Matter

by Iain M. Banks

  “Me too, for all it may be worth, sirs,” Neguste said, looking from one man to another. A gust of wind threatened to pull him off his feet.

  “Neguste,” Oramen said, “put that contraption down before you get blown off the damn building. The spray’s mostly coming upwards anyway; it’s no use.”

  “Right-oh, sir,” Neguste said, collapsing and furling the umbrella. “Have you heard of all the strange occurrences, sir?” he asked Droffo.

  “What strange occurrences?” the earl asked.

  Neguste leaned towards him. “Great sea monsters moving in the waters upstream from the Falls, sirs, upsetting boats and tearing up anchors. Others seen downstream, too, moving where no boat could ever go. Spirits and ghosts and strange appearances and people being found frozen into stone or turned to no more dust than you could hold in the palm of one hand, sir, and others losing their minds so that they don’t recognise nobody who is even their nearest and dearest and just wander the ruins until they step off an edge, or people who see something in the ruins and excavations that makes them walk to the nearest electric light and stare into it until their eyes go blind, or stick their hands in to touch the spark and die all jerky, smoking and flaming.”

  Oramen had heard all this. He might, he realised, have contributed a strange occurrence of his own.

  Just ten hours earlier he’d been woken from the middle of his sleep by a strange, insistent little noise. He’d turned the cover on the candle-lamp and looked round the carriage in the newly increased light, trying to trace the source of the trilling sound. He hadn’t heard any noise quite like it before. It sounded like some curious, metallic bird call.

  He noticed a soft green light blinking on and off, not in the sleeping compartment itself but through the ajar door into the carriage’s study and reception chamber. Xessice, the girl he’d favoured most since he’d been here in the Settlement, stirred but did not wake. He slipped out of bed, shucking on a robe and taking his gun from underneath the head bolster.

  The light and the sound were coming from a delicately ornate and beautifully turned World model sitting on the desk in the study. It was one of the few ornaments Oramen had kept from when the carriage had belonged to the Archipontine; he had admired it for its exquisitely executed fashioning and been almost physically unable to throw the thing out, even though he suspected it was in some sense a foreign religious artifact and therefore not wholly suitable for a good WorldGod-respecting Sarlian to possess.

  Now the object was emitting this strange, alien-sounding warble, and a green light was pulsing from its interior. It had changed, too; it had been reconfigured, or it had reconfigured itself so that the half-open cut-away parts of each of the shells had aligned, creating a sort of spiky hemisphere with the green light pulsing at its heart. He looked round the study – the green light gave quite sufficient illumination for him to see by – then quietly closed the door to the sleeping chamber and sat down on the seat in front of the desk. He was thinking about prodding the green central light with the barrel of the gun when the light blinked off and was replaced by a soft circle of gently changing colours which he took to be some sort of screen. He’d sat back when this had happened; he leant tentatively forward again and a soft, androgynous voice said,

  “Hello? To whom do I speak? Are you Sarl, yes? Prince Oramen, I am warned, is so?”

  “Who is talking?” Oramen answered. “Who wishes to know?”

  “A friend. Or, with more accuracy, one who would be friend, if so was allowed.”

  “I have known many friends. Not all were as they might have seemed.”

  “Which of us is? We are all mistaken against. There are so many barriers about us. We are too separated. I seek to remove some of those barriers.”

  “If you would be my friend it might help to know your name. From your voice I am not even sure you are male.”

  “Call me Friend, then. My own identity is complicated and would only confuse. You are the prince of Sarl called Oramen, are you?”

  “Call me Listener,” Oramen suggested. “Titles, names; they can mislead, as we seem already to have agreed.”

  “I see. Well, Listener, I express my fine good wishes and utmost benevolence to you, in hope of understanding and mutual interest. These things, please accept.”

  Oramen filled the pause. “Thank you. I appreciate your good wishes.”

  “Now, that clarified, our anchor embedded, as it were, I would talk with you to give you a warning.”

  “Would you now?”

  “I would. In this, I do; there is caution needed in the burrowings you make.”

