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

The ship intoned the question as though asking him what he desired for dinner. There was a polite indifference in its voice he found infinitely more awful than any hatred.

Greydawn stared at the cloud of ships for a few moments longer. He shook his eye stalks.

‘I would ask you not to intern me,’ he said after a while. ‘Please place me outside your hull, at once, and then I would ask you to leave me alone.’

‘What, now? We haven’t stopped yet.’

‘Yes, now. If possible.’

‘Well, I could Displace you . . .’

‘That will be acceptable.’

‘There is a tiny risk associated with Displacement--’

The Affronter Captain gave a curt, bitter laugh. ‘I think I might risk that.’

‘. . . very well,’ the ship said. He could hear it hesitate. ‘Your comrades are trying to call you, Captain.’

He glanced at the comms screen. ‘Yes. I can see.’ He selected transmit-only mode on the communicator. ‘Comrades,’ he said. He paused. Since his childhood he had imagined moments like this; never as terrible, never founded on such hopelessness . . . and yet not so dissimilar, all the same. He had made up so many fine speeches . . . Finally he said, ‘There will be no discussion about this. You are ordered to surrender along with your ships and obey all subsequent instructions compatible with honour. That is all.’

He cut off all communications from the other ships. Greydawn bowed his eye stalks. ‘Now, please,’ he said quietly.

And was in space. He looked around, through the suit’s sensors. No ships were visible; only distant stars.

‘Goodbye, Captain,’ said the ship’s voice.

‘Goodbye,’ he said to the ship, then turned off the communicator. He waited a few moments longer before triggering the emergency bolts on the suit and spilling himself into the vacuum to die.

The Heavy Messing, at that point acceding to a request from the Sleeper Service to transmit its log from the point it had been woken on Pittance, looked briefly back at the writhing, cooling form of the Affronter Captain, and sent a small pulse of plasma fire back to put the creature out of its agony.

XIII

XIII

The LSV Not Invented Here looked out at the hundreds of warships heaving to around it. It sensed signals flickering between them and the craft it had deployed; its four warships and the superlifters and GCUs it had militarised. It subsequently sensed its own ships altering their targeting procedures, shifting the foci of their attention from the ships the Sleeper Service had dispatched to itself.

The LSV’s Mind booted up the AI cores that would run the ship perfectly well until a replacement for itself could be found, checked they were working properly, then severed all its links with anything outside the physical limits of its Mind core. It ejected all eight of its internal emergency power units from itself.

Its awareness just faded away, like mist dispersed by a freshening wind.