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MATTER

by Iain M. Banks

A light breeze produced a dry rattling sound from some nearby bushes. It lifted delicate little veils of dust from a few sandy

patches nearby and

shifted a lock of dark hair across the forehead of the woman sitting on the wood and canvas camp chair

which was perched, not quite level, on

a patch of bare rock near the edge of a low ridge looking out over the scrub and sand

of the desert. In the distance, trembling through the heat

haze, was the straight line of the road. Some scrawny trees, few

taller than one man standing on another’s shoulders, marked the course of the

dusty highway. Further away, tens of kilometers

beyond the road, a line of dark, jagged mountains shimmered in the baking air.

By most human standards the woman was tall, slim and well muscled. Her hair was short and straight and dark and her skin was

the color of

pale agate. There was nobody of her specific kind within several thousand light-years of where she sat, though

if there had been they might

have said that she was somewhere between being a young woman and one at the very start of middle

age. They would, however, have thought

she looked somewhat short and bulky. She was dressed in a pair of wide,loose-fitting

pants and a thin, cool-looking jacket, both the same

shade as the sand. She wore a wide black hat to shade her from the late

morning sun, which showed as a harsh white point high in the

cloudless, pale green sky. She raised a pair of very old and

worn-looking binoculars to her night-dark eyes and looked out toward the point

where the desert road met the horizon to the

west. There was a folding table to her right holding a glass and a bottle of chilled water. A small

backpack lay underneath.

She reached out with her other hand and lifted the glass from the table, sipping at the water while still looking through

the ancient field glasses.

“They’re about an hour away," said the machine floating to her left. The machine looked like a scruffy metal suitcase. It

moved a little in the

air, rotating and tipping as though looking up at the seated woman. “And anyway," it continued, “you

won’t see much at all with those museum

pieces."

She put the glass down on the table again and lowered the binoculars. “They were my father’s," she told the machine.

“Really," the drone said, with what might have been a sigh.

A screen flicked into existence a couple of meters in front of the woman, filling half her field of view. It showed, from

a point a hundred

meters above and in front of its leading edge, an army of men—some mounted, most on foot—marching along

another section of the desert

highway, all raising dust which piled into the air and drifted slowly away to the southeast.

Sunlight glittered off the edges of raised spears and

pikes. Banners, flags and pennants swayed above the heads of the mass

of moving men. The army filled the road for a couple of kilometers

behind the mounted men at its head. Bringing up the rear

were baggage carts, covered and open wagons, wheeled catapults and trebuchets

and a variety of lumbering wooden siege engines,

all pulled by dark, powerful-looking animals whose sweating shoulders towered over the men

walking at their sides.

The woman tutted. “Put that away," she said.

“Yes, ma’am," the machine said. The screen vanished.

The woman looked through the binoculars again, using both hands this time. “I can see their dust," she announced. “And another

couple of

scouts, I think."

“Astounding," the drone said.

If the woman heard the sarcasm in the machine’s voice, she chose to ignore it. She drained the water glass, placed the field

glasses on the

table, pulled the brim of her hat down over her eyes and settled back in the camp seat, crossing her arms and

stretching her booted feet out,

crossed at the ankle. “Having a snooze," she told the drone from beneath the hat. “Wake me

when it’s time."

“Just you make yourself comfortable there," the drone told her.

“Mm-hmm."

Turminder Xuss (drone, offensive) watched the woman Djan Seriy Anaplian for a few minutes, monitoring her slowing breathing

and her

gradually relaxing muscle-state until it knew she was genuinely asleep.

“Sweet dreams, princess," it said quietly. Reviewing its words immediately, the drone was completely unable to determine whether

a

disinterested observer would have detected any trace of sarcasm or not.

It checked round its half-dozen previously deployed scout and secondary knife missiles, using their sensors to watch the still

distant

approaching army draw slowly closer and monitoring the various small patrols and individual scouts the army had sent

out ahead of it.

For a while, it watched the army move. From a certain perspective it looked like a single great organism inching darkly across

the tawny

sweep of desert; something segmented, hesitant—bits of it would come to a stop for no obvious reason for long moments,

before starting off

again, so that it seemed to shuffle rather than flow en masse—but determined, unarguably fixed in its

onward purpose. And all on their way to

war, the drone thought sourly, to take and burn and loot and rape and raze. What sullen

application these humans devoted to destruction.

About half an hour later, when the front of the army was hazily visible on the desert highway a couple of kilometers to the

west, a single

mounted scout came riding along the top of the ridge, straight toward where the drone kept vigil and the woman

slept. The man showed no sign

of having seen through the camouflage field surrounding their little encampment, but unless

he changed course he was going to ride right into