Surface Detail

courage to see it through to the end, no matter what the cost. Cost didn’t matter if you could afford it and the reward was going to be inestimably greater.

He reached up, switched the laser rifle off and sat back. No, he didn’t want to hunt, or fuck, or get stoned or anything else.

Really, he supposed, he just wanted to be back at the house. Well, he could do something about that.

He clicked a seat control.

“Sir?” the pilot said.

“Never mind terrain-hugging,” he told her. “Just get us there as fast as you can.”

“Sir.”

The aircraft started to rise immediately, pulling up from the trackway beneath. He felt heavy again for a moment, but then the ride started to smooth out.

The flash came first. He saw it light up the landscape underneath the aircraft, and wondered momentarily if some coincidence of a gap in the clouds and a gap in the ridge to the east was letting a single strong beam of sunlight through to shine so brightly on the trees and low hills beneath. The light seemed to blink, then get brighter and brighter, all in less than a second.

“Radiation aler—” a synthesised voice started to say.

Radiation? What was—?

The aircraft bucked like a dinghy thrown by a tsunami. Veppers was crushed down into his seat so hard he felt and heard himself make a sort of involuntary grunting, groaning noise as the air was forced out of his compressing lungs. The view — wildly, insanely bright — started to spin like emptied buckets of fluorescent paint swirling round a plug hole. A titanic bang resounded, seeming to come from somewhere inside his head. He glimpsed clouded sky, the clouds’ under-surfaces garishly lit from below, then distant, too-brightly shining hills and forests, then — just for an instant — a vast boiling cloud of fire and smoke, rising on a thick dark stem above a mass of darkness shot through with flame.

He heard what might have been screams, and tearing, cracking, buckling noises. The view through the ultraclear glass suddenly hazed all at once, as though a thin-veined white mesh had been hurled across the material. He felt weightless again and then seemed to be about to be thrown against the ceiling, or into the crazed ultraclear, but the seat seemed to hold onto him.

A roaring noise threw a deep red haze across his eyes and he blacked out.

Yime Nsokyi took her first few unaided steps. Even dressed in loose-fitting fatigues, she felt oddly naked without the supporting net of foam she’d been swaddled in for the last couple of days.

The bones in her legs felt delicate and a little achey. It hurt to take a deep breath and her spine felt oddly inflexible. Only her arms felt pretty much like normal, though the muscles were weak. She’d instructed her body to hold back on all the pain-cancelling mechanisms, to feel how bad things really were. Not too bad, was the answer. She should be able to get through without any more anti-pain secretions.

Walking at her side as she padded up and down the gently lit lounge inside the Me, I’m Counting, one arm extended to cup one of her elbows, was Himerance, the ship’s avatar, a tall, thin creature with a very deep voice and a quite hairless head.

“You don’t have to do this,” she told him.

“I disagree,” he said. “I feel I do. This is at least partly my responsibility. I’ll do what I can to make amends.”

The Me, I’m Counting had been the nearest ship to the Bodhisattva when it had been attacked by the Unfallen Bulbitian, coasting in towards the entity for the semi-regular pick-up and set-down of those going to and coming from the Forgotten GSV Total Internal Reflection. It had been coincidence that it, rather than one of the other ships associated with the GSV, had been allocated the role of shuttle bus this time; three other craft shared the rota. On this occasion, with nobody to drop off, the ship had been coming in only to pick up. When the distress call and Plume event had signalled there was a vessel in distress nearby, it had diverted to investigate and offer help.

“Do you still have the image of Lededje Y’breq?” Yime had asked the ship as soon as she’d been able to. The ship had replaced the pebble-smooth drone with Himerance, a humanoid avatar it had been storing, unused, for over a decade. She’d half expected dust to float from Himerance’s head when he’d nodded.

“Yes,” he’d told her. “In image form only.”

“May I see it?”

The avatar had frowned. “I did promise not to share her full image with anybody else without her express permission,” he’d told her. “I’d prefer to keep to that promise unless there is some circumstance that is so… operationally urgent I felt compelled to break it. Do you especially need to see it? There are plenty of high-quality images of Ms. Y’breq available from Sichultian media and other easily accessible sources. Would you like to see some of them?”

She’d smiled. “No need. I’ve seen them. I was just curious. I appreciate that you want to keep your word.”

“Why are you interested in her?” the ship had asked.

Yime had stared at it. But of course, it would have known nothing of what had happened to Lededje. Servant — acolyte — to a dedicatedly hermit-like GSV, one of the Forgotten, naturally it would be out of any loop that would include detailed knowledge of events in Sichult.

“The Bodhisattva hasn’t briefed you?”

“Immediately after I rescued it, it asked me to make all speed towards the Sichultian Enablement, which I am doing, though with reservations given the situation that appears to be developing there. The Bodhisattva then said that you might provide the reason for all this alacrity.” The avatar had smiled. “I seem to have such a reputation for eccentricity the ship thinks I am more likely to accede to a request from a human than I am to one emanating from a fellow ship. I have no idea why.”

She’d explained that Lededje had been murdered by Joiler Veppers and then revented aboard the Sense Amid Madness, Wit Amidst Folly before being spirited away by the Abominator- class ship Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints. It was assumed she was making her way back to Sichult, quite possibly with thoughts of revenge and murder.

“It was you who put the lace inside her, wasn’t it?” Yime had asked. Himerance had been looking bemused.

“Yes,” the avatar had said. “Yes, that was me.” He’d shrugged. “She said to surprise her, and I couldn’t think of anything else that would materially improve her life that was within my gift. I had no idea it would lead to events of such moment. I assume Mr. Veppers still holds the position of great power he did before.”

“Even greater power.” She’d explained about the Tsungarial Disk and the coming culmination of the confliction over the Hells.

Now, stricken with a feeling of responsibility for all this, the Me, I’m Counting had decided to complete the mission Yime and the Bodhisattva had undertaken. It would take her wherever she wanted to go in pursuit of Lededje Y’breq. The Mind of the Bodhisattva would come too, as a part of the Me, I’m Counting. Rather than waste time trying to rendezvous with another ship the two Minds had determined to salvage all they could from the wreck of the Bodhisattva and junk the rest. The boxy ship-drone from the Bodhisattva floated by Yime’s other elbow, ready to help if she wobbled in its direction.

“In the circumstances, and at the moment,” the drone said, “it is anyway preferable to be contemplating an incursion into the Sichultian Enablement within a warship rather than a humble General Contact Unit.” It came forward a little and dipped, as though peeking round Yime to the humanoid avatar. “Our friend here will have the undying gratitude of the Quietus Section for its action.”

“Don’t exalt me overmuch,” the avatar rumbled. “I am still a warship after a fashion, but an old and avowedly eccentric one. Compared to the thing Ms. Y’breq seemingly finds herself on, I am small beer indeed.”

“Ah, yes, the picket ship,” Yime said. “It must be nearly there by now.”