Look to Windward

Flight

“Are we nearly there yet?”

“Uncertain. That which the creature said. It meant?”

“Never mind that! Are we there yet?”

“This is hard to know with certitude. To return to that which the creature said. Is its meaning yet known to you?”

“Yes! Well, sort of! Please, can we go any faster?”

“Not really. We proceed as fast as is possible given the circumstances and therefore I thought our time might be employed by the telling of that which you understand from the creature’s sayings. What would you then say was the import of such?”

“It doesn’t matter! Well, it does, but! Just. Oh. Hurry! Faster! Go faster!”

They were inside the dirigible behemothaur Sansemin, Uagen Zlepe, 974 Praf and three of the raptor scouts. They were squeezing their way down a sinuous, undulating tube whose warm, slime-slick walls pulsed alarmingly every few moments. The air moving past them from ahead stank of rotting meat. Uagen fought the urge to gag. They could not go back to the outside the way they had come; it had been blocked off by some sort of rupture which had trapped and suffocated two of the raptor scouts who’d gone ahead of them.

Instead they had — after the creature had said what it had to Uagen and after an agonisingly long and absurdly relaxed discussion amongst the raptor scouts and 974 Praf — taken another route out of the interrogatory chamber. This route initially led deeper and further into the quivering body of the dying behemothaur.

Two of the three raptor scouts insisted on going ahead in case of trouble, but they were squeezing their way through the convolutions of the twisting passage with some difficulty and Uagen was convinced that he could have gone quicker by himself.

The passage was deeply ribbed underfoot, making it hard to walk without supporting oneself on the wet and quivering walls. Uagen wished he’d brought gloves. His partial IR sense could make out little detail here because everything seemed to be the same temperature, reducing all he could see to a nightmarish monochrome of shadows upon shadows; it was, Uagen thought, worse than being blind.

The raptor scout in the lead came to a fork in the passage and stopped, apparently thinking.

There was a sudden concussive thud from all around them, then a pulse of fetid air swirled over them from behind, momentarily overcoming the flow of air from ahead and producing a still greater stench that very nearly made Uagen throw up.

He heard himself yelp. “What was that?”

“This is unknown,” the Interpreter 974 Praf told him. The head wind resumed. The leading raptor scout chose the lower left-hand passage and shouldered its wings down the narrow cleft. “That way,” 974 Praf said helpfully.

I’m going to die, Uagen thought, quite clearly and almost calmly. I’m going to die stuck inside this rotting, bloating, incinerating ten-million-year-old alien airship, a thousand light years from another human being and with information that might save lives and make me a hero.

Life is so unfair!

The creature on the wall in the interrogatory chamber had lived just long enough to tell him something which also might kill him, of course, if it was true, and even if he did get out of here. From what it had said, the knowledge he now possessed made him a target for people who wouldn’t think twice about killing him or anybody else.

“You’re Culture?” he said to the long, five-limbed thing hanging on the wall in the chamber.

“Yes,” it said, trying to keep its head up as it talked to him. “Agent. Special Circumstances.”

Uagen felt himself go gulp again. He’d heard of SC. He’d dreamt about being a Special Circumstances agent when he’d been a child. Dammit, he’d dreamt about being one when he’d been a young adult. He’d never really imagined he’d meet a real one. “Oh,” he said, feeling infinitely foolish even as he said, “How do you do.”

“You?” the creature said.

“What? Oh! Umm. Scholar. Uagen Zlepe. Scholar. Pleased to. Well. Probably not. Umm. I just. Well.” He was fingering the necklace again. It must sound like he was twittering. “Doesn’t matter. Can we get you down from there? This whole place, well, thing, is—”

“Ha. No. Don’t think so,” the creature said, and might even have been trying to smile. It made a gesture with its head like a backward nod, then grimaced with pain. “Hate to tell you. Only me holding this together, such as it is. Through this link.” It shook its head. “Listen, Uagen. You have to get out.”

