Surface Detail

The aircraft bucked like a dinghy thrown by a tsunami. Veppers was crushed down into his seat so hard he felt and heard himself make a sort of involuntary grunting, groaning noise as the air was forced out of his compressing lungs. The view – wildly, insanely bright – started to spin like emptied buckets of fluorescent paint swirling round a plug hole. A titanic bang resounded, seeming to come from somewhere inside his head. He glimpsed clouded sky, the clouds’ under-surfaces garishly lit from below, then distant, too-brightly shining hills and forests, then – just for an instant – a vast boiling cloud of fire and smoke, rising on a thick dark stem above a mass of darkness shot through with flame.

He heard what might have been screams, and tearing, cracking, buckling noises. The view through the ultraclear glass suddenly hazed all at once, as though a thin-veined white mesh had been hurled across the material. He felt weightless again and then seemed to be about to be thrown against the ceiling, or into the crazed ultraclear, but the seat seemed to hold onto him.

A roaring noise threw a deep red haze across his eyes and he blacked out.

Yime Nsokyi took her first few unaided steps. Even dressed in loose-fitting fatigues, she felt oddly naked without the supporting net of foam she’d been swaddled in for the last couple of days.

The bones in her legs felt delicate and a little achey. It hurt to take a deep breath and her spine felt oddly inflexible. Only her arms felt pretty much like normal, though the muscles were weak. She’d instructed her body to hold back on all the pain-cancelling mechanisms, to feel how bad things really were. Not too bad, was the answer. She should be able to get through without any more anti-pain secretions.

Walking at her side as she padded up and down the gently lit lounge inside the Me, I’m Counting, one arm extended to cup one of her elbows, was Himerance, the ship’s avatar, a tall, thin crea-ture with a very deep voice and a quite hairless head.

“You don’t have to do this,” she told him.

“I disagree,” he said. “I feel I do. This is at least partly my responsibility. I’ll do what I can to make amends.”

The Me, I’m Counting had been the nearest ship to the Bodhisattva when it had been attacked by the Unfallen Bulbitian, coasting in towards the entity for the semi-regular pick-up and set-down of those going to and coming from the Forgotten GSV Total Internal Reflection. It had been coincidence that it, rather than one of the other ships associated with the GSV, had been allocated the role of shuttle bus this time; three other craft shared the rota. On this occasion, with nobody to drop off, the ship had been coming in only to pick up. When the distress call and Plume event had signalled there was a vessel in distress nearby, it had diverted to investigate and offer help.

“Do you still have the image of Lededje Y’breq?” Yime had asked the ship as soon as she’d been able to. The ship had replaced the pebble-smooth drone with Himerance, a humanoid avatar it had been storing, unused, for over a decade. She’d half expected dust to float from Himerance’s head when he’d nodded.

“Yes,” he’d told her. “In image form only.”

“May I see it?”

The avatar had frowned. “I did promise not to share her full image with anybody else without her express permission,” he’d told her. “I’d prefer to keep to that promise unless there is some circumstance that is so… operationally urgent I felt compelled to break it. Do you especially need to see it? There are plenty of high-quality images of Ms. Y’breq available from Sichultian media and other easily accessible sources. Would you like to see some of them?”

She’d smiled. “No need. I’ve seen them. I was just curious. I appreciate that you want to keep your word.”

“Why are you interested in her?” the ship had asked.

Yime had stared at it. But of course, it would have known nothing of what had happened to Lededje. Servant – acolyte – to a dedicatedly hermit-like GSV, one of the Forgotten, naturally it would be out of any loop that would include detailed knowledge of events in Sichult.

“The Bodhisattva hasn’t briefed you?”

“Immediately after I rescued it, it asked me to make all speed towards the Sichultian Enablement, which I am doing, though with reservations given the situation that appears to be developing there. The Bodhisattva then said that you might provide the reason for all this alacrity.” The avatar had smiled. “I seem to have such a reputation for eccentricity the ship thinks I am more likely to accede to a request from a human than I am to one emanating from a fellow ship. I have no idea why.”