Most of the ship’s corridors were lined with weaponry, the larger pieces standing on the floor, others on tables; bigger items took up whole cabins, lounges or larger public spaces and the very biggest weapons were shown as scale models. There were thousands of instruments of torture, clubs, spears, knives, swords, strangle cords, catapults, bows, powder guns, shells, mines, gas canisters, bombs, syringes, mortars, howitzers, missiles, atomics, lasers, field arms, plasma guns, microwavers, effectors, thunderbolters, knife missiles, line guns, thudders, gravguns, monofilament warps, pancakers, AM projectors, grid-fire impulsers, ZPE flux-polarisers, trapdoor units, CAM spreaders and a host of other inventions designed for – or capable of being turned to the purpose of producing death, destruction and agony.
Some of the cabins and larger spaces had been fitted out to resemble torture chambers, slave holds, prison cells and death chambers (including the ship’s swimming pool, though after she’d pointedly mentioned that she liked to start each day with a dip, this was now being converted back to its original purpose). Ulver supposed these… stage-sets… were a little like the famous tableaux the Sleeper Service was supposed to contain, except that the Grey Area’s had no bodies in them (something of a relief, in the circumstances).
Like a lot of people, she had always wanted to see the real thing. She had asked if she and Churt Lyne might go aboard the GSV when Genar-Hofoen did, but her request had been turned down; they would have to stay on the Grey Area until the GCU could find somewhere both safe and unrestricted to deposit them. What made it all even more annoying in a way was that the Grey Area expected it would be keeping in close contact with the Sleeper Service; inside its field envelope, if it was allowed to. So near and yet so far and all that crap. Whatever; it looked like she wouldn’t get to see even the remnants of the famous craft’s tableaux vivants, and would have to make do with the Grey Area and its tableaux mortants.
She thought they might have been more effective if they had contained the victims or the victims and tormentors, but they didn’t. Instead they contained just the rack, the iron maiden, the fires and the irons, the shackles and the beds and chairs, the buckets of water and acid and the electric cables and all the serried instruments of torture and death. To see them in action you had to stand before a nearby screen.
It was a little shocking, Ulver supposed, but kind of aloof at the same time; it was like you could just inspect this stuff and get some idea of how it worked and what it did (though watching the screens wasn’t really advisable; she watched one for a few seconds and nearly lost her breakfast; and it wasn’t even humans who were being tortured) and you could sort of ride it out; you could accept that this had happened and feel bad about it all right, but at the end of it you were still here, it hadn’t happened to you, stopping this sort of shit was exactly what SC, Contact, the Culture was about, and you were part of that civilisation, part of that civilising… and that sort of made it bearable. Just. If you didn’t watch the screens.
Still, just holding a little iron device designed to crush the sort of fingers that were holding it, looking at a knotted cord whose twin knots – once the cord was tightened behind the head – were set at just the right distance to compress and burst the sort of eyes that were looking at it… well, it was kind of affecting. She spent a fair bit of time shivering and rubbing the bits of her body that kept getting bumps.
She wondered how many people had looked upon this grisly collection of memorabilia. She had asked the ship but it had been vague; apparently it regularly offered its services as a sort of travelling museum of pain and ghastliness, but it rarely had any takers.
One of the exhibits which she discovered, towards the end of her wanderings, she did not understand. It was a little bundle of what looked like thin, glisteningly blue threads, lying in a shallow bowl; a net, like something you’d put on the end of a stick and go fishing for little fish in a stream. She tried to pick it up; it was impossibly slinky and the material slipped through her fingers like oil; the holes in the net were just too small to put a finger-tip through. Eventually she had to tip the bowl up and pour the blue mesh into her palm. It was very light. Something about it stirred a vague memory in her, but she couldn’t recall what it was. She asked the ship what it was, via her neural lace.
~ That is a neural lace, it informed her. ~ A more exquisite and economical method of torturing creatures such as yourself has yet to be invented.
She gulped, quivered again and nearly dropped the thing.
