Naturally, such modesty only increased everybody else’s interest, and Horza occasionally became angry with humans who exhibited
the
sort of fawning respect the Culture’s quasi-technological sexuality so often engendered. Coming from Kraiklyn, it didn’t
surprise him a bit. He
wondered if the Man had had some cheap, Cultureimitative surgery himself. It wasn’t uncommon. It wasn’t
safe, either. Too often such
alterations were simply plumbing jobs, especially on males, and made no attempt to uprate the
heart and the rest of the circulatory system—at
least—to cope with the increased strain. (In the Culture, of course, that
high performance was genofixed in.) Such mimicking of this symptom of
the Culture’s decadence had, quite literally, caused
a lot of broken hearts.
I suppose we’ll hear about those wonderful drug glands next,
Horza
thought.
“… Yeah, and they have those drug glands," Kraiklyn went on, eyes still unfocused, nodding to himself. “Supposed to be able
to take a hit of
almost anything, any time they want. Just by thinking about it. Secrete stuff that makes them high." Kraiklyn
stroked the flask he held. “You know,
they say you can’t rape a Culture woman." He didn’t seem to expect an answer. Horza
stayed silent. Kraiklyn nodded again. “Yeah, they’ve got
class, those women. Not like some of the shit on this ship." He shrugged
and took another snort from the flask. “Still…"
Horza cleared his throat and leaned forward in his seat, not looking at Kraiklyn. “She’s dead now, anyway," Horza said, looking
up.
“Hmm." Kraiklyn said absently, looking at the Changer.
“The Culture woman," Horza said. “She’s dead."
“Oh yes." Kraiklyn nodded, then cleared his throat and said, “So what do you want to do now. I’m sort of expecting you to
come along on
this temple caper. I think you owe us that, for the ride."
“Oh yeah, don’t worry," Horza said.
“Good. After that, we’ll see. If you shape up you can stay; otherwise we’ll drop you off somewhere you want, within reason,
like they say. This
operation should be no problem: easy in, easy out." Kraiklyn made a dipping, flying motion with his flattened
hand, as though it was the model
of the
CAT
which hung somewhere over Horza’s head. “Then we go to Vavatch." He took another gulp from the fumes in the snifflask. “Don’t
suppose you play Damage, hmm." He brought the flask down, and Horza looked into the predatory eyes through the thin mist rising
from the
flask’s neck. He shook his head.
“Not one of my vices. Never really got the chance to learn."
“Yeah, I guess not. It’s the only game." Kraiklyn nodded. “Apart from this…" He smiled and glanced about, obviously meaning
the ship, the
people in it and their occupation. “Well," Kraiklyn said, sitting up, “I think I’ve already said welcome aboard,
but you are welcome." He leaned
forward and tapped Horza on the shoulder. “So long as you realize who’s boss, eh." He smiled
widely.
“It’s your ship," Horza said. He drank what remained of the flask’s contents and put it on a shelf beside a portrait holocube
which showed
Kraiklyn standing in his black suit, holding the same laser rifle which was mounted on the wall above.
“I think we’ll get on just fine, Horza. You get to know the others and train up, and we’ll knock the shit out of these monks.
What do you say."
The Man winked at him again.
“You bet," Horza said, standing and smiling. Kraiklyn opened the door for him.
And for my next trick,
thought Horza as soon as he was out of the cabin and walking down to the mess,
my impression of… Captain
Kraiklyn!
During the next few days he indeed got to know the rest of the crew. He talked to those who wanted to talk and he observed
or carefully
overheard things about those who didn’t. Yalson was still his only friend, but he got on well enough with his
roommate, Wubslin, though the
stocky engineer was quiet and, when not eating or working, usually asleep. The Bratsilakins
had apparently decided that Horza probably wasn’t
against them, but they seemed to be reserving their opinion about whether
he was
for
them until Marjoin and the Temple of Light.
