Death, he remembered somebody saying once, was a kind of victory. To have lived a long good life, a life of prodigious pleasure and minimal misery, and then to die; that was to have won. To attempt to hang on for ever risked ending up in some as yet unglimpsed horror-future. What if you lived for ever and all that had gone before, however terrible things had sometimes appeared to be in the past, however badly people had behaved to each other throughout history, was nothing compared to what was yet to come? Suppose in the great book of days that told the story of everything, all the gone, done past was merely a bright, happy introduction compared to the main body of the work, an unending tale of unbearable pain scraped in blood on a parchment of living skin?
Better to die than risk that.
Live well and then die, so that the you that is you now can never be again, and only tricks can re-create something that might think it is you, but is not.
The outer gates fell; he heard them go. The castellan stood up and went to the casement. In the courtyard, the barbarian soldiers flowed through to the last line of defence.
Soon. The choice, the choice. He could spin a coin, but that would be… cheap. Unworthy.
He walked to the device that would destroy the embassy compound, and the city too, if he chose.
There was no choice here, either. Not really.
There would be peace again. The only question was when.
He could not know if ultimately more people would suffer and die because he was choosing not to destroy the city, but at least this way the damage and the casualties would be confined to the minimum for the longest possible time. And if in the future he would be judged to have done the wrong thing and to have made the incorrect decision… well, death had the other advantage that he would not be present to suffer that knowledge of that judgement.
He double-checked that the device was set so that only the embassy would be destroyed, he waited a moment longer to be sure that he was calm and clear about what he was doing, then as the tears came to his eyes, he activated the device.
The module Scopell-Afranqui self-destructed in a blink of annihilatory energies centred on its AI core, obliterating it entirely; the module itself was blasted into a million pieces. The explosion sent a shiver through the fabric of God'shole habitat that was felt all the way round that great wheel; it took out a significant section of the surrounding inner docks area and caused a rupture in the skin of the engineering compartment beneath; this was quickly repaired.
The destroyer Riptalon was damaged and would require a further week in dock, though there were no fatalities or serious injuries on board. The explosion killed five officers and a few dozen soldiers and technicians in the docks and smaller craft alongside the module; a number of semi-aware AI entities were also lost and their cores later found to be corrupted by agent entities the module had succeeded in infiltrating into the habitat's systems shortly before its destruction, despite every precaution. These, or their descendants, continued to significantly reduce the habitat's contribution to the war effort for the duration of hostilities.
— So what's it like being at war?
— Scary, when you have every reason to believe you may be sitting next to the real reason it was declared.
The GCU Fate Amenable To Change floated in a triangular pattern with the two Elencher vessels Sober Counsel and Appeal To Reason. The two Elench ships had repeatedly attempted to communicate with the Excession, entirely without success. The Fate was getting nervous, just waiting for the pressure building up with the crews of the two Elencher ships for more intrusive action to overcome the reticence of the craft themselves.
The three craft had secretly declared their own little pact over the last few days after the second Elencher ship had appeared on the scene. They had exchanged drone and human avatars, opened up volumes of their mind-sets they would not normally have exposed to craft of another society, and pledged not to act without consulting the others. That agreeable agreement would lapse if the Elenchers chose to try to interfere with the Excession. It would have to lapse to some extent anyway in a couple of days when the MSV Not Invented Here arrived and — the Fate suspected — started bossing everybody about, but it was trying desperately to dissuade the two Elencher ships from doing anything rash in the meantime.
— Are there any Affront warships known to be anywhere in this volume? the Appeal To Reason asked.
— No, the Fate Amenable To Change replied. ~ In fact they've been staying away and telling everybody else to do so as well. I suppose we should have guessed that was suspicious in itself. That's the trouble with people like them I suppose; whenever you think you're detecting the first signs of them starting to behave responsibly it's just them being even more devious and underhand than usual.
— You think they want the Excession? the Sober Counsel asked.
— It's possible.
— Perhaps they're not coming here, suggested the Appeal To Reason. ~ Aren't they attacking the whole Culture? There are reports of scores of ships and Orbitals being taken…
— I don't know, the Fate admitted. It looks like madness to me; they can't defeat the whole Culture.
— But they're saying a ship-store at this rock Pittance has fallen, the Sober Counsel sent.
— Well, yes. Officially there's still a blackout on that, but (off record, of course), if they are coming in this direction I wouldn't want to be here in about a week's time.
— So if we're going to get through to the entity, we'd better do it soon, the Appeal To Reason sent.
— Oh, don't start on about that again; you said yourself they might not be coming… the Fate began, then broke off. ~ Hold on. Are you getting this?
…(SEMIWIDE BEAM, AFFRONTBASE ALLTRANS, LOOP.)
ATTENTION ALL CRAFT IN ESPERI NEAR SPACE: THE ENTITY LOCATED AT (location sequence enclosed) WAS FIRST DISCOVERED BY THE AFFRONT CRUISER FURIOUS PURPOSE ON (trans; n4.28.803.8+) AND IS HEREBY FULLY AND RIGHTFULLY CLAIMED ON THE BEHALF OF THE AFFRONT REPUBLIC AS AN INTEGRAL AND FULLY SOVEREIGN AFFRONT PROPERTY SUBJECT TO AFFRONT LAWS, EDICTS, RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES.
IN THE LIGHT OF THE CULTURE-PROVOKED HOSTILITIES NOW EXISTING BETWEEN THE AFFRONT AND THE CULTURE, THE FULL CUSTODIAL PROTECTION OF AFFRONT ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO THE FOREMENTIONED VOLUME AND TO THAT END AN ORDINANCE ABSOLUTELY PROHIBITING ALL NON-AFFRONT TRAFFIC WITHIN TEN STANDARD LIGHT YEARS AROUND THE ENTITY HAS BEEN ISSUED WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT AND HENCE ALL CRAFT INSIDE THIS VOLUME ARE ORDERED TO VACATE SAID VOLUME FORTHWITH.
ALL CRAFT AND MATERIAL FOUND TO BE WITHIN THIS VOLUME WILL BE DEEMED TO BE IN CONTRAVENTION OF AFFRONT LAW AND IN CONTEMPT OF THE AFFRONT SUPREME COMMITTEE THUS SUBJECTING THEMSELVES TO THE FULL PUNITIVE MIGHT OF THE AFFRONT MILITARY.
TO ENFORCE SAID ORDINANCE A HUNDREDS-STRONG WAR FLEET OF EX–CULTURE CRAFT WHICH HAVE CHOSEN TO RENOUNCE THEIR PREVIOUS ALLEGIANCE TO THE ENEMY HAVE BEEN DISPATCHED TO THE ABOVE-MENTIONED LOCATION WITH INSTRUCTIONS RUTHLESSLY TO ENFORCE THIS ORDER.
GLORY TO THE AFFRONT!
— So there, the Sober Counsel communicated. ~ That's us told.
— And they can be here in a week, added the Appeal To Reason.
— Hmm. That location they gave, the Fate sent. ~ Look where it's centred.
— Ah-hah, replied the Sober Counsel.
— Ah-hah what? asked the Appeal To Reason.
— It's not centred on the entity itself, the other Elench ship pointed out. ~ It's just off-centre where whatever happened to that little-drone took place.