Consider Phlebas

'Our captain!' Aviger shouted. Dorolow held one of his hands at her shoulder. She smiled. Wubslin waved dreamily; the stocky engineer looked drunk. 'Been at the wars, I see,' Aviger went on, staring at Horza's face, which still showed signs of being in a fight, despite his internal attempts to minimise the damage.

'What has Gravant done, Kraiklyn?' Dorolow squeaked. She seemed merry, too, and her voice was even higher than he remembered it.

'Nothing,' Horza said, smiling at the three mercenaries. 'But we're getting Horza Gobuchul back from the dead, so I decided we didn't need her.'

'Horza?' Wubslin said, his large mouth opening wide in an almost exaggerated expression of surprise. Dorolow looked past Horza at Yalson, the look on her face saying, 'Is this true?' through her grin. Yalson shrugged and looked happily, hopefully, still slightly suspiciously, at the man she thought was Kraiklyn.

'He'll be coming aboard shortly before the Ends leaves,' Horza said. 'He had some sort of business in the city. Maybe something shady.' Horza smiled in the condescending way Kraiklyn sometimes had. 'Who knows?'

'There,' Wubslin said, looking unsteadily at Aviger over Dorolow's stooped frame. 'Maybe that guy was looking for Horza. Maybe we should warn him.'

'What guy? Where?' Horza asked.

'He's seeing things,' Aviger said, waving one hand. 'Too much liverwine.'

'Rubbish!' Wubslin said loudly, looking from Aviger to Horza, and nodding. 'And a drone.' He held both hands out in front of his face, palms together, then separated them by about a quarter-metre. 'Little bugger. No bigger'n that.'

'Where?' Horza shook his head. 'Why do you think somebody might be after Horza?'

'Out there, under the traveltube,' Aviger said, while Wubslin was saying:

'Way he came out of that capsule, like he expected to be in a fight any second, and… aww, I can just tell… that guy was… police… or something…'

'What about Mipp?' asked Dorolow. Horza was silent for a second, frowning at nothing and nobody in particular. 'Did Horza mention Mipp?' Dorolow asked him.

'Mipp?' he said, looking at Dorolow. 'No.' He shook his head. 'No, Mipp didn't make it.'

'Oh, I'm sorry,' Dorolow said.

'Look,' Horza said, staring at Aviger and Wubslin, 'you think there's somebody out there looking for one of us?'

'A man,' Wubslin nodded slowly, 'and a little, tiny, really mean-looking drone.'

With a chill, Horza recalled the insect which had settled momentarily on his wrist in the smallbay outside, just before he had boarded the CAT. The Culture, he knew, had machines — artificial bugs — that size.

'Hmm,' Horza said, pursing his lips. He nodded to himself, then looked at Yalson. 'Go and make sure Gravant gets off the ship, quickly, all right?' He stood up and got out of the way while Yalson moved. She went down the corridor to the cabins. Horza looked at Wubslin and motioned the engineer forward towards the bridge, with his eyes. 'You two stay here,' he said quietly to Aviger and Dorolow. Slowly they let go of each other and sat down in a couple of seats. Horza went through to the bridge.

He pointed Wubslin to the engineer's seat and sat down in the pilot's. Wubslin sighed heavily. Horza closed the door, then quickly reeled through all he had learned about the procedures on the bridge during the first weeks he had been aboard the CAT. He was reaching forward to open the communicator channels when something moved under the console, near his feet. He froze.

Wubslin peered down, then bent with an audible effort and stuck his big head down between his legs. Horza smelled drink.

'Haven't you finished yet?' Wubslin's muffled voice said.

'They took me off to another job; I only just got back,' wailed a small, thin, artificial voice. Horza sat back in his seat and looked under the console. A drone, about two thirds the size of the one which had escorted him from the elevator to the CAT's bay, was disentangling itself from a jumble of tine cables protruding from an open inspection hatch.

'What', Horza said, 'is that?'

'Oh,' Wubslin said wearily, belching, 'same one that's been here… you remember. Come on, you,' he said to the machine. 'The captain wants to do a communication test.'

'Look,' the little machine said, its synthesised voice full of exasperation, 'I have finished. I'm just tidying everything away.'

'Well get a move on,' Wubslin said. He withdrew his head from underneath the console and looked apologetically at Horza. 'Sorry, Kraiklyn.'

'Never mind, never mind.' Horza waved his hand. He powered up the communicator. 'Ah…' He looked at Wubslin. 'Who's controlling traffic movements around here? I've forgotten who to ask for. What if I want the bay doors opened?'

'Traffic? Doors opened?' Wubslin looked at Horza with a puzzled expression. He shrugged and said, 'Well, just traffic control, I suppose, like when we came in.'

'Right,' Horza said; he flicked the switch on the console and said, 'Traffic control, this is…' His voice trailed off.

He'd no idea what Kraiklyn had called the CAT instead of its real name. He hadn't got that as part of the information he'd bought, and it was one of the many things he had meant to learn once he'd accomplished the most immediate task of getting Balveda off the ship, and with luck following a false trail. But the news that there might be somebody looking for him in this bay — or anybody, for that matter — had rattled him. He said, '… This is the craft in Smallbay 17492. I want immediate clearance to leave the bay and the GSV; we'll quit the Orbital independently.'

Wubslin stared at Horza.

'This is Evanauth Port traffic control, GSV temporary section. One moment, Smallbay 27492,' said the speakers set in Horza and Wubslin's seat headrests. Horza turned to Wubslin, switching off the communicator send button.

'This thing is ready to fly, isn't it?'

'Wha-? Fly?' Wubslin looked perplexed. He scratched his chest, looked down at the drone still working to stuff the wires back under the console. 'I suppose so, but-'

'Great.' Horza started switching everything on, motors included. He noticed the bank of screens carrying information about the bow laser flickering on along with everything else. At least Kraiklyn had had that repaired.

'Fly?' Wubslin repeated. He scratched his chest again and turned towards Horza. 'Did you say 'fly'?'

'Yes. We're leaving.' Horza's hands flicked over the buttons and sensor switches, adjusting the systems of the waking ship as though he really had been doing it for years.

'We'll need a tug…' Wubslin said. Horza knew the engineer was right. The CAT's anti-gravity was only strong enough to produce an internal field; the warp units would blow so close to (in fact, inside) a mass as great as the Ends, and you couldn't reasonably use the fusion motors in an enclosed space.

'We'll get one. I'll tell them it's an emergency. I'll say we've got a bomb aboard, or something.' Horza watched the main screen come on, filling the previously blank bulkhead in front of him and Wubslin with a view of the rear of the Smallbay.

Wubslin got his own monitor screen to display a complicated plan which Horza eventually identified as a map of their level of the GSV's vast interior. He only glanced at it at first, then ignored the view on the main screen and looked more carefully at the plan, and finally put a holo of the GSV's whole internal layout onto the main screen, quickly memorising all he could.

'What…' Wubslin, paused, belched again, rubbed his belly through his tunic and said, 'What about Horza?'

'We'll pick him up later,' Horza said, still studying the layout of the GSV. 'I made other arrangements in case I couldn't meet him when I said.' Horza punched the transmit button again. 'Traffic control, traffic control, this is