and mellow and sipping on our brandies and
whiskies, we got Li's campaign speech plus a
dainty dish to set before the Culture.
I was a little drowsy.Li had come round with huge
Havana cigars, and I'd taken one, and let the drug
get to me.I was sitting there, puffing determinedly
on the fat drug-stick, surrounded by a cloud of
smoke, wondering what the natives saw in a
tobacco high, but otherwise feeling just fine, when
Li banged on the table with the pommel of the light
sword and then climbed up and stood where his
place setting had been (bang went one of the
Sultan's plates, but I suspect the ship managed to
repair it).The lights went out, leaving one spot on
Li.
I used some snap to clear the sleepiness and
stubbed the cigar out.
[*11*] 'Ladies and gentlemen,' Li said in a passable English, before continuing in Marain. 'I
have gathered you here this evening to talk to you
about Earth and what should be done with it.It is
my hope and wish that after you've heard what I
have to say you will agree with me on the only
possible course of action but first of all, let me say
a few words about myself.' There were jeers and
cat-calls as Li bent and took up his glass of
brandy.He drained the glass and threw it over his
shoulder.A drone must have caught it in the
shadows because I didn't hear it land.
'First of all,' Li rubbed his chin, stroking the long
hair.'Who am I?' He ignored a variety of shouts
telling him 'a total fucking idiot', and the like, and
continued. 'I am Grice-Thantapsa Li Erase 'ndane
dam Sione; I am one hundred and seventeen years
old, but wise beyond my years.I have been in
Contact only six years, but I have experienced
much in that time, and so can speak with some
authority on Contact matters.I am the product of
perhaps eight thousand years of progress beyond
the stage of the planet that lies beneath our feet.'
(Cries of 'Not much to show for it, huh?', etc.) 'I
can track my ancestry back by name for at least that
amount of time, and if you went back to the first
dim glimmerings of sentience and you could end up
going back -' ('last week?' 'your mother') '- through
tens of thousands of generations.
'My body is altered, of course; tuned to a high pitch
of efficiency in terms of survivability and pleasure,
-' ('don't worry, it doesn't show') '- and just as I
inherited that alteration, so shall I pass it on to any
children of my own.' ('please, Li; we've just
eaten.') 'We have remade ourselves just as we
have made our machines; we can fairly claim to be
largely our own work.
'However; in my head, literally inside my skull, in
my brain, I am potentially as stupid as the most
recently born babe in the most deprived area on
Earth.' He paused, smiling, to let the cat-calls
subside. 'We are who we are as much because of
what we experience and are taught as we grow -
the way we are brought up, in other words - as we
are because we inherit the general appearance of
pan-humanism, the more particular traits
associated with the Culture meta-species, and the
precise genetic mix contributed by our parents,
including all those wonderful tinkered-with bits.'
('tinker with your own bits, laddy.')
'So if I can claim to be morally superior to some
denizen of those depths of atmosphere beneath us,
it is because that is the way I was brought up.We
are truly raised; they are squashed, trimmed,
trained, made into bonsai. Theirs is a civilization of deprivation; ours of finely balanced satisfaction
ever teetering on the brink of excess.The Culture
could afford to let me be whatever it was within
my personal potential to become; so, for good or
ill, I am fulfilled.
'Consider; I think I can truthfully claim to be a
more-or-less average Culture person, as can all of
us here.Certainly, we're in Contact, so we might be a little more interested in travelling abroad and
meeting people than the mean, but in general terms
any one of us could be picked at random and
represent the Culture quite adequately; the choice
of who you would pick to represent Earth fairly I
leave to your imagination.
'But back to me; I am as rich and as poor as
anybody in the Culture (I use these words because
it's to Earth I want to compare our present
position).Rich; trapped as I am on board this
uncaptained, leaderless tub, my wealth may not be
very obvious, but it would seem immense to the
average Earther.At home I have the run of a
charming and beautiful Orbital which would seem
very clean and uncrowded to somebody from
Earth; I have unlimited access to the free, fast, safe
and totally dependable underplate transport
system; I live in a wing of a family home of
mansion proportions surrounded by hectares of
gorgeous gardens.I have an aircraft, a launch, the
choice of mount from a large stable of aphores