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.
Six
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 …