Consider Phlebas

by Iain M. Banks

  She really was starting to feel like one of the team. She watched Horza and Yalson arguing about who should accompany the Changer if he came back down into the Command System after a return to the Clear Air Turbulence, and she could not help but smile, unseen, at them. She liked the determined, no-nonsense woman, even if her regard was not returned, and she could not find it in her heart to think of Horza as implacably as she ought.

  It was the Culture’s fault. It considered itself too civilised and sophisticated to hate its enemies; instead it tried to understand them and their motives, so that it could out-think them and so that, when it won, it would treat them in a way which ensured they would not become enemies again. The idea was fine as long as you didn’t get too close, but once you had spent some time with your opponents, such empathy could turn against you. There was a sort of detached, non-human aggression required to go along with such mobilised compassion, and Balveda could feel it slipping away from her.

  Perhaps she felt too safe, she thought. Perhaps it was because now there was no significant threat. The battle for the Command System was over; the quest was petering out, the tension of the past few days disappearing.

  Xoxarle worked quickly. The laser’s thin, attenuated beam buzzed and fussed at each wire, turning each strand red, yellow and white, then – as he strained against them – parted each one with a snap. The old man at the Idiran’s feet stirred, moaned.

  The faint breeze had become a strong one. Dust was blowing under the train and starting to swirl around Xoxarle’s feet. He moved the laser to another set of wires. Only a few to go. He glanced towards the nose of the train. There was still no sign of the humans or the machine. He glanced back the other way, over his shoulder, towards the train’s last carriage and the gap between it and the tunnel mouth where the wind was whistling through. He could see no light, still hear no noise. The current of air made his eye feel cold.

  He turned back and pointed the laser rifle at another set of wires. The sparks were caught in the breeze and scattered over the station floor and across the back of Aviger’s suit.

  Typical: me doing all the work as usual, thought Unaha-Closp. It hauled another bunch of cables out of the conduit. The wire run behind it was starting to fill up with cut lengths of wire, blocking the route the drone had taken to get to the small pipe it was now working in.

  It’s beneath me. I can feel it. I can hear it. I don’t know what it’s doing, but I can feel, I can hear.

  And there’s something else . . . another noise . . .

  The train was a long, articulated shell in some gigantic gun; a metal scream in a vast throat. It rammed through the tunnel like a piston in the biggest engine ever made, sweeping round the curves and into the straights, lights flooding the way ahead for an instant, air pushed ahead of it – like its howling, roaring voice – for kilometres.

  Dust lifted from the platform, made clouds in the air. An empty drink container rolled off the pallet where Aviger had been sitting and clattered to the floor; it started rolling along the platform, towards the nose of the train, hitting off the wall a couple of times. Xoxarle saw it. The wind tugged at him, the wires parted. He got one leg free, then another. His other arm was out, and the last wires fell away.

  A piece of plastic sheeting lifted from the pallet like some black, flat bird and flopped onto the platform, sliding after the metal container, now halfway down the station. Xoxarle stooped quickly, caught Aviger round the waist and, with the man held easily in one arm and the laser in his other hand, ran back, down the platform, towards the wall beside the blocked tunnel mouth where the wind made a moaning noise past the sloped rear of the train.

  ‘. . . or lock them both away down here instead. You know we can . . .’ Yalson said.

  We’re close, Horza thought, nodding absently at Yalson, not listening as she told him why he needed her to help him look for the Mind. We’re close, I’m sure we are; I can feel it; we’re almost there. Somehow we’ve – I’ve – held it all together. But it’s not over yet, and it only takes one tiny error, one oversight, a single mistake, and that’s it: fuck-up, failure, death. So far we’ve done it, despite the mistakes, but it’s so easy to miss something, to fail to spot some tiny detail in the mass of data which later when you’ve forgotten all about it, when your back is turned – creeps up and clobbers you. The secret was to think of everything, or – because maybe the Culture was right, and only a machine could literally do that – just to be so in tune with what was going on that you thought automatically of all the important and potentially important things, and ignored the rest.

