Agansu thought. “Percentage likelihood of reacquiring the Culture ship if we stay to the eighty-second mark?”

“Less than one.”

“Program android,” Agansu said, “despatch back to Xown in small craft?”

“That works. Back here in a few hours.”

“Let’s do that. Please move off immediately, Captain.”

“Moving.”

“Could still plonk the oid now, zap the col’s m-s to it after,” the special tactics officer said. He was, Agansu had noticed, prone to such compressive communication.

“I realise,” Agansu said. “I am unwilling to do that.”

“Your choice.”

“Captain,” Agansu said. “Do you think the Culture vessel has seen us?”

“Too early to tell. It moved off in a hurry, and it did Displace – disloc – the module rather than wait for it, so either it did or thinks it might have, or it’s suddenly in a real hurry.”

“It’d have disloc’d the craft in-atmosphere if it had been in a real hurry, sir,” the disloc officer said.

“Or mo’ff, remote-dee’d the individs, left the mod,” the special tactics officer contributed opaquely.

“All true,” the captain said. “Or fresh news just came in, or it half suspected it had a tail and wanted to catch us off guard. Drives, how smooth was our move-off?”

“Pretty good. In our top centile.”

“Good as theirs?”

“Not quite. That was tight. As efficient a kick-away as I’ve seen.”

“Think we have to assume it might have seen us,” the captain announced. “Suggest we follow anyway, act as though not. Colonel?”

“I agree,” Agansu said, then shifted to a one-to-one private channel. “But, Captain, if it is the case that we have been discovered, was it anyone aboard’s fault?”

“No, not in my opinion, Colonel.”

“Really?”

“Really. We are carving right up hard against the operational envelope of this ship, Colonel, fractions away from our never-exceeds and even a little over the factory settings in some cases where we know she can take it. And the crew are better than the ship; they always are. If our crash-stop alerted the Culture ship this time then you could replay it a million times over with other crews or fresher crews or more experienced crews and it always would; that’s just how the physics works.”

“I take comfort in the loyalty and faith you display towards your crew, Captain.”

“My crew are loyal to me, Colonel; I am only loyal to the regiment and Gzilt. Also, faith is belief without reason; we operate on reason and nothing but. I have zero faith in my crew, just absolute confidence.”

“Hmm. That is well said. I happily withdraw any suggestion that part of your crew might have been at fault, and I am happy to match and share that confidence.”

“Glad to hear it. Shall we rejoin the congregation?”

“Amusing. Let’s.”

Thirteen

(S -15)

xGSV Contents May Differ

oLSV You Call This Clean?

Hello. Ms Tefwe is en route?

∞

Yes. Transmitted, received and being re-embodied.

∞