Iain Banks - Look to Windward

“Then I suggest you fall back and regroup and hope to catch her again later when she is in a less trenchantly flippant mood. You’ve met Ar Kabe Ischloear?”

“I have. We are old acquaintances. Ambassador.”

“You dignify me, sir,” the Homomdan rumbled. “I am more of a journalist.”

“Yes, they do tend to call us all ambassadors, don’t they? I’m sure it’s meant to be flattering.”

“No doubt. They mean well.”

“They mean ambiguously, sometimes,” Ziller said, turning briefly to the woman he had been talking to. She raised her glass and bowed her head a fraction.

“When you two have entirely finished criticising your determinedly generous hosts…” Tersono said.

“This would be the private word you mentioned, would it?” Ziller asked.

“Precisely. Indulge an eccentric drone.”

“Very well.”

“This way.”

The drone continued past the line of food tables towards the stern of the barge. Ziller followed the machine, seeming to flow along the polished deck, lithely graceful on his single broad midlimb and two strong rear legs. The composer still had his crystal full of wine balanced effortlessly in one hand, Kabe noticed. Ziller used his other hand to wave at a couple of people who nodded to or greeted him as they passed.

Kabe felt very heavy and lumbering in comparison. He tried drawing himself up to his full height so as to appear less stockily massive, but nearly collided with a very old and complicated light fitting hanging from the ceiling.

The three sat in a cabin which extended from the stern of the great barge, looking out over the ink-dark waters of the canal. Ziller had folded himself onto a low table, Kabe squatted comfortably on some cushions on the deck and Tersono rested on a delicate-looking and apparently very old webwood chair. Kabe had known the drone Tersono for all the ten years he had spent on Masaq’ Orbital, and had noticed early on that it liked to surround itself with old things; this antique barge, for example, and the ancient furniture and fittings it contained.

Even the machine’s physical make-up spoke of a sort of antiquarianism. It was a generally reliable rule that the bigger a Culture drone appeared, the older it was. The first examples, dating from eight or nine thousand years ago, had been the size of a bulky human. Subsequent models had gradually shrunk until the most advanced drones had, for some time, been small enough to slip into a pocket. Tersono’s metre-tall body might have suggested that it had been constructed millennia ago when in fact it was only a few centuries old, and the extra space it took up was accounted for by the separation of its internal components, the better to exhibit the fine translucency of its unorthodox ceramic shell.

Ziller finished his drink and took a pipe from his waistcoat. He sucked on it until a little smoke rose from the bowl while the drone exchanged pleasantries with the Homomdan. The composer was still trying to blow smoke rings when Tersono finally said, “…which brings me to my motive in asking you both here.”

“And what would that be?” Ziller asked.

“We are expecting a guest, Composer Ziller.”

Ziller gazed levelly at the drone. He looked round the broad cabin and stared at the door. “What, now? Who?”

“Not now. In about thirty or forty days. I’m afraid we don’t know exactly who quite yet. But it will be one of your people, Ziller. Someone from Chel. A Chelgrian.”

Ziller’s face consisted of a furred dome with two large, black, almost semicircular eyes positioned above a grey-pink, furless nasal area and a large, partially prehensile mouth. There was an expression on it now that Kabe had never seen before, though admittedly he had known the Chelgrian only casually and for less than a year. “Coming here?” Ziller asked. His voice was… icy, was the word, decided Kabe.

“Indeed. To this Orbital, possibly to this Plate.”

Ziller’s mouth worked. “Caste?” he said. The word was more spat than pronounced.

“One of the… Tacted? Possibly a Given,” Tersono said smoothly.

Of course. Their caste system. At least part of the reason that Ziller was here and not there. Ziller studied his pipe and blew more smoke. “Possibly a Given, eh?” he muttered. “My, you are honoured. Hope you get your etiquette exquisitely correct. You’d better start practising now.”

“We believe this person may be coming here to see you,” the drone said. It turned frictionlessly in the webwood seat and extended a maniple field to work the cords which lowered the gold cloth drapes over the windows, cutting off the view to the dark canal and the snow-enfolded quays.

Ziller tapped the bowl of his pipe, frowning at it. “Really?” he said. “Oh dear. What a shame. I was thinking of embarking on a cruise before then. Deep space. For at least half a year. Perhaps longer. In fact I had quite decided upon it. You will convey my apologies to whatever simpering diplomat or supercilious noble they’re sending. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

The drone dropped its voice. “I’m sure they won’t.”

“Me too. I was being ironic. But I’m serious about the cruise.”

“Ziller,” the drone said quietly. “They want to meet with you. Even if you did leave on a cruise, they would doubtless attempt to follow you and meet up on the cruise ship.”

“And of course you wouldn’t try to stop them.”

“How could we?”

Ziller sucked on his pipe for a moment. “I suppose they want me to go back. Do they?”

The drone’s gunmetal aura indicated puzzlement. “We don’t know.”

“Really?”

“Cr Ziller, I am being perfectly open with you.”

“Really. Well, can you think of another reason for this expedition?”

“Many, my dear friend, but none of them are especially likely. As I said, we don’t know. However, if I was forced to speculate, I’d tend to agree with you that requesting your return to Chel is probably the main reason for the impending visit.”

Ziller chewed on his pipe stem. Kabe wondered if it would break. “You can’t force me to go back.”

“My dear Ziller, we wouldn’t even think of suggesting to you that you do,” the drone said. “This emissary may wish do so, but the decision is entirely yours. You are an honoured and respected guest, Ziller. Culture citizenship, to the extent that such a thing really exists with any degree of formality, would be yours by assumption. Your many admirers, amongst whose number I count myself, would long ago have made it yours by acclamation, if only that would not have seemed presumptuous.”

Ziller nodded thoughtfully. Kabe wondered if this was a natural expression for a Chelgrian, or a learned, translated one. “Very flattering,” Ziller said. Kabe had the impression the creature was genuinely trying to sound gracious. “However I am still Chelgrian. Not quite naturalised yet.”

“Of course. Your presence is trophy enough. To declare this your home would be—”

“Excessive,” Ziller said pointedly. The drone’s aura field flushed a sort of muddy cream colour to indicate embarrassment, though a few flecks of red indicated it was hardly acute.

Kabe cleared his throat. The drone turned to him.

“Tersono,” the Homomdan said. “I’m not entirely sure why I’m here, but may I just ask whether, in all this, you are talking as a representative of Contact?”

“Of course you may. Yes, I am speaking on behalf of the Contact section. And with the full co-operation of Masaq’ Hub.”

“I am not without friends, admirers,” Ziller said suddenly, staring at the drone.

“Without?” Tersono said, field glowing a ruddy orange. “Why, as I say, you have almost nothing but—”

“I mean amongst some of your Minds; your ships, Tersono the Contact drone,” Ziller said coldly. The machine rocked back in its chair. A little melodramatic, thought Kabe. Ziller went on, “I might well be able to persuade one of them to accommodate me and provide me with my own private cruise. One which this emissary might find much more difficult to intrude upon.”