Iain Banks - Surface Detail

The view was of afternoon sky, puffy white clouds, and a city across a broad wooded park. The city looked like Ubruater. The room was very large and high ceilinged, with a large desk in one corner and some tall potted plants dotted about a gleaming wooden floor strewn with beautiful rugs. Those items aside, it was minimally furnished with large pieces in cream and grey. On one long seat, lounging, one arm flung over the back, the other holding a small cup, sat Joiler Veppers. To his side sat Jasken; on the other side of a low table sat a large, very straight-backed middle-aged woman Lededje half recognised. She had a child on her knee. A drone like a small smooth suitcase floated near the woman’s shoulder. A wall screen, sound muted, was cycling through news channels; fuzzy images and clear graphics of dense fleets of ships filled the screen, interspersed by well-groomed, very serious-looking presenters.

The woman waved one arm languidly towards them. “Mr. Veppers, may I present Av Demeisen, representative of the Culture ship Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints , and guest. Ship: Mr. Joiler Veppers, Mr. Hibin Jasken, the drone Trachelmatis Olfes-Hresh Stidikren-tra Muoltz—”

“Though I answer to ‘Olf’,” the drone said, with a sort of side-ways bow. “Too much spittle ruins these floors.”

“And this is my son Liss,” the woman continued, smiling, ruffling the blond hair of the young child on her knee. He was biting on a biscuit, but spared the time to wave. Then he patted his hair back down. “I’m Buoyte-Pfaldsa Kreit Lei Huen da’ Motri,” the woman went on. “Culture ambassador to the Enablement.” She waved her arm again, towards a couch across from her, at right angles to the one that Veppers and Jasken sat on. “Please; sit down.”

“Hello, all,” Demeisen said loudly, radiating bonhomie.

Lededje watched Veppers watching her as she and the avatar approached the seating area. He looked pretty much as he had. Hair and skin as full and luxuriant as ever. Dressed more casually and soberly than he usually was when in the city; almost dully, as though he was trying to blend in for once. Nose a little pink and thin at the tip. She met his gaze only briefly, tried to look unconcerned. He was smiling at her. She recognised that particular smile. It was the one that acknowledged beauty but hinted at vulnerability, the one that was meant to say “I may be the richest man in the world but I can still be a little unsure of myself around beautiful women like yourself.” She was aware that Jasken was also looking at her, but she ignored him.

She took a couple of quick steps just before they got to the seats, so that she sat closer to Veppers than Demeisen seemed to have intended. The avatar was to her right, Veppers at an angle, left and in front. The low table held what looked like the remains of a small picnic: pots, small trays, unfolded take-away plates, cups, saucers and some scattered cutlery.

“Won’t you introduce your guest, Demeisen?” the ambassador said.

“Tsk!” the avatar said, slapping his forehead. “My manners, eh?” Demeisen waved one arm from Lededje to Veppers. “Doll, this is your rapist and murderer. Veppers, you ghastly cunt, this is Lededje Y’breq, back from the dead.”

There was a tiny pause. Lededje took only that moment to register what had just happened. Then she bounced out of the couch she had barely sat down on, scooped up the sharpest-looking knife on the table and threw herself at Veppers.

It was only later she understood how little chance she’d really had. The knife disappeared from her grip, plucked away by Demeisen, despite the fact he was on her far side from Veppers.

Jasken moved less quickly, seeming almost to hesitate for a fraction of a second, but even as Lededje got one hand on Veppers’ throat — he was shrinking back, eyes widening, as she threw herself forward — Jasken suddenly had her wrist in a grip like steel.

Meanwhile the drone Olfes-Hresh had snapped through the air to her other side, whipping a blue-glowing force field between her torso and Veppers’ and gripping her left arm, keeping that hand held up and away. Lededje heard herself make an anguished, strangling noise as she tried to close her fingers round Veppers’ throat.

She heard a brief, deep humming noise and experienced a sort of coldness wash over her, making her skin crawl, then — her hand still clutching at Veppers’ throat as he thudded back into the back of the couch — she felt herself being grabbed round the waist. She tried to kick, but her legs seemed to have lost contact with her brain; she felt hopelessly, childishly dizzy, her hand was forced back, and she was pulled away across the low table in a further scatter of food, crockery and cutlery to be plonked down on the couch, not where she had been but with Demeisen between her and Veppers, who was sitting back up now and rubbing his throat.

Demeisen had an arm across Lededje’s upper chest, pinning her against some flattened cushions. One of his legs was trapping both her legs under the couch.

“Gasslikunt!” said a small voice.

Kreit Huen glared at the avatar. “See what you’ve done?” she muttered. She cuddled the boy to her, patting the nape of his neck and back of his head with her hand.

“Motherf—!” Lededje began, struggling mightily to get out from under Demeisen’s limbs, then trying to reach the avatar’s face with her fingers, to tear his eyes out or scratch him or do anything at all to hurt him.

“Spirited little thing, isn’t she?” Veppers said calmly, waving Jasken away as the other man tried to fuss over him.

“Behave,” Demeisen said quietly, levelly to Lededje.

“I’ll f…!” she spat, heaving herself towards him. She got her back about a centimetre away from the couch before she was thrown against it again.

“Led,” the avatar said, a small smile on his face, “you were never going to get a clear shot at him. Now sit still and behave yourself or I will have to stun you again, and more than just your legs this time.” He loosened his grip on her a little, tentatively.

She sat still, looked at him with an expression of cold loathing. “You unmitigated piece of ordure in human shape,” she said, very quietly. “Why did you lead me on? Why did you give me any hope at all?”

“Things change, Lededje,” the avatar told her, sounding reasonable. He withdrew the arm and leg that had been restraining her. “Circumstances, and likely consequences. That’s just the way it is.”

Lededje glanced at Huen and her child. “Go and stuprate your-self,” she whispered to the avatar. He shook his head, made a tsk sound again.

Veppers looked at Huen. “Why is this psychotically rude man trying to convince me that this even more berserk young woman is the late, lamented Ms. Y’breq, and why are they even here?”

“He may believe that she is Ms. Y’breq,” Huen told him. She turned to the drone, handing the child up to it. “Olf, please take Liss to the playroom. This was a mistake. I’m an idiot.”

“Gasslikunt!” Liss repeated, cradled in ruby-red fields as the drone took the child and swept away towards the doors.

Huen smiled as she gazed after the boy, waving.

When the doors closed she turned back to Veppers. “I am not entirely sure why Av Demeisen thought to bring this young lady with him, but I wanted him here because he represents the most powerful vessel in the vicinity, with the power to overturn any agreement we might make if he doesn’t concur. We need him on-side, Joiler.”

Veppers had a sort of calculating look about him, Demeisen thought. He was also — going on heart-rate, capillary contraction and skin moisture readings — profoundly rattled, though hiding it extremely well. The man’s gaze shifted, eyes hooded a little, from the ambassador to Lededje. “But I’m still being asked to believe that this person is some sort of reincarnated version of Ms. Y’breq,” he said, as his gaze alighted on Demeisen, “and this… offensively rude, lying young man, allegedly representing a powerful Culture spacecraft, is allowed to make outrageous and obscene accusations without, I presume, being subject to any of the legal sanctions I would seek to impose on anybody else saying anything so utterly mendacious and, potentially — if anybody else was sufficiently demented to take his ravings seriously — so horrendously damaging to my reputation, is that right?”