“Indeed not. But my point is that it might be the only one that lets you cope with great age without becoming a devout hermit, and therefore represents a kind of filter favouring misanthropy. Nice people who are beginning to live to a great age – as it were – react with such revulsion to the burgeoning horrors that confront them, they generally prefer suicide. It’s only us slightly malevolent types who are able to survive that realisation and find a kind of pleasure – or at least satisfaction – in watching how the latest generation or most recently evolved species can re-discover and beat out afresh the paths to disaster, ignominy and shame we had naively assumed might have become hopelessly over-grown.”

“So basically you’re sticking around to watch us all fuck up?”

“Yes. It’s one of life’s few guaranteed constants.”

Cossont thought about this. “If that’s true, it’s a bit sad.”

“Tough. Life is sometimes.”

“And you’re right: it doesn’t exactly show you in the best light.”

“You’re supposed to admire me for my honesty.”

“Am I?” she said, and reached over and turned the grey cube off.

That was when she decided she’d give the cube to somebody else, who might want it, or at least agree to care for it.

Twelve

(S -16)

“This isn’t Ospin! These aren’t the Dataversities! What the fuck’s going on?”

Cossont had woken from a very deep and pleasant sleep, ordered breakfast and then asked the ship to show her where they were; ahead view or whatever it was called. The Mistake Not … had obliged, presenting the semblance of a deep screen across the bottom of her billow bed, just above her toes. The image it displayed was of a yellow-orange sun apparently setting behind a large rocky planet with dark striated clouds half obscuring a surface of mottled dark-tan land and deep-blue seas. Given that Ospin was a red giant system devoid of any rocky planets, this was all wrong.

“Eh? What?” Pyan yelped, fluttering untidily up from where it had settled on the floor during the night. “Not another emergency! My processing isn’t built to take this!”

The ship appeared to be sinking quickly through a multiply banded set of assorted manufacturies, small habs and other planetary satellites, dipping rapidly into the shadow of the planet so that the sun winked out. A bright spread of the satellites continued to shine against the dark surface beneath, then the ship was beneath them too.

“Change of plan,” Berdle told her, the Mistake Not …’s avatar appearing in one corner of the holo, face absurdly big against the landscape below. “You’d better get dressed.”

The image continued to show the planet getting nearer; they were almost in the atmosphere. The place looked familiar somehow. Also, there was something wrong about something here but she hadn’t worked out what yet.

“Where the hell are we?” she wailed.