  With something of a shock, Horza realised that his own obsessive drive never to make a mistake, always to think of everything, was not so unlike the fetishistic urge which he so despised in the Culture: that need to make everything fair and equal, to take the chance out of life. He smiled to himself at the irony and glanced over at Balveda, sitting watching Wubslin experimenting with some controls.

  Coming to resemble your enemies, Horza thought; maybe there’s something in it, after all—

  ‘. . . Horza, are you listening to me?’ Yalson said.

  ‘Hmm? Yes, of course,’ he smiled.

  Balveda frowned, while Horza and Yalson talked on, and Wubslin poked and prodded at the train’s controls. For some reason, she was starting to feel uneasy.

  Outside the front carriage, beyond Balveda’s field of view, a small container rolled along the platform and into the wall alongside the tunnel mouth.

  Xoxarle ran to the rear of the station. By the entrance to the foot tunnel, leading off at right angles into the rock behind the station’s platform, was the tunnel which the Changer and the two women had emerged from when they had returned from their search of the station. It provided the ideal place from which to watch; Xoxarle thought he would escape the effects of the collision, and would have the best opportunity for a clear field of fire, right down the station to the nose of the train, in the meantime. He could stay there right up until the train hit. If they tried to get off, he would have them. He checked the gun, turning its power up to maximum.

  Balveda got down from the seat, folding her arms, and walked slowly across the control deck towards the side windows, staring intently at the floor, wondering why she felt uneasy.

  The wind howled through the gap between the tunnel edge and the train; it became a gale. Twenty metres away from where Xoxarle waited in the foot tunnel, kneeling there with one foot on the back of the unconscious Aviger, the train’s rear carriage started to rock and sway.

  The drone stopped in mid-cut. Two things occurred to it: one, that dammit there was a funny noise; and two, that just supposing there had been an alarm sounding on the control deck, not only would none of the humans be able to hear it, there was also a good chance that Yalson’s helmet mike would not relay the high-pitched whine, either.

  But wouldn’t there be a visual warning, too?

  Balveda turned at the side window, without looking out properly. She sat against the console there, looking back.

  ‘. . . on how serious you still are about looking for this damn thing,’ Yalson was saying to Horza.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the Changer said, nodding at Yalson, ‘I’ll find it.’

  Balveda turned round, looked at the station outside.

  Just then, Yalson and Wubslin’s helmets both came alive with the urgent voice of the drone. Balveda was distracted by a piece of black material, which was sliding quickly along the floor of the station. Her eyes widened. Her mouth opened.

  The gale became a hurricane. A distant noise, like a great avalanche heard from far away, came from the tunnel mouth.

  Then, up the long final straight which led into station seven from station six, light appeared at the end of the tunnel.

  Xoxarle could not see the light, but he could hear the noise; he brought the gun up and aimed along the side of the stationary train. The stupid humans must realise soon.

  The steel rails began to whine.

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nbsp; The drone backed quickly out of the conduit. It threw the cut, discarded lengths of cable against the walls. ‘Yalson! Horza!’ it shouted at them through its communicator. It dashed along the short length of narrow tunnel. The instant it turned the corner it had hammered in to make passable, it could hear the faint, high, insistent wailing of the alarm. ‘There’s an alarm! I can hear it! What’s happening?’

  There, in the crawlway, it could feel and hear the rush of air coursing through and around the train.

  ‘There’s a gale blowing out there!’ Balveda said quickly, as soon as the drone’s voice stopped. Wubslin lifted his helmet from the console. Where it had lain, a small orange light was flashing. Horza stared at it. Balveda looked up at the platform. Clouds of dust blew along the station floor. Light equipment was being blown off the pallet, opposite the rear access gantry. ‘Horza,’ Balveda said quietly, ‘I can’t see Xoxarle, or Aviger.’

