Matter

by Iain M. Banks

  “Ambassador Kiu?” Oramen asked. The ambassador and another Oct hung unsupported in front of the light patch of grey on the cube’s surface. Poatas and Senior Technician Leratiy stood nearby, gazing on with expressions of barely controlled excitement. They looked, Oramen thought, as though they could not wait to tell him something.

  “I have that privilege,” Ambassador Kiu-to-Pourl said. “And to he I you introduce; Savidius Savide, Peripatetic Special Envoy to Sursamen.”

  The other Oct turned fractionally to Oramen. “Oramen-man, Prince of Hausk, Pourl,” it said.

  Oramen nodded. Dubrile and three of the guards were positioning themselves at the corners of the platform, making it almost crowded. “I am pleased to meet you, Envoy Savidius Savide. Welcome, friends,” he said. “May I ask what brings you here?” He turned to look round and down at the hundreds of Oct arranged in glittering circles round the Sarcophagus. “And in such numbers?”

  “Greatness, prince,” Kiu said, drifting closer to Oramen. Dubrile went to interpose himself between but Oramen held up one hand. “Unparalleled greatness!”

  “An occasion of such importance we are made as nothing!” the other Oct said. “These, here, our comrades, we two. We are nothing, no fit witness, no worthy acolytes, utterly insufficient! Nevertheless.”

  “Deserving or not, we are here,” Kiu said. “Of incomprehensible privilege is this to all present. We thank you boundlessly for such. You put us forever in your debt. No lives lived to the end of time by billions, trillions of Oct could so repay our chance to witness.”

  “Witness?” Oramen said gently, smiling indulgently, looking from the two Oct to Poatas and Leratiy. “Witness to what? That the Sarcophagus has spoken?”

  “It has, sir!” Poatas said, stepping forward, flourishing his stick, waving it at the pale grey patch on the object’s surface. He gestured at one of the pieces of equipment on a tall trolley. “This device simply projected images and sounds and a sequence of invisible wave-fronts through the ether into the face of what we have called the Sarcophagus and it spoke! Sarl, Deldeyn, Oct, several Optimae languages. Repetitions, at first, so that we were disappointed, thinking that it only recorded, regurgitated, had no mind after all, but then – then, prince, then it spoke in its own voice!” Poatas turned to the pale grey square and bowed. “Will you indulge us once more, sir? Our most senior person is present; a prince of the royal house which commands two levels, he who is in charge here.”

  “To see?” a voice said from the grey square. It was a voice like a long sigh, like something being expelled, waved away with every syllable.

  “Come, come, sir!” Poatas said, beckoning Oramen forward. “It would see you. Here, sir; into the focus as before.”

  Oramen held back. “Simply to be seen? Why into this focus again?” He was concerned that now this thing seemed to have found a voice it still might need to see into people’s minds.

  “You are the prince?” the voice said levelly.

  Oramen stepped round so that, had the grey patch been some sort of window, he might be visible to whatever was inside, but he did not step into the focal point he had stood in earlier. “I am,” he said. “My name is Oramen. Son of the late King Hausk.”

  “You distrust me, prince?”

  “That would be too strong,” Oramen said. “I wonder at you. You must be something quite remarkable and strange to be so long buried and yet alive. What might your name be?”

  “So quickly we come to regret. My name, with so much else, is lost to me. I seek to recover it, with so much else.”

  “How might you do that?” Oramen asked it.

  “There are other parts. Parts of me, belonging. Scattered. Together, brought, I may be made whole again. It is all I value now, all I miss, all I yearn for.”

  Senior Technician Leratiy stepped forward. “We believe, sir, that some of the other cubes, the smaller ones, are repositories of this being’s memories, and possibly other faculties.”

  “They would have been situated nearby but not together with this being, you see, sir,” Poatas said. “To ensure some would survive.”

  “All the cubes?” Oramen asked.

  “Not all, I think, though I cannot yet know,” the sighing voice said. “Three or four, perhaps.”

  “Some others may be merely symbolic,” Poatas added.

