talking to. A side bar at the edge of the screen changed according to whether she was talking to, or just using, a completely dumb program, a smart but witless set of algorithms, one of three different levels of AI, an intelligent outside entity or was linked directly to the main personality of the GSV itself. The bar had ascended to its maximum when Sensia had broken in earlier with her warning about Divinity In Extremis.
She’d asked the level-one AI to bring up sites which rated ships and soon found one run by a small collective of ship fans which gave both the
She’d called up a list of ships currently on the GSV. She’d shaken her head. There were nearly ten thousand named vessels aboard right now, including two of a smaller class of GSV, themselves containing other ships. The exact number changed as she watched it, the final digit flickering up and down, presumably as vessels arrived and departed in real time. Four GSVs under construction. Less than 50 per cent Bay Occupancy Rate.
She was still assuming that she was under some form of surveillance and had noticed that the more complicated was the question you asked, the further up the smartness-bar you went towards the ship’s own personality. She wanted to avoid that, so rather than just ask, Which are the bad-boy ships? she found short cuts that let her sort the ships currently aboard according to the dubiousness of their reputations.
A handful of the ships aboard had worked for or been plausibly associated with something called Special Circumstances. They didn’t publish their ship’s logs or course schedules, she’d noticed. SC, again. Whatever Special Circumstances was, it seemed to be closely linked with the kind of qualities she was looking for.
She’d looked up Special Circumstances. Military intelligence, espionage, deep interference, dirty tricks. This, she’d thought, sounded promising. It seemed to have almost as many people interested in it — a lot of them profoundly critical — as all the ships did put together. She’d looked a little closer at some of the anti-SC sites.
None of the handful of ships she’d wanted to talk to had been immediately available. She’d found out how to leave messages with them, and had done so.
“Over there, to your left. Further left. Straight on for about five metres,” said a neutral voice rapidly coming closer to where she stood with Admile and the fat little avatar. “That’s her, talking to the rotund gentleman.”
Lededje turned and saw a cross-looking lady walking smartly towards her, holding something small and silver in her fingers. She marched up to Lededje. “This thing,” she said, brandishing the ring in Lededje’s face, “will not shut up. Even in a sound field.”
“That’s her,” the ring said primly.
Admile waved some drug fumes out of the way and peered at the ring before turning to Lededje. “Want me to throw it away again? Further?”
“No, thank you,” Lededje said, taking the ring from the woman. “Thank—” she began, but the woman was already walking away. Lededje held the ring in her hand.
“Hello again,” the ship’s neutral voice said.
“Hello.”
“I was thinking of going body surfing,” Jolicci announced. “Anybody want to go body surfing?”
Admile shook his head.
“Good,” Lededje said, slipping the ring onto one of his fingers. “Perhaps I’ll see you later.”
Body surfing meant taking off most of your clothes and throwing yourself down a great curved slope of upward-charging water, either on your back, front, behind or, if you were especially skilled, feet. This all happened in a great half-dark hall full of whoops and happy screams, overlooked by bars and party spaces. Some people did it naked, others donned swimwear. Jolicci, fitted with what looked like a pair of eye-wateringly tight trunks, was spectacularly bad at it. He found it hard to exercise any control even when he was flat on his back with all four limbs extended.
Lededje discovered she was quite good as long as she didn’t try to stand up. She was coasting on her behind in a tidy spray of water, holding on to Jolicci’s left ankle with her right hand to stop him spinning out of control and keep them within talking distance of each other.
“So you want to go somewhere you won’t reveal for reasons you want to keep secret but you don’t want to take the ship the GSV’s suggested.”
“That’s broadly it,” she agreed. “Also, I would like to talk to the ships aboard here which have or had links to Special Circumstances.”
“Really?” Jolicci wobbled, spraying his face with water. “Are you sure?” He wiped his face with one hand, oscillating to and fro until he placed the hand back on the watery slide. “I mean, really sure?”
“Yes,” she told him. “You’re not the avatar of one of them, are you?” He’d said he was the avatar of the
“No,” he said. “Humble General Contact Unit, me, going about standard Contact business, honest. Nothing to do with SC.” He squinted at her (she thought — it might just have been the water).
“You sure you want to talk to SC?”
“Yes.”
They pirouetted slowly, caught by a localised rush of uphill-headed water. Jolicci looked thoughtful. He nodded to the side. “It seems I have no skill in this. Enough. Let’s try another sort of surfing.”
“What is this?” Lededje asked. They were standing in a short, broad, carpeted corridor one wall of which was punctuated by five sets of plain double doors. Jolicci, back in his colourful dressing gown, had pulled the central set of double doors apart with some effort and was stopping them from sliding back by wedging the left one with his slipper-shod foot. Lededje was looking through the opened doors into a dark, echoing space laced with vertical cables and cross-beamed with girders. She heard rumbling noises, sensed movement, felt a draught on her face. The air smelled oily, half familiar.
She and the fat little avatar had been whisked here by the usual slick process of traveltube with only minute-long walks at either end. What she was looking at here felt somehow much older, much cruder.
“Re-creation of a tall building elevator shaft,” he told her. “Don’t you have these?”
“We have skyscrapers,” she said, holding on to the right-hand door as she leant in. “And elevators.” There was the rather grimy-looking top of an elevator car reassuringly close beneath, only a metre or so down. Looking up she saw the shafts and cables climbing into the darkness. “I’ve just never seen inside a lift shaft before. Except in a screen, I suppose. Then there’s always just the one, you know, shaft.”
“Uh-huh,” Jolicci said. “Jump on; I’ll let go the doors. Careful, though; no safety net.”
She jumped onto the roof of the car beneath. Jolicci followed her, making the roof’s surface quiver. The doors above hissed closed and the car started to ascend immediately. She held on to one of the cables — it was greasy with dark, gritty oil — and looked over the edge. The great dark shaft held space for ten elevators, five on each side. The car accelerated smartly, the slipstream tugging at her hair and making Jolicci’s dressing gown flap as they whizzed upwards. She looked down, leaning a little further out as they shot past sets of closed double doors, almost too fast to count. The bottom of the shaft was lost in the darkness.
She was grabbed from behind by one shoulder.
She heard herself yelp as she thudded into Jolicci’s surprisingly solid body. An instant later a dark shape plunged past her in a storm of disturbed air. She had narrowly missed getting decapitated by a rapidly descending car. Jolicci released his hold on her. “Like I said; no safety net. This is a dangerously faithful physical re-creation. No sensors on the cars to stop them hitting or crushing you, no AG down the bottom if you fall. Nobody to see you fall, let alone stop you. You backed-up?”
She found she was shaking a little. “You mean my, my self? My personality?” He just looked at her. She suspected it was just as well it was so gloomy it was hard to tell precisely what his expression was. “I’m only a day out of a… a thing, a jar, a body tank.” She swallowed. “But no.”
The car was slowing, drawing to a stop. Jolicci looked upwards from the far side of the car. “Right. Here comes the fun bit.” He glanced at her. “You ready?”
“What for?” she asked.
