Consider Phlebas

'Well, I'm going to take a look down there,' Lenipobra said, bringing his visor down and putting one hand on the low parapet. Horza looked across at him.

Lenipobra waved. 'See you at the b-bows; ya-hoo!'

He vaulted cleanly over the parapet and started to fall towards the deck five storeys below. Horza had opened his mouth to shout, and started forward to grab the youth, but, like the rest of them, he had realised too late what Lenipobra was doing.

One second he was there, the next he had leapt over.

'No!'

'Leni-!' Those not already looking down rushed to the parapet; the tiny figure was tumbling. Horza saw it and hoped that somehow it could pull up, stop, do something. The scream started in their helmets when Lenipobra was less than ten metres from the deck below; it ended abruptly the instant the spread-eagled figure crashed onto the border of a small earthed area. It bounced slackly for about a metre over the deck, then lay still.

'Oh my God…' Neisin suddenly sat down, took off his helmet and put his hand to his eyes. Dorolow put her head down and started to unfasten her helmet.

'What the hell was that?' Kraiklyn was running over from the shuttle, Mipp behind him. Horza was still looking over the parapet, down at the still, doll-like figure crumpled on the deck below. Mist thickened around it as the wisps and streamers grew thicker for a while.

'Lenipobra! Lenipobra!' Wubslin shouted into his helmet microphone. Yalson turned away and swore to herself softly, turning off her transmit intercom. Aviger stood, shaking, his face blank inside his helmet visor. Kraiklyn skidded to a halt at the parapet, then looked over.

'Leni-?' He looked round at the others. 'Is that-? What happened? What was he doing? If any of you were fooling-'

'He jumped,' Jandraligeli said. His voice was shaky. He tried to laugh. 'Guess kids these days just can't tell their gravity from their rotating frame of reference.'

'He jumped?' Kraiklyn shouted. He grabbed Jandraligeli by the suit collar. 'How could he jump? I told you AG wouldn't work, I told you all, when we were in the hangar…'

'He was late,' Lamm broke in. He kicked at the thin metal of the parapet, failing to dent it. 'The stupid little bastard was late. None of us thought to tell him.'

Kraiklyn let go of Jandraligeli and looked around the rest.

'It's true,' Horza said. He shook his head. 'I just didn't think. None of us did. Lamm and Jandraligeli were even complaining about having to walk to the bows when Leni was in the shuttle, and you mentioned it, but I suppose he just didn't hear.' Horza shrugged. 'He was excited.'

He shook his head.

'We all fucked up,' Yalson said heavily. She had turned her communicator back on. Nobody spoke for a while. Kraiklyn stood and looked round them, then went to the parapet, put both hands on it and looked down.

'Leni?' Wubslin said into his communicator, looking down too. His voice was quiet.

'Chicel-Horhava,' Dorolow made the Circle of Flame sign, closed her eyes and said, 'Sweet lady, accept his soul in peace.'

'Wormshit,' Lamm swore, and turned away. He started firing the laser at distant, higher parts of the tower above them.

'Dorolow,' Kraiklyn said, 'you, Wubslin and Yalson head down there. See what… ah, shit…' Kraiklyn turned round. 'Get down there. Mipp, you drop them a line or the medkit, whatever. The rest of us… we're going forward to the bows, all right?' He looked around them, challenging. 'You might want to go back, but that just means he's died for nothing.'

Yalson turned away, switching off her transmit button again.

'Might as well,' Jandraligeli said. 'I suppose.'

'Not me,' Neisin said. 'I'm not. I'm staying here, with the shuttle.' He sat with his head bowed between his shoulders, his helmet on the deck. He stared at the deck and shook his head. 'Not me. No sir, not me. I've had it for today. I'm staying here.'

Kraiklyn looked at Mipp and nodded at Neisin. 'Look after him.' He turned to Dorolow and Wubslin. 'Get going. You never know; you might be able to do something. Yalson — you, too.' Yalson wasn't looking at Kraiklyn but she turned and followed Wubslin and the other woman when they set off to find a way down to the lower deck.

A crash they felt through their soles made them all jump. They turned round to see Lamm, a distant figure against the far-away clouds, firing up at flyer-pad supports five or six decks above, the invisible beam licking flame around the stressed metal. Another pad gave way, flapping and spinning like a huge playing-card, smashing into the level they stood on with another deck-quivering thump. 'Lamm!' Kraiklyn burst out. 'Stop that!'

The black suit with the raised rifle pretended not to hear, and Kraiklyn lifted his own heavy laser and flicked the trigger. A section of deck five metres in front of Lamm ruptured in flame and glowing metal, heaving up, then collapsing back down, a blister of gases blowing out from it rocking Lamm off his feet so that he staggered and almost fell. He steadied and stood, visibly shaking with rage, even from that distance. Kraiklyn still had the gun pointing towards him. Lamm straightened and shouldered his own gun, coming back almost at a saunter, as though nothing had happened. The others relaxed slightly.

Kraiklyn got them all together; then they set off, following Dorolow, Yalson and Wubslin to the inside of the tower and a broad sweeping spiral of carpeted staircase which led down, into the Megaship the Olmedreca.

'Dead as a fossil,' Yalson's voice said bitterly in their helmet speakers, when they were about halfway down. 'Dead as a goddamned fossil.'

When they passed them on their way to the bows, Yalson and Wubslin were waiting by the body for the winch line Mipp was lowering from above. Dorolow was praying.

They crossed over the deck level Lenipobra had died on, down into the mist and along a narrow gangway with nothing but empty space on either side. 'Just five metres,' Kraiklyn said, using the light needle radar in his Rairch suit to plumb the depths of vapour below them. The mist was getting slowly thinner as they went on, up again onto another deck, now clear, then down again, by outside stairs and long ramps. The sun was hazily visible a few times, a red disc which sometimes brightened and sometimes dimmed. They crossed decks, skirted swimming pools, traversed promenades and landing pads, went past tables and chairs, through groves and under awnings, arcades and arches. They saw towers above them through the mist, and a couple of times looked down into huge pits carved out of the ship and lined with yet more decks and opened areas, from the bottom of which they thought they could hear the sea. The swirling mist lay in the bottom of such great bowls like a broth of dreams.

They stopped at a line of small, open, wheeled vehicles with seats and gaily striped awnings for roofs. Kraiklyn looked around, getting his bearings. Wubslin tried starting the vehicles, but none of the small cars were working.

'There are two ways to go here,' Kraiklyn said, frowning as he looked forward. The sun was briefly bright above, turning the vapour over them and to each side golden with its rays. The lines of some unknown sport or game lay drawn out on the deck under their feet. A tower forced out of the mist to one side, the curls and whorls of mist moving like huge arms, dimming the sun again. Its shadow cut across the path in front of them. 'We'll split up.' Kraiklyn looked around. 'I'll go that way with Aviger and Jandraligeli. Horza and Lamm, you go that way.' He pointed to one side. 'That's leading down to one of the side prows. There ought to be something there; just keep looking.' He touched a wrist button. 'Yalson?'

'Hello,' Yalson said over the intercom. She, Wubslin and Dorolow had watched Lenipobra's body being winched up to the shuttle and then left, following the rest.

'Right,' Kraiklyn said, looking at one of the helmet screens, 'you're only about three hundred metres away.' He turned and looked back the way they had come. A collection of towers, some kilometres away, were strung out behind them now, mostly starting at higher levels. They could see more and more of the Olmedreca. Mist streamed quietly past them in the silence. 'Oh yeah,' Kraiklyn said, 'I see you.' He waved.

Some small figures on a distant deck at the side of one of the great mist-filled bowls waved back. 'I see you,