Surface Detail

“Sometimes you have to sacrifice small things in order to achieve great things, Bettlescroy,” Veppers told the little alien. “Hosting the Hells has made me a great deal of money over the years, but they were bound to prove an embarrassment one day, or just be shut down, quite possibly with talk of law suits or reparations or whatever. All I have I can replace, and with the funds we have agreed on, and that wonderful ship… you haven’t forgotten that wonderful ship, have you, Bettlescroy?”

“It is yours, Veppers,” the Legislator-Admiral told him. “It is still being fitted out, to your instructions.”

“Marvellous. Well, with all that, I’m sure I can console myself to the loss of a few trees and my country cottage. So; let’s be clear. Nothing will happen for three and half hours, is that correct?”

The little alien looked at its screen again. “The first fly-by bombardment and missile launch targeting the trackways will take place in three point four-one hours from now. The missiles will impact between one and five minutes after the bombardment. The second wave of ships charged with carrying out the precision bombardment of the satellite links around the house will arrive between point five and one point zero hours later. We can’t be any more accurate with the timing due to the inherent variability of warp-engine crash-stops, especially that far into the gravity wells of a star and planet. So sorry. I trust that will afford you the time to do what you need to do.”

“Hmm. That will have to suffice, then, I suppose.” Veppers made an expansive gesture. “Don’t look so horrified, Bettlescroy! Onward and upward, don’t you agree? Can’t stand still; one has to embrace change, knock old stuff down to build bigger and better new stuff. Speculate to accumulate. All that sort of thing. I’m sure you have your own appropriate, culturally relevant cliches.”

The Legislator-Admiral shook its small, perfectly formed head.

“What a remarkable person you are, Veppers.”

“I know. I amaze myself sometimes.” He turned round as he heard the door behind him open. “Ah, Jasken; well done. Would you mind parcelling that stuff up to go, as a picnic? We’re off on our travels again.”

Twenty-seven

xLabtebricolephile oLOU (Eccentric) Me, I’m Counting

Child, greetings. I enclose a recording of certain recent proceedings involving a mind-state representation of one Space Marshal Vatueil and a Specialist Agencies Prompt Response Committee. Please take note and act accordingly.

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xGSV Dressed Up To Party oPS Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints

Take a look at this. SAPRC local franchise stuff; seems Space Marshal V. our son of a bitch.

?

xPS Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints oLOU (Eccentric) Me, I’m Counting

There was me about to call you Unknown Craft and wave a message beam vaguely in your direction, but now a degree of signal/identity regularity appears to be infecting the locality and I’ve been informed you are, after all, some sort of proper Culture ship. Hi. Me? Oh, I’m mostly kicking the living-dead shit out of the biggest sorta-smatter outbreak you ever did see in all the whole wide wonderful galaxy. What exactly are you up to? Do call; we’re close enough — let’s talk.

~Hello. I made a possibly foolish promise to a human on a mission and must discharge that before I am able to help you with the smatter outbreak, if that is what you would wish me to do and are hinting at. I appreciate you are being kept busy and might be able to use some assistance. I am seeing a remarkable amount of weapon blink from where I am.

~Which would appear to be on a very tight loop centred round sunny Vebezua, indulging in a translight comet impression. Well, there you are. I’m sure you have your reasons. But thank you. I am, as you say, keeping busy.

~I would hope to join you within a few hours.

~Heck, no rush. Aren’t you the ship who took the image of Ms. Y’breq, few years ago?

~I am. Hence a feeling of responsibility for what has transpired.

~Decent of you. I have a presently soloing element carrying the revented Ms. Y towards Sichult even as we chat. You weren’t thinking of trying to reunite her and the image at all, were you?

~No. The image remains stored, inanimate, and I intend to preserve it in that state. My promise was to get my human guest to where she wishes to go. Though my immediate concern is to avoid being attacked by the NR ship which seems aggressively interested either in whatever happens on Vebezua or in what I do. Or possibly what my guest does, or where the rescued Mind from the Quietus GCU Bodhisattva happens to be, which at the moment is within my field enclosure following the trashing of its ship by the Unfallen Bulbitian in the Semsarine Wisp. The offending NR vessel is reticent regarding divulging what precisely its priorities are, though they certainly seem to include threatening me. Much as I hate to add to your Do list, given your current preoccupation with clunking herds of near-mindless smatter vessels, there is nevertheless this highly capable NR craft giving a fellow Culture ship grief for no apparent good reason. I am a humble and rather elderly Limited Offensive Unit, by inclination and declaration devoutly Eccentric for many a century and hence long unused to the hurly-burly of even simulated battle and profoundly out of the circuit regarding recent advances in EqT ship weaponry and tactics; subjects in which I imagine you must excel. A thought, merely. When you have the time. Now, I must continue trying to arrange a high-speed Displace of two persons, including a non-lace-equipped human, from a planetary surface while an NR ship tries to stop me. Always assuming I can locate the two persons concerned; they appear to have vanished.

~Fascinating. You obviously have your fields full. I’ll leave you to it. Do let’s keep in touch.

“The Me, I’m Counting? The ship with Himerance?” Lededje asked. Suddenly she was back in her room in the town house, ten years earlier, listening in the darkness to the tall, stooped, bald old man as he talked softly about taking an image of her that was faithful and precise down to the individual atom.

“The very same,” Demeisen said. Element twelve of the picket ship Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints was bearing down on the inner system of the Quyn system, heading straight for a region of space a few hundred kilometres above where the city of Ubruater on the planet Sichult would be in just a few minutes. The ship element was braking hard and negotiating even more strenuously with the relevant authorities on and around the planet. “It still has the image of you that it took when you were younger.”

“What’s it doing here?” Lededje asked. In a suspicious tone, Demeisen thought. They were stepped-back from full foamed-up ultra-alert, sitting in their seats on the module, Lededje’s helmet visor lying opened so that she and the avatar could look at each other.

“I suspect it’s carrying a person from Quietus called Yime Nsokyi,” Demeisen told her. “Didn’t mention her by name but a little research makes it highly likely it’s her.”

“And what’s she doing here?”

“Quietus might be interested in you. As a revented little icicle they may feel that somehow you’re their responsibility.”

She looked at the avatar for a moment. “Are they always this… keen?”

Demeisen shook his head emphatically. “No. There’s probably some other reason.”

“Care to take a guess?”

“Who can say, doll? They may have some interest in the relationship between you and Mr. Veppers, especially as it might manifest itself in the near to medium future. They may not feel that your intentions towards him are entirely peaceful, and wish to forestall some untoward diplomatic incident.”

“What about you; would you act to forestall this untoward diplomatic incident?”