Look to Windward (Culture, #7)

by Iain M. Banks

The light of ancient mistakes, he thought. That was what Ziller had called it, on the interview Kabe had heard just that morning. “Tonight you dance by the light of ancient mistakes!” Except that no one was dancing.

What bizarre fates our technologies dream up for us, he thought as he lay there. Here I am, a male, becoming pregnant with the ghost of an old dead soldier, to travel beyond the bounds of light older than our civilization and carry out some task I have spent the best part of a year training for but of which I presently have no real knowledge whatsoever.

Feli Vitrouv was one of about half of the wing-fliers for whom no recording of her mind-state existed to revive them if they dived into the ground and were killed. It gave Kabe an unpleasant feeling just thinking about it. “They call themselves the Disposables,” he said. Ziller was silent for a moment. “Strange that people are happy to adopt epithets they would fight to the death to throw off had they been imposed.”

“It is sad to hate your own people so much, Ziller.” “Yes, it is,” Ziller agreed, looking out toward the distant Great River. “Though happily that hatred does produce vital inspiration for my work.”