Iain Banks Culture 01 Cons

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Every now and again, though, she went back to that thought, and knew that each
was exactly as important as the other. Then later she would go back to her
second thoughts on the matter and feel embarrassed again.
Fal 'Ngeestra took a deep breath and felt a little better. She smiled and
raised her head, closing her eyes for a moment and watching the red sun-haze
behind her eyelids. Then she ran a hand through her curly blonde hair and
wondered again if the distant, wavering, unsure shapes over the shimmering
water were clouds, or mountains.
9.
Schar's World
Imagine a vast and glittering ocean seen from a great height. It stretches to
the clear curved limit of every angle of horizon, the sun burning on a billion
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tiny wavelets. Now imagine a smooth
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of cloud above the ocean, a shell of black velvet suspended high above the
water and also extending to the horizon, but keep the sparkle of the sea
despite the lack of sun. Add to the cloud many sharp and tiny lights,
scattered on the base of the inky overcast like glinting eyes:
singly, in pairs, or in larger groups, each positioned far, far away from any
other set.
That is the view a ship has in hyperspace as it flies like a microscopic
insect, free between the energy grid and real space.
The small, sharp lights on the undersurface of the cloud cover are stars; the
waves on the sea are the irregularities of the Grid on which a ship travelling
in hyperspace finds traction with its engine fields, while that sparkle is its
source of energy. The Grid and the plain of real space are curved, rather like
the ocean and the cloud would be round a planet, but less so. Black holes show
as thin and twisting waterspouts from clouds to sea; supernovae as long
lightning flashes in the overcast. Rocks, moons, planets, Orbitals, even Rings
and Spheres, hardly show at all . . .
The two 'Killer' class Rapid Offensive Units Trade Surplus and Revisionist
raced through the hyperspace, flashing underneath the web of real space like
slim and glittering fish in a deep, still pond. They wove past systems and
stars, keeping deep beneath the empty spaces where they were least likely to
be traced.
Their engines were each a focus of energy almost beyond imagining, packing
sufficient power within their two hundred metres to equal perhaps one per cent
of the energy produced by a small sun, flinging the two vessels across the
four-dimensional void at an equivalent speed in real space of rather less than
ten light-years per hour. At the time, this was considered particularly fast.
They sensed the Glittercliff and Sullen Gulf ahead. They twisted their
headlong rush to angle them deep inside the war zone, aiming themselves at the
system which contained Schar's World.
Far in the distance, they could see the group of black holes which had created
the Gulf. Those flutes of plunging energy had passed through the area
millennia before, clearing a space of consumed stars behind them, creating an
artificial galactic arm as they headed in a long spiral closer towards the
centre of the slowly spinning island of stars and nebulae that was the galaxy.
The group of black holes was commonly known as the Forest, so closely were
they grouped, and the two speeding Culture craft had instructions to try to
force their way between those twisted, lethal trunks, if they were seen and
pursued. The Culture's field management was considered superior to the
Idirans', so it was thought they would have a better chance of getting
through, and any chasing craft might even break off rather than risk tangling
with the Forest. It was a terrible risk even to contemplate, but the two ROUs
were precious; the Culture had not yet built many, and everything possible had
to be done to make sure that the craft got back safely or, if the worst came
to the worst, were destroyed utterly.
They encountered no hostile ships. They flashed across the inward face of the
Quiet Barrier in seconds and delivered their prescribed loads in two short
bursts, then twisted once and tore away at maximum speed, out through the
thinning stars and past the Glitter-cliff, into the empty skies of the Sullen
Gulf. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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