“Why does the Reliquaria being pro-Hell have anything to do with control of the Disk?” Yime asked.
“Because the Disk’s productive or possibly computational capacity may come into play in an outbreak from the confliction into the Real.”
“An outbreak?” Yime felt genuinely shocked. Conflictions — virtual wars — were there specifically to stop people warring in the Real.
“The pro/anti-Hell confliction may be about to end,” the ship said, “in victory for the pro-Hell side.”
That was a blow for the Culture, Yime thought. Even though it had seemingly stood aside from the war, there had never been any doubt which side it believed in.
It was all just bad timing, in a way. At the point when the war began, the Culture had been in one of its cyclic eras of trying not to be seen to be throwing its weight around. Too many others of the In-Play Level Eights had objected to the Culture being involved with the War in Heaven for it to be able to do so without looking arrogant, even belligerent.
The assumption had somehow always been that the pro-Hell forces were going to be fighting a losing battle anyway and their defeat was probably inevitable no matter who did or didn’t join in. Seemingly, the more the In-Play and the Elders thought about it, the more obvious it became that the whole idea of Afterlives dedicated to extended torture was indeed barbaric, unnecessary and outdated, and the course of the confliction over the continued existence of the Hells was expected to follow this slow but decisive shift in opinion. At the time, the prospect of the Culture getting involved seemed likely to most people to make the conflict less fair, its outcome effectively fixed before it even began.
For a virtual war to work, people had to accept the outcome; the losing side in particular had to abide by the result rather than cry foul, revoke the solemn pledges they had made in the War Conduct Agreement drawn up before the conflict began, and continue as things had been before. The consensus had been that the Culture taking part would give the pro-Hell side the excuse to do just that, if and when they lost.
“The anti-Hell side,” the ship continued, “was the first to attempt to hack the other’s conflict-direction processing substrates. The opposing side retaliated. The anti-Hell side has additionally attempted direct hacking attacks on some of the Hells themselves, seeking either to release the inmates or to destroy the virtual environments completely.
“The various hacking attacks by both sides have almost all failed, those that succeeded did little damage and the vast majority of those by both sides were detected by those targeted, leading to multiple judging and arbitration disputes, all of which are currently being kept sub judice; successfully so far though probably not for much longer. Extensive legal and diplomatic disputes are anticipated and almost certainly being prepared for.
“There are certain so-far unsubstantiated reports that some of the secret substrates within which several major Hells are running are located not where one might expect to find them — essentially, within the volumes of influence of their parent civilisations — but instead within the Tsungarial Disk or elsewhere within the Sichultian Enablement. The worry is that an outbreak of the confliction into the Real may involve the Tsungarial Disk, especially the until-now dormant majority of the fabricaria and the hidden substrates that may also lie there. If this is truly the case then the potential for a substantial war in the Real would seem high.
“Thus the Sichultian Enablement suddenly and unexpectedly finds itself in a position of power well beyond that which its developmental level would lead one to expect. It is poised to contribute significantly, possibly decisively, to a situation of extreme importance, the outcome of which might lead directly to a significant conflict in the Real involving several high-level Players. Given that Mr. Veppers is so powerful within the Sichultian Enablement, what he thinks and does therefore becomes of profound importance.”
Yime thought about this. “Why would we — why would Quietus be involved?”
“There is a complication,” the ship told her.
“I thought there might be.”
“In fact, there are two.”
“That I did not anticipate,” Yime admitted.
“The first concerns this person.” A figure appeared.
“Hmm,” Yime said, after a moment. The figure was of a pan-human: a Sichultian, Yime would have guessed from the rather odd bodily proportions. This one was female, bald or shaven-headed and dressed in a short sleeveless tunic which displayed extensive and intricate multi-coloured abstract markings on her night-black skin. She was smiling. Looking closely, Yime could see further markings on the female’s teeth and the whites of her eyes. The two naked figures she’d been shown earlier hadn’t had anything like that. Those, though, had been generalised, textbook figures. The person shown here, like the image of Veppers, was an individual. “Sichultian?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“The markings aren’t natural.”
“Correct.”
“Are they… real?”
“They were real and permanent. They continued within her body. She was an Intagliate, one of a subset of humans within the Sichultian Enablement who are tattooed throughout their physical being. The practice began as an art form though later also became a form of punishment, especially for matters regarding private civil debt.”
Yime nodded. What a bizarre thing to do, she thought.
“Her name is Lededje Y’breq,” the ship told her.
“She was an Intagliate,” but “Her name is…” Yime noticed. Ship Minds didn’t make mistakes like that. She suspected she already knew where this was going.
“Ms. Y’breq died between five and ten days ago in Ubruater, the capital city of the Sichultian Enablement’s originating planet, Sichult,” the ship told her. “She may have been murdered. If so then the murderer may have been Joiler Veppers, or somebody controlled by him, somebody in his employ. The Sichultia do not possess, or, as far as we know, have even limited access to mindstate transcription or ‘soulkeeper’ technology, however there is an unconfirmed report that Ms. Y’breq’s personality was somehow retrieved from her when she died and that she was revented aboard the GSV Sense Amid Madness, Wit Amidst Folly.”
“Oh. It was nearby?”
“It was nowhere near nearby; it was over three thousand light years distant from the nearest part of the Sichultian Enablement at the time, and no ships or other entities representing or associated with the vessel were closer than approximately nine hundred years away at the time either. Nor had the ship or any of its known associates ever had any recorded dealings with the Sichultian Enablement.”
“How mysterious.”
“There is a possible link, however, between these seemingly unrelated components.”
“Ah-hah.”
“We’ll come to that shortly. The salient point to be made here is that it is believed that Ms. Y’breq may be on her way back to the Sichultian Enablement, revented within a quite different body — probably still Sichultian in form, though, for all we know, male — and bearing the intention of doing some violence, likely fatal, to Mr. Veppers, in revenge for her earlier murder.”
“So what am I supposed to do? Stop her? Help her?”
“As things stand, simply finding her and keeping in touch would be sufficient achievement. You would then await further orders.”