BooksBarbecue
Back Excession
Chapters (108)
  1. About the Author
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. 1 - Outside Context Problem
  6. I
  7. II
  8. III
  9. IV
  10. V
  11. VI
  12. 2 - Not Invented Here
  13. I
  14. II
  15. III
  16. 3 - Uninvited Guests
  17. I
  18. II
  19. III
  20. IV
  21. 4 - Dependency Principle
  22. I
  23. II
  24. III
  25. IV
  26. V
  27. 5 - Kiss The Blade
  28. I
  29. II
  30. III
  31. IV
  32. V
  33. VI
  34. 6 - Pittance
  35. I
  36. II
  37. III
  38. IV
  39. V
  40. VI
  41. 7 - Tier
  42. I
  43. II
  44. III
  45. IV
  46. 8 - Killing Time
  47. I
  48. II
  49. III
  50. IV
  51. V
  52. VI
  53. VII
  54. VIII
  55. 9 - Unacceptable Behaviour
  56. I
  57. II
  58. III
  59. IV
  60. V
  61. VI
  62. VII
  63. VIII
  64. IX
  65. X
  66. XI
  67. XII
  68. XIII
  69. XIV
  70. 10 - Heavy Messing
  71. I
  72. II
  73. III
  74. IV
  75. V
  76. VI
  77. VII
  78. VIII
  79. IX
  80. X
  81. XI
  82. XII
  83. XIII
  84. XIV
  85. XV
  86. 11 - Regarding Gravious
  87. I
  88. II
  89. III
  90. IV
  91. V
  92. VI
  93. VII
  94. VIII
  95. IX
  96. X
  97. XI
  98. XII
  99. XIII
  100. XIV
  101. 12 - Faring Well
  102. I
  103. II
  104. III
  105. IV
  106. V
  107. VI
  108. Epilogue

[stuttered tight point, M32, tra. @n4.28.866.2083]
xLSV Serious Callers Only
oEccentric Shoot Them Later
It is Genar-Hofoen. I am now convinced. I am not certain why he
may be important to the conspiracy, but he surely is. I have drawn
up a plan to intercept him, on Tier. The plan involves Phage Rock;
will you back me up if I request its aid?
∞
[stuttered tight point, M32, tra. @n4.28.866.2568]
xEccentric Shoot Them Later
oLSV Serious Callers Only
My dear old friend, of course.
∞
Thank you. I shall make the request immediately. We shall be
reduced to dealing with amateurs, I’m afraid. However, I hope to
find a high-profile amateur; a degree of fame may protect where SC
training is not available. What of our fellow counter-conspirator?
∞
No word. Perhaps it’s spending more time in The Land of IF.
∞
And the ship and Pittance?
∞
Arriving in eleven and a half days’ time.
∞
Hmm. Four days after the time it will take for us to get somebody to Tier.
It is within the bounds of possibility this ship will be heading into
a threatening situation. Is it able to take care of itself?
∞
Oh, I think it capable of giving a good account of itself.
Just because I’m Eccentric doesn’t mean I don’t know some
big hitters.
∞
Let us hope such throw-weight is not required.
∞
Absolutely.

II

II

On a certain scale, a Plate class General Systems Vehicle was quite a simple construction. Contained within its wrapping of external fields, its material body was four kilometres thick; the lowest thousand metres was almost all engine, the middle two vertical kilometres were ship space - an enclosed network of dockyards, hangars and bays, like a vast multi-layered cubist cave-system - and the topmost thousand metres comprised accommodation, most of it for humans.

Using these broad-brush figures, it was a simple matter for anybody to work out the craft’s approximate maximum speed from the cubic kilometrage of its engines, the number of ships of any given size it could contain according to the volume given over to the various sizes of bays and engineering space, and the total number of humans it could accommodate by simply adding up how many cubic kilometres were given over to their living-space.

The Sleeper Service had retained an almost pristine original specification internally, which was a rare thing in an Eccentric vessel; usually the first thing they did was drastically reconfigure their physical shape and internal lay-out according to the dictates of some private aesthetic, driving obsession or just plain whim, but the fact the Sleeper Service had stuck to its initial design and merely added its own private ocean and gas-giant environment on the outside made it relatively easy to measure its actual behaviour against what it ought to be capable of, and so ensure that it wasn’t up to any extra mischief besides being Eccentric in the first place.