With This Niceness And Negotiation Stuff.”

“Yeah. Like it. Offensive Unit?”

“But of course.”

“Had to be.”

“Yeah. Your turn.”

“Someone Else’s Problem.”

“Hmm.”

“ ‘Hmm’? Just ‘Hmm’?”

“Yeah, well. Doesn’t do it for me. How about Lacking That Small Match Temperament.”

“Bit obscure.”

“Well, I’ve just always liked it.”

“Poke It With A Stick.”

“OU?”

“GCU.”

“I Said, I’ve Got A Big Stick.”

“Sorry?”

“It’s called, I Said, I’ve Got A Big Stick. You have to say it quietly. When you write it, it’s in small type. An OU, as you might imagine.”

“Oh, right.”

“Probably my favourite. I think that’s just the best.”

“No, not as good as Hand Me The Gun And Ask Me Again.”

“Well, that’s okay, but not as subtle.”

“Well, but less derivative.”

“On the other hand, But Who’s Counting?”

“Yeah. Germane Riposte.”

“We Haven’t Met But You’re A Great Fan Of Mine.”

“Oh? Yeah? What?”

“No, I just meant, isn’t this fun?”

“Yes. Well, I’m glad you finally agree.”

“What do you mean, finally agree?”

“I mean finally agree that the names are worth mentioning in polite company.”

“What are you talking about? I was quoting you ship names for years before you started noticing.”

“Let me quote you one back: All The Same, I Saw It First.”

“What?”

“You heard.”

“Ha! Well then; Ravished By The Sheer Implausibility Of That Last Statement.”

“Oh, come on. You have Zero Credibility.”

“And you’re Charming But Irrational.”

“While you’re Demented But Determined.”

“And You May Not Be The Coolest Person Here.”

“You’re making these up.”

“No I’m… hold on, sorry; was that a ship name?”

“No, but here’s one: you’re talking Lucid Nonsense.”

“Awkward Customer.”

“Thorough But… Unreliable.”

“Advanced Case Of Chronic Patheticism.”

“Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory.”

“Conventional Wisdom.”

“In One Ear.”

“Fine Till You Came Along.”

“I Blame The Parents.”

“Inappropriate Response.”

“A Momentary Lapse Of Sanity.”

“Lapsed Pacifist.”

“Reformed Nice Guy.”

“Pride Comes Before A Fall.”

“Injury Time.”

“Now Look What You’ve Made Me Do.”

“Kiss This Then.”

“Look, if you two are going to fight, do it outside.”

“…Is that one?”

“Don’t think so. Should be.”

“Yeah.”

“Hub.”

“Ziller. Good evening. Are you enjoying yourself?”

“No. How about you?”

“Of course.”

“Of course? Can real happiness be so… foregone as that? How depressing.”

“Ziller, I am a Hub Mind. I have an entire — and if I may say so — quite fabulous Orbital to look after, not to mention having fifty billion people to tend to.”

“Certainly I wasn’t going to mention them.”

“Right now I’m observing a fading supernova in a galaxy two and a half billion years away. Closer to home, a thousand years off, I’m watching a dying planet orbiting inside the atmosphere of a red giant sun as it spirals slowly down towards the core. I can also watch the results of the planet’s destruction on the sun, a thousand years later, via hyperspace.

“In-system, I’m tracking millions of comets and asteroids, and directing the orbits of tens of thousands of them, some to use as raw material for Plate landscaping, some just to keep them out of the way. Next year I’m going to let a big comet come right through the Orbital, between the Rim and the Hub. That should be pretty spectacular. Several hundred thousand smaller bodies are speeding towards us right now, earmarked to provide an over-the-top light show for the first night of your new orchestral work at the end of the Twin Novae period.”

“It was that—”

“At the same time, of course, I’m in simultaneous communication with hundreds of other Minds; thousands, over the course of any given day; ship Minds of every type, some approaching, some just having left, some old friends, some sharing interests and fascinations similar to my own, plus other Orbitals and university Sages, amongst others. I have eleven Roving Personality Constructs, each one flitting over time from place to place in the greater galaxy, rooming with other Minds in the processor substrates of GSVs and smaller vessels, other Orbitals, Eccentric and Ulterior craft and with Minds of various other types; what they will be like, and how these once identical siblings might change me when they return and we consider remerging, I can only imagine and look forward to.”

“It all sounds—”

“While I am at the moment hosting no other Minds, I look forward to that, as well.”

“—fascinating. Now—”

“Additionally, sub-systems like manufactury process-overseeing complexes keep up a constant and fascinating dialogue. Within the hour, for example, in a shipyard in a cavern under the Buzuhn Bulkhead Range, a new Mind will be born, to be emplaced within a GCV before the year is out.”

“No no; keep going.”

