"Ah, is that the affinity you feel?" Chamlis said coldly, aura to match. "I wondered what you saw in that appalling machine."

"Bitterness," Gurgeh said, sitting back again. "That's what I see in it. It has novelty value, at least." He got up and went to the fire, prodding at the logs with the wrought-iron poker and placing another piece of wood on, handling the log awkwardly with heavy tongs.

"This is not a heroic age," he told the drone, staring at the fire. "The individual is obsolete. That's why life is so comfortable for us all. We don't matter, so we're safe. No one person can have any real effect any more."

"Contact uses individuals," Chamlis pointed out. "It puts people into younger societies who have a dramatic and decisive effect on the fates of entire meta-civilisations. They're usually «mercenaries», not Culture, but they're human, they're people."

"They're selected and used. Like game-pieces. They don't count." Gurgeh sounded impatient. He left the tall fireplace, returned to the couch. "Besides, I'm not one of them."

"So have yourself stored until a more heroic age does arrive."

"Huh," Gurgeh said, sitting again. "If it ever does. It would seem too much like cheating, anyway."

The drone Chamlis Amalk-ney listened to the rain and the fire. "Well," it said slowly, "if it's novelty value you want, Contact — never mind SC — are the people to go to."

"I have no intention of applying to join Contact," Gurgeh said, coming back to the couch. "Being cooped up in a GCU with a bunch of gung-ho do-gooders searching for barbarians to teach is not my idea of either enjoyment or fulfilment."