Excession

For what it's worth, the Killing Time is making all speed for Esperi. Nine days from now we'll have the Not Invented Here and the Different Tan from the Gang there. The NIH has two operational Thug class ROUs it's in the process of cannoning-up, a Hooligan LOU and a Delinquent GOU. Another couple of GSVs should be there too if they aren't diverted because of the war, with a total of five OUs, two of them Torturer class. Eight of Phage's Psychopath ROUs are bound for the Excession but the rest are down for defensive duties elsewhere to cope with likely threats from Affront battle units. Even those eight won't get within punch-throwing range of the Excession until two days after the Affront can be there. Bottom line is there are a total of ten warships of various classes capable of making it to the Excession in time to make a stand against the Affront; enough to hold off the entire Affront navy if that was all we were going to be faced with, but simply not capable of holding back more than an eighth of the ships that could come out of Pittance. If they all go straight to the Excession, it will be theirs.

For the record, all the remaining ship stores are breaking themselves open, but the nearest is over five weeks' travel away. A gesture, that's all.

Oh, and a few other Involveds have offered help but they're all either too weak or too far away. A couple of other barbarics are probably going to declare for the Affront once they've stopped scratching their heads and worked out what they might be able to get up to with the Culture's attention diverted, but they're even less relevant.

And if we were expecting some well-disposed Elders to step into the nursery and confiscate all our toys and restore order, it doesn't look very likely so far; no notice taken, as far as anybody can tell.

oo

So. That just leaves our old friend, currently — possibly, probably, almost certainly — also en route. Wild card? Somehow part of the conspiracy? Have we any more thoughts? Come to that, have you had any reply from it?

oo

None, and no. No offence, but the SS is one of the more unfathomable Eccentrics. Perhaps it thinks the Excession requires Storing, perhaps it intends to ram it at that speed, or attempt to plunge into it and access other universes… I don't know. There is some private issue being played out in this, I believe, and Genar-Hofoen fits in somewhere. I have almost given up thinking about this aspect of affairs. I shall continue my attempts to contact it but I don't think it's even looking at its signal files. The point is that the war itself takes precedence, with the Excession prioritised beyond that.

oo

No offence taken. So we are left with the Affront on the cusp of apotheosis or nemesis.

oo

Indeed. Quite how they intend to use these elderly but still potent warships to take control of the Excession one can only hazard at; perhaps they intend surrounding it and charging admission… But they have begun a war which — unless they can somehow gain control of the Excession and exploit it — they can only lose. They have a few hundred half-millennium-old warships; capable of inflicting untold damage let loose in a peaceable, un- militarised if relatively un-populated section of the galaxy, certainly, but only for a month or two at most. Then the Culture gathers the force to crush them utterly, and moves on to rip the Affront hegemony to shreds and impose its own peace upon it. There can be no other outcome. Unless the Excession does come into play. Which I doubt.

Maybe it is some sort of projection; maybe its appearance was not fortuitous but planned. This looks unlikely, I know, but everything else about this has been so cunningly put together… Whatever; the argument which everybody had thought was lost at the end of the Idiran War is about to be won. The agreement come to then is in the process of being overturned.

I for one am not going to stand for this. We may have failed to frustrate the conspiracy but it will still be possible to work towards the discovery of the guilty parties involved in its planning and implementation, both during and after the hostilities. I intend to copy all my thoughts, theories, evidence, communications and all other relevant documentation to every trusted colleague and contact I possess. If you have any intention of taking part in the course of action I am suggesting, I urge you to do the same and to relay this advice to The Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival.

I intend to pursue the perpetrators of this unnecessary war for as long as it takes until they are brought to justice, and I am aware both that I will no longer be able to do so without them knowing that I am doing so, and that there is no better circumstance to arrange for the jeopardisation of a fellow Mind than in time of war, when blanket secrecies are imposed, warcraft of every sort are loosed, mistakes can be claimed to have been made, deals done, mercenaries hired and old scores settled.

I do not believe I am being melodramatic in this. I will be under terminal threat and so will anybody else who determines to adopt the same course as I. The conspirators have played exceedingly dirty until this point and I cannot imagine they will do other than continue to do so now that their filthy scheme is on the very brink of success.

What do you say? Will you join in this perilous mission?

oo

How I wish that I could persuade myself, never mind you, that you are being melodramatic.

You risk more than I. My Eccentricity might save me. We have gone this far together. Count me in.

Oh, meat, they never said this would happen when they invited me onto the Group and into the Gang…

Hmm. I had forgotten how unpleasant the emotion of fear is. This is hateful! You're right. Let's get these bastards. How dare they disturb my peace of mind so just to teach some tentacled bunch of backwoods barbarians a lesson!

V

The battle-cruiser Kiss The Blade caught the cruise ship Just Passing Through on the outskirts of the Ekro system. The Culture craft — ten-kilometres of sleek beauty host to two hundred thousand holidaying travellers of umpteen different species-types — hove to as soon as the battle- cruiser came within range but the Affronter vessel put a shot across its bows anyway, just on general principles. The more determinedly assiduous revellers hadn't believed the announcement about the war anyway, and thought the missile warhead's detonation which lit up the skies ahead of the ship was just some particularly big but otherwise unimpressive firework.

It had been close. Another hour's warning and the Culture ship's hurried reconfiguring and matter- scavenging engine-rebuild would have ensured its escape. But it wasn't to be.

The two ships joined. In the reception vestibule, a small party of people met a trio of suited Affronters as they emerged from the airlocks in a swirl of cool mists.

'You are the ship's representative?'

'Yes,' the squat figure at the front of the humans said. 'And you?'

'I am Colonel Alien-Befriender (first class) Fivetide Humidyear VII of the Winterhunter tribe and the battle- cruiser Kiss The Blade. This ship is claimed as prize in the name of the Affront Republic according to the normal rules of war. If you obey all our instructions promptly, there is every possibility that no harm will come to you, your passengers or crew. In case you have any illusions concerning your status, you are now our hostages. Any questions?'

'None that I either can't guess the answer to or imagine you'd answer truthfully,' the avatar said. 'Your jurisdiction is accepted under force of arms alone. Your actions while this situation persists will be recorded. Nothing less than the total destruction of this vessel atom by atom will wipe out that record, and when in due course-'

'Yes, yes. I'll contact my lawyers now. Now take me to your best suite fitted out for Affront physiology.'

The girl was indignant with a kind of ferocity probably only somebody from the Peace faction could muster in such a situation. 'But we're the Peace faction,' she protested for the fifth or sixth time. 'We're… we're like the true Culture, the way it used to be…'