The State of The Art

'Yes, if you’re sure.'

'I haven’t used it for weeks.'

'How did you ask the ship to see me?'

'It sends down drones to talk to me. I offered the terminal to them, but they wouldn’t take it. The ship won’t take it. I don’t think it wants to be responsible.'

'You want me to be?'

'As a friend. I’d like you to; please. Please take it.'

'Look, why not keep it but don’t use it. In case there’s some emergency—'

'No. No; just take it, please.' Linter looked into my eyes for a moment. 'It’s just a formality.'

I felt a strange urge to laugh, the way he said that. Instead I took the terminal from him and stuffed it into my bomber jacket. Linter sighed. We walked on.

It was a lovely day. The sky was cloudless, the air clear, and fragrant with mixtures of the sea and land. I wasn’t sure whether there really was something about that quality of light that made it northern; perhaps it only looked different because you knew there was just a thousand kilometres or so of as clear, still fresher, colder air between you and the Arctic sea, the great bergs and the millions of square kilometres of ice and snow. It was like being on another planet.

We walked up the steps, Linter seeming to study each one. I was looking around, drinking in the sight and sound and smell of this place, reminding me of my holidays from London. I looked at the man by my side.

'You know you’re not looking too well.'

He didn’t meet my gaze, but appeared to study some distant stonework at the end of the walk. 'Well… no, I guess you could say I’ve changed.' He smiled uncertainly. 'I’m not the man I was.'

Something about the way he said it made me shiver. He was watching his feet again.

'You staying here, in Oslo?' I asked him.

'For the moment, yes. I like it here. It doesn’t feel like a capital city; clean and compact, but—' he broke off, shook his head at something. 'I’ll move on soon though, I think.'

We went on, mounting the steps. Some of the Vigoland sculptures made me feel distinctly uncomfortable. A wave of something like revulsion swept over me, startling me; some planetary repugnance in this northern city. In this world now, they were talking of abandoning the B1 bomber to go ahead with the cruise missile. What had started out as the Neutron Bomb had euphemized into the Enhanced Radiation Warhead and finally into the Reduced Blast Device. They’re all sick and so’s he, I thought suddenly. Infected.

No, that was stupid. I was getting xenophobic. The fault was within, not without.

'Do you mind if I tell you something?'

'What do you mean?' I said. What a weird thing to say, I thought.

'Well you might find it… distasteful; I don’t know.'

'Tell me anyway. I have a strong constitution.'

'I got… I asked the ship to ah… alter me.' He looked at me briefly. I inspected him. The slight stoop, the thinness and paler skin wouldn’t have required the services of the ship. He saw me looking, shook his head. 'No, nothing outside; inside.'

'Oh. What?'

'Well, I got it to… to give me a set of guts more like the locals. And I had the drug glands taken out, and the uh—' he laughed nervously '- the loop system in my balls.'

I kept walking. I believed him, immediately. I couldn’t believe the ship had agreed to do it, but I believed Linter. I didn’t know what to say.

'So, I uh, don’t have any choice about going to the toilet every so often, and I… I had it work on my eyes, too.' He paused. Now it was my turn to keep looking at my feet, clomping up the steps in my fancy Italian climbing boots. I didn’t think I wanted to hear this. 'Sort of re-wired so I see like them. Bit fuzzier, sort of less… well, not fewer colours, but more sort of… squashed up. Can’t see much at night, either. Same sort of thing on my ears and nose. But it… well it almost enhances what you do experience, you know? I’m still glad I had it done.'

'Yeah.' I nodded, not looking at him.

'My immune system isn’t perfect anymore, either. I can get colds, and… that sort of thing. I didn’t get the shape of my dick altered; decided it would pass. Did you know there are considerable variations in genitalia here already? The Bushmen of the Kalahari have a permanent erection, and the women have the Tablier Egyptien; a small fold of flesh covering their genitals.' He waved one hand. 'So I’m not that much of a freak. I guess this isn’t all that terrible really, is it? I don’t know why I thought you might be disgusted or anything.'

'Hmm.' I was wondering what had possessed the ship to do all this to the man. It had agreed to carry out these… I could only think of them as mutilations… and yet it wouldn’t accept his terminal. Why had it done this to him? It said it wanted him to change his mind, but it changed his body instead, pandering to his lunatic desire to become more like the locals.

'Can’t change sex now, if I wanted to. Things’ll still regrow if they get cut off; ship couldn’t alter that, not quickly; take time; intensive care, and it wouldn’t alter my… umm… clockspeed, what-d'you-call-it. So I’ll still grow old slowly, and live longer than them… but I think it might relent later, when it knows I’m sincere.'

All I could think of was that by converting Linter’s physiology to a design closer to the planetary standard, the ship wanted to show the man what a nasty life they led. Perhaps it thought rubbing his nose in the Human Condition would send the man running back to the manifold delights of the ship, content with his Cultural lot at last.

'You don’t mind, do you?'

'Mind? Why should I mind?' I said, and instantly felt foolish for sounding like something from a soap opera.

'Yes, I can see you do,' Linter said. 'You think I’m crazy, don’t you?'

'All right.' I stopped half-way up a flight of steps, turned to him. 'I do, I think you’re crazy to… to throw so much away. It’s… it’s wrong-headed of you, it’s stupid. It’s as if you’re doing it just to annoy people, to test the ship. Are you trying to get it mad at you, or what?'

'Of course not, Sma.' He looked hurt. 'I don’t care that much about the ship, but I was worried… I am concerned about what you might think.' He took my free hand in both of his. They felt cold. 'You’re a friend. You matter to me. I don’t want to offend anybody; not you, not anybody. But I have to do what feels right. This is very important to me; more important than anything else I’ve ever done before. I don’t want to upset anybody, but… look, I’m sorry.' He let go my hand.

'Yeah, I’m sorry too. But it’s like mutilation. Like infection.'

'Ah, we’re the infection, Sma.' He turned and sat down on the steps, looking back towards the city and the sea. 'We’re the ones who're different, we’re the self-mutilated, the self-mutated. This is the mainstream; we’re just like very smart kids; infants with a brilliant construction kit. They’re real because they live the way they have to. We aren’t because we live the way we want to.'

'Linter,' I said, sitting beside him. 'This is the fucking mental home; the land of the midnight brain. This is the place that gave us Mutual Assured Destruction; they’ve thrown people into boiling water to cure diseases; they use Electro-Convulsive Therapy; a nation with a law against cruel and unusual punishments electrocutes people to death—'

'Go on; mention the death camps,' Linter said, blinking at the blue distance.

'It was never Eden. It isn’t ever going to be, but it might progress. You’re turning your back on every advance we’ve made beyond where they are now, and you’re insulting them as well as the Culture.'