Excession

Genar-Hofoen nodded as the drink warmed its way down his throat to his stomach. He coughed, which had the effect of making the gelfield ball out round his mouth like silvery chewing gum for a moment — something which he knew Fivetide thought was the second fu

"I'll pass them on," Fivetide said, crushing his drinking bulb and flicking it casually at a passing servant. "Come now," he said, taking the human by the hand again. "Let's to table; my stomach's as empty as a coward's bowels before battle."

"No no no, you have to flick it, like this, you stupid human, or the scratchounds'll get it. Watch…"

Affronter formal di

In the old days, at banquets held by the military and within the higher reaches of Affront society, contests between groups of captured aliens had been a particular and reasonably regular highlight, despite the fact that mounting such fights was often hideously expensive and fraught with technical complications due to the different chemistries and pressures involved. (Not to mention frequently presenting a very real danger to the observing di

Still, on really special occasions these days the fights would be between two Affronters with a dispute of a suitably dishonourable nature, or between criminals. Such contests usually required that the protagonists be hobbled, tied together, and armed with sliver-knives scarcely more substantial than hat pins, thus ensuring that the fights didn't end too quickly. Genar-Hofoen had never been invited to one of those and didn't expect he ever would be; it wasn't the sort of thing one let an alien witness, and besides, the competition for seats was scarcely less ferocious than the spectacle everyone desired to witness.

For this di

The second course was of small edible animals which to Genar-Hofoen appeared furry and arguably even cute. They raced round a trench-track set into the top of the pit at the i

Scratchounds made up the main course, and while two sets of the animals — each about the size of a corpulent human but eight-limbed — slashed and tore at each other with razor-sharp prosthetic jaw implants and strap-claws, diced scratchound was served on huge trenchers of compacted vegetable matter. The Affronters considered this the highlight of the whole banquet; one was finally allowed to use one's miniature harpoon — quite the most impressive-looking utensil in each place setting — to impale chunks of meat from the trenchers of one's fellow diners and — with the skilful flick of the attached cable which Fivetide was now trying to teach the human — transfer it to one's own trencher, beak or tentacle without losing it to the scratchounds in the pit, having it intercepted by another di

"The beauty of it is," Fivetide said, throwing his harpoon at the trencher of an Admiral distracted by a failed harpoon strike of his own, "that the clearest target is the one furthest away." He grunted and flicked, snapping the piece of speared scratchound up and away from the other Affronter's place an instant before the officer to the Admiral's right could intercept the prize. The morsel sailed through the air in an elegant trajectory that ended with Fivetide barely having to rise from his place to snap his beak shut on it. He swivelled left and right, acknowledging appreciative applause in the form of whip-snapped tentacles, then settled back into the padded Y-shaped bracket that served as a seat. "You see?" he said, making an obvious swallowing motion and spitting out the harpoon and its cable.

"I see," Genar-Hofoen said, still slowly re-coiling the harpoon cable from his last attempt. He sat to Fivetide's right in a Y-bracket place modified simply by placing a board across its prongs. His feet dangled over the debris trench which circled the perimeter of the table, and which the suit assured him was reeking in the ma

Genar-Hofoen acknowledged the laughter and exaggerated apologies from the Affronter officer five along the table who had been aiming at Fivetide's plate, and politely gathered up the harpoon and cable and passed it back. He returned to picking at the miniature pieces of indifferent food in the pressurised containers in front of him, transferring them to his mouth with a gelfield utensil shaped like a little four-fingered hand, his legs swinging over the debris trench. He felt like a child dining with adults.

"Nearly got you there, eh, human? Ha ha ha!" roared the Diplomatic Force colonel his other side from Fivetide. He slapped Genar-Hofoen on the back with a tentacle and threw him half off the seat and onto the table. "Oops!" the colonel said, and jerked Genar-Hofoen back with a teeth-rattling wrench.

Genar-Hofoen smiled politely and picked his sunglasses off the table. The Diplomatic Force colonel went by the name of Quicktemper. It was the sort of title which the Culture found depressingly common amongst Affronter diplomats.

Fivetide had explained the problem was that certain sections of the Affront Old Guard were slightly ashamed their civilisation had a Diplomatic service at all and so tried to compensate for what they were worried might look to other species suspiciously like a symptom of weakness by ensuring that only the most aggressive and xenophobic Affronters became diplomats, to forestall anybody forming the dangerously preposterous idea the Affront were going soft.

"Go on, man! Have another throw! Just because you can't eat the damn stuff, you shouldn't let that keep you from joining in the fun!"

A harpoon thrown from the far side of the table sailed over the pit towards Fivetide's trencher. The Affronter intercepted it deftly and threw it back, laughing uproariously. The harpoon's owner ducked just in time and a passing drinks waiter got it in the sac with a yelp and a hiss of escaping gas.