The night wore on. Gradually people went off to their curl-pads. After a while, only Visquile, Eweirl and he were left, served by the larger of the two Invisibles, a male even bulkier than Eweirl who manoeuvred his way amongst the tables with surprising adroitness, his green-banded head swinging this way and that and his white clothes making him look like a ghost in the dim light.
Eweirl tripped him up a couple of times, on the second occasion causing him to drop a tray of glasses. When this happened Eweirl put his head back and laughed loudly. Visquile looked on like the indulgent parent of a spoiled child. The big servant apologised and felt his way to the bar to bring back a dustpan and broom.
Eweirl sank another cup of spirit and watched the servant lift a table out of the way one-handed. He challenged him to an arm-wrestling contest. The Invisible declined, so Eweirl ordered him to take part, which eventually he did, and won.
Eweirl was left panting with exertion; the big Invisible put his jacket back on, inclined his green-banded head, and resumed his duties.
Quilan was slumped in his curl-seat watching events with one eye closed. Eweirl did not look happy that the servant had won the contest. He drank some more. Estodien Visquile, who did not seem very drunk at all, asked Quilan some questions about his wife, his military career, his family and his beliefs. Quilan remembered trying not to appear evasive. Eweirl watched the big Invisible go about his duties, his white-furred body looking tensed and coiled.
“They might find the ship yet, Quil,” the Estodien told him. “There may still be wreckage. The Culture; their consciences. Helping us look for the lost ships. It might turn up yet. Not her, of course. She is quite lost. The gone- before say there is no sign, no hint of her Soulkeeper having worked. But we might yet find the ship, and know more of what happened.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “She is dead. That’s all that matters. Nothing else. I don’t care about anything else.”
“Not even your own survival after death, Quilan?” the Estodien asked.
“That least of all. I don’t want to survive. I want to die. I want to be as she is. No more. Nothing more. Ever again.”
The Estodien nodded silently, his eyelids drooping, a small smile playing across his face. He glanced at Eweirl. Quilan looked too.
The white-furred male had quietly changed seats. He waited until the big Invisible was approaching, then stood up suddenly in his path. The servant collided with him, spilling three cups of spirit over Eweirl’s waistcoat.
“You clumsy fuck! Can’t you see where you’re going?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know you’d moved.” The servant offered Eweirl a cloth from his waistband.
Eweirl knocked it away. “I don’t want your rag!” he screamed. “I said, can’t you see where you’re going?” He picked at the lower edge of the green band covering the other male’s eyes. The big Invisible flinched instinctively, pulling back. Eweirl had hooked a leg behind him; he stumbled and fell and Eweirl went down with him in a flurry of crashing glasses and tumbling chairs.
Eweirl staggered to his feet and jerked the big male after him. “Attack me, would you? Attack me, would you?” he yelled. He had pulled the servant’s jacket down across his shoulders and over his arms so that he was half helpless, though the servant anyway did not seem to be putting up any fight. He stood impassively as Eweirl screamed at him.
Quilan didn’t like this. He looked at Visquile, but the Estodien was looking on tolerantly. Quilan pushed himself up from the table they were curled at. The Estodien put a hand on his arm, but he pulled it away.
“Traitor!” Eweirl bellowed at the Invisible. “Spy!” He pulled the servant round and pushed him this way and that; the big male crashed into tables and chairs, staggering and nearly falling, unable to save himself with his trapped arms, each time using what leverage he had from his midlimb to fend off the unseen obstacles.
Quilan started to make his way round the table. He tripped over a chair and had to fall across the table to avoid hitting the floor. Eweirl was spinning and pushing the Invisible, trying to disorient him or make him dizzy as well as get him to fall over. “Right!” he shouted in the servant’s ear. “I’m taking you to the cells!” Quilan pushed himself away from the table.
Eweirl held the servant before him and started marching not to the double doors which led from the bar but towards the terrace doors. The servant went uncomplainingly at first, then must have regained his sense of direction or maybe just smelled or heard the sea and felt the open air on his fur, because he pushed back and started to say something in protest.
Quilan was trying to get in front of Eweirl and the Invisible, to intercept them. He was a few metres to the side now, feeling his way round the tables and chairs.
Eweirl reached up with one hand, pulled the green eye-band down—so that for an instant Quilan could see the Invisible’s two empty sockets—and forced it over the servant’s mouth. Then he whipped the other male’s legs from under him and while he was still trying to stagger back to his feet ran him out across the terrace to the wall and up-ended the Invisible over the top and into the night.
He stood there, breathing heavily, as Quilan came stumbling up to his side. They both looked over. There was a dim white ruff of surf round the base of the seastack. After a moment Quilan could see the pale shape of the tiny falling figure, outlined against the dark sea. After a moment more, the faint sound of a scream floated up to them. The white figure joined the surf with no visible splash and the scream stopped a few moments later.
“Clumsy,” Eweirl said. He wiped some spittle from around his mouth. He smiled at Quilan, then looked troubled and shook his head. “Tragic,” he said. “High spirits.” He put one hand on Quilan’s shoulder. “High jinks, eh?” He reached out and brought Quilan into a hug, pressing him hard into his chest. Quilan tried to push away, but the other male was too strong. They swayed, close to the wall and the drop. The other male’s lips were at his ear. “Do you think he wanted to die, Quil? Hmm, Quilan? Hmm? Do you think he wanted to die? Do you?”
“I don’t know,” Quilan mumbled, finally being allowed to use his midlimb to push himself away. He stood looking up at the white-furred male. He felt more sober now. He was half terrified, half careless. “I know you killed him,” he said, and immediately thought that he might die too, now. He thought about taking up the classical defensive position, but didn’t.
Eweirl smiled and looked back at Visquile, who still sat where he had been throughout. “Tragic accident,” Eweirl said. The Estodien spread his hands. Eweirl held onto the wall to stop himself swaying, and waved at Quilan. “Tragic accident.”
Quilan felt suddenly
“You chose me, then?”
“You chose yourself, Major.”
He and Visquile sat in the privateer’s lounge area. Along with Eweirl, they were the only people aboard. The ship had its own AI, albeit an uncommunicative one. Visquile claimed not to know the craft’s orders, or its destination.
Quilan drank slowly; a restorative laced with anti-hangover chemicals. It was working, though it might have worked more quickly.
“And what Eweirl did to the Blinded Invisible?”
Visquile shrugged. “What happened was unfortunate. These accidents happen when people drink freely.”
“It was murder, Estodien.”
“That would be impossible to prove, Major. Personally I was, like the unfortunate concerned, unsighted at the time.” He smiled. Then the smile faded. “Besides, Major, I think you’ll find Called-To-Arms Eweirl has a certain latitude in such matters.” He reached out and patted Quilan’s hand. “You must not concern yourself with the unhappy incident any further.”
Quilan spent a lot of time in the ship’s gym. Eweirl did, too, though they exchanged few words. Quilan had little he wanted to say to the other male, and Eweirl didn’t seem to care. They worked and hauled and pulled and ran and sweated and panted and dust-bathed and showered alongside each other, but barely acknowledged the other’s presence. Eweirl wore earplugs and a visor, and sometimes laughed as he exercised, or made growling,