  “What are you, then?” Oramen asked the Sarcophagus.

  “What am I, prince?”

  “To which people do you belong? What species?”

  “Why, gentle prince, I am Involucra. I am what I understand you sometimes call ‘Veil’.”

  “Our ancestor survives!” Savidius Savide exclaimed. “The Veil, they who are who made us as well as all Shellworlds are, in one being, returned, to bless us, to bless all but to bless us, the Oct, the – truly, now undeniably – Inheritors!”

  Mertis tyl Loesp fretted around the Imperial Chambers, feeling pursued by the pack of advisers and senior military people at his back who all wanted to offer advice. He had resumed his Sarl clothing, taking up mail, tabard and a sword belt again, putting aside the more delicate Deldeyn civilian attire, but feeling wrong, out of place, almost ridiculous. This was meant to be the New Age; fighting, disputation was supposed to be finished with. Was he to be forced to take up arms again because of a misunderstanding, because of a pair of bungling idiots? Why could no one else do their job properly?

  “This is still a young man, barely more than a child. He cannot be our problem, sir. We must seek and identify whoever has his ear and so guides his actions. Knowing that is the key.”

  “Only insist that he attends you, sir. He will come. The young will often put up a most fervent resistance, at least in words, and then, their point having been made, their independence established sufficiently in their own eyes, they will, with all natural truculence, see sense and come round to a more adult view. Renew your invitation as an instruction. Bring the young fellow to heel. Once in Rasselle, confronted with your own obvious authority and good will, all will be resolved satisfactorily.”

  “He is wounded in his pride, too, sir. He has the impatience of youth and knows that he will be king in time, but at such an age we often cannot see the point in waiting. Therefore we must compromise. Meet him between here and the Falls, on the edge of the area where the shadow presently falls; let that symbolise the new dawn of good relations between you.”

  “Go to him, sir; show the forbearance of power. Go to him not even with a dozen men, but with none. Leave your army camped beyond, of course, but go to him purely alone, with the simplicity and humility of justice and the right that is on your side.”

  “He is a child in this; punish him, sir. Princes require discipline as much as any other children. More; they are too usually indulged and require regular correction to maintain a fit balance of indulgence and regulation. Make all haste to the Hyeng-zhar with your greatest force arrayed in full battle order; he’ll not come out against you, and even if he did think to there must be wiser heads around him who’ll know to counsel otherwise. The presentation of force settles such matters, sir; all silly plans and fancies evaporate faced with it. Only provide that and your problems cease.”

  “They have men but not arms, sir. You have both. Merely display such and all settles. It will not come to a fight. Impose your will, do not be taken as one who can suffer such implied accusations lightly. You feel justly offended at being so unjustly accused. Show that you will not tolerate such insult.”

  Tyl Loesp stood on a balcony looking out over the trees of the royal enclosure surrounding the Great Palace in Rasselle, clutching at the rail and working his hands round and round it while behind him clamoured all those who would tell him what to do. He felt at bay. He turned and faced them. “Foise,” he said, picking out the general who’d arrived only a few hours earlier from the Hyeng-zhar. They had already spoken, but only for Foise to deliver a brief report. “Your thoughts.”

  “Sir,” Foise said, looking round the others present; Sa
rl military and nobility mostly, though with a few trusted Deldeyn civil servants and nobles who had always been sympathetic to the Sarl even when their peoples had been at war. “I have not thus far heard an unwise word here.” There was much serious nodding and many an expression of pretended modesty. Only those who had not yet actually spoken looked in any way unimpressed with this latest contribution. “However, it is as true today as it always has been that we cannot follow every line of advice. Therefore, I would suggest that, bearing in mind the most recent information which we have to hand, of which I am the humble bearer, we look at what we know to be the most lately pertaining situation of the object of our deliberations.” There was some more nodding at this.

  Tyl Loesp was still waiting to hear anything of import, or indeed new, but just listening to Foise’s voice seemed to have calmed something in him. He felt able to breathe again.

  “But what would you suggest that we do, Foise?” he asked.

