Oramen doubted General Foise would even understand.
He’d tell nobody, not for now.
He considered taking the World model to the cliff above the gorge and throwing it in, but was concerned that it would just be dredged up again by some collector. In the end he had Neguste carry the thing to the nearest foundry and had them melt it down while he watched. The foundrymen were amazed at the temperatures required to slag it, and even then there was still some unmelted debris left, both floating above the resulting liquid and sunk to its base. Oramen ordered the whole split into a dozen different ingots and delivered to him as soon as they’d cooled.
That morning, on his way to watch the demise of the blade-building, he’d thrown some into the gorge. He consigned the rest to latrines.
“Well, it all sounds most unpleasant,” Droffo said. He shook his head. “You hear all sorts of ridiculous stories; the workers are full of them. Too much drink, too little learning.”
“No, more than that, sir,” Neguste told him. “These are facts.”
“I think I might dispute that,” Droffo said.
“All the same, sir, facts is facts. That itself’s a fact.”
“Well, let’s go and see for ourselves, shall we?” Oramen said, looking round at the other two. “Tomorrow. We’ll take the narrow-gauge and cableways and britches boys or whatever we need to take and we’ll go and have a look under the great ghostly, spooky plaza. Yes? Tomorrow. We’ll do it then.”
“Well,” Droffo said, looking up into the sky again. “If you feel you have to, prince; however—”
“Begging pardon, sir,” Neguste said, nodding behind Oramen. “Building’s falling over.”
“What?” Oramen said, turning back again.
The great blade of a building was indeed falling. It pivoted, turning fractionally towards them, still moving slowly at first, whirling gradually through the air, the edge of its summit parting the mists and clouds of spray and making them whorl around its surfaces and sharpnesses as it leant diagonally away from the plaza and the main face of the waterfall behind, picking up speed and turning further like a man starting to fall on his face but then twisting to lead with one shoulder. One long edge came down, hitting the spray and the sandbanks beneath like a blade chopping through a child’s dam on a beach, the rest of the building following on to it, parts finally starting to crumple as the whole structure slammed into the waves, raising enormous pale fans of muddy water to half the height of their own vantage point.
Finally, some sound arrived; a terrible creaking, tearing, screaming noise that forced its way out of the encompassing roar of the Falls, topped with a great extra rumble that pulsed through the air, seemed to shake the building beneath their feet and briefly outbellowed the voice of the Hyeng-zhar itself. The poised, half-collapsed building fell over one last time, settling from its side on to its back, collapsing into the chaotic waste of piling waves with another great surge of foaming, outrushing waters.
Oramen watched, fascinated. Immediately the first shocked pulse of waves fell washing back from the heights around the impact site the waters began to rearrange themselves to accommodate the new obstruction, piling up behind the shattered hulk of the fallen building and surging round its edges while foam-creamed waves went dancing backwards, slapping into others still falling forwards, their combined shapes climbing and bursting as though in some wild celebration of destruction. Nearby sand bars that had been five metres above the tallest waves were now sunk beneath them; those ten metres above the waters were being swiftly eroded as the swirling currents cut carving into them, their lives now counted in minutes. Looking straight down, Oramen could see that the base of the building they were in was now almost surrounded by the backed-up surge of spray and foam.
He turned to the others. Neguste was still staring at where the building had fallen. Even Droffo looked rapt, standing away from the wall, vertigo temporarily forgotten.
Oramen took another glance towards the waters surging round their tower. “Gentlemen,” he said, “we’d best go.”
23. Liveware Problem
“Sister?” Ferbin said as the woman in the plain blue shift walked up to him. It
“Ferbin,” she said, stopping a stride away and smiling warmly. She nodded. “How good to see you again. Are you well? You look different.”
He shook his head. “Sister, I am well.” He could feel his throat closing up. “Sister!” he said, and threw himself at her, wrapping her in his arms and hooking his chin over her right shoulder. He felt her arms close over his back. It was like hugging a layer of soft leather over a figure made of hardwood; she felt astoundingly powerful; unshakeable. She patted his back with one hand, cupped the back of his head with the other. Her chin settled on his shoulder.
“Ferbin, Ferbin, Ferbin,” she whispered.
“Where exactly are we?” Ferbin asked.
“In the middle of the hub engine unit,” Hippinse told him. Since meeting with Djan Seriy, Hippinse’s manner had changed somewhat; he seemed much less manic and voluble, more composed and measured.
“Are we boarding a ship, then, sir?” Holse asked.
“No, this is a habitat,” Hippinse said. “All Culture habitats apart from planets have engines. Have had for nearly a millennium now. So we can move them. Just in case.”
They had come here straight after meeting, back up one of the tubes to the very centre of the little wheel- shaped habitat. They floated again — seemingly weightless — within the narrow but quiet, gently lit and pleasantly perfumed spaces of the habitat’s bulging centre.
Another corridor and some rolling, sliding doors had taken them to this place where there were no windows or screens and the circular wall looked odd, like oil spilled on water, colours ever shifting. It appeared soft somehow, but — when Ferbin touched the surface — felt hard as iron, though strangely warm. A small, floating cylindrical object had accompanied Djan Seriy. It looked rather like a plain-sword handle with no sword attached. It had produced five more little floating things no bigger than a single joint in one of Ferbin’s smallest fingers. These had started to glow as they’d entered the corridor and were now their only source of light.
The section of corridor they were floating in — he, Holse, Hippinse and Djan Seriy — was perhaps twenty metres long and blank at one end. Ferbin watched as the doorway they had entered by closed off and slid in towards them.
“Inside an engine?” Ferbin said, glancing at Djan Seriy. The massive plug of door continued to slide down the corridor towards them. A glittering silver sphere the size of a man’s head appeared at the far end of the ever- shortening tube. It started flickering.
Djan Seriy took his hand. “It is not an engine relying on any sort of compression,” she told him. She nodded at the still slowly advancing end of the corridor. “That is not a piston. It is part of the engine unit which slid out to allow us to enter here and is now sliding back in to provide us with privacy. That thing at the other end” — she indicated the pulsing silvery sphere — “is removing some of the air at the same time so that the pressure in here remains acceptable. All to the purpose of letting us speak without being overheard.” She squeezed his hand, glanced around. “It is hard to explain, but where we are now exists in a manner that makes it impossible for the Morthanveld to eavesdrop upon us.”
“The engine exists in four dimensions,” Hippinse told Ferbin. “Like a Shellworld. Closed, even to a ship.”
Ferbin and Holse exchanged looks.
“As I said,” Djan Seriy told them. “Hard to explain.” The wall had stopped moving towards them. They were now floating in a space perhaps two metres in diameter and five long. The silvery sphere had stopped pulsing.
“Ferbin, Mr Holse,” Djan Seriy said, sounding formal. “You’ve met Mr Hippinse. This object here is the drone
