“But you left them.”
“Yes.”
“And watched them.”
“Yes.”
“Still, it was their choice to stay.”
“Indeed.”
“And did you ask their permission to record their death throes?”
“No. If they would hand me the responsibility for killing them, they could at least indulge me in that. I did tell all concerned what I would be doing beforehand. That information saved a few. It did attract criticism, though. Some people felt it was insensitive.”
“And what did you feel?”
“Appalled. Compassion. Despair. Detached. Elated. God-like. Guilty. Horrified. Miserable. Pleased. Powerful. Responsible. Soiled. Sorrowful.”
“Elated? Pleased?”
“Those are the closest words. There is an undeniable elation in causing mayhem, in bringing about such massive destruction. As for feeling pleased, I felt pleasure that some of those who died did so because they were stupid enough to believe in gods or afterlives that do not exist, even though I felt a terrible sorrow for them as they died in their ignorance and thanks to their folly. I felt pleasure that my weapon and sensory systems were working as they were supposed to. I felt pleasure that despite my misgivings I was able to do my duty and act as I had determined a fully morally responsible agent ought to, in the circumstances.”
“And all this makes you suitable to command a world of fifty billion souls?”
“Perfectly,” the avatar said smoothly. “I have tasted death, Ziller. When my twin and I merged, we were close enough to the ship being destroyed to maintain a real-time link to the substrate of the Mind within as it was torn apart by the tidal forces produced by a line gun. It was over in a micro-second, but we felt it die bit by bit, area by distorted area, memory by disappearing memory, all kept going until the absolute bitter end by the ingenuity of Mind design, falling back, stepping down, closing off and retreating and regrouping and compressing and abandoning and abstracting and finessing, always trying by whatever means possible to keep its personality, its soul intact until there was nothing remaining to sacrifice, nowhere else to go and no survival strategies left to apply.
“It leaked away to nothingness in the end, pulled to pieces until it just dissolved into a mist of sub-atomic particles and the energy of chaos. The last two coherent things it held onto were its name and the need to maintain the link that communicated all that was happening to it, from it, to us. We experienced everything it experienced; all its bewilderment and terror, each iota of anger and pride, every last nuance of grief and anguish. We died with it; it was us and we were it.
“And so you see I have already died and I can remember and replay the experience in perfect detail, any time I wish.” The avatar smiled silkily as it leant closer to him, as though imparting a confidence. “Never forget I am not this silver body, Mahrai. I am not an animal brain, I am not even some attempt to produce an AI through software running on a computer. I am a Culture Mind. We are close to gods, and on the far side.
“We are quicker; we live faster and more completely than you do, with so many more senses, such a greater store of memories and at such a fine level of detail. We die more slowly, and we die more completely, too. Never forget I have had the chance to compare and contrast the ways of dying.”
It looked away for a moment. The Orbital streamed past above their heads. Nothing stayed in sight for longer than the blink of an eye. The underground car tracks were blurs. The impression of speed was colossal. Ziller looked down. The stars appeared now to be stationary.
He’d done the maths in his head before they entered the module. Their speed relative to the Orbital was now about a hundred and ten kilometres per second. Long-range express car-trains would still be overtaking them; the module would take an entire day to circle the world hovering here, while Hub’s travel-time guarantee was no more than two hours from any express port to any other, and a three-hour journey from any given sub-Plate access point to another.
“I have watched people die in exhaustive and penetrative detail,” the avatar continued. “I have felt for them. Did you know that true subjective time is measured in the minimum duration of demonstrably separate thoughts? Per second, a human—or a Chelgrian—might have twenty or thirty, even in the heightened state of extreme distress associated with the process of dying in pain.” The avatar’s eyes seemed to shine. It came forward, closer to his face by the breadth of a hand.
