Consider Phlebas (30 page)

He felt dizzy again, registering the sheer scale of the vast craft. He hadn’t seen a GSV before, far less been inside one. He knew of them and what they were for, but only now did he appreciate what an achievement they represented. This one was theoretically no longer part of the Culture; he knew it was demilitarised, stripped bare of most equipment, and without the Mind or Minds which would normally run it; but just the structure alone was enough to impress.

General Systems Vehicles were like encapsulated worlds. They were more than just very big spaceships; they were habitats, universities, factories, museums, dockyards, libraries, even mobile exhibition centres. They represented the Culture - they were the Culture. Almost anything that could be done anywhere in the Culture could be done on a GSV. They could make anything the Culture was capable of making, contained all the knowledge the Culture had ever accumulated, carried or could construct specialised equipment of every imaginable type for every conceivable eventuality, and continually manufactured smaller ships: General Contact Units usually, warcraft now. Their complements were measured in millions at least. They crewed their offspring ships out of the gradual increase in their own population. Self-contained, self-sufficient, productive and, in peacetime at least, continually exchanging information, they were the Culture’s ambassadors, its most visible citizens and its technological and intellectual big guns. There was no need to travel from the galactic backwoods to some distant Culture home-planet to be amazed and impressed by the stunning scale and awesome power of the Culture; a GSV could bring the whole lot right up to your front door . . .

Horza followed the brightly dressed crowds through the bustling reception area. There were a few people in uniform, but they weren’t stopping anybody. Horza felt in a daze, as though he was only a passenger in his own body, and the drunken puppeteer he had felt in the control of earlier was now sobered up a little and guiding him through the crowds of people towards the doors of another elevator. He tried to clear his head by shaking it, but it hurt when he did that. His hearing was coming back very slowly.

He looked at his hands, then sloughed the imprinter-skin from his palms, rubbing it on each of the lapels of the daysuit until it rolled off and fell to the floor of the corridor.

When they got off the second elevator they were in the starship. The people dispersed through broad, pastel-shaded corridors with high ceilings. Horza looked one way then another, as the elevator capsule swished back up towards the reception sphere. A small drone floated towards him. It was the size and shape of a standard suit backpack, and Horza eyed it warily, uncertain whether it was a Culture device or not.

‘Excuse me, are you all right?’ the machine said. Its voice was robust but not unfriendly. Horza could just hear it.

‘I’m lost,’ Horza said, too loudly. ‘Lost,’ he repeated, more quietly, so that he could hardly hear himself. He was aware that he was swaying a little as he stood there, and he could feel water trickling into his boots and dripping off the sodden cloak onto the soft, absorbent surface under his feet.

‘Where do you want to go?’ the drone asked.

‘To a ship called . . . ‘ Horza closed his eyes in weary desperation. He didn’t dare give the real name. ‘ . . . The Beggar’s Bluff.’

The drone was silent for a second, then said, ‘I’m afraid there is no such craft aboard. Perhaps it is in the port area by itself, not on the Ends.’

‘It’s an old Hronish assault ship,’ Horza said tiredly, looking for somewhere to sit down. He spotted some seats set into the wall a few metres away and made his way over there. The drone followed him, lowering itself as he sat so that it was still at his eye level. ‘About a hundred metres long,’ the Changer went on, no longer caring if he was giving some sort of game away. ‘It was being repaired by some port shipbuilders; had some damage to its warping units.’

‘Ah. I think I have the one you want. It’s more or less straight down from here. I have no record of its name, but it sounds like the one you want. Can you manage to get there yourself, or shall I take you?’

‘I don’t know if I can manage,’ Horza said truthfully.

‘Wait a moment.’ The drone stayed floating silently in front of Horza for a moment or two; then it said, ‘Follow me, then. There is a traveltube just over here and down a deck.’ The machine backed off and indicated the direction they should head in by extending a hazy field from its casing. Horza got up and followed it.

They went down a small open AG lift shaft, then crossed a large open area where some of the wheeled and skirted vehicles used on the Orbital had been stored; just a few examples, the drone explained, for posterity. The Ends already had a Megaship aboard, stored in one of its two General bays, thirteen kilometres below, in the bottom of the craft. Horza didn’t know whether to believe the drone or not.

