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The State of the Art(43)

By:Iain M. Banks


something'

'So I take my chances.'

'Well what about what they'd call the security

aspect?What if you're only injured and they take

you to hospital?You'll never get out again; they'll

take one look at your guts or your blood and they'll

know you're alien.You'll have the military all over

you.They'll dissect you.'

'Not very likely.But if it happens, it happens.'

I sat down again.I was reacting just the way the

ship had known I would.I thought Linter was mad

just the way the Arbitrary did, and it was using me to try and talk some sense into him.Doubtless the

ship had already tried, but equally obviously the

nature of Linter's decision was such that the

Arbitrary was the last thing that was going to have any influence.Technologically and morally the ship

represented the most finely articulated statement

the Culture was capable of producing, and that

very sophistication had the beast hamstrung, here.

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?