“Yes?” At least that was good news. The chamber floor wobbled underfoot as another rumbling detonation shook the puppet-like shapes of the dead and dying attached to the wall. One of the raptor scouts jerked its wings out to steady itself and knocked 974 Praf over. She made a clicking noise with her beak and glared at the offending beast.

“You have communicator?” the creature asked him. “Signal outside the airsphere?”

“No. Nothing.”

The creature grimaced again. “Fuck. Then have to… get away from Oskendari. To ship, habitat; anywhere. Somewhere you can contact Culture, understand?”

“Yes. Why? To say what?”

“Plot. Not a joke, Uagen, not a drill. Plot. Serious fucking plot. Think it’s to destroy… Orbital.”

“What?”

“Orbital. Full Orbital, called Masaq’. Heard of?”

“Yes! It’s famous!”

“They want to destroy it. Chelgrian faction. Chelgrian being sent. Don’t know name. Doesn’t matter. On his way, or will be soon. Don’t know when. Attack happens. You. Get out. Get away. Tell Culture.” The creature suddenly stiffened and bowed out from the wall of the chamber, its eyes closing. A tremendous shudder whipped through the cavity, tearing a couple of the dead bodies from the chamber’s walls to send them falling limply to the quaking floor. Uagen and two of the raptor scouts were thrown onto their backs. Uagen struggled back to his feet.

The creature on the wall was staring at him. “Uagen. Tell SC, or Contact. My name is Gidin Sumethyre. Sumethyre, got that?”

“Got it. Gidin Sumethyre. Umm. That all?”

“Enough. Now get away. Masaq’ Orbital. Chelgrian. Gidin Sumethyre. That’s all. Out now. I’ll try and hold this…” The creature’s head dropped slowly to rest on its chest. Another titanic convulsion shook the chamber.

“That which the creature has just said,” 974 Praf began, sounding puzzled.

Uagen stooped and picked the Interpreter up by her dry, leathery wings. “Get out!” he screeched into her face. “Now!”

They had hit a slightly wider part of the now steeply descending passage when the wind soughing past them from ahead suddenly picked up and became a gale. The two raptor scouts in front of Uagen, their folded wings acting like sails in the howling torrent of air, tried to wedge themselves against the rippling, buckling walls. They began to slide back towards him while Uagen also tried to brace himself against the damp tissues of the tube.

“Oh,” 974 Praf said matter-of-factly from behind and below Uagen. “This development is not an indication of good.”

“Help!” Uagen screamed, watching the two raptor scouts, both still desperately clutching at the passage’s walls, slide closer towards him. He tried to make an X of himself, but the walls were now too far apart.

“Down here,” Interpreter 974 Praf said. Uagen looked down between his feet. 974 Praf was holding onto the ribbed floor, flattened against it as best she could.

He looked up as the nearest raptor scout skidded to within touching distance. “Good idea!” he gasped. He dived. His forehead bounced off the heel spur of the raptor scout. He grabbed at the ribs on the floor as both the raptor scouts slid over him. The wind howled and tugged at his suit, then faded away. He untangled himself from 974 Praf and looked back. A painful-looking tangle of beaks, wings and limbs, the two raptor scouts were wedged further up in the passage with the one which had been bringing up the rear, in the narrow part they had recently forced their way through. One of the winged creatures clacked something.

974 Praf clacked back, then jerked to her feet and scuttled down the passage. “It is the case that the raptor scouts of the Yoleus will try to remain wedged there and so block the conflagration-feeding wind while we complete the journey which we make to the outside of the Sansemin. This way, Uagen Zlepe, scholar.”

He stared after her retreating back, then scrambled after her. He was getting an odd feeling in his stomach. He tried to place it, then realised. It was like being in an inertia-subject lift or craft. “Are we sinking?” he said, whimpering.

“The Sansemin would appear to be losing height rapidly,” 974 Praf said, bouncing from rib to rib down the steeply pitched floor ahead of him.

“Oh, shit.” Uagen looked back. They were round a bend and out of sight of the raptor scouts. The passage dipped still further; it was now like descending a steeply pitched flight of stairs.