  “What he does not expect, sir,” Foise said.

  Tyl Loesp felt back in charge. He directed a smile round everybody else in the group, and shrugged. “General,” he said “he does not expect me to surrender and admit I was wrong, some black-hearted traitor. We shall not be doing that, I assure you.” There was laughter at his words.

  Foise smiled too, like a brief echo of his superior’s expression. “Of course, sir. I mean, sir, that we do not wait, do not gather our forces. Strike now. What we have just heard said about the prince and those around him seeing sense on the presentation of force will be no less true.”

  “Strike now?” tyl Loesp said, again glancing at the others. He took a stagey look over the balcony rail. “I do not seem to have the Prince Regent immediately to hand for that strategy.” More laughter.

  “Indeed, sir,” Foise said, unflustered. “I mean that you should form an aerial force. Take as many men and weapons as all available lyge and caude within the city will bear and fly to the Falls. They do not expect it. They have not the weaponry to reduce an aerial attack. Their—”

  “The region is dark!” one of the other military people pointed out. “The beasts will not fly!”

  “They will,” Foise said levelly. “I have seen Oramen himself trust his life to them, just a few days ago. Ask the beasts’ handlers. They may need using to it, but it can be done.”

  “The winds are too great!”

  “They have fallen back lately,” Foise said, “and anyway do not normally persist longer than a short-day without sufficient pause.” Foise looked at tyl Loesp and spread his arms from the elbows, saying simply, “It can be done, sir.”

  “We shall see,” tyl Loesp said. “Lemitte, Uliast,” he said, naming two of his most hard-headed generals. “Look into this.”

  “Sir.”

  “Sir.”

  “It takes the name Nameless, then,” Savidius Savide said. “Our dear ancestor, this sanctified remainder, surviving echo of a mighty and glorious chorus from the dawn of all that’s good assumes the burden of this ever-consecrated city as we take on the burden of long absence. Ever-present loss! How cruel! A night has been upon us that’s lasted decieons; the shadow’s back half of for ever. A night now glimmering to dawn, at last! Oh! How long we have waited! All rejoice! Another part of the great community is made whole. Who pitied now may – no, must – with all good reason and bounteous wishes rejoice, rejoice and rejoice again for we who are reunited with our past!”

  “It is our parent!” Kiu added. “Producing all, itself produced by this city-wide birthing, dross swept away, the past uncovered, all jibes abandoned, all disbelief extinguished.”

  Oramen had never heard the ambassador sound so excited, or even so comprehensible. “Sympathy, again!” Kiu exclaimed. “For those who doubted the Oct, scorned us for our very name, Inheritors. How they will rue their lack of belief in us on this news being carried, in joy, in truth absolute, unshakeable, undeniable, to every star and planet, hab and ship of the great lens! Fall the Falls silent, frozen in tremulous expectation, in calm, in fit and proper pause before the great climactic chords of fulfilment, realisation, celebration!”

  “You are so sure it is what it says it is?” Oramen asked. They were still on the platform around the lighter grey patch on the front of the Sarcophagus, which might or might not be a kind of window into the thing. Oramen had wanted to talk further elsewhere, but the two Oct ambassadors would not leave the presence of whatever was in the Sarcophagus. He had had to settle for bringing the two of them to the far edge of the platform – possibly out of range of the window, possibly not – and asking everybody else to leave. Poatas and Leratiy had removed themselves only as far as the next layer of scaffolding down, and that reluctantly. Oramen talked quietly, in the vain hope that this would encourage the two Oct to do the same, but they would not; both seemed enthused, agitated, almost wild.

  They had each taken a turn facing that window, experiencing it for themselves. Others had too, including Poatas and Leratiy. They reported that the experience was now one of joy and hope, not loss and yearning. A feeling of euphoric release filled whoever stood or floated there, along with an aching, earnest desire that one might soon be made whole.

  “Of course sure it is what it says! Why anything other?” Savidius Savide asked. The alien voice sounded shocked that any doubt might be entertained. “It is what it says that it is. This has been presaged, this is expected. Who doubts such profundity?”