  “The burrowings?” Oramen asked, frowning at the softly glowing screen. The colours continued to shift and change.

  “Yes, your excavatory workings in the great city. These must be approached with caution. Humbly, we’d petition to be allowed to advise on such. Not all that is hidden from you is so hidden from us.”

  “I think too much is hidden here. Who would you be? What ‘us’ do we talk about? If you would advise us, begin by advising who you might be.”

  “Those who would be your friends, Listener,” the asexual voice said smoothly. “I approach you because we believe you are untrammelled. You, Listener, are believed to be capable of ploughing your own course, unrestricted to the furrows of others. You have freedom to move, to turn about from incorrect beliefs and unfortunate slanders directed against those who would only help, not hinder. They mislead themselves who accept the traducement of others by those who have only their own narrowed interests at heart. Sometimes those who seem most funnelled are most free, and those who are most—”

  “Hold there, let me guess; you are from the Oct, are you not?”

  “Ha!” the voice said, then there was a pause. “That would be mistaken, good Listener. You doubtless think I am of that kind because it might appear that I seek to deceive you. This is an understandable mistake, but a mistake nevertheless. Oh, their lies go deep, to the core, they are most fastly tunnelled. We have much to untangle here.”

  “Show your face, creature,” Oramen said. He was becoming more and more sure of the kind of being he was talking to here.

  “Sometimes we must prepare ourselves for important meetings. Ways must be smoothed, gradients negotiated. A blunt, front-on approach might suffer rebuff while a more curved and gentle path, though seeming less honestly direct, will break through finally to success and mutual understanding and reward.”

  “Show your face, being,” Oramen said, “or I’ll think you a monster that dares not.”

  “There are so many levels of translation, Listener. Are we really to say that a face is required to be a moral creature? Must goodness or evil be configured about eating-parts? Is this a rule that persists throughout the great emptiness surrounding us? Many are the—”

  “Tell me now who you are or I swear I’ll put a bullet straight through this device.”

  “Listener! I swear too; I am your Friend. We are! We seek only to warn you of the dangers—”

  “Deny you are Aultridia!” Oramen said, jumping up from the chair.

  “Why would any deny being one of that misunderstood, maligned race? So cruelly slandered—”

  Oramen pointed the gun at the World model, then put it up again. The shot would terrify Xessice and doubtless bring Neguste hurtling through from his quarters, tripping over himself, and probably wake or galvanise any nearby guards.

  “. . . by those who theft our very purpose! Listener! Prince! Do no violence! I beg you! This prefigures what we wish to warn you about, talismans our worries that—”

  He clicked the safety catch, held the gun by the barrel and brought the butt whacking down on the exposed centre of the World model. It crumpled and shot sparks; some tiny pieces flew skittering across the surface of the desk, though still the cloudy screen pulsed with slow strange colours and the voice, though weakened now, warbled on, incomprehensible. He hit it hard again. It seemed wrong to strike a model of any Shellworld, wrong to
destroy something so beautiful, but not as wrong as allowing himself to be talked to by an Aultridian. He shivered at the very thought and slammed the gun down again on the still glowing World model. A blaze of tiny sparks and a puff of smoke and it was finally silent and dark. He waited for Xessice or Neguste to appear, or make some noise, but neither did. After a few moments he lit a candle then found a bin, pushed the smashed World model into it and poured a jug of water over the remains.

  He went back to bed beside the gently snoring Xessice. He lay awake unsleeping, waiting until it was time for breakfast, staring into the darkness. By God, they had been proved even more right to have smashed the Deldeyn. And he no longer wondered at the mass suicide of the brethren, sending themselves over the Falls. There were rumours in the Settlement that it had not been suicide; some people even spoke of a few surviving monks who’d been washed up far downstream with tales of treachery and murder. He had started to doubt tyl Loesp’s account of mass suicide, but he doubted it no longer.

