you?
~ No, sir. Partly, my not bringing servants reflects some of the changes that have occurred in our society since your body-death. These will no doubt be explained in your briefing files.
~ Yes, well, I’ll be taking a further look at those when I have the time. You wouldn’t believe the amount of tests and stuff they’ve been putting me through, even while you were asleep. I had to remind them that constructs need naps, too, or they’d have burned me out in here. But look, Major; this thing about servants. I read up on the Caste War, but I thought it ended up a draw. Dear scum in heaven, does this mean we lost it?
~ No, sir. The war ended in a compromise following the Culture’s intervention.
~ I know that, but a compromise which involves having no servants?
~ No, sir. People still have servants. Officers still employ squires and equerries. However I am of an order which eschews such personal help.
~ Visquile mentioned you were some sort of monk. I didn’t realise you’d be quite so self- denying.
~ There is another reason for travelling alone, sir. If I might remind you, the Chelgrian we are being sent to meet is a Denier.
~ Oh, yeah, this Ziller guy. Some spoiled, fur-rending liberal brat who thinks it’s his God-given duty to do the whining for those who can’t be bothered whining for themselves. Best thing you can do with these people is kick them out. These shits don’t understand the first thing about responsibility or duty. You can’t renounce your caste any more than you can renounce your species. And we’re indulging this arse- leaf?
~ He is a great composer, sir. And we didn’t chuck him out; Ziller left Chel to go into self-exile in the Culture. He renounced his Given status and took-
~ Oh, let me guess. He declared himself an Invisible.
~ Yes, sir.
~ Pity he didn’t go the whole way and make himself a Spayed.
~ At any rate, he is not well disposed to Chelgrian society. The idea was that by going without an entourage I might make myself less intimidating and more acceptable to him.
~ We should not be the ones having to make ourselves acceptable to him, Major.
~ We are in a position where we have no choice, sir. It has been decided at cabinet level that we must try to persuade him to return. I have accepted that mission, as indeed you have yourself. We cannot force him to return, so we must appeal to him.
~ Is he likely to listen?
~ I really have no idea, sir. I knew him when we were both children, I have followed his career and I have enjoyed his music. I have even studied it. However that is all I have to offer. I imagine people closer to him by family or conviction might have been asked to do what I am doing, but it would seem that none of them were prepared to take on the task. I have to accept that while I may not be the ideal candidate, I must be the best of those available for the job, and just get on with it.
~ This all sounds a little forlorn, Major. I worry about your morale.
~ My spirits are at something of a low ebb, sir, for personal reasons; however my morale and sense of purpose are more robust and, when all’s said and done, orders are orders.
~ Yes, aren’t they just, Major?
The Nuisance Value carried a human crew of twenty and a handful of small drones. Two of the humans greeted Quilan in the cramped shuttle hangar and showed him to his quarters, which comprised a single cabin with a low ceiling. His meagre baggage and belongings were already there, transferred from the Navy frigate that had taken him to the hulk of the Winter Storm.
Something like a Navy officer’s cabin had been created for him. One of the drones had been assigned to him; it explained that the cabin’s interior could deform to create something closer to his desires. He told the drone he was content with the present arrangements and was happy to unpack and remove the rest of his vacuum suit by himself.
~ Was that drone trying to be our servant?
~ I doubt it, sir. It may do as we ask if we do so nicely.
~ Huh!
~ So far they all seem quite diffident and determined to be helpful, sir.
~ Right. Suspicious as hell.
Quilan was attended to by the drone, which to his surprise did indeed act as an almost silent and very efficient servant, cleaning his clothes, sorting his kit and advising him on the minimal—almost nonexistent— etiquette that applied on board the Culture vessel.
There was what passed for a formal dinner on the first evening.
~ They still don’t have uniforms? This is a whole society run by fucking dissidents. No wonder I hate it.
The crew treated Quilan with fastidious civility. He learned almost nothing from them or about them. They seemed to spend a great deal of time in simulations and had little time for him. He wondered if they just wanted to avoid him, but didn’t care if they did. He was happy to have the time to himself. He studied their archives through the ship’s own library.
Hadesh Huyler did his own studying, finally absorbing the historical and briefing files that had been loaded along with his own personality into the Soulkeeper device within Quilan’s skull.
They agreed a schedule that would allow Quilan some privacy; if nothing important was taking place then for the hour before sleep and the hour after waking, Huyler would detach from Quilan’s senses.
Huyler’s reactions to the detailed history of the Caste War, which against Quilan’s advice he turned to first, went through amazement, incredulity, outrage, anger and finally—when the Culture’s part became clear—sudden fury followed by icy calm. Quilan experienced these varying emotions from the other being inside his head over the course of an afternoon. It was surprisingly wearing.
Only afterwards did the old soldier go back to the beginning and study in chronological sequence all the things that had happened since his body-death and personality storage.
Like all revived constructs, Huyler’s personality still needed to sleep and dream to remain stable, though this coma-like state could be achieved in a sort of fast-forward time which meant that instead of sleeping all night Huyler could get by on less than an hour’s rest. The first night he slept in the same real-time as Quilan; the second night he studied rather than slept and partook of just that brief period of unconsciousness. The following morning, when Quilan re-established contact after his hour’s grace, the voice in his head said, ~ Major.
~ Sir.
~ You lost your wife. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.
~ It’s not something I talk about much, sir.
~ Was that the other soul you were looking for on the ship where you found me?
~ Yes, sir.
~ She was Army too.
~ Yes, sir. Also a major. We joined up together, before the war.
~ She must have loved you a lot to follow you into the Army.
~ Actually it was more me following her, sir; enlisting was her idea. Trying to rescue the souls stored in the Military Institute on Aorme before the rebels got there was her idea too.
~ She sounds like quite a female.
~ She was, sir.
~ I’m really sorry, Major Quilan. I was never married myself, but I know what it is to love and to lose. I just want you to know I feel for you, that’s all.
