Surface Detail

“Very nearly,” Himerance told her. “Hours out from Enablement space, and the Tsungarial Disk, if that’s where it’s headed.”

“Just in time for the smatter outbreak,” the ship’s drone said. “That is almost too convenient. I do hope we had nothing to do with that.”

“‘We’ being the Culture, Restoria, or SC?” Yime asked, wobbling a little as she reached the limit of the lounge area and turned. Avatar and drone both helped steady her.

“Good question,” the drone said. It seemed content to judge the question without hazarding an answer.

“And what about the Bulbitian?” she asked.

The drone said nothing. After a moment, the avatar said, “A Fast Picket, the No One Knows What The Dead Think, paid a call on the Bulbitian some eight hours ago, respectfully asking for an explanation for what happened to the Bodhisattva and your-self. The Bulbitian denied all knowledge not only of any attack on you, but also of your visit. Worryingly, it also denies that there ever was a Culture Restoria or Numina mission aboard it. In fact it claims to have been completely without any alien visitors for as long as it can remember.

“The Fast Picket begged to differ and requested leave to contact the Culture personnel it knew had been on the Bulbitian as recently as a couple of days earlier. When that was refused it asked to be allowed to send a representative aboard to check. That too was rejected. No signals had emanated from the Bulbitian since very shortly after the attack on the Bodhisattva and no signals from the Fast Picket elicited any response at all.”

They’re all going to be dead; Yime thought. I know it. I brought death to them.

“The No One Knows What The Dead Think then departed the Bulbitian’s atmospheric envelope,” Himerance continued, “but left behind a small high-stealth drone-ship which attempted to access the Bulbitian directly without permission, using smaller drones, knife and scout missiles, eDust and so on. All were destroyed. An attempt by the Fast Picket to Displace sensory apparatus directly into the Bulbitian met with no more success and resulted in an attack on the Fast Picket by the Bulbitian.

“Forewarned, and — having been a warship, the GOU Obliterating Angel, in its earlier incarnation — more martially capable than the Bodhisattva, the Fast Picket was undamaged by the Bulbitian’s attack and retired to a safe distance to keep watch on the entity and await the arrival of the Equator-class GSV Pelagian, which is five days away. A Continent class with SC links is also strongly believed to be en route, though it’s keeping its arrival time quiet.

“Other species/civs who had personnel aboard the Bulbitian also report no contact or sign of their people and, like us, suspect that the entity has killed them.”

Yime stopped, looked at Himerance, then at the skeletal assembly of components which was the Bodhisattva’s drone, and — with the vessel’s Mind — one of the few bits of the ship it had been worthwhile salvaging from the near-total wreck. “So they’re all dead?” she asked, her voice hollow. She thought of the elegantly elderly Ms. Fal Dvelner and the terribly earnest, multiply-reincarnated Mr. Nopri.

“Very likely,” the drone told her. “I’m sorry.”

“Was that us?” Yime asked, starting to walk again, going hesitantly forward. “Did we cause that?” She stopped. “Did I cause that?” She shook her head. “There was something,” she said, “some issue, some… I antagonised it somehow. Something I said or did…” She knocked one set of knuckles on her temple, gently. “What the hell was it?”

“Possibly we bear some collective technical responsibility,” the drone said. “Though frankly, triggering an act of homicidal instability in a Bulbitian is hardly proof by itself of any culpability. Still, we are certainly attracting the blame from those already-mentioned other species and civs who had people on the Bulbitian. That the entity itself is entirely to blame for an unprovoked attack and that we were its first victims — and, very nearly, its first fatalities — seems to matter little compared to the ease with which we may be blamed.”

“Oh, grief,” Yime said, sighing. “There’s going to be an Inquiry, isn’t there?”

“Many, probably,” the drone said, sounding resigned.

“Before we start thinking ahead to the aftermath,” Himerance said, after clearing his throat, “we might do well to contemplate our immediate course.”

“Ms. Y’breq is still our focus,” the Bodhisattva’s drone said. “The point may rapidly be approaching when the input or decisions of one person stops making much difference, but for the moment we might hope to influence events through her, if we can find her.”

“And of course,” Himerance said, “Mr. Veppers’ inputs and decisions almost certainly do matter, considerably.”

“So do Ms. Y’breq’s,” Yime said, turning at the far end of the lounge to head back the way she had come. There was no unsteadiness this time. “If she gets near him with a clear shot, or whatever.”

“The latest we have from Sichult places Veppers in a place called Iobe Cavern City, on the planet Vebezua, in the Chunzunzan Whirl,” the drone said.

“There, then,” Himerance said, then hesitated. An expression of surprise crossed his face. “The Culture Restoria mission dealing with the smatter outbreak just discovered more ships being built within the Tsungarial Disk,” he said.

“How many more?” Yime asked.

It was the Bodhisattva’s drone which answered. “One in every fabricaria they’ve looked in so far,” it told her.

Yime stopped. “How many have they looked in?” she asked, looking from the drone to the avatar.

“About seventy, so far,” Himerance said.

“As highly spread as they could manage, too,” the drone said. “Good representative sample.”

“Doesn’t that mean—?” Yime began.

“Could be all of them are making ships,” the drone said.

“All of them?” Yime felt her eyes widening.

“Certainly a very high proportion of the three hundred million fabricaria,” the drone said.

“In the name of grief,” Yime cried, “what do you do with three hundred million ships?”

“You could certainly start a war,” the drone said.

“With that many ships,” Himerance said, “you might end it, too.”

“Nevertheless,” the drone said, “we had best get there.”

“Time to hit sprint,” Himerance said. Then he nodded at the wall screen at the far end of the lounge as it lit up, showing the battered-looking remains of the Bodhisattva floating within the Me, I’m Counting’s field envelope. The crippled, wrecked ship didn’t look that badly damaged, from where they were looking. A little scratched, grazed, crumpled and dented, perhaps. The most serious damage was internal. “Last drone team’s ready to clear,” Himerance announced. “Suggest we forget about that anterior remote stressor.”

“Agreed,” said the drone. The little machine hung very still and steady in the air, giving every impression of staring at the wreck of its ship on the screen.

“Well, I think you should give the command,” Himerance said.

“Of course,” the little drone said.

The hazily shining wall of the field enclosure approached the stricken ship, moved smoothly over it and left it outside, exposed to the distant stars. The view switched to beyond the field enclosure, to where the lifeless body of the Bodhisattva floated naked, without any fields or shields about it at all. It was drawing slowly away, falling behind.

“Oh well,” the drone said.

The Bodhisattva convulsed, almost as though shaking itself awake after a long asleep, then started to come slowly apart as though it was an exploded diagram made real. A spherical mirror field appeared all about it for an instant, then, when it dropped, the ship was ablaze, light flaring from every part of it, burning brighter and brighter as they watched; flameless, orderly, still non-explosive but searing in its intensity, the pure fires raged until gradually they started to fade and go out, and when they had entirely gone, there was nothing left of the ship at all, save light-slow radiation, flowing out in every direction towards the distant