“No, to a Morthanveld a Nestworld is a symbol of homeliness, intimacy,” their new friend informed them as they rode a little tube-car along a gauzily transparent tunnel threaded through one of the klick-thick hab tubes. “Bizarrely!” he added. The man had given his name as Pone Hippinse; he too was an Accredited Greeter, he said, albeit only gaining this distinction recently. For a machine, Nuthe 3887b did a very good impression of being annoyed by Hippinse’s arrival. “The nest a male Morthanveld weaves when he’s trying to attract a mate is a sort of torus of seaweed twigs,” Hippinse continued. “Kind of a big circle.” He showed them what a circle looked like, using both hands.
They were on their way to another port area for what Hippinse described as a “short hop” in a spaceship round a small part of the vast ring to a suitable Humanoid Guest Facility. The Facility — the 512th Degree FifthStrand; 512/5 to most people — was most highly recommended by Hippinse.
“Strictly speaking—” Nuthe 3887b began.
“So, to a Morthanvelder, one of these things,” Hippinse said, ignoring the little machine and waving his arms about to indicate the whole Nestworld, “is a sort of symbol of their being wedded to the cosmos, see? They’re making their conjugal bower in space itself, expressing their connectedness to the galaxy or whatever. It’s quite romantic, really. Vast place, though; I mean truly, mind-boggling vast. There are more Morthanveld on this one Nestworld than there are Culture citizens anywhere, did you know that?” He gave the impression of looking stunned on their behalf. “I mean even including the Peace Faction, the Ulterior, the Elench and every other splinter group, casually connected associate category and loosely affiliated bunch of hangers-on who just happen to like the name Culture. Amazing! Anyway, just as well I came along.” He made a strange face at Ferbin and Holse that might have been meant to be friendly, comforting, conspiratorial or something else entirely.
Holse was looking at Pone Hippinse, trying to figure the fellow out.
“I mean, to remove you guys from the attentions of the media, the news junkies and aboriginistas; people like that.” Hippinse belched and fell silent.
Ferbin used the opportunity to ask, “Where exactly are we going?”
“To the Facility,” Hippinse said, with a glance at Nuthe 3887b. “Someone wants to meet you.” He winked.
“Someone?” Ferbin asked.
“Can’t tell you; spoil the surprise.”
Ferbin and Holse exchanged looks.
Holse frowned and turned deliberately to the Morthanveld machine, hovering in the air to one side of the three seated humans. “This Facility we’re heading for…” he began.
“It’s a perfect place for—” Hippinse started to say, but Holse, now sitting side-on to him, held up one hand to him — held it almost into his face — and said, “If you don’t mind, sir. I’m talking to this machine.”
“Well, I was just going to say—” Hippinse said.
“Tell us about it,” Holse said loudly to the machine. “Tell us about this Facility we’re supposed to go to.”
“…you can hole up there, unmolested…” Hippinse continued.
“The 512th Degree FifthStrand, or 512/5, is a Humanoid Transfer and Processing Facility,” the machine told them as Hippinse finally fell silent.
Holse frowned. “What sort of processing?”
“Identity establishment, in-world alien behaviour legal agreement-making, knowledge-sharing—”
“What does that mean? Knowledge-sharing?” Holse had once helped a town constable with his enquiries regarding the theft of some tableware from the local County House; it had been a considerably rougher and more painful experience than the phrase Helping With Enquiries implied. He was worried that ‘knowledge-sharing’ might be a similar lie dressed up pretty.
“Any data held is requested to be shared with the knowledge reservoirs of the Nestworld,” Nuthe 3887b said, “on a philanthropic or charitable basis, as a rule.”
Holse still wasn’t happy. “Does this process hurt?” he asked.
“Of course not!” the machine said, sounding shocked.
Holse nodded. “Carry on.”
“The 512th Degree FifthStrand Facility is a Culture-sponsored Facility,” the machine told them. Ferbin and Holse both sat back and exchanged looks.
“I was coming to that!” Hippinse exclaimed in a sudden release of pent-up exasperation, waving his arms about.
They transferred to the Facility in a fat little ship which swallowed the car they were riding in whole. The ship lurched and they were away.
A screen showed them the view ahead for the duration of the twenty-minute journey; Hippinse chattered continually, pointing out sights, especially famous or well-executed patterns of cables or designs engraved on the cables, noteworthy spacecraft arriving and departing, stellar-atmospheric effects and a few of the favela structures which were not officially part of the world at all but which had been constructed within Syaung-un’s surrounding network of cylinders and inside the partial protection, both physical and symbolic, afforded by the lattice of mighty cylinders and their accompanying wrap of gases.
The 512th Degree FifthStrand was a kind of fully enclosed mini-Orbital, fashioned to look as much like the Nestworld itself as possible. It was only eight hundred kilometres across and — until you were right up at it — it looked quite insignificant within the loops and swirls of the giant world’s main cylinders; just a tiny finger-ring lost amongst the openwork vastness of the braided super-cables submerged in their accidental haze of found atmosphere.
Close up, the Facility looked a little like a pushbike wheel. They docked at the hub. Nuthe 3887b stayed aboard; it wished them well. Hippinse’s long blond hair floated about his head like a curly nebula and he pulled it back and bunned it with a little hair-net. Their car was released from the stubby ship and floated into and down a curved, hollow spoke like a thin, twisted Tower.
“Keen on being able to see through things, aren’t they?” Holse said, staring down through the clear floor of the car, the transparent side of the hollow spoke and the seemingly nonexistent roof of the miniature habitat below.
“The Morthanveld have this thing about clarity,” Hippinse told them. “The Culture wouldn’t think of being so rude as to fashion their own places any differently.” He snorted, shook his head.
Inside, the Facility was a little ribbon-world of its own, a rotating loop of landscape dotted with parkland, rivers, lakes and small hills, the air above filled with delicate-looking flying machines. Ferbin and Holse both felt the gravity building up as they descended.
Halfway down, approaching a conglomeration of what looked like huge half-silvered glass beads stuck on to the spoke like some aquatic accretion, the car began to slow. It fell out of the hazy sunshine into darkness and drew smoothly to a stop deep inside the cluster of silvery globes.
“Gentlemen!” Hippinse announced, clapping his chubby hands together. “Our destination!”
They entered the gently lit, pleasantly perfumed interior opening before them and walked along a curved, broadening corridor — the gravity was a little more than they were used to, but entirely tolerable — to an open space dominated by enormous rocks, small streams and broad pools, all overseen by a host of giant yellow-green and blue-brown plants joined together by nets of foliage. Silvery birds flitted silently across the scene. Overhead, the twisted lattice of the Nestworld revolved with a silent, steady, monumental grace.