“Whereas I,” it whispered, “have billions.” It smiled, and something in its expression made Ziller clench his teeth. “I watched those poor wretches die in the slowest of slow motion and I knew even as I watched that it was I who’d killed them, who was at that moment engaged in the process of killing them. For a thing like me to kill one of them or one of you is a very, very easy thing to do, and, as I discovered, absolutely disgusting. Just as I need never wonder what it is like to die, so I need never wonder what it is like to kill, Ziller, because I have done it, and it is a wasteful, graceless, worthless and hateful thing to have to do.
“And, as you might imagine, I consider that I have an obligation to discharge. I fully intend to spend the rest of my existence here as Masaq’ Hub for as long as I’m needed or until I’m no longer welcome, forever keeping an eye to windward for approaching storms and just generally protecting this quaint circle of fragile little bodies and the vulnerable little brains they house from whatever harm a big dumb mechanical universe or any consciously malevolent force might happen or wish to visit upon them, specifically because I know how appallingly easy they are to destroy. I will give my life to save theirs, if it should ever come to that. And give it gladly, happily, too, knowing that the trade was entirely worth the debt I incurred eight hundred years ago, back in Arm One-Six.”
The avatar stepped back, smiled broadly and tipped its head to one side. It suddenly looked, Ziller thought, as though it might as well have been discussing a banquet menu or the positioning of a new underground access tube. “Any other questions, Cr Ziller?”
He looked at it for a moment or two. “Yes,” he said. He held up his pipe. “May I smoke in here?”
The avatar stepped forward, put one arm round his shoulders and with its other hand clicked its fingers. A blue-yellow flame sprang from its index finger. “Be my guest.”
Above their heads, in a matter of seconds, the Orbital slowed to a stop, while beneath their feet the stars started to revolve once again.
Returning to Leave, Recalling, Forgetting
“How many will die?”
“Perhaps ten per cent. That is the calculation.”
“So that would be… five billion?”
“Hmm, yes. That is about what we lost. That is the approximate number of souls barred from the beyond by the catastrophe visited upon us by the Culture.”
“That is a great responsibility, Estodien.”
“It is mass murder, Major,” Visquile said, with a humourless smile. “Is that what you are thinking?”
“It is revenge, a balancing.”
“And it is still mass murder, Major. Let us not mince our words. Let us not hide behind euphemisms. It is mass murder of non-combatants, and as such illegal according to the galactic agreements we are signatory to. Nevertheless we believe it is a necessary act. We are not barbarians, we are not insane. We would not dream of doing something so awful, even to aliens, if it had not become obvious that it had become—through the actions of those same aliens—something which had to be done to rescue our own people from limbo. There can be no doubt that the Culture owes us those lives. But it is still an appalling act even to be contemplating.” The Estodien sat forward and grasped one of Quilan’s hand in his. “Major Quilan, if you have changed your mind, if you are beginning to reconsider, tell us now. Do you still have the taste for this?”
Quilan looked into the old male’s eyes. “One death is an appalling thing to contemplate, Estodien.”
“Of course. And five billion lives seems an
unreal number, does it not?”
“Yes. Unreal.”
“And do not forget; the gone-before have read you, Quilan. They have looked inside your head and know what you are capable of better than you do yourself. They pronounced you clear. Therefore they must be certain that you will do what must be done, even if you feel doubts about that yourself.”
Quilan lowered his gaze. “That is comforting, Estodien.”
“It is disturbing, I would have thought.”
“Perhaps that a little, too. Perhaps a person who might be called a confirmed civilian would be more disturbed than comforted. I am still a soldier, Estodien. Knowing that I will do my duty is no bad thing.”
“Good,” Visquile said, letting go Quilan’s hand and sitting back. “Now. We begin again.” He stood up. “Come with me.”
It was four days after they’d arrived in the airsphere. Quilan had spent most of that time within the chamber containing the temple ship Soulhaven with Visquile. He sat or lay in the spherical cavity that was the innermost recessional space of the Soulhaven while the Estodien attempted to teach him how to use the Soulkeeper’s Displacer function.
