Matter c-8

by Iain M. Banks

  He hit something very hard and things broke and hurt and all the light went away again and this time took him with it.

  * * *

  There was no awakening, not in any sudden, now-here-I-am sense. Instead, life — if life it could be called — seemed to seep back into him, slowly, sluggishly, in tiny increments, like silse rain dripping from a tree, all accompanied by pain and a terrible, crushing weight upon him that prevented him from moving.

  He was in that book-lined room again, stricken, immobile in that little seat. He had imagined that he was free of it, that he could rise from it, but after a brief, vivid sensation of sudden, unwanted movement, here he was again, paralysed, laid out, spread prone across the ground, helpless. He was a baby once more. He had no control, no movement, could not even support his own head. He knew there were people around him and was aware of movement and yet more pain, but nothing showed its true shape, nothing made sense. He opened his mouth to say something, even if it was just to beg for help, for an end to this grinding, fractured pain, but only a mewl escaped.

  He was awake again. He must have fallen asleep. He was still in terrible pain, though it seemed dulled now. He could not move! He tried to sit upright, tried to move a limb, twitch a finger, just open his eyes… but nothing.

  Sounds came to him as though from under water. He lay on something soft now, not hard. It was no more comfortable. What had he been thinking? Something important.

  He swam back up through the watery sounds around him, helplessly aware of the noises he was making: wheezing, whining, gurgling.

  What had he thought of?

  The waters parted, like a hazy curtain drawn aside. He thought he saw his friend Droffo. He needed to tell him something. He wanted to grasp Droffo’s clothing, drag himself upright, scream into his face, issue a terrible warning!

  Then there was Neguste. He had tears on his face. There were many other faces, concerned, businesslike, neutral, dreading, dreadful.

  He was awake once again. He was clutching at Droffo’s neck, only it was not really Droffo. Don’t let it! Destroy! Mine the chamber, bring it down! Don’t let…

  He was asleep in his seat, an old man perhaps, lost in the end of his days, such days shuffled in this slow fading of the light from him. Genteel confusion; he relied on others to tend to him. Somebody was behind him, searching for something. They always stole. Was this what he’d ever wanted? He was not his father’s son, then. He tried to turn round to confront whoever was trying to steal his memories, but could not move. Unless this sensation was a memory too. He felt he might be about to start crying. The voice went on whispering into his ear, into his head. He could not make out what it was it was saying. Old age came with great pain, which seemed unfair. All other senses were dulled but pain was still bright. No, that was not true, the pain was dulled too. Here it was being dulled again.

  “What is he trying to say?”

  “We don’t know. We can’t make it out.”

  Awake again. He blinked, looked up at a ceiling he had seen before. He tried to remember who he was. He decided he must be Droffo, lying here, in the hospital train. No, look; here was Droffo. He must be somebody else, then. He needed to say something to Droffo. Who were all these other people? He wanted them gone. They had to understand! But go. Understand, then go. Things needed to be done. Urgent work. He knew and he had to tell them that he knew. They had to do what he could not. Now!

  “Stroy,” he heard himself say through the ruins. “Ring it all down. It…” Then his voice faded away and the light went again. This darkness, enveloping. How quickly the Rollstars moved, how little they illuminated. He needed to tell Droffo, needed to get him to understand and through him everybody else…

  He blinked back. Same room. Medical compartment. Something was different, though. He could hear what sounded like shooting. Was that the smell of smoke, burning?

  He looked up. Droffo. But not Droffo. It looked like Mertis tyl Loesp. What was he doing here?

  “Help…” he heard himself say.

  “No,” tyl Loesp said, with a thin smile. “There’s no helping you, prince,” then a mailed fist came crashing down into his face, obliterating light.