On the far side of the hangar they came to another corridor, and there they entered a cylinder, about three metres in diameter and six long, which rolled its door closed, flicked to one side and was instantly sucked into a dark tunnel. Soft lights lit the interior. The drone explained that the windows were blanked out because, unless you were used to it, a capsule’s journey through a GSV could be unsettling, due both to its speed and to the suddenness of the changes of direction, which the eye saw but the body didn’t feel. Horza sat down heavily in one of the folding seats in the middle of the capsule, but only for a few seconds.

‘Here we are. Smallbay 27492, in case you need it again. Innerlevel S-10-right. Goodbye.’ The capsule door rolled down. Horza nodded to the drone and stepped out into a corridor with straight, transparent walls. The capsule door closed, and the machine vanished. He had a brief impression of it flickering past him, but it happened so fast he could have been wrong. Anyway, his vision was still blurred.

He looked to his right. Through the walls of the corridor he looked into clear air. Kilometres of it. There was some sort of roof high above, with just a suggestion of wispy clouds. A few tiny craft moved. Level with him, far enough away for the view to be both hazy and vast, were hangars: level after level after level of them. Bays, docks, hangars - call them what you wanted; they filled Horza’s sight for square kilometres, making him dizzy with the sheer scale of it all. His brain did a sort of double take, and he blinked and shook himself, but the view did not go away. Craft moved, lights went on or off, a layer of cloud far below made the view further down still more hazy, and something whizzed by the corridor Horza stood in: a ship, fully three hundred metres long. The ship passed along the level he was on, swooped, and far far away did a left turn, banking gracefully in the air to disappear into another bright and vast corridor which seemed to pass by at right angles to the one Horza stood staring at. In the other direction, the one that the ship had appeared from, was a wall, seemingly blank. Horza looked closer and rubbed his eyes; he saw that the wall had an orderly speckle of lights in a grid across it: thousands and thousands of windows and lights and balconies. Smaller craft flitted about its face, and the dots of traveltube capsules flashed across and up and down.

Horza couldn’t take much more. He looked to his left and saw a smooth ramp leading down underneath the tube the capsule travelled in. He stumbled down it, into the welcomingly small space of a two hundred metre long Smallbay.

Horza wanted to cry. The old ship sat on three short legs, square in the centre of the bay, a few bits and pieces of equipment scattered around it. There was nobody else in the bay that Horza could see, just machinery. The CAT looked old and battered, but intact and whole. It appeared that repairs were either finished or not yet started. The main hold lift was down, resting on the smooth white deck of the bay. Horza went over to it and saw a light ladder leading up into the brightness of the hold itself. A small insect landed briefly on his wrist. He flapped a hand at it as it flew off. How very untidy of the Culture, he thought absently, to allow an insect on board one of their sparkling vessels. Still, officially at least, the Ends was no longer the Culture’s. Wearily he climbed the ladder, hampered by the damp cloak and accompanied by the squelching noises coming from his boots.

The hold smelled familiar, though it looked oddly spacious with no shuttle in it. There was nobody about. He went up the stairs from the hold to the accommodation section. He walked along the corridor towards the mess, wondering who was alive, who was dead, what changes had been made, if any. It had only been three days, but he felt as though he had been away for years. He was almost at Yalson’s cabin when the door was quickly pulled open.

Yalson’s fair-haired head came out, an expression of surprise, even joy, starting to form on it. ‘Haw - ‘ she said, then stopped, frowned at him, shook her head and muttered something, ducking back into her cabin. Horza had stopped.

He stood there, thinking he was glad she was alive, realising he hadn’t been walking properly - not like Kraiklyn. His tread had sounded like his own instead. A hand appeared from Yalson’s door as she pulled on a light robe, then she came out and stood in the corridor, looking at the man she thought was Kraiklyn, her hands on her hips. Her lean, hard face looked slightly concerned, but mostly wary. Horza hid his hand with the missing finger behind his back.

‘What the hell happened to you?’ she said.

