The State of the Art(5)

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