-~My thoughts on the Culture proved politically unpopular when I was alive, Major; that’s one of the reasons I took the offer of being put into storage on Aorme, rather than either die and go to heaven or keep banging my head against a wall in Combined Forces Intelligence. Are yoa telling me the top brass have come round to my point of view?
-~Perhaps, sir. Perhaps just your knowledge of the Culture would prove useful.
-~Even if it’s eight-and-a-half decades old?
Quilan paused, then expressed something he’d been preparing for some days, since they’d rediscovered the substrate.
-~ Sir, considerable thought and great effort went into both retrieving you and preparing me for my mission. I would hope that no part of that thought or effort was either wasted or without point.
Huyler was silent for a moment. -~ There were about five hundred others besides me in that machine in the Institute. Did they all get out, too?
-~The final figure for those stored was nearer a thousand, but yes, sir, they all appear to have come through, though only you’ve been revived so far.
-~All right then, soldier, perhaps you should start by telling me what you do know about this mission.
-~I know only what you might call our cover story, sir. I’ve been induced to forget the real mission goal for the time being.
-~What?
-~It’s a security measure, sir. You’ll be briefed with the full mission details and you won’t forget them. I ought to remember gradually what my mission is anyway, but in the event that something goes wrong, you’ll be the back-up.
-~ They frightened somebody might read your mind, Major?
-~ I imagine so, sir.
-~Though, of course, the Culture doesn’t do that. So we’re told.
-~Extra precaution, eh? Must be an important mission. But if you can still remember that you have a secret mission in the first place …
-~ I am reliably informed that in a day or two I’ll even forget that as well.
-~ Well, all very interesting. So, what would that cover story be?
-~I will be on a cultural diplomatic mission to a world of the Culture. A Cultural cultural mission?
-~ In a sense, sir.
-~Just an old soldier’s lame joke, son. Relax that frozen sphincter a bit, won’t you?
-~I’m sorry, sir. I need to have your agreement both to undertake the mission and to be transferred into another substrate within myself. That process may take a little time.
-~Did you say another machine inside you?
-~Yes, sir. There is a device inside my skull, designed to look like an ordinary Soulkeeper, but able to accommodate your personality as well.
-~You don’t look that much of a fat-head, Major.
-~The device is no larger than a small finger, sir.
-~And what about your Soulkeeper?
-~The same device functions as my Soulkeeper too, sir.
-~They can make something that clever that small?
-~Yes, sir, they can. There probably isn’t time to go into all the technical details.
-~ Well I beg your pardon, Major, but take it from an old soldier that war in general, and limited personnel missions in particular, are often all about the technical details. Plus, you’re rushing me, son. You have the advantage of being at the controls here. I’ve got eighty-six years of catching up to do. I don’t even know that you’re telling me the truth about any of this. It all sounds suspicious as hell so far. And about this being transferred inside you. You trying to tell me I don’t even get my own god-damned body?
-~I’m sorry there wasn’t more time to brief you, sir. We thought we had lost you. Twice, in a sense. When we discovered that your substrate had survived, my mission had already been decided on. And yes, your consciousness would be transferred entirely into the substrate within my body; you would have access to all my senses and we would be able to communicate, though you would not be able to control my body unless I became deeply unconscious or suffered brain death. The only technical detail I know is that the device is a crystalline nanofoam matrix with links to my brain.
-~So I’d just be along for the ride? What sort of itch-shit mission profile is that? Who’s putting you up to this, Major?
-~ It would be a novel experience for both of us, sir, and one that I would consider a privilege. It is believed that your presence and advice would increase the likelihood of the mission’s success. As to who put me up to it, I was trained and briefed by a team under the command of Estodien Visquile.
-~Visquile? Is that old horror still alive? And made it to Estodien, too. I’ll be damned.
-~ He sends his regards, sir. I carry a personal and private communication from him addressed to you.
-~ Let me hear it, Major.
-~ Sir, we thought you might like a little more time to—
-~ Major Quilan, I’m mightily suspicious that I’m being shovelled into something pretty damn dubious here. I’ll be honest with you, youngster; it’s not very likely that I’m going to agree to take part in your unknown mission even after I’ve heard Visquile’s message, but I’m sure as shit not going willingly through your ears, up your ass, or anywhere else unless I do hear what that old whoreboy’s got to say, and I might as well hear it now as later. Making myself clear here?
-~ Very, sir. Sister technician; please replay the message from Estodien Visquile to Hadesh Huyler.
-~ Proceeding, said the female.
Quilan was left alone with his thoughts. He realised how tense he had become communicating with the ghost of Hadesh Huyler, and deliberately relaxed his body, easing his muscles and straightening his back. Again, his gaze swept over the gleaming surfaces of the medical facility, but what he was seeing was the interior of the hull of the ship they were floating alongside, the privateer cruiser Winter Storm.
He had been aboard the wreck once so far, while they were still trying to locate and extract Huyler’s soul from the thousand or so others stored within the rescued substrate, which they’d located in the wreck with a specially adapted Navy drone. He had been promised that later, if there was time, he would be allowed to go back to the wreck with that drone and attempt to discover any other souls the original sweeps had missed.
Time was running out, though. It had taken time to get permission for what he wanted to do, and it was taking time for the Navy technical people to adjust the machine. Meanwhile they’d been told that the Culture warship was on its way, just a few days out. At the moment the techs were pessimistic that they’d get the drone finished in time.
The image of the wrecked ship’s scooped-out hull seemed fixed in his brain.
-~Major Quilan?
-~Sir?
-~Reporting for duty, Major. Permission to come aboard.
-~Just so, sir. Sister technician? Transfer Hadesh Huyler into the substrate within my body.
-~Directly, the female said. -~ Proceeding.
He had wondered if he’d feel anything. He did: a tingling, then a warmth in a small area on the nape of his neck. The sister technician kept him informed; the transfer went well and took about two minutes. Checking it had gone perfectly took twice that time.
What bizarre fates our technologies dream up for us, he thought as he lay there. Here I am, a male, becoming pregnant with the ghost of an old dead soldier, to travel beyond the bounds of light older than our civilisation and carry out some task I have spent the best part of a year training for but of which I presently have no real knowledge whatsoever.
The spot on his neck was cooling. He thought his head felt very slightly warmer than it had before. He might have been imagining it.
You lose your love, your heart, your very soul, he thought, and gain — ‘a land destroyer!’ he heard her say, so falsely, bravely cheerful in his mind, while the rain-filled sky flashed above her and the vast weight pinned him utterly. Some memory of that pain and despair squeezed tears from his eyes.
-~Complete.
-~Testing, testing, said the dry, laconic voice of Hadesh Huyler.
-~Hello, sir.
-~You okay, son?
-~I’m fine, sir.
-~Did that hurt you there, Major? You seem a little … distressed.
-~No, sir. Just an old memory. How do you feel?
-~Pretty damn strange. I dare say I’ll get used to it. Looks like everything checks out. Shit, that female techie doesn’t look any better through a male’s eyes than she does through a camera. Of course; what he could see, Huyler could see. Before he could reply, Huyler added, You sure you’re okay?
-~Positive, sir. I’m fine. He stood within the hulk of the Winter Storm. The Navy drone went back and forth across the strange, almost flat floor of the wreck, searching in a grid pattern. It passed the hole in the floor where the substrate from Aorme had been wrenched out.