Iain Banks - Surface Detail

“What’s happened to my tat?” she demanded.

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s stopped working!”

The image appeared to squint, staring at her. “Hmm,” it said. “See what you mean. Looks like it’s frozen. Well, that will happen. Probably from when I had to half-stun you to stop you ripping Veppers’ throat out; collateral damage. Sorry. My apologies.”

“Well, fix it!”

“Can’t. Heading fast for Tsung. Have to Displace you and the tat and I’m already too far away and getting further away too quickly. Ask the drone.”

“Beyond my ken,” Olfes-Hresh said. “I’ve had a quick look. I can’t even see how it works.”

“Come back!” Lededje wailed. “Fix it! It’s stuck the way it was!”

The image nodded. “Okay. Will do. Not right now though. Day or two. Later.”

The image had disappeared by the time the word “later” reached Lededje’s ears. She buried her face in her hands and roared.

Huen looked at the drone, which made a shaking motion. “Not picking up,” it said quietly.

“Is there anything I can do… we can do?” Yime said.

Lededje collapsed onto her haunches, face still hidden in her hands.

Huen looked thoughtfully at her, then raised her gaze to the Quietus agent and the avatar. “Perhaps,” she said, “there is. Let me explain the situation.”

“Before you do that,” Demeisen’s voice said from Huen’s desk. “May I add something?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Lededje breathed, taking her hands away from her face and rolling backwards to lie on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. “Is there no getting away from this fucking machine?”

Huen was frowning at the drone. “I thought we were clear?” she said.

“As did I,” the machine said, aura field purple-grey with embarrassment.

“Well, couldn’t help overhearing,” Demeisen’s voice said.

“Liar,” Huen muttered.

“And I thought you might like to hear this. Just dropped into my in-box, at it were. Theoretically anonymous, but it definitely came from my new best chum, the bright and breezy NR Bismuth category ship 8401.00 Partial Photic Boundary . Slightly lo-fi after a lot of processing de-manglement, but I think you’ll forgive it that. It’s from about three hours ago, between Mr. V and Legislator-Admiral Bettlescroy-Bisspe-Blispin III, the bod in charge of the GFCF forces here in the Enablement. Here we go:”

“ Anyway ,” Veppers’ voice said, also coming from whatever comms gear was hidden in Huen’s desk, “ to reiterate: every trackway is underlain by what to the untutored eye looks like some sort of giant fungal structure. It isn’t. It’s substrate. Low-power, bio-based, not ultra-fast running, but high-efficiency, highly damage-resistant substrate; anything from ten to thirty metres thick under and amongst the roots, but adding up to over half a cubic kilometre of processing power spread throughout the estate. All the comms traffic to and from is channelled through the phased array satellite links dotted round the mansion house itself.

“ That’s what you have to hit, Bettlescroy. The under-trackway substrates contain over seventy per cent of the Hells in the entire galaxy. Of those we know of, anyway. Used to be slightly more, but very recently I sub-contracted the NR Hell, just to be on the safe side. I’ve been buying Hells up for over a century, Legislator-Admiral, taking the processing requirements and legal and jurisdictional implications off other peoples’ hands for most of my business life. The majority of the Hells are right here, in system, on planet. That is why I have always felt able to be so relaxed regarding the targeting details. Think you can get enough ships to Sichult to lay waste to my estate? ”

“ Truly? ” another voice said. “ The targets are on your own estates ? Why would you do that? ”

“ Deniability, Bettlescroy. You’ll have to raze the trackways, wreck my lands, blast the satellite links and damage the house itself; maybe even destroy it. That house has been in my family for centuries; it and the estate are inestimably precious to me. Or at least so everybody assumes. Who’s going to believe I brought all that destruction on myself? ”

“And so on,” Demeisen’s voice told them. “Then there’s this really good bit:”

“ And the people? ”

“ What people? ”

“ The people on the estate when it is laid waste. ”

“ Oh. Yes. I assume I have a few hours before any attack takes place. ”

“There’s a bit of blah-blah-blah here from our boy Bettlescroy,” Demeisen’s voice said, “then:”

“ So, bottom line, ” they heard Veppers say, “ I’d have time to get a few people out. Not too many, of course; it still has to look convincing. But I can always hire more people , Bettlescroy. Never a shortage of those, ever .”

“… Fascinating, what?” Demeisen’s voice said from Huen’s desk. “Specially the bit about handing the NR’s theme-park of woe over to somebody else before all the other Hells got wasted. Bet he thought that was being clever, getting the NR off his back. Just like the GFCF thought they were being clever swiping all that NR comms knowledge, back in the whenever-when, never thinking it might come with trap-doors the NR could tap into and copy their comms any time they wanted. Don’t you think it’s hilarious when people think they’re being terribly clever? I know I do. Just as well some of us genuinely fucking are or we’d be in a hell of a fucking state. Well, my work here is done. Mostly, anyway; still more smatter-ships to smashify. Be seeing you!”

There was silence in the room for a while.

The drone Olfes-Hresh made a shaking motion. “Well,” it said to Huen, “again, I think we’re clear, and it’s gone, but then I thought that the last time.”

On the floor, lying loosely spread, shaking her head, Lededje sighed.

Huen looked up from her to Yime and Himerance.

“Obviously,” she said, “there are things we ought not to be doing or taking part in here, either for first-principle moral reasons, or due to the regrettable exigencies of realpolitik .” She paused. “However.”

“ The Scoudenfrast, I think. No, Jasken, that’s a Scundrundri. The Scoudenfrast is the one alongside, the purple one with the yellow splodges. I always did think Scundrundri was over-rated. Besides, with these gone, the rest I have in the town house will be worth more. Nolyen, give Mr. Jasken a hand with these out to the flier, would you?”

“Sir.”

“Quickly, both of you.”

“Sir,” Jasken said. He lifted an armful of old masters and headed for the end of the long, curved gallery, followed by Nolyen, similarly laden. It was gloomy in the place; the house was relying on its emergency lighting, and not even all of that was functioning properly. Nolyen — a big, dim country lad from the kitchens — dropped one of the paintings he was carrying, and struggled to pick it up again; Jasken came back and used his foot to help lever the thing back up into the boy’s hands. Veppers watched all this, sighing.

He was actually a little bit disappointed in his staff and their commitment. He’d expected to find more people here in the house, worried over the fate of their master — they still thought he might be dead, after all — and determined to help save the house from the surrounding and encroaching fires. Instead, he’d discovered that most of them had already fled the place.

They’d taken to the wheeled vehicles that the estate used on a day-to-day basis, and to those from Veppers’ own collection of automotive exotica, stored and cared for in some of the mansion’s underground garages. There were some fliers left dotted about the place but it looked like they’d fallen victim to the same stray radiation pulses that had knocked out the local comms.