Consider Phlebas

And there's something else… another noise…

The train was a long, articulated shell in some gigantic gun; a metal scream in a vast throat. It rammed through the tu

Dust lifted from the platform, made clouds in the air. An empty drink container rolled off the pallet where Aviger had been sitting and clattered to the floor; it started rolling along the platform, towards the nose of the train, hitting off the wall a couple of times. Xoxarle saw it. The wind tugged at him, the wires parted. He got one leg free, then another. His other arm was out, and the last wires fell away.

A piece of plastic sheeting lifted from the pallet like some black, flat bird and flopped onto the platform, sliding after the metal container, now halfway down the station. Xoxarle stooped quickly, caught Aviger round the waist and, with the man held easily in one arm and the laser in his other hand, ran back, down the platform, towards the wall beside the blocked tu

"… or lock them both away down here instead. You know we can…" Yalson said.

We're close, Horza thought, nodding absently at Yalson, not listening as she told him why he needed her to help him look for the Mind. We're close, I'm sure we are; I can feel it; we're almost there. Somehow we've — I've — held it all together. But it's not over yet, and it only takes one tiny error, one oversight, a single mistake, and that's it: fuck-up, failure, death. So far we've done it, despite the mistakes, but it's so easy to miss something, to fail to spot some tiny detail in the mass of data which later when you've forgotten all about it, when your back is turned — creeps up and clobbers you. The secret was to think of everything, or — because maybe the Culture was right, and only a machine could literally do that — just to be so in tune with what was going on that you thought automatically of all the important and potentially important things, and ignored the rest.

With something of a shock, Horza realised that his own obsessive drive never to make a mistake, always to think of everything, was not so unlike the fetishistic urge which he so despised in the Culture: that need to make everything fair and equal, to take the chance out of life. He smiled to himself at the irony and glanced over at Balveda, sitting watching Wubslin experimenting with some controls.

Coming to resemble your enemies, Horza thought; maybe there's something in it, after all-

"… Horza, are you listening to me?" Yalson said.

"Hmm? Yes, of course," he smiled.

Balveda frowned, while Horza and Yalson talked on, and Wubslin poked and prodded at the train's controls. For some reason, she was starting to feel uneasy.

Outside the front carriage, beyond Balveda's field of view, a small container rolled along the platform and into the wall alongside the tu

Xoxarle ran to the rear of the station. By the entrance to the foot tu

Balveda got down from the seat, folding her arms, and walked slowly across the control deck towards the side windows, staring intently at the floor, wondering why she felt uneasy.

The wind howled through the gap between the tu

The drone stopped in mid-cut. Two things occurred to it: one, that dammit there was a fu

But wouldn't there be a visual warning, too?

Balveda turned at the side window, without looking out properly. She sat against the console there, looking back.

"… on how serious you still are about looking for this damn thing," Yalson was saying to Horza.

"Don't worry," the Changer said, nodding at Yalson, "I'll find it."

Balveda turned round, looked at the station outside.

Just then, Yalson and Wubslin's helmets both came alive with the urgent voice of the drone. Balveda was distracted by a piece of black material, which was sliding quickly along the floor of the station. Her eyes widened. Her mouth opened.

The gale became a hurricane. A distant noise, like a great avalanche heard from far away, came from the tu

Then, up the long final straight which led into station seven from station six, light appeared at the end of the tu

Xoxarle could not see the light, but he could hear the noise; he brought the gun up and aimed along the side of the stationary train. The stupid humans must realise soon.

The steel rails began to whine.

The drone backed quickly out of the conduit. It threw the cut, discarded lengths of cable against the walls. "Yalson! Horza!" it shouted at them through its communicator. It dashed along the short length of narrow tu

There, in the crawlway, it could feel and hear the rush of air coursing through and around the train.

"There's a gale blowing out there!" Balveda said quickly, as soon as the drone's voice stopped. Wubslin lifted his helmet from the console. Where it had lain, a small orange light was flashing. Horza stared at it. Balveda looked up at the platform. Clouds of dust blew along the station floor. Light equipment was being blown off the pallet, opposite the rear access gantry. "Horza," Balveda said quietly, "I can't see Xoxarle, or Aviger."

Yalson was on her feet. Horza glanced over at the side window, then back at the light, winking on the console. "It's an alarm!" the drone's voice shouted from the two helmets. "I can hear it!"

Horza picked up his rifle, grabbed the edge of Yalson's helmet while she held it and said, "It's a train, drone; that's the collision alarm. Get off the train now." He let go of the helmet, which Yalson quickly shoved over her head and locked. Horza gestured towards the door. "Move!" he said loudly, glancing round at Yalson, Balveda and Wubslin, who was still sitting holding the helmet he had removed from the console.

Balveda headed for the door. Yalson was just behind her. Horza started forward, then turned as he went, looked back at Wubslin, who was setting his helmet down on the floor and turning back to the controls. "Wubslin!" he yelled. "Move!"