Surface Detail

Bettlescroy went on. “We, the GFCF, will undertake to present to our friends the Culture – in the shape of the Restoria mission presently working in the Tsungarial Disk – what will appear to be a sudden and violent outbreak of the currently abated smatter infection infesting certain components of the Disk. Initially this will distract and tie up the Culture assets which we know are present, as well as drawing out and sucking in any other nearby forces within practical rush-in distance. Come the inevitable post-incident investigations, the smatter eruption will begin to look like something the Culture itself staged to allow it to take on an aggressively operational role in what transpires subsequently.”

“You are sure you can keep your own fingerprints off this, are you?” Vatueil asked.

“We are,” Bettlescroy said. “We have done this before, without detection.” The little alien smiled winningly. “The trick is to do something that the Culture would actually quite like to have done itself anyway. That way, any subsequent investigations tend to be more cursory than they might otherwise have been.”

“Have you taken any actions like this on such a scale before?” Vatueil asked.

Bettlescroy blushed, looked down. “Absolutely not. This is a significantly greater interference than any we have attempted before. However, we remain extremely confident that it will succeed.”

Vatueil looked unconvinced, Veppers thought. Maybe; always hard to tell with aliens.

“If the Culture decides it’s been tricked, used, manipulated,” the space-marshal said, slowly and deliberately, with the air of a man imparting a great and serious certitude, “it will move Afterlives to get to the truth, and it will not stop until it thinks it’s got to the bottom of it, no matter what. And,” he said, looking round them all, “there will always be forces within the Culture who will exact revenge. Again, no matter what.” Vatueil paused, looked grim. “I think we all know the saying: ‘Don’t fuck with the Culture.’”

Bettlescroy smiled, blushing once again. “Sir,” it said, “some of the incidents to which I suspect you are referring, the ones which have reinforced that famous saying which I shall not repeat…?”

“Yes?” Vatueil said, realising it was expected.

Bettlescroy paused, as though wondering to say what it was about to say or not. Eventually the little alien said, “Those were us, not them.”

Vatueil definitely looked dubious now. “Really?”

Bettlescroy looked down modestly again. “Really,” it said, extremely quietly.

Vatueil frowned. “Then… Do you ever wonder who might be using who?”

The little alien smiled, sighed. “We give it some consideration, sir.” It looked round the other GFCFians gathered round the table. They looked happy as zealots who’d just found a heathen to burn, Veppers thought. That was a little worrying.

Bettlescroy made a flowing, resigned gesture with its arms. “We are happy with our current situational analysis and pattern of behaviour.”

“And you’re happy you can keep the Flekke and the NR in the dark?” Veppers asked. “I’m pinned by my balls at the business end of a firing range if you don’t.”

“The NR are less concerned than you think,” Bettlescroy said reassuringly. “They approach their own Sublimation, more immediately than is known by all but us. The Flekke are an irrelevance; a legacy concern. They are our old mentors – as they are still yours, Mr. Veppers – their diverse and great achievements now in many ways eclipsed by those of the GFCF, even if as a species they remain theoretically our betters.” Bettlescroy paused for a little laugh. “At least according to the inflexible and quite arguably outmoded definitions of the Galactic Council’s currently accepted Recognised Civilisationary Levels framework!” The little alien paused again, and was rewarded with what was by GFCF standards a positive storm of rowdy agreement: deep nods, loud muttering and a lot of meaningful eye-contact. Veppers would have sworn some of them even thought about slapping their manicured little hands on the table. Glowing, Bettlescroy went on: “The Flekke will be quietly proud of anything we achieve, and the same vicarious sense of accomplishment will most doubtlessly be applied to the Sichultian Enablement in turn.” He beamed at Veppers. “In sum: in both cases, leave them to us.”

Veppers exchanged looks with Vatueil. Of course, you never entirely knew what an exchanged look really meant to an alien, pan-human or not, but it felt like somebody had to exercise a little realism here. Maybe even a little healthy cynicism.

On the other hand, they were pretty much agreed. There was little enough left to iron out. They were going to go ahead with this, doubts or not. The rewards were too great not to.

Veppers just smiled. “Your confidence is reassuring,” he told Bettlescroy.