Question about 'Look to Windward' (Spoilers)

[cosmicalstorm]

I just finished reading the Culture novel Look To Windward, there was one thing that left me confused.
This might be because English is not my first language or because I simply missed out on it when accidentally turning a page, but I couldnt understand what happened to the scholar Uagen Zlepe who resided in the behemotaur Yoleus.

From what I understod he accidentally discovered the plot to destroy Masaq when visiting a dying behemotaur and briefly talking to a culture agent in its interior, then he tried to leave the airsphere as fast as possible by boarding a craft with some kind of red colored beings who were somewhat primitve by Culture standards.
The next time he is mentioned after that it is only a P.O.V of him being brutally murdered by a Chelgrian...
(and then revived by the Yoleusineve a galactic turn later)

Did he actually manage to warn anyone in the Culture about the plot?
Or what was his purpose in the novel? Was he just an excuse to show how the interior of an airsphere worked?
(Im not saying that would be stupid, it was actually very interesting, but it had me confused.)

Im sorry if these are stupid questions, I had difficulty "following" his story as it was separated by several lengthy chapters, this might just be an attention problem of mine and nothing more.

[Vendetta]

Zlepe's story was one part Banksian digression into mad imagination, one part backstory to the plot, and one part giant red herring.

[andrewgpaul]

It was partly an excuse for the epilogue to show that the Culture aren't the biggest kids on the block.

[frogcurry]

I thought it was intended to be some sort of additional context for the main storyline and the themes in it.... hard to put it into words. It kind of fitted with the general sense of pre-determined inevitability of things, and insignificance, that came with the main storyline.

[Alerik the Fortunate]

Going along with the personal insignificance angle, it shows the scale of the Culture, and its general competence, in that they had multiple agents and were able to be warned despite the death of Zlepe. So it just put his little epic journey, death, and multi-million year resurrection into perspective. Plus it's a fun excuse to visit the dirigible behemothaurs during their mating pursuit of the fabulous gigalithine entity Buthulne. What else is needed?