Surface Detail(73)

Lededje was not especially shocked; she had witnessed and been obliged to take part in orgies back on Sichult; Veppers had gone through a stage of enjoying them. She had not appreciated the experience, though she supposed that might have been more to do with the lack of choice involved than the surfeit of numbers. She hoped Admile wasn’t about to suggest that they, or even just she, ought to join in the group sex. She felt that a rather more romantic setting might be more appropriate for this body’s first sexual experience.

“There he is,” Admile said. Probably; it was noisy again.

She followed him to the far side of the semicircle of voyeurs, where a fat little man stood surrounded by mostly young people. He was dressed in what looked like a shiny, highly patterned dressing gown. His hair was thin and lank and his face was jowly and covered in sweat. He was, she realised when she thought about it, the fattest person she had seen since she’d been here, by some margin.

The fat little man was repeatedly spinning a coin in the air and catching it. Each time the coin landed on his pudgy palm its top surface flashed red. “It’s skill,” he kept saying as the people around him shouted and called out. “It’s skill, that’s all. Look. I’ll make it green this time.” This time when the coin landed it flashed green instead of red. “See? Skill. Muscle control, concentration: skill. That’s all.” He looked up. “Admile. Tell these people this is just skill, won’t you?”

“Anything riding on this?” Admile asked. “Any bets been taken?”

“Nothing!” the little fat man said, tossing the coin again. Red.

“Okay,” Admile said. “It’s just skill,” he told the people.

“See?” the little fat man said. Red.

“That doesn’t make it fair though,” Admile added.

“Oh, you’re no use,” the little fat man tutted. Red again.

“Led, this is Jolicci. He’s an avatar. You’re an avatar, aren’t you, Jolicci?”

“I’m an avatar.” Red. “Of the good ship Armchair Traveller.” Red. “A more than averagely peripatetic GCU of the …” Red. “Mountain class …” Red. “An avatar who I swear is using nothing …” Red. “But muscular skill to make this coin come up red.” Red. “Every …” Red. “… single …” Red. “… time!” Green. “Oh, fuck!”

There was jeering. He bowed – sarcastically, Lededje thought, if such a thing was possible. He tossed the coin one last time, watched it flip in the air and then held open the breast pocket of his extravagantly decorated dressing gown. The coin dropped into the pocket. He extracted a kerchief from it and mopped his face as some of the people who’d been watching started to drift away.

“Led,” he said, nodding to her. “Pleased to meet you.” He looked at her, toe to top. She had dressed very conservatively at first, then changed her mind and opted for a short sleeveless dress, deciding to revel in the freedom to do so without displaying her legally approved, Veppers-designed tattoo. Jolicci shook his head. “You don’t look like anything I have stored up here,” he said, tapping his head. “Excuse me while I consult my better half. Oh, you’re Sichultian, is that right?”

“Yes,” she said.

“She wants to have sex with a ship’s avatar,” Admile told him.

Jolicci looked surprised. “Really?” he asked.

“No,” she told him. “I am looking for a disreputable ship.”

“Disreputable?” Jolicci looked even more surprised.

“I think so.”

“You think so?”

Perhaps, she thought – avatar or not – he was just one of those people who thought it the height of wit to constantly ask questions when they weren’t called for. “Would you know of one?” she asked.

“Many. Why do you want a disreputable ship?”

“Because I think the Sense Amid Madness, Wit Amidst Folly means to send me away on one that will be too well behaved.”

Jolicci scrunched up one eye, as though this answer had hit him with the force of a spit.

She had been flicking through various documents and presentations she had discovered through her room’s screen, looking at what the Culture knew about and thought of the Enablement, when the ship had called back. “Lededje, I’ve found you a ship,” the vessel’s neutral voice had told her straight out of the screen.

“Oh, thank you.”

The image of what she supposed must be a Culture spaceship had appeared on the screen, pasted over what she’d been looking at. It resembled a rather featureless skyscraper lying on its side. “It’s called The Usual But Etymologically Unsatisfactory.”