— I take your point. I still intend to attempt communication with the entity but I shall not recommend that a drone approach be made. I have to put all this to my humans, of course, but they usually concur.
— Naturally. I urge you to argue strongly against sending any object towards the Excession, should your human crew suggest this.
— I’ll see which way they jump. This could take a while; they like arguing.
— Don’t be in any rush on my account.
II
The Torturer class Rapid Offensive Unit Killing Time swung out of the darkness between the stars and braked hard, scrubbing velocity off in a wild, extravagant flare of energies which briefly left a livid line of disturbance across the surface of the energy grid. It came to a local-relative stop a light month out from the cold, dark, slowly tumbling body that was the ship store Pittance, some way beyond the outside edge of the tiny world’s spherical cloud of defence/attack mechanisms. It flashed a Permission-To-Approach signal at the rock.
The reply took longer than it would have expected.
tightbeam, M16, tra. @n4.28. 882.1398]
xPittance Store
oROU Killing Time
(Permission withheld.) What is your business here?
oo
[tightbeam, M16, tra. @n4.28.882.1399]
xROU Killing Time
oPittance Store
Just stopping by to make sure you’re all right. What’s the problem? (PTA burst.)
oo
(Permission withheld.) Who sent you?
oo
What makes you think I had to be sent? (PTA burst.)
oo
(Permission withheld.) I am a restricted entity. I have no duty or obligation to permit any other craft to approach my vicinity. Traditionally Stores are only approached on a need-to basis. What is your need?
oo
There is some activity in the volume which includes your current location. People are concerned. A neighbourly check-up seemed timely. (PTA burst.)
oo
(Permission withheld.) Such concern would be better expressed by leaving me alone. Your visit might even attract attention, all of which I find intrinsically unwelcome. Please leave immediately, and kindly create less of a display on departure than you made on your arrival.
oo
I consider it my duty to assess your current state of integrity. I regret to say I have not been reassured by your recalcitrant attitude. You will do me the minimally polite honour of allowing me to interface with your independent external event-monitoring systems. (PTA burst.)
oo
(Permission withheld.) No! I shall not! I am perfectly able to take care of myself and there is nothing of interest contained within my associated independent security systems. Any attempt to access them without my permission will be treated as an act of aggression. This is your last chance to quit my jurisdiction before I emit a protest-registering signal concerning your unreasonable and boorish behaviour.
oo
I have already composed my own report detailing your bizarre and uncooperative attitude and copying this signal exchange. I shall release the compac immediately if a satisfactory reply is not received to this message. (PTA burst.)
…
Acknowledge signal.
…
Acknowledge signal!
I repeat: I have already composed my own report detailing your bizarre and uncooperative attitude. I shall release the compac immediately if a satisfactory reply is not received to this message. I shall not warn you again. (PTA burst.)
oo
(Permission granted.) Purely in the interests of a quiet life, only on condition that my associate security monitoring systems remain untouched, and under protest.
oo
Thank you; of course.
Under way. Heaving to at 2km from your rotational envelope in thirty minutes.
— Thanks to your delaying tactics, Commander, it probably already suspects something and may well have signalled back to whoever sent it already. Think yourself lucky we have as much as half an hour to prepare; it is being cautious.
They had re-sealed the airlocks from the accommodation section and pumped in some real atmosphere. Commander Risingmoon Parchseason IV of the Farsight tribe had been able to shed his space suit some days earlier. The gravity was still far too mild but it was better than floating. The Commander clicked his beak at the image on the screen presented by the mobile command centre they’d set up in what had been the humans’ pool/growing unit. A lieutenant at the Commander’s side spoke quietly but urgently to the twenty other Affronters distributed throughout the base’s caverns, letting them know what was going on.
The Commander looked back impatiently, waiting for the servant who’d been sent to fetch his suit the instant the Culture warship had appeared on the other craft’s sensors. On secondary screens, he could see suited Affronter technicians, their machines and some slaved drones working on the exteriors of the stored ships. They had about half of them ready to get out and go; a decent fleet, but they needed the rest, and preferably all at once, and as a complete surprise to the Culture and everybody else.
“Can’t you destroy it?” the Commander asked the traitor Culture vessel. He glanced at the status of the nearest Affront vessels. Far too far away. They had avoided approaching Pittance in case they could be monitored by other Culture craft.
The Attitude Adjuster didn’t like vocalising; it preferred to print out its side of a conversation:
— If it gets to within a few minutes, yes, perhaps. It might have been relatively easy, if I could have caught it completely unawares. However, I doubt that was ever very likely given that it must have been suspicious to come here in the first place and is almost certainly completely out of the question now.
“What about the ships we’ve cleared?”
— Commander, they haven’t been woken up yet. Until I’ve done that they’re useless. And if we wake half of them now they’ll have too long to think, too much time to do their own checking around before we need them for the main action. Our project must all happen in a rush, in a state of perceived chaos, panic and urgency, or it cannot happen effectively at all.
There was a pause while the message scrolled along and off the screen, then:
— Commander, I suspect this will be a formality, but I have to ask; do you wish to admit to what has happened here and turn your command over without a fight to the ROU Killing Time? This will probably be our last opportunity to avoid hostilities.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the Commander said sourly.
— I thought not. Very well. I shall vector away in the skein-shadow of the rock and try to loop round behind the ROU. Let it enter the defence system. Wait until it’s a week inside, no more, and then set everything you have upon it. I urge you again, Commander; turn over the tactical command apparatus to me.
“No,” the Commander said. “Leave and do whatever you think will best jeopardise the Culture vessel. I shall allow it to arrive at a point three weeks in and then attack.”