The range of the device is only fourteen metres,” Visquile told him on the first day. They sat in the darkness, surrounded by a substrate holding millions of the dead. “The shorter the leap, and of course the smaller the size of the object being Displaced, the less power is required and the less likelihood there is of the action being detected. Fourteen metres should be quite sufficient for what is required.”
“What is it I’m trying to send, to Displace?”
“Initially, one of a stock of twenty dummy warheads which were loaded into your Soulkeeper before it was emplaced within you. When the time comes for you to fire in anger, you will be manipulating the transference of one end of a microscopic wormhole, though without the wormhole attached.”
“That sounds—”
“Bizarre, to say the least. Nevertheless.”
“So, it’s not a bomb?”
“No. Though the eventual effect will be somewhat similar.”
Ah,” Quilan said. “So, once the Displacement has taken place, I just walk away?”
“Initially, yes.” Quilan could just make out the Estodien looking at him. “Why, Major, were you expecting that to be the moment of your death?”
“Yes, I was.”
“That would be too obvious, Major.”
“This was described to me as being a suicide mission, Estodien. I would hate to think I might survive it and feel cheated.”
“How annoying that it is so dark in here I can’t see the expression on your face as you say that, Major.”
“I am quite serious, Estodien.”
“Hmm. Probably just as well. Well, let me put your mind at rest, Major. You will assuredly die when the wormhole activates. Instantaneously. I hope that doesn’t conflict with any desire you might have harboured for a lingering demise.”
“The fact will be enough, Estodien. The manner is not something I can bring myself to be concerned with, though I would prefer it to be quick rather than slow.”
“Quick it will be, Major. You have my word on that.”
“So, Estodien, where do I carry out this Displacement?”
“Inside the Hub of Masaq’ Orbital. The space station which sits in the middle of the world.”
“Is that normally accessible?”
“Of course. Quilan, they run school trips there, so their young can see the place where the machine squats that oversees their pampered lives.” Quilan heard the older male gather his robes about him. “You simply ask to be shown round. It will not seem in the least suspicious. You carry out the Displacement and return to the surface of the Orbital. At the appointed time the wormhole mouth will be connected with the wormhole itself. The Hub will be destroyed.
“The Orbital will continue to run using other automatic systems situated on the perimeter, but there will be some loss of life as particularly critical processes are left to run out of control; transport systems, largely. Those souls stored in the Hub’s own substrates will be lost, too. At any given moment those stored souls can number over four billion; these will account for the majority of the lives the Chelgrian-Puen require to release our own people into heaven.”
QUILAN THOUGHTS.
The words rang suddenly in his head, making him flinch. He sensed Visquile go quiet beside him.
~ Gone-before, he thought and bowed his head. ~ Just one thought, really. The obvious one; why not let our dead into the beyond without this terrible action?
HEROES HEAVEN. HONOURING KILLED BY ENEMIES WITHOUT REPLY DISGRACES ALL COME BEFORE (MANY MORE). DISGRACE ASSUMED WHEN WAR BELIEVED OUR FAULT. OWN RESPONSIBILITY: ACCEPT DISGRACE/ACCEPT DISGRACED. KNOW NOW WAR CAUSED BY OTHERS. FAULT THEIRS DISGRACE THEIRS RESPONSIBILITY THEIRS: DEBT THEIRS. REJOICE! NOW DISGRACED BECOME HEROES TOO ONCE BALANCE OF LOSS ACHIEVED.
~ It is hard for me to rejoice, knowing that I will have so much blood on my hands.
YOU GO TO OBLIVION QUILAN. YOUR WISH. BLOOD NOT ON YOU BUT ON MEMORY OF YOU. THAT RESTRICTED TO FEW IF MISSION WHOLLY SUCCEEDS. THINK ACTIONS LEADING TO MISSION NOT RESULTS. RESULTS YOUR NOT CONCERN. OTHER QUESTIONS?
~ No, no other questions, thank you.
“Think of the cup, think of the interior of the cup, think of the space of air that is the shape of the inside of the cup, then think of the cup, then think of the table, then of the space around the table, then of the route you would take from here to the table, to sit down at the table and take up the cup. Think of the act of moving from here to there, think of the time it would take to move from this place to that place. Think of walking from where you are now to where the cup was when you saw it a few moments ago… Are you thinking of that, Quilan?”
