The Algebraist

by Iain M. Banks

  The two hard contacts winked out, became orange and started to spread. Tacspace was throwing out probability cones, estim­ating where the ships might be. Ahead, the sky briefly glowed a pale uniform yellow, indicating that the rest of the Beyonder fleet could be anywhere within that volume. Then a scattering of bright red hard contacts firmed up out of the yellow wash, dispersing it.

  The fleet re-formed. They were back where they had started. If nothing else, Taince thought, they ought to have confused the Beyonders.

  - Pattern Zero, all ships.

  Even in the life-pod, she felt the flagship lurch as it braked, manoeuvred and then accelerated again. She watched it all on Tacspace. The fleet was collapsing, thinning, extending itself forwards and back, ship after ship slipping into a single long line, nose to tail.

  - BC-four, back down about ten. D-eleven, forward five. B-three and B-two, centre on D-eight. BC-four, maintain there.

  Taince watched them all in Tacspace, shuffling, jostling, ordering them into position until they were all lined up.

  - Ships of the line, yes, Vice? the Fleet Admiral sent, also watching.

  -Sir.

  There were no collisions, no botched moves, no drives left running too long, incinerating the craft behind. The line form­ation came together as smoothly as it ever had in VR sims. The battleship Gisarme led the way, blasting away a few tiny parti-cles left over from the wreck of the Petronel and laying down a stuttered laser barrage to try to intercept any mines, kinetic or otherwise, left in the way.

  This was a gamble, too. If it worked they'd be through and away, one after another, charging mob-handed right behind the Gisarme like a long sequence of battering rams. If it didn't work, there was a chance that first the Gisarme would hit something and then they'd all hit whatever was left of it. Potentially the whole fleet could be wiped out in one long pile-up of cascading collisions. The chances were small - smaller, the simulations indi­cated, than the risks associated with any of the other manoeu­vres - but only because this one included a safety premium due to its assumed unexpectedness, its sheer novelty value. If they'd got that wrong, it was much riskier than all the rest.

  The manoeuvre caught the Beyonders unawares. It was profoundly not standard Summed Fleet behaviour. The needle ships were one giant needle now, plunging through the debris field of the wrecked destroyer, firing all around them, scoring a couple of hits on distant hostiles desperately closing. Tacspace showed the lines of fire blazing out from the fleet like spokes from a filament-thin shaft and missiles spinning away like tiny glowing emeralds. The Beyonders were attempting to close, but it was too late. All that the nearest hostile units accomplished was their own destruction. In two minutes the Mercatorial fleet was through without loss, and a minute later its entire fire-pattern was rearward: a swirling skirt of crimson lines combing and coning into the emptying depths of space behind. Any further engagement now would be entirely on their terms, and the fleet's vastly superior firepower would have the first word, and the last.

  - Nice work, Vice. Fleet Admiral Kisipt sounded a little surprised, a little disappointed and moderately impressed. Taince knew that a lot of her fellow officers had wanted a proper battle, but this way had been better, quicker, more elegant. 'Nice work' - from a Voehn; that was real praise.

  - Sir. Taince kept her thought-voice calm, but inside it was her turn to whoop. Submerged in her dark womb of fluid, tubes and wires, her fists clenched, a smile appeared on her until then frowning face, and a little shiver shook her cradled body.

  *

  The Kehar family house on Murla, an island off the south coast a few hundred kilometres from Borquille, was another spher­ical building, a quarter of the size of the Hierchon's palace, but remarkable for being balanced on top of a great upthrust of water, precisely like a ball balanced on a water jet in a fair­ground.

  Saluus Kehar, perfectly groomed, glowing with health and generally looking as smoothly gleaming as one of his company's spaceships, met Fassin personally on the slim suspension bridge connecting the house with the spit of land jutting out into the ancient drowned caldera where the waters foamed and roared and spumed and the house balanced, barely trembling, on the giant column of water.

  'Fassin! Great to see you! Hey! That uniform suits you!'

  Fassin had thought he'd be briefed-indoctrinated-psyche-tested-pep-talked-fuck-knows-whatted and then bundled aboard ship to be whisked straight to Nasqueron. But even faced with arguably the single greatest emergency in its history, the Ulubine bureaucracy had a set way of doing things, and central to this ethos appeared to be not doing anything too momen­tous too quickly, just in case.

  The rest of the session in the Hierchon's audience chamber after the AI projection had issued its orders and asked for ques­tions had involved a great deal of talk, speech-making, point-scoring, back-covering, back-targeting and pre-emptive blame-avoidance. The image of Admiral Quile answered all the questions tirelessly and with a patience that was probably the most sure sign possible that it really was an AI talking. A human - especially an admiral, used to being obeyed instantly and without argument - would have lost patience long before the proceedings finally ground to a halt. Fassin had been pointed at and referred to several times, and been left with the distinct impression that this was all his fault. Which, he supposed, in a way it was. It had all gone on so long that Fassin's stomach had perhaps in sympathy with a large component of the mood in the chamber - started grumbling. He hadn't eaten since early breakfast on 'glantine, after all.

  'You are quite sure?' the image above the cooking-pot device asked eventually, when even the most talkative of those present seemed to have run out of questions to ask and points – and delicate portions of the anatomy - to cover. There was no hint of either pleading or relief in the projection's voice. Fassin thought either would have been appropriate.

  'Very well, then. I will bid you farewell, and good luck.'

