Surface Detail

The fifteen days since had been spent in the same tiny space, though the entirety of the cabin’s interior surfaces could function as a single astoundingly convincing screen, so it could look like she was standing on a snowy mountain top, the middle of a table flat desert, a wave-washed beach or anywhere else she or the module could think of.

She had been thinking ahead and had decided what she might require when she got to Sichult. She was intending to get to Veppers through his lust; she reckoned the degree of physical beauty she had been granted, thanks to Sensia and her human-growing vats, would be sufficiently beguiling to entice Veppers, if she got close enough to be seen by him in the right social situation. A second way to get to him might be through her own knowledge of how his household, the town house in Ubruater and the mansion at Espersium all worked.

She’d had the ship make her clothes and jewellery and various other personal possessions, ready for when she arrived at Sichult. She’d tried to get it to make her some weapons, but it wouldn’t play. It had even hesitated over one of her necklaces, given that it was long enough to be used to strangle somebody. It had conceded on that one. It had had no detectable qualms whatsoever about providing her with a diamond-film currency card allegedly loaded with enough credit to ensure that if she changed her mind about murdering Veppers she could buy her own Ubruater town house, her own country estate and just live like a princess for the rest of her life. Maybe that was the idea.

She exercised, she studied – mostly she studied all that the Culture knew of Veppers, Sichult and the Enablement, which was a lot more than even Veppers himself knew, she’d be prepared to bet – and she talked to the always-available Demeisen, who would materialise whenever she wanted to talk. Not that it was really materialising, literally, apparently, though she felt her eyes start to glaze over once the technical explanation kicked in.

She’d undergone a guided virtual tour of the ship, albeit reluctantly. She’d only agreed because Demeisen had seemed so boyishly enthusiastic about it. The tour had taken a while, though probably not as long as it had felt at the time. All she remembered was that the ship could split into different bits, like a sort of one ship fleet or something, though it was most powerful as a single unit. Sixteen bits. Or maybe it was twenty-four. She’d made the appropriate Ooh, Ah, No, really? noises at the time, which was what actually mattered. She had lots of experience at that sort of thing.

She had, tentatively, entertained the idea of taking Demeisen as a lover. The more Sichultian he got, and the longer she was cooped up in here, fabulous fake scenery or not, the more attractive he looked and the itchier that subject got. She guessed, first, it would be pretty meaningless to the ship, second that she’d be indulged (it would say yes), third that it would be done with some style and sensitivity and – it occurred to her one day – fourth, it might just… just… make her safer, and her plan to kill Veppers more likely to succeed.

The Minds, the hyper AIs that commanded, that basically were the Culture’s capital ships, were unarguably sentient, and they had emotions, even if their feelings were always under the control of their intellects, never the other way round. The ship had already hinted that there might be trouble where it was taking her – the sort of trouble where its fearsome martial abilities might come into play – so was there not just a chance that having sex with its avatar might make it feel even the tiniest bit of extra commitment towards her?

How much would it mean to the ship if she and its avatar did fuck? Nothing whatsoever? Or would it be like a human stroking a domestic pet; indulgent, companionable, mildly pleasant… though with no possible component that might lead to feelings of ownership, commitment or jealousy?

It was calculation rather than emotion; she’d be whoring herself. But then Veppers had long ago removed any choice she might have had regarding who she fucked. She’d had to whore herself for him (and against him – not that that had worked). The only time she’d ever had sex simply because she’d wanted to had been on that single night aboard the GSV, with Shokas.

Anyway, she had not broached the subject. And besides, for all she knew, the ship would revert to type, the way it had been while it had been aboard the GSV, before it had had its sudden and still slightly suspicious change of mind. Then it had seemed to enjoy hurting people; so it might do so again, and take pleasure in having its avatar reject her.