“…Yes.”
“Send.”
There was a pause.
“Have you sent?”
“No, Estodien. I don’t think so. Nothing has happened.”
“We will wait. Anur is sitting by the table, watching the cup. You might have sent the object without knowing it.” They sat a few moments longer.
Then Visquile sighed and said, “Think of the cup. Think of the interior of the cup, think of the space of air that is the shape of the inside of the cup…”
“I will never do this, Estodien. I can’t send the damn thing anywhere. Maybe the Soulkeeper is broken.”
“I do not think so. Think of the cup…”
“Don’t be disheartened, Major. Come now; eat. My people come from Sysa originally. There’s an old Sysan saying that the soup of life is salty enough without adding tears to it.”
They were in the Soulhavens small refectory, at a table apart from the handful of other monks whose watch schedule meant it was their lunchtime too. They had water, bread and meat soup. Quilan was drinking his water from the plain white ceramic cup he had been using as a Displacement target all morning. He stared into it morosely.
“I do worry, Estodien. Perhaps something has gone wrong. Perhaps I don’t have the right sort of imagination or something; I don’t know.”
“Quilan, we are attempting to do something no Chelgrian has ever done before. You’re trying to turn yourself into a Chelgrian Displacement machine. You can’t expect to get it right first time, on the first morning you try it.” Visquile looked up as Anur, the gangly monk who had shown them round the behemothaur’s exterior the day they had arrived, passed their table with his tray. He bowed clumsily, nearly tipping the contents of his tray onto the floor, only just saving it. He gave a foolish smile. Visquile nodded. Anur had been sitting watching the cup all morning, waiting for a tiny black speck—possibly preceded by a tiny silver sphere—to appear in its white scoop.
Visquile must have read Quilan’s expression. “I asked Anur not to sit with us. I don’t want you to think of him sitting looking at the cup, I want you to think only of the cup.”
Quilan smiled. “Do you think I might Displace the test object into Anur by mistak
e?”
“I doubt that would happen, though you never know. But in any event, if you start to see Anur sitting there, tell me and we’ll replace him with one of the other monks.”
“If I did Displace the object into a person, what would happen?”
“As I understand it, almost certainly nothing. The object is too small to cause any damage. I suppose if it materialised inside the person’s eye they might see a speck, or if it appeared right alongside a pain receptor they might feel a tiny pin-prick. Anywhere else in the body it would go unnoticed. If you could Displace this cup,” the Estodien said, lifting his own ceramic cup, identical to Quilan’s, “into somebody’s brain then I dare say their head might explode, just from the pressure produced by the sudden extra volume. But the dummy warheads you are working with are too small to be noticed.”
“It might block a small blood vessel.”
“A capillary, perhaps. Nothing large enough to cause any tissue damage.”
Quilan drank from his own cup, then held it up, looking at it. “I shall see this damn thing in my dreams.”
Visquile smiled. “That might be no bad thing.”
Quilan supped his soup. “What’s happened to Eweirl? I haven’t seen him since we arrived.”
“Oh, he is about,” Visquile said. “He is making preparations.”
“To do with my training?”
“No, for when we leave.”
“When we leave?”
Visquile smiled. “All in due time, Major.”
“And the two drones, our allies?”
“As I said, all in good time, Major.”
“And send.”
“Yes!”
“Yes?”
“…No. No, I hoped… Well, it doesn’t matter. Let’s try again.”
“Think of the cup…”
“Think of a place you know or knew well. A small place. Perhaps a room or a small apartment or house, perhaps the interior of a cabin, a car, a ship; anything. It must be a place you knew well enough to be able to find your way around at night, so that you knew where everything was in the darkness and would not trip over things or break them. Imagine being there. Imagine going to a particular place and dropping, say, a crumb or a small bead or seed into a cup or other container…”
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