“Dour?”
“Reserved and quiet, quite serious, with a sort of stillness in him.”
“Stillness.”
“The sort of stillness there is in the centre of the third movement of ‘Tempest Night’, when the steel-winds fall silent and the basses hold those long, descending notes.”
“Oh, a symphonic stillness. And is this mooted affinity with one of my works supposed to endear him to me?”
“That was the entirety of my purpose.”
“You are a quite shameless procurer, aren’t you, Kabe?”
“Am I?”
“Don’t you feel even the slightest shame at doing their bidding like this?”
“Whose bidding?”
“Hub’s, the Contact Section, the Culture as a whole, not to mention my own enchanting society and splendid government.”
“I don’t think your government is bidding me do anything.”
“Kabe, you don’t know what sort of help they asked for or demanded from Contact.”
“Well, I—”
“Oh, grief.”
“Did I hear our name mentioned? Ah, Cr Ziller. Ar Ischloear. Dear friends, so good to see you.”
“Tersono. You look positively polished.”
“Thank you!”
“And a very pleasant crowd you’ve gathered, as ever.”
“Kabe, you are one of my most important weathervanes, if I may elevate and reduce you at the same time. I rely utterly on you to tell me whether something is genuinely going well or whether people are just being polite, so I’m so glad that you feel that way.”
“And Kabe is glad that you are glad. I was asking him about our Chelgrian chum.”
“Ah, yes, poor Quilan.”
“Poor?”
“Yes, you know; his wife.”
“No, I don’t know. What? Is she particularly ugly?”
“No! She’s dead.”
“A condition that rarely attends an improvement in looks.”
“Ziller! Really! The poor fellow lost his wife in the Caste War. Didn’t you know?”
“No.”
“I think Ziller has been as assiduous in avoiding all knowledge of Major Quilan as I have been in accumulating it.”
“And you haven’t shared that knowledge with Ziller, Kabe? For shame!”
“My shame seems an especially popular subject this evening. But no, I have not. I might have been about to just before you arrived.”
“Yes, it was all terribly tragic. They hadn’t been married long.”
“At least they can look forward to a reunion in the absurd blasphemy of our manufactured heaven.”
“Apparently not. Her implant was not able to save her personality. She is gone forever.”
“How very careless. And what of the Major’s implants?”
“What of them, dear Ziller?”
“What are they? Have you checked him for any unusual ones? The sort of things that special agents, spies, assassins tend to have. Well? Have you checked him over for that sort of thing?”
“…It’s gone quiet. Do you think it’s broken?”
“I think it’s communicating elsewhere.”
“Is that what those colours mean?”
“I don’t think so.”
“That’s just grey, isn’t it?”
“I think technically it’s gunmetal.”
“And is that magenta?”
“More violet. Though of course your eyes are different from mine.”
“Ahem.”
“Oh, you’re back.”
“Indeed. The answer is that Emissary Quilan was scanned several times on the way here. Ships don’t let people aboard without inspecting them for anything that might be dangerous.”
“You’re certain?”
“My dear Ziller, he’s been transported by what are in effect three Culture warships. Do you have any idea how nano-scopically fanatical those things can be about potential-harm hygiene?”
“What about his Soulkeeper?”
“Not scanned directly; that would imply reading his mind, which is
“Ah-ha!”
“Ah-ha what?”
“Ziller is worried that the Major might be here to kidnap or murder him.”
“That would be preposterous.”
“Nevertheless.”
“Ziller, my dear friend, please, if that is what is preying on your mind, have no fears. Kidnap is… I can’t tell you how unlikely. Murder… No. Major Quilan has brought nothing with him more harmful than a ceremonial dagger.”
“Ah! So I might be put to death ceremonially. That’s different. Let’s meet up tomorrow. We could go camping. Share a tent. Is he gay? We could fuck. I’m not but it’s been a while, aside from Hub’s dream- houris.”
“Kabe, stop laughing; you ought not to encourage him. Ziller, the dagger is a dagger, no more.”
“Not a knife missile, then?”
“Not a knife missile, not even in disguise or memoryform. It is simple, solid steel and silver. It’s little better than a letter-opener really. I’m sure if we asked him to leave it—”
“Forget the stupid dagger! Maybe it’s a virus; a disease or something.”
“Hmm.”
“What do you mean, ‘Hmm’?”
“Well, our medicine effectively became perfect about eight thousand years ago, and we’ve had all that time to get used to evaluating other species rapidly to develop a full understanding of their physiology, so any ordinary disease, even a new one, is unable to establish a foothold thanks to the body’s own defences and will certainly be utterly helpless against external medical resources. However, somebody did once develop a genetic signature-keyed brain-rotting virus which worked so quickly it proved effective on more than one occasion. Five minutes after the assassin had sneezed in the same room as the intended victim their brains—and only theirs—were turning to soup.”
“And?”
“So we look for that sort of thing. And Quilan is clean.”
“So, there’s nothing here but the pure, cellular him?”
“Apart from his Soulkeeper.”
“Well, what about this Soulkeeper?”
“It’s a simple Soulkeeper, as far as we can tell. Certainly it’s the same size and has a similar outward appearance.”
“A similar outward appearance. As far as you can
“Yes, it’s—”
“And these people, my Homomdan friend, have established a reputation for thoroughness throughout the
