Could he just relapse back into his studies, after this?
Zakalwe coming back from the past, as rash and brash as ever; Ubrel – could she really have been? – just acting a part, making him feel very old and foolish, now, but angry as well; and the whole Cluster drifting rudderless towards the rocks, all over again.
Did he have any right not to try and do something, even if the Culture was wrong about his stature in the civilisation? He didn’t know. He could see that Zakalwe had tried to appeal to his vanity, but what if even half of what he said was true? Was it right to sit back and just let things happen, however much it might be the easiest, least stressful course? If there was a war, and he knew he’d done nothing, how would he feel afterwards?
Damn you, Zakalwe, he thought. He stood up. ‘I’m still thinking,’ he said. ‘But let’s see how far you can get.’
‘Good man.’ The suited figure’s voice betrayed no obvious trace of emotion.
‘… Extremely sorry for the delay, gentlepeople; it really wasn’t within our control; some sort of traffic control panic, but do let me apologise again on behalf of Heritage Tours. Well; here we are, a bit later than we expected (but isn’t that a pretty sunset?); the very famous Srometren Observatory; at least four and a half thousand years of history have been played out beneath your feet here, gentlepeople. I’m going to have to fairly rattle through it to tell it all to you in the time we have here, so listen close…’
The aircraft hovered, AG field buzzing, just above the western edge of the observatory platform. Its legs hung, dangling in mid-air, apparently extended merely as a precaution. About forty people had disembarked from it down the belly-ramp, and now stood around one of the stone instrument plinths while an eager young tour guide talked to them.
He watched through the stone balustrade, scanning the group with the suit’s built-in effector and watching the results on the visor-screen head-up. Thirty plus of the people were carrying what were in effect terminals; links to the planet’s communications net. The suit’s computer covertly interrogated the terminals through the effector. Two of the terminals were switched on; one receiving a sports broadcast, another receiving music. The rest were on stand-by.
‘Suit,’ he whispered (not that even Tsoldrin, right beside him, could have heard him, let alone the people in the tourist group). ‘I want to disable those terminals, quietly; to stop them from transmitting.’
‘Two receiving terminals are transmitting location code,’ the suit said.
‘Can I disable their transmit function without altering their present location code function, or their present reception?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right; the priority being preventing any further new signals, disable all the terminals.’
‘Disabling all thirty-four non-Culture personal commnet terminals within range; confirm.’
‘Confirmed, dammit; do it…’
‘Order carried out.’
He watched the head-up alter as the internal power-states of the terminals sank back to near zero. The tour guide was leading the people across the stone plateau of the old observatory, towards where he and Beychae were, and away from the hovering aircraft.
He shoved the suit face-plate up, looked round at the other man. ‘Okay; let’s go. Quietly.’
He went first, through the undergrowth, between the crowding trees; it was quite dark under the half-fallen foliage, and Beychae stumbled a couple of times, but they made relatively little noise as they trod the carpet of dead leaves round two sides of the observatory platform.
When they were under the aircraft, he scanned it with the suit effector.
‘You beautiful little machine,’ he breathed, watching the results come up. The aircraft was automatic, and very stupid. A bird probably had a more complicated brain. ‘Suit; patch into the aircraft; assume control without letting anybody else know.’
‘Assuming covert control-jurisdiction of single aircraft within range; confirm.’
‘Confirmed. And stop asking me to confirm everything.’
‘Control-jurisdiction assumed. Lapsing confirmatory instruction protocols; confirm.’
‘Good grief. Confirmed!’
‘Confirm protocol lapsed.’
He considered just floating up, holding Beychae, into the craft, but even though the aircraft’s own AG would probably mask the signal his suit gave off, it might not. He glanced up the steep slope, then turned to Beychae and whispered. ‘Give me your hand; we’re going up.’ The old man did as he asked.
They went steadily up the slope, the suit kicking foot-holds in the earth. They stopped at the balustrade. The aircraft blocked out the evening sky above them, yellow light spilling from the belly entrance above the ramp, faintly illuminating the nearer stone instruments.
