The Operator, of course, did not scream when his own nails were detached from his fingers. The process is not the same for him since he initiates it—and the subsequent interruption of the blood flow to the injured areas—autonomously by directly manipulating his psychosoma. Moreover, electrical impulses that scramble his analgo-receptor centres are emitted continuously from the outside, though they become weaker as the performance progresses; in the Great Game, speed and precision are literally of vital importance.
With the Subject floating horizontally in front of him, maintained in place by magnetic fields, the Operator now makes the median incision from the top of the sternum to the pubis. The anaesthetizing suction cups follow the red line, close behind the scalpel. The Subject’s scream is again cut short.
The next incisions must be made rapidly. This is where everything will be decided; the pain increases for the Operator (as the electric scrambling steadily decreases in intensity) while it diminishes for the Subject as area after area is more and more thoroughly anaesthetized. The Operator starts with the pubis. The audience leans forward. Will he attempt internal detachment? No, he will leave the most intimate parts of the Subject intact. He makes do with cutting around the labia majora and the anus. (The process takes a little longer, and is therefore more perilous for the Operator when the Subject is of the male sex. The penis is, of course, an exterior organ, which makes the operation obligatory, and its flaccidity creates a problem; an entire traction system is required and it must be regulated perfectly to permit a quick, precise incision. Psychosomatic control easily solves this problem for the bodies of male Operators.)
The Operator now goes to the other end of the Subject. The head has an abundance of orifices whose outlines must be followed meticulously—the eyes and the mouth especially, for obvious, though different, reasons. The ears, by convention, will be detached with the rest of the skin; the nostrils, also by convention, are always cut along their perimeter. But the eyes and the mouth require special attention. Cutting the eyelids is particularly delicate and there is no room for missteps. As for the mouth, like the genitals of a female Subject and the anus in both sexes, there are two possibilities: either the incision simply follows the line of the lips, or else the mini-scalpels take the risk of going inside. There will be no surprises here. The Operator, logically, chooses the first option.
Up to this point the procedure has been flawless, and the Operator can begin the next phase confidently. The pain has not yet begun to slow him down. Nevertheless everything is not settled. Besides the extraction operation per se, some separate incisions, more or less important, are still required on the Subject from time to time for the removal of the skin, which must be carried out, if not slowly, at least with caution, if the optimal result is to be obtained.
A cloud of minute machines floats around the Operator. These will carry out the actual removal of the skin, remote-controlled by him; his optical centres receive pictures directly transmitted by cameras built into the micro-scalpels.
Here he has opted for speed, but also difficulty, by moving simultaneously from the periphery to the centre (peeling the tips of the fingers and toes like a glove), and from the centre to the periphery (lifting the skin from each side of the median incision). Bets are exchanged in the audience on the number of additional incisions that he will have to make.
The man and the woman now watch the show only from time to time. They talk instead, heads close together, punctuating their words with kisses.
The Operator’s psychosomatic control has relaxed for the first time. Blood beads along his cuts and where his skin, with a slow but regular movement, is being lifted at the same time as the Subject’s. Suction cups stick to him to clean and cauterize (but will not inject, of course, any analgesics). The work of the micro-machines, however, continues without any appreciable interruption. The myriads of pincer-clips hold the Subject’s skin and carefully lift it as the lasers separate the dermis, millimetre by millimetre. (It is important that the five layers of the epidermis be removed intact, basal layer, Malpighian layer, granular layer, clear layer, and horny layer.) There are particularly delicate areas, where the skin is thinner (the inside of the wrists, the armpits, the nipples…and of course, in the lower half, the popliteal space, the groin, and, when the Subject is a man, the penis, which is initially treated like a finger. It is necessary to go from the glans to the root, by way of the flap of the foreskin, and to deal with the softness of the scrotum).
The Operator is visibly fighting the pain now. The suction cups stick themselves to him more often, and the removal of the Subject’s skin seems to have also slowed down. Once the fingers have been uncovered, the arms and legs are skinned without particular problems for the Subject (and causing the Operator only the difficult, though expected, problem of growing pain). But the linkup of the micro-scalpels coming from the periphery with those coming from the centre takes place with difficulty on the perimeter of the torso. The process is no longer the slow but certain advance of a nearly straight front, as in the beginning (pincer-clips above the skin, micro-scalpels beneath) but a staggered progression, a section here, another farther on. The risks of tearing the tissue are increasing second by second as the machines lose their alignment and stresses are applied to the skin more and more unevenly. Will the Operator forfeit, or will he try to hold out to the extreme limits of consciousness, with all the attendant risks? The movement of the machines and the removal of the skin is now so slow as to be almost imperceptible. It could even be concluded, after a while, that it has totally stopped. The Operator floats, motionless. Only the movement of the cauterizing suction cups, here and there on his body, shows that he is still conscious. Is he resting, frittering away the precious remaining seconds while the analgesics still have some effect, or, although he is conscious, does he lack the strength to concede? But the suction cups detach themselves from him, putting an end to the spectators’ speculations. He is quite unconscious now. He has not been able to get through the Subject.
