‘Don’t you “young lady” me in that patronising tone!’ Ulver Seich said, putting her hands on her suited, gem-encrusted hips. She still had the suit helmet on, though with the visor plate hinged up. They were in the GCU’s hangar space with a variety of modules, satellites and assorted paraphernalia. It looked like the space was fairly crowded at the best of times, but it was even more cluttered-now with the small module that had belonged to the ROU Frank Exchange of Views sitting in it.
‘Ms Seich,’ the drone purred on, unaffected. ‘I was not supposed to pick up you or your colleague Dn Churt Lyne. I have done so because you were effectively adrift in the middle of a war zone. If you really insist-‘
‘We weren’t adrift!’ Ulver said, waving her arms around and pointing back at the module. ‘We were in that! It’s got engines, you know!’
‘Yes, very slow ones. I did say effectively adrift.’ The ship-slaved drone, a casingless assemblage of components floating at head height, turned to the drone Churt Lyne. ‘Dn Churt Lyne. You too are welcome. Would it be possible for you to attempt to persuade your colleague Ms Seich-‘
‘And don’t talk about me as if I’m not here either!’ Ulver said, stamping one foot. The deck under Genar-Hofoen’s feet resounded.
He had never been more glad to see a GCU. Release from that damned module and Ulver Seich’s abrasive moodiness. Bliss. The Grey Area had welcomed him first, he’d noticed.
Finally he was back on course. From here to the Sleeper, get the job done and then – if the war wasn’t totally fucking things up – off for some R R somewhere while things were settled. He still found it hard to believe the Affront had actually declared war on the Culture, but assuming they really had then – once it was all over and the Affront had been put in their place – Culture people with Affront experience would be needed to help manage the peace and the Culturisation of the Affront. In a way he would be sorry to see it; he liked them the way they were. But if they were crazy enough to take on the Culture… maybe they did need teaching a lesson. A bit of enforced niceness might do them some good.
They weren’t going to like it though, because it would be a niceness that was enforced leniently, patiently and gracefully, with the sort of unflappable self-certainty the Culture couldn’t help displaying when all its statistics proved that it really was doing the right thing. Probably the Affront would rather have been pulverised and then dictated to. Anyway, whatever else happened between now and then, Genar-Hofoen was sure they’d give a good account of themselves.
Ulver Seich was doing not badly in that line herself. Now she was demanding she and the drone be put back in the module immediately and allowed to continue on their way. Given that the first thing she’d done when the Grey Area had contacted them was demand to be rescued and taken aboard at once, this was a little cheeky, but the girl obviously didn’t see it that way.
‘This is piracy!’ she hollered.
‘Ulver…’ the drone Churt Lyne said calmly.
‘And don’t you go taking its side!’
‘I’m not taking its side, I’m just-‘
‘You are so!’
The argument went on. The ship’s slave-drone looked from the girl to the elderly drone and then back again. It rose once in the air fractionally, then settled back down again. It swivelled to Genar-Hofoen. ‘Excuse me,’ it said quietly.
Genar-Hofoen nodded.
The drone Churt Lyne was cut off in mid-sentence and floated gently down to the floor of the hangar. Ulver Seich scowled, furious. Then she understood. She turned on the slave-drone, whirling round and jabbing a finger at it. ‘How da-!’
The visor plate of her suit clanked shut; her suit powered down to statue-like immobility. The jewelled face plate sparkled in the hangar’s lights. Genar-Hofoen thought he could hear some distant, muffled shouting from inside the girl’s suit.
‘Ms Seich,’ the drone said. ‘I know you can hear me in there. I’m terribly sorry to be so impolite, but I regret to say I was finding these exchanges somewhat tedious and unproductive. The fact is that you are now entirely in my power, as I hope this little demonstration proves. You can accept this and pass the next few days in relative comfort or refuse to accept this and either be locked up, followed by a drone intervention team or drugged to prevent you getting into mischief. I assure you that in any other circumstance save that of war I would happily consign you and your colleague to your module and let you do as you wished. However, as long as I am not called upon to perform any overtly military duties, you are almost certainly much safer with me than you are drifting along – or even purposefully moving along – in a small, unarmed and all but defenceless module which, I would beg you to believe, could nevertheless all too easily be mistaken for a munition or some sort of hostile craft by somebody inclined towards the reconnaissance-by-fire approach.’
Genar-Hofoen could see the girl’s suit shaking; it started to rock from side to side. She must be throwing herself around inside it as best she could. The suit came close to overbalancing and falling. The little slave-drone extended a blue field to steady it. Genar-Hofoen wondered how strong the urge had been to just let it fall.
‘If I am called upon to lend my weight to the proceedings, I shall let you go,’ the ship’s drone continued. ‘Likewise, once I have discharged my duty to Mr Genar-Hofoen and the Special Circumstances section, you will, I imagine, be free to leave. Thank you for listening.’
Churt Lyne bobbed into the air and continued where it had left off. ‘-easonable for once in your pampered bloody life… !’ then its voice trailed away. It gave a wonderful impression of being confused, turning this way and that a couple of times.
Ulver’s face plate came up. Her face was pale, her lips compressed into a line. She was silent for a while. Eventually she said, ‘You are a very rude ship. You had better hope you never have cause to call upon the hospitality of Phage Rock.’
‘If that is the price of your acquiescence to my entirely reasonable requests, then, young lady, you have a deal.’
‘And you’d better have some decent accommodation aboard this heap of junk,’ she said, jabbing a thumb at Genar-Hofoen. ‘I’m fed up inhaling this guy’s testosterone.’
IV
He wore her down. There was a half-year wait between her being accepted for the post on Telaturier and actually taking it up. It took him almost all that time to talk her round. Finally, a month before the ship would stop at Telaturier to deposit her there, she agreed that he could ask Contact if he could go with her. He suspected that she only did so to get him to shut up and stop annoying her; she didn’t imagine for a moment that he’d be accepted too.
He dedicated himself to arguing his case. He learned all he could about Telaturier and the ‘Ktik; he reviewed the exobiological work he’d done until now and worked out how to emphasise the aspects of it that related to the post on Telaturier. He built up an argument that he was all the more suited to this sort of stoic, sedentary post just because he had been so frenetic and busy in the past; he was, well, not burnt-out, but fully sated. This was exactly the right time to slow down, draw breath, calm down. This situation was perfect for him, and he for it.
He set to work. He talked to the Recent Convert itself, a variety of other Contact craft, several interested drones specialising in human psychovaluation and a human selection board. It was working. He wasn’t meeting with unanimous approval – it was about fifty-fifty, with the Recent Convert leading the No group – but he was building support.
In the end it came, down to a split decision and the casting vote was held by the GSV Quietly Confident, the Recent Convert’s home craft. By that time they were back aboard the Quietly Confident, hitching a lift towards the region of space where Telaturier lay. An avatar of the Quietly Confident, a tall, distinguished man, spoke at length to him about his desire to go with Dajeil to Telaturier. He left saying that there would be a second interview.
Genar-Hofoen, happy to be back on a ship with a hundred million females aboard, though not able to throw himself into the task of bedding as many of them as possible in the two weeks available, nevertheless did his best. His fury at discovering, one morning, that the agile, willowy blonde he had spent the night with was another avatar of the ship was, by all accounts, a sight to behold.