Most of the ship’s corridors were lined with weaponry, the larger pieces standing on the floor, others on tables; bigger items took up whole cabins, lounges or larger public spaces and the very biggest weapons were shown as scale models. There were thousands of instruments of torture, clubs, spears, knives, swords, strangle cords, catapults, bows, powder guns, shells, mines, gas canisters, bombs, syringes, mortars, howitzers, missiles, atomics, lasers, field arms, plasma guns, microwavers, effectors, thunderbolters, knife missiles, line guns, thudders, gravguns, monofilament warps, pancakers, AM projectors, grid-fire impulsers, ZPE flux-polarisers, trapdoor units, CAM spreaders and a host of other inventions designed for - or capable of being turned to the purpose of - producing death, destruction and agony.
Some of the cabins and larger spaces had been fitted out to resemble torture chambers, slave holds, prison cells and death chambers (including the ship’s swimming pool, though after she’d pointedly mentioned that she liked to start each day with a dip, this was now being converted back to its original purpose). Ulver supposed these . . . stage-sets . . . were a little like the famous tableaux the Sleeper Service was supposed to contain, except that the Grey Area’s had no bodies in them (something of a relief, in the circumstances).
Like a lot of people, she had always wanted to see the real thing. She had asked if she and Churt Lyne might go aboard the GSV when Genar-Hofoen did, but her request had been turned down; they would have to stay on the Grey Area until the GCU could find somewhere both safe and unrestricted to deposit them. What made it all even more annoying in a way was that the Grey Area expected it would be keeping in close contact with the Sleeper Service; inside its field envelope, if it was allowed to. So near and yet so far and all that crap. Whatever; it looked like she wouldn’t get to see even the remnants of the famous craft’s tableaux vivants, and would have to make do with the Grey Area and its tableaux mortants.
She thought they might have been more effective if they had contained the victims or the victims and tormentors, but they didn’t. Instead they contained just the rack, the iron maiden, the fires and the irons, the shackles and the beds and chairs, the buckets of water and acid and the electric cables and all the serried instruments of torture and death. To see them in action you had to stand before a nearby screen.
It was a little shocking, Ulver supposed, but kind of aloof at the same time; it was like you could just inspect this stuff and get some idea of how it worked and what it did (though watching the screens wasn’t really advisable; she watched one for a few seconds and nearly lost her breakfast; and it wasn’t even humans who were being tortured) and you could sort of ride it out; you could accept that this had happened and feel bad about it all right, but at the end of it you were still here, it hadn’t happened to you, stopping this sort of shit was exactly what SC, Contact, the Culture was about, and you were part of that civilisation, part of that civilising ... and that sort of made it bearable. Just. If you didn’t watch the screens.
Still, just holding a little iron device designed to crush the sort of fingers that were holding it, looking at a knotted cord whose twin knots - once the cord was tightened behind the head - were set at just the right distance to compress and burst the sort of eyes that were looking at it . . . well, it was kind of affecting. She spent a fair bit of time shivering and rubbing the bits of her body that kept getting bumps.
She wondered how many people had looked upon this grisly collection of memorabilia. She had asked the ship but it had been vague; apparently it regularly offered its services as a sort of travelling museum of pain and ghastliness, but it rarely had any takers.
One of the exhibits which she discovered, towards the end of her wanderings, she did not understand. It was a little bundle of what looked like thin, glisteningly blue threads, lying in a shallow bowl; a net, like something you’d put on the end of a stick and go fishing for little fish in a stream. She tried to pick it up; it was impossibly slinky and the material slipped through her fingers like oil; the holes in the net were just too small to put a finger-tip through. Eventually she had to tip the bowl up and pour the blue mesh into her palm. It was very light. Something about it stirred a vague memory in her, but she couldn’t recall what it was. She asked the ship what it was, via her neural lace.
~ That is a neural lace, it informed her. ~ A more exquisite and economical method of torturing creatures such as yourself has yet to be invented.