  Yalson was on her feet. Horza glanced over at the side window, then back at the light, winking on the console. ‘It’s an alarm!’ the drone’s voice shouted from the two helmets. ‘I can hear it!’

  Horza picked up his rifle, grabbed the edge of Yalson’s helmet while she held it and said, ‘It’s a train, drone; that’s the collision alarm. Get off the train now.’ He let go of the helmet, which Yalson quickly shoved over her head and locked. Horza gestured towards the door. ‘Move!’ he said loudly, glancing round at Yalson, Balveda and Wubslin, who was still sitting holding the helmet he had removed from the console.

  Balveda headed for the door. Yalson was just behind her. Horza started forward, then turned as he went, looked back at Wubslin, who was setting his helmet down on the floor and turning back to the controls. ‘Wubslin!’ he yelled. ‘Move!’

  Balveda and Yalson were running through the carriage. Yalson looked back, hesitated.

  ‘I’m going to get it moving,’ Wubslin said urgently, not turning to look at Horza. He punched some buttons.

  ‘Wubslin!’ Horza shouted. ‘Get out, now!’

  ‘It’s all right, Horza,’ Wubslin said, still flicking buttons and switches, glancing at screens and dials, grimacing when he had to move his injured arm, and still not turning his head. ‘I know what I’m doing. You get off. I’ll get her moving; you’ll see.’

  Horza glanced towards the rear of the train. Yalson was standing in the middle of the forward carriage, just visible through two open doors, her head going from side to side as she looked first at the still running Balveda heading for the second carriage and the access ramps, and then at Horza, waiting in the control deck. Horza motioned her to get out. He turned and strode forward and took Wubslin by one elbow. ‘You crazy bastard!’ he shouted. ‘It could be coming at fifty metres a second; have you any idea how long it takes to get one of these things moving?’ He hauled at the engineer’s arm. Wubslin turned quickly and hit Horza across the face with his free hand. Horza was thrown back over the floor of the control deck, more amazed than hurt. Wubslin turned back to the controls.

  ‘Sorry, Horza, but I can get it round that bend and out of the way. You get out now. Leave me.’

  Horza took his laser rifle, stood up, watched the engineer working at the controls, then turned and ran from the place. As he did so, the train lurched, seeming to flex and tighten.

  Yalson followed the Culture woman. Horza had waved at her to go on, so she did. ‘Balveda!’ she shouted. ‘Emergency exits; go down; bottom deck!’

  The Culture agent didn’t hear. She was still heading for the next carriage and the access ramps. Yalson ran after her, cursing.

  The drone exploded out of the floor and raced through the carriage for the nearest emergency hatch.

  That vibration! It’s a train! Another train’s coming, fast! What have those idiots done? I have to get out!

  Balveda skidded round a corner, threw out one hand and caught hold of a bulkhead edge; she dived for the open door which led to the middle access ramp. Yalson’s footsteps pounded behind her.

  She ran out onto the ramp, into a howling gale, a constant, gustless hurricane. Instantly the air around her detonated with cracks and sparks; light glared from all sides, and the girders blew out in molten lines. She threw herself flat, sliding and rolling along the surface of the ramp. The girders ahead of her, where the ramp turned and sloped down to one side, glittered with laser fire. She got half up again and, feet and hands scrabbling for purchase on the ramp, threw herself back into the train fractionally before the moving line of shots blasted into the side of the ramp and the girders and guard rails beyond. Yalson almost tripped over her; Balveda reached up and grabbed the other woman’s arm. ‘Somebody’s firing!’

  Yalson went forward to the edge and started firing back.

  The train gave a lurch.

  The final straight between station six and station seven was over three kilometres long. The time between the point the racing machine’s lights would have become visible from the rear of the train sitting in station seven, and the instant the train flashed out of the dark tunnel into the station itself, occupied less than a minute.

