Excession

— Eighty thousand!

— The rest of our fleet has arrived at roughly the same estimation. The ships within the cloud are, of course, broadcasting their positions and configuration, otherwise we should not see them individually and know what they are. There may be others which are not making themselves known.

A growing sense of horror and looming, utterly ignominious defeat was growing in Greydawn's interior. ~ Are they real? he asked.

— Apparently.

Greydawn watched the image expand; it was a wall of ships, a constellation, a galaxy of craft.

— What are they doing now? he asked.

— Deploying to face our fleet.

'They are… enemy?' he asked, feeling faint.

'Ah,' said the ship. 'We're talking now, yes?'

It was only then the Affronter realised he'd spoken rather than sub-vocalised the text. 'All the ships,' the Heavy Messing said, its voice steady, calm and deep inside Greydawn's armoured suit, 'are signalling that they are Culture ships, non standard, manufactured by the Eccentric GSV Sleeper Service and that they wish to receive our surrender.'

'Can we get to the Esperi entity before they intercept us?'

'No.'

'Can we outrun them?'

'The smallest and most numerous ones, perhaps.'

'How many would that leave?'

'About thirty thousand.'

Greydawn was silent for a while. Then he asked, 'Is there anything we can do?'

'I think surrendering is our only sensible course. If we fought we might inflict a small amount of damage on a fleet of this size, but it would amount to little in absolute terms and almost nothing as a percentage of their number.'

Think of your clan, something said in Greydawn's mind. 'I will not surrender!' he told the ship.

'Well, I'm going to.'

'You will do as I say!'

'Oh no I won't.'

'The Attitude Adjuster told you to obey us!'

'And within reason we have.'

'It didn't say anything about 'within reason'!'

'I think one just takes that sort of proviso as read, don't you? I mean, we are Minds. It's not like we're computers. Or soldiers. No offence. Anyway, I have discussed this with the other ships and we have agreed to surrender. The signal has been sent. We have begun deceleration to-'

'What?' Greydawn raged, slapping one armoured limb against a screen projector set within his nest-space.

'— a point stationary relative to Esperi itself,' the ship's voice continued calmly. 'The ROU Killing Time has been designated as receiving our formal consent to place our offensive systems in its control and will meet us at our stop-point to effect the surrender. If you do not wish to capitulate along with us then I'm afraid it will be necessary for me to place you outside my hull — within your space suit, of course — though technically I believe I ought to intern you… What do you wish?'

The ship intoned the question as though asking him what he desired for dinner. There was a polite indifference in its voice he found infinitely more awful than any hatred.

Greydawn stared at the cloud of ships for a few moments longer. He shook his eye stalks.

'I would ask you not to intern me,' he said after a while. 'Please place me outside your hull, at once, and then I would ask you to leave me alone.'

'What, now? We haven't stopped yet.'

'Yes, now. If possible.'

'Well, I could Displace you…'

'That will be acceptable.'

'There is a tiny risk associated with Displacement-'

The Affronter Captain gave a curt, bitter laugh. 'I think I might risk that.'

'… very well,' the ship said. He could hear it hesitate. 'Your comrades are trying to call you, Captain.'

He glanced at the comms screen. 'Yes. I can see.' He selected transmit-only mode on the communicator. 'Comrades,' he said. He paused. Since his childhood he had imagined moments like this; never as terrible, never founded on such hopelessness… and yet not so dissimilar, all the same. He had made up so many fine speeches… Finally he said, 'There will be no discussion about this. You are ordered to surrender along with your ships and obey all subsequent instructions compatible with honour. That is all.'

He cut off all communications from the other ships. Greydawn bowed his eye stalks. 'Now, please,' he said quietly.

And was in space. He looked around, through the suit's sensors. No ships were visible; only distant stars.

'Goodbye, Captain,' said the ship's voice.

'Goodbye,' he said to the ship, then turned off the communicator. He waited a few moments longer before triggering the emergency bolts on the suit and spilling himself into the vacuum to die.

The Heavy Messing, at that point acceding to a request from the Sleeper Service to transmit its log from the point it had been woken on Pittance, looked briefly back at the writhing, cooling form of the Affronter Captain, and sent a small pulse of plasma fire back to put the creature out of its agony.

XIII

The LSV Not Invented Here looked out at the hundreds of warships heaving to around it. It sensed signals flickering between them and the craft it had deployed; its four warships and the superlifters and GCUs it had militarised. It subsequently sensed its own ships altering their targeting procedures, shifting the foci of their attention from the ships the Sleeper Service had dispatched to itself.

The LSV's Mind booted up the AI cores that would run the ship perfectly well until a replacement for itself could be found, checked they were working properly, then severed all its links with anything outside the physical limits of its Mind core. It ejected all eight of its internal emergency power units from itself.

Its awareness just faded away, like mist dispersed by a freshening wind.

Some hundreds of light years away, the Steely Glint had already considered taking the same course as the Not Invented Here. It had decided not to. It considered that putting its case for the way it had acted and accepting the judgement and sanctions of its peers was the more honourable course.

It studied again the text of the message it had received from the Sleeper Service.

I have been rather more constructively employed over the past few decades than might have been imagined. The following have been manufactured:

Type One Offensive Units (roughly equivalent to Abominator class prototype): 512.

Type Two Offensive Units (equivalent to Torturer class): 2048.

Type Three Offensive Units (equivalent to Inquisitor class prototype, upgraded):