He leant on the balcony, a smoky bowl cradled in his hand. Occasionally he lifted the bowl to his face and inhaled deeply; the rest of the time he looked out over the sparkling city, whistling.
Watching the light-speckled view, he thought while most cities looked like canvases, spread flat and thin, Solotol was like a half-open book; a rippling sculptured V sinking deep into the planet’s geological past. Above, the clouds over the canyon and the desert glowed with orange-red light, reflecting the channelled flare of the city.
He imagined that from the other side of the city, the hotel must look rather strange, with its topmost floor fully lit, the others practically black.
He supposed he had forgotten how different the setting of the canyon made the city, compared to others. Still, this too is similar, he thought. All is similar.
He had been to so many different places and seen so much the same and so much utterly different that he was amazed by both phenomena… but it was true; this city was not so different from many others he’d known.
Everywhere they found themselves, the galaxy bubbled with life and its basic foods kept on speaking back to it, just like he’d told Shias Engin (and, thinking of her, felt again the texture of her skin and the sound of her voice). Still, he suspected if the Culture had really wanted to, it could have found far more spectacularly different and exotic places for him to visit. Their excuse was that he was a limited creature, adapted to certain sorts of planets and societies and types of warfare. A martial niche, Sma had called it.
He smiled a little grimly, and took another deep breath from the drug bowl.
The man walked past empty arcades and deserted flights of steps. He wore an old raincoat of a style unknown but still somehow old-fashioned looking; he wore very dark glasses. His walk was economical. He appeared to have no mannerisms.
He entered the courtyard of a large hotel which contrived to look expensive and slightly run-down at the same time. Dully-dressed gardeners, raking leaves from the surface of an old swimming pool, stared at the man as though he had no right to be there.
Men were painting the interior of the porch outside the lobby, and he had to work his way round them to get in. The painters were using specially inferior paint made to very old recipes; it was guaranteed to fade and crack and peel in a most authentic manner within a year or two.
The foyer was rich with decoration. The man pulled a thick purple rope near one corner of the reception desk. The clerk appeared, smiling.
‘Good morning, Mr Staberinde. A pleasant walk?’
‘Yes, thank you. Have breakfast sent up, will you?’
‘Immediately, sir.’
‘Solotol is a city of arches and bridges, where steps and pavements wind past tall buildings and lance out over steep rivers and gullies on slender suspension bridges and fragile stone arches. Roadways flow along the banks of water courses, looping and twisting over and under them; railways splay out in a tangle of lines and levels, swirling through a network of tunnels and caverns where underground reservoirs and roads converge, and from a speeding train passengers can look out to see galaxies of lights reflecting on stretches of dark water crossed by the slants of underground funiculars and the piers and ways of subterranean roads.’
He was sitting in the bed, dark glasses on the other pillow, eating breakfast and watching the hotel’s own introductory tape on the suite screen. He switched the sound down when the antique telephone beeped.
‘Hello?’
‘Zakalwe?’ It was Sma’s voice.
‘Good grief; you still here?’
‘We’re about to break orbit.’
‘Well, don’t wait on my account.’ He felt inside a shirt pocket and fished out the terminal bead. ‘Why the phone? This transceiver packed up?’
‘No; just making sure there are no problems patching into the phone system.’
‘Fine. That all?’
‘No. We’ve located Beychae more exactly; still in Jarnsaromol University, but he’s in library annexe four. That’s a hundred metres under the city; the university’s safest safe store. Quite secure at the best of times, and they have extra guards, though no real military.’
‘But where does he live; where does he sleep?’
‘The curator’s apartments; they’re attached to the library.’
‘He ever come to the surface?’
‘Not that we can find out.’
He whistled. ‘Well, that might or might not be a problem.’
‘How are things at your end?’
‘Fine,’ he said, biting into a sweetmeat. ‘Just waiting for the offices to open; I’ve left a message with the lawyers to phone me. Then I start causing a fuss.’
