The Hydrogen Sonata c-10

by Iain M. Banks

  Her breathing went on, like something apart from her, the whole sound-scape to her steady, paced exertion. Save that, the silence was entire, and she had started to understand something of QiRia’s slow-building obsession with immersion, both literal and in sound. Especially in sound; in the waves of compression that took and flowed through the body rather than — like light, like sight — stopping at the surface. She had done something similar in a minor key herself, she realised, every time she stepped into the hollowness of the elevenstring and let that resound around her, through her.

  She became slowly aware that, looking straight up, there was a sort of sparkling grey haze ahead of her, spreading to all sides. Lights. Lots of tiny lights. They started to grow brighter, everywhere overhead.

  “Not far now,” Berdle’s voice said.

  “Mmm,” she heard herself say, mouth still clamped round the breather.

  “There’s one last turn to your left as it is at present, then straight up,” Berdle said through the earbuds. “Take it easy there, okay? Slow down. I’ll catch up and we can surface together.”

  She said, “Mmm,” again, and nodded. She wondered why, as an avatar, Berdle couldn’t just power his way up to join her, but maybe he was so weakened after having to lose so much mass this wasn’t possible, or he just wanted to keep looking plausibly human. The spread of lights was close enough now for her to see the hints of some sort of framework stretched across the whole expanse above her. She thought she could see somebody walking along some sort of pierced walkway, five metres or so overhead.

  The two ships faced each other. The Gzilt ship displayed as what it truly looked like inside its nest of fields: a steely clutch of blades like a hundred fat broadswords compressed into a barbed and jagged arrowhead. The Culture vessel projected no image beyond the surface view of its outermost fields. They were absurdly close, by the normal standards of conflict at their technological level, which was generally carried out from real-space light seconds away at least.

  To be squaring up to an opponent from just a few kilometres off was pretty preposterous; both ships could extend their field enclosures well beyond this distance. It was a statement of relatively peaceful intent in a way — full-scale conflict was obviously not intended by either, or one of them would long since have opened fire by now — but worrying at the same time, given that both vessels knew their missions and intentions were incompatible.

  Relative to Xown, the Gzilt ship had remained almost perfectly stationary throughout, parked in real space directly above the Girdlecity, moving at the same slow strolling speed as the Equatorial 353, five hundred kilometres below. The Churkun watched the Culture ship draw to a stop, relative to it, still entirely in hyperspace. It was a minor feat of field management to be able to do this so far into the gravity well of a planet, but then, according to the intelligence the Churkun had received via Marshal Chekwri, this vessel — the Mistake Not…, a Culture ship of slightly worrying indeterminate class — had proved itself something of an adept at this sort of thing, at Bokri.

  The Churkun was keeled into hyperspace, its field enclosure bulging into the fourth dimension like somebody pressing an empty bowl brim-deep into a bath. This let it keep its options open and certainly it was able to watch everything that was happening there, but staying in the Real meant it could react faster to anything happening in the Girdlecity without having to worry about dislocs being intercepted.

  The crew of the Gzilt ship were gauging what they could of their potential adversary, which expressed within hyperspace as the usual gauzy-looking silvery ellipsoid. Its current field enclosure topography guaranteed certain physical maxima and strongly indicated some likely limitations. So it was, certainly, categorically, no more than five kilometres in length and a third of that in diameter, and — if it followed conventional Culture field disposition — genuinely, physically, likely to be about twelve hundred metres long and maybe four hundred in diameter. This would make the vessel about fifty per cent smaller by volume than the Churkun, though the difference was not so great that it guaranteed the Gzilt ship’s superiority.

  ~Good day, the Culture ship sent. ~I’m the Mistake Not… I believe you are the 8*Churkun.

  ~Correct. And I am its captain. Might we ask what brings you here?

  ~Got personnel inside the Girdlecity, though I suspect you’ve already guessed that.

  ~We are providing support for persons in there ourselves. Further to that, this is now a zone of operational interest, so we do have to ask you to leave.

