Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks
“Not necessarily.”
“I disagree. Regardless; at least after a war we might have been forced to confront our own stupidities. The Culture’s involvement meant that we suffered the war’s depredations while failing to benefit from its lessons. We just blamed the Culture instead. Short of our utter destruction the outcome could hardly have been worse, and sometimes I feel that even that is an unjustified exception.”
Kabe sat still for a while. Blue smoke rose from Ziller’s pipe.
Ziller had once been Gifted-from-Tacted Mahrai Ziller VIII of Wescrip. Born into a family of administrators and diplomats, he had been a musical prodigy almost from infancy, composing his first orchestral work at an age when most Chelgrian children were still learning not to eat their shoes.
He had taken the designation Gifted—two caste levels below that he had been born into—when he dropped out of college, scandalizing his parents.
Despite garnering outrageous fame and fortune in his career he scandalized them still further, to the point of illness and breakdown, when he became a radical Caste Denier, entered politics as an Equalitarian and used his prestige to argue for the end of the caste system. Gradually public and political opinion began to shift; it started to look as though the long talked-about Great Change might finally happen. After an unsuccessful attempt on his life Ziller renounced his caste altogether, and so was deemed the lowest of the non-criminal low; an Invisible.
A second assassination attempt very nearly succeeded; it left him near death and in hospital for quarter of a year. It was moot whether his months out of the political scrum had made any crucial difference, but unarguably by the time he was recovered the tide had turned again, the backlash had begun and any hope of significant change appeared to have vanished for at least a generation.
Ziller’s musical output had suffered during the years of his political involvement, in quantity at least. He announced that he was quitting public life to concentrate on composition, so alienating his former liberal allies and delighting the conservatives who had been his enemies. Even so, despite great pressure he did not renounce his Invisible status—though increasingly he was treated as an honorary Given—and he never gave any sign of support for the status quo, save for that studied silence on all matters political.
His prestige and popularity increased still further; cascades of prizes, awards and honors were lavished upon him; polls proclaimed him the greatest living Chelgrian; there was talk of him becoming Ceremonial President one day.
With his celebrity and prominence at this unprecedented crescendo of acclaim, he used what was supposed to be his acceptance speech for the greatest civilian honor the Chelgrian State could bestow—at a grand and glittering ceremony in Chelise, the Chelgrian State’s capital, which would be broadcast over the whole sphere of Chelgrian space—to announce that he had never changed his views, he was and always would be a liberal and an Equalitarian, he was more proud to have worked with the people who still espoused such views than he was of his music, he had grown to loathe the forces of conservatism even more than he had in his youth, he still despised the state, the society and the people that tolerated the caste system, he was not accepting this honor, he would be returning all the others he had acquired, and he had already booked passage to leave the Chelgrian State immediately and forever, because unlike the liberal comrades he loved, respected and admired so much, he just did not have the moral strength to continue living in this vicious, hateful, intolerable regime any longer.
His speech was greeted with stunned silence. He left the stage to hisses and boos and spent the night in a Culture embassy compound with a crowd at the gates baying for his blood.
A Culture ship lifted him away the following day; he traveled extensively within the Culture over the next few years and finally made his home on Masaq’ Orbital.
Ziller had remained on Masaq’ even after the election of an Equalitarian President on Chel, seven years after he’d left. Reforms were put in place and the Invisibles and the other castes were fully enfranchised at last, but still, despite numerous requests and invitations, Ziller had not returned to his home, and had offered little in the way of explanation.
People assumed it was because the caste system would still exist. Part of the compromise which had sold the reforms to the higher castes was that titles and caste names would be retained as part of one’s legal nomenclature and a new property law would give ownership of clan lands to the immediate family of the house chief.
In return, people of all levels of society were now free to marry and procreate with whoever would have them, partnered couples would each take the caste of the highest-designated of the two, their young would inherit that caste, elected caste courts would oversee the redesignation of applying individuals, there would no longer be a law to punish people who claimed to be of a higher caste, and so, in theory, anybody could claim to be whatever they wanted to be, though a court of law would still insist on calling them as they had been born or redesignated.
It was an enormous legal and behavioral change from the old system, but it still included caste, and it did not seem to be enough for Ziller.
Then the ruling coalition on Chel had elected a Spayed as President as an effective but surprising symbol of how much had changed. The regime survived a coup attempt by some Guards officers and appeared strengthened by the experience, with power and authority seemingly being distributed even more fully and irrevocably down the ladder of original castes, yet still Ziller, arguably more popular than ever, had not returned. He claimed to be waiting to see what would happen.
Then something terrible happened, and he saw, and still did not go home, even after the Caste War, which broke out nine years after he left and was, by its own admission, largely the Culture’s fault.
Eventually Kabe said, “My own people fought the Culture once.”
“Unlike us. We fought ourselves.” Ziller looked at the Homomdan. “Did you profit from the experience?”. he asked tartly
“Yes. We lost much; many brave people and many noble ships, and we did not succeed in our initial war aims, directly, but we maintained our civilizational course, and gained in as much that we discovered that the Culture could be lived with honorably, and that it was what we had been worried it was not: another temperate dweller in the galactic house. Our two societies have since become companionable and we are occasionally allies.”
