Iain Banks: The State of The Art

Maust snorted, then took the gun from me. Its lights flicked off. 'How do you switch it on?' He turned it over in his hand.

'By touching it; but only I can do it. It reads the genetic make-up of my skin, knows I am Culture. Don’t look at me like that; it’s true. Look.' I showed him. I had the gun recite the first part of its monologue and switched the tiny screen to holo. Maust inspected the gun while I held it.

'You know,' he said after a while, 'this might be rather valuable.'

'No, it’s worthless to anyone else. It’ll only work for me, and you can’t get round its fidelities; it’ll deactivate.'

'How… faithful,' Maust said, sitting down and looking steadily at me. 'How neatly everything must be arranged in your "Culture". I didn’t really believe you when you told me that tale, did you know that, my love? I thought you were just trying to impress me. Now I think I believe you.'

I crouched down in front of him, put the gun on the table and my hands on his lap. 'Then believe me that I can’t do what they’re asking, and that I am in danger; perhaps we both are. We have to leave. Now. Today or tomorrow. Before they think of another way to make me do this.'

Maust smiled, ruffled my hair. 'So fearful, eh? So desperately anxious.' He bent, kissed my forehead. 'Wrobbie, Wrobbie; I can’t come with you. Go if you feel you must, but I can’t come with you. Don’t you know what this chance means to me? All my life I’ve wanted this; I may not get another opportunity. I have to stay, whatever. You go; go for as long as you must and don’t tell me where you’ve gone. That way they can’t use me, can they? Get in touch through a friend, once the dust has settled. Then we’ll see. Perhaps you can come back; perhaps I’ll have missed my big chance anyway and I’ll come to join you. It’ll be all right. We’ll work something out.'

I let my head fall to his lap, wanting to cry. 'I can’t leave you.'

He hugged me, rocking me. 'Oh, you’ll probably find you’re glad of the change. You’ll be a hit wherever you go, my beauty; I’ll probably have to kill some knife-fighter to win you back.'

'Please, please come with me,' I sobbed into his gown.

'I can’t, my love, I just can’t. I’ll come to wave you goodbye, but I can’t come with you.'

He held me while I cried; the gun lay silent and dull on the table at his side, surrounded by the debris of our meal.

I was leaving. Fire escape from the flat just before dawn, over two walls clutching my travelling bag, a taxi from General Thetropsis Avenue to Intercontinental Station… then I’d catch a Railtube train to Bryme and take the Lev there, hoping for a standby on almost anything heading Out, either trans or inter. Maust had lent me some of his savings, and I still had a little high-rate credit left; I could make it. I left my terminal in the apartment. It would have been useful, but the rumours are true; the police can trace them, and I wouldn’t put it past Kaddus and Cruizell to have a tame cop in the relevant department.

The station was crowded. I felt fairly safe in the high, echoing halls, surrounded by people and business. Maust was coming from the club to see me off; he’d promised to make sure he wasn’t followed. I had just enough time to leave the gun at Left Luggage. I’d post the key to Kaddus, try to leave him a little less murderous.

There was a long queue at Left Luggage; I stood, exasperated, behind some naval cadets. They told me the delay was caused by the porters searching all bags and cases for bombs; a new security measure. I left the queue to go and meet Maust; I’d have to get rid of the gun somewhere else. Post the damn thing, or even just drop it in a waste bin.

I waited in the bar, sipping at something innocuous. I kept looking at my wrist, then feeling foolish. The terminal was back at the apartment; use a public phone, look for a clock. Maust was late.

There was a screen in the bar, showing a news bulletin. I shook off the absurd feeling that somehow I was already a wanted man, face liable to appear on the news broadcast, and watched today’s lies to take my mind off the time.

They mentioned the return of the Admiral of the Fleet, due in two days. I looked at the screen, smiling nervously. Yeah, and you’ll never know how close the bastard came to getting blown out of the skies . For a moment or two I felt important, almost heroic.

Then the bombshell; just a mention — an aside, tacked on, the sort of thing they’d have cut had the programme been a few seconds over — that the Admiral would be bringing a guest with him; an ambassador from the Culture. I choked on my drink.

Was that who I’d really have been aiming at if I’d gone ahead?

What was the Culture doing anyway? An ambassador? The Culture knew everything about the Vreccile Economic Community, and was watching, analyzing; content to leave ill enough alone for now. The Vreccile people had little idea how advanced or widely spread the Culture was, though the court and Navy had a fairly good idea. Enough to make them slightly (though had they known it, still not remotely sufficiently) paranoid. What was an ambassador for?

And who was really behind the attempt on the ship? Bright Path would be indifferent to the fate of a single outworlder compared to the propaganda coup of pulling down a starship, but what if the gun hadn’t come from them, but from a grouping in the court itself, or from the Navy? The VEC had problems; social problems, political problems. Maybe the President and his cronies were thinking about asking the Culture for aid. The price might involve the sort of changes some of the more corrupt officials would find terminally threatening to their luxurious lifestyles.

Shit, I didn’t know; maybe the whole attempt to take out the ship was some loony in Security or the Navy trying to settle an old score, or just skip the next few rungs on the promotion ladder. I was still thinking about this when they paged me.

I sat still. The station PA called for me, three times. A phonecall. I told myself it was just Maust, calling to say he had been delayed; he knew I was leaving the terminal at the apartment so he couldn’t call me direct. But would he announce my name all over a crowded station when he knew I was trying to leave quietly and unseen? Did he still take it all so lightly? I didn’t want to answer that call. I didn’t even want to think about it.

My train was leaving in ten minutes; I picked up my bag. The PA asked for me again, this time mentioning Maust’s name. So I had no choice.

I went to Information. It was a viewcall.

'Wrobik,' Kaddus sighed, shaking his head. He was in some office; anonymous, bland. Maust was standing, pale and frightened, just behind Kaddus' seat. Cruizell stood right behind Maust, grinning over his slim shoulder. Cruizell moved slightly, and Maust flinched. I saw him bite his lip. 'Wrobik,' Kaddus said again. 'Were you going to leave so soon? I thought we had a date, yes?'

'Yes,' I said quietly, looking at Maust’s eyes. 'Silly of me. I’ll… stick around for… a couple of days. Maust, I—' The screen went grey.

I turned round slowly in the booth and looked at my bag, where the gun was. I picked the bag up. I hadn’t realized how heavy it was.

I stood in the park, surrounded by dripping trees and worn rocks. Paths carved into the tired top-soil led in various directions. The earth smelled warm and damp. I looked down from the top of the gently sloped escarpment to where pleasure boats sailed in the dusk, lights reflecting on the still waters of the boating lake. The duskward quarter of the city was a hazy platform of light in the distance. I heard birds calling from the trees around me.

The aircraft lights of the Lev rose like a rope of flashing red beads into the blue evening sky; the port at the Lev’s summit shone, still uneclipsed, in sunlight a hundred kilometres overhead. Lasers, ordinary searchlights and chemical fireworks began to make the sky bright above the Parliament buildings and the Great Square of the Inner City; a display to greet the returning, victorious Admiral, and maybe the ambassador from the Culture, too. I couldn’t see the ship yet.