  The wonder was that the wretches had lived with themselves at all rather than that they had chosen death, if this was what they had buried in their conscience all the time. An alliance with the Aultridia! Contact with them at the very least. With the foulness that conspired against the WorldGod itself! He wondered what conspiracies, lies and secrets had passed between the Archipontine of the Hyeng-zharia Mission and whatever Aultridian master had been on the other end of the communication channel that ended at the World model he had just destroyed.

  Had that hideous race even directed matters here at the Falls? The monks of the Mission had controlled the workings, supervised and licensed all the excavations and largely policed them; certainly they had kept a tight hand upon the main, official excavations. Had the Mission been in effect controlled by the Aultridia? Well, they were in control no longer, and would remain so disempowered as long as he had any sort of say in matters. He wondered who to tell about what had passed between him and the nameless – and no doubt faceless – Aultridian he had spoken to. The very thought turned his stomach. Should he tell Poatas, or General Foise? Poatas would probably find a way to blame Oramen for what had happened; he’d be horrified he’d broken the communication device. Oramen doubted General Foise would even understand.

  He’d tell nobody, not for now.

  He considered taking the World model to the cliff above the gorge and throwing it in, but was concerned that it would just be dredged up again by some collector. In the end he had Neguste carry the thing to the nearest foundry and had them melt it down while he watched. The foundrymen were amazed at the temperatures required to slag it, and even then there was still some unmelted debris left, both floating above the resulting liquid and sunk to its base. Oramen ordered the whole split into a dozen different ingots and delivered to him as soon as they’d cooled.

  That morning, on his way to watch the demise of the blade-building, he’d thrown some into the gorge. He consigned the rest to latrines.

  “Well, it all sounds most unpleasant,” Droffo said. He shook his head. “You hear all sorts of ridiculous stories; the workers are full of them. Too much drink, too little learning.”

  “No, more than that, sir,” Neguste told him. “These are facts.”

  “I think I might dispute that,” Droffo said.

  “All the same, sir, facts is facts. That itself’s a fact.”

  “Well, let’s go and see for ourselves, shall we?” Oramen said, looking round at the other two. “Tomorrow. We’ll take the narrow-gauge and cableways and britches boys or whatever we need to take and we’ll go and have a look under the great ghostly, spooky plaza. Yes? Tomorrow. We’ll do it then.”

  “Well,” Droffo said, looking up into the sky again. “If you feel you have to, prince; however—”

  “Begging pardon, sir,” Neguste said, nodding behind Oramen. “Building’s falling over.”

  “What?” Oramen said, turning back again.

  The great blade of a building was indeed falling. It pivoted, turning fractionally towards them, still moving slowly at first, whirling gradually through the air, the edge of its summit parting the mists and clouds of spray and making them whorl around its surfaces and sharpnesses as it leant diagonally away from the plaza and the main face of the waterfall behind, picking up speed and turning further like a man starting to fall on his face but then twisting to lead with one shoulder. One long edge came down, hitting the spray and the sandbanks beneath like a blade chopping through a child’s dam on a beach, the rest of the building following on to it, parts finally starting to crumple as the whole structure slammed into the waves, raising enormous pale fans of muddy water to half the height of their own vantage point.

  Finally, some sound arrived; a terrible creaking, tearing, screaming noise that forced its way out of the encompassing roar of the Falls, topped with a great extra rumble that pulsed through the air, seemed to shake the building beneath their feet and briefly outbellowed the voice of the Hyeng-zhar itself. The poised, half-collapsed building fell over one last time, settling from its side on to its back, collapsing into the chaotic waste of piling waves with another great surge of foaming, outrushing waters.

  Oramen watched, fascinated. Immediately the first shocked pulse of waves fell washing back from the heights around the impact site the waters began to rearrange themselves to accommodate the new obstruction, piling up behind the shattered hulk of the fallen building and surging round its edges while foam-creamed waves went dancing backwards, slapping into others still falling forwards, their combined shapes climbing and bursting as though in some wild celebration of destruction. Nearby sand bars that had been five metres above the tallest waves were now sunk beneath them; those ten metres above the waters were being swiftly eroded as the swirling currents cut carving into them, their lives now counted in minutes. Looking straight down, Oramen could see that the base of the building they were in was now almost surrounded by the backed-up surge of spray and foam.

