Excession

designs using up a little less than one per cent of the mass of each craft. There is a chance that hidden in amongst that complexity will be independent security nano-devices which will activate at the same time as each ship's main systems and which will require some additional coded reassurance that all is well, otherwise they will attempt to disable or even destroy the ship. These will have to be looked for. As your weapons officer says, the craft will each have to be scanned at least down to the level of individual atoms. I shall begin this task the instant I have completed the reprogramming of the base's Mind. This will delay us, that's all; the ships would have required scanning in any event, and in the meantime, nobody knows we're here. You will have your war fleet in a matter of days rather than hours, Commander, but you will have it.'

The weapons officer's space suit turned to face the Commander's. The light illuminating the outlandish designs switched off. Somehow, from the way he performed these actions, the weapons officer conveyed a mood of scepticism and perhaps even disgust to the Commander.

'Ka!' the Commander said contemptuously, whirling away and heading back towards the airlock doors. He needed to wreck something. The accommodation section ought to provide articles which would be satisfying but unimportant. His personal guard swept after him, weapons ready.

Passing over the still, frozen body of the human — even that hadn't provided any sport — Commander Risingmoon Parchseason IV of the Farsight tribe and the battleship Xenoclast — on secondment to the alien ship Attitude Adjuster — unholstered one of the external weapons on his own suit and blasted the small figure into a thousand pieces, scattering fragments of frosty pink and white across the cold floor of the hangar like a small, delicate fall of snow.

7. Tier

I

Such investigations took time. There was the time that even hyperspacially transmitted information took to traverse the significant percentages of the galaxy involved, there were complicated routes to arrange, other Minds to talk to, sometimes after setting up appointments because they were absent in Infinite Fun space for a while. Then the Minds had to be casualed up to, or gossip or jokes or thoughts on a mutual interest had to be exchanged before a request or a suggestion was put which re-routed and disguised an information search; sometimes these re-routes took on extra loops, detours and shuntings as the Minds concerned thought to play down their own involvement or involve somebody else on a whim, so that often wildly indirect paths resulted, branching and re- branching and doubling back on themselves until eventually the relevant question was asked and the answer, assuming it was forthcoming, started the equally tortuous route back to the original requester. Frequently simple seeker-agent programs or entire mind-state abstracts were sent off on even more complicated missions with detailed instructions on what to look for, where to find it, who to ask and how to keep their tracks covered.

Mostly it was done like that; through Minds, AI core memories and innumerable public storage systems, information reservoirs and databases containing schedules, itineraries, lists, plans, catalogues, registers, rosters and agenda.

Sometimes, though, when that way — the relatively easy, quick and simple way — was closed to the inquirer for some reason, usually to do with keeping the inquiry secret, things had to be done the slow way, the messy way, the physical way. Sometimes there was no alternative.

The vacuum dirigible approached the floating island under a brilliantly clear night sky awash with moon and star light. The main body of the airship was a giant fat disk half a kilometre across with a finish like brushed aluminium; it glinted in the blue-grey light as if frosted, though the night was warm, balmy and scented with the heady perfume of wineplant and sierra creeper. The craft's two gondolas — one on top, one suspended underneath — were smaller, thinner disks only three storeys in height, each slowly revolving in different directions, their edges glowing with lights.

The sea beneath the airship was mostly black-dark, but in places it glowed dimly in giant, slowly fading Vs as giant sea creatures surfaced to breathe or to sieve new levels of the waters for their tiny prey, and so disturbed the light-emitting plankton near the surface.

The island floated high in the breeze-ruffled waters, its base a steeply fluted pillar that extended a kilometre down into the sea's salty depths, its thin, spire-like mountains thrusting a similar distance into the cloudless air. It too was scattered with lights; of small towns, villages, individual houses, lanterns on beaches and smaller aircraft, most of them come out to welcome the vacuum dirigible.

The two slowly revolving gondola sections slid gradually to a halt, preparatory to docking. People in both segments congregated on the sides nearest the island, for the view. The airship's system registered the imbalance building up and pumped bubblecarbon spheres full of vacuum from one lot of tanks to another, so maintaining a suitably even keel.

The island's main town drifted slowly closer, the docking tower bright with lights. Lasers, fireworks and searchlights all fought for attention.

'I really should go, Tish,' the drone Gruda Aplam said. 'I didn't promise, but I did kind of say I'd probably stop by…'

'Ah, stop by on the way back,' Tishlin said, waving his glass. 'Let them wait.'

He stood on the balcony outside one of the lower gondola's mid-level bars. The drone — a very old thing, like two grey-brown rounded cubes one on top of the other and three-quarters the size of a human — floated beside him. They'd only met that day, four days into the cruise over the Orbital's floating islands and they'd got on famously, quite as though they'd been friends for a century or more. The drone was much older than the man but they found they had the same attitudes, the same beliefs and the same sense of humour. They both liked telling stories, too. Tishlin had the impression he hadn't yet scratched the veneer off the old machine's tales of when it had been in Contact — a millennium before he had, and goodness knew he was considered an old codger these days.

He liked the ancient machine; he'd really come on this cruise looking for romance, and he still hoped to find it, but in the meantime finding such a perfect companion and raconteur had already made him glad he'd come. The trouble was the drone was supposed to get off here and go to visit some old drone pals who lived on the island, before resuming its cruise on the next dirigible, due in a few days' time. A month from now, it would be leaving on the GSV that had brought it here.

'But I feel I'd be letting them down.'

'Look, just stay another day,' the man suggested. 'You never did finish telling me about — what was it, Bhughredi?'

'Yes, Bhughredi.' The old drone chuckled.

'Exactly. Bhughredi; the sea nukes and the interference effect thing or whatever it was.'

'Damnedest way to launch a ship,' the old drone agreed, and made a sighing noise.

'So what did happen?'

'Like I said, it's a long story.'

'So stay tomorrow; tell me it. You're a drone for goodness' sake; you can float back by yourself…'

'But I said I'd visit them when the airship got here, Tish. Anyway; my AG units are due a service; they'd probably fail and I'd end up at the bottom of the sea having to be rescued; very embarrassing.'

'Take a flyer back!' the man said, watching the island's shore slide underneath. People gathered round fires on the beach waved up at the craft. He could hear music drifting on the warm breeze.

'Oh, I don't know… They'd probably be upset.'

Tishlin drank from his glass and frowned down at the waves breaking on the beach which led towards the lights of the town. A particularly large and vivid firework detonated in the air directly above the bright docking