  The image of the human male with a bald, tattooed scalp and lined face, standing there in his much-decorated armoured suit, looked around them one last time, executed a short, formal bow to the Hierchon and disappeared. Nobody seemed to know quite what to do for a moment. Then the black, pot-bellied machine in the centre of the floor started to make a loud humming noise. Shrievalty Colonel Somjomion and Cessorian Clerk-Regnant Voriel, attending as best they could to the machines they had been put in charge of when the others had been required to leave the chamber, started peering intently at various screens and controls. The circle of mirror-armoured troopers each tapped one ear, then brought up their guns, pointing them at the cooking-pot device, which was humming loudly now and starting to glow in the infrared. The hum rose and took on extra harmonics, deepening until the machine was visibly vibrating. Some of those close to the device either drew back or looked like they wanted to, as if fearing that the machine was going to explode. The air around its ribbed flanks shimmered. Above it, the atmosphere seemed to writhe and quiver, as though some mutant ghost of the image that had stood there was still fighting to escape.

  Then, just as the pot-bellied thing started to glow a deep cherry red around its midriff, it all faded away: noise and vibra­tion and heat. People relaxed. Somjomion and Voriel took deep breaths and nodded at the Hierchon. The troopers shouldered their arms. Whatever complex substrate inside the dark device had played host to the AI image of the Admiral had been turned to slag.

  The Hierchon Ormilla spoke from his glittering esuit. 'I invoke the full emergency powers of the War Emergency Plan. Martial law will be declared at the close of this extended session. Let those earlier excluded resume their places.'

  The flurry of politicking that Fassin had witnessed earlier was made to look mild in comparison as - without actually telling anybody not cleared to know about it any details - what was becoming known as The Current Emergency was talked over and enhanced roles and new responsibilities were discussed, squabbled over — between and within departments — revised, re-revised, traded, further discussed
and re-re-revised before finally being handed out.

  Fassin's belly was still making noises when the full session broke up and he was called to a briefing with his superiors in the Shrievalty Ocula. They kept him waiting in an ante-room within the Ocula's floor inside the Hierchon's palace; he shed one layer of his cumbersome court clothes and found some human food in a dispenser in a curving outside corridor with a view over the reception plaza. (Long evening shadows, towers and spires burnished red with sunset. He looked for some obvious sign that the city, planet and system were all under martial law again, but saw nothing.) He was still wiping his fingers when they called him in.

  'Major Taak,' Colonel Somjomion said. 'Welcome.' He was shown to a large circular table surrounded by uniformed Shrievalty personnel. They were mostly human or whule, though there were two jajuejein doing their best to look humanoid and seated, and a single oerileithe in a duller and slightly smaller version of the Hierchon's esuit, the discus of which was half-hidden in a wide slot in the floor. It seemed to radiate chill and dominate the room, all the same.

  Somjomion indicated the oerileithe. 'This is Colonel Hatherence,' she told Fassin. 'She will be your superior in this mission.'

  'Pleasure, sure,' the oerileithe boomed, twisting fractionally towards Fassin. The Colonel's esuit had no transparent face­plate like the Hierchon's, just armour and sensors, giving no sign of the creature within.

  Fassin nodded. 'Ma'am.' He'd thought the only oerileithe in the system apart from the Hierchon were basically Ormilla's near family and his girlfriends ('harem' was, though only just, too pejorative). He wondered whether Colonel Hatherence fitted neatly into either category or not.

  It was explained to him that they could not, of course, just send him off alone to do what he was supposed to do. Over the next hour, as communications, memos and remote audiences with the Hierchon himself interrupted Somjomion, Fassin was gradually given to understand that the task assigned quite specif­ically to him alone was one which would nevertheless unar-guably be best accomplished if he was escorted and overseen by people the Hierchon and his claque of cohorts felt they could actually trust.

  Accordingly, Fassin would not be alone on his next delve. He would benefit from the protection and guidance of Colonel Hatherence here, and from that of two of his fellow human Seers, Braam Ganscerel, Chief Seer of the most senior Sept of all, Sept Tonderon, and - as Fassin's junior - Paggs Yurnvic of Sept Reheo, with whom he had worked before. Chief Seer Ganscerel was currently readying himself to return as rapidly as possible from a habitat orbiting Qua'runze, and would rendezvous with Colonel Hatherence, Major Taak and Seer Yurnvic on Third Fury, from which the delve or delves would be conducted, as soon as possible.

  Qua'runze was the other big gas-giant in Ulubis system -there were two smaller examples as well. All had Dweller popu­lations too, though compared to Nasqueron's they were negli­gible in size. Getting Ganscerel from Qua'runze to Nasqueron and the Third Fury base would take well over a week, Fassin suspected. The old guy liked his luxuries and anyway wouldn't be physically able to cope with much more than one gee during the journey even if he wanted to.

  Fassin, very much feeling his way in all this, suddenly caught up within organisations and power structures he never imag­ined having anything much to do with and having to cope with networks of rank and superiority he had only the vaguest working knowledge of, had been about to start banging the table - probably only figuratively - and complaining about not being able to start the job he'd been very clearly ordered to begin as soon as possible. Then they mentioned Ganscerel and his journey back from Qua'runze and he saw that there was prob-ably no way he was going to be able to move this forward faster than the pace that had already been decided.

  Which, in a way, suited him fine. If the system really was under threat of imminent invasion and he was being asked to go on the most important delve of his