  He turned to the others. Neguste was still staring at where the building had fallen. Even Droffo looked rapt, standing away from the wall, vertigo temporarily forgotten.

  Oramen took another glance towards the waters surging round their tower. “Gentlemen,” he said, “we’d best go.”

  23. Liveware Problem

  “Sister?” Ferbin said as the woman in the plain blue shift walked up to him. It was Djan Seriy. He hadn’t seen her for fifteen of their years but he knew it was her. So changed, though! A woman, not a girl, and a wise, utterly poised and collected woman at that. Ferbin knew enough about authority and charisma to recognise it when he saw it. No mere princess, little Djan Seriy; rather a very queen among them.

  “Ferbin,” she said, stopping a stride away and smiling warmly. She nodded. “How good to see you again. Are you well? You look different.”

  He shook his head. “Sister, I am well.” He could feel his throat closing up. “Sister!” he said, and threw himself at her, wrapping her in his arms and hooking his chin over her right shoulder. He felt her arms close over his back. It was like hugging a layer of soft leather over a figure made of hardwood; she felt astoundingly powerful; unshakeable. She patted his back with one hand, cupped the back of his head with the other. Her chin settled on his shoulder.

  “Ferbin, Ferbin, Ferbin,” she whispered.

  “Where exactly are we?” Ferbin asked.

  “In the middle of the hub engine unit,” Hippinse told him. Since meeting with Djan Seriy, Hippinse’s manner had changed somewhat; he seemed much less manic and voluble, more composed and measured.

  “Are we boarding a ship, then, sir?” Holse asked.

  “No, this is a habitat,” Hippinse said. “All Culture habitats apart from planets have engines. Have had for nearly a millennium now. So we can move them. Just in case.”

  They had come here straight after meeting, back up one of the tubes to the very centre of the little wheel-shaped habitat. They floated again – seemingly weightless – within the narrow but qui
et, gently lit and pleasantly perfumed spaces of the habitat’s bulging centre.

  Another corridor and some rolling, sliding doors had taken them to this place where there were no windows or screens and the circular wall looked odd, like oil spilled on water, colours ever shifting. It appeared soft somehow, but – when Ferbin touched the surface – felt hard as iron, though strangely warm. A small, floating cylindrical object had accompanied Djan Seriy. It looked rather like a plain-sword handle with no sword attached. It had produced five more little floating things no bigger than a single joint in one of Ferbin’s smallest fingers. These had started to glow as they’d entered the corridor and were now their only source of light.

  The section of corridor they were floating in – he, Holse, Hippinse and Djan Seriy – was perhaps twenty metres long and blank at one end. Ferbin watched as the doorway they had entered by closed off and slid in towards them.

  “Inside an engine?” Ferbin said, glancing at Djan Seriy. The massive plug of door continued to slide down the corridor towards them. A glittering silver sphere the size of a man’s head appeared at the far end of the ever-shortening tube. It started flickering.

  Djan Seriy took his hand. “It is not an engine relying on any sort of compression,” she told him. She nodded at the still slowly advancing end of the corridor. “That is not a piston. It is part of the engine unit which slid out to allow us to enter here and is now sliding back in to provide us with privacy. That thing at the other end” – she indicated the pulsing silvery sphere – “is removing some of the air at the same time so that the pressure in here remains acceptable. All to the purpose of letting us speak without being overheard.” She squeezed his hand, glanced around. “It is hard to explain, but where we are now exists in a manner that makes it impossible for the Morthanveld to eavesdrop upon us.”

  “The engine exists in four dimensions,” Hippinse told Ferbin. “Like a Shellworld. Closed, even to a ship.”

  Ferbin and Holse exchanged looks.

  “As I said,” Djan Seriy told them. “Hard to explain.” The wall had stopped moving towards them. They were now floating in a space perhaps two metres in diameter and five long. The silvery sphere had stopped pulsing.