Gestra Ishmethit was a Culture citizen. Strange by Culture standards, he craved loneliness and hated contact with people. For the first fifty years of his life, he tried various alternative lifestyles, such as becoming female, or living in a virtual reality simulation as a merman, or moving to a very different orbital, but was never more content than when he was alone. While his mind could easily be altered to give him a more conventional personality, he refused treatment and valued his unique nature.
For this reason, he had been on Pittance alone for the last 150 years at the time of the Esperi Excession, content with no company and no responsibilities. He spent his time growing wood and manufacturing tools, which he in turn used to build scale models of sailing ships.
He was unceremoniously killed by the Affront during the attack on Pittance, but his mind-state was rescued before death by the Attitude Adjuster, salvaged again by the Killing Time during that ship's destruction, and passed on to the Sleeper Service, where he was revented in a new body and resumed his hobby and solitude, traveling to the Leo II galaxy with the other three passengers of that ship.