Consider Phlebas

noise of Neisin's gun. Plasma bolts came singing down the platform from the front of the train again, from high up, near the forward access ramps. She returned fire. Neisin poured shots in the same direction, paused.

'— in! Stop!' the voice shouted in Yalson's ears. It was Balveda, 'There's something wrong with your gun; it'll-' The Culture agent's voice was drowned by the noise of Neisin firing again. '-crash!' Yalson heard Balveda scream despairingly; then a line of light and sound seemed to fill the station from one end to the other, ending at Neisin. The bright stalk of noise and flame blossomed into an explosion Yalson felt through her suit. Bits of Neisin's gun were scattered across the platform; the man was thrown back against the wall. He fell to the ground and lay still.

'Motherfucker,' Yalson heard herself say, and she started running up the platform, enfilading the front of the train, trying to widen the angle of fire. Shots dipped to meet her, then cut out. There was a pause, while she still ran and fired, then the second Idiran appeared on the top level of the distant access ramp, holding a pistol in both hands. He ignored both her and Wubslin's fire and shot straight across the breadth of the cavern, at the Mind.

The silvery ellipsoid started to move, heading for the far foot tunnel. The first shot seemed to go right through it, as did a second; a third bolt made it vanish completely, leaving only a tiny puff of smoke where it had been.

The Idiran's suit glittered as Yalson and Wubslin's shots struck home. The warrior staggered; he turned as though to start firing down at them again, just as the armoured suit gave way; he was blown back and across the gantry, one arm disappearing in a cloud of flame and smoke; he fell over the edge of the ramp and crashed down to the middle level, the suit burning brightly, one leg snagging over the guard rails on the middle ramp. The plasma pistol was blown from his hand. Other shots tore at the wide helm, fracturing the blackened visor. He hung, limp and burning and pummelled with laser fire, for a few more seconds; then the leg caught on the guard rail gave way, snapping cleanly off and falling to the station floor. The Idiran slid, crumpling, to the deck of the ramp.

Horza listened, his ears still ringing.

After a while it was quiet. Acrid smoke stung his nose: fumes of burned plastic, molten metal, roasted meat.

He had been unconscious, then woken to see Yalson running up the platform. He had tried to give her covering fire, but his hands shook too much, and he hadn't been able to get the gun to work. Now everybody had stopped firing, and it was very quiet. He got up and walked unsteadily into the station, where smoke rose from the battered train.

Wubslin knelt by Dorolow's side, trying with one hand to undo one of the woman's gloves. Her suit still smouldered. The helmet visor was smeared red, covered with blood on the inside, hiding her face.

Horza watched Yalson come back down the station, gun still at the ready. Her suit had taken a couple of plasma bolts to the body; the roughly spiralled marks showed as black scars on the grey surface. She looked up suspiciously at the rear access ramps, where one Idiran lay trapped and unmoving; then she opened her visor. 'You all right?' she asked Horza.

'Yes. Bit groggy. Sore head,' he said. Yalson nodded; they went over to where Neisin lay.

Neisin was still just alive. His gun had exploded, riddling his chest, arms and face with shrapnel. Moans bubbled from the crimson ruin of his face. 'Fucking hell,' Yalson said. She took a small medipack from her suit and reached through what was left of Neisin's visor to inject the semi-conscious man's neck with painkiller.

'What's happened?' Aviger's tiny voice came from Yalson's helmet. 'Is it safe yet?' Yalson looked at Horza, who shrugged, then nodded.

'Yeah, it's safe, Aviger,' Yalson said. 'You can come in.'

'I let Balveda use my suit mike; she said she-'

'We heard,' Yalson said.

'Something about a… «barrelcrash»? That right…?' Horza heard Balveda's muffled voice affirming this.'… She thought Neisin's gun might blow up, or something.'

'Well, it did,' Yalson said. 'He looks pretty bad.' She glanced over at Wubslin, who was putting Dorolow's hand back down. Wubslin shook his head when he saw Yalson looking at him.'… Dorolow got blown away, Aviger,' Yalson said. The old man was silent for a moment, then said:

'And Horza?'

'Took a plasma round on the headbox. Suit damage; no communication. He'll live,' Yalson paused, sighed. 'Looks like we lost the Mind, though; it disappeared.'

Aviger waited another few moments before saying, his voice shaking, 'Well, a fine little mess. Easy in, easy out. Another triumph. Our Changer friend taking over where Kraiklyn left off!' His voice finished on a high pitch of anger; he switched his transceiver off.

Yalson looked at Horza, shook her head and said, 'Old asshole.' Wubslin still knelt over Dorolow's body. They heard him sob a couple of times, before he, too, cut out of the open channel. Neisin's slowing breath spluttered through a mask of blood and flesh.

Yalson made the Circle of Flame sign over the red haze masking Dorolow's face, then covered the body with a sheet from the pallet. Horza's ears stopped ringing, the grogginess cleared. Balveda, freed from the restrainer harness, watched the Changer tend to Neisin. Aviger stood near by with Wubslin, whose arm wound had already been treated. 'I heard the noise,' Balveda explained.'… It has a distinctive noise.'

Wubslin had asked why Neisin's gun had exploded, and how Balveda had known it was going to happen.

'I'd have recognised it, too, if I hadn't been smacked on the head,' Horza said. He was teasing fragments of visor out of the unconscious man's face, spraying skin-gel onto the places where blood oozed. Neisin was in shock, probably dying, but they couldn't even take him out of his suit; too much blood had clotted between the man's body and the materials of the device he wore. It would plug the many small punctures effectively enough until the suit was removed, but then Neisin would start to bleed in too many places for them to cope with. So they had to leave him in the thing, as though in that mutual wreckage the human and machine had become one fragile organism.

'But what happened?' Wubslin said.

'His gun barrelcrashed,' Horza said. 'The projectiles must have been set to explode on too soft an impact, so the shells started to detonate when they hit the blast wave from the bullets in front, not the target. He didn't stop firing, so the blast front retarded right back into the muzzle of the gun.'

'The guns have sensors to stop it happening,' Balveda added, wincing with vicarious pain as Horza drew a long sliver of visor from an eye socket. 'I guess his wasn't working.'

'Told him that gun was too damn cheap when he bought it,' Yalson said, coming over to stand by Horza.

'Poor little bugger,' Wubslin said.

'Two more dead,' Aviger announced. 'I hope you're happy, Mr Horza. I hope you're so pleased about what your «allies» have-'

'Aviger,' Yalson said calmly, 'shut up.' The old man glared at her for a second, then stamped off. He stood looking down at Dorolow.

Unaha-Closp floated down from the rear access ramp. 'That Idiran up there,' it said, its voice pitched to betray mild surprise; 'he's alive. Couple of tons of junk on top of him, but he's still breathing.'

'What about the other one?' Horza said.

'No idea. I didn't like to go too close; it's terribly messy up there.'

Horza left Yalson to look after Neisin. He walked over the debris-strewn platform to the wreckage of the rear access gantry.

He was bare-headed. The suit's helmet was ruined, and the suit itself had lost its AG and motor power, as well as most of its senses. On back-up energy, the lights still worked, as did the small repeater screen set into one wrist. The suit's mass sensor was damaged; the wrist screen filled with clutter when linked to the sensor, barely registering the train's reactor at all.

His rifle was still working, for whatever that was worth now.

He stood at the bottom of the ramps and felt the dregs of heat seeping from the metal support legs, where laser fire had struck. He took a deep breath and climbed up the ramp to where the Idiran lay, his massive head sticking out of the wreckage, sandwiched between the two levels of ramp. The Idiran turned slowly to look at him,