‘Air burst?’ Kabe said. He was watching the glowing rectangle of the GSV enlarge slowly. ‘That sounds, ah, dramatic.’ Danger- ous might seem a more suitable word, he thought.
The avatar shook its head. It too was watching the giant craft as it lowered itself into the atmosphere above them. ‘Na, it’s not that dangerous,’ the avatar said, apparently but presumably not actually reading his mind. ‘The shower choreography is pretty much all set up. There might be a few bits of soft stuff that could still outgas and need retrajectoring, but they all have their own escort engines anyway.’ The avatar grinned at him. ‘I used a whole bunch of old knife missiles; reactivated war stock, which seemed appropriate. Reckoned they needed the practice.
They looked back up into the sky. The GSV was now about the same size as a hand held out at full arm’s stretch. Features were starting to appear on its golden-white surfaces. ‘All the rocks are fully set up; fired up and forgotten long ago,’ the avatar continued, ‘sliding in simple as rings on an orrery. No danger there either.’ It nodded at the GSV, which was close and bright enough now to be casting its own light over the surrounding landscape, like a strangely rectangular golden moon floating over the world.
‘That is the sort of thing Hub Minds can’t help get worried about,’ the avatar said, hoisting one silvery eyebrow. ‘A trillion tonnes of ship capable of accelerating like an arrow out of a bow coming close enough to the surface for me to feel the curve of the fucker’s gravity well if it wasn’t fielded out.’ It shook its head. ‘GSVs,’ it said, tutting as though over a mischievous but cute child.
‘Do you think they take advantage of you because you used to be one?’ Kabe asked. The giant craft seemed to have come to a halt at last, filling about a quarter of the sky. Some wispy clouds had formed underneath its lower surface. Concentric shells of field showed up as barely visible lines around it, like a set of cavernous nested bubbles floating in the sky.
‘Damn right,’ the avatar said. ‘Any native-to-Hub Mind would be baking its fuses at the very thought of letting something that big come inside perimeter; they like ships on the outside where if anything ever did go wrong they’d just fall away.’ The avatar laughed suddenly. ‘I’m telling it to get the hell out of my jet stream now. It is, of course, being rude.’
The clouds forming underneath the giant ship started to flow in and flute upwards; the Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall was starting to draw away. Clouds boiled up around it like a million contrails forming at once, and lightning flickered between the blossoming towers of vapour.
‘Look at that. Ruining the whole morning.’ The avatar shook its head again. ‘Typical GSV. That little display had better not stop my nacreous clouds forming this evening or there’ll be big trouble.’ It looked at Kabe. ‘Come on; let’s ignore this show-off and go below. I want to show you the engines on this thing.’
‘But, Cr Ziller; your public!’
‘Is back on Chel and would probably pay good money to see me hung, drawn and burned.’
‘My dear Ziller, that is exactly my point. I’m sure what you say is a gross if understandable exaggeration, but even if it were remotely true, quite the opposite applies here; on Masaq’ there are huge numbers of people who would gladly give their own lives to save yours. It is them I was referring to, as I’m sure you well know. Many of them will be at the concert tonight; the rest will all be watching, immersed.
‘They have waited patiently for years, hoping that one day you might feel inspired to complete another long work. Now that it has finally happened they cannot wait to experience it as fully as possible and pay you the homage they know you deserve. They are desperate to be there and hear your music and see you with their own eyes. They crave to see you conduct Expiring Light this evening!’
‘They can crave all they like but they’re going to be disap- pointed. I have no intention of going, not if that suppurating piece of desk-fodder is going to be present.’
‘But you won’t meet! We’ll keep you separate!’
Ziller stuck his big black nose up towards Tersono’s pink- blushed ceramic casing, causing the drone to shrink back from him. ‘I do not believe you,’ he told it.
‘What? Because I’m from Contact? But that’s ridiculous!’
‘I bet Kabe told you that.’
‘It doesn’t matter how I found out. I have no intention of trying to force you to meet Major Quilan.’
‘But you’d like it if I did, wouldn’t you?’
