The State of the Art(63)

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