"I see," the clerk said, eyes fixed on the money. "Well, if sir would like to fill in this form…"

"Thank you. Also, I'll want an elevator for my personal use, and access to the roof. I expect a pass key will be the best solution."

"Aah. Indeed. I see. Excuse me just a moment, sir." The clerk went off to get the manager.

He negotiated a bulk discount for the two floors, then agreed a fee for the use of the lift and the roof that brought the deal back to what it had been in the first place. He just liked haggling.

"And sir's name?"

"I'm called Staberinde," he said.

He chose a suite on the top floor, on a corner which looked out into the great depth of canyon city. He unlocked all the cupboards and closets and doors, window shutters, balcony covers and drug cabinets, and left everything open. He tested the bath in the suite; the water ran hot. He took a couple of small chairs out of the bedroom, and another set of four from the lounge, and put them in another suite alongside. He turned all the lights on, looking at everything.

He looked at patterns of coverings and curtains and hangings and carpets, at the murals and paintings on the walls, and at the design of the furniture. He rang for some food to be delivered, and when it came, on a small trolley, he pushed the trolley in front of him from room to room, eating on the move while he wandered through the quiet spaces of the hotel, gazing all about, and occasionally looking at a tiny sensor which was supposed to tell him if there were any surveillance devices around. There weren't.

He paused at a window, looking out, and rubbed absently at a small puckered mark on his chest that was not there any more.

"Zakalwe?" said a tiny voice from his breast. He looked down, took a thing like a bead out of a shirt pocket. He clipped it to one ear, taking off his dark glasses and putting them in the pocket instead.

"Hello."

"It's me; Diziet. You all right?"

"Yeah. I found a place to stay."

"Great. Listen; we've found something. It's perfect!"

"What?" he said, smiling at the excitement in Sma's voice. He pressed a button to close the curtains.

"Three thousand years ago here there was a guy who became a famous poet; wrote on wax tablets set in wooden frames. He did a group of one hundred short poems he always maintained were the best things he ever wrote. But he couldn't get them published, and he decided to become a sculptor instead; he melted the wax from ninety-eight of the tablets — keeping numbers one and one hundred — to carve a wax model, made a sand mould around it, and cast a bronze figure which still exists."

"Sma, is this leading anywhere?" he said, pressing another button to open the curtains again. He rather liked the way they swished.

"Wait! When we first found Voerenhutz and did the standard total scan of each planet, we naturally took a holo of the bronze statue; found some traces of the original casting sand and the wax in a cranny.

"And it wasn't the right wax!

"It didn't match the two surviving tablets! So the GCU waited till it had finished the total scan and then did some detective work. The guy who did the bronze, and who had done the poems, later became a monk, and ended up an abbot of a monastery. There was one building added while he was head man; legend has it he used to go there and contemplate the vanished ninety-eight poems. The building has a double wall." Sma's voice rose triumphantly; "Guess what's in the cavity!"

"Walled-in disobedient monks?"

"The poems! The waxes!" Sma yelled. Then her voice dropped a little. "Well, most of them. The monastery was abandoned a couple of hundred years ago, and it looks like some shepherd lit a fire against a wall sometime and melted three or four of them… but the rest are there!"

"Is that good?"

"Zakalwe; they're one of the great lost literary treasures of the planet! The university of Jarnsaromol, where your pal Beychae's hanging out, has most of the guy's parchment manuscripts, the other two tablets and the famous bronze. They'd give anything to get their hands on those tablets! Don't you see? It's perfect!"

"Sounds all right, I suppose."

"Damn you, Zakalwe! Is that all you can say?"

"Dizzy, luck this good never lasts long; it'll average out."

"Don't be so pessimistic, Zakalwe."

"Okay, I won't," he sighed, closing the curtains again.

There was a noise of exasperation from Diziet Sma. "Well; I just thought I'd tell you. We'll be going soon. Sleep well."

The channel beeped closed. He smiled ruefully. He left the little terminal where it was, like an earring.

He gave orders he was not to be disturbed, and as the night deepened, he turned all the heating up full and opened all the windows. He spent some time testing the balconies and drainage pipes around the outer walls; he climbed nearly to the ground and all the way round the facade as he tested ledges and pipes and sills and cornices for their strength. He saw lights in less than a dozen other guest rooms. When he was satisfied he knew the outside of the hotel, he returned to his floor.

He leant on the balcony, a smoky bowl cradled in his hand. Occasionally he lifted the bowl to his face and inhaled deeply; the rest of the time he looked out over the sparkling city, whistling.

Watching the light-speckled view, he thought while most cities looked like canvases, spread flat and thin, Solotol was like a half-open book; a rippling sculptured V sinking deep into the planet's geological past. Above, the clouds over the canyon and the desert glowed with orange-red light, reflecting the channelled flare of the city.

He imagined that from the other side of the city, the hotel must look rather strange, with its topmost floor fully lit, the others practically black.

He supposed he had forgotten how different the setting of the canyon made the city, compared to others. Still, this too is similar, he thought. All is similar.

He had been to so many different places and seen so much the same and so much utterly different that he was amazed by both phenomena… but it was true; this city was not so different from many others he'd known.

Everywhere they found themselves, the galaxy bubbled with life and its basic foods kept on speaking back to it, just like he'd told Shias Engin (and, thinking of her, felt again the texture of her skin and the sound of her voice). Still, he suspected if the Culture had really wanted to, it could have found far more spectacularly different and exotic places for him to visit. Their excuse was that he was a limited creature, adapted to certain sorts of planets and societies and types of warfare. A martial niche, Sma had called it.

He smiled a little grimly, and took another deep breath from the drug bowl.

The man walked past empty arcades and deserted flights of steps. He wore an old raincoat of a style unknown but still somehow old-fashioned looking; he wore very dark glasses. His walk was economical. He appeared to have no mannerisms.

He entered the courtyard of a large hotel which contrived to look expensive and slightly run-down at the same time. Dully-dressed gardeners, raking leaves from the surface of an old swimming pool, stared at the man as though he had no right to be there.

Men were painting the interior of the porch outside the lobby, and he had to work his way round them to get in. The painters were using specially inferior paint made to very old recipes; it was guaranteed to fade and crack and peel in a most authentic manner within a year or two.

The foyer was rich with decoration. The man pulled a thick purple rope near one corner of the reception desk. The clerk appeared, smiling.

"Good morning, Mr Staberinde. A pleasant walk?"