‘Well …‘ The drone’s aura field suddenly rainbowed with confusion.
‘Would you or wouldn’t you?’
‘Well, of course I would!’ the machine said, wobbling in the air with what looked like anger, frustration or both. Its aura field looked confused.
‘Ha!’ Ziller exclaimed. ‘You admit it!’
‘Naturally I would like you to meet; it is absurd that you haven’t, but I would only want it to happen if it occurred nat- urally, not if it was contrived against your expressed wishes!’
‘Shh. Here comes one now.
‘But- !‘
‘Shh!’
Pfesine Forest, on Ustranhuan Plate – which was about as far away from the Stullien Bowl as it was possible to get without leaving Masaq’ altogether – was famous for its hunting.
Ziller had journeyed there from Aquime late the night before, stayed in a very jolly hunting lodge, woken late, found a local guide and gone to neck-jump Kussel’s Janmandresiles. He thought he could hear one of them coming now, shouldering its way through the dense bush bordering the narrow path directly beneath the tree he was hiding in.
He looked over at his guide, a stocky little guy in antique camouflage gear who was squatting on another bough five metres away. He was nodding and pointing in the direction of the noise. Ziller held onto a branch above him and peeked down, trying to see the animal.
‘Ziller, please,’ the drone’s voice said, sounding very odd in his ear.
The Chelgrian turned sharply to the machine floating at his side and glared at it. He held one finger to his lips and shook it. The drone went muddy cream with embarrassment. ‘I am talking to you by directly vibrating the inner membrane of your ear. There is no possibility that the animal you-’
‘And I,’ Ziller whispered through clenched teeth, leaning very close to Tersono, ‘am trying to concentrate. Now will you fucking shut up?’
The drone’s aura blanched briefly with anger, then settled to grey frustration mixed with spots of purple contrition. It quickly rippled into yellow-green, indicating mellowness and friendliness, hatched with bands of red to show it was taking this as a bit of a joke.
‘And will you stop that fucking rainbow shit?’ Ziller hissed. ‘You’re distracting me! And the animal can probably see you too!’
He ducked away as something very large and mottled blue passed underneath the branch. It had a head as long as Ziller’s whole body and a back broad enough to have accommodated half a dozen Chelgrians. He stared down. ‘God,’ he breathed, ‘those things are big.’ He looked over at his guide, who was nodding down at the animal.
Ziller gulped and dropped. The fall was only about two metres; he landed on all fives and was at the beast’s neck in one bound, swinging his feet over its neck on either side of its fan-like ears and grabbing a handful of its dark brown crest mane before it had time. to react. Tersono floated down to accompany him. The Kussel’s Janmandresile realised it had something stuck to the nape of its neck and let out a deafening shriek. It shook its head and body as vigorously as it could and charged off along the path through the jungle.
‘Ha! Ha ha ha ha ha!’ Ziller yelled, clinging on while the huge animal bucked and shook beneath him. The wind whipped past; leaves, fronds, creepers and branches went zinging by, making him duck and dodge and gasp. The fur round his eyes pushed back in the breeze; the trees to either side of the path passed in a blue-green blur. The animal shook its head again, still trying to dislodge him.
‘Ziller!’ the drone E. H. Tersono shouted, riding the air just behind him. ‘I can’t help noticing you aren’t wearing any safety equipment! This is very dangerous!’
‘Tersono!’ Ziller said, teeth rattling as the beast beneath him went thudding along the winding trail.
‘What?’
‘Will you bugger off?’
There was some sort of break in the canopy ahead, and the animal’s pace increased as it went downhill. Pitched forward, Ziller had to lean way back towards the thing’s pounding shoulders to stop himself from being pitched over the animal’s head and trampled underfoot. Suddenly, through the trailing fronds of moss and pendulous leaves, there was a glint of sun- light from the forest floor. A broad river appeared; the Kussel’s Janmandresile thundered down the path and through the shal- lows in great kicking lines of spray, then threw itself into the deep water in the centre, ducking down and buckling its front knees as it went to throw Ziller off head first into the water.