Against a Dark Background

by Iain M. Banks

  “This is it?” Miz asked quietly.

  Cenuij glanced at the two guards then went, smiling, back to his position at the door.

  Sharrow lifted the beer crate up onto the vestment chest. She shook the crate, rattling it, then crouched down to the lowest of the shallow, two meter-long drawers in the chest, sliding it out and lifting the elaborately embroidered robe within. She sliced off part of its train with the viblade, then tore the material into strips and stuffed those in between the dumpy beer jugs. She shook the crate again, seemed satisfied with its silence, put the top on and slid it into the skin book cover as she kicked the vestment drawer closed again.

  Dloan had found some needles and thread. “How’s your invisible stitching?” he asked Sharrow.

  She shook her head. “Not so much invisible as non existent.”

  Dloan shrugged. “Allow me,” he said modestly, sucking the end of the thread.

  “I love you, I love you,” Geis mumbled, trying to push his hand inside her knickers.

  She remained limp. “Geis,” she said, very quietly and meekly.

  “What?” he panted. His flushed face looked down at hers, concerned.

  “Get OFF me!” she roared, bringing her head up to crack his nose while one knee came up between his legs.

  Her knee couldn’t connect because Geis’s trousers were in the way but her forehead thumped into Geis’s nose and mouth. He gasped. She pulled her hands free from his and wriggled round, turning underneath him and forcing her arms and legs through the depth of foam squares. She found the floor beneath and half-crawled, half-swam away, then staggered out to a wall, hauling herself upright.

  Geis sat in the middle of the wedge of white foam. He touched the end of his nose, glaring at her and breathing hard.

  “That wasn’t very nice, cuz,” he said. His voice was soft and flat. There was an expression of predatory appraisal in his eyes that sent a chill through her. For the first time in her life she felt frightened of a man. Her bottom lip started to tremble and she clamped her jaw shut, raising her head and glaring right back at him. They held each other’s gaze for a while.

  He glanced toward the ceiling. “It’s an awful long way back to the surface,” he said quietly. “We’re very alone.” He started to slide through the hill of white foam toward her.

  She swallowed. “Forget it, Geis,” she said, and was relieved, even in her terror, that her voice sounded level and calm. “Lay a finger on me and I swear I’ll bite your fucking throat out.” She wasn’t sure she didn’t mean it entirely literally, but the way it came out it sounded absurd and pathetic in her ears. Her heart pounded and she couldn’t breathe.

  Geis stopped moving. He stared at her a moment longer, that same expression of raptorial calculation like a mask across his eyes.

  She gulped a breath and tried to swallow again, her throat dry.

  Then Geis gave a small laugh, relaxed and looked bashful. He sniffed, inspected his fingers for blood and attempted to waggle his two front teeth.

  “Well, cuz,” he said. “I take it the answer’s no.” He grinned.

  She pulled the wrap back across her shoulders. “That wasn’t funny, Geis,” she said.

  He laughed. “It wasn’t meant to be funny,” he said. “Fun, yes, but not funny.”

  “Well it wasn’t either,” she said, slipping one shoe back on and looking around for the other one. “Find my shoe and take me back to the party.”

  “Yes, sir,” Geis said, sighing.

  They returned to the New Year party via the buggy and the tunnel and the elevator. Geis joked and was charming and apologized offhandedly for what had happened. He offered her a drink from the echirn bottle and another shoan cheroot; she stared at the lift wall, monosyllabic. Geis laughed at her for being such a poor sport.

  She joined the anti-Tax forces a few months later.

  “I never really intended to pursue a life of crime,” Miz told the two guards, glancing at his watch. The others had been gone five minutes. He was giving them ten minutes’ start. The guards still sat on the floor, watching him. He’d taken the magazines out of their projectile carbines and was walking round the sacristy with the clips in one hand and his gun in the other.

  He glanced up at a tall wardrobe, then looked back at the guards. “But I fell in with a bad crowd when I was young…” He climbed up on a solid-looking desk at the side of the wardrobe, keeping his gun trained on the guards all the time. “My family.”

  He peeked quickly at the top of the wardrobe, then put the magazines up there and jumped down. “Of course,” he said. “Society was to blame…”

  They sat together under the furs in the rear of the open sleigh as it charged between the steep banks of snow. The sleighman cracked his whip over the heads of the twin sials straining in their jingling traces; a breeze stirred the treetops overhead, dislodging powdery snow and making the road lights swing on their wires.

