of it coming into view as the shuttle powered away, before, along with its central star, Syaungun finally started to shrink.
Too bad, Djan Seriy replied. If our Morthanveld friends are insulted, then so be it. We’ve pitty-patted round the Morthanveld long enough. I grow tired of it.
You assume a deal of authority here, Seriy Anaplian, the construct – currently housed in the shuttle’s AI matrix – told her. It is not for you to make or remake Culture foreign policy.
Djan Seriy settled in her seat at the back of the shuttle. From here she could see everybody.
I am a Culture citizen, she replied. I thought it was entirely my right and duty.
You are one Culture citizen.
Well, in any case, Jerle Batra, if my elder brother is to be believed, my other brother’s life is in severe danger, the cold-blooded murderer of my father – a potential tyrant – is lord of not one but two of Sursamen’s levels, and, of course, the majority of the Oct front-line fleet may be converging on my home planet, for reasons still unclear. I think I am entitled to a little leeway here. Talking of; what is the latest on the Oct ships? The ones that may or may not be heading for Sursamen.
We’re picking up nothing untoward so far, last I heard. I suggest you update when you’re on the Liveware Problem.
You aren’t coming with us?
My presence, even in construct form, might make this look too official. I won’t be coming with you.
Oh. This probably meant the construct was going to be wiped from the matrix of the shuttle, too. It would be a kind of death. The construct didn’t sound too upset about it.
You do trust the Liveware Problem, I assume? she sent.
We have no choice, Batra replied. It is all we have available.
You are still denying it is officially SC?
The ship is what it says it is, Batra told her. However, to return to the subject: the trouble is that we don’t have any ships in the relevant volumes to be able to check on what the Oct are really doing. The Morthanveld and Nariscene do have the ships and don’t seem to have spotted anything either, but then they’re not looking.
Perhaps it is time we told them to start looking.
Perhaps it is. It’s being discussed.
I’m sure. Would this involve lots of Minds blathering?
It would.
Suggest that they blather quicker. One other thing.
Yes, Djan Seriy?
I am switching on all my systems again. All those that I can, at least. Those I can’t reinstigate myself I’ll ask the Liveware Problem to help with. Always assuming, of course, that it is familiar with SC procedures.
You are not being ordered to do this, Batra replied, ignoring what might have been sarcasm.
Yes, I know.
Personally, I think it’s a wise move.
So do I.
“Didn’t you notice, sir? Never breathed, not for the whole time we were in there, save for when the glittery thing was there. When it wasn’t, she didn’t breathe at all. Amazing.” Holse was speaking very quietly, aware that the lady concerned was only a couple of rows behind them in the shuttle. Hippinse was a row in front, seemingly fast asleep. Holse frowned. “You quite sure she’s really your sister, sir?”
Ferbin only remembered thinking how still Djan Seriy had seemed in the strange tube of corridor back on the little wheel-habitat. “Oh, she is my sister, Holse.” He glanced back, wondering why she’d chosen to sit there, away from him. She nodded at him in a distracted way; he smiled and turned away. “At any rate, I must take her to be,” he told Holse. “As she, in return, must take me at my word regarding the fate of our father.”
Oh yes, I can feel you doing it, the drone sent. She’d just told the machine she was re-fanging herself, switching back on all those systems that she was able to. Batra happy with that?
Happy enough.
I wonder how “fanged” the Liveware Problem is? the drone sent. The machine was lodged between Anaplian’s neck and the seat. Its appearance had changed again; when they’d arrived on the 512th Degree FifthStrand facility it had morphed its surface and puffed out a little to look like a kind of baton-drone.
Oh, I think it might be quite fanged, Djan Seriy sent. The more I’ve thought about it, the more strange it’s come to seem that the ship described itself as “Absconded”.
That struck me as odd at the time, too, Turminder Xuss sent. However, I put it down to