Surface Detail

Veppers had a sort of calculating look about him, Demeisen thought. He was also – going on heart-rate, capillary contraction and skin moisture readings – profoundly rattled, though hiding it extremely well. The man’s gaze shifted, eyes hooded a little, from the ambassador to Lededje. “But I’m still being asked to believe that this person is some sort of reincarnated version of Ms. Y’breq,” he said, as his gaze alighted on Demeisen, “and this… offensively rude, lying young man, allegedly representing a powerful Culture spacecraft, is allowed to make outrageous and obscene accusations without, I presume, being subject to any of the legal sanctions I would seek to impose on anybody else saying anything so utterly mendacious and, potentially – if anybody else was sufficiently demented to take his ravings seriously – so horrendously damaging to my reputation, is that right?”

“About the size of it,” Demeisen agreed cheerily, clearing up some of the mess Lededje’s lunge across the table had caused. Jasken, still with one wary eye on the girl, was sorting some of the debris on his side.

“You like to take your women from behind,” Lededje said quietly, staring at Veppers. “Usually while facing a mirror. Sometimes, especially when you are drunk, you like to lean forward and bite the right shoulder blade of the woman you are fucking. Always the right, never the left. I have no idea why. You mutter, ‘Ah, yesss, fucking take it,’ sometimes, when you orgasm. You have a small black mole just under the fold of your right armpit, which is the only blemish you have allowed to remain on your body, purely for the purposes of identification. You scratch the right corner of your mouth when you are worried and trying to decide what course of action to take. You secretly despise Peschl, your lawyer, because he is gay, but keep him on because he is very good at his job and it is important to you to make people think that you are not homophobic. I think you may have had some sort of homosexual experience at school with your friend Sapultride. You think the screen director Kostrle is ‘grotesquely over-rated’, though you fund his works and advance him at every opportunity because he seems fashionable and you desire his-”

“Yes yes yes,” Veppers said. “You’ve done your research; well done. Clever girl.” (Still, Demeisen noticed, Veppers’ involuntary stress signs had peaked again, and Jasken was suddenly trying hard not to stare at either his master or Lededje.) Veppers turned to Huen. “Madam. Can we get to the point of things here?”

Demeisen turned quickly to Lededje. “Are you mad?” he asked her quietly.

“Burning my boats, you treacherous fuck,” she said, her voice sounding quiet and hollow. “If I can’t kill the bastard maybe I can unsettle him a little. It’s all you’ve left me.” She barely looked at the avatar as she said this.

“Av Demeisen,” the ambassador said, sitting up straight and brushing some crumbs from her fingers, “you need to listen to this.” She nodded to Veppers.

Veppers looked at the avatar. He took in a breath, then expelled it, glanced at Huen. “This… person really does represent a Culture ship? You’re sure?”

“Yes,”the ambassador said, watching Demeisen rather than looking at Veppers as she addressed him. “Get on with it.”

Veppers shook his head. “Oh well.” He smiled insincerely at the avatar, who smiled just as insincerely back. “The smatter is a diversion,” Veppers told him. “I made one agreement with the Flekke and NR, to stay out of any conflict regarding the Hells. Smokescreen. I never intended to keep it. I made another agreement with the GFCF to provide them with targets for a fleet of ships they would build in the Tsungarial Disk while the Culture and anybody else who might have interfered was tied up with the smatter outbreak. That is the agreement that I intend to keep, so long as nothing untoward befalls me. Those targets are the Hells-well, the substrates running them; the vast majority of them at any rate. All the important ones.”

“And they are here,” Huen said. “On Sichult, is that right?”

Veppers smiled at her. “Here or hereabouts.”

Huen nodded slowly. “The latest reports I have indicate that a substantial number of the Disk- built ships have, surprisingly, escaped the confines of the Tsung system, possibly powered by unexpected amounts of power no one thought they might possess, and are headed this way,” she said, glancing at Demeisen. “To Sichult.”

“Sudden rush of anti-matter to the engines,” the avatar said, nodding vigorously. “I’ve an element or two running them down, but a number will likely get through.”

“Their targets are in or around Sichult,” Veppers said. “I’ll call in the exact locations when they’re closer.”

Demeisen’s eyes narrowed. “Really? That’s cutting it awfully fine, isn’t it?”