Dorolow was the name of the religious woman who roomed with Yalson. She was plump, fair skinned and fair haired, and her huge
ears
curved down to join onto her cheeks. She spoke in a very high, squeaky voice which she said was pretty low as far as
she was concerned, and
her eyes watered a lot. Her movements were fluttery and nervous.
The oldest person in the Company was Aviger, a smallish, weather-beaten man with brown skin and little hair. He could do surprisingly
supple things with his legs and arms, like clasp his hands behind his back and bring them over his head without letting go.
He shared a cabin
with a man named Jandraligeli, a tall, thin, middleaged Mondlidician who wore the scar marks from his homeworld
on his forehead with
unrepentant pride and a look of perpetual disdain. He ignored Horza devoutly, but Yalson said he did
this with every new recruit. Jandraligeli
spent a lot of time keeping his old but wellmaintained suit and laser rifle clean
and sparkling.
Gow and kee-Alsorofus were the two women who kept themselves so much to themselves and were alleged to
do things
when alone in
their cabin, which seemed to annoy the less tolerant of the Company males—that is, most of them. Both women
were fairly young and had a
rather poor grasp of Marain. Horza thought maybe that was all that kept them so isolated, but
it turned out they were pretty shy anyway. They
were of average height, medium build, and sharpfeatured in gray skin, with
eyes that were pools of black. Horza thought perhaps it was just as
well they didn’t look at people straight too often; with
those eyes it could be an unsettling experience.
Mipp was a fat, somber man with jet-black skin. He could pilot the ship manually when Kraiklyn wasn’t aboard and the Company
needed
close support on the ground, or he could take over at the shuttle controls. He was supposed to be a good shot, too,
with a plasma cannon or
rapid projectile rifle, but he was prone to binges, getting dangerously drunk on a variety of poisonous
liquids he procured from the autogalley.
Once or twice Horza heard him throwing up in the next stall in the heads. Mipp shared
a cabin with another drunkard, called Neisin, who was
more sociable and sang a lot. He had, or had convinced himself he had,
something terrible to forget, and although he drank more steadily and
regularly than Mipp, sometimes when he’d had a bit more
than usual he would go very quiet and then start crying in great, sucking sobs. He was
small and wiry, and Horza wondered
where he put all the drink, and where all the tears came from inside his compact, shaved head. Perhaps
there was some sort
of short circuit between his throat and his tear ducts.
Tzbalik Odraye was the ship’s self-styled computer ace. Because he and Mipp together could, in theory, have overridden the
fidelities
Kraiklyn had programmed into the
CAT
’s non-sentient computer and then flown off in the ship, they were never allowed to stay on the craft
together when Kraiklyn
wasn’t aboard. In fact, Odraye wasn’t that well versed in computers at all, as Horza discovered through a little close but
apparently casual questioning. However, the tall, slightly hunchbacked man with the long yellow-skinned face probably knew
just about enough,
Horza reckoned, to handle anything that went wrong with the ship’s brains, which seemed to have been designed
for durability rather than
philosophical finesse. Tzbalik Odraye roomed with Rava Gamdol, who looked as though he came from
the same place as Yalson, judging from
his skin and light fur, but he denied this. Yalson was vague on the subject, and neither
liked the other. Rava was another recluse; he had
boarded off the tiny space around his top bunk and installed some small
lights and an air fan. Sometimes he spent days at a time in this small
space, going in with a container of water and coming
out with another full of urine. Tzbalik Odraye did his best to ignore his roommate, and
always vigorously denied blowing the
smoke from the pungent Cifetressi weed, which he smoked, through the ventilation holes of Rava’s tiny
cubicle.
The final cabin was shared by Lenipobra and Lamm. Lenipobra was the youngster of the Company; a gangly youth with a stutter
and garish
red hair. He had a tattooed tongue which he was very proud of and would display at every possible opportunity.
The tattoo, of a human female,
was in every sense crude. Lenipobra was the
CAT
’s best excuse for a medic and was rarely seen without a small screenbook which contained