‘I got in a fight. What does it look like?’ He got the voice right. They stood looking at each other.

‘If you want any help - ‘ she began. Horza shook his head.

‘I’ll manage.’

Yalson nodded, half smiling, looking him up and down. ‘Yeah, all right. You manage, then.’ She jerked a thumb over her shoulder, in the direction of the mess. ‘Your new recruit just brought her gear aboard. She’s waiting in the mess, though if you look in now she might not think it’s such a wonderful idea to join up.’

Horza nodded. Yalson shrugged, then turned and walked up the corridor, through the mess towards the bridge. Horza followed her. ‘Our glorious captain,’ she said to somebody in the room as she went through. Horza hesitated at Kraiklyn’s cabin door, then went forward to stick his head round the door of the mess.

A woman was sitting at the far end of the mess table, her legs crossed over a chair in front of her. The screen was switched on above her as though she had been watching it; it showed a view of a Megaship being lifted bodily out of the water by hundreds of small lifter tugs clustered under and around it. They were recognisably antique Culture machines. The woman had turned from the sight, though, and was gazing towards Horza when he looked round the side of the door.

She was slim and tall and pale. She looked fit, and her black-coloured eyes were set in a face just starting to show worried surprise at the battered face looking at her from the doorway. She had on a light suit, the helmet of which lay on the table in front of her. A red bandanna was tied round her head, below the level of her close-cropped red hair. ‘Oh, Captain Kraiklyn,’ she said, swinging her feet off the seat and leaning forward, her face showing shock and pity. ‘What happened?’

Horza tried to speak, but his throat was dry. He couldn’t believe what he saw. His lips worked and he licked them with a dry tongue. The woman started to rise from the table, but he put out one hand and gestured her to stay where she was. She sat slowly back down, and he managed to say, ‘I’m all right. See you later. Just . . . just stay . . . there.’ Then he pushed himself away from the door and stumbled down the corridor to Kraiklyn’s cabin. The ring fitted into the door, and it swung open. He almost fell inside.

In something like a trance he closed the door, stood there looking at the far bulkhead for a while, then slowly sat down, on the floor.

He knew he was still stunned, he knew his vision was still blurred and he wasn’t hearing perfectly. He knew it was unlikely - or, if it wasn’t, then it was very bad news indeed, but he was sure; absolutely certain. As certain as he had been about Kraiklyn when he first walked up that ramp to the Damage table, into the arena.

As though he hadn’t had enough shocks for one evening, the sight of the woman sitting at the mess-room table had all but silenced him and stopped his mind from working. What was he going to do? He couldn’t think. The shock was still resounding through his mind; the image seemed stuck behind his eyes.

The woman in the mess room was Perosteck Balveda.

The Ends of Invention

Maybe she’s a clone, Horza thought. Maybe it’s coincidence. He sat on the floor of Kraiklyn’s cabin - his cabin now - staring at the locker doors in the far wall; aware that he needed to do something, but not sure what it ought to be. His brain wasn’t able to take all the knocks and shocks it had had. He needed to sit and think for a moment.

He tried telling himself he was mistaken, that it wasn’t really her, that he was tired and confused and getting paranoid, seeing things. But he knew it was Balveda, though sufficiently altered so that probably only a close friend or a Changer could possibly recognise her, but definitely her, alive and well and probably armed to the teeth . . .

He got up, mechanically, still staring straight ahead. He took off the wet clothes and went out of the cabin, down to the wash area, where he left the clothes to dry and cleaned himself up. Back in the cabin he found a robe and put it on. He started inspecting the small, packed space and finally came across a small voice recorder. He flicked it back and listened.

‘ . . . ahhh . . . including, ahh, Yalson,’ Kraiklyn’s voice said from the small speaker in the machine, ‘who I guess was, umm . . . in her relationship, with ahh . . . Horza Gobuchul. She’s . . . been pretty abrupt, and I don’t think I’ve had the support from her . . . which she . . . which I ought to get . . . I’ll have a word with her if it goes on, but, ahhh . . . for now, during the repairs and such . . . there doesn’t seem much point . . . I’m not putting off . . . ah . . . I just think we’ll see how she shapes up after the Orbital’s blown and we’re on our way.

