Everywhere they found themselves, the galaxy bubbled with life and its basic foods kept on speaking back to it, just like he’d told Shias Engin (and, thinking of her, felt again the texture of her skin and the sound of her voice). Still, he suspected if the Culture had really wanted to, it could have found far more spectacularly different and exotic places for him to visit. Their excuse was that he was a limited creature, adapted to certain sorts of planets and societies and types of warfare. A martial niche, Sma had called it.
