Surface Detail (13 page)

Lededje nodded. Her mouth was still dry. Could it really be this easy? “I think,” she said, “I would.”

“Sensible. There are, believe me, innumerable other things you could be revented into, in theory, but if I were you I’d stick with the form you’re used to, at first at least. Context is everything, and the first context we find ourselves in is that of our own body.” She looked Lededje down and up. “You happy with the way you look now?”

Lededje opened the blue robe she still wore, looked down at herself. She closed the robe again. Its hems fluttered in the hot breeze. “Yes.” She hesitated. “I can’t decide if I want some form of tattoo or not.”

“Easy to add later, though not at the genetic level you’ve been used to. Can’t really sort you out with that. That info didn’t travel.” Sensia shrugged. “I’ll leave you with an image you can manipulate until you’re happy with it, take a spec from that.”

“You’ll grow a body for me?”

“Complete a suspended one.”

“How long will that take?”

“Here, as little or as much time as you like. In the Real, about eight days.” Sensia shrugged again. “My standard stock of mindless bods doesn’t include the Sichultian form – sorry.”

“Is there a body I could be put into now, without waiting?”

Sensia smiled. “Can’t wait, eh?”

Lededje shook her head, felt her skin grow warm. The truth was that if this was some cruel joke, she wanted to know as quickly as possible. If it was all genuine then she didn’t want to wait to have a real body to take her back to Sichult.

“It’ll still take about a day or so,” Sensia said. She nodded at a female human figure suddenly suspended in the air in front of them; naked, eyes closed. It looked vaguely Sichultian. Its skin was a sort of muddy grey. Then it changed to pure black, then to near white, then shifted through a modest spectrum of different colours. At the same time the girth and height of the figure increased and then decreased. The shape of the head and the facial features changed a little too. “That’s the parameters you can play with, given the time available,” Sensia told her.

Lededje was thinking. She recalled Veppers’ own skin tone. “How long might it take to make it look properly Sichultian, and not black, but sort of reddish-gold?”

Sensia’s eyes might have narrowed a fraction. “A few hours more; a full day in total perhaps. You’d look Sichultian, but you wouldn’t really be so all the way through, not inside. A blood test, tissue sample or almost any invasive medical procedure would quickly reveal that.”

“That’s all right. I think that’s what I’d like,” Lededje said. She looked Sensia in the eye. “I have no money to pay for this.” She had heard that the Culture survived without money, but hadn’t believed a word of it.

“That’s as well,” Sensia said reasonably, “I have no charge to levy.”

“You would do this out of kindness, or for my obligation?”

“Let’s call it kindness, but it’s my pleasure.”

“Then, thank you,” Lededje said. She bowed formally. Sensia smiled. “I would also,” Lededje said, “need to work my passage back to Sichult.”

Sensia nodded. “I’m sure that can be arranged. Though the word ‘work’ doesn’t really mean quite the same in the Culture as it does in the Enablement.” Sensia paused. “May I ask what you intend to do when you get back?”

Kill Mr. Joiler Fucking Veppers, of course, Lededje thought grimly. And— … but there were some things, some thoughts which were so secret, so potentially dangerous, she had learned in effect to keep them even from herself.

She smiled, wondered if this friendly-seeming virtual creature could read her thoughts, in here.

“I have business to conclude there,” she said smoothly.

Sensia nodded, expressionless.

They both looked out towards the desert again.

Prin ignored the departing air vehicle. The giant black beetle ignored him in return. Its great wings unfolded to their full extent – a grinning, death’s head pattern was displayed on each – and then blurred into motion. The giant beetle lumbered upwards. The storm of air its wings produced kicked up dust and tiny shards of bone as Prin, still holding the tiny, petrified form of Chay against his massive chest with one of his forelimbs, reached the flat landing area and dashed across it for the door of the blood-powered mill.