‘Ahh . . . now this new woman . . . Gravant . . . she’s all right. I get the impression she might . . . ah, need . . . need a bit of ordering around . . . seems to need discipline . . . I don’t think she’ll have, ah, too much conflict with anybody. Yalson, especially, I was worried about, but I don’t think . . . ah, I think it’ll be fine. But you can never tell with women, ah . . . of course, so . . . but I like her . . . I think she’s got class and maybe . . . I don’t know . . . maybe she could make a good number two if she shapes up.

‘I really need more people . . . Umm . . . things haven’t gone all that well recently, but I think I’ve been . . . they’ve let me down. Jandraligeli, obviously . . . and I don’t know; I’ll see if maybe I can do something about him because . . . he’s really sort of just been . . . ahh . . . he’s betrayed me; that’s the way . . . that’s what it is I think; anybody would agree. So maybe I’ll have a word with Ghalssel, at the game, assuming he arrives . . . I don’t think the guy’s really up to standard and I’ll tell Ghalssel as much because we’re both . . . in the same, ah . . . business, and I’m . . . I know that he’ll have heard . . . well, he’ll listen to what I have to say, because he knows about the responsibilities of leadership and . . . just, ah . . . the way I do.

‘Anyway . . . I’ll do some more recruiting after the game, and after the GSV takes off there’ll be some time . . . we have enough time still to run in this bay and I’ll put the word out. There’s bound to be . . . a lot of people ready to sign on . . . Ah, oh yeah; mustn’t forget about the shuttle tomorrow. I’m sure I can get the price down. Ah, I could just win at the game, of course - ‘ The small voice from the speaker laughed: a tinny echo. ‘ . . . and just be incredibly rich and - ‘ The laughter came again, distorted. ‘ . . . and not give a fuck about any of this crap any more . . . shit, just . . . ha . . . give the CAT away . . . well, sell it . . . and retire . . . But we’ll see . . . ‘

The voice faded. Horza switched off the machine in the silence. He put it down where he had found it, and rubbed the ring on the small finger of his right hand. Then he took off the robe and put his - his - suit on. It started talking to him; he told it to turn its voice off.

He looked at himself in the reverser field on the locker doors, drew himself up, made sure the plasma pistol strapped to his thigh was switched on, pushed the pains and tiredness to the back of his mind, then went out of the cabin and up the corridor to the mess.

Yalson and the woman who was Balveda were sitting talking in the long room, at the far end of the table under the screen, which had been turned off. They looked up when he came in. He went over and sat a couple of seats down from Yalson, who looked at his suit and said, ‘We going somewhere?’

‘Maybe,’ Horza said, looking briefly at her, then switching his gaze to the Balveda woman, smiling and saying, ‘I’m sorry, Ms Gravant; but I’m afraid, having reconsidered your application, I have to turn you down. I’m sorry, but there’s no place for you on the CAT. I hope you understand.’ He clasped his hands on the table and grinned again. Balveda - the more he looked the surer he was that it was her - looked crestfallen. Her mouth opened slightly; she looked from Horza to Yalson then back again. Yalson was frowning deeply.

‘But - ‘ Balveda began.

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Yalson said angrily. ‘You can’t just - ‘

‘You see,’ Horza smiled, ‘I’ve decided that we need to cut down on the numbers on board, and - ‘

‘What?’ Yalson exploded, slapping the table with the palm of her hand. ‘That’s six of us left! What the hell are six of us meant to do . . . ?’ Her voice trailed off, then came back lower and slower, her head twisting to one side, her eyes narrowing as she looked at him - ‘ . . . Or have we just struck lucky in . . . oh, a game of chance perhaps, and don’t want to cut in more directions than absolutely necessary?’

Horza looked briefly at Yalson again, smiled and said, ‘No, but you see I’ve just re-hired one of our ex-members, and that does alter the plans a bit . . . The place I had intended to slot Ms Gravant into in the ship’s company is now filled.’

‘You got Jandraligeli to come back, after what you called him?’ laughed Yalson, stretching back in her seat.

