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Iain M. Banks - Use of Weapons
'They want other people to be like them, Cheradenine. They don't terraform, so
they don't want others to either. There are arguments for it as well, you
know;
increasing species diversity often seems more important to people than
preserving a wilder-ness, even without the provision of extra living space.
The Culture believes profoundly in machine sentience, so it thinks everybody
ought to, but I think it also believes every civilis-ation should be run by
its machines. Fewer people want that.
The issue of cross-species tolerance is, I'll grant, of a different nature,
but even there the Culture can sometimes appear to be insistent that
deliberate inter-mixing is not just permissible but desirable; almost a duty.
Again, who is to say that is correct?'
'So you should have a war to... what? Clear the air?' He inspected the suit
helmet.
'No, Cheradenine, I'm just trying to suggest to you that the Culture may not
be as objective as it thinks it is, and, that being the case, its estimation
concerning the likelihood of war may be equally untrustworthy.'
'There are small wars on a dozen planets right now, Tsoldrin. People are
talking war in public; either about how to avoid it, or how it might be
limited, or how it can't possibly happen... but it's coming; you can smell it.
You should catch the newscasts, Tsoldrin. Then you'd know.'
'Well then, perhaps war is inevitable,' Beychae said, looking away over the
wooded plains and hills beyond the observatory. 'Maybe it's just... time.'
'Crap,' he said. Beychae looked at him, surprised. 'There's a saying: "War is
a long cliff." You can avoid the cliff completely, you can walk along the top
for as long as you have the nerve, you can even choose to leap off, and if you
only fall a short way before you hit a ledge you can always scramble back up
again. Unless you're just plain invaded, there are always choices, and even
then, there's usually something you've missed - a choice you didn't make -
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that could have avoided invasion in the first place. You people still have
your choices. There's nothing inevitable about it.'
'Zakalwe,' Beychae said. 'You surprise me. I'd have thought you -'
'You'd have thought I'd be in favour of war?' he said, standing, a sad small
smile on his lips. He put one hand on the other man's shoulder. 'You've had
your nose buried in books for too long, Tsoldrin.' He walked away past the
stone instru-ments.
Beychae looked down at the suit helmet, lying on the flagstones. He followed
the other man.
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Iain M. Banks - Use of Weapons
'You're right, Zakalwe. I have been out of the flow of things for a long time.
I
probably don't know who half the people in power are these days, or exactly
what the issues are, or the precise balance of the various alliances... so the
Culture cannot be so... desperate they think I can alter whatever's going to
happen. Can they?'
He turned round. He looked into Beychae's face. 'Tsoldrin, the truth is I
don't know.
Don't think I haven't thought about this. It might be just that you, as a
symbol, really,.would make all the difference, and maybe everybody is
desperate to find an excuse not to have to fight; you could be that excuse if
you come along, uncontaminated by recent events, as though from the dead, and
provide a face-
saving compromise.
'Or maybe the Culture secretly thinks a small short war is a good idea, or
even knows there's nothing it can do to stop a full-scale one, but has to be
seen to be doing something, no matter how long a shot it might be, so that
people can't say later "Why didn't you try this
?"' He shrugged. 'I never try to second-guess the
Culture, Tsoldrin, let alone Contact, and certainly not Special
Circumstances.'
'You just do their bidding.'
'And get well paid for it.'
'But you see yourself on the side of good, do you, Cherade-nine?'
He smiled and sat on the stone plinth, legs swinging. 'I have no idea whether
they're the good guys or not, Tsoldrin. They certainly seem to be, but then
who knows that seeming is being?' He frowned, looked away. 'I have never seen
them be cruel, even when they might have claimed they had an excuse to be so.
It can make them seem cold, sometimes.' He shrugged again. 'But there are
folks that'll tell you it's the bad gods that always have the most beautiful
faces and the softest voices. Shit,' he said, and jumped off the stone table.
He went to stand by the balustrade which marked one edge of the old
observa-tory, looking to where the sky was starting to redden above the
horizon. It would be dark in an hour. 'They keep their promises and they pay
top rates. They make good employers, Tsoldrin.'
'That does not mean we ought to let them decide our fate.'
'You'd rather let those decadent dickheads in Governance do it instead?'
'At least they're involved
, Zakalwe; it isn't just a game to them.'
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Iain M. Banks - Use of Weapons
'Oh, I think it is. I think that's exactly what it is to them. The difference
is that unlike the Culture's Minds, they don't know enough to take games
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seriously.' He took a deep breath and watched the wind stir the branches
beneath them; leaves fell away. 'Tsoldrin; don't say you're on their side.'
'The sides were always strange,' Beychae said. 'We all said that all we wanted
was the best for the Cluster, and I think we all meant it, mostly. We all
still want that.
But I don't know what the right thing to do is; I sometimes think I know too
much, I've studied too much, learned too much, remembered too much. It all
seems to average out, somehow; like dust that settles over... whatever
machinery we carry inside us that leads us to act, and puts the same weight
everywhere, so that always you can see good and bad on each side, and always
there are arguments, precedents for every possible course of action... so of
course one ends up doing nothing. Perhaps that's only right; perhaps that's [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]