Surface Detail

“Neural lace,” Demeisen said, nodding. “Only it isn’t.”

“What, then?”

“It’s a tattoo.”

“A tattoo?

He shrugged. “Kind of.”

They were in the twelve-person module the ship had brought aboard from the GSV especially for her. It was housed within one of the Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints’ many cramped spaces that were something between magazines, munition-stores and hangars. The ship had no other dedicated human habitable space inside it at all; even this module was a concession. It had not impressed her when she’d first seen it and been told this was all there was.

“This is it?” she’d said after she’d joined Demeisen on board and realised that, somehow, the little slap-drone had been left behind. She’d said a sincere thank you for that but then there had been a moment of awkwardness after the avatar had welcomed her aboard and she’d stood there waiting to be shown to her cabin from the rather minimal and utilitarian cabin space she’d materialised in.

“This is it?” she’d repeated, turning, looking round. She was standing in a space about four metres by three. In one direction lay a blank grey wall; opposite it there was a raised platform a little narrower than – and one step up from – the space she stood in; the platform held three long, deep padded chairs facing a double sloped wall, the upper part of which appeared to be a screen, though it was also blank at the moment. To either side there were what might be double doors, though they too were a uniform grey.

Demeisen had looked genuinely hurt. “I had to leave behind an Offensive Slaved Broad-Spectrum Munitions Platform, Self Powered to fit this in,” he’d told her.

“You don’t have any space inside your… inside the ship at all?”

“I’m a warship, not a taxi. I keep telling you.”

“I thought even warships could carry a few people!”

“Pa! Old tech. Not me.”

“You’re one and a half kilometres long! There must be room somewhere!”

“Please; one point six kilometres long, and that’s naked hull in full compression. In standard operational deployment mode I’m two point eight klicks; three point two with all fields on but pulled corset tight. In serious gloves-off, claws out, teeth bared, just-point-me-at-the-bad-guys engagement-ready mode I’m… well it varies; it’s what we call threat-mix dependent. But many kilo metres. Riled-up I’m really more like a sort of mini fleet.”

Lededje, who had stopped listening at the first use of the word “point”, had wailed, “I can touch the ceiling!” She’d reached up to do just that, without even standing on tiptoe.

Demeisen had sighed in exasperation. “I’m an Abominator-class picket ship. This is the best I can do. Sorry. Would you rather I slung you back aboard The Usual But Etymologically Unsatisfactory?”

“Picket? But it was a picket ship and it had lots of space!”

“Ah. No it wasn’t. That’s the clever bit.”

“What?”

“People have spent the best part of one and a half millennia getting used to the idea of the Culture having all these ex-warships, most of them largely demilitarised, called Fast Pickets or Very Fast Pickets, and they are basically just express taxis, then along comes this new class called the Abominator, they call it a picket ship and nobody takes any notice. Even when Abominators almost never taxi anybody anywhere.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“‘Picket’ in my case means I hang around waiting for trouble, not that I hang around waiting for hitch-hikers. There are two thousand Abominator-class ships, we’re scattered evenly throughout the galaxy and all we do is sit and wait for stuff to happen. I’m part of the Culture’s quick reaction force; we used to keep all the serious up-fucking ships in a few mostly very-far-away ports but that didn’t always work out when things blew up suddenly. Remember I said ‘Don’t ask why’ earlier?”

“Yes. You said not to ask you why you were heading in the direction of Sichult anyway.”

“Well, Lededje – and appreciate that, to continue the dubious maritime analogy, I’m negotiating a tricky course between the minefield of personal honesty on one side and the rocky coast of operational security on the other – that’s as good a hint as I can afford to give you. Now, I’m serious; do you want to be put back aboard the The Usual But bla bla bla?”

She’d scowled at him. “I suppose not.” She’d looked around. “This thing does have a toilet?”

Nine seats blossomed from the floor and rear wall, then they collapsed back as though made from a membrane that had suddenly been punctured and collapsed, to be followed by a very generously sized bed, then by a sort of white glazed balloon which parted neatly to reveal what was probably a combined bath and walk-in shower. Then that too was swallowed back up into the floor and wall. “That do?” Demeisen had asked.