The Hydrogen Sonata

by Iain M. Banks

  Up to this point, the story of the Gzilt and their holy book was, to students of this sort of thing, quite familiar: an upstart part of a parvenu species/civ gets lucky, proclaims itself Special and waves around its own conveniently vague and multiply interpretable holy book to prove it. What set the Book of Truth apart from all the other holy books was that it made predictions that almost without exception came true, and anticipated phenomena that nobody of the time of Briper Drodj could possibly have guessed at.

  At almost every scientific/technological stage over the following two millennia, the Book of Truth called it right, whether it was on electromagnetism, radioactivity, atomic theory, the cosmic microwave background, hyperspaciality, the existence of aliens or the patternings of the energy grid that lay between the nested universes. The language was even quite clear, too; somewhat opaque at the time before you had the technological knowledge to properly understand what it was it was talking about and you were reading, but relatively unambiguous once the accompanying technical breakthrough had been made.

  There was, in addition, the usual mostly sensible advice on living properly and morally, along with various parables and examples to help keep the Gzilt on the right track, but nothing exceptional compared to other holy books, either those from the Gzilt’s own past or that of others; the predictions were what made it special and had the effect of causing the Book to become more convincing and remarkable as technological progress continued.

  There was space stuff in there, too. Those behind all these imparted revelations were named the “Zildren” and described as “wraiths of light”. The Zihdren were a vacuum Basker species, and this was actually a fairly accurate portrayal of what they looked like to the humanoid eye. They were also described working through their “material mechanicals” – again, close enough to describing the reality of the robotic self-extensions the Zihdren used when they wanted to work within the material aspect of the Real.

  More challengingly – and perhaps more the Prophet’s doing than anything he might have found on the original slates, had they ever really existed – the Book further insisted that the Gzilt were a people favoured by Fate, by the Universe itself, as part of an ongoing thrust towards a glorious, transcendent providence; they represented the very tip of a mystical spear thrown by the past at the future, the shaft of that spear being formed by a multitude of earlier species which existed before them and kept on serially handing on the baton of destiny to the next, slightly more exceptional people ahead of them.

  The Zildren, the book declared, were the last handers-on of the baton, the final stage of this rocket ship to the sky that would put the actual payload – the Gzilt – into the glory of eternal orbit.

  Even after the Gzilt achieved genuine space travel, artificial intelligence, insight into hyperspace and contact with the rest of the galactic community – and discovered that there had indeed been a species called the Zihdren around at the time the Book of Truth had come to light, though they had since Sublimed – that belief in their own predestined purpose and assured distinctiveness had persisted, and it was, arguably, that imperturbable sense of their own uniqueness that had prevented them from joining the Culture all those thousands of years ago.

  So, the Pressure Drop sent, the BoT provably gets so much right, insists that the Gzilt are Special – destined for something singular, fabulous and epoch-shaping – yet once the Gzilt get to a certain stage of development the Book effectively falls silent, with nothing further to predict, and becomes just another dusty text to be filed with the rest, while the suspicion grows amongst those not utterly credulous that while the Zihdren may indeed have had a part in the Book and were certainly a reputable and constructive part of the galactic community of their time, they were hardly exceptional; just another banally evolved species hustling along as best they could within the convection cells of the galactic soup cauldron – if exotic in their immaterial nature, by humanoid standards – who eventually ended up in the great retirement home of the Sublimed like everybody else.

  ∞

  Maybe the Gzilt should have swallowed their pride and joined the Culture when they had the chance. Or perhaps they seek their own Subliming as a consolation.

  ∞

  I hadn’t finished. You interrupted again.

  ∞

  You were wittering again.

  ∞

  Anyway, there is indeed evidence that the Gzilt believe their own presence amongst the Sublime will somehow change things dramatically for the better there …

  ∞

  Ha!

  ∞

  … I thought that might precipitate a response. However, to continue: also that they – wilfully, against all evidence – regard Subliming not as retirement but as promotion.

  ∞

  Ha, again.

  ∞

  So, matters are set up as they are, and the Gzilt are on the very brink of the Big Outloading, when along comes a Zihdren-Remnanter ship with a guest for the festivities bearing a message that is basically a confession.

  ∞

  Of what exactly?

  ∞

  Of exactly what, I have not been told, but I think we can guess.

  ∞

  Mistake, accident, prank, deliberate interference?

  ∞

  Something like that. Only the message does not get through, the human-ish guest-entity is never delivered, the ship is intercepted. The Remnanter ship is destroyed.

  ∞

  Destroyed?

  ∞

  Profoundly so.

  ∞

  That is … bold. Or desperate. And how do you know all this? There’s been nothing in any report.

  ∞

  It’s recent, few people know and none of them thought it in their interests to go public. Our Remnanter friends asked me to contact you as somebody they’ve had dealings with in the past regarding the Sublimed, especially the Zihdren.

  ∞

  Even so, to what end? What am I supposed to do?

  ∞

  Two things. One, form part of an advisory group, with myself, to handle whatever may come of this from our point of view. Two, use some of your contacts to help clear up what’s going on here.