  ~I see. You still have my module, I believe.

  ~We do. Though not actually aboard, as it were. Just in case. We’re inclined to treat it as captured hostile equipment, especially given the way it was delivered. Perhaps we might return it to you, following your departure, once this is no longer a zone of operational interest, which, we repeat, we must ask you to leave. Immediately.

  ~Ah, keep it if you like. Not that bothered. But I do need to stick around for a bit.

  ~It is not going to be possible to accommodate that desire. Obviously, we have no wish to engage in any hostilities with you, but, if it comes to it, we are entirely prepared to do just that if you do not leave, immediately.

  ~Be a bit close-range. Like nukes in a shed.

  ~Well, whatever it might take. This is though, sadly, not open for negotiation. We must ask you to leave immediately. One Culture ship has already met its end within Gzilt space in the last few hours. I assume you have heard of the fate of the Beats Working.

  ~Yes. It’s just the kind of thing us Culture ships natter about.

  ~It would be unfortunate in the extreme if it were not to remain the only casualty of such status hereabouts. Please leave. And do understand that this is not a reduction in the force of our demand that you do so — which remains in force and is, as of this statement, up to its fourth re-statement. It is, rather, an additional plea from those of us aboard with some respect for Culture vessels that you accede, without delay, to our demand before anything unfortunate occurs.

  ~Of course… not the only casualty, hereabouts, the plucky little Beats Working.

  ~Indeed, twelve Ronte ships were lost as well.

  ~With all hands. And then, in addition to that, there was that Z-R ship out at Ablate, twenty-two days ago.

  ~Really?

  ~Really. Kind of kicked off this whole rolling unpleasantness. Everything was spinning along pretty much fine until that bit of… well, how would one characterise it? Illegality? Cowardice? Piracy? Bullying to the point of murder? Just… murder?

  ~How little the differences between these terms mean to those subject to the act concerned. You ought to pay heed.

  ~Me that spotted it, too. I was rendezvousing with our Liseiden chums out at Ry when it happened. Caught the blink of that particular little atrocity.

  ~Remarkable. That is some distance away. Well spotted. Now, we really must ask you to leave, for the last time. There will be no more requests, only action. Our patience is, truly, exhausted.

  ~We could start by sort of tussling with fields. I did that out at Bokri, in Ospin, with your pal the Uagren. That was fun. Not something you get to do every day. Bestial, nearly, like locking horns. Actually, more like naked wrestling, all oiled up. I found it quite erotic, to tell the truth. Homo-erotic, I suppose, technically, as we’re all just ships together and we’re all the same gender: neutral, or hermaphrodite or whatever, don’t you think?

  The Churkun’s reply was to attempt to wrap a burst field all around the smaller Culture ship, an element of its field enclosure pulsing suddenly, nearly instantly out like a loop of a sun’s magnetic field flicking, releasing a pulse of charged particles.

  ~Not even a nice try, shipfucker, the Culture ship sent, already dodged before the field bubble got anywhere near it. ~And now, watch this.

  It flickered, shimmering in hyperspace as it fell, powering the trivial distance from where it had been, down the curve of the planet’s gravity well, to the Girdlecity. Then it
disappeared.

  The first sign of alarm had been the warbling of a siren in the distance as he and the arbites had progressed along a broad, downward-slanting corridor. He hadn’t noticed at first as he was busy trying to re-establish contact with the ship.

  ~Marine operations officer? he sent, then waited.

  A few civilians walked in the distance. Many were dressed in white shifts similar to those he had seen earlier.

  ~Captain?

  Some more white-clad civilians appeared from an elevator, just ahead; they stopped and stared when they saw Agansu and the disturbance in the air caused by the arbites’ camouflage; effectively invisible to the naked eye from as little as ten metres away, the machines weren’t fooling anybody this close, not when they moved. Even the blind would know they were there; the machines were marching carefully out of step and treading as delicately as they were able, but there was still a noticeable vibration shuddering along the wide floor of the corridor.