He threw open the door, then had to duck and squeeze though the doorway to get inside. He straightened up, roaring, the wind and dust from the departing aircraft’s wings blowing a stormy haze about him and before him, sweeping over the dark, uneven floor-boards to where the group of grinning demons and terrified Pavuleans were standing before a tall glowing doorway of cool blue set into the bone-and-sinew machinery of the mill’s creaking, quietly shrieking interior.

Somebody said, “Three.”

Caught in the double whirlwind produced by the beetle’s wings, the door behind Prin slammed shut, shaking the mill and reducing by half the little light that came from outside. Prin paused, taking stock. Chay remained stiff in his forelimb. He thought he could feel her trembling against his chest, and hear her whimpering. The demons and the Pavuleans presented a static tableau.

A shallow ramp led down from the floor of the mill to the blue haze of the tall doorway, which trembled, light level fluctuating, as though it was made up of mist inside. Prin thought he caught a glimpse of movement beyond it, but it was impossible to be sure. There were six demons before him. They were of the smaller, four-legged kind; no match for him individually but capable of over-whelming him en masse. Two of them were the ones who had come out of the mill to watch the beetle-shaped flier land. The other four, each holding one of the Pavuleans, had come in on the beetle itself. Four Pavuleans left; four must already have gone through the gateway, back to the Real.

“And what is it you might want?” one of the mill demons said to Prin, as the other nodded to a pair of demons from the flier. These two released their hold on the Pavuleans they were clutching. The two male Pavuleans landed on all fours and scuttled soundlessly down the ramp, vanishing into the blue mist of the doorway.

The other mill demon said, “One.”

“No, no, no!” one of the two remaining Pavuleans wailed, struggling in the grasp of the demon who held him.

“Shush now,” the demon holding him said, shaking him. “Might not be you who’s staying.”

“Brother?” the mill demon who’d spoken to Prin took a step towards him.

Prin felt a tiny, sharp barb penetrate the skin at his neck. The contraband code was about to run out. Four pulses warning; that’s what he’d been told. Four pulses and then he’d be back to his earlier self, just another coded Pavulean, as helpless and hopeless as Chay here, held tight and trembling against his chest. Another barb. So that was four, three …

He didn’t even try to roar again; waste of breath. He just charged, leaping forward at the group of demons and Pavuleans. He thudded into the approaching mill demon while surprise was still registering on its face and it was just starting to raise its trunks to fend him off. He half-headed it, half-shouldered it out of the way, sending it crashing to the floor.

It was all happening very slowly. He wondered if this really was the speed that such moments of action seemed to happen at for predators in the Real – one reason they were so good at bringing down their prey, perhaps – or if this was an extra effect introduced just for the demons in Hell, to allow them an even greater advantage over their victims, or just to let them savour the moment all the more fully.

The four demons from the flier were all facing him now. The two holding Pavuleans did not worry him so much, he realised – he was thinking like a predator, like one of these bastards! – because they didn’t want to let go of their charges, at least not yet. By the time they thought the better of this, he knew, it would all be over one way or the other.

One of the remaining demons was faster to react than the other, opening its mouth into a snarl and starting to rise up on its hind legs while it brought its forelegs up towards him.

He was aware of being slightly encumbered by the small, hard weight he was carrying against his great furred chest. Chay. Could he just throw her through the doorway from here? Probably not. He’d have to stop, take aim, lob her. It would take too long and the way the angles worked one of the demons would only need to raise one forelimb to catch her or knock her off course. By the time that happened he’d have lost all his temporary power and be no more strong than she was now; no match at all for even a single demon.

He could use his slight lopsidedness to his advantage, he realised, as he took his next swinging, galloping step. The demon facing him, ready to tackle him, was allowing for how he was moving off-kilter, unconsciously preparing to intercept Prin a couple of metres ahead according to the already set rhythm evident in the way he was moving.

Prin threw Chay from one forelimb to the other and pressed her hard into the other side of his chest. The gesture cost him a small amount of momentum, but gave him the greater advantage of throwing off the reckoning of the demon preparing to bring him down.

Prin opened his jaws as the third barb made itself felt in his neck. One pulse left. The fourth barb would signal his instant return to the small, broken body he’d been trapped within for the last few months.