Horza shook his head.

‘No, my dear,’ he said. ‘As I would have been able to tell you if you hadn’t kept interrupting, I just met our friend Mr Gobuchul in Evanauth, and he’s keen to rejoin.’

‘Horza?’ Yalson seemed to shake a little, her voice on an edge of tension, and he could see her trying to control herself. Oh gods, a small voice inside him said, why does this hurt so much? Yalson said, ‘Is he alive? Are you sure it was him? Kraiklyn, are you?’

Horza switched his gaze rapidly from one woman to the other. Yalson was leaning forward over the table, her eyes glittering in the mess-room light, her fists clenched. Her lean body seemed tensed, the golden down on her dark skin shining. Balveda looked uncertain and confused. Horza saw her start to bite her lip, then stop.

‘I wouldn’t kid you about it, Yalson’, Horza assured her. ‘Horza is alive and well, and not very far away.’ Horza looked at the repeater screen on his suit cuff, where the time showed. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m meeting him at one of the port reception spheres in . . . well, just before the GSV takes off. He said he had one or two things to work out in the city first. He said to say . . . ahhh . . . he hoped you were still betting on him . . . ‘ He shrugged. ‘Something like that.’

‘You’re not kidding!’ Yalson said, her face creasing with a smile. She shook her head, put a hand through her hair, slapped the table softly a couple of times. ‘Oh . . . ‘ she said, then sat back again in her seat. She looked from the woman to the man and shrugged, silent.

‘So you see, Gravant, you just aren’t needed right now,’ Horza told Balveda. The Culture agent opened her mouth, but it was Yalson who spoke first, coughing quickly and then saying.

‘Oh, let her stay, Kraiklyn. What difference does it make?’

‘The difference, Yalson,’ Horza said carefully, thinking hard about Kraiklyn, ‘is that I am captain of this ship.’

Yalson seemed about to say something, but instead she turned to Balveda and spread her hands. She sat back, one hand picking at the edge of the table, her eyes lowered. She was trying not to smile too much.

‘Well, Captain,’ Balveda said, rising from her seat, ‘you do know best. I’ll get my gear.’ She walked quickly from the mess. Her footsteps merged with others, and Horza and Yalson both heard some muffled words. In a moment, Dorolow, Wubslin and Aviger, gaily dressed and looking flushed and happy, piled into the mess, the older man with his arm around the small, plump woman.

‘Our captain!’ Aviger shouted. Dorolow held one of his hands at her shoulder. She smiled. Wubslin waved dreamily; the stocky engineer looked drunk. ‘Been at the wars, I see,’ Aviger went on, staring at Horza’s face, which still showed signs of being in a fight, despite his internal attempts to minimise the damage.

‘What has Gravant done, Kraiklyn?’ Dorolow squeaked. She seemed merry, too, and her voice was even higher than he remembered it.

‘Nothing,’ Horza said, smiling at the three mercenaries. ‘But we’re getting Horza Gobuchul back from the dead, so I decided we didn’t need her.’

‘Horza?’ Wubslin said, his large mouth opening wide in an almost exaggerated expression of surprise. Dorolow looked past Horza at Yalson, the look on her face saying, ‘Is this true?’ through her grin. Yalson shrugged and looked happily, hopefully, still slightly suspiciously, at the man she thought was Kraiklyn.

‘He’ll be coming aboard shortly before the Ends leaves,’ Horza said. ‘He had some sort of business in the city. Maybe something shady.’ Horza smiled in the condescending way Kraiklyn sometimes had. ‘Who knows?’

‘There,’ Wubslin said, looking unsteadily at Aviger over Dorolow’s stooped frame. ‘Maybe that guy was looking for Horza. Maybe we should warn him.’

‘What guy? Where?’ Horza asked.

‘He’s seeing things,’ Aviger said, waving one hand. ‘Too much liverwine.’

‘Rubbish!’ Wubslin said loudly, looking from Aviger to Horza, and nodding. ‘And a drone.’ He held both hands out in front of his face, palms together, then separated them by about a quarter-metre. ‘Little bugger. No bigger’n that.’