  ~Captain? Still no answer. ~Communications officer?

  ~Communication with the ship is not possible within this shielded environment, Arbite One told him.

  ~We have no link to other assets aboard? he asked.

  ~None at present, the arbite replied.

  “Hey!” somebody shouted behind them. “Stop! On the floor, now!”

  Agansu turned round to see a helmeted security person, armed with what was probably a stun rifle, running down the corridor towards them. ~Stun, he said to One.

  The security guard staggered but didn’t collapse.

  ~Stunning ineffective, Arbite One said.

  The guard dropped to one knee and raised the gun.

  Light flared, the guard’s head flicked backwards and the figure collapsed.

  ~Weapon aimed, action taken, Arbite One sent, when Agansu looked at it. ~Standing orders.

  Now people were screaming; the group at the open elevator were crowding back in. In the direction they had been heading, those who had been walking in front of them were stationary, looking back.

  Lights — red, situated every fifteen metres along the corner the walls made with the ceiling — started to flash. Another siren had joined the first.

  ~I think, to put it in the vernacular idiom, our cover is blown, Agansu told the marine arbites. ~Resume full capacity including AG and field.

  The arbites seemed to collapse in on themselves, compacting to the size of bulky backpacks, and hovering.

  Agansu thought his own AG on. It was as though an invisible seat rose beneath him, bringing his legs up as he lay back. He had flown like this before in training and simulations; a familiar-feeling virtual glove-control seemed to fill his hand. He held the kin-ex side-arm in the other hand.

  ~Follow me, he sent to the four arbites. He raced down the corridor, a metre and a half off the floor, feet first. This was the luge configuration; others preferred the toboggan, though Agansu had always thought such head-first antics both intrinsically more dangerous and a little showy.

  The arbites flew in a horizontal square formation around him. They rose very close to the ceiling as they tore over the crowd of people they’d been following earlier, passing overhead without incident, though he heard somebody screaming. They had all dropped to the floor anyway. The piercing sound of the scream dopplered oddly as they swept past above, still following the downward curve of the corridor.

  Seconds later, some distance ahead, he could see a crowd of white-clad people clustered around a broad circular staircase leading upwards.

  ~Insect-plausible device ahead reports person of interest passed this way, up steps ahead, into tank, earlier, Arbite One sent.

  There were hundreds there; the steps were packed with people dressed in white.

  ~Deploy there, he sent. ~Make some noise now; get those people out of the way. Laser area denial bursts too, civilian warning grade.

  The two lead arbites deployed tiny blast grenades, producing sudden flickers of light twenty metres in front of the crowd of people. The noise was very loud indeed. More light strobed, turning the whole scene ahead into a bright flare. People dropped, covered their ears, their eyes.

  ~Make for the aperture, he sent, spotting the large triangular piercing in the ceiling where the steps led.

  The two leading arbites zoomed, disappeared. More flashes of light. ~Weapon aimed, action taken, he heard again as he curved up and through to land on the deck above.

  It was generally dark. People were scattering. Two guards lay dead, faces gone, stun guns at their sides. This was a dark, very large space, almost entirely filled with a vast tank that looked like water; lights pointed inwards from every side around the enormous space. His enhanced senses mapped out what could be mapped out. One of the insect-plausible devices registered as nearby.

  ~olonel? somebody sent. The signal protocols were missing. ~Colonel Agansu? It was the marine operations officer.

  ~Here, beneath this large tank, Agansu replied.

  ~We’re having some problems with the Culture ship supporting… The voice crackled, disappeared, came back on another crackle. ~ersons of interest would appear to be up inside… It was gone again.

  ~Units present undergoing effector attack, internal, airship own, Arbite One reported. ~Defending actions deployed.

  Agansu was experiencing some problems of his own: the view was hazing over.

  ~Insect-plau— Arbite Three began.

  ~Hostile insect-plausible device attached to Arbite Three, Arbite One sent.

  Something was glowing brightly on the upper surface of the arbite nearest the triangular hole in the floor.

