Excession

oo

(Permission withheld.) Such concern would be better expressed by leaving me alone. Your visit might even attract attention, all of which I find intrinsically unwelcome. Please leave immediately, and kindly create less of a display on departure than you made on your arrival.

oo

I consider it my duty to assess your current state of integrity. I regret to say I have not been reassured by your recalcitrant attitude. You will do me the minimally polite honour of allowing me to interface with your independent external event-monitoring systems. (PTA burst.)

oo

(Permission withheld.) No! I shall not! I am perfectly able to take care of myself and there is nothing of interest contained within my associated independent security systems. Any attempt to access them without my permission will be treated as an act of aggression. This is your last chance to quit my jurisdiction before I emit a protest-registering signal concerning your unreasonable and boorish behaviour.

oo

I have already composed my own report detailing your bizarre and uncooperative attitude and copying this signal exchange. I shall release the compac immediately if a satisfactory reply is not received to this message. (PTA burst.)

…

Acknowledge signal.

…

Acknowledge signal!

I repeat: I have already composed my own report detailing your bizarre and uncooperative attitude. I shall release the compac immediately if a satisfactory reply is not received to this message. I shall not warn you again. (PTA burst.)

oo

(Permission granted.) Purely in the interests of a quiet life, only on condition that my associate security monitoring systems remain untouched, and under protest.

oo

Thank you; of course.

Under way. Heaving to at 2km from your rotational envelope in thirty minutes.

— Thanks to your delaying tactics, Commander, it probably already suspects something and may well have signalled back to whoever sent it already. Think yourself lucky we have as much as half an hour to prepare; it is being cautious.

They had re-sealed the airlocks from the accommodation section and pumped in some real atmosphere. Commander Risingmoon Parchseason IV of the Farsight tribe had been able to shed his space suit some days earlier. The gravity was still far too mild but it was better than floating. The Commander clicked his beak at the image on the screen presented by the mobile command centre they'd set up in what had been the humans' pool/growing unit. A lieutenant at the Commander's side spoke quietly but urgently to the twenty other Affronters distributed throughout the base's caverns, letting them know what was going on.

The Commander looked back impatiently, waiting for the servant who'd been sent to fetch his suit the instant the Culture warship had appeared on the other craft's sensors. On secondary screens, he could see suited Affronter technicians, their machines and some slaved drones working on the exteriors of the stored ships. They had about half of them ready to get out and go; a decent fleet, but they needed the rest, and preferably all at once, and as a complete surprise to the Culture and everybody else.

'Can't you destroy it?' the Commander asked the traitor Culture vessel. He glanced at the status of the nearest Affront vessels. Far too far away. They had avoided approaching Pittance in case they could be monitored by other Culture craft.

The Attitude Adjuster didn't like vocalising; it preferred to print out its side of a conversation:

— If it gets to within a few minutes, yes, perhaps. It might have been relatively easy, if I could have caught it completely unawares. However, I doubt that was ever very likely given that it must have been suspicious to come here in the first place and is almost certainly completely out of the question now.

'What about the ships we've cleared?'

— Commander, they haven't been woken up yet. Until I've done that they're useless. And if we wake half of them now they'll have too long to think, too much time to do their own checking around before we need them for the main action. Our project must all happen in a rush, in a state of perceived chaos, panic and urgency, or it cannot happen effectively at all.

There was a pause while the message scrolled along and off the screen, then:

— Commander, I suspect this will be a formality, but I have to ask; do you wish to admit to what has happened here and turn your command over without a fight to the ROU Killing Time? This will probably be our last opportunity to avoid hostilities.

'Don't be ridiculous,' the Commander said sourly.

— I thought not. Very well. I shall vector away in the skein-shadow of the rock and try to loop round behind the ROU. Let it enter the defence system. Wait until it's a week inside, no more, and then set everything you have upon it. I urge you again, Commander; turn over the tactical command apparatus to me.

'No,' the Commander said. 'Leave and do whatever you think will best jeopardise the Culture vessel. I shall allow it to arrive at a point three weeks in and then attack.'

— I am on my way. Do not let the ship come within a light week of the store itself, Commander. I know how it will think if it is attacked; this is not some genteel Orbital Mind or a nicely timorous General Contact Unit; this is a Culture warship showing every sign of being fully armed and ready to press matters.

'What, creeping in as it is?' the Commander sneered.

— Commander, you would be amazed and appalled at how few bright sides there are concerning the appearance and behaviour of a warship like this. The fact it's not charging in through the defence screen and metaphorically skidding to a stop is almost certainly a bad sign; it probably means it's one of the wily ones. I repeat; do not wait until it is most of the way into the defence system before opening fire. Assaulted so far inside the defensive field it may well figure that it has no chance of escape and so might as well continue towards you and attack, and at that sort of range it would stand a decent chance of being able to obliterate the entire store and all the ships within it.

The Commander felt almost annoyed that the ship hadn't appealed to his own personal sense of self- preservation. 'Very well,' he snapped. 'Half way in; two weeks.'

— Commander, no! That is still too close. If we cannot destroy the ship in the first instant of the engagement it must be presented with a reasonable opportunity to escape, otherwise it may go for glory rather than attempt to extricate itself.

'But if it escapes it can alert the Culture!'

— If our attack is not immediately successful it will signal elsewhere anyway, assuming it has not already done so. We shall not be able to stop it. In that case, we shall have been discovered… though with any luck that will only put our plans out by a few days. Believe me, the craft's physical escape will not bring the Culture here any quicker than a signal would. You will be putting this entire mission in jeopardy if you allow the vessel to come within more than three light weeks of the store.

'All right!' the Commander spat. He flicked a tentacle over the glowing board of the command desk. The communication link was cut. The Attitude Adjuster did not attempt to re-establish it.

'Your suit, sir,' said a voice from behind. The Commander whirled round to find the gelding midshipman — uniformed but not suited — with his space suit in his limbs.

'Oh, at last! the Commander screamed; he flicked a tentacle at the creature's eye stalks; the blow bounced them back off its casing. The gelding whimpered and fell back, gas sac deflating. The Commander grabbed his suit and pulled himself inside it. The midshipman staggered along the floor, half