‘Where?’ Horza shook his head. ‘Why do you think somebody might be after Horza?’

‘Out there, under the traveltube,’ Aviger said, while Wubslin was saying:

‘Way he came out of that capsule, like he expected to be in a fight any second, and . . . aww, I can just tell . . . that guy was . . . police . . . or something . . . ‘

‘What about Mipp?’ asked Dorolow. Horza was silent for a second, frowning at nothing and nobody in particular. ‘Did Horza mention Mipp?’ Dorolow asked him.

‘Mipp?’ he said, looking at Dorolow. ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘No, Mipp didn’t make it.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Dorolow said.

‘Look,’ Horza said, staring at Aviger and Wubslin, ‘you think there’s somebody out there looking for one of us?’

‘A man,’ Wubslin nodded slowly, ‘and a little, tiny, really mean-looking drone.’

With a chill, Horza recalled the insect which had settled momentarily on his wrist in the smallbay outside, just before he had boarded the CAT. The Culture, he knew, had machines - artificial bugs - that size.

‘Hmm,’ Horza said, pursing his lips. He nodded to himself, then looked at Yalson. ‘Go and make sure Gravant gets off the ship, quickly, all right?’ He stood up and got out of the way while Yalson moved. She went down the corridor to the cabins. Horza looked at Wubslin and motioned the engineer forward towards the bridge, with his eyes. ‘You two stay here,’ he said quietly to Aviger and Dorolow. Slowly they let go of each other and sat down in a couple of seats. Horza went through to the bridge.

He pointed Wubslin to the engineer’s seat and sat down in the pilot’s. Wubslin sighed heavily. Horza closed the door, then quickly reeled through all he had learned about the procedures on the bridge during the first weeks he had been aboard the CAT. He was reaching forward to open the communicator channels when something moved under the console, near his feet. He froze.

Wubslin peered down, then bent with an audible effort and stuck his big head down between his legs. Horza smelled drink.

‘Haven’t you finished yet?’ Wubslin’s muffled voice said.

‘They took me off to another job; I only just got back,’ wailed a small, thin, artificial voice. Horza sat back in his seat and looked under the console. A drone, about two thirds the size of the one which had escorted him from the elevator to the CAT’s bay, was disentangling itself from a jumble of tine cables protruding from an open inspection hatch.

‘What’, Horza said, ‘is that?’

‘Oh,’ Wubslin said wearily, belching, ’same one that’s been here . . . you remember. Come on, you,’ he said to the machine. ‘The captain wants to do a communication test.’

‘Look,’ the little machine said, its synthesised voice full of exasperation, ‘I have finished. I’m just tidying everything away.’

‘Well get a move on,’ Wubslin said. He withdrew his head from underneath the console and looked apologetically at Horza. ‘Sorry, Kraiklyn.’

‘Never mind, never mind.’ Horza waved his hand. He powered up the communicator. ‘Ah . . . ‘ He looked at Wubslin. ‘Who’s controlling traffic movements around here? I’ve forgotten who to ask for. What if I want the bay doors opened?’

‘Traffic? Doors opened?’ Wubslin looked at Horza with a puzzled expression. He shrugged and said, ‘Well, just traffic control, I suppose, like when we came in.’

‘Right,’ Horza said; he flicked the switch on the console and said, ‘Traffic control, this is . . . ‘ His voice trailed off.

He’d no idea what Kraiklyn had called the CAT instead of its real name. He hadn’t got that as part of the information he’d bought, and it was one of the many things he had meant to learn once he’d accomplished the most immediate task of getting Balveda off the ship, and with luck following a false trail. But the news that there might be somebody looking for him in this bay - or anybody, for that matter - had rattled him. He said, ‘ . . . This is the craft in Smallbay 17492. I want immediate clearance to leave the bay and the GSV; we’ll quit the Orbital independently.’

Wubslin stared at Horza.

‘This is Evanauth Port traffic control, GSV temporary section. One moment, Smallbay 27492,’ said the speakers set in Horza and Wubslin’s seat headrests. Horza turned to Wubslin, switching off the communicator send button.