‘All right. There shouldn’t be any problems there; the necessary instructions have been issued, and you should get anything you want. Any problems, get in touch and we’ll fire off an indignant cable.’
‘Yeah, Sma, I’ve been thinking; just how big is this Culture commercial empire, this Vanguard Corporation?’
‘Vanguard Foundation. It’s big enough.’
‘Yeah, but how big? How far can I go?’
‘Well, don’t buy anything bigger than a country. Look, Cheradenine; be as extravagant as you want in creating your fuss. Just get Beychae for us. Quickly.’
‘Yeah, yeah; okay.’
‘We’re heading off now, but we’ll keep in touch. Remember; we’re here to help if you need it.’
‘Yeah. Bye.’ He put the phone down and turned the screen sound up again.
‘Caves, natural and artificial, are scattered through the rock of the canyon walls in almost as great a profusion as the buildings on the sloping surface. Many of the city’s old hydroelectric sources are there, hollowed out into rock and humming; and a few small factories and workshops still survive, hidden away beneath the cliffs and shale, with only their stubby chimneys on the desert surface to show their position. This upward river of warm fumes counterpoints the network of sewage and drainage pipes, which also shows on the surface on occasion, and presents a complex pattern of tracery through the fabric of the city.’
The phone beeped.
‘Hello?’
‘Mr… Staberinde?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ah, yes; good morning. My name is Kiaplor, of…’
‘Ah; the lawyers.’
‘Yes. Thank you for your message. I have here a cable granting you full access to the income and securities of the Vanguard Foundation.’
‘I know. Are you quite happy with this, Mr Kiaplor?’
‘Umm… I… yes; the cable makes the position quite clear… though it is an unprecedented degree of individual discretion, given the size of the account. Not that the Vanguard Foundation has ever behaved exactly conventionally at any time.’
‘Good. The first thing I’d like is to have funds sufficient to cover a month’s hire of two floors of the Excelsior transferred to the hotel’s account, immediately. Then I want to start buying a few things.’
‘Ah… yes. Such as?’
He dabbed at his lips with a napkin. ‘Well, for a start, a street.’
‘A street?’
‘Yes. Nothing too ostentatious, and it doesn’t have to be very long, but I want a whole street, somewhere near the city centre. Do you think you can look for a suitable one, immediately?’
‘Ah… well, yes, we can certainly start looking. I…’
‘Good. I’ll call at your offices in two hours; I’d like to be in a position to come to a decision then.’
‘Two…? Umm… well, ah…’
‘Speed is essential, Mr Kiaplor. Put your best people on it.’
‘Yes. Very well.’
‘Good. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.’
‘Yes. Right. Goodbye.’ He turned the screen sound back up again.
‘Very little new building has been done for hundreds of years; Solotol is a monument, an institution; a museum. The factories, like the people, are mostly gone. Three universities lend areas of the city some life, during part of the year, but the general air is said by many people to be archaic, even stultified, though some people enjoy the feel of living in what is, in effect, the past. Solotol has no sky-lighting; the trains still run on metal rails, and the ground vehicles must remain on the ground, because flying within the city or immediately above it is banned. A sad old place, in many ways; large sections of the city are uninhabited or only occupied for part of the year. The city is still a capital in name, but it does not represent the culture to which it belongs; it is an exhibit, and while many come to visit it, few choose to stay.’
He shook his head, put his dark glasses on, and turned the screen off.
When the wind was in the right direction he blasted huge netted balls of paper money into the air from an old firework mortar mounted in a high roof garden; the notes drifted down like early snowflakes. He’d had the street decorated with bunting, streamers and balloons and filled with tables and chairs and bars serving free drink; covered ways extended the length of it and music played; there were brightly coloured canopies over the important areas, such as the bandstands and the bars, but they were not needed; the day was bright, and unseasonably warm. He looked out of one of the highest windows in one of the tallest buildings in the street, and smiled at the sight of all the folk.