“They didn’t crush you utterly, then?”.
“They didn’t try to. Nor we them. It was never that sort of war, and besides, that is neither their way nor ours. It is not really anybody’s way, these days. In any event, our dispute with the Culture was always a sideshow to the principal action, which was the conflict between our hosts and the Idirans.”
“Ah yes, the famous Twin Novae Battle,” Ziller said, sounding disparaging.
Kabe was surprised at the tone. “Is your symphony past the tinkering stage yet?”.
“Pretty much.”
“You’re still pleased with it?”.
“Yes. Very. There is nothing wrong with the music. However I do begin to wonder whether my enthusiasm got the better of me. Perhaps I was wrong to become so involved with our Hub Mind’s memento mori.” Ziller fidgeted with his waistcoat, then waved one hand dismissively. “Oh, take no notice. I always become a little disheartened when I’ve just finished something this size, and I will confess to a degree of nervousness at the prospect of standing up and conducting in front of the sort of numbers Hub is talking about. Plus I’m still not sure about all the extraneous stuff Hub wants to add around the music.” Ziller snorted. “I may be more of a purist than I thought.”
“I am sure it will go wonderfully well. When does Hub intend to announce the concert?”.
“Very soon now,” Ziller said, sounding defensive. “It was one of the reasons I came over here. I thought I might be besieged if I stayed home.”
Kabe nodded slowly. “I am glad to be of service. And I cannot wait to hear the piece.”
“Thank you. I’m pleased with it, but I can’t help feeling complicit with Hub’s ghoulishness.”
“I wouldn’t call it ghoulish. Old soldiers are rarely so. Depressed, disturbed and morbid sometimes, but not ghoulish. That is a civilian preoccupation.”
“Hub isn’t a civilian?” Ziller asked. “Hub might be depressed and disturbed? Is this something else they didn’t tell me about?”.
“Masaq’ Hub has never been either depressed or disturbed to my knowledge,” Kabe said. “However, it was once the Mind of a war-adapted General Systems Vehicle and it was there at the Twin Novae Battle at the end of the war and suffered near total destruction at the hands of an Idiran battle fleet.”
“Not quite total.”
“Not quite.”
“They don’t believe in the captain going down with the ship, then.”
“I understand that being last to abandon it is considered sufficient. But do you see? Masaq’ mourns and honors those it lost, those who died, and seeks to atone for whatever part it played in the war.”
Ziller shook his head. “The scummer might have told me some of this,” he muttered. Kabe pondered the wisdom of remarking that Ziller might have discovered all of this easily enough himself had he been so inclined, but decided against it. Ziller tapped his pipe out. “Well, let us hope it does not suffer from despair.”
“Drone E. H. Tersono is here,” the house announced.
“Oh, good.”
“About time.”
“Invite it in.”
The drone floated in through the balcony window, sunlight dappling its rosy porcelain skin and blue lumenstone frame. “I noticed the window was open; hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.”
“Eavesdropping outside, were we?” Ziller asked.
The drone settled delicately on a chair. “My dear Ziller, certainly not. Why? Were you talking about me?”.
“No.”
“So, Tersono,” Kabe said. “It is very kind of you to visit. I understand we owe the honor to further news of our envoy.”
“Yes. I have learned the identity of the emissary being sent to us by Chel,” the drone said. “His full name is, and I quote, Called-to-Arms-from-Given Major Tibilo Quilan IV Autumn 47th of Itirewein, griefling, Sheracht Order.”
“Good heavens,” Kabe said, looking at Ziller. “Your full names are even longer than the Culture’s.”
“Yes. An endearing trait, isn’t it?” Ziller said. He looked into his pipe, brows puckered. “So, our emissary’s a warlord-priest. A rich broker boy from one of the sovereign families who’s found a taste for soldiering, or been shunted into it to keep him out of the way, and then found Faith, or found it politic to find it. Parents traditionalists. And he’s a widower, probably.”
“You know him?” Kabe asked.
“Actually, I do, from a long time ago. We were at infant school together. We were friends, I suppose, though not particularly close. We lost touch after that. Haven’t heard of him since.” Ziller inspected his pipe and seemed to be contemplating lighting it again. Instead he replaced it in his waistcoat pocket. “Even if we weren’t once acquainted though, the rest of the name rigmarole tells you most of what you need to know.” He snorted. “Culture full names act as addresses; ours act as potted histories. And, of course, they tell you whether you should bow, or be bowed to. Our Major Quilan will certainly expect to be bowed to.”
“You may be doing him a disservice,” Tersono said. “I have a full biography you might be interested in—”.
“Well, I’m not,” Ziller said emphatically, turning away to look at a painting hanging on one wall. It showed long-ago Homomdans riding enormous tusked creatures, waving flags and spears and looking heroic in a hectic sort of way.
