Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks Read Free Book Online

female.
    ~ Those belong to the sister technician who is looking after us, sir. Your point of view is from a headset she’s wearing.
    ~ Can she hear me?
    ~ No, sir.
    ~ Ask her to take the headset off and show me what she looks like.
    ~ Sir, are you—?
    ~ Major, if you would.
    Quilan felt himself sigh. ~ Sister technician, he thought. He asked her to do as Huyler had asked. She did, but looked annoyed about it.
    ~ Sour-looking, frankly. Wish I hadn’t bothered. So, what has been happening, Major? What am I doing here?
    ~ A great deal has been happening, sir. You’ll be given a full historical briefing in due course.
    ~ Date?
    ~ It is the ninth of spring, 3455.
    ~ Just eighty-six years? I expected more, somehow. So, Major, why have I been resurrected?
    ~ Frankly, sir, I do not entirely know myself.
    ~ Then, frankly, Major, I think you’d better rapidly put me in touch with somebody who does know.
    ~ There has been a war, sir.
    ~ A war? Who with?
    ~ With ourselves, sir; a civil war.
    ~ This some sort of caste thing?
    ~ Yes, sir.
    ~ I suppose it was always coming. So, am I being conscripted? Are the dead being used as the reserves?
    ~ No, sir. The war is over. We are at peace again, though there will be changes. There was an attempt to rescue you and the other stored personalities from the substrate in the Military Institute during the war—an attempt I was involved in—but it was only partially successful. Until a few days ago we thought it had been completely unsuccessful.
    ~ So; am I being brought back to life to appreciate the manifest glories of the new order? To be re-educated? Tried for past incorrectness? What?
    ~ Our superiors think that you may be able to help with a mission that lies before both of us.
    ~ Before both of us? Uh-huh. And what exactly would that mission be, Major?
    ~ I can’t tell you that at the moment, sir.
    ~ You seem worryingly ignorant to be the one who’s pulling all the strings here, Major.
    ~ I’m sorry, sir. I believe that my current lack of knowledge may be a safety procedure. But I would guess that your expertise regarding the Culture could be of some help.
    ~ My thoughts on the Culture proved politically unpopular when I was alive, Major; that’s one of the reasons I took the offer of being put into storage on Aorme, rather than either die and go to heaven or keep banging my head against a wall in Combined Forces Intelligence. Are you telling me the top brass have come around to my point of view?
    ~ Perhaps, sir. Perhaps just your knowledge of the Culture would prove useful.
    ~ Even if it’s eight-and-a-half decades old?
    Quilan paused, then expressed something he’d been preparing for some days, since they’d rediscovered the substrate.
    ~ Sir, considerable thought and great effort went into both retrieving you and preparing me for my mission. I would hope that no part of that thought or effort was either wasted or without point.
    Huyler was silent for a moment. ~
There were about five hundred others besides me in that machine in the Institute. Did they all get out, too?
    ~ The final figure for those stored was nearer a thousand, but yes, sir, they all appear to have come through, though only you’ve been revived so far.
    ~ All right then, soldier, perhaps you should start by telling me what you do know about this mission.
    ~ I know only what you might call our cover story, sir. I’ve been induced to forget the real mission goal for the time being.
    ~ What?
    ~ It’s a security measure, sir. You’ll be briefed with the full mission details and you won’t forget them. I ought to remember gradually what my mission is anyway, but in the event that something goes wrong, you’ll be the back-up.
    ~ They frightened somebody might read your mind, Major?
    ~ I imagine so, sir.
    ~ Though, of course, the Culture doesn’t do that.
    ~ So we’re told.
    ~ Extra precaution, eh? Must be an important mission. But if you can