  Dead, body shaking and rocking, but still wedged too tightly to be dislodged from the controls, Quayanorl’s cold, closed eye faced a scene through sloped, armoured glass of a night-dark space strung with twin bright lines of almost solid light, and directly in front, rapidly enlarging, a halo of brightness, a glaring ring of luminescence with a grey, metallic core.

  Xoxarle cursed. The target had moved quickly, and he’d missed. But they were trapped on the train. He had them. The old human under his knee moaned and tried to move. Xoxarle trod down harder on him and got ready to shoot again. The jetstream of air screamed out of the tunnel and round the rear of the train.

  Answering shots splashed randomly around the rear of the station, well away from him. He smiled. Just then, the train moved.

  ‘Get out!’ Horza said, arriving at the door where the two women were, one firing, one crouched down, risking the occasional look out. The air was whirling into the carriage, shaking and roaring.

  ‘It must be Xoxarle!’ Yalson shouted above the noise of the storming wind. She leant out and fired. More shots rippled over the access ramp and thudded into the outer hull of the train around the door. Balveda ducked back as hot fragments blew in through the open door. The train seemed to wobble, then move forward, very slowly.

  ‘What—?’ Yalson yelled, looking round at Horza as he joined her at the door. He shrugged as he leant out to fire down the platform.

  ‘Wubslin!’ he shouted. He sent a hail of fire down the length of the station. The train crept forward; already a metre of the access ramp was hidden by the side of the train’s hull near the open door. Something sparkled in the darkness of the distant tunnel, where the wind screamed and the dust blew and a noise like never-ending thunder came.

  Horza shook his head. He waved Balveda forward, to the ramp, now with only about half its breadth available from the door. He fired again; Yalson leant out and fired, too. Balveda started forward.

  At that moment a hatch blew out, near the middle of the train, and from the same carriage a huge circular plug of train hull fell clanging out – a great flat cork of thick wall tipping down to the station floor. A small dark shape dashed from the broken hatch, and from the great circular hole nearby a silver point came, swelling quickly to a fat, bright, reflecting ovoid as the wall section hit the platform, the drone whizzed through the air, and Balveda started forward along the ramp.

  ‘There it is!’ Yalson screamed.

  The Mind was out of the train, starting to turn and race off. Then the flickering laser fire from the far end of the station switched; no longer smashing into the access ramp and girders, it began to scatter flashing explosions of light all over the surface of the silvery ellipsoid. The Mind seemed to stop, hang in the air, shaken by the fusilade of laser shots; then it fell sideways, out over the platform, its smooth surface suddenly starting to ripple and grow dim as it rolled through the rushing air, fallin
g towards the side wall of the station like a crippled airship. Balveda was across the ramp, running down the sloped section, almost at the lower level. ‘Get out!’ Horza yelled, shoving Yalson. The train was away from the ramps now, motors growling but unheard in the raging hurricane which swept through the station. Yalson slapped her wrist, switching on her AG, then leapt out of the door into the gale, still firing.

  Horza leant out, having to fire through the girders of the access ramp. He held onto the train with one hand, felt it shaking like a frightened animal. Some of his shots smacked into the access ramp girders, blasting fountains of debris out into the slipstream of air and making him duck back in.

  The Mind crunched into the side wall of the station, rolling over to lodge in the angle between the floor and the curved wall, its silver skin quivering, going dull.

  Unaha-Closp twisted through the air, avoiding laser shots. Balveda reached the bottom of the ramp and ran across the station floor. The fan of shots from the distant foot tunnel seemed to hesitate between her and the flying figure of Yalson, then swept up to close around the woman in the suit. Yalson fired back, but the shots found her, made her suit sparkle.

  Horza threw himself out of the train, falling to the ground from the slowly moving carriage, crashing into the rock floor, winding himself, being bowled over by the tearing blast of air. He ran forward as soon as he could get to his feet, bouncing up from the impact, firing through the hurricane towards the far end of the station. Yalson still flew, moving into the torrent of air and the crackling laser fire.