She gulped, quivered again and nearly dropped the thing.
~ Really? she sent, and tried to sound breezy. ~ Ha. I’d never really thought of it that way.
~ It is not generally a use much emphasised.
~ I suppose not, she replied, and carefully poured the fluid little device back into its bowl on the table.
She walked back to the cabin she’d been given, past the assorted arms and torture machines. She decided to check up on how the war was going, again through the lace. At least it would take her mind off all this torture shit.
Affront Declare War On Culture.
(Major events so far, by time/importance.
(Likely limits.
(Detailed events to date.
(Greatest conflict since Idiran War?
(Likely link with Esperi Excession.
(The Affront - a suitable case for treatment?
(So this is how the barbarians felt; the experience of war through the ages.
Ship Store at Pittance taken over by Affront; hundreds of ships appropriated.
(How could it happen?
(Insurance policies or weak points?
(Pundit paradise; placing their bets on what happens next.
(The psychology of warships.
Warcraft from other ship stores mobilised.
(Partial mobilisation earlier - so who knew what when?
(Technical stuff; lots of exciting figures for armamentaphiles.
Peace initiatives.
(Culture wants to talk - Affront just want to fight.
(Galactic Council sends reps everywhere. They look busy.
(Gosh, can we help? Have a laugh at the expense of sad superstitionists.
In jeopardy: the hostage habitats, the boarded ships.
(Five Orbitals, eleven cruise ships Affronted.
(Schadenfreude time; who’s all at risk at the moment.
(Tier gets sniffy.
Quick while they’re not looking.
(Primitives see exciting opportunities.
What’s in it for me?
(Design your own war; sim details and handy hints.
(Thinking positively; new tech, inspired art, heroic tales and better sex . . . war as hoot [for incurable optimists and people looking for party conversation stoppers only].
Other news:
Blitteringueh Conglo actuates Abuereffe Airsphere - latest.
S3/4 ravaged by nova in Ytrillo.
Stellar Field-Liners sweep Aleisinerih domain again.
Cherdilide Pacters in Phaing-Ghrotassit Subliming quandary.
Abafting Imorchi; sleaze, sleaze and more sleaze.
Sport.
Art.
DiaGlyph Directory.
Special Reports Directory.
Index.
Ulver Seich scanned the screen-set her neural lace threw across her left eye’s field of vision as she walked, one half of her brain paying attention to the business of walking and the other half watching the virtual screen. Not a thing about her. She wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or insulted. Let’s try:
(Tier gets sniffy . . . No, that was nothing but general stuff about the habitat throwing all Culture people and Affronters off. No names mentioned.
Index. P... Ph . . . Phage Rock.
(That war again; was PR a kind of minor ship store?
(Tier over-rated anyway; PR turns tail. New heading, but
where exactly?
(Koodre wins IceBlast cup.
(New Ledeyueng exhibition opens in T41.
DiaGlyph subDirectory.
subIndex.
subIndex. S... Seich, Ulver.
(Oh Ulver, Where Are You? - new Poeglyph by Zerstin
Hoei.
She stared at the entry. Grief, was that it? One lousy picture-poem by an irredeemable feeb she’d barely heard of (and even then only to discover he regularly changed his appearance to resemble her current boyfriend)? Ugh! She joggled the subIndex again, in the remote and forlorn chance there was some sort of ware glitch. There wasn’t. That was it. If she wanted more she’d have to hit Records.
Ulver Seich stopped in her tracks and stared at the nearest bulkhead, open mouthed.
She was no longer News on Phage.
VIII
It should not have made the difference that it did, and yet it did. Their three visitors stayed for two nights, going swimming with the ’Ktik during the second day. Byr met Aist again that night. The following day the visitors left, climbing into the module which the Unacceptable Behaviour sent down for them. The ship was heading off to loop round a proto-nova a few thousand years distant. It would be back in two weeks to drop off any further supplies they might need. Dajeil’s baby would be born a couple of weeks after that. The next ship due to visit would be another year away, when they might have doubled the human population of the planet. They stood together on the beach. Dajeil held Byr’s hand as the module climbed into the slate-coloured clouds.