“I’d like to look at it later,” Kabe said.
“Certainly.”
“So that’s, what, twenty-three, twenty-four days till he gets here?”.
“About that.”
“Oh, I do so hope he’s having a pleasant journey,” Ziller said in a strange, almost childish voice. He spat into his hands and smoothed the tawny pelt over each forearm in turn, stretching each hand as he did so, so that the claws emerged; gleaming black curves the size of a human’s small finger, glinting in the soft sunlight like polished obsidian blades.
The Culture drone and the Homomdan male exchanged looks. Kabe lowered his head.
6
Resistance Is Character-Forming
Quilan wondered about their ship names. Perhaps was some elaborate joke to send him on the final leg of his journey aboard a one-time warship—a Gangster class Rapid Offensive Unit which had been demilitarized to become a Very Fast Picket—called Resistance Is Character-Forming. It was a jokey name, yet pointed. So many of their ship names were like that, even if more were just jokey.
Chelgrian craft had romantic, purposeful or poetic names, but the Culture—while it had a sprinkling of ships with names of similar natures—usually went for ironic, meticulously obscure, supposedly humorous or frankly absurd names. Perhaps this was partly because they had so many craft. Perhaps it reflected the fact that their ships were their own masters and chose their own names.
The first thing he did when he stepped aboard the ship, into a small foyer floored with gleaming wood and edged with blue-green foliage, was to take a deep breath. “It smells like—” he began.
~ Home, said the voice in his head.
“Yes,” Quilan breathed, and experienced a strange, weakening, pleasantly sad sensation, and suddenly thought of childhood.
~ Careful, son.
“Major Quilan, welcome aboard,” the ship said from nowhere in particular. “I have introduced a fragrance into the air which should be reminiscent of the atmosphere around Lake Itir, Chel, during springtime. Do you find this agreeable?”.
Quilan nodded. “Yes. Yes, I do”.
“Good. Your quarters are directly ahead. Please make yourself at home.”
He’d been expecting a cabin as cramped as the one he’d been given on the Nuisance Value, but was pleasantly surprised; the Resistance Is Character-Forming’s interior had been refitted to provide comfortable accommodation for about half a dozen people rather than cramped quarters for four times that number.
The ship was uncrewed and chose not to use an avatar or drone to communicate. It just spoke to Quilan out of thin air, and carried out mundane house-keeping duties by creating internal maniple fields, so that clothes, for example, just floated around, seeming to clean and fold and sort and store themselves.
~ It’s like living in a fucking haunted house, Huyler said.
~ Good job neither of us is superstitious.
~ And it means it’s listening to you all the time, spying.
~ That could be interpreted as a form of honesty.
~ Or arrogance. These things don’t choose their names out of a hat.
Resistance is character-forming. If nothing else, as a motto it was a little insensitive, given the circumstances of the war. Were they trying to tell him, and through him Chel itself, that they didn’t really care about what had happened, despite all their protestations? Or even that they did care, and were sorry, yet it had all been for their own good?
More likely the ship’s name was coincidence. There was a sort of carelessness about the Culture sometimes, a reverse side to the coin of the society’s fabled thoroughness and tenacity of purpose, as though every now and again they caught themselves being overly obsessive and precise, and tried to compensate by suddenly doing something frivolous or irresponsible.
Or might they not get bored being good?
Supposedly they were infinitely patient, boundlessly resourceful, unceasingly understanding, but would not any rational mind, with or without the capital letter, grow tired of such unleavened niceness eventually? Wouldn’t they want to cause just a little havoc, just once in a while, just to show what they could do?
Or did such thoughts merely betray his own inheritance of a
Maybe only a creature with that ancient inheritance of savagery would think the way he, in his mind, had accused the Minds of thinking. Maybe the humans—who could not claim quite such a purity of predatoriness in their past as Chelgrians, but who had certainly behaved savagely enough toward those of their own species and others since they began to become civilized—would also think that way, but their machines didn’t. Perhaps that was even why they had handed over so much of the running of their civilization to the machines in the first place; they didn’t trust themselves with the colossal powers and energies their science and technology had provided them with.
Which might be comforting, but for one fact that many people found worrying and—he suspected—the Culture found embarrassing.
Most civilizations that had acquired the means to build genuine Artificial Intelligences duly built them, and most of those designed or shaped the consciousness of the AIs to a greater or lesser extent; obviously if you were constructing a sentience that was or could easily become much greater than your own, it would not be in your interest to create a being which loathed you and might be likely to set about dreaming up ways to exterminate you.
So AIs, especially at first, tended to reflect the civilizational demeanor of their source species. Even when they underwent their own form of evolution and began to design their successors—with or without the help, and sometimes the knowledge, of their creators—there was usually still a detectable flavor of the intellectual character and the basic morality of that precursor species present in the resulting consciousness. That flavor might gradually disappear over subsequent generations of AIs, but it would usually be replaced by another, adopted and adapted from elsewhere, or just mutate beyond recognition rather than disappear altogether.