  “I did see a VTOL,” Miz said to her as the hotel came into view round the side of the hill. The hotel and the other buildings in the small village were speckled with lights creating pools of amber, yellow and white on the snow, and behind the hotel, on the uncovered handball court, glittered the sleek, silver shape of a private jet. Traditional music thudded from the hotel ballroom and mingled with modern sounds from the open windows of the bar, the combined cacophony echoing off the cliffs behind the village.

  People in furs and ski clothes were sitting drinking steaming bowls of winter wine on the hotel’s front steps; the sials’ breath blew out in great white clouds as the sleigh drew up.

  Sharrow looked at the svelte body of the private jet, and frowned.

  * * *

  They were waiting five kilometers out of town, where the road crested a ridge and a series of root-tubes were carried diagonally over the track on enormous bark trestles, leaving about enough room for a rider to pass underneath without ducking.

  Dloan climbed to the top of one of the tubes and watched the road leading back toward the town. He saw the single rider approaching. There was nobody following.

  “Okay?” Sharrow asked him as Miz reined the jemer in.

  He shook his head. “Hell no,” he said, rubbing his behind. “These things really give you a sore bum when they gallop, don’t they?”

  “Sharrow; cuz! Hello!”

  The bar of the hotel was packed; Geis had to fight his way through the crowds to her and shout above the music thundering from the speakers to make himself heard. He was dressed in shorts and a light summer shirt that looked odd amongst the ski-suits and heavy winter clothes everybody else was wearing. He was tanned and looked fitter and better proportioned than Sharrow remembered.

  “Hello, Geis. Geis; Miz,” Sharrow said, nodding from one man to the other. She saw Breyguhn moving through the press of people toward them. “Shit,” Sharrow breathed, looking away as she took her coat off. It was two years to the day since she’d last seen Geis, that night in the gold mine turned vault deep under the Blue Hills of Piphram. The last time she’d seen Brey had been even longer ago, at their father’s funeral.

  “Mister Kuma,” Geis was saying, smiling thinly and drawing himself up. He nodded.

  “Delighted,” Miz said.

  “Sharrow,” Geis said, pushing between her and Miz. “Season’s greetings!” She turned her head, letting him kiss her cheek. “Great party!” he shouted. “Yours?”

  “No,” she said. “Just the hotel’s.”

  Geis gestured to Breyguhn as she approached then turned to Sharrow. “Haven’t seen you since before the war,” he bellowed. “Had us sick with worry when we heard you’d been hurt. Why didn’t you answer my calls?”

  “We were on opposite sides, Geis,” she reminded him.

  “Well.” Geis laughed. “That’s all forgotten now…”

  “Hello, Sharrow.”

  “Brey; hi. How are you?”

  “Fine. Enjoying yourself here?” Breyguhn wore a filmy white summer dress; her hair was up and artful
ly wisped and curled. She was carefully made-up and her face looked elegantly narrow. Sharrow wondered if she’d had surgery, or some gray-area genetic treatment.

  “Yes,” Sharrow told her. “It’s been a good holiday. What brings you here?”

  Breyguhn shrugged. “Oh,” she said, “a whim.” She glanced at Geis, who was smiling broadly at Miz while gesturing at the bar. “Not my idea,” Brey continued. “There was a family party in Piph and Geis suddenly decided it would be amusing to drop in on you and your friends and wish you happy New Year. Nobody else wanted to come, but I thought I’d keep Geis company.” She shrugged. “It was a very boring party.”

  “Piphram.” Sharrow nodded. “So that’s why you’re in your summer threads.”

  “Like I say, it was all very spur-of-the—”

  “Ordered some drinks,” Geis shouted, moving to shepherd them toward one corner of the packed bar. “Should be a booth over here for us…”

  Breyguhn looked Sharrow down and up as best she could in the crush. “Anyway, you look well. Fully recovered from your war wounds?”

  “Near as dammit.” Sharrow nodded.

  “And how is the Antiquities business?” Breyguhn asked Sharrow as they moved amongst the merry, jostling warmth of the revelers.

  “Pays the bills, Brey,” Sharrow said. They came to a booth being held vacant for them by a very large man in a formal suit and mirrored night-glasses who bowed to Geis and stood to one side. Miz winked at the bodyguard. They sat in the booth.

