Consider Phlebas

'What fun,' Balveda said. 'We could all just go riding round in circles for ever and ever.'

'Not me,' Aviger said, turning from Horza to look at the Culture agent. 'I'm going back to the CAT. I'm not going round looking for this damn computer.'

'Good idea,' Yalson said, looking at the old man. 'We could make you a sort of prisoner detail; send you back with Xoxarle; just the two of you.'

'I'll go alone,' Aviger said in a low voice, avoiding Yalson's gaze. 'I'm not afraid.'

Xoxarle listened to them talk. Such squeaky, scratchy voices. He tested his bonds again. The wire had cut a couple of millimetres into his keratin, on his shoulders, thighs and wrists. It hurt a little, but it would be worthwhile, maybe. He was quietly cutting himself on the wire, rubbing with all the force he could muster against the places where the wire held him tightest; chafing the nail-like cover of his body deliberately. He had taken a deep breath and flexed all the muscles he could when he was tied up, and that had given him just enough room to move, but he would need a little more if he was to have any chance of working his way loose.

He had no plan, no time scale; he had no idea when he might have an opportunity, but what else could he do? Stand there like a stuffed dummy, like a good boy? While these squirming, soft-bodied worms scratched their pulpy skin and tried to work out where the Mind was? A warrior could do no such thing; he had come too far, seen too many die…

'Hey!' Wubslin opened a small window on the top storey of the train and leaned out, shouting to the others. 'These elevators work! I just came up in one! Everything works!'

'Yeah!' Yalson waved. 'Great, Wubslin.'

The engineer ducked back inside. He moved through the train, testing and touching, inspecting controls and machinery.

'Quite impressive, though, isn't it?' Balveda said to the others. 'For its time.'

Horza nodded, gazing slowly from one end of the train to the other. He finished the drink in the container and put it down on the pallet as he stood up. 'Yes, it is. But much good it did them.'

Quayanorl dragged himself up the ramp.

A pall of smoke hung in the station air, hardly shifting in the slow circulation of air. Fans were working in the train, though, and what movement there was in the grey-blue cloud came mostly from the places where open doors and windows blew the acrid mist out from the carriages, replacing it with air scrubbed by the train's conditioning and filter system.

He dragged himself through wreckage — bits and pieces of wall and train, even scraps and shards from his own suit. It was very hard and slow, and he was already afraid he would die before he even got to the train.

His legs were useless. He would probably be doing better if the other two had been blown off as well.

He crawled with his one good arm, grasping the edge of the ramp and pulling with all his might.

The effort was agonisingly painful. Every time he pulled he thought it would grow less, but it didn't; it was as though for each of the too long seconds he hauled at that ramp edge, and his broken, bleeding body scraped further up the littered surface, his blood vessels ran with acid. He shook his head and mumbled to himself. He felt blood run from the cracks in his body, which had healed while he lay still and now were being ripped open again. He felt tears run from his one good eye; he sensed the slow weep of healing fluid welling where his other eye had been torn from his face.

The door ahead of him shone through the bright mist, a faint air current coming from it making curls in the smoke. His feet scraped behind him, and his suit chest ploughed a small bow wave of wreckage from the surface of the ramp as he moved. He gripped the ramp's edge again and pulled.

He tried not to call out, not because he thought there was anyone to hear and be warned, but because all his life, from when he had first got to his feet by himself, he had been taught to suffer in silence. He did try; he could remember his nest-Querl and his mother-parent teaching him not to cry out, and it was shaming to disobey them, but sometimes it got too much. Sometimes the pain squeezed the noise from him.

On the station roof, some of the lights were out, hit by stray shots. He could see the holes and punctures in the train's shining hull, and he had no idea what damage might have been done to it, but he couldn't stop now. He had to go on.

He could hear the train. He could listen to it like a hunter listening to a wild animal. The train was alive; injured — some of its whirring motors sounded damaged — but it was alive. He was dying, but he would do his best to capture the beast.

'What do you think?' Horza asked Wubslin. He had tracked the engineer down under one of the Command System train carriages, hanging upside down looking at the wheel motors. Horza had asked Wubslin to take a look at the small device on his suit chest which was the main body of the mass sensor.

'I don't know,' Wubslin said, shaking his head. He had his helmet on and visor down, using the screen to magnify the view of the sensor. 'It's so small. I'd need to take it back to the CAT to have a proper look at it. I didn't bring all my tools with me.' He made a tutting noise. 'It looks all right; I can't see any obvious damage. Maybe the reactors are putting it off.'

'Damn. We'll have to search, then,' Horza said. He let Wubslin close the small inspection panel on the suit front.

The engineer leant back and shoved his visor up. 'Only trouble is,' he said glumly, 'if the reactors are interfering, there isn't much point in taking the train to look for the Mind. We'll have to use the transit tube.'

'We'll search the station first,' Horza said. He stood up. Through the window, across the station platform, he could see Yalson standing watching Balveda as the Culture woman paced slowly up and down the smooth rock floor. Aviger still sat on the pallet. Xoxarle stood strapped to the girders of the access ways.

'OK if I go up to the control deck?' Wubslin said. Horza looked into the engineer's broad, open face.

'Yeah, why not? Don't try to get it to move just yet, though.'

'OK,' Wubslin said, looking happy.

'Changer?' said Xoxarle, as Horza walked down the access ramp. 'What?'

'These wires: they are too tight. They are cutting into me.'

Horza looked carefully at the wires round the Idiran's arms. 'Too bad,' he said.

'They cut into my shoulders, my legs and my wrists. If the pressure goes on they will cut through to my blood vessels; I should hate to die in such an inelegant manner. By all means blow my head off, but this slow slicing is undignified. I only tell you because I am starting to believe you do intend to take me back to the fleet.'

Horza went behind the Idiran to look at where the wires crossed over Xoxarle's wrists. He was telling the truth; the wires had cut into him like fence wire into tree bark. The Changer frowned. 'I've never seen that happen,' he said to the motionless rear of the Idiran's head. 'What are you up to? Your skin's harder than that.'

'I am up to nothing, human,' Xoxarle said wearily, sighing heavily. 'My body is injured; it tries to rebuild itself. Of necessity it becomes more pliable, less hardy, as it tries to rebuild the damaged parts. Oh, if you don't believe me, never mind. But don't forget that I did warn you.'

'I'll think about it,' Horza said. 'If it gets too bad, shout out.' He stepped out through the girders back onto the station floor, and walked towards the others.

'I shall have to think about that,' Xoxarle said quietly. 'Warriors are not given to 'shouting out' because they are in pain.'

'So,' Yalson said to the Changer, 'is Wubslin happy?'

'Worried he won't get to drive the train,' Horza told her. 'What's the drone doing?'

'Taking its time looking through the other train.'

'Well, we'll leave it there,' Horza said. 'You and I can search the station. Aviger?' He looked at the old man, who was using a small piece of plastic to prise bits of food from between his teeth.

'What?' Aviger said, looking up suspiciously at the Changer. 'Watch the Idiran. We're going to take a look around the station.' Aviger shrugged. 'All right. I suppose so. Not too many places I can go for the moment.' He inspected the end of the piece of plastic.

He reached out, took hold of the end of the ramp, and pulled. He moved forward on a wave of pain. He