"I have nothing to lose, Gurgeh," it said. "Help me or I'll destroy your reputation. Don't think I wouldn't. Whether it would mean almost nothing to you — which I doubt — I'd do it just for the fun of causing you even the smallest amount of embarrassment. And if it means everything, and you really would kill yourself — which I also very much doubt — then I would still. I've never killed a human before. It's possible I might have been given the chance, somewhere, some time, if I'd been allowed to join SC… but I'd settle for causing a suicide."

He held up one hand to it. His coat felt heavy. The trous were soaked. "I believe you," he said. "All right. But what can I do?"

"I've told you," the drone said, over the noise of the wind howling in the trees and the rain beating against the swaying stalks of grass. "Speak for me. You have more influence than you realise. Use it."

"But I don't, I—"

"I've seen your mail, Gurgeh," the drone said tiredly. "Don't you know what a guest-invitation from a GSV means? It's the closest Contact ever comes to offering a post directly. Didn't anybody ever teach you anything besides games? Contact wants you. Officially Contact never head-hunts; you have to apply, then once you're in it's the other way round; to join SC you have to wait to be invited. But they want you, all right…. Gods, man, can't you take a hint?"

"Even if you're right, what am I supposed to do, just go to Contact and say "Take this drone back"? Don't be stupid. I wouldn't even know how to start going about it." He didn't want to say anything about the visit from the Contact drone the other evening.

He didn't have to.

"Haven't they already been in touch with you?" Mawhrin-Skel asked. "The night before last?"

Gurgeh got shakily to his feet. He brushed some sandy earth from his coat. The rain gusted on the wind. The village on the coast and the sprawling house of his childhood were almost invisible under the dark sheets of driving rain.

"Yes, I've been watching you, Jernau Gurgeh," Mawhrin-Skel said. "I know Contact are interested in you. I have no idea just what it is Contact might want from you, but I suggest that you find out. Even if you don't want to play, you'd better make a damn good plea on my behalf; I'll be watching, so I'll know whether you do or not…. I'll prove it to you. Watch."

A screen unfolded from the front of the drone's body like a strange flat flower, expanding to a square a quarter-metre or so to a side. It lit up in the rainy gloom to show Mawhrin-Skel itself, suddenly glowing a blinding, flashing white, above the stone table at Hafflis's house. The scene was shot from above, probably near one of the stone ribs over the terrace. Gurgeh watched again as the line of coals glowed bright, and the lanterns and flowers fell. He heard Chamlis say, "Oh dear. Do you think I said something to upset it?" He saw himself smile as he sat down by the Stricken game-set.

The scene faded. It was replaced by another dim scene viewed from above; a bed; his bed, in the principal chamber at Ikroh. He recognised the small, ringed hands of Ren Myglan kneading his back from beneath. There was sound, too:

"…. ah, Ren, my baby, my child, my love…"

"….Jernau…"

"You piece of shit," he told the drone.

The scene faded and the sound cut off. The screen collapsed, sucked back inside the body of the drone.

"Just so, and don't you forget it, Jernau Gurgeh," Mawhrin-Skel said. "Those bits were quite fakeable; but you and I know they were real, don't we? Like I said; I'm watching you."

He sucked on the blood in his mouth, spat. "You can't do this. Nobody's allowed to behave like this. You won't get—"

"— away with it? Well, maybe not. But the thing is, if I don't get away with it, I don't care. I'm no worse off. I'm still going to try." It paused, physically shook itself free of water, then produced a spherical field about itself, clearing the moisture from its casing, leaving it spotless and clean, and sheltering it from the rain.

"Can't you understand what they've done to me, man? Better I had never been brought into being than forced to wander the Culture for ever, knowing what I've lost. They call it compassion to draw my talons and remove my eyes and cast me adrift in a paradise made for others; I call it torture. It's obscene, Gurgeh, it's barbaric, diabolic; recognise that old word? I see you do. Well, try to imagine how I might feel, and what I might do…. Think about it, Gurgeh. Think about what you can do for me, and what I can do to you."

The machine drew away from him again, retreating through the pouring rain. The cold drops splashed on top of its invisible globe of fields, and little rivulets of water ran round the transparent surface of that sphere to dribble underneath, falling in a steady stream into the grass. "I'll be in touch. Goodbye, Gurgeh," Mawhrin-Skel said.

The drone flicked away, tearing over the grass and into the sky in a grey cone of slipstream. Gurgeh lost sight of it within seconds.

He stood for a while, brushing sand and bits of grass from his sodden clothes, then turned to walk back in the direction he'd come from, through the falling rain and the beating wind.

He looked back, once, to gaze again upon the house where he'd grown up, but the squall, billowing round the low summits of the rolling dunes, had all but obscured the rambling chaotic structure.

"But Gurgeh, what is the problem?"

"I can't tell you!" He walked up to the rear wall of the main room of Chamlis's apartment, turned and paced back again, before going to stand by the window. He looked out over the square.

People walked, or sat at tables under the awnings and archways of the pale, green-stone galleries which lined the village's main square. Fountains played, birds flew from tree to tree, and on the tiled roof of the square's central bandstand/stage/holoscreen housing, a jet black tzile, almost the size of a full-grown human, lay sprawled, one leg hanging over the edge of the tiles. Its trunk, tail and ears all twitched as it dreamed; its rings and bracelets and earrings glinted in the sunlight. Even as Gurgeh watched, the creature's thin trunk articulated lazily, stretching back over its head to scratch indolently at the back of its neck, near its terminal collar. Then the black proboscis fell back as though exhausted, to swing to and fro for a few seconds. Laughter drifted up through the warm air from some nearby tables. A red-coloured dirigible floated over distant hills, like a vast blob of blood in the blue sky.

He turned back into the room again. Something about the square, the whole village, disgusted and angered him. Yay was right; it was all too safe and twee and ordinary. They might as well be on a planet. He walked over to where Chamlis floated, near the long fish-tank. Chamlis's aura was tinged with grey frustration. The old drone gave an exasperated shudder and picked up a little container of fish-food; the tank lid lifted and Chamlis sprinkled some of the food grains on to the top of the water; the glittering mirrorfish moved silkily up to the surface, mouths working rhythmically.

"Gurgeh," Chamlis said reasonably, "how can I help you if you won't tell me what's wrong?"

"Just tell me; is there any way you can find out more about what Contact wanted to talk about? Can I get in touch with them again? Without everybody else knowing? Or…" He shook his head, put his hands to his head. "No; I suppose people will know, but it doesn't matter…" He stopped at the wall, stood looking at the warm sandstone blocks between the paintings. The apartments had been built in an old-fashioned style; the pointing between the sandstone blocks was dark, inlaid with little white pearls. He gazed at the richly beaded lines and tried to think, tried to know what it was he could ask and what there was he could do.