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 drone looked around. Nothing to be seen, but even as it scanned the cold, empty depths of the space around it, it felt the surface of space-time itself tremble again, all around it, ever so slightly. Something was coming.

The distant vibration increased slowly.

... The insect trapped in the surface tension of the pond would have gone still now, while the water quivered and whatever was advancing upon it - skating across the water’s surface or angling up from underneath - approached its helpless prey.

III

III

The car zipped along, slung under one of the monorails that ran amongst the superconducting coils beneath the ceiling of the habitat. Genar-Hofoen looked down through the angled windows of the car at the clouded framescape below.

God’shole habitat (it was much too small to be called an Orbital according to the Culture’s definitive nomenclature, plus it was enclosed) was - at nearly a thousand years old - one of the Affront’s older outposts in a region of space most civilisations had long since agreed to call the Fernblade. The small world was in the shape of a hollow ring; a tube ten kilometres in diameter and two thousand two hundred long which had been joined into a circle; the superconducting coils and EM wave guides formed the inner rim of the enormous wheel. The tiny, rapidly spinning black hole which provided the structure’s power sat where the wheel’s hub would have been. The circular-sectioned living space was like a highly pressurised tyre bulging from the inner rim, and where its tread would have been hung the gantries and docks where the ships of the Affront and a dozen other species came and went.

The whole lot was in a slow, distant orbit about an otherwise satellite-less brown dwarf mass just too small to be a proper star but which had long had the honour of being in exactly the right place to further the continuing expansion and consolidation of the Affront sphere of influence.

The monorail car rushed towards a huge wall spread entirely across the view ahead. The rails disappeared into a small, circular door, which opened like a sphincter as the car approached, then closed again behind it. It was dim in the car for a while as it traversed a short tunnel, then another door ahead of it dilated and it shot out into a huge open, mist-filled space where the view just disappeared amongst clouds and haze.