  “You were expecting this?” Oramen said, looking from one Oct to the other. “For how long?”

  “All our lives before we lived, truly!” Kiu said, waving his upper limbs around.

  “As this will resound forever forwards in time, so the expectation has lasted the forever of not just individuals but our selves as one, our self, our species, kind,” Savidius Savide added.

  “But for how long have you thought the answer was here, at the Falls specifically?” Oramen asked.

  “Unknown time,” Kiu told him.

  “Party, we are not,” Savidius Savide agreed. “Who knows what lessons learned, futures foretold, intelligences garnered, down timelines older than ourselves, we are sure, pursued to produce plans, courses, actions? Not I.”

  “Nor,” Kiu agreed.

  Oramen realised that even if the Oct were trying to give him a direct answer, he’d be unlikely to understand it. He just had to accept this frustration. “The information which you transferred from the Enabler machine into the Nameless,” he said, trying a new tack. “Was it . . . what one might call neutral regarding whatever you expected to discover here?”

  “Better than!” exclaimed Kiu.

  “Needless hesitancy,” Savide said. “Cowardice of reproachable lack of will, decisiveness. Expellence upon all such.”

  “Gentlemen,” Oramen said, still trying to keep his voice down. “Did you tell the being in here what you were looking for? That you expected it to be an Involucra?”

  “How can its true nature be hidden from itself?” Savide said scornfully.

  “You ask impossibles,” Kiu added.

  “It is as it is. Nothing can alter that,” Savide said. “We would all be advised lessons similar ourselves doubly to learn, taking such, templated.”

  Oramen sighed. “A moment, please.”

  “Unowned, making unbestowable. All share the one moment of now,” Kiu said.

  “Just so,” Oramen said, and stepped away from the two Oct, indicating with one flat hand that he wished them to stay where they were. He stood in front of the pale grey patch, though closer than its focus.

  “What are you?” he asked quietly.

  “Nameless,” came the equally subdued reply. “I have taken that name. It pleases me, for now, until my own may be returned to me.”

  “But what sort of thing are you? Truly.”

  “Veil,” the voice whispered back. “I am Veil, I am Involucra. We made that within which you have ever lived, prince.”

  “You made Sursamen?”

  “Yes, and we made
all those that you call Shellworlds.”

  “For what reason?”

  “To cast a field about the galaxy. To protect. All know this, prince.”

  “To protect from what?”

  “What is your own guess?”

  “I have none. Would you answer my question? What did you seek to protect the galaxy from?”

  “You misunderstand.”

  “Then tell, so that I understand.”

  “I require my other pieces, my scattered shards. I would be whole again, then I might answer your questions. The years have been long, prince, and cruel to me. So much is gone, so much taken away. I am ashamed at how much, blush to report how little I know that did not come out of that device that let me learn how to talk to you.”

  “You blush? Do you blush? Can you? What are you, in there?”

  “I am less than whole. Of course I blush not. I translate. I speak to you and in your idiom; to the Oct the same, and so quite differently. All is translation. How could it be otherwise?”

  Oramen sighed heavily and took his leave of the Sarcophagus. He left the two Oct returning to their positions in front of it again.

  On the floor of the chamber, some way beyond the outer circle of the devotional Oct, Oramen talked to Poatas and Leratiy. Another couple of men who were Oct experts had arrived, yawning, too, and some of his new crop of advisers.

  “Sir,” Poatas said, leaning forward in his seat, both hands clutching at his stick. “This is a moment of the utmost historicity! We are present at one of the most important discoveries in recent history, anywhere in the galaxy!”

  “You think it is a Veil in there?” Oramen asked.

  Poatas waved one hand impatiently, “Not an actual Involucra; that is unlikely.”

  “But not impossible,” Leratiy added.

  “Not impossible,” Poatas agreed.

  “There could be some sort of stasis mechanism or effect pertaining,” one of the younger experts suggested. “Some loop of time itself.” He shrugged. “We have heard of such things. The Optimae are said to be capable of comparable feats.”