  * * *

  Tyl Loesp strode down the ramp into the chamber housing the Sarcophagus, heavily armed men at his heel. The grey cube was surrounded by concentric circles of Oct. They seemed hardly to have noticed that dead and dying men lay scattered about the chamber. The dying were being helped on their way by those charged with dispatching the wounded. Tyl Loesp had been told that a few of the defenders might still be able to put up a fight; the wounded might not all have been accounted for and the chamber was still dangerous; however, he had been impatient to see this thing for himself and had flown straight here on his already tired lyge after they’d taken the Settlement’s centre and discovered the broken Prince Regent lying dying on his hospital bed.

  “Poatas, Savide,” he said as they approached him through the mass of Oct. He looked back at the chamber entrance, where a great black cube ten metres to a side was being manoeuvred to the top of the ramp from the tunnel beyond. A couple of distant shots rang out, echoing round the chamber. Tyl Loesp smiled to see Poatas jerk as though he’d been shot himself. “You have been busy,” he said to the old man. “Our prince didn’t delay matters, did he?”

  “No, sir,” Poatas said, looking down. “Progress has been all we might have wished. It is good to see you once more, sir, and know that you are victorious—”

  “Yes yes, Poatas. All very loyal. Savide; you approve of all that’s happening here?”

  “All is approval. We would help further. Let us assist.”

  “Do so, by all means.”

  * * *

  Awake again. Yet more pain. He heard his own breathing. It made a strange gurgling sound. Somebody was dabbing at his face, hurting him. He tried to cry out, could not.

  “Sir?”

  No sounds would come. He could see his servant with one eye now, again as though through a hazy curtain. Where was Droffo? He had to tell him something.

  “Oh, sir!” Neguste said, sniffing.

  * * *

  “Still alive, prince?”

  He got the single good eye to open. Even this action was not without pain. It was Mertis tyl Loesp. Neguste stood somewhere behind, head down, sobbing.

  He tried to look at tyl Loesp. He tried to talk. He heard a bubbling sound.

  “Oh, now now now. Hush yourself,” tyl Loesp said, as though talking to an infant, and pursed his lips and put one finger to his lips. “Don’t delay, dear prince. Don’t let us detain you. Depart; feel free. Sake, sir, your father died easier than this. Hurry up. You.”

  “Sir?” Neguste said.

  “Can he talk?”

  “No, sir. He says nothing. He tries, I think… Earl Droffo; he asks for Earl Droffo. I’m not sure.”

  “Droffo?”

  “Dead, sir. Your men killed him. He was trying to—”

  “Oh, yes. Well, ask away all you like, prince. Droffo cannot come to you, though you will soon go to him.”

  “Oh, please don’t hurt him, sir, please!”

  “Shut up or I’ll hurt you. Captain; two guards. You; you will — now what?”

  “Sir! Sir!” Another new voice, young and urgent.

  “What?”

  “The thing, sir, the object, Sarcophagus! It, it’s doing — it’s — I can’t — it’s…!”

  It is not what you believe, Oramen had time to think, then things went flowing away from him again and he felt himself slip back beneath the waters.

  * * *

  “Sir!”

  “What?” tyl Loesp said, not stopping. They were in the newly broadened tunnel a minute from the entrance to the great semi-spherical chamber containing the Sarcophagus.

  “Sir, this man insists he is a knight in your employ.”

  “Tyl Loesp!” an anguished voice rang out over the pack of advisers, guards and soldiers around tyl Loesp. “It’
s me, Vollird, sir!”

  “Vollird?” tyl Loesp said, halting and turning. “Let me see him.”

  The guards parted and two of them brought a man forward, each holding one of his arms. Vollird it was indeed, though he was dressed in what looked like rags, his hair was wild and the expression on his face wilder still, his eyes staring.

  “It is, sir! It’s me! Your good and faithful servant, sir!” Vollird cried. “We did all we could, sir! We nearly got him! I swear! There were just too many!”

  Tyl Loesp stared at the fellow. He shook his head. “I have no time for you—”

  “Just save me from the ghosts, tyl Loesp, please!” Vollird said, his knees buckling underneath him and the guards on either side having to take his weight. Vollird’s eyes were wide and staring, foam flecking his lips.

  “Ghosts?” tyl Loesp said.