The Subject, however, in spite of the initial pain, and then the progressive anaesthesia, has remained perfectly conscious. With the Operator immobilized, she takes full control of his powers. Now in command of the extraction tools, the Subject can choose to stop or to go on with the initial work—which in this case will continue to be performed on the Operator’s body using identical machines that have just appeared in the weightlessness chamber and are obediently awaiting her decision. The machines position themselves on the floating body of the Operator. There is a brief round of satisfied applause in the audience. The Subject will finish the work, guiding the advance of the pincer-clips and micro-lasers over her own body, not only for the linkup taking place all around her torso, but also for the extremely delicate skinning of her head.
The Subject, of course, benefits from the results of the Operator’s skill and speed. She needs only a few minutes to complete the task (while the cauterizing suction cups move over the unconscious body of the Operator in the wake of the micro-scalpels and hastily inject him with a powerful mixture of restorative drugs).
The purpose of the injection at the end of the process, for the Subject as for the Operator (but is it still legitimate now to distinguish them in this way?), is to reinforce the skin sufficiently to reduce the risk during the last phase of the operation. After waiting a few minutes for the strengthener to take effect, the Subject extracts herself from her epidermis, slowly and nimbly, helped by the machines. Carried by force fields, the skin floats, tinted with a delicate, pinkish hue by the light of the lasers, not flaccid but as if still inhabited in absentia by the body that has just left it. The Subject swims towards the Operator, an exact, animated anatomical statue in which muscles, tendons, and capillary networks are outlined with gleaming precision (they also hint more clearly, by the patterns finally revealed, at the rigid, solid bone frame that supports them). She now applies herself to extracting him from his skin. Soon the two envelopes float side by side in the weightlessness
chamber, like outlines in waiting.
The Operator has regained consciousness. Impossible now to read any expression on his face, but the way he circles the Subject’s envelope, then his own, indicates quite clearly his satisfaction with the outcome of the encounter. They were, one could say, worthy of each other. He comes back towards the Subject and speaks some inaudible words to her. They seem to be in agreement and swim together to the skins.
A spectator on the fifth level who is more perceptive than the others begins applauding. Others understand a few seconds later, and soon the rest of the audience does too—through contagion or sudden illumination, impossible to say. In the weightlessness chamber, the Subject is in the process of fitting herself into the Operator’s skin, and the Operator (with some difficulty, the proportions not being identical though the sizes are) is wriggling into the Subject’s skin.
A series of stationary holograms replaces the hologram of the weightlessness chamber. They show the development of the ultimate phase of the Great Game: the progressive assimilation of the exchanged envelopes through local reabsorption of excess skin and regeneration of missing skin (with the interesting colour patterns that result—zones of thin white skin on copper-coloured skin, and vice versa). The woman’s skin is very white except for these differently pigmented bands; she now has short hair, black and smooth. The young man sports an unruly mane, and its copper colour matches almost perfectly the colour of his skin, striped here and there with white bands, particularly on the torso, the genitals, and the fingertips.
The circular stage vanishes. The applause continues for a few minutes more, while the voice of the Announcer names the two artists in the performance that has just been viewed. A few exclamations indicate that their names are familiar to many of the spectators. For a while, in some alcoves, there’s a flurry of speculation about what could have induced the Manager to present a show which is, if memory serves well, already ten years old. The artists have long since gone on to other destinies, and other, more modern, forms of art. The conversations go on this way for a moment, then drift off as various other concerns take over. Some clients get up to leave the establishment. The waiters guide others who have just arrived to vacant alcoves. Some hostesses who are free now begin to circulate among the audience again, while on the stage another attraction—holographic or real, it matters little—begins to draw the attention of possible spectators.
In the alcove on the third level, the man and the woman are also ready to leave. The occupants of the neighbouring table stop them as they go, and speak a few animated words to them in passing, to which they reply with a smile and a nod. Comcodes are exchanged; then the couple continues on its way up the levels to the exit. For an instant, in the doorway, the light catches a copper reflection on the hair of the man, a fragmented sparkling from the woman’s lamé dress; then the door closes on them, hiding them from the curiosity of the few other consumers who are perhaps still following with their eyes, unsure, and who will no doubt never have another chance to learn more about their identity.
A Gift from the Culture
IAIN M. BANKS
Iain Banks (1954–2013) was a popular Scottish writer of both general fiction and science fiction—the latter as “Iain M. Banks.” He is best known for his Culture novels, including Consider Phlebas (1987), The Player of Games (1988), The State of the Art (1991), Use of Weapons (1990), and many more. Significant stand-alone novels include the often horrifying The Wasp Factory (1984). Although Banks received few science fiction award nominations of any note for these novels, they have become classics in the field. In 2008, the London Times named Banks to their list of the “Fifty Greatest British Writers Since 1945.” He also got to write a book about whiskey a few years before his death from cancer, which entailed driving around Scotland and sampling the product, engendering perhaps thousands of envious curses from writers around the world.
