letting anybody else know.'
'Assuming covert control-jurisdiction of single aircraft within range; confirm.'
'Confirmed. And stop asking me to confirm everything.'
'Control-jurisdiction assumed. Lapsing confirmatory instruction protocols; confirm.'
'Good grief. Confirmed!'
'Confirm protocol lapsed.'
He considered just floating up, holding Beychae, into the craft, but even though the aircraft's own AG would probably mask the signal his suit gave off, it might not. He glanced up the steep slope, then turned to Beychae and whispered. 'Give me your hand; we're going up.' The old man did as he asked.
They went steadily up the slope, the suit kicking foot-holds in the earth. They stopped at the balustrade. The aircraft blocked out the evening sky above them, yellow light spilling from the belly entrance above the ramp, faintly illuminating the nearer stone instruments.
He checked on the tour group while Beychae got his breath back. The tourists were at the far side of the observatory; the guide was shining a flashlight at some ancient piece of stonework. He stood up. 'Let's go,' he told Beychae, who straightened. They stepped over the balustrade, walked to the ramp and up into the aircraft. He followed Beychae; he watched the rear view on the helmet screen, but couldn't tell whether anybody in the tour group had noticed them or not.
'Suit; close the ramp,' he told the suit, as he and Beychae entered the single large space of the craft's interior. It was ornately luxurious, its walls slung with hangings and its deeply carpeted floor dotted with large chairs and couches; there was an autobar at one end, while the opposite wall was a single huge screen, presently displaying the last of the sunset.
The ramp chimed and hissed as it came up. 'Suit; retract legs,' he said, hinging the suit face-plate back. Happily, the suit was smart enough to realise he meant the aircraft's legs, not its own. It had occurred to him that somebody might just be able to leap onto one of the craft's legs from the observatory balustrade. 'Suit; adjust aircraft altitude; up ten metres.'
The light buzzing noise around them changed, then settled back to what it had been before. He watched Beychae take off his heavy jacket, then looked round the interior of the craft; the effector said there was nobody else aboard, but he wanted to make sure. 'Let's see where this thing was headed next,' he said, as Beychae sat down on a long couch, sighing and stretching. 'Suit; the aircraft's next destination?'
'Gipline Space Terminal,' the clipped voice told him.
'That sounds perfect. Take us there, suit, and make it look as legal and normal as possible.'
'Under way,' the suit said. 'ETA forty minutes.'
The craft's background noise altered, climbing in pitch; the floor moved just a little. The screen on the far side of the large cabin showed them moving out across the wooded hills, rising into the air.
He took a walk round the craft, confirming there was nobody else aboard, then sat by Beychae, who he thought looked very tired. It had been a long day, he supposed.
'You all right?'
'I'm glad to be sitting down, I'll say that.' Beychae kicked off his boots.
'Let me get you a drink, Tsoldrin,' he said, taking off the helmet and heading for the bar. 'Suit,' he said, suddenly struck by an idea. 'You know one of the Culture's down-link numbers in Solotol.'
'Yes.'
'Connect with one via the aircraft.'
He bent down, looking at the autobar. 'And how does this work?'
'The autobar is voice acti —»
'Zakalwe!' Sma's voice cut across that of the suit, making him start. He straightened. 'Where are…?' the woman's voice said, then paused. 'Oh; you've got yourself an aircraft, have you?'
'Yes,' he said. He looked across to where Beychae was watching him. 'On our way to Gipline Port. So what happened? Where's that module? And Sma, I'm hurt; you haven't called, you haven't written, sent flowers…'
'Is Beychae all right?' Sma said urgently.
'Tsoldrin's fine,' he told her, smiling at the other man. 'Suit; get this autobar to fix us a couple of refreshing but strong drinks.'
'He's okay; good.' The woman sighed. The autobar made a clicking, gurgling noises. 'We haven't called,' Sma said, 'because if we had we'd have let them know where you were; we lost the tight-link when the capsule got blasted. Zakalwe, that was ridiculous; it was pure chaos after the capsule wasted the truck in the Flower Market and you downed that fighter; you're lucky you made it as far as you did. Where is the capsule, anyway?'
'Back at the observatory; Srometren,' he said, looking down as a hatch opened in the autobar. He took the tray with the two drinks on it over to Beychae, sat down at his side. 'Sma; say hello to Tsoldrin Beychae,' he said, handing the other man his drink.
'Mr Beychae?' Sma's voice said from the suit.
'Hello?' Beychae said.
'Pleased to talk to you Mr Beychae. I do hope Mr Zakalwe is treating you all right. Are you well?'
'Tired, but hale.'
'I trust Mr Zakalwe has found time to communicate to you the seriousness of the political situation in the Cluster.'
'He has,' Beychae said. 'I am… I am certainly considering doing what you ask, and for the moment have no urge to return to Solotol.'
'I see,' Sma said, 'I appreciate what you say. I'm sure Mr Zakalwe will do all he can to keep you safe and well while you're deliberating, won't you, Cheradenine?'
'Of course, Diziet. Now; where's that module?'
'Stuck under the cloud tops of Soreraurth, where it was before. Thanks to your nova-profile escapades down there, everything's on maximum alert; we can't move anything without being seen, and if we're seen to be interfering, we might start the war all by ourselves. Describe where that capsule is again; we're going to have to passive-spot it from the microsatellite and then blast it from up here, to remove the evidence. Shit, this is messy, Zakalwe.'
'Well, pardon me,' he said. He drank again. 'The capsule's under a large yellow-leafed deciduous tree between eighty and… one-thirty metres north-east of the observatory. Oh; and the plasma rifle's about… twenty to forty metres due west.'
'You lost it?' Sma sounded incredulous.
'Threw it away in a fit of pique,' he admitted, yawning. 'It got Effectorized.'
'Told you it belonged in a museum,' another voice interrupted.
'Shut-up, Skaffen-Amtiskaw,' he said. 'So, Sma, what now?'
'Gipline Space Terminal, I suppose,' the woman replied. 'We'll see if we can book you on something outgoing; for Impren, or nearby. At worst, you've got a civilian trip ahead of you of weeks at least; if we're lucky they'll stand down the alert and the module can sneak out and rendezvous. Either way though, the war may be a little closer, thanks to what happened in Solotol today. Just think about that, Zakalwe.' The channel closed.
'She sounds unhappy with you, Cheradenine,' Beychae said.
He shrugged. 'No change there,' he sighed.
'I'm really most terribly sorry, gentlepeople; this has never happened before; never. I really am sorry… I just can't understand it… I'll, um… I'll try…' The young man hit buttons on his pocket terminal. 'Hello? Hello! HELLO!' He shook it, banged it with the heel of his hand. 'This is just… just… this has never, never happened before; it really hasn't…' He looked apologetically up at the people in the tour group, clustered round the single light. Most of the people were looking at him; a few were trying their own terminals with no more success than he, and a couple were watching the western sky as though the last red smudge there would give up the aircraft that had so mysteriously decided to leave of its own accord, 'Hello? Hello? Anybody? Please reply.' The young man sounded almost in tears. The very last dreg of light left the sunset sky; moon-glow lit up some thinner patches of cloud. The flashlight flickered. 'Anybody at all; please reply! Oh, please!'
Skaffen-Amtiskaw got back in touch a few minutes later to say that he and Beychae had cabins reserved on a clipper called the