“Meanwhile, via one of my planetary remotes I’m watching a pair of cyclonic systems collide on Naratradjan Prime and composing a glyph sequence on the effects of ultra-violent atmospheric phenomena on otherwise habitable ecospheres. Here on Masaq’ I’m watching a series of avalanches in the Pilthunguon Mountains on Hildri, a tornado whirling across the Shaban Savannah on Akroum, a sworl-island calving in the Picha Sea, a forest fire in Molben, a seiche bore funnelling up Gradeens River, a firework display above Junzra City, a wooden house frame being hoisted into place in a village in Furl, a quartet of lovers on a hilltop in—”

“You’ve made your—”

“—Ocutti. Then there are drones and other autonomous sentients, able to communicate directly and at speed, plus the implanted humans and other biologicals also able to converse immediately. Plus of course I have millions of avatars like this one, the majority of them talking with and listening to people right now.”

“…Have you finished?”

“Yes. But even if all the other stuff seems a bit esoteric, just think of all those other avatars at all those other gatherings, concerts, dances, ceremonies, parties and meals; think of all that talk, all those ideas, all that sparkle and wit!”

“Think of all that bullshit, the nonsense and non-sequiturs, the self-aggrandisement and self-deception, the boring stupid nonsense, the pathetic attempts to impress or ingratiate, the slow-wittedness, the incomprehension and the incomprehensible, the gland-addled meanderings and general suffocating dullness.”

“That is the chaff, Ziller. I ignore that. I can respond politely and where necessary felicitously to the most intense bore forever without flagging and it costs me nothing. It’s like ignoring all the boring bits in space between the neat stuff like planets and stars and ships. And even that’s not completely boring anyway.”

“I cannot tell you how glad I am that you live such a full life, Hub.”

“Thank you.”

“May we talk about me for just a little while?”

“As long as you like.”

“A terrible, terrible thought has just occurred to me.”

“What would that be?”

“The first night of Expiring Light.”

“Ah, you have a title for your new work.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll let the relevant people know. As well as the meteorite showers I mentioned earlier we’ll have a conventional laser and firework show, plus there will be troupe dancing and a holo-image interpretation.”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure my music will provide suitable aural wallpaper for all this spectacle.”

“Ziller, I hope you know it will all be done with exquisite taste. It will all fade for the end, when the second nova ignites.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about. I’m sure it will all go splendidly.”

“Then, what?”

“You’re going to invite that son-of-a-prey-bitch Quilan, aren’t you?”

“Ah.”

“Yes, ‘ah’. You are, aren’t you? I knew it. I can just feel the tumorous pus-brain circling in. I should never have said he could move to Aquime. Don’t know what I was thinking of.”

“I think it would be very bad form not to invite emissary Quilan. The concert will probably be the single most important cultural event on the whole Orbital this year.”

“What do you mean, ‘probably’?”

“All right, definitely. There has been a vast amount of interest. Even using the Stullien Bowl the number of people who are going to have to be disappointed in the matter of live tickets is going to be immense. I’ve had to run competitions to make sure your keenest fans are there and then randomise almost all the rest of the distribution. There’s a good chance that nobody from the Board will be able to make it to the event live, unless some ingratiate gives up their seat. The transmit audience over the whole O could be ten billion or more. I personally have exactly three tickets at my disposal; the allocation is so tight I’ll have to use one if I want one of my own avatars to attend.”

“So, a perfect excuse for not inviting this Quilan character.”

“You and he are the only two Chelgrians here, Ziller; you composed it and he’s our honoured guest. How can I not invite him?”

“Because I won’t go if he does, that’s why.”

“You mean you won’t attend your own first night?”

“Correct.”

“You won’t conduct?”

“That’s right.”

“But you always conduct the first night’s performance!”

“Not this time. Not if he’s going to be there.”

“But you have to be there!”

“No I don’t.”

“But who’ll conduct it?”

“Nobody. These things don’t really need conducting. Composers conduct to feed their own ego and to feel part of the performance rather than just the preparation.”

“That’s not what you said before. You said there were nuances that could not be programmed, decisions that a conductor could make at the time on the night in response to the audience’s on-going reactions which required a single individual to collate, analyse and react to, functioning as a focal point for the distributed—”

“I was bullshitting you.”

“You seemed as sincere then as you do now.”

“It’s a gift. The point is, I won’t conduct if this mercenary whoreboy is there. I won’t be anywhere near the place. I’ll be at home, or somewhere else.”

“That would be very embarrassing for all concerned.”

“So keep him away if you want me there.”

“How could I possibly do that?”

“You are a Hub Mind, as you’ve recently explained in exhausting detail. Your resources are almost infinite.”

“Why can’t we just keep the two of you apart on the night?”

“Because it won’t happen. An excuse will be found to bring us together. An encounter will be manufactured.”

“What if I give you my word that I will make sure that Quilan and you are never brought face to face? He will be there, but I’ll ensure that you are kept apart.”

“With one avatar?… Have you put a sound field round us?”

“Just round our heads, yes. This avatar’s lips will no longer move and its voice will alter slightly as a result; don’t be alarmed.”

“I’ll try to hold my terror in check. Go on.”