The Culture novels portray a vast, interstellar civilization whose thirty trillion citizens are housed not only on planets but in gigantic starships and space habitats called “orbitals.” These habitats are governed by vast, wry artificial intelligences called Minds, who are essentially indistinguishable from their ships or habitats. One unique element of Banks’s creation is that it has been conceived in genuine post-scarcity terms; it does not contain—and therefore does not tell the stories of—internal or external hierarchies or conspiracies bent on maintaining power through control of limited resources. Within the Culture itself, therefore, there are no empires, no tentacled corporations, no enclaves whose hidden knowledge give their inhabitants a vital edge in their attempts to maintain independence, no secret masters.
Even more remarkably, Iain M. Banks represents the inhabitants of the Culture as energetic volunteers living in a utopia that has, in a sense, been created for them. They are most often met monitoring and exploring the universe in the vast AI-run ships that comprise the ganglia of the colossal enterprise. The novels of the Culture, therefore, almost entirely escape the presumption—very widely though tacitly espoused in twentieth-century science fiction—that a society without scarcity is inherently a society whose inhabitants are idle. Post-scarcity is not here inherently a mark of dystopia; it is not a sign of decadence or devolution that “in the Culture, anybody anytime could experience anything anywhere for nothing.”
This doesn’t in any way preclude internal conflict or complex political machinations, however—the Culture novels are full of brilliant set pieces and conflict-driven plotlines. Further, Banks’s creation allows him to examine in-depth topics like the nature of AI, the nature of evil, and the nature of posthuman interactions.
“A Gift from the Culture” (1987), Banks’s only short story set in that milieu, gives readers a glimpse of the virtues of this truly extraordinary series.
A GIFT FROM THE CULTURE
Iain M. Banks
Money is a sign of poverty. This is an old Culture saying I remember every now and again, especially when I’m being tempted to do something I know I shouldn’t, and there’s money involved (when is there not?).
I looked at the gun, lying small and precise in Cruizell’s broad, scarred hand, and the first thing I thought—after: Where the hell did they get one of those?—was: Money is a sign of poverty. However appropriate the thought might have been, it wasn’t much help.
I was standing outside a no-credit gambling club in Vreccis Low City in the small hours of a wet weeknight, looking at a pretty, toylike handgun while two large people I owed a lot of money to asked me to do something extremely dangerous and worse than illegal. I was weighing up the relative attractions of trying to run away (they’d shoot me), refusing (they’d beat me up; probably I’d spend the next few weeks developing a serious medical bill), and doing what Kaddus and Cruizell asked me to do, knowing that while there was a chance I’d get away with it—uninjured, and solvent again—the most likely outcome was a messy and probably slow death while assisting the security services with their enquiries.
Kaddus and Cruizell were offering me all my markers back, plus—once the thing was done—a tidy sum on top, just to show there were no hard feelings.
I suspected they didn’t anticipate having to pay the final instalment of the deal.
So, I knew that logically what I ought to do was tell them where to shove their fancy designer pistol, and accept a theoretically painful but probably not terminal beating. Hell, I could switch the pain off (having a Culture background does have some advantages), but what about that hospital bill?
I was up to my scalp in debt already.
“What’s the matter, Wrobik?” Cruizell drawled, taking a step nearer, under the shelter of the club’s dripping eaves. Me with my back against the warm wall, the smell of wet pavements in my nose and a taste like metal in my mouth. Kaddus and Cruizell’s limousine idled at the kerb; I could see the driver inside, watching us through an open window. Nobody passed on the street outside the narrow alley. A police cruiser flew over, high up, lights flashing thr
ough the rain and illuminating the underside of the rain clouds over the city. Kaddus looked up briefly, then ignored the passing craft. Cruizell shoved the gun towards me. I tried to shrink back.
“Take the gun, Wrobik,” Kaddus said tiredly. I licked my lips, stared down at the pistol.
“I can’t,” I said. I stuck my hands in my coat pockets.
“Sure you can,” Cruizell said. Kaddus shook his head.
“Wrobik, don’t make things difficult for yourself; take the gun. Just touch it first, see if our information is correct. Go on; take it.” I stared, transfixed, at the small pistol. “Take the gun, Wrobik. Just remember to point it at the ground, not at us; the driver’s got a laser on you and he might think you meant to use the gun on us…come on; take it, touch it.”
I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think. I just stood, hypnotized. Kaddus took hold of my right wrist and pulled my hand from my pocket. Cruizell held the gun up near my nose; Kaddus forced my hand onto the pistol. My hand closed round the grip like something lifeless.
—
The gun came to life; a couple of lights blinked dully, and the small screen above the grip glowed, flickering round the edges. Cruizell dropped his hand, leaving me holding the pistol; Kaddus smiled thinly.
“There, that wasn’t difficult, now, was it?” Kaddus said. I held the gun and tried to imagine using it on the two men, but I knew I couldn’t, whether the driver had me covered or not.
The Big Book of Science Fiction Page 165