  “Should be space for another three,” Geis said. “Your other teammates are here, aren’t they?” he asked Sharrow, pouring from a huge pitcher of wine.

  “They’re around,” Sharrow said, putting her coat, gloves and hat on the bench beside her. “Zef’s probably dancing. I’ll go and find her.”

  “No, really,” Geis said. “There’s no—”

  Sharrow slid out of the booth, past the bodyguard and away through the crowds toward the ballroom.

  “Oh,” Sharrow said. She stared down at the message in the dust.

  Miz looked, too. “Very droll,” he said. He crossed the hotel room to the bar; he opened the cooler and surveyed the contents. “Very fucking droll indeed.”

  Cenuij had gone pale. Sweat glistened amongst the hairs on his top lip. His hands shook as he touched the interior of the casing. “No!” he whispered hoarsely. He put one hand into the dust, stirring it as though searching for something else underneath, then raised the same quivering hand to his brow, and stared at the words engraved on the shining stainless steel. He shook his head. Zefla took his shoulders as he backed away and sat down, collapsing into a seat. He stared straight ahead. Zefla squatted at his side, patting his shoulders. He put his still shaking hands down into his lap. The dust left a mark on his temple.

  Dloan shrugged and started packing away the equipment he and Miz had used to check and then open the lock on the book’s casing.

  Sharrow turned back the frontispieces and the inside cover of the casing.

  The Universal Principles,

  said the engraved legend on the titanium-foil cover in an antique version of Golter Standard script.

  By The Command Of The Widow Empress Echenestria,

  The Blessed Of Jonolri And Golter, ,

  To The Greater Glory Of The True God Thrial, ,

  This Solar Year Six Thousand Three Hundred And,

  Thirty Seven, This Book Is Offered, Being,

  The Collected Dispositions Of The First And,

  Second Post-Schismatic Intervarsital Convocations

  (Historical, Philosophical, Theological, Cosmological),

  Also The Last Summation By The Condemned

  Un-Godly Machine Parsemius, The Life-Elegies Of

  The Esteemed Imperial Poets Folldar And Creeäsunn

  The Younger, And The Presiding Commentary Of

  The Court Sage System.

  By Court Decree Maximal Made Perpetually Unique

  In The Image Of The Single God-Head, These

  Are The Universal Principles.

  The engravings on the four following pages of diamond leaf showed, firstly, a symmetrically spotted Thrial, followed by a diagram of the whole system, then a magnified nebula and finally a view of thin, bubble-like filaments and membranes; lines of tiny pits freckling the smooth hard sheet of cold diamond. Sharrow ran her fingers over the scratches of the second page.

  “It might still be here,” she said. “Somewhere. Recorded somehow.”

  Cenuij was silent.

  Miz shook his head as he took a bottle from the cooler. “I doubt it, somehow.”

  “Yes.” Sharrow sighed. “Actually,” she said, putting her hand into the book’s empty casing and lifting a little of the paper-dust in the bottom. “So do I.” She let the dust run through her fingers.

  “What about the message Gorko’s supposed to have left?” Zefla asked quietly, stroking Cenuij’s shoulder. “Has that gone too, if it was ever there?”

  Sharrow shifted her focus from the lines her fingers made against the gray-brown dust to the three engraved words beneath.

  “Oh, it’s here,” she said, staring at the sentence. “It was always here. It just wasn’t a message until Gorko used it somewhere else. But I think I know where he’s pointing us now.”

  “You do?” Miz asked, looking surprised and pleased. “Where?”

  “Vembyr,” she said. “The city where the androids are.” She let the case slam shut.

  Zefla and Dloan were both involved in a complicated group-dance in the ballroom; Sharrow left them to it. She found Cenuij at the bar and steered him toward the booth.

  Cenuij stumbled and almost fell over a table as they squeezed through the crowd. He laughed cruelly and told the people at the table it shouldn’t be where it was; how dare they move a table? Who gave them authority? So what if it was bolted to the floor?

  She dragged him away. “You got drunk fast,” she said.

  “Tell you the secret if you buy me a drink.”

  “We have an early start tomorrow, remember?”

  “But that’s why I started early this evening!” Cenuij said, gesturing wildly and knocking somebody’s drink. “Do you mind?” he snarled at the woman he’d bumped into. “People have to clean this floor, you know!”

  “Sorry,” Sharrow said to the woman with a smile, pushing Cenuij onward and then following him.

  “Get me a drink,” Cenuij told her.

  “Later. Come and meet my ghastly relations.”

  “You mean there’s worse than you?” Cenuij said, horrified.

  They arrived at the booth; she introduced Geis and Breyguhn.

  The two men exchanged formal greetings, then Cenuij turned to Breyguhn.

  “Ms. Dascen,” he said carefully. He took Breyguhn’s hand and kissed it. Cenuij knew that technically Brey wasn’t a full Dascen at all; Sharrow guessed that addressing her as such was done more to annoy her than to flatter Breyguhn.

  “Why, Mister Mu,” Breyguhn said, smiling at Cenuij and then glancing at Sharrow.

  Cenuij breathed deeply and seemed to collect himself. “Your sister has told me so much about you,” he said. Sharrow found herself gritting her teeth to stop herself saying anything. “I, of course, believed every word,” he went on, “and have always wanted to meet you.” Cenuij smiled. He was still holding Breyguhn’s hand. “I would consider it an honor if you would grant me the next dance.” He gestured grandly in the very general direction of the ballroom.

  Breyguhn laughed and stood. “Delighted.” She smiled at Sharrow as she and Cenuij made their way back through the shouting, laughing crowd.

  Sharrow watched them go, eyes narrowed.

  TEXTBEGIN UNSOURCED HOMING MESSAGE MIYKENNS/GOLTER ANON/TKEEP. COMMERCIAL MAXENCRYPT.

  Ref.: COntracT #0083347100232 (TKEEP).

  Please be advised Contract only partially fulfilled. Item now in our possession but only casing and already-known dedication still extant. Rest of text printed on paper
which has rotted to dust over past twelve centuries. Nature of time lock on case and chemical composition of paper dust indicates this may have been intentional. Detailed examination of case and remaining contents reveals no other storage medium save ( naked-eye visible) message engraved in rear of case, quote THINGS WILL CHANGE. unquote. Case believed to be late Terhama’a (Golterian) Limited, comprising precious and semi-precious stones and gold on steel, plus four diamond leaf engravings frontis. Total estimated value conservatively 10MnT. Please advise. Reply CME to one-shot homing dest. #MS94473.3449.1[1]

  TEXTEND

  TEXTBEGIN HOMING MESSAGE GOLTER/MIYKENNS TKEEP/ANON. COMMERCIAL MAXENCRYPT.

  Ref.: OSHD #MS94473.3449.1[0]

  Extant remains acceptable under Contract clause 37.1. Kindly deliver via Vessel “Victory,” Mine Seven Sub-Surface Crawler Base, Equatorial Region, NG, soonest.

  TEXTEND

  TEXTBEGIN UNSOURCED HOMING MESSAGE MIYKENNS/GOLTER ANON/HOUSE (S. JALISTRE) COMMERCIAL MAXENCRYPT.

  Ref.: COntracT #0083347100232 (TKEEP).

  Seigneur, please see attached message from agency. Confirm property to be delivered to Nachtel’s Ghost.

  Reply CME to one-shot homing dest. #MS97821.7702.1[1]

  TEXTEND

  TEXTBEGIN HOMING MESSAGE GOLTER/MIYKENNS HOUSE/ANON. COMMERCIAL MAXENCRYPT.

  Ref.: OSHD #MS97821.7702.1[0] Destination confirmed.

  Please deliver to our agents on NG as advised.

  TEXTEND

  She walked back from the hire-bureau through the morning rush hour of bicycles, trams and cars. The streets were busy. Unlike Malishu, Sky View didn’t actually ban private transport, though it did discourage it.

  The city was perched on a plateau that stuck half a kilometer above the surrounding sea of undulating Entraxrln canopy like a vast wart on pale skin. It was a chill, raw place even though it was only a couple of thousand kilometers from the equator, and less than two thousand meters above sea level. Denied the Entraxrln’s relatively balmy auto-climate, Sky View relied entirely on Thrial for its warmth, and the sun was noticeably smaller in the sky than it was seen from the surface of Golter.

  The hire-bureau was near the main funicular station where they’d first arrived in the city three days earlier, rising from the purple gloom of the Entraxrln evening to the wide glory of a Miykenns sunset in brilliant cerise. Now, commuters who had just made the same trip swept her along with them through the cool, crisp, cloudless morning.