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parapet.
'Oops,' came his muffled voice. Two of his younger children, sitting playing
three-
cups with a thoroughly mystified Styglian enumerator, went to the parapet and
dragged their drunken parent back over from the safety field. He tumbled on
to the terrace and staggered back to his seat, laughing.
Gurgeh sat between Professor Boruelal and one of his old flames; Vossle Chu,
the woman whose hobbies had in the past included iron-foundry. She had
crossed from
Rombree, on Chiark's farside from Gevant, to come and see Gurgeh off. There
were at least ten of his former lovers amongst the crowd squeezed around the
table. He wondered fuzzily what the significance might be that out of that
ten, six had chosen to change sex and become - and remain - men over the past
few years.
Gurgeh, along with everybody else, was getting drunk, as was traditional on
such occasions. Hafflis had promised that they would not do to Gurgeh what
they had done to a mutual friend a few years earlier; the young man had been
accepted into
Contact and Hafflis had held a party to celebrate. At the end of the evening
they'd stripped the fellow naked and thrown him over the parapet& but the
safety field had been turned off; the new Contact recruit had fallen nine
hundred metres - six hundred of them with empty bowels - before three of
Hafflis's pre-positioned house drones rose calmly out of the forest beneath to
catch him and take him back up.
The (Demilitarised) General Offensive Unit
Limiting Factor had arrived under Ikroh that afternoon. Gurgeh had gone down
to the transit gallery to inspect it. The craft was a third of a kilometre
long, very sleek and simple looking; a pointed nose, three long blisters like
vast aircraft cockpits leading to the nose, and another five fat blisters
circling the vessel's waist; its rear was blunt and flat. The ship had said
hello, told him it was there to take him to the GSV
Little Rascal
, and asked him if he had any special dietary requirements.
Boruelal slapped him on the back. 'We're going to miss you, Gurgeh.'
'Likewise,' Gurgeh said, swaying, and felt quite emotional. He wondered when
it would be time to throw the paper lanterns over the parapet to float down to
the rainforest. They'd turned the lights on behind the waterfall, all the way
down the cliff, and an inflatible dirigible, seemingly crewed largely by
game-fans, had
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Iain M. Banks - The Player of Games (1988) v1.0 : Scanned by HugHug anchored
above the plain level with Tronze, promising a firework display later. Gurgeh
had been quite touched by such shows of respect and affection.
'Gurgeh,' Chamlis said. He turned, still holding his glass, to look at the
old machine. It put a small package into his hand. 'A present,' it said.
Gurgeh looked at the small parcel; paper tied up with ribbon. 'Just an old
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
tradition,' Chamlis explained. 'You open it when you're under way.'
'Thank you,' Gurgeh said, nodding slowly. He put the present into his jacket,
then did something he rarely did with drones, and hugged the old machine,
putting his arms round its aura fields. 'Thank you, very very much.'
The night darkened; a brief shower almost extinguished the coals in the centre
of the table, but Hafflis got supply drones to bring crates of spirits and
they all had fun squirting the drink on to the coals to keep them alight in
pools of blue flame which burned down half the paper lanterns and scorched the
nightflower vines and made many holes in clothes and singed the Styglian
enumerator's pelt. Lightning flashed in the mountains above the lake, the
falls glowed, backlit and fabulous, and the dirigible's fireworks drew
applause and answering fireworks and cloud-lasers from all over Tronze.
Gurgeh was dumped naked into the lake, but hauled out spluttering by Hafflis's
children. He woke up in Boruelal's bed, at the university, a little after
dawn. He sneaked away early.
He looked around the room. Early morning sunlight flooded the landscape
outside
Ikroh and lanced through the lounge, streaming in from the fjord-side windows,
across the room and out through the windows opening on to the uphill lawns.
Birds filled the cool, still air with song.
There was nothing else to take, nothing more to pack. He'd sent the house
drones down with a chest of clothes the night before, but now wondered why
he'd bothered; he wouldn't need many changes on the warship, and when they got
to the GSV he could order anything he wanted. He'd packed a few personal
ornaments, and had the house copy his stock of still and moving pictures to
the
Limiting Factor's memory. The last thing he'd done was burn the letter he'd
written to leave with Boruelal, and stir the ashes in the fireplace until they
were fine as dust. Nothing more remained.
'Ready?' Worthil said.
'Yes,' he said. His head was clear and no longer sore, but he felt tired, and
knew
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Iain M. Banks - The Player of Games (1988) v1.0 : Scanned by HugHug he'd sleep
well that night. 'Is it here yet?'
'On its way.'
They were waiting for Mawhrin-Skel. It had been told its appeal had been re-
opened; as a favour to Gurgeh, it was likely to be given a role in Special
Circumstances. It had acknowledged, but not appeared. It would meet them
when
Gurgeh left.
Gurgeh sat down to wait.
A few minutes before he was due to leave, the tiny drone appeared, floating
down the chimney to hover over the empty fire grate.
'Mawhrin-Skel,' Worthil said. 'Just in time.'
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