Surface Detail

Demeisen sighed. “All very melodramatic. Your feud may inspire a not terribly good screen presentation at some point in the future, hopefully distant. I look forward to missing it.” He smiled thinly again. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind excusing yourselves?” He nodded to the two young men who’d vacated their seats for Lededje and Jolicci earlier. They were standing nearby now, looking on, quietly triumphant.

Jolicci sighed. “I’m sorry I wasted your time,” he said as he rose.

“Still, I hope to make you sorrier,” Demeisen said with an insincere smile.

“I was talking to Ms. Y’breq.”

“And I was not,” Demeisen said, standing as Lededje did. He turned to her, put the gold smoking stick to his pale lips and pulled hard. He looked at her and said, “Best of luck finding a ride,” as he exhaled.

He smiled more broadly and ground the yellow-red glowing tip of the stick into the open palm of his other hand. There was a distinct sizzling noise. Again, his body seemed to flinch, though his face remained serene.

“What, this?” he said, looking down at the ash-dark burn on his skin as Lededje stared at it, openly aghast. “Don’t worry; I don’t feel a thing.” He laughed. “The idiot inside here does though.” He tapped the side of his head, smiled again. “Poor fool won some sort of competition to replace a ship’s avatar for a hundred days or a year or something similar. No control over either body or ship whatsoever, obviously, but the full experience in other respects – sensations, for example. I’m told he practically came in his pants when he learned an up-to-date warship had volunteered to accept his offer of body host.” The smile became broader, more of a grin. “Obviously not the most zealous student of ship psychology, then. So,” Demeisen said, holding up his hand with the splinted finger and studying it, “I torment the poor fool.” He put his other hand to the one with the splinted fingers, waggled them. His body shuddered as he did so. Lededje found herself wincing with vicarious pain. “See? Powerless to stop me,” Demeisen said cheerily. “He suffers his pain and learns his lesson while I… well, I gain some small amusement.”

He looked at Jolicci and Lededje. “Jolicci,” he said with obviously feigned concern, “you look offended.” He nodded, creased his eyes. “It’s a good look, trust me. Sour opprobrium: suits you.”

Jolicci said nothing.

Wheloube and Emmis resumed their seats. Standing there, Demeisen put out both hands and stroked the hair of one and the shaved head of the other, then cradled the finely chiselled chin of the one with the shaved head using his unsplinted hand. “And fascinatingly, the fellow” – he used his splinted fingers to tap the side of his head again, hard – “is quite defiantly heterosexual, with a fear of bodily violation that borders on outright homophobia.”

He looked round the table of young men, winking at one of them, then gazed radiantly at Jolicci and Lededje.

Lededje stamped across the floor of the dimly lit Smallbay. “There must be other SC ships,” she said furiously.

“None that will talk to you,” Jolicci said, hurrying after her.

“And the only one that would seemed solely to want to shock and demean me.”

Jolicci shrugged. “The Abominator class of General Offensive Unit, to which our friend belongs, is not known for its mildness or sociability. Probably specced when the Culture was going through one of its periods of feeling that nobody was taking it seriously because it was somehow too nice. Even amongst those, though, that particular ship is known as something of an outlier. Most SC ships conceal their claws and keep the psychopathy switched to Full Off except when it’s judged to be absolutely necessary.”

In the traveltube, deflated but calmer, Lededje said, “Well, thank

you for trying.”

“You are welcome. Was all that you said in there true?”

“Every word.” She looked at him. “I trust you’ll treat what you heard just now as in confidence.”

“Well, that is something you might have thought to say before-hand, but, all right, I promise what you said will go no further.” The fat little avatar looked thoughtful. “I realise it might not feel like it, but you may have just had a narrow escape, Ms. Y’breq.”

She looked coldly at him. “Then that makes two this evening, doesn’t it?”

Jolicci appeared unconcerned. If anything he looked amused. “As I said, I was never going to let you fall. What I did was a stunt. What you just saw in there was real.”

“The ship would really be allowed to treat a human like that?”

“If it was done voluntarily, if the bargain was struck with eyes open, as it were, yes.” Jolicci made an expansive gesture with both hands. “It’s what can happen if you put yourself in harm’s way by treating with SC.” The fat little avatar appeared to think for a moment. “Perhaps a rather extreme example, admittedly.”

Lededje took a deep breath, let it out. “I have no terminal. May I use you as one?”

“Feel free. Who would you like to contact?”

“The GSV. To tell it I’ll take its suggested ship tomorrow.”