“Ah ha,” the Interpreter said, as the wind tugged at them again.

Uagen felt his eyes widen. He stared ahead. “Light!” he screamed. “Light! Praf! I can see…” His voice trailed away.

“Fire,” the Interpreter said. “Down on the floor, Uagen Zlepe, scholar.”

Uagen turned and flung himself to the steps a moment before the fireball hit. He had time to take one deep breath and try to bury his face in his arms. He felt 974 Praf on top of him, wings extended, covering him. The blast of heat and light lasted a couple of seconds. “Up again,” the Interpreter said. “You first.”

“You’re on fire!” he yelled as she pushed him with her wings and he stumbled down the steps of ribs.

“This is the case,” the Interpreter said. Smoke and flames curled behind her wings as she prodded and pushed Uagen downwards. The wind was growing stronger and stronger; he had to fight against it to make any headway, forcibly walking down the ribbed side of the now almost vertical shaft as though they were somehow back on the level.

Looking ahead, Uagen could see light again. He groaned, then saw that it was blue-white, not yellow this time.

“We approach the outside,” 974 Praf gasped.

They dropped from the belly of the dying behemothaur, falling not much faster than what was left of the vast creature itself as it burned and disintegrated and collapsed and descended all at once. Uagen held 974 Praf to him, smothering the flames eating at her wings, then used his ankle motors and balloon cape to halt their fall, and after an eternity of falling amongst flaming, fluttering wreckage and injured animals, brought the two of them round from underneath the massive, V-shaped ruin that was the dying behemothaur, into clear air space where the remains of the Yoleus’ expeditionary force of raptor scouts found them moments before an ogrine disseisor could swoop in to swallow them whole.

The dazed, silent Interpreter shivered in his arms, the smell of her burned flesh filling his nose as they rose slowly with the raptor scout troupe back to the dirigible behemothaur Yoleus.

“Go?”

“Yes; away. Go. Depart. Leave.”

“You wish to go away, depart, leave, now?”

“As soon as possible. When’s the next ship? Of anybody’s? Well, not, umm. Chelgrian. Yes; not Chelgrian.”

Uagen had never imagined that Yoleus’ interrogatory chamber would seem remotely homely, but it did now. He felt bizarrely safe here. It was just a pity he had to leave.

Yoleus was talking to him via a connecting cable and an Interpreter called 46 Zhun. The bulkier body of the nominally male 46 Zhun was perched on a ledge beside 974 Praf, who was stuck to the chamber wall looking singed and limp and dead but apparently beginning her reconstitution and recovery. 46 Zhun closed his eyes. Uagen was left standing there on the soft warm floor of the chamber. He could still smell the odour of burning coming off his clothes. He shivered.

46 Zhun opened his eyes again. “The next departing object is due to leave from the Second Tropic of Inclination Secessionary Portal in the Yonder lobe in five days,” the Interpreter said.

“I’ll take it. Wait; is it Chelgrian?”

“No. It is a Jhuvuonian Trader.”

“I’ll take it.”

“There is not from now sufficient time for you to journey to and arrive at the said Tropic of Inclination Secessionary Portal.”

“What?”

“There is not from now sufficient time for you to—”

“Well, how long would it take?”

The Interpreter closed its eyes again for a few moments, then opened them and said, “Twenty-three days would be the minimum time of requirement for a being such as you to journey to and arrive at the Second Tropic of Inclination Secessionary Portal from this point.”

Uagen could feel a terrible gnawing in his guts; it was a sensation he hadn’t felt since he was a very young child. He tried to remain calm. “When is the next ship after that?”

“That is not known,” the Interpreter replied immediately.

Uagen fought back the urge to cry. “Is it possible to signal from Oskendari?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“At beyond-light speed?”

“No.”

“Could you signal for a ship? Is there any way for me to get off in the near future?”

“The definition of near future. This would be what?”

Uagen suppressed a moan. “In the next hundred days?”

“There are no objects known to be arriving or departing within that time period.”