~ Really? she sent, and tried to sound breezy. ~ Ha. I’d never really thought of it that way.
~ It is not generally a use much emphasised.
~ I suppose not, she replied, and carefully poured the fluid little device back into its bowl on the table.
She walked back to the cabin she’d been given, past the assorted arms and torture machines. She decided to check up on how the war was going, again through the lace. At least it would take her mind off all this torture shit.
Affront Declare War On Culture.
(Major events so far, by time/importance.
(Likely limits.
(Detailed events to date.
(Greatest conflict since Idiran War?
(Likely link with Esperi Excession.
(The Affront – a suitable case for treatment?
(So this is how the barbarians felt; the experience of war through the ages.
Ship Store at Pittance taken over by Affront; hundreds of ships appropriated.
(How could it happen?
(Insurance policies or weak points?
(Pundit paradise; placing their bets on what happens next.
(The psychology of warships.
Warcraft from other ship stores mobilised.
(Partial mobilisation earlier – so who knew what when?
(Technical stuff; lots of exciting figures for armamentaphiles.
Peace initiatives.
(Culture wants to talk – Affront just want to fight.
(Galactic Council sends reps everywhere. They look busy.
(Gosh, can we help? Have a laugh at the expense of sad superstitionists.
In jeopardy: the hostage habitats, the boarded ships.
(Five Orbitals, eleven cruise ships Affronted.
(Schadenfreude time; who’s all at risk at the moment.
(Tier gets sniffy.
Quick while they’re not looking.
(Primitives see exciting opportunities.
What’s in it for me?
(Design your own war; sim details and handy hints.
(Thinking positively; new tech, inspired art, heroic tales and better sex… war as hoot [for incurable optimists and people looking for party conversation stoppers only].
Other news:
Blitteringueh Conglo actuates Abuereffe Airsphere – latest.
S3/4 ravaged by nova in Ytrillo.
Stellar Field-Liners sweep Aleisinerih domain again.
Cherdilide Pacters in Phaing-Ghrotassit Subliming quandary.
Abafting Imorchi; sleaze, sleaze and more sleaze.
Sport.
Art.
DiaGlyph Directory.
Special Reports Directory.
Index.
Ulver Seich scanned the screen-set her neural lace threw across her left eye’s field of vision as she walked, one half of her brain paying attention to the business of walking and the other half watching the virtual screen. Not a thing about her. She wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or insulted. Let’s try:
(Tier gets sniffy… No, that was nothing but general stuff about the habitat throwing all Culture people and Affronters off. No names mentioned.
Index. P… Ph… Phage Rock.
(That war again; was PR a kind of minor ship store?
(Tier over-rated anyway; PR turns tail. New heading, but where exactly?
(Koodre wins IceBlast cup.
(New Ledeyueng exhibition opens in T41.
DiaGlyph subDirectory.
subIndex.
subIndex. S… Seich, Ulver.
(Oh Ulver, Where Are You? – new Poeglyph by Zerstin Hoei.
She stared at the entry. Grief, was that it? One lousy picture-poem by an irredeemable feeb she’d barely heard of (and even then only to discover he regularly changed his appearance to resemble her current boyfriend)? Ugh! She joggled the subIndex again, in the remote and forlorn chance there was some sort of ware glitch. There wasn’t. That was it. If she wanted more she’d have to hit Records.
Ulver Seich stopped in her tracks and stared at the nearest bulkhead, open mouthed.
She was no longer News on Phage.
VIII
It should not have made the difference that it did, and yet it did. Their three visitors stayed for two nights, going swimming with the ‘Ktik during the second day. Byr met Aist again that night. The following day the visitors left, climbing into the module which the Unacceptable Behaviour sent down for them. The ship was heading off to loop round a proto-nova a few thousand years distant. It would be back in two weeks to drop off any further supplies they might need. Dajeil’s baby would be born a couple of weeks after that. The next ship due to visit would be another year away, when they might have doubled the human population of the planet. They stood together on the beach. Dajeil held Byr’s hand as the module climbed into the slate-coloured clouds.