Cossont snorted again. “You might be surprised how little that narrows things down, spaceship.”
Berdle smiled but didn’t look at her. “I am aware of the structure’s dimensions.”
On the sub-screen, some moving footage followed: the man seemed to get slightly lost in the transit lounge, apparently unsure which way to go, until he left, led by a modest amount of luggage on a helpful float-trolley. Maybe he did walk a little like QiRia. Maybe. He disappeared. A still of his face came back, then was replaced by another set of screen images which seemed to show him leaving again, dressed similarly but wearing big dark glasses. If anything, he looked even less sure where he was going on the way back. The images faded away and the sub-screen went dark.
Ahead, the view was all Girdlecity; even sitting forwards, craning her neck, there was no sign of sky or sea. A few tiny, dim lights were only now starting to prick the obsidian surface of the structure. Berdle must have thought an instruction to the shuttle, because the screen extended smoothly, silently backwards, so that the view now took in directly overhead and a little further back. Looking straight up, she could see the sky again. She nearly said thank you, but didn’t.
“Hello, that looks familiar,” Pyan said, flapping and hopping through to sit on her lap. “Girdlecity?”
“Huh,” Cossont said.
“Oh,” Pyan said. “Hzu coast. That’ll be pretty.”
How fucking dare QiRia come back to where she lived — not just the civilisation but the system, the planet where she lived — and not look her up? What sort of friend was that?
“So, do we think he was looking for somebody?” she asked.
“According to his subsequent movements, happily documented by your fearsomely watchful Aliens Bureau, it seems he was looking for a particular person or for a particular artefact/location,” Berdle said. “Which he seems to have found.”
“Where in the Girdlecity?” Cossont asked. This wasn’t the bit she knew; this was about a third of the way round the planet from Kwaalon and the great plains.
“He was going to Launch Falls,” Berdle said.
“That’s nowhere near here,” she told him.
“I know. The artefact/location concerned has moved.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes. It’s an airship.”
“One of the internals?”
“Only one still moving, apparently.”
“I’ve heard of it,” she told the avatar.
“Apparently it’s famous,” Berdle confirmed. “Well, notorious.”
“Hope you’re ready for a party,” she told the avatar, one eyebrow hoisted even though it wasn’t looking at her.
The avatar’s head tipped briefly. “Ready for anything.”
Cossont was silent for a moment as the Girdlecity drifted closer and more detail began to show on the dark textures of its surface. “It really didn’t look all that much like him,” she said.
“What has that got to do with anything?” The avatar glanced at her. “Seventy per cent represents a good chance.”
Cossont frowned suddenly. “Where did you say he claimed to have come from?”
“Neressi.”
“Spell that?” The avatar spelled it for her. “In Marain?” she asked, frown deepening. She listened again, nodded. Ahead, whole constellations of lights were brightening into existence against the surface of the Girdlecity as they continued to draw closer. They were still fifteen or twenty kilometres out. She sighed. “It’s probably better than seventy per cent,” she told the avatar. “When he was on Perytch IV he was… you know… transplanted, had his consciousness transferred into this gigantic sea creature. He took the name… Isseren.”
Berdle nodded. “Ah-ha,” the avatar said, softly.
“Oh!” Pyan said, after a moment. “Backwards!”
“Yes,” Cossont said sourly. “Fucking backwards.”
Jelwilin Keril, the Iwenick Cultural Mission Director, left the Strategic Outreach Element CH2OH.(CHOH)4.CHO in his private yacht.
At least he was able to call his yacht something sensible. He’d named it Iberre, in honour of his father-mother. And he was allowed to refer to it as a yacht, not a Space-Capable Inter-Element Transportation Component, or something of similar over-literal awkwardness. He looked back at the Strategic Outreach Element CH2OH.(CHOH)4.CHO. It hung against the star-flecked blackness, a svelte grey flattened ellipsoid.
Strategic Outreach Element. Everybody else would just call it a ship.
Still, this was modern-day thinking. “Ship” just sounded a bit crude, apparently — redolent of bulbous wooden things rolling around on the high seas, infested with parasites and stinking with drunken, seasick sailors. Even the Culture’s partiality to the term “unit” — used by the Iwenick until recently in a slightly cringing attempt at flattery — was seen as not fully expressing the powers and capabilities of the vessels it was attached to. Apparently, according to the advisors who made their living thinking about this sort of thing, “unit” was for ever associated with the words “light industrial”.
He turned back. Never mind. But he knew exactly why he was thinking about names.
The Liseiden flagship, the Collective Purposes vessel Gellemtyan-Asool-Anafawaya (the name of some ancient Liseiden hero, so acceptable, if unpronounceable) swelled in the screen, a well-lit hangar already open for the yacht. The ship was a jumbled mass of planes and edges, barely even symmetrical from certain angles. It was supposed to appear complicated and impressive but to Jelwilin it just looked like a confused slump of different-sized boxes, like the result of an accident in a warehouse.
Jelwilin inspected his image in a screen. Full uniform, perfectly groomed, manicured and made-up. He looked great — not that an alien would notice or care. This could all have been done in a few minutes, of course, by him simply holo-ing in to the Liseiden ship’s command deck and talking to them that way, but there were times when a personal appearance — even a personal appearance inside a glorified fish bowl — was the only way to show the desired portion of respect, and the Liseiden were certainly expecting the full serving, to compensate for the wound to their pride and expectations they’d just experienced at the hands of the perfidious Gzilt. Hence the ship rendezvous and the face-to-face.
Cultural Mission Director Jelwilin patted down his uniform jacket, adjusted a cuff. He felt the need to urinate, but he had already done so before leaving the ship, and knew this was simply the result of nerves.
“He wants more?” Team Principal Tyun roared. “The son-of-a-runt!”
Sitting — comfortably enough, but very conscious that he was contained within a perfectly transparent sphere, exposed to inspection from every side — in front of the array of sinuously floating Liseiden, their bodies waving to and fro like fat scarves in a slow-motion breeze, Cultural Mission Director Jelwilin set his face as well as he could in an expression of understanding and shared pain. The Liseiden might not have any officers capable of interpreting his species’ facial expressions, but they would probably have AIs which could; might as well make the effort. Anyway, it was all integral to the part he was playing here. Method diplomacy.
“The septame tells us that he is confident that he can overturn the decision,” Jelwilin said calmly. “And Ambassador Mierbeunes is very — and very encouragingly — insistent that the septame will be able to make this happen. Ambassador Mierbeunes is one of our most senior and most experienced diplomats, as well as one of the most successful. I have known him for many years and I don’t think I have ever seen him more confident in the abilities of another person. The thing is that to achieve what he believes he can, Septame Banstegeyn assures us that he needs to take greater risks than those he has taken until now. Accordingly, he asks for a greater reward. And, frankly, Team Principal, what he asks for is something it costs you next to nothing to agree to. And I emphasise ‘agree to’ rather than, say, ‘grant’ or even ‘fully commit to in your soul’.”