“If I really have to I can make sure there are several avatars there at the concert. They don’t always have to have silver skin, you know. And I’ll have drones present, too.”

“Big bulky drones?”

“Better; small, mean ones.”

“No good. No deal.”

“And knife missiles.”

“Still no.”

“Why not? I do hope you are not going to say that you don’t trust me. My word is my word. I never break it.”

“I do trust you. The reason that it’s no deal is because of the people who would want this meeting to happen.”

“Go on.”

“Tersono. Contact. Grief, Special fucking Circumstances, for all I know.”

“Hmm.”

“If they want the two of us to meet — I mean really, determinedly want — could you definitely, certainly stop it from happening, Hub?”

“Your question could apply to any moment since Quilan’s arrival.”

“Yes, but until now a seemingly chance meeting would have been too artificial, too obviously contrived. They’d have expected me to react badly, and they’d have been absolutely right. Our meeting must look like fate, like it was inevitable, as though my music, my talent, my personality and very being have made it pre-ordained.”

“You could always go and if you’re forced to meet still react badly.”

“No. I don’t see why I should. I don’t want to meet him; simple as that.”

“I give you my word I will do everything I can to make sure that you do not meet.”

“Answer the question: if SC were determined to force a meeting, could you stop them?”

“No.”

“As I thought.”

“I’m not doing very well here, am I?”

“No. However there is one thing that might change my mind.”

“Ah. What’s that?”

“Look into the bastard’s mind.”

“I can’t do that, Ziller.”

“Why not?”

“It is one of the very few more-or-less unbreakable rules of the Culture. Nearly a law. If we had laws, it would be one of the first on the statute book.”

“Only more-or-less unbreakable?”

“It is done very, very rarely, and the result tends to be ostracism. There was a ship called the Grey Area, once. It used to do that sort of thing. It became known as the Meatfucker as a result. When you look up the catalogues that’s the name it’s listed under, with its original, chosen name as a footnote. To be denied your self-designated name is a unique insult in the Culture, Ziller. The vessel disappeared some time ago. Probably it killed itself, arguably as a result of the shame attached to such behaviour and resulting disrespect.”

“All it is is looking inside an animal brain.”

“That’s just it. It is so easy, and it would mean so little, really. That is why the not-doing of it is probably the most profound manner in which we honour our biological progenitors. This prohibition is a mark of our respect. And so I cannot do it.”

“You mean you won’t do it.”

“They are almost the same thing.”

“You have the ability.”

“Of course.”

“Then do it.”

“Why?”

“Because I won’t attend the concert otherwise.”

“I know that. I mean what would I be looking for?”

“The real reason he’s here.”

“You really imagine he might be here to harm you?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“What would stop me saying I would do this thing and then only pretending to do it? I could tell you I had looked and found nothing.”

“I’d ask you to give your word you would really do it.”

“Have you not heard of the idea that a promise made under duress does not count?”

“Yes. You know you could have said nothing there.”

“I wouldn’t want to deceive you, Ziller. That too would be dishonourable.”

“Then it sounds like I’m not going to that concert.”

“I will still hope that you might, and work towards it.”

“Never mind. You could always hold another competition; the winner gets to conduct.”

“Let me think about this. I’ll release the sound field. Let’s watch the dune riders.”

The avatar and the Chelgrian turned from facing each other to stand with the others by the parapet of the trundling feast hall’s viewing platform. It was night, and cloudy. Knowing the weather would be so, people had come to the dune slides of Efilziveiz-Regneant to watch the biolume boarding.

The dunes were not normal dunes; they were titanic spills of sand forming a three-kilometre-high slope from one Plate to another, marking where the sands from one of the Great River’s sandbank spurnings were blown across towards the Plate’s spinward edge to slip down to the desert regions of the sunken continent below.

People ran, rolled, boarded, ski’d, skiffed or boated down the dunes all the time, but on a dark night there was something special to be seen. Tiny creatures lived in the sands, arid cousins of the plankton that created bioluminescence at sea, and when it was very dark you could see the tracks left by people as they tumbled, twisted or carved their way down the vast slope.

It had become a tradition that on such nights the freeform chaos of individuals pleasing only themselves and the occasional watching admirer was turned into something more organised, and so — once it was dark enough and sufficient numbers of spectators had turned up on the crawler-mounted viewing platforms, bars and restaurants — teams of boarders and skiers set off from the top of the dunes in choreographed waves, triggering sand-slip cascades in broad lines and vees of scintillating light descending like slow, ghostly surf and weaving gently sparkling trails of soft blue, green and crimson tracks across the sighing sands, myriad necklaces of enchanted dust glowing like linear galaxies in the night.

Ziller watched for a while. Then he sighed and said, “He’s here, isn’t he?”

“A kilometre away,” the avatar replied. “Higher up on the other side of the run. I’m monitoring the situation. Another one of me is with him. You are quite safe.”

“This is as close as I ever want to get to him, unless you can do something.”

“I understand.”