The demon didn’t even have time to look surprised. Prin crunched his jaws closed on the smaller demon. He felt his fangs penetrate furred skin, flesh, sinew and tendon and then bite into the giving hardness of bone. He was already turning his head, an instinctive reaction giving his jaws time to fully close. The demon was starting to turn too now, pulled round by his attacker’s greater weight. Prin went with the motion, keeping his jaws tight, feeling bone snap and crumple inside his mouth. He pivoted with the demon, using their combined mass to swivel even as he kept on charging forward, bringing the body of the bitten demon swinging round, legs flailing, to connect with the body of the second pouncing demon, knocking it aside in a snarling ball. Prin let his jaws open; the first demon was flung from them and went slithering along the floor, already bleeding, narrowly missing the legs of one of the other two demons still holding the Pavuleans.

He was almost at the start of the slope to the blue glowing door. He made one last bound, launching himself through the air.

As he did so, he knew he had made it, that they would get through the doorway. It floated up towards him as he rose in the air, still propelled by the last great thrust of his hind legs.

One, he thought.

The way the mill demon had said “One,” after the last two Pavuleans had gone through.

And, just as he’d burst into the mill, a voice – the same voice, he realised now – had said “Three.”

Three: then the two little Pavuleans had gone skittering through the blue glowing gate. One.

He’d been counting down.

Of course; the gate could count. The gate, or people operating it at this side – or more likely the other side, in the Real – knew how many to expect, how many they were allowed to let through.

Just one more person would be allowed to make the transition from the Hell to the Real.

He reached the top of his last, pouncing leap. The doorway spread before him, a glowing bank of blue mist filled with shadows. He wondered if the fact that he and Chay were so close together would allow them both to make it through, if the gateway would be somehow fooled by this. Or perhaps the fact she was catatonic, semi-conscious at best, would mean that she could make it through as well as him.

He was starting to fall through the air, the gateway only a bodylength away now. He brought Chay out from the side of his chest, moving her to a more central position, grasping her with both forelimbs as he pushed her in front of him. If there was really only one more person, one more coded consciousness allowed through, let it be her. He would have to take his chances here, accept whatever extra punishment these fiends could devise.

She might be in no state to tell what had befallen them, of course; she might forget or deny all they had experienced. She might not believe it had happened at all. She had denied the existence of the Real while she was here, surrendering all too easily to the grinding actuality of the horror around her; why would she not likewise deny the unbelievable gruesomeness of Hell once she was safely back in the Real, if she was even able to remember it properly?

What if she remained catatonic on the other side? What if she really had gone mad and no return to reality would change that?

Was he to be gallant to the point of stupidity, or hard-headed to the point of selfishness, just wanting to save his own skin?

He tucked himself in, balling up and tumbling, somersaulting through the air as the blue-glowing doorway rushed towards him. He would go through first, holding Chay out behind him.

He would never abandon her. She might abandon him.

At that point the contraband code’s run-time reached its end. He changed back immediately, an instant before the two little Pavulean bodies flew into the blue glowing mist.

The Halo 7 rolled magisterially across the misty plain, its stately progress marked by little lofted tufts and wisps of vapour which seemed to cling longingly to its tubes and spars as though reluctant to let go. The giant Wheel left a temporarily cleared track through the mist behind it like a wake, affording glimpses of the land beneath before the silent grey presence flowed slowly back in.

Veppers floated in the pool, looking out over the misted landscape to where some high, rounded hills rose out of the grey, maybe twenty or more kilometres away. The water around him trembled and pulsed as the pool car’s shock absorbers struggled to iron out the Halo 7’s trundling progress across the mist-swaddled terrain.

The Halo 7 was a Wheel, a vehicle built to navigate the great plains, rolling hills and shallow inland seas of Obrech, Sichult’s principal continent. One hundred and fifty metres in diameter by twenty across, the Halo 7 looked entirely like a giant fairground wheel which had broken free from its supports and gone rolling across the land.