  ~Hostile insect-plausible device attached to Arbite Three, Arbite Two confirmed.

  ~Our insect-plausible device immediately external reports hostile device app— There was a flash outside, where the stairs led down. ~Our insect-plausible device destroyed, Arbite One reported. ~Hostile device approaching registering as knife missile or similar.

  ~Marine operations officer! Agansu sent. ~Reinforcements, immediately! Use any means—

  Something punched through the floor, beneath Arbite One, spearing it and throwing it upwards to impact against the underside of the giant transparent tank. The glowing thing on the top surface of Arbite Three detonated at the same moment, blinding.

  ~Destroy the tank! Agansu sent, raising the kin-ex gun. He was able to fire once before he was blown off his feet by the blast from the erupted arbite.

  ~Destroy tank.

  ~Destroy tank, the two remaining arbites replied, and began firing upwards and around the walls, filling the darkness with insane, stuttering, flares of light.

  She was treading water, revolving slowly and looking down between her slow, weed-waving legs, trying to see Berdle, when he said, “On second thoughts, just get to the surface. I’ll join you shortly.”

  “Mmm,” she said, and, after a quick look round, struck out.

  “Wrong way, turn about,” the suit told her in Berdle’s voice.

  She stopped. This was the way she’d been heading, wasn’t it? Could the suit have got it wrong?

  “Wrong way, turn about,” the suit repeated.

  “Hnnh,” she said, then realised she had been twisting round while she’d been looking down to see the avatar. That was why she’d taken the wrong direction initially.

  “You’re heading the wrong way,” Berdle told her. “There’s some sort of emergency down there; just turn round, get out as quickly as you can. I’ll be there very shortly.”

  She did a forward roll, started back the way she’d come. “Mmm,” she said again, swimming hard now. Suddenly she felt very vulnerable, suit or no suit.

  Something flickered deep below, as though from right at the bottom of the tank. Something very bright. She knew she had seen light that white and intense recently. Her stomach lurched like she’d been punched. She got to where she’d been treading water moments earlier. The light flickered again, brighter still, seeming to reflect off the distant sides of the vast tank.

&nb
sp; “Swim up fast now!” Berdle shouted.

  She was already kicking out as hard as she could when it felt like the whole tank shuddered.

  The first kin-ex round from his pistol had hit the lower surface of the great transparent tank and caused a single great torus of white to flash away from the point of impact. Then he’d been knocked off his feet despite the best efforts of the android body to stay upright. Further blindingly bright flashes filled the space as he struggled to kneel, firing upwards. The air shook like jelly around him.

  ~… onel! the marine operations officer was screaming at him.

  ~Unit Four destroyed by enemy action, Arbite Two sent.

  The tank burst. It burst raggedly, in many different places; parts and levels of it seeming to stay where they were while other sections tore and fell and the released waters came crashing, hurtling down onto the space beneath. He threw himself to the floor. ~Hold where you are! he was able to send to the remaining arbite before the waters slammed into his back.

  Light burst out everywhere below. A series of pulses shivered through the water and through her as Cossont kicked for the silvery, light-flecked surface above.

  She had grasped the lowest step of a small ladder extending from the surface-level walkway above and was just starting to pull herself up when the water began to fall away around her. She spat the breather away and yelled, “Berdle?” as she hauled herself up and out, needing all four arms to pull her own weight and resist the sucking drag of the descending water. A great roaring noise seemed to come partly from below and partly from above, sounding more like a powerful wind than water. The sound from above rose swiftly to a shriek.

  Somebody — small, female, wearing a plain dark tunic — was running along the walkway towards her. The water beneath the dripping walkway, no longer lit by the bright pulses of light from below, was five metres down now, swirling in different directions, thrashing like something alive, and lowering everywhere, leaving behind an entire dripping web of walkways a hundred metres across, suspended on swaying chains from a dark ceiling just a couple of metres above, where panels were being torn away and sent spinning, whirling downwards.