Uagen put his hands into his head-hair and pulled at it. He roared out of frustration, then stopped, blinking. He’d never done that. Never done either. Pulled at his hair or roared with frustration. He stared up at the blackened, crippled-looking body of 974 Praf, then dropped his head and stared at the chamber floor beneath his feet. His little ankle motors gleamed mockingly back up at him.

He raised his head. What had he been thinking of?

He checked what he knew about Jhuvuonian Traders. Only semi-Contacted. Fairly peaceful, quite trustworthy. Still in the age of scarcity. Ships capable of a few hundred lights. Slow by Culture standards, but sufficient. “Yoleus,” he said calmly. “Can you signal the Second Secessionary Tropic of Inclinatory Portal or whatever it’s called?”

“Yes.”

“How long would that take?”

The creature closed its eyes and opened them. “One day plus one quarter of a day would be required for the outward signal and a similar amount of time would be required for a replying signal.”

“Good. Where is the nearest Portal to where we are now and how long would it take for me to get there?”

Another pause. “The nearest Portal to where we are now is the Ninth Tropic of Inclination Secessionary Portal, Present lobe. It is two days plus one three-fifths of a day’s flying time from here by raptor scout.”

Uagen took a deep breath. I’m Culture, he thought to himself. This is what you’re meant to do in such a situation, this is what it’s all supposed to be about.

“Please signal the Jhuvuonian Trader vessel,” he said, “and tell them they will be paid an amount of money equivalent to the worth of their vessel if they will pick me up at the Ninth Tropic of Inclination Secessionary Portal, Present lobe, in four days’ time and take me to a destination I will disclose to them when they meet me there. Also mention that their discretion would be appreciated.”

He considered leaving it at that, but this ship sounded like his only chance and he couldn’t afford to risk its masters dismissing him as a crank. And if they were committed to that departure date then there wasn’t time to indulge in a conversation by signal to convince them, either. He took another deep breath and added, “You may inform them that I am a citizen of the Culture.”

He never did get a chance to say goodbye properly to 974 Praf. The Decider foliage-gleaner turned Interpreter was still unconscious and attached to the wall of the Interrogatory Chamber when he left, a day later.

He packed his bags, made sure that a record of his research notes, glyphs and all that had happened in the last couple of days was left in safe keeping with Yoleus, and made a particular point of finally preparing and drinking a glass of jhagel tea. It didn’t taste very good.

A flight of raptor scouts escorted him to the Ninth Tropic of Inclination Secessionary Portal. His last glimpse of the dirigible behemothaur Yoleus was looking back over his shoulder watching the giant creature fading away into the greeny-blue distance above the shadow of a cloud complex, still faithfully following below and beneath the bulk of its desired mate, Muetenive. He wondered if they would yet make their dash for the predicted upwelling still building somewhere through the haze horizon ahead, to claim their free ride upwards to the manifold splendours of the gigalithine globular entity Buthulne.

He felt a sort of sweet sadness that he would not be there to share either that ride or arrival with them, and experienced a pang of guilt at feeling even the hint of a wish that the Jhuvuonian Trader craft would reject his offer and not show up, so leaving him no real choice but to attempt to return to Yoleus.

The two behemothaurs disappeared in the airily cavernous shadows above the cloud system. He turned back to face forward again. His ankle motors whirred, the cloak adjusted itself minutely to accommodate his altered orientation, still tensed to make a wing. The wings of the raptor scouts beat the air around him in a syncopated rhythm of stuttering sound, creating a curiously restful effect. He looked over at 46 Zhun, clasped to the neck and back of the raptor scout troupe leader, but the creature appeared to be asleep.

The Ninth Tropic of Inclination Secessionary Portal proved a little short of facilities. It was just a patch about ten metres in diameter on the side of the airsphere’s fabric where the layers of containment material met and fused to produce a clear window into space. Around this circular area was clustered a handful of what looked like the mega fruit husks which grew on the behemothaurs and in one of which, until a day earlier, he had made his home. They provided a place for the raptor scouts to perch and get their strength back and for him to sit and wait. There was some food, some water, but that was all.

