Still no sign of a hunt in progress, or even of any herds of prey animals. Just a few filmy mats and hanging verticals of floating plant life. Doubtless some of the smaller animals which a few species of the prey-creatures themselves predated would be hanging munching away on the membranes and gas sacs of the flora, but they were invisible from this distance with the haze preventing closer inspection.
Genar-Hofoen sat back. There was no seat to sit back on because the monorail car wasn’t built for humans, but the gelfield suit was imitating the effects of a seat. He wore his usual gilet and holster. At his feet was his gelfield hold-all. He looked at it, then prodded it with a foot. It didn’t look much to be taking on a round trip of six thousand light years.
— Bastards, the module said inside his head.
— What? he asked it.
— They seem to enjoy leaving everything to the last moment, the module said, sounding annoyed. ~ You know, we only just finished negotiating for the hire of the ships? I mean, you’re due to leave in about ten minutes; how late can these maniacs leave things?
— Ships plural? he asked.
— Ships plural, the module said. ~ They insist we hire three of their ridiculous tubs. Any one of which could easily accommodate me, I might add; that’s another point at issue. But three! Can you believe? That’s practically a fleet by their standards!
— Must need the money.
— Genar-Hofoen, I know you think it amusing to be the cause of the transfer of funds to the Affront, but might I point out to you that where it is not to all intents and purposes irrelevant, money is power, money is influence, money is effect.
— “Money is effect”, Genar-Hofoen mused. ~ That one of your own, Scopell-Afranqui?
— The point is that every time we donate the Affront extra means of exchange we effectively become part of their expansionist drive. It is not moral.
— Shit, we gave them Orbital-building technology; how does that compare with a few gambling debts?
— That was different; we only gave them that so they’d stop taking over so many planets and because they didn’t trust the Orbitals we made for them. And I’m not talking about your gambling debts, however outrageous, or your bizarre habit of bidding-up the price of bribes. I’m talking about the cost of hiring three Affronter Nova Class Battle-Cruisers and their crews for two months.
Genar-Hofoen almost laughed out loud. ~ SC isn’t putting that on your tab, is it?
— Of course not. I was thinking of the wider picture.
— What the fuck am I supposed to do? he protested. ~ This is the fastest way of getting me where SC wants me to be. Not my fault.
— You could have said No.
— Could have. And you’d have spent the next year or so biting my ear about not doing my duty to the Culture when I was asked.
— Your only motive, I’m sure, Scopell-Afranqui said sniffily as the monorail car slowed. The module went off-line with an ostentatious click.
Prick, Genar-Hofoen thought, unheard.
The monorail car passed through another couple of habitat section walls, exiting into a crowded-looking industrial section where the keel skeletons of newly begun Affronter ships rose out of the haze like oddly inappropriate collections of spines and ribs, ornate elaborations within the greater framework of buttresses and columns supporting the habitat itself. The monorail car continued to slow until it drew to a stop within a web-tube attached to one of the structural members. The car started to drop, almost in free-fall.
The car vibrated. In fact, it was rattling. Genar-Hofoen had grown up on a Culture Orbital where only sporting vehicles and things you built yourself for a laugh ever vibrated; normal transport systems rarely ever even made a noise unless it was to ask which floor you wanted or whether you’d like the on-board scent changed.
The monorail car flashed through a floor and into another gigantic hangar space where the towering shapes of half-finished craft rose like barbed pinnacles out of the mist-shrouded framework of slender girders below. The bladed hulls of the ships blurred past to one side.
— Wee-hee! said the gelfield suit, which thought Affronter free-fall was just a total hoot.
— Glad you’re amused, Genar-Hofoen thought.
— I hope you realise that if this thing crashes now, even I won’t be able to stop you breaking most of your major bones, the suit informed him.
— If you can’t say something helpful, shut the fuck up, he told it.
Another floor rushed up to meet the car; it plummeted through to a vast, misty hall where almost-finished Affronter ships rose like jagged sky-scrapers. The car came juddering and screeching to a halt near the floor of the huge space — the suit clamped around him in support, but Genar-Hofoen could feel his insides doing uncomfortable things under the effects of the additional apparent gravity — then the car cycled through a pair of airlocks and rumbled down a dark tunnel.
It came out on to the edge of the underside of the habitat where, a succession of docks shaped like giant rib-cages disappeared away along the lazy curve of the little world; there was a lot of glare but a few bright stars shone in the darkness. About half the docks were occupied, some with Affronter ships, some with craft from a handful of other species. Dwarfing all the others were three huge dark craft, each of which looked vaguely as though it had been modelled by taking a free-fall aerial bomb from one age and welding onto it a profusion of broad swords, scimitars and daggers from an even earlier time and then magnifying the result until each was a couple of kilometres in length. They hung cradled in docks a few kilometres off; the car swung round and headed towards them.
— The good ships SacSlicer II, FrightSpear and Kiss The Blade, the suit announced as the car slowed again and the bulbous black bulks of the craft blotted out the stars.
— Charmed, I’m sure, thought Genar-Hofoen, picking up his hold-all. He studied the hulls of the three warships, looking for the signs of damage that would indicate the craft were veterans. The signs were there; a delicate tracery of curved lines, light grey on dark grey and black, spread out across the spines, blades and curtain hull of the middle ship indicated a probably glancing blow from a plasma blast (which even Genar-Hofoen, who found weapons boring, could recognise); blurred grey roundels like concentric bruises on that middle ship and the nearest vessel were the marks of another weapon system, and sharp, straight lines etched across the various surfaces of the third craft looked like the effects of yet another.
Of course, the Affront’s ships were as self-repairing as any other reasonably advanced civilisation’s, and the marks that had been left on the vessels were just that; they would be no thicker than a coat of paint and have negligible effect on the ships’ operational capability. However, the Affront thought that it was only right that their ships should — like themselves — bear the scars of honour that battle brings, and so allowed their warships’ self-repair mechanisms to stop just short of perfection, the better to display the provenance of their war fleets’ glorious reputations.