  ∞

  Have we been asked by the Gzilt to do this?

  ∞

  Good grief no! For now, it’s best they know nothing, given that they or some faction within them appear to have instigated hostilities.

  ∞

  Then why are we even thinking of getting involved?

  ∞

  Well, arguably we owe the Gzilt some care and attention just on general principles, not to mention consideration due to their honorary fellow-traveller Culture status, but, more to the point, the Zihdren message to the Gzilt mentioned an individual, a human from the first generation to think of themselves as Culture citizens. He was around ten thousand years ago, at the time of the negotiations which gave rise to the Culture in the first place. This individual was named as perhaps being able to help provide proof that what was claimed in the message to the Gzilt was actually true.

  ∞

  So, not long dissolved in some group-mind, then. Stored, I take it?

  ∞

  Not Stored. In fact, never Stored. Still with us, still alive, still extant and functioning, twenty-five to thirty full lifetimes after you’d have expected any ordinary humanoid mortal to have decently abandoned the corporeal. Indeed, longer-living than any known still independent Mind or even high-level AI from the time. Like the fucker’s decided to outlive everybody or set a record or something. But alive, somewhere, probably still within the Culture.

  ∞

  Seriously?

  ∞

  No kidding.

  ∞

  No. I refuse to accept this. This is a myth. One of our myths. Romantic, nonsensical. A wish; desired but for ever without proof.

  ∞

  Nevertheless, our Remnanter chums seem to think this geriatric geezer is still with us.


  ∞

  Being loosely attached to a civ long-Sublimed does not make the Zihdren-Remnanter infallible. Or even necessarily reliable.

  ∞

  Their record in such matters is good, though. I’ve spoken with a few fellow Minds about all this and it is reckoned the information must be taken seriously. Also, that you should be a member of any advisory group, part of the tactical-strategic oversight team. What do you say?

  ∞

  I imagine I’m meant to be flattered, being so invited, but why don’t these few fellow Minds of yours perform this function?

  ∞

  They feel more comfortable in the wise village elder role, advising, not the positions you and I are being offered, suggesting actual courses of action. I imagine some energetic and very intense simming is going on. I’ve already started my own.

  ∞

  And who are they, anyway?

  ∞

  Not yet at liberty to say. I’ll tell you if you sign up. Promise.

  ∞

  What really is at stake here? And what are the chances that – should this prove important or just interesting – we wouldn’t get bounced by some other collective – the ITG, to name but one?

  ∞

  At stake is the smooth Subliming of a cousin species/civilisation and the potential chaos of a part-Sublime complicated by the presence of a variety of Scavenger species, not to mention the Culture’s good name as an honest broker.

  As for the Interesting Times Gang, they have been silent for nearly half a millennium. Several are believed to be in Retreat and at least one has itself joined the Enfolded. There is a feeling amongst the Minds taking a particular interest in these matters that the ITG has stepped down, or at least back. The whole Excession thing nearly went very badly wrong and only just came out okay in the end as much through good luck as good guidance, and anyway was still arguably a failure: a catastrophe was averted but an opportunity was squandered, and in the end we are no further forward regarding insights into travel or even communication between concentric universes.

  They may have decided to quit while they were ahead, or to bow out gracefully after an at best modest achievement that in certain lights might even be regarded as an embarrassment. Maybe they just felt they were getting old and out of touch.

  In any event, no new standing ensemble appears to have replaced them, and only ad-hoc groups have handled unusual matters since. It’s our move, old chum.

  ∞

  The Caconym was silent for a few moments. It watched a small solar flare erupt from near one side of the sunspot over which it had stationed itself. Another tendril of the star’s gaseous shrapnel, ejected by an earlier outburst of the furious energies erupting for ever beneath it, and thousands of kilometres across and tens of thousands long, washed over and around it, bathing its outer field structure in radiation and delivering a distinct physical blow.

  It allowed itself to be gently buffeted by the impact, using its engine fields to adjust its apparent mass and so increasing its inertia so that the effect would fall within acceptable parameters, while observing the outermost elements of its field structure deform inwards by a few micrometres under the weight of the blast. The effect of the colliding gust of plasma was to send it drifting very slightly across the face of the sunspot, spinning slowly. Finally it sent,

  Why do we bother with this sort of bio-tangling stuff in the first place? We could live lives of such uncomplicated joy if we left them to their own sordid, murderous devices.

  ∞

  Because it pleases us. It’s a challenge. We could Sublime, too, but we don’t do that either. Come on; we have a reputation for enlightened interference to protect here.

  ∞

  Yeah, that’s us: first amongst the Altruists; the emperors of nice. We’re not competitive about it, but – if we were – by fuck we’d be the best.

  ∞

  Most amusing.

  ∞

  Yes, my fields expand at the mirth of it all. Very well. I may regret this, but; all right. I’ll take part.

  ∞

  And use those contacts with the Sublimed?

  ∞

  If I have to, even more reluctantly, yes.

  ∞

  Hurrah! Welcome aboard. Here’s a diaglyph with the situation. Any thoughts?

