GSV Bora Horza Gobuchul

The Range-class General Systems Vehicle (GSV) Bora Horza Gobuchul was introduced in the first chapter of the Culture novel Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks as the unnamed Mind of a mongrel ship built in haste by a Culture factory vessel to facilite its escape from enemy attack. It fails to evade the hostile Idiran fleet but manages to avoid capture by detonating its stock of warheads as a diversion whilst it transcends hyperspace to within the planetary surface of a nearby planet.

The Mind has taken refuge on Shar's World, a Dra'Azon Planet of the Dead. These are nominally forbidden to both the Culture and the Idirans - the Mind was only allowed safe passage as it was in distress, whilst the pursuing Idiran Chuy-Hirtsi warp animal that tried to follow it was effectively shot down by the Dra'Azon. Bora Horza Gobuchul, a mercenary capable of altering his appearance at will (a Changer), is assigned the task of retrieving the dispossessed Culture Mind by his Idiran handlers. There is a Changer base on the planet where Horza was previously stationed, making him one of the few individuals in the galaxy the Dra'Azon will tolerate entering the Quiet Barrier that surrounds the system.

The Mind is tracked to an underground system of tunnels called the Command System by Horza and his accompanying band of mercenaries from the Clear Air Turbulance. Also with them is a captured Culture Special Circumstances agent, Perosteck Balveda. During a firefight with the surviving Idiran's from the shot down warp animal, most of protaginists are killed, but Balveda manages to escape in the CAT with the damaged Mind. Having remembered nothing between its warp into the tunnels and it's repair and refit onboard the GSV No More Mr Nice Guy it takes the name of the dead Changer and is installed into an Ocean class GSV. It was later replaced into a Range class GSV.