Iain Banks: Look to Windward

His nose ring had spoken to him. When he had first arrived in the Culture he hadn’t liked the idea of having com equipment inserted into his skull (or anywhere else for that matter). His family nose ring was about the only thing he always carried with him, so they had made him a perfect replica that happened to be a communications terminal as well.

“Sorry to disturb you, Ambassador. Hub here. You’re closest; would you let Mr Olsule know he is speaking to an ordinary brooch, not his terminal?”

“Yes.” Kabe turned to a young man in a white suit who was holding a piece of jewellery in his hand and looking puzzled. “Ah, Mr Olsule?”

“Yeah, I heard,” the man said, stepping back to look up at the Homomdan. He appeared surprised, and Kabe formed the impression that he had been mistaken for a sculpture or an article of monumental furniture. This happened fairly often. A function of scale and stillness, basically. It was one hazard of being a glisteningly black three-and-a-bit-metre-tall pyramidal triped in a society of slim, matte-skinned two-metre-tall bipeds. The young man squinted at the brooch again. “I could have sworn this…”

“Sorry about that, Ambassador,” said the nose ring. “Thank you for your help.”

“Oh, you’re welcome.”

A gleaming, empty serving tray floated up to the young man, dipped its front in a sort of bow and said, “Hi. Hub again. What you have there, Mr Olsule, is a piece of jet in the shape of a ceerevell, explosively inlaid with platinum and summitium. From the studio of Ms Xossin Nabbard, of Sintrier, after the Quarafyd school. A finely wrought work of substantial artistry. But unfortunately not a terminal.”

“Damn. Where is my terminal then?”

“You left all your terminal devices at home.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You asked me not to.”

“When?”

“One hundred and—”

“Oh, never mind. Well, replace that, umm… change that instruction. Next time I leave home without a terminal… get them to make a fuss or something.”

“Very well. It will be done.”

Mr Olsule scratched his head. “Maybe I should get a lace. One of those implant things.”

“Undeniably, forgetting your head would pose considerable difficulties. In the meantime, I’ll second one of the barge’s remotes to accompany you for the rest of the evening, if you’d like.”

“Yeah, okay.” The young man put the brooch back on and turned to the laden buffet table. “So, anyway; can I eat this…? Oh. It’s gone.”

“Itchy motile envelope,” said the tray quietly, floating off.

“Eh?”

“Ah, Kabe, my dear friend. Here you are. Thank you so much for coming.”

Kabe swivelled to find the drone E. H. Tersono floating at his side at a level a little above head height for a human and a little below that of an Homomdan. The machine was a little less than a metre in height, and half that in width and depth. Its rounded-off rectangular casing was made of delicate pink porcelain held in a lattice of gently glowing blue lumenstone. Beyond the porcelain’s translucent surface, the drone’s internal components could just be made out; shadows beneath its thin ceramic skin. Its aura field, confined to a small volume directly underneath its flat base, was a soft blush of magenta, which, if Kabe recalled correctly, meant it was busy. Busy talking to him?

“Tersono,” he said. “Yes. Well, you did invite me.”

“Indeed I did. Do you know, it occurred to me only later that you might misinterpret my invitation as some sort of summons, even as an imperious demand. Of course, once these things are sent…”

“Ho-ho. You mean it wasn’t a demand?”

“More of a petition. You see, I have a favour to ask you.”

“You do?” This was a first.

“Yes. I wonder if we might talk somewhere we’d have a little more privacy?”

Privacy, thought Kabe. That was a word you didn’t hear very often in the Culture. Probably more used in a sexual context than any other. And not always even then.

“Of course,” he said. “Lead on.”

“Thank you,” the drone said, floating towards the stern and rising to look over the heads of the people gathered in the function space. The machine turned this way and that, making it clear it was looking for something or someone. “Actually,” it said quietly, “we are not yet quite quorate… Ah. Here we are. Please; this way, Ar Ischloear.”

They approached a group of humans centred on the Mahrai Ziller. The Chelgrian was nearly as long as Kabe was tall, and covered in fur that varied from white around his face to dark brown on his back. He had a predator’s build, with large forward-facing eyes set in a big, broad-jawed head. His rear legs were long and powerful; a striped tail, woven about with silver chain, curved between them. Where his distant ancestors would have had two middle-legs, Ziller had a single broad midlimb, partially covered by a dark waistcoat. His arms were much like a human’s, though covered in golden fur and ending in broad, six-digit hands more like paws.

Almost as soon as he and Tersono joined the group around Ziller, Kabe found himself engulfed by another confusing babble of conversation.

“—of course you don’t know what I mean. You have no context.”

“Preposterous. Everybody has a context.”

“No. You have a situation, an environment. That is not the same thing. You exist. I would hardly deny you that.”

“Well, thanks.”

“Yeah. Otherwise you’d be talking to yourself.”

“You’re saying we don’t really live, is that it?”

“That depends what you mean by live. But let’s say yes.”

“How fascinating, my dear Ziller,” E. H. Tersono said. “I wonder—”

“Because we don’t suffer.”

“Because you scarcely seem capable of suffering.”

“Well said! Now, Ziller—”

“Oh, this is such an ancient argument…”

“But it’s only the ability to suffer that—”

“Hey! I’ve suffered! Lemil Kimp broke my heart.”

“Shut up, Tulyi.”

“—you know, that makes you sentient, or whatever. It’s not actually suffering.”

“But she did!”

“An ancient argument, you said, Ms Sippens?”

“Yes.”

“Ancient meaning bad?”

“Ancient meaning discredited.”

“Discredited? By whom?”

“Not whom. What.”

“And that what would be…?”

“Statistics.”

“So there we are. Statistics. Now then, Ziller, my dear friend—”

“You are not serious.”

“I think she thinks she is more serious than you, Zil.”

“Suffering demeans more than it ennobles.”

“And this is a statement derived wholly from these statistics?”

“No. I think you’ll find a moral intelligence is required as well.”

“A prerequisite in polite society, I’m sure we’d all agree. Now, Ziller—”

“A moral intelligence which instructs us that all suffering is bad.”

“No. A moral intelligence which will incline to treat suffering as bad until proved good.”

“Ah! So you admit that suffering can be good.”

“Exceptionally.”

“Ha.”

“Oh, nice.”

“What?”

“Did you know that works in several different languages?”

“What? What does?”

“Tersono,” Ziller said, turning at last to the drone, which had lowered itself to his shoulder level and edged closer and closer as it had tried to attract the Chelgrian’s attention over the past few moments, during which time its aura field had just started to shade into the blue-grey of politely held-in-check frustration.

Mahrai Ziller, composer, half outcast, half exile, rose from his crouch and balanced on his rear haunches. His midlimb made a shelf briefly and he put his drink down on the smoothly furred surface while he used his forelimbs to straighten his waistcoat and comb his brows. “Help me,” he said to the drone. “I am trying to make a serious point and your compatriot indulges in word play.”