  “Ghosts, man!” Vollird shrieked. “I’ve seen them; ghosts of all of them, come to haunt me!”

  Tyl Loesp shook his head. He looked at the guard commander. “The man’s lost his wits. Take him—” he began.

  “Gillews, the worst!” Vollird said, voice breaking. “I could feel him! I could still feel him! His arm, his wrist under—”

  He got no further. Tyl Loesp had drawn his sword and plunged it straight into the man’s throat, leaving Vollird gurgling and gesticulating, eyes wider still, gaze focused on the flat blade extending from his throat, where the air whistled and the blood pulsed and bubbled and dripped. His jaw worked awkwardly as though he was trying to swallow something too big.

  Tyl Loesp rammed the sword forward, meaning to cut the fellow’s spine, but the tip bumped off the bone and sent the edge slicing through the flesh on the side of his neck, producing another gush of blood as an artery was severed. The guard on that side moved out to avoid the blood. Vollird’s eyes crossed and a final breath left him like a bubbled sigh.

  The two guards looked at tyl Loesp, who withdrew his sword.

  “Let him go,” he told them.

  Released, Vollird fell forward and lay still in the dark pool of his own still spreading blood. Tyl Loesp cleaned his sword on the fellow’s tunic with two quick strokes. “Leave him,” he told the guards.

  He turned and walked towards the chamber.

  * * *

  The Sarcophagus had insisted the scaffolding be removed from around it. It sat on its plinth, the three black cubes around it on the floor of the chamber, one immediately in front, the other two near its rear corners. The Oct were still arranged beyond in their concentric rings of devotion.

  Tyl Loesp and those around him got there just in time to see the transformation. The sides of the black cubes were making sizzling, crackling sounds. A change in their surface texture made them look suddenly dull, then they began to appear grey as a fine network of fissures spread all over them.

  Poatas came limping up to where tyl Loesp stood. “Unprecedented!” he said, waving his stick in the air. A couple of tyl Loesp’s personal guard stepped forward, thinking that the wild, manic old man might be offering violence to their master but Poatas didn’t seem to notice. “To be here! To be here, now! And see this! This!” he cried, and turned, waving his stick at the centre of the chamber.

  The faces of the black cubes showed great cracks all over their surfaces now. A dark vapour issued from them, rising slowly. Then the sides trembled and fell open in a slow cloud of what looked like heavy soot as the cubes’ casings seemed to turn to dust all at once, revealing dark, glistening ovoids inside, each about three metres long and a metre and a half in girth. They floated up and out from the gradually settling debris of their rebirth.

  Poatas turned briefly back to tyl Loesp. “Do you see? Do you see?”

  “One can hardly avoid seeing,” tyl Loesp said acidly. His heart was still thumping from the incident a few moments earlier but his voice was firm, controlled.

  The ovoids drifted up and in towards the grey cube, which was starting to make the same snapping, zizzing sounds the black cubes had made moments earlier. The noise was much louder, filling the chamber, echoing back off the walls. The Oct ringed round the chamber’s focus were stirring, shifting, as if they were all now looking up at the grey cube as it shuddered and changed, its surfaces growing dark with a million tiny crazings.

  “This is your prize, Poatas?” tyl Loesp shouted over the cacophony.

  “And their ancestor!” Poatas yelled back, waving his stick at the circles of Oct.

  “Is all well here, Poatas?” tyl Loesp demanded. “Should it make this sound?”

  “Who knows!” Poatas screamed, shaking his head. “Why, would you flee, sir?” he asked, without turning round. The sound from the Sarcophagus died away without warning, only echoes resounding.

  Tyl Loesp opened his mouth to say something, but the sides of the Sarcophagus were falling away too now, slipping as though invisible walls penning in dark grey dust had suddenly ceased to be and letting its powdery weight come sliding out, falling in a great dry wash all around the plinth, lapping to the inner fringes of the surrounding Oct. There was almost no noise accompanying this, just the faintest sound that might have been mistaken for a sigh. The last echoes of the earlier tumult finally died away.

