Matter (Culture, #8)

by Iain M. Banks

There was a whole section of the organisation devoted to watching developing civilisations for signs that some so-called Wanderer had – with prior intent, opportunistically or even accidentally – turned into a local Mad Professor, Despot, Prophet or God. There were other categories, but these four formed the most popular and predictable avenues people’s fantasies took them along when they lost their moral bearings down amongst the prims. Most Wanderers caused no such problems, however, and such itinerants normally found somewhere to call home eventually, usually back in the Culture. Some, though, never settled anywhere, roaming all their lives, and of these a few – a surprisingly large proportion compared to the rest of the Culture’s population – lived, effectively, for ever. Or at least lived until they met some almost inevitably violent, irrecoverable end. There were rumours – usually in the form of personal boasts – of individuals who had been around since the formation of the Culture itself, nomads who’d drifted the galaxy and its near infinitude of peoples, societies, civilisations and places for thousands upon thousands of years.