He passed the time by looking out at the stars — the Portal patches were the only truly clear areas on the airsphere’s surface; the rest was only translucent in comparison — and composing a poeglyph trying to describe the sensation of terror he’d felt just the day before, trapped inside the dying body of the behemothaur Sansemin.

It was a frustrating process. He kept on putting down the stylo — the same damn stylo that had led to him being here now waiting on an alien spaceship that might never come — and tried to work out what had happened to Sansemin, why the Culture agent — if that was truly what he or she had been — had been here in the first place, whether there really was a plot of the sort that had been described to him, and what he ought to do if it transpired that the whole thing was some sort of joke, hallucination or figment of a mad and tormented creature’s mind.

He had napped twice, scrubbed six attempts at the poeglyph and (having come to the tentative conclusion that it was marginally more likely that he had gone mad than that the events of the last few days had been real) was debating with himself the relative merits of suicide, Storage, transcorporation into a group entity or a request to return to Yoleus and resume his studies — suitably physically altered and with the elongated lifespan he’d been considering earlier — when the Jhuvuonian Trader ship, an unlikely arrangement of tubes and spars, hove to on the far side of the Portal.

Jhuvuonian Traders were not at all what he imagined. For some reason he had expected squat, rough-looking hairy humanoids wearing skins and furs, when in fact they resembled collections of very large red feathers. One of them floated through the Portal, encased within a mostly transparent bubble itself held inside a finger-like intrusion of air forming a tunnel reaching back to the Portal and the tubular vessel outside. He met it on a terrace of the mega fruit husk. 46 Zhun grasped the parapet at his side, watching the encased alien approach with the air of a creature sizing up potential nest-building material.

“You are the Culture person?” the creature in the bubble said, once it was hovering level with him. The voice was faint, the Marain accent tolerable.

“Yes. How do you do?”

“You will pay the worth of our ship to be taken to your destination?”

“Yes.”

“It is a very fine ship.”

“So I see.”

“We would have another identical.”

“You shall.”

The alien made a series of clacking noises, talking to the Interpreter at Uagen’s side. 46 Zhun clacked back.

“What is your destination?” the alien said.

“I need to send a signal to the Culture. Just get me in range to do that, initially, then take me to wherever I might meet with a Culture ship.”

It had crossed Uagen’s mind that the ship might be able to do this from here, without having to take him anywhere, though he doubted he would be so lucky. Still, in the next few moments he experienced a frisson of hope and nervousness until the creature said, “We could travel next to the Beidite entity Critoletli, where such communication and congregation might both be accomplished.”

“How long would that take?”

“Seventy-seven standard Culture days.”

“There is nowhere closer?”

“There is not.”

“Could we signal ahead to the entity on our approach?”

“We could.”

“How soon would we be in range to do that?”

“In about fifty standard Culture days.”

“Very well. I’d like to set off immediately.”

“Satisfactory. Payment to us?”

“From the Culture upon my safe delivery. Oh. I should have mentioned.”

“What?” the alien said, its assemblage of red filaments fluttering inside the bubble.

“There may be an additional reward involved, beyond the payment we have already agreed.”

The creature’s feathery body rearranged itself again. “Satisfactory,” it repeated.

The bubble floated up to the parapet. There was a second bubble forming beside the one enclosing the alien. It was, Uagen reflected, just like watching a cell divide. “Atmosphere and temperature are adjusted for Culture standard,” the alien told him. “Gravity within ship will be less. This is acceptable to you?”

“Yes.”

“You can provide your own sustenance?”

“I’ll manage,” he said, then thought. “You do have water?”

“We do.”

“Then I’ll survive.”

“You will come aboard, please.”

The twinned bubble bumped against the parapet. Uagen stooped, picked up his bags and looked at 46 Zhun. “Well, goodbye. Thank you for your help. Wish Yoleus all the best.”

“The Yoleus wishes me to wish you a safe journey and a subsequent life which is pleasing to you.”

Uagen smiled. “Tell it thank you, from me. I hope to see it again.”

“This will be done.”