Iain Banks - Look to Windward

The spot on his neck was cooling. He thought his head felt very slightly warmer than it had before. He might have been imagining it.

You lose your love, your heart, your very soul, he thought, and gain—“a land destroyer!” he heard her say, so falsely, bravely cheerful in his mind, while the rain-filled sky flashed above her and the vast weight pinned him utterly. Some memory of that pain and despair squeezed tears from his eyes.

~ Complete.

~ Testing, testing, said the dry, laconic voice of Hadesh Huyler.

~ Hello, sir.

~ You okay, son?

~ I’m fine, sir.

~ Did that hurt you there, Major? You seem a little… distressed.

~ No, sir. Just an old memory. How do you feel?

~ Pretty damn strange. I dare say I’ll get used to it. Looks like everything checks out. Shit, that female techie doesn’t look any better through a male’s eyes than she does through a camera. Of course; what he could see, Huyler could see. Before he could reply, Huyler added, You sure you’re okay?

~ Positive, sir. I’m fine.

He stood within the hulk of the Winter Storm. The Navy drone went back and forth across the strange, almost flat floor of the wreck, searching in a grid pattern. It passed the hole in the floor where the substrate from Aorme had been wrenched out.

In the two days since they’d found the substrate, Quilan had persuaded the techs that it was worth recalibrating the drone to look for substrates much smaller than the one Huyler had been in, substrates the size of a Soulkeeper, in fact. They had already performed a standard search, but he got them at least to try and look more closely. The Mendicant Sisters on the temple ship had helped with the persuading; any chance to rescue a soul had to be pursued to the utmost.

By the time the drone was ready, though, the Culture ship which would take him on the first leg of his journey was already starting to decelerate. The Navy drone would have time for one sweep and one sweep only.

He watched it make its passes, following its own unseen grid across the flat floor. He looked up and round the gaping shell of the ship’s hull.

He tried to recreate in his mind the interior of the vessel as it had been when it had been intact, and wondered in what part of it she had stayed, where she had moved and where she had lain her head to sleep in the ship’s false night.

The main drive units might be up there, filling half the ship, the flyer hangar was there, in the stern, the decks would spread here and here; individual cabins would have been over there, or over there.

Maybe, he thought, maybe there was still a chance, maybe the techs had been wrong and there was still something left to find. The hull only held because it was energised somehow. They still didn’t understand everything about these great, gifted ships. Perhaps somewhere within the hull itself…

The machine floated up to him, clicking, ceiling lights glittering across its metallic carapace. He looked at it.

~ Sorry to break in, Quil, but it wants you to get the hell out the way.

~ Of course. Sorry. Quilan stepped to one side. Not too clumsily, he hoped. It had been a while since he’d worn a suit.

~ I’ll leave you alone again.

~ No, it’s all right. Talk if you want to talk.

~ Hmm. Okay. I’ve been wondering.

~ What?

~ We’ve spent so much time doing technical, calibrating stuff, but we haven’t touched on some of the basic assumptions being made here, like is it really true we can hear each other when we talk like this but not when we think? Seems a damn fine distinction to me.

~ Well, that’s what we’ve been told. Why, have you had any hint of—?

~ No, it’s just that when you look at something through another person’s eyes and you think something, after a while you start to wonder if it’s really what you think or some sort of bleed-over from what they’re thinking.

~ I think I see what you mean.

~ So, think we should test it out?

~ I suppose we could, sir.

~ All right. See if you can catch what I’m thinking.

~ Sir, I don’t think… he thought, but there was silence, even as his own thoughts tailed off. He waited a few more moments. Then a few more. The drone continued on its search pattern, each time passing by further and further away.

~ Well? Catch anything?

~ No, sir. Sir, I—

~ You don’t know what you missed, Major. Okay, your turn. Go on. Think of something. Anything.

He sighed. The enemy ship — no, he shouldn’t think of them that way… The ship could be here by now. He felt that what he and Huyler were doing right now was a waste of time, but on the other hand there was nothing they could do to make the drone carry out its task any faster, so they weren’t really wasting any time at all. All the same, it felt like it.

What a strange interval, he thought, to be here in this hermetic mausoleum, standing in the midst of such forlorn desolation with another mind inside his own, trading absences in the face of a task he knew nothing about.

And so he thought of the long avenue at Old Briri in the fall, the way she scuffed through the amber drifts of fallen leaves, kicking golden explosions of leaves into the air. He thought of their marriage ceremony, in the gardens of her parents’ estate, with the oval bridge reflected in the lake. As they’d made their vows a wind out of the hills had ruffled the reflection and taken it away, snapping at the awning above them, blowing off hats and making the priest clutch at her robes, but the same strong, spring-scented breeze had stroked the tops of the veil trees and sent a shimmering white cloud of blossom falling around them, like snow.

A few of the petals were still resting on her fur and eyelashes at the end of the service when he turned to her, removed his own ceremonial muzzle and hers, and kissed her. Their friends and family hurrahed; hats were thrown into the air and some were caught by another gust of wind, to land in the lake and sail off across the little waves like a dainty flotilla of brightly coloured boats.

He thought again of her face, her voice, those last few moments. Live for me, he had said, and made her promise. How could they have known it would be a promise she could never keep, and he would still live to remember?

Huyler’s voice broke in. ~ Done your thinking, Major?

~ Yes, sir. Did you catch anything?

~ No. Just physiological stuff. Looks like we’ve still got some degree of privacy. Oh; the machine says it’s finished.

Quilan looked at the drone, which had arrived at the far end of the spoon of floor. ~ What does it… Look, Huyler, can I talk to that thing directly?

~ I think I can set that up, now it’s finished. I’ll still be able to hear though.

~ I don’t mind, I just…

~ There. Try that.

~ Machine? Drone?

~ Yes, Major Quilan.

~ Are there any other personality constructs in here, anywhere within the hull?

~ No. Only the one I was tasked with discovering earlier which now shares co-ordinates with yourself, that of Admiral-General Huyler.

~ Are you sure? he asked, wondering if any hint of his hope and despair could colour his communicated words.

~ Yes.

~ What about within the fabric of the hull material itself?

~ That is not relevant.

~ Have you scanned it?

~ I cannot. It is not open to my sensors.

The machine was merely clever, not sentient. It would probably not have been able to recognise the emotions behind his words anyway, even if they had been communicated.

~ Are you absolutely certain? Have you scanned everything?

~ I am certain. Yes. The only three personalities present within the ship’s hull in any form appreciable to my senses are: you, the personality through which I am communicating to you, and my own.