something soothing and cool, but I didn't; I had
vowed not to use those cunningly altered glands
eight years ago, and I'd broken that vow only
twice, both times when I was in severe pain.Had I
been courageous I'd have had the whole damn lot
taken out, returned to their human-normal state, our
original animal inheritance but I am not
courageous.I dread pain, and cannot face it naked,
as these people do.I admire them, fear them, still
cannot understand them.Not even Maust.In fact,
least of all Maust.Perhaps you cannot ever love
what you completely understand.
Eight years in exile, lost to the Culture, never
hearing that silky, subtle, complexly simple
language, and now when I do hear Marain, it's
from a gun, telling me how to fire it so I can kill
what?Hundreds of people?Maybe thousands; it
will depend on where the ship falls, whether it
explodes (could primitive starships explode?I had
no idea; that was never my field).I took another
drink, shook my head.I couldn't do it.
I am Wrobik Sennkil, Vreccile citizen number (I
always forget; it's on my papers), male, prime
race, aged thirty; part-time freelance journalist
(between jobs at the moment), and full-time
gambler (I tend to lose but I enjoy myself, or at
least I did until last night).But I am, also, still
Bahlln-Euchersa Wrobich Vress Schennil dam
Flaysse, citizen of the Culture, born female,
species mix too complicated to remember, aged
sixty-eight, standard, and one-time member of the
Contact section.
And a renegade; I chose to exercise the freedom
the Culture is so proud of bestowing upon its
inhabitants by leaving it altogether.It let me go,
even helped me, reluctant though I was (but could I
have forged my own papers, made all the
arrangements by myself?No, but at least, after my
education into the ways of the Vreccile Economic
Community, and after the module rose, dark and
silent, back into the night sky and the waiting ship,
I have turned only twice to the Culture's legacy of
altered biology, and not once to its artefacts.Until
now; the gun rambles on).I abandoned a paradise I
considered dull for a cruel and greedy system
bubbling with life and incident; a place I thought I
might find what?I don't know.I didn't know when I
left and I don't know yet, though at least here I
found Maust, and when I am with him my searching
no longer seems so lonely.
Until last night that search still seemed
worthwhile.Now Utopia sends a tiny package of
destruction, a casual, accidental message.
Where did Kaddus and Cruizell get the thing?The
Culture guards its weaponry jealously, even
embarrassedly.You can't buy Culture weapons, at
least not from the Culture.I suppose things go
missing though; there is so much of everything in
the Culture that objects must be mislaid
occasionally.I took another drink, listening to the
gun, and watching that watery, rainy-season sky
over the rooftops, towers, aerials, dishes and
domes of the Great City.Maybe guns slip out of the
Culture's manicured grasp more often than other
products do; they betoken danger, they signify
threat, and they will only be needed where there
must be a fair chance of losing them, so they must
disappear now and again, be taken as prizes.
That, of course, is why they're built with inhibiting
circuits which only let the weapons work for
Culture people (sensible, non-violent, non-
acquisitive Culture people, who of course would
only use a gun in self-defence, for example, if
threatened by some comparative barbarian oh the
self-satisfied Culture: its imperialism of
smugness).And even this gun is antique; not
obsolescent (for that is not a concept the Culture
really approves of - it builds to last), but outdated;
hardly more intelligent than a household pet,
whereas modern Culture weaponry is sentient.
The Culture probably doesn't even make handguns
any more.I've seen what it calls Personal Armed
Escort Drones, and if, somehow, one of those fell
into the hands of people like Kaddus and Cruizell,
it would immediately signal for help, use its
motive power to try and escape, shoot to injure or
even kill anybody trying to use or trap it, attempt to
bargain its way out, and destruct if it thought it was
going to be taken apart or otherwise interfered
with.
I drank some more jahl.I looked at the time again;
Maust was late.The club always closed promptly,
because of the police.They weren't allowed to talk
to the customers after work: he always came
straight back I felt the start of fear, but pushed it
away.Of course he'd be all right.I had other things
to think about.I had to think this thing through.More
jahl.
No, I couldn't do it.I left the Culture because it
bored me, but also because the evangelical,
interventionist morality of Contact sometimes