I have to admit I felt a degree of admiration for Linter’s stand, even though I still thought he was being stupid. There might or might not be a local involved, but I was already getting the impression it was more complicated — and more difficult to handle — than that. Maybe he had fallen in love, but not with anything as simple as a person. Maybe he’d fallen in love with Earth itself; the whole fucking planet. So much for Contact screening; they were supposed to keep people out who might fall like that. If that was what had happened then the ship had problems indeed. Falling in love with somebody, they say, is a little like getting a tune into your head and not being able to stop whistling it… except much more so, and — from what I’d heard — going native the way I suspected Linter might be was as far beyond loving another person as that was beyond getting a tune stuck in your head.
I felt suddenly angry, at Linter and the ship.
'I think you’re taking a very selfish and stupid risk that’s not just bad for you, and bad for the… for us; for the Culture, but also bad for these people. If you do get caught, if you’re discovered… they are going to get paranoid, and they might feel threatened and hostile in any contact they are involved, in or ex. You could send them… make them crazy. Insane.'
'You said they were that already.'
'And you do stand a less chance of living your full term. Even if you don’t; so you live for centuries. How d'you explain that?'
'They may have anti-geriatrics themselves by that time. Besides, I can always move around.'
'They won’t have anti-geriatrics for fifty years or more; centuries if they relapse, even without a Holocaust. Yeah; so move around, make yourself a fugitive, stay alien, stay apart. You’ll be as cut off from them as you will be from us. Ah hell, you always will be anyway.' I was talking loudly by now. I waved one arm at the bookshelves. 'Sure read the books and see the films and go to concerts and theatre and opera and all that shit; you can’t become them. You’ll still have Culture eyes, Culture brain; you can’t just… can’t deny all that, pretend it never happened.' I stamped one foot on the floor. 'God dammit, Linter, you’re just being ungrateful!'
'Listen, Sma,' he said, rising out of the seat, grabbing his beer and stalking about the room, gazing out of the windows. 'Neither of us owes the Culture anything. You know that… Owing and being obliged and having duties and responsibilities and everything like that… that’s what these people have to worry about.' He turned round to look at me. 'But not me, not us. You do what you want to do, the ship does what it wants to do. I do what I want to do. All’s well. Let’s just leave each other alone, yes?' He looked back at the small courtyard, finishing his beer.
'You want to be like them, but you don’t want to have their responsibilities.'
'I didn’t say I wanted to be like them. To… to whatever extent I do, I want to have the same sort of responsibilities, and that doesn’t include worrying about what a Culture starship thinks. That isn’t something any of them normally tend to worry about.'
'What if Contact surprises us both, and does come in?'
'I doubt that.'
'Me too, very much; that’s why I think it might happen.'
'I don’t think so. Though it is we who need them, not the other way round.' Linter turned and stared at me, but I wasn’t going to start arguing on a second front now. 'But,' he said after a pause, 'the Culture can do without me.' He inspected his drained glass. 'It’s going to have to.'
I was silent for a while, watching the television flip through channels. 'What about you though?' I asked eventually. 'Can you do without it?'
'Easily,' Linter laughed. 'Listen, d'you think I haven’t—'
'No; you listen. How long do you think this place is going to stay the way it is now? Ten years? Twenty? Can’t you see how much this place has to alter… in just the next century? We’re so used to things staying much the same, to society and technology — at least immediately available technology — hardly changing over our lifetimes that… I don’t know any of us could cope for long down here. I think it’ll affect you a lot more than the locals. They’re used to change, used to it all happening fast. All right, you like the way it is now, but what happens later? What if 2077 is as different from now as this is from 1877? This might be the end of a Golden Age, world war or not. What chance do you think the West has of keeping the status quo with the Third World? I’m telling you; end of the century and you’ll feel lonely and afraid and wonder why they’ve deserted you and you’ll be the worst nostalgic they’ve got because you’ll remember it better than they ever will and you won’t remember anything else from before now.'
He just stood looking at me. The TV showed part of a ballet in black and white, then an interview; two white men who looked American somehow (and the fuzzy picture looked US standard), then a quiz show, then a puppet show, again in monochrome. You could see the strings. Linter put his glass down on the granite table and went over to the Hifi, turning on the tape deck. I wondered what little bit of planetary accomplishment I was going to be treated to.
The picture on the screen settled to one programme for a while. It looked vaguely familiar; I was sure I’d seen it. A play; last century… American writer, but… (Linter went back to his seat, while the music began; the Four Seasons.)
Henry James, The Ambassadors. It was a TV production I’d seen on the BBC while I was in London… or maybe the ship had repeated it. I couldn’t recall. What I did recall was the plot and the setting, both of which seemed so apposite to my little scene with Linter that I started to wonder whether the beast upstairs was watching all this. Probably was, come to think of it. And not much point in looking for anything; the ship could produce bugs so small the main problem with camera stability was Brownian motion. Was The Ambassadors a sign from it then? Whatever; the play was replaced by a commercial for Odor-Eaters.
'I’ve told you,' Linter brought me back from my musings, speaking quietly, 'I’m prepared to take my chances. Do you think I haven’t thought it all through before, many times? This isn’t sudden, Sma; I felt like this my first day here, but I waited for months before I said anything, so I’d be sure. It’s what I’ve been looking for all my life, what I’ve always wanted. I always knew I’d know it when I found it, and I have.' He shook his head; sadly, I thought. 'I’m staying, Sma.'
I shut up. I suspected that despite what he’d just said he hadn’t thought about how much the planet would change during his long likely lifetime, and there were still other things to be said, but I didn’t want to press too hard too quickly. I made myself relax on the couch and shrugged. 'Anyway, we don’t know for sure what the ship’s going to do; what they’ll decide.'
He nodded, picked up a paperweight from the granite table and turned it over and over in his hand. The music shimmered through the room, like the sun on water reflected; points producing lines, dancing quietly. 'I know,' he said, still gazing at the heavy globe of twisted glass, 'this must seem like a mad idea… but I just… just want the place.' He looked at me — for the first time, I thought — without a challenging scowl or stern coolness.
'I know what you mean,' I said. 'But I can’t understand it perfectly… maybe I’m more suspicious than you are; it’s just you tend to be more concerned for other people than for yourself sometimes… you assume they haven’t thought things through the way you would have yourself.' I sighed, almost laughed. 'I guess I’m assuming you’ll… hoping you’ll change your mind.'