He checked on the tour group while Beychae got his breath back. The tourists were at the far side of the observatory; the guide was shining a flashlight at some ancient piece of stonework. He stood up. ‘Let’s go,’ he told Beychae, who straightened. They stepped over the balustrade, walked to the ramp and up into the aircraft. He followed Beychae; he watched the rear view on the helmet screen, but couldn’t tell whether anybody in the tour group had noticed them or not.
‘Suit; close the ramp,’ he told the suit, as he and Beychae entered the single large space of the craft’s interior. It was ornately luxurious, its walls slung with hangings and its deeply carpeted floor dotted with large chairs and couches; there was an autobar at one end, while the opposite wall was a single huge screen, presently displaying the last of the sunset.
The ramp chimed and hissed as it came up. ‘Suit; retract legs,’ he said, hinging the suit face-plate back. Happily, the suit was smart enough to realise he meant the aircraft’s legs, not its own. It had occurred to him that somebody might just be able to leap onto one of the craft’s legs from the observatory balustrade. ‘Suit; adjust aircraft altitude; up ten metres.’
The light buzzing noise around them changed, then settled back to what it had been before. He watched Beychae take off his heavy jacket, then looked round the interior of the craft; the effector said there was nobody else aboard, but he wanted to make sure. ‘Let’s see where this thing was headed next,’ he said, as Beychae sat down on a long couch, sighing and stretching. ‘Suit; the aircraft’s next destination?’
‘Gipline Space Terminal,’ the clipped voice told him.
‘That sounds perfect. Take us there, suit, and make it look as legal and normal as possible.’
‘Under way,’ the suit said. ‘ETA forty minutes.’
The craft’s background noise altered, climbing in pitch; the floor moved just a little. The screen on the far side of the large cabin showed them moving out across the wooded hills, rising into the air.
He took a walk round the craft, confirming there was nobody else aboard, then sat by Beychae, who he thought looked very tired. It had been a long day, he supposed.
‘You all right?’
‘I’m glad to be sitting down, I’ll say that.’ Beychae kicked off his boots.
‘Let me get you a drink, Tsoldrin,’ he said, taking off the helmet and heading for the bar. ‘Suit,’ he said, suddenly struck by an idea. ‘You know one of the Culture’s down-link numbers in Solotol.’
‘Yes.’
‘Connect with one via the aircraft.’
He bent down, looking at the autobar. ‘And how does this work?’
‘The autobar is voice acti -‘
‘Zakalwe!’ Sma’s voice cut across that of the suit, making him start. He straightened. ‘Where are…?’ the woman’s voice said, then paused. ‘Oh; you’ve got yourself an aircraft, have you?’
‘Yes,’ he said. He looked across to where Beychae was watching him. ‘On our way to Gipline Port. So what happened? Where’s that module? And Sma, I’m hurt; you haven’t called, you haven’t written, sent flowers…’
‘Is Beychae all right?’ Sma said urgently.
‘Tsoldrin’s fine,’ he told her, smiling at the other man. ‘Suit; get this autobar to fix us a couple of refreshing but strong drinks.’
‘He’s okay; good.’ The woman sighed. The autobar made a clicking, gurgling noises. ‘We haven’t called,’ Sma said, ‘because if we had we’d have let them know where you were; we lost the tight-link when the capsule got blasted. Zakalwe, that was ridiculous; it was pure chaos after the capsule wasted the truck in the Flower Market and you downed that fighter; you’re lucky you made it as far as you did. Where is the capsule, anyway?’
‘Back at the observatory; Srometren,’ he said, looking down as a hatch opened in the autobar. He took the tray with the two drinks on it over to Beychae, sat down at his side. ‘Sma; say hello to Tsoldrin Beychae,’ he said, handing the other man his drink.
‘Mr Beychae?’ Sma’s voice said from the suit.
‘Hello?’ Beychae said.
‘Pleased to talk to you Mr Beychae. I do hope Mr Zakalwe is treating you all right. Are you well?’
‘Tired, but hale.’
‘I trust Mr Zakalwe has found time to communicate to you the seriousness of the political situation in the Cluster.’