  The grey ovoid revealed by the fallen dust was perhaps five metres across and eight long. It floated trembling in mid-air; the three smaller black shapes drew in towards it, approaching as though hesitant. They tipped slowly up on their mid-axes, ends pointing straight up and down. Then they slid ponderously in to meet the larger grey shape at the centre of their pattern, silently joining with it, seeming to slide partway into it.

  The resulting shape hung steady in the air. Echoes slowly died, to leave utter silence within the great chamber.

  Then the shape roared something in a language the humans present could not understand, sounds crashing off the walls like surf. Tyl Loesp cursed at the sheer piercing volume of it and clapped his hands to his ears like everybody else. Some of the other men fell to their knees with the force of the sound. Only pride prevented tyl Loesp from doing the same. While the echoes were still dying away, the Oct seemed to startle and move, almost as one. Dry whispering noises, like small twigs just starting to catch fire, began to fill the chamber.

  The sound was drowned out as the grey-dark shape hanging in the centre rumbled out again, this time in Sarl.

  “Thank you for your help,” it thundered. “Now I have much to do. There is no forgiveness.”

  A filmy spherical bubble seemed to form around the shape, just great enough in extent to enclose it completely. The bubble went dark, black, then quicksilver. As tyl Loesp and the others watched, a second bubble flickered into existence enclosing the first, forming two metres or so further out from the inner silvery one. A blink of light, brief but close to blindingly bright, came from the space between the two spheres before the outer one went black. A humming noise built quickly, a vast thrumming sound which issued from the black sphere and rapidly grew to fill the entire chamber, cramming it with a tooth-loosening, eyeball-vibrating, bone-shaking bassy howl. The Oct fell back, rolling to the floor, seemingly flattened by the storm of noise. Every human present put their hands to their ears again. Almost all turned away, stumbling, bumping into their fellows, trying to run to escape the pulverising, flesh-battering noise.

  The few humans unable to look away — Poatas was one, on his knees, stick fallen from his hand — remained transfixed, watching the colossally humming black sphere. They were the only ones to witness, very briefly, a scatter of tiny pinprick holes speckling its surface, loosing thin, blinding rays.

  Then the outer sphere blinked out of existence.

  A tsunami of wide-spectrum radiation filled the chamber in an instant as the thermonuclear fireball behind it surged outwards.

  The blast of light and heat incinerated Oct and humans indiscriminately, vaporising them along with the inner lining of the chamber, blowing its single great spherical wall out in every direction like a vast grenade and bringin
g what was left of the building above and the surrounding plaza crashing down upon the glowing wreckage.

  The first waves of radiation — gamma rays, neutrons and a titanic electromagnetic pulse — were already long gone, their damage done.

  The silvery sphere lifted slowly, calmly out of the smoking debris, perfectly unharmed. It drifted through the kilometre-wide hole in the city’s plaza level and moved slowly away, dropping its film of shields and altering its shape slightly to that of a large ovoid. It turned to the direction humans called facing and accelerated out of the gorge.

  27. The Core

  They stood on the edge of the kilometre-wide crater left in the plaza level. The suit visors made the scene bright as day. Ferbin clicked the artificial part of the view off for a few moments, just to see the true state of it. Dim, cold greys, blacks, blues and dark browns; the colours of death and decay. A Rollstar was due to dawn about now, but there would be no sign of it this deep in the gorge for many days yet and no melting warmth to restore the Falls until some long time after that.

  There was still a faint infrared glow visible through the suit’s visor, deep inside the crater. Steam lifted slowly from the dark depths; the vapour rose and was shredded to nothing by the cold, keening wind.

  Anaplian and Hippinse were checking readouts and sensor details. “Something like a small nuke,” Djan Seriy said. They were communicating without touching now, reckoning the need for silence was over. Even so, the suits chose the most secure method available, glittering unseen coherent light from one to the other, pinpointing.

  “Small blast but serious EMP and neutrons,” the ship’s avatoid said. “And gamma.”