Excession

the floor, legs splayed out under the table, gaze directed upwards at the translucent dome. 'Fucking hell!' she shouted. She tried accessing the Jaundiced Outlook's senses, and eventually found a view of hyperspace ahead of the Sleeper Service. More or less back to normal, indeed. She shook her head. 'Fucking hell,' she muttered.

Dajeil began to weep. Genar-Hofoen sat forward, watching her, one hand to his mouth, pinching his lower lip.

The black bird Gravious, which had been peeking round the corner of the door and shivering with fear for the last few minutes, suddenly bounced beating into the air in a dark confusion of furious movement and started wheeling round the room screaming, 'We're alive! We're going to live! It's going to be all right! Yee-ha! Oh, life, life, sweet life!'

Neither Dajeil nor Genar-Hofoen seemed to notice it.

Ulver glanced from one to the other then leapt up and tried to grab the fluttering bird. It yelped. 'Oi! What-?'

'Out, you idiot!' Ulver hissed, lunging at it again as it swooped for the door. She followed it, turning briefly to mutter, 'Excuse me,' to the others. She closed the door.

X

The Torturer class Rapid Offensive Unit Killing Time had been far enough away from the Sleeper Service and its war fleet not to have felt threatened by the Excession's projected blast-front and yet close enough to see what the GSV had done.

It had looked upon the vast weapon that the Excession had unleashed and been dumbstruck with awe and a microscopic amount of jealousy; hell, it wished it could do that! But then the weapon had been turned off, called back. Now the Killing Time had a new series of emotions to cope with.

It looked at the ships the Sleeper Service had scattered about it and felt an instant of disappointment; there would be no battle. No real battle, anyway.

Then it experienced elation. They had won!

Then it felt suspicious. Was the Sleeper actually on the same side as it, or not?

It hoped they were all on the same side; even the most glorious of sacrifices began to look rather futile and pointless when carried out against such ludicrous odds; like spitting into a volcano…

Just then the Sleeper Service signalled the warship and asked a favour of it, and the Killing Time felt pretty damn good again; honoured, in fact. This was what war should be like!

The Killing Time agreed to do as the GSV requested. The ROU sounded proud. It was not an attractive tone. How depressing, the Sleeper Service thought. That it should all come down to this; the person with the biggest stick prevails.

Of course, this was only one fray. There was another matter to be dealt with; the Excession, and it had proved comprehensively unable to provide any sort of answer to that.

Anyway, I ought not to be so hard on the Killing Time just because it is a warship. There have been a surprising number of wise warships. Though it would be fair to say — as I think even they would admit — that few started out headed on such a course.

To live for ever and die often, it considered. Or at least to think that you're going to die. Perhaps that is one way of achieving wisdom. It was not a completely original insight, but it was one that had, perhaps understandably, never struck the GSV with such force before.

The Sleeper watched the humans aboard the Jaundiced Outlook respond as the avatar told them they'd been reprieved. It would follow their reactions, of course, but it had other things to do at the same time. Like think about what it was to do with the new knowledge it had.

It watched its distributed warcraft rise within the skein of real space; raptors within an infinite sky. Meat, could it do some goodly mischief now… It started by diverting a few hundred ships in the direction of the Not Invented Here.

XI

The Grey Area watched the Excession's fiery tide fall back and reduce almost to nothing. They were going to live! Probably.

The Sleeper's three warships continued to decelerate it down to the velocities its engines would be able to cope with. They seemed to have been perfectly undisturbed by the whole appalling scenario. Perhaps, thought the Grey Area, there was after all something to be said for being a relatively brainless AI core.

— That was close! it sent to them.

— Yes, said one of the craft, flatly. The others remained silent.

— Weren't you a little worried there? it asked the talkative one.

— No. What would be the point of worrying?

— Ha! Well, indeed, the Grey Area sent. Cretin, it thought.

It looked back out, ahead, to where the Excession was. And what of you? it thought. Something that could put the fear of death into a GSV. That really was something. What are you? it wondered.

How it would love to know.

— Excuse me while I signal, it said to its military escorts.

[tight beam, Mclear, tra. @4.28.891.7352]

xGCU Grey Area

oExcession call-signed 'I'

Let's talk, shall we?

XII

Captain Greydawn Latesetting X of the Farsight tribe stared at the display. The vast pulse of energy the thing near Esperi had directed at the Culture General Systems Vehicle had disappeared. In its place, as though appearing from behind it, was… It could not be so. He checked. He contacted his comrades in the other ships. Those who answered thought it must be some malfunction in their vessels' sensors; an effect of the energies which had been directed at the giant Culture craft. He asked his own ship, the Heavy Messing.

— What is that?

— That is a cloud of warships, it told him.

— A what?

— I think it best described as a cloud of warships. This is not a generally accepted term, I hasten to add, but I cannot think of a better description. I count approximately eighty thousand craft.