generalization.We each had to think of one word to
describe humanity; Man, the species.Some people
thought it was silly, just on principle, but the
majority joined in.There were suggestions like
'precocious', 'doomed', 'murderous', 'inhuman', and
'frightening'.Most of us who'd been on-planet must
have been falling under the spell of humanity's own
propaganda, because we tended to come up with
words like 'inquisitive', 'ambitious', 'aggressive',
or 'quick'.Li's own suggestion to describe humanity
was 'MINE!', but then somebody thought to ask the ship.It complained about being restricted to one
word, then pretended to think for a long time, and
finally came up with 'gullible'.
'Gullible?' I said.
'Yeah,' said the remote drone. 'Gullible and
bigoted.'
'That's two words,' Li told it.
'I'm a fucking starship; I'm allowed to cheat.'
Well, it amused me.I lay back.The water sparkled,
the sky seemed to ring with light, and way in the
distance a black triangle or two carved the
perimeter of the field the ship was laying down
under the chopping blue sea.
6: Undesirable Alien
6.1:You'll Thank Me Later
December.We were finishing off, tying up the
loose ends.There was an air of weariness about the
ship.People seemed quieter.I don't think it was just
tiredness.I think it was more likely the effect of a
realized objectivity, a distancing; we had been
there long enough to get over the initial buzz, the
honeymoon of novelty and delight.We were
starting to see Earth as a whole, not just a job to be
done and a playground to explore, and in looking at
it that way, it became both less immediate and
more impressive; part of the literature, something
fixed by fact and reference, no longer ours; a
droplet of knowledge already being absorbed
within the swelling ocean of the Culture's
experience.
Even Li had quieted down.He held his elections,
but only a few people were indulgent enough to
vote, and we just did it to humour
him.Disappointed, Li declared himself the ship's
captain in exile (no, I never understood that either),
and left it at that.He took to betting against the ship
on horse races, ball games and football
matches.The ship must have been fixing the odds,
because it ended up owing Li a ridiculous amount
of money.Li insisted on being paid so the ship
fashioned him a flawless cut diamond the size of
his fist.It was his, the ship told him.A gift; he could
own it. (Li lost interest in it after that though, and tended to leave it lying around the social spaces; I
stubbed a toe on it at least twice.In the end he got
the ship to leave the stone in orbit around Neptune
on our way out of the system; a joke.)
I spent a lot of time on the ship playing Tsartas
music, though more to compose myself than
anything else. [*14*]
I had my Grand Tour, like most of the others on the
ship, so spent a day or so in all the places I wanted
to see; I saw sunrise from the top of Khufu and
sunset from Ayers Rock.I watched a pride of lions
laze and play in Ngorongoro, and the tabular bergs
calve from the Ross ice shelf; I watched condors in
the Andes, musk ox on the tundra, polar bears on
the Arctic ice and jaguars slinking through the
jungle.I skated on Lake Baykal, dived over the
Great Barrier Reef, strolled along the Great Wall,
rowed across Dal and Titicaca, climbed Mount
Fuji, took a mule down the Grand Canyon, swam
with the whales off Baja California, and hired a
gondola to cruise round Venice, through the cold
mists of winter under a sky that to me looked old
and tired and worn.
I know some people did go to the ruins at Angkor,
safety guaranteed by the ship, its drones and knife
missiles but not I.No more could I visit the Potala,
however much I wanted to.
We were due for a couple of months R R on an
Orbital in Trohoase cluster; standard procedure
after immersion in a place like Earth.Certainly, I
wasn't in the mood for any more exploring for a
while; I was drained, sleeping five or six hours a
night and dreaming heavily, as though the pressure
of artifically crammed information I'd started out
with as briefing - combined with everything I'd
experienced personally - was too much for my
poor head, and it was leaking out when my guard
was down.
I'd given up on the ship.Earth was going to be a
Control; I'd failed.Even the fall-back position, of
waiting until Armageddon, was disallowed.I
argued it out with the ship in a crew assembly, but
couldn't even carry the human vote with me.The
Arbitrary copied to the Bad For Business and the rest, but I think it was just being kind; nothing I
said made any difference.So I made music, took my
Grand Tour, and slept a lot.I finished my Tour, and
said goodbye to Earth, on the cliffs of a chilly,
wind-swept Thira, looking out over the shattered