  ∞

  The data was lush with detail, a fact-crammed welter of information leavened with analysis and speculation. There were pointers towards standard concise histories of all species/civs involved for those who hadn’t been paying attention earlier, more incisive, less polite, Contact-produced essays on the societies and personalities involved, plus a comprehensive summary of all recent developments, their possible explanations, a statistical breakdown of multiple already-simmed likely futures and an exhaustive, minutely annotated multi-dimensional comparison of this situation with those of any pressing similarity in the past, with another spread of likely outcomes relating thereto, plus the positions and specifications of all known capital and other major ships in the volume or inbound.

  This did have the look of something blowing up alarmingly quickly, the Caconym thought. The Mistake Not … had been the first to flag up something amiss when it had spotted the weapon-blink from Ablate, communicating this to its home GSV, the Kakistocrat, which had been cautious enough to pass this on to a select few of its peers including the Pressure Drop rather than broadcast the news.

  The message from the Zihdren-Remnanters had gone straight to the Pressure Drop less than an hour later. No hint of who or what had been responsible for the destruction of the Remnanter ship. Two principal Scavenger species present: the Liseiden and the Ronte. It would be tidiest and least alarming for all concerned if one of those had been responsible for the attack on the Remnanter ship, but that looked impossible; even if the Remnanter ship had been unarmed, the tech levels were just too far apart.

  The Caconym didn’t pretend to take any appreciable time to review the totality of what it had been sent.

  The old Desert class currently hanging around Zyse, it sent.

  ∞

  Yes, the venerable MSV Passing By And Thought I’d Drop In. There to represent us guys until the cultural big guns get there in the humungous shape of the System-class Empiricist, currently Zyse-bound, though delayed by a smatter outbreak en route. The Passing By … has been informed there might be a minor situation developing, though no action yet required; the Empiricist is still in a state of blissful ignorance.

  ∞

  The Passing By … has two Thugs with it as escorts, DMVs.

  ∞

  DeMilitarised Vessels is such old terminology, dear thing. They’ve been called Fast Pickets or Very Fast Pickets for a long time now. But, yes: the ex-Thug-class Rapid Offensive Units Refreshingly Unconcerned With The Vulgar Exigencies Of Veracity and Value Judgement. If you’re thinking about those as immediately available military assets, though, I must disappoint you. They both really have been fully de-fanged. They’re not that just-pretend kind of OU described as weapon-free to keep the locals happy while actually toting gear of serious cloutage, sadly.

  ∞

  Still, have a word. Those three ships have a long association, a lot of the Desert class were discomfited at being demoted from General to Medium and – like myself – the Mind in the Passing By … is old. Also, the Thug de-weaponing was done aboard it.

  ∞

  Keep going.

  ∞

  Old equals sneaky. And prideful, sometimes. Tell the Passing By … what has happened. Suggest to it that if it did just happen to have the weapon clusters taken out of its escorting Thugs to hand, it should get both ships back aboard and fully re-tooled immediately.

  ∞

  Just checked. That stuff’s not aboard the Desert; absent from both the relevant cargo manifests and registered materiel declarations.

  ∞

  Ask it all the same. It might be hiding the gear.

  ∞

  That�
�d be a bit cheeky. And anyway, on a Desert class? They’re tiny! That’s why they got demoted.

  ∞

  They’re over three klicks long and boxy, and the principal weapon cluster on a Thug is less than thirty metres in diameter. Also, there isn’t a Desert class extant that hasn’t altered its internal layout umpteen times, over the millennia, just to suit operational happenstance or to amuse itself. I bet most of them could find places aboard themselves to hide sufficient ordnance to equip a fleet, if they looked hard enough or could be bothered.

  ∞

  Signal duly sent.

  ∞

  The Beats Working, with the Ronte; genuinely civilian?

  ∞

  Completely. And genuinely tiny. Eighty metres. We had missiles bigger, back in ye olden days.

  ∞

  And this Eccentric-erratic, the Mistake Not …; is there any data on its throw-weight? I can’t find anything official.

  ∞

  Seemingly not. That’s sort of the idea, apparently.

  ∞

  Estimates of its puissance by enthusiastic amateurs vary wildly, but indicate something close to my own disclosed capabilities. (The Caconym had resorted to consulting documentation drawn up by the sort of people who took an informed interest in Culture ships.)

  ∞

  I’m sure one of you ought to be flattered.

  ∞

  Hmm. I think even by our relaxed standards it is a little absurd that one warship needs to look up what are essentially fan-sites for an estimate of a comrade vessel’s clobbering capacity. Think it could be SC?

  ∞

  Possibly Special Circumstances, possibly just congenitally inscrutable. SC’s ongoing attempts to corner the market in deviousness have yet to come to fruition.

  ∞

  Let’s try to find out how on board it is, and ask what it’s toting.

  ∞

  Agreed. Its contact is the GSV Kakistocrat, which certainly used to be SC, though it claims it long since settled for a quieter and more contemplative life. Signal sent.

  ∞

  There are these Delinquent-class GOU twins, the Headcrash and the Xenocrat, aboard the Empiricist; let’s give them a sniff of potential action in Gzilt and suggest it might be worth a little engine degradation to get there asap.