Later that evening Byr found Dajeil watching the recording in the tower’s top room, where the screens were. Tears ran down her face.
There were no monitor systems on the tower itself. It must have been one of the independent camera drones. This one must have landed on the tower that night, found two large mammals there, and started recording.
Dajeil turned to look at Byr, her face streaked with the tears. Byr felt a sudden welling of anger. On the screen, she watched the two people embracing, caressing on the tower’s moonlit roof, and heard the soft gasps and whisperings.
‘Yes,’ Byr said, smiling ironically as she pulled off the wet suit. ‘Old Aist, eh? Quite a lass. You shouldn’t cry, you know. Upsets the body’s fluid balance for baby.’
Dajeil threw a glass at her. It smashed behind Byr on the winding stair. A little servitor drone scurried past Byr’s feet and windmilled down the carpeted steps on its little limbs, to start cleaning up the mess. Byr looked into her lover’s face. Dajeil’s swollen breasts rose and fell within her shirt and her face was flushed. Byr continued to peel off bits of the wet suit.
‘It was a bit of light relief, for grief’s sake,’ she said, keeping her voice even. ‘Just a friendly fuck. A loose end sort of thing. It--’
‘How could you do this to us?’ Dajeil screamed.
‘Do what?’ Byr protested, still trying to keep her voice from rising. ‘What have I done?’
‘Screwing my best friend, here! Now! After everything!’
Byr kept calm. ‘Does it count as screwing, technically, when neither of you has a penis?’ She assumed a pained, puzzled expression.
‘You shit! Don’t laugh about it!’ Dajeil screamed. Her voice was hoarse, unlike anything Byr had heard from her before. ‘Don’t you fucking laugh about it!’ Dajeil was suddenly up out of her seat and dashing towards her, arms raised.
Byr caught her wrists.
‘Dajeil!’ she said, as the other woman struggled and sobbed and tried to shake her hands free. ‘You’re being ridiculous! I always fucked other people; you were fucking other people when you were giving me all this shit about being my “still point”; we both knew, it wasn’t like we were juveniles or in some dumb monogamy cult or something. Shit; so I stuck my fingers in your pal’s cunt; so fucking what? She’s gone. I’m still here; you’re still here, the fucking kid’s still in your belly; yours is in mine. Isn’t that what you said is all that matters?’
‘You bastard, you bastard!’ Dajeil cried, and collapsed. Byr had to support her as she crumpled to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably.
‘Oh, Dajeil, come on; this isn’t anything that matters. We never swore to be faithful, did we? It was just a friendly . . . it was politeness, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t even think it was worth mentioning . . . Come on, I know this is a tough time for you and there’s all these hormones and shit in your body, but this is crazy; you’re reacting . . . crazily . . .’
‘Fuck off! Fuck off and leave me alone!’ Dajeil spat, her voice reduced to a croak. ‘Leave me alone!’
‘Dajeil,’ Byr said, kneeling down beside her. ‘Please . . . Look, I’m sorry. I really am. I’ve never apologised for fucking anybody in my life before; I swore I never would, but I’m doing it now. I can’t undo it, but I didn’t realise it would affect you like this. If I had I wouldn’t have done it. I swear. I’d never have done it; it was she who kissed me first. I didn’t set out to seduce her or anything, but I’d have said No, I’d have said No, really I would. It wasn’t my idea, it wasn’t my fault. I’m sorry. What more can I say? What can I do . . . ?’
It did no good. Dajeil wouldn’t talk after that. She wouldn’t be carried to her bed. She didn’t want to be touched or be brought anything to eat or drink. Byr sat at the screen controls while Dajeil whimpered on the floor.
