Consider Phlebas

Smallbay 27492. I need emergency clearance. Repeat, I need emergency clearance and a tug straight away. I have a malfunctioning fusion generator I can't close down. Repeat, nuclear fusion generator breakdown, going critical.'

'What!' a small voice screeched. Something banged into Horza's knee, and the drone working under the console wobbled quickly into view, festooned with cables like a streamer-draped party goer. 'What did you say?'

'Shut up and get off the ship. Now,' Horza told it, turning up the gain on the receiver circuits. A hissing noise filled the bridge.

'With pleasure!' the drone said, and shook itself to get rid of the cables looped round its casing. 'As usual I'm the last to be told what's going on, but I know I don't want to stick around this-' it was muttering when the hangar lights went out.

At first Horza thought the screen had blown, but he slid the wavelength control up, and a dim outline of the bay reappeared, showing its appearance on infra-red. 'Oh-oh,' said the drone, turning first to the screen, then looking back at Horza. 'You lot did pay your rent, didn't you?'

'Dead,' Wubslin announced. The drone got rid of the last of its cables. Horza looked sharply at the engineer.

'What?'

Wubslin pointed at the transceiver controls in front of him. 'Dead. Somebody's cut us off from traffic control.'

A shudder ran through the ship. A light blinked, indicating that the main hold lift had just slammed up automatically.

A draught briefly stirred the air in the flight deck, then died. More lights started flashing on the console. 'Shit,' Horza said. 'Now what?'

'Well, goodbye chaps,' the drone said hurriedly. It shot past them, sucked the door open and whooshed down the corridor, heading for the hangar stairwell.

'Pressure drop?' Wubslin said to himself, scratching his head for a change and knotting his brows as he looked at the screens in front of him.

'Kraiklyn!' Yalson's voice shouted from the seat headrest speakers. A light on the console showed that she was calling from the hangar. 'What?' Horza snapped.

'What the hell's going on?' Yalson shouted. 'We were nearly crushed! The air's going from the Smallbay and the hangar lift just emergencied on us! What's happening?'

'I'll explain,' Horza said. His mouth was dry, and he felt as though there was a lump of ice in his guts. 'Is Ms Gravant still with you?'

'Of course she's still fucking with me!'

'Right. Come back up to the mess room right away. Both of you.'

'Kraiklyn-' Yalson began, then another voice cut in, starting from a distance but quickly coming closer to the mike.

'Closed? Closed? Why is this lift door closed? What is going on on this vessel? Hello, bridge? Captain?' A sharp tap-tap noise came from the headrest speakers, and the synthesised voice went on, 'Why am I being obstructed? Let me off this ship at-'

'Get out of the way, you idiot!' Yalson said, then: 'It's that goddam drone again.'

'You and Gravant get up here,' Horza repeated. 'Now.' Horza closed down the hangar com circuit. He wheeled out of the seat and patted Wubslin on the shoulder. 'Strap in. Get us ready to roll. Everything.' Then he swung through the open door. Aviger was in the corridor, coming from the mess to the bridge. He opened his mouth to speak but Horza squeezed quickly past him. 'Not now, Aviger.' He put his right glove to the lock on the armoury door. It clicked open. Horza looked inside.

'I was only going to ask-'

'… what the hell's going on?' Horza completed the old man's sentence for him as he lifted the biggest neural stun pistol he could see, slammed the armoury doors shut and paced quickly down the corridor, through the mess room where Dorolow was sitting asleep in a chair, and into the corridor through the accommodation section. He switched the gun on, turned its power control to maximum, then held it behind his back.

The drone appeared first, flying up the steps and darting along the corridor at eye level. 'Captain! I really must prot-'

Horza kicked a door open, caught the bevelled front of the drone as it came towards him and threw the machine into the cabin. He slammed the door shut. Voices were coming up the steps from the hangar. He held onto the handle of the cabin door. It was pulled hard, then thumped. 'This is outrageous!' a distant, tinny voice wailed.

'Kraiklyn,' Yalson said as her head appeared at the top of the steps. Horza smiled, readying the gun he held behind his back. The door resounded again, shaking his hand.

'Let me out!'

'Kraiklyn, what is going on?' Yalson said, coming along the corridor. Balveda was almost up the stairs, carrying a large kitbag over her shoulder.

'I'm going to lose my temper!' The door shook again.

A whine, high and urgent, came from behind Yalson, from Balveda's kitbag; then a static-like crackle. Yalson didn't hear the high-pitched whine — which was an alarm. Horza, though, was distantly aware of Dorolow stirring somewhere behind him in the mess room. At the burst of static, which was a highly compressed message or signal of some sort, Yalson started to turn back to Balveda. At the same moment Horza leapt forward, taking his hand off the cabin door handle and bringing the heavy stun gun round to bear on Balveda. The Culture woman was already dropping the kitbag, one hand flashing — so fast even Horza could hardly follow the movement down to her side. Horza threw himself into the space between Yalson and the corridor bulkhead, knocking the woman mercenary to one side. At the same time, with the big stun gun pointing straight at Balveda's face, he pulled the trigger. The weapon hummed in his hand as he continued forward, dropping. He tried to keep the gun pointing at Balveda's head all the way down. He hit the deck just before the sagging Culture agent did.

Yalson was still staggering back after being thumped against the far bulkhead. Horza lay on the deck watching Balveda's feet and legs for a second, then he quickly scrambled up, saw Balveda move groggily, her red- haired head scraping on the deck surface, her dark eyes opening briefly. He pulled the stun-gun trigger again, keeping it depressed and pointing the gun at the woman's head. She shook spastically for a second, saliva drooling from one corner of her mouth, then went limp. The red bandanna rolled off her head.

'Are you crazy?' Yalson screamed. Horza turned to her.

'Her name isn't Gravant; it's Perosteck Balveda, and she's an agent in the Culture's Special Circumstances section. That's their euphemism for Military Intelligence, in case you didn't know,' he said. Yalson was backed up almost to the mess-room entrance, her eyes full of fear, her hands clutching at the surface of the bulkhead on either side of her. Horza went up to her. She shrank from him, and he sensed her getting ready to strike out. He stopped short of her, turned the stun gun round and handed it to her, grip first. 'If you don't believe me we'll probably all end up dead,' he said, edging the gun forward towards her hands. She took it eventually. 'I'm serious,' he told her. 'Search her for weapons. Then get her into the mess and strap her into a seat. Tie her hands down, tight. And her legs. Then strap in yourself. We've leaving; I'll explain later.' He started to go past her, then he turned and looked into her eyes.

'Oh, and keep stunning her every now and again, on maximum power. Special Circumstancers are very tough.' He turned and went towards the mess room. He heard the stun gun click.

'Kraiklyn,' Yalson said.

He stopped and turned round again. She was pointing the gun straight at him, holding it in both hands and level with his eyes. Horza sighed and shook his head.

'Don't,' he said.

'What about Horza?'

'He's safe. I swear it. But he'll be dead if we don't get out of here now. And if she wakes up.' He nodded past Yalson at the long, inert form of Balveda. He turned again, then walked into the mess,