Use of Weapons (Culture, #3)

by Iain M. Banks

Tactics cohered into strategy, strategy disintegrated into tactics, in the sliding scale of their dialectical moral algebra.

Holy shit,” the drone said one day as she sat in her cabin, reviewing cautiously optimistic reports on the peace conference back home (for so she had started to think of it, she admitted to herself ). “What?” She turned to the machine. It looked at her. “They just changed the course schedule for the What Are the Civilian Applications?” Sma waited. “That’s a Continent class GSV,” the drone said. “Subclass Prompt, one of the limiteds.” “You said it was a General; now it’s a Limited; make up your mind.” “No, I mean it’s a limited edition; the go-faster model; even nippier than this beast, once it gets going,” the drone said. It floated closer to her, fields set a weird mixture of olive and purple, which she seemed to remember indicated Awe. She’d certainly never seen that expression on Skaffen-Amtiskaw before. “It’s heading for Crastalier,” it told her. “For us? For Zakalwe?” she frowned. “Nobody’ll say, but it looks like it to me. A whole General Systems Vehicle, just for us. Wow!” “Wow,”

“Forgiveness?” “Sma, given all the things Zakalwe’s done, just since we’ve known him, they’d have to invent a personal deity for him alone, to even start forgiving him.”

Aw heck, you’ve guessed.” He looked downcast. “Yeah, I’m an alien. Oh. Thank you.” The drinks arrived; he passed one to her. “You do look funny,” she said, inspecting him. “ ‘Funny’?” he said indignantly. She shrugged. “Different.” She drank. “But not all that different.” She leaned forward on the table. “Why do you look so similar to us? I know all the outworlders aren’t humanoid, but a lot are. How come?” “Well,” he said, hand at his mouth again, “it’s like this: the . . .” — he belched — “. . . the dust clouds and stuff in the galaxy are . . . its food, and its food keeps speaking back to it. That’s why there are so many humanoid species; nebulae’s last meals repeating on them.” She grinned. “That simple, is it?” He shook his head. “Na, not at all. Very complicated. But” — he held up one finger — “I think I know the real reason.” “Which is?” “Alcohol in the dust clouds. Goddamn stuff is everywhere. Any lousy species ever invents the telescope and the spectroscope and starts looking in between the stars,