Byr found the recording the camera drone had taken and wiped it.
IX
The Grey Area did something to his eyes. It happened in his sleep, the first night he was aboard. He woke up in the morning to the sound of song birds trilling over distant waterfalls and the faint smell of tree resin; one wall of his cabin impersonated a window high up in a forest-swathed mountain range. There was a memory of some strangeness, a buried recollection of some sort; half real, half not, but it slipped slowly away as he came fully to. The view was blurry for a moment, then slowly came clear as he recalled the ship asking him last night if it could implant the nanotechs while he slept. His eyes tingled a little and he wiped away some tears, but then everything seemed to settle back to normal.
‘Ship?’ he said.
‘Yes?’ replied the cabin.
‘Is that it?’ he asked. ‘With the implants?’
‘Yes. There’s a modified neural lace in place in your skull; it’ll take a day or so to bed in properly. I hurried up a little repair-work your own systems were taking their time with near your visual cortex. You have hit your head recently?’
‘Yeah. Fell out of a carriage.’
‘How are your eyes?’
‘Bit blurred and smarted a little. Okay now.’
‘Later today we’ll go through a simulation of what happens when you’ve interfaced with the Sleeper Service’s Storage vault system. All right?’
‘Fine. How’s our rendezvous with the Sleeper looking?’
‘All is in hand. I expect to transfer you in four days.’
‘Great. And what’s happening with the war?’
‘Nothing much. Why?’
‘I just wanted to know,’ Genar-Hofoen said. ‘Have there been any major actions yet? Any more cruise ships been taken hostage?’
‘I am not a news service, Genar-Hofoen. You have a terminal, I believe. I suggest you use it.’
‘Well, thank you for your help,’ muttered the man, swinging out of bed. He had never met so unhelpful a ship. He went for breakfast; at least it ought to be able to provide that.
He was sitting alone in the ship’s main mess watching his favourite Culture news service via a holo projected by his terminal. After the first flurry of Affront Orbital and cruise ship takeovers with no obvious Culture military reply but talk of a mobilisation taking place (frustratingly, almost entirely beyond the news services’ perceptions), the war seemed to have entered a period of relative quiescence. Right now the news service was running a semi-serious feature on how to ingratiate yourself with an Affronter if you happened to bump into one - when the dream he had had last night - the thing he had half remembered just after the point of waking - suddenly returned to him.
X
Byr awoke that night to find Dajeil standing over her with a
diving knife held tightly in both hands, her eyes wide and full and staring, her face still puffy with tears. There was blood on the knife. What had she done to herself? Blood on the knife. Then the pain snapped back. The first reaction of Byr’s body had been just to blank it out. Now she was awake, it came back. Not the agony a basic human would have experienced, but a deep, shocking, awful awareness of damage a civilised creature could appreciate without the disabling suffering of crude pain. Byr took a moment to understand.
What? What had been done? What? Roaring in ears. Looking up, to find all the sheets red. Her blood. Belly; sliced. Open. Glistening masses of green, purple, yellow. Redness still pumping. Shock. Massive blood loss. What would Dajeil do now? Byr sank back. So this was how it ended.
Mess, indeed. Feel of systems shutting down. Losing the body. Brain drawing blood to it storing oxygen determined to stay alive as long as possible even though it had lost its life-support mechanism. They had medical gear in the tower that could save her still but Dajeil just stood there staring as though sleep-walking or mad with some overdone gland-drug. Standing staring at her standing staring at her dying.
Neatness to it, still. Women; penetration. He had lived for it. Now he died of it. Now he/she would die, and Dajeil would know that he had really loved her.
Did that make sense?
Did it? she asked the man she had once been.
Silence from him; not dead but certainly gone, gone for now. She was on her own, dying on her own. Dying at the hand of the only woman she/he had ever loved.
So did it make sense?
... I am who I ever was. What I called masculinity, what I celebrated in it was just an excuse for me-ness, wasn’t it?
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