“Splendid. So we have a fully equipped, committedly one-of-us combat-hardened battleship ready and waiting at Xown, and that is a very good, a particularly good thing, Septame. May I tell you why?”

“Yes, Chekwri, why don’t you tell me why?”

“Because it has just reported that something fast – both coming in quick and braking very hard indeed – has just about hauled to a stop at Xown, and it’s almost certainly going to be the Culture ship.”

Colonel Agansu, still undergoing treatments he had come to regard as meaning he was under repair – rather than representing anything as biological as healing – had a dilemma.

“Colonel, the regs are clear. You need to update your avatar down on Xown. It’s been plugging along there patiently keeping pace with the airship for nearly ten days but now there’s a distinct likelihood it’s going to be put in harm’s way and it needs to have every advantage we can give it.”

“I am aware of that, Captain,” Agansu said. “Thank you.”

The colonel had been badly injured in the battle at the Incast facility on the Bokri Orbital. The Culture creature – the ship’s avatar – had succeeded not only in destroying the combat arbite Uhtryn through the illegal use of anti-matter weaponry within an enclosed civilian space, but had then somehow turned his own weaponry against him, turning a large portion of its own body into a perfectly reflective dish that had bounced his laser pulse straight back at him, crippling both his suit and his body, sending him plunging down the elevator shaft with little or no AG left.

He could still hear his own screams, loud inside his helmet, as he fell, blinded, burning, baked, both legs and one arm shattered, into the shaft, to land with a terrible crushing crash on top of the already wrecked elevator car at the bottom. He’d blacked out then, or the suit helmet’s remaining medical functions had put him mercifully under, but he could still hear that raw, inhuman scream in his ears and feel the awful smacking thud of impact, cracking open the suit, splintering his bones and breaking his back.

The suit – its helmet – had saved him. Then the Uagren had, too: bringing him back on board, placing him in its medical facility, gently peeling away and removing the blackened, bubbled remains of the suit and slicing away the burned, roasted skin and flesh where it was beyond reusing before it had – coaxingly, almost lovingly – started to knit his bones, repair and regrow his torn, battered organs, and nurture where possible and replace where necessary his bruised, assaulted flesh.

It was a process that was still ongoing. Agansu was many days away from being physically whole again, and would still be largely dependent on the ship when the Subliming happened in three days’ time – assuming, of course, that it was still going to take place on schedule.