Title:Matter
Author(s): Iain M. Banks
Publisher(s): Orbit
Pages: 624
Year: 2009
Format:MOBI
Language: English
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“When I was . . . with you, amongst you, on the Eighth – advising your father, Ferbin . . .” Hyrlis said, glancing to the prince but generally addressing both men, “I was employed – at the behest of the Nariscene – by the Culture, the mongrel pan-human and machine civilisation which is one of what you term the Optimae, those civilisations in the first rank of the unSublimed, non-elder groupings. I was an agent for the part of the Culture called Contact, which deals with . . . foreign affairs, you might say. Contact is charged with discovering and interacting with other civilisations which are not yet part of the galactic community. I was not then with the more rarefied intelligence and espionage part of Contact coyly called Special Circumstances, though I know that SC thought at the time the specific part of Contact I represented was, arguably, encroaching on their territory.” Hyrlis smiled thinly. “Even galaxy-spanning anarchist Utopias of stupefying full-spectrum civilisational power have turf wars within their unacknowledged militaries.”
Hyrlis sighed. “I did, later, become part of Special Circumstances, a decision I look back on now with more regret than pride.” His smile did, indeed, look sad. “When you leave the Culture – and people do, all the time – you are made aware of certain responsibilities you are deemed to have, should you venture into the kind of civilisation that Contact might be interested in.
“I was missioned to do what I did by Contact, which had modelled the situation on the Eighth exhaustively, so that, when I passed on some strategic plan to King Hausk, or suggested sabots and rifling to the royal armourers, it was with a very good and highly reliable idea of what the effects would be. In theory, a reasonably well-read Culture citizen could do the same with no control, no back-up and no idea what they were really doing. Or, worse, with a very good idea; they might want to be king, or emperor, or whatever, and their knowledge would give them a chance of succeeding.” Hyrlis waved one hand. “It’s an exaggerated concern, in my opinion; knowledge in the Culture is cheap beyond measuring, however the ruthlessness required to use that knowledge proficiently in a less forgiving society is almost unheard of.
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