Iain Banks - Excession

Genar-Hofoen had visited this particular nest space before on a few occasions. He looked up to see if the three ancient human heads which the hall sported were visible this evening; the Diplomatic Force prided itself on having the tact to order that the recognisable trophy bits of any given alien be covered over when a still animate example of that species paid a visit, but sometimes they forgot. He located the heads — scarcely more than three little dots hidden high on one sub-dividing drape-wall — and noted that they had not been covered up.

The chances were this was simply an oversight, though it was equally possible that it was entirely deliberate and either meant to be an exquisitely weighted insult carefully contrived to keep him unsettled and in his place, or intended as a subtle but profound compliment to indicate that he was being accepted as one of the boys, and not like one of those snivellingly timid aliens who got all upset and shirty just because they saw a close relative’s hide gracing an occasional table.

That there was absolutely no rapid way of telling which of these possibilities was the case was exactly the sort of trait the human found most endearing in the Affront. It was, equally, just the kind of attribute the Culture in general and his predecessors in particular had found to be such a source of despair.

Genar-Hofoen found himself grinning wryly at the three distant heads, and half hoping that Fivetide would notice.

Fivetide’s eye stalks swivelled. “Waiter-scum!” he bellowed at a hovering juvenile eunuch. “Here, wretch!”

The waiter was half the size of the big male and childishly unscarred unless you counted the stump of the creature’s rear beak. The juvenile floated closer, trembling even more than politeness dictated, until it was within a tentacle reach. “This thing,” roared Fivetide, flicking a limb-end to indicate Genar-Hofoen, “is the alien beast-human you should already have been briefed on if your Chief is to avoid a sound thrashing. It might look like prey but it is in fact an honoured and treasured guest and it needs feeding much as we do; rush to the animals’ and outworlders’ serving table and fetch the sustenance prepared for it. Now !” Fivetide screamed, his voice producing a small visible shockwave in the mostly nitrogen atmosphere. The juvenile eunuch waiter vented away with suitable alacrity.

Fivetide turned to the human. “As a special treat for you,” he shouted, “we have prepared some of the disgusting glop you call food and a container of liquid based on that poisonous water stuff. God-shit, how we spoil you, eh!” He tentacle-slapped the human in the midriff. The gelfield suit absorbed the blow by stiffening; Genar-Hofoen staggered a little to one side, laughing.

“Your generosity near bowls me over.”

“Good! Do you like my new uniform?” the Affronter officer asked, sucking back a little from the human and pulling himself up to his full height. Genar-Hofoen made a show of looking the other being up and down.

The average fully grown Affronter consisted of a mass the shape of a slightly flattened ball about two metres in girth and one and a half in height, suspended under a veined, frilled gas sac which varied in diameter between one and five metres according to the Affronter’s desired buoyancy and which was topped by a small sensor bump. When an Affronter was in aggressive/defensive mode, the whole sac could be deflated and covered by protective plates on the top of the central body mass. The principal eyes and ears were carried on two stalks above the fore beak covering the creature’s mouth; a rear beak protected the genitals. The anus/gas vent was positioned centrally under the main body.

To the central mass were attached, congenitally, between six and eleven tentacles of varying thicknesses and lengths, at least four of which normally ended in flattened, leaf-shaped paddles. The actual number of limbs possessed by any particular adult male Affronter one encountered entirely depended on how many fights and/or hunts it had taken part in and how successful a part in them it had played; an Affronter with an impressive array of scars and more stumps than limbs was considered either an admirably dedicated sportsman or a brave but stupid and probably dangerous incompetent, depending entirely on the individual’s reputation.

Fivetide himself had been born with nine limbs — considered the most propitious number amongst the best families, providing one had the decency to lose at least one in duel or hunt — and had duly lost one to his fencing master while at military college in a duel over the honour of the fencing master’s chief wife.

“It’s a very impressive uniform, Fivetide,” Genar-Hofoen said.

“Yes, it is rather, isn’t it?” the Affronter said, flexing his body.

Fivetide’s uniform consisted of multitudinous broad straps and sashes of metallic-looking material which were crisscrossed over his central mass and dotted with holsters, sheaths and brackets — all occupied by weapons but sealed for the formal dinner they were here to attend — the glittering discs Genar-Hofoen knew were the equivalents of medals and decorations, and the associated portraits of particularly impressive game-animals killed and rivals seriously maimed. A group of discreetly blank portrait discs indicated the females of other clans Fivetide could honourably claim to have successfully impregnated; the discs edged with precious metals bore witness to those who had put up a struggle. Colours and patterns on the sashes indicated Fivetide’s clan, rank and regiment (which was what the Diplomatic Force, to which Fivetide belonged, basically was… a point not wisely ignored by any species who wished to have — or just found themselves having — any dealings with the Affront).

Fivetide pirouetted, gas sac swelling and buoying him up so that he rose above the spongy surface of the nest space, limbs dangling, taking hardly any of his weight. “Am I not… resplendent?” The gelfield suit’s translator decided that the adjective Fivetide had chosen to describe himself should be rendered with a florid rolling of the syllables involved, making the Affronter officer sound like an overly stagey actor.

“Positively intimidating,” Genar-Hofoen agreed.

“Thank you!” Fivetide said, sinking down again so that his eye stalks were level with the human’s face. The stalks’ gaze rose and dipped, looking the man up and down. “Your own apparel is… different, at long last, and, I’m sure, most smart by the standards of your own people.”

The posture of the Affronter’s eye stalks indicated that he found something highly pleasing in this statement; probably Fivetide was congratulating himself on being incredibly diplomatic.

“Thank you, Fivetide,” Genar-Hofoen said, bowing. He thought himself rather overdressed. There was the gelfield suit itself of course, so much a second skin it was possible to forget he wore it all. Normally the suit was nowhere more than a centimetre thick and averaged only half that, yet it could keep him comfortable in environments even more extreme than that required for Affronter life.

Unfortunately, some idiot had let slip that the Culture tested such suits by Displacing them into the magma chambers of active volcanoes and letting them pop out again (not true; the laboratory tests were rather more demanding, though it had been done once and it was just the sort of thing a show-off Culture manufactory would do to impress people). This was definitely not the kind of information to bandy about in the presence of beings as inquisitive and physically exuberant as Affronters; it only put ideas into their minds, and while the Affront habitat Genar-Hofoen lived within didn’t re-create conditions on a planet to the extent that it had volcanoes, there had been a couple of times after Fivetide had asked the human to confirm the volcano story when he’d thought he’d caught the Diplomatic Force officer looking at him oddly, exactly as though he was trying to work out what natural phenomena or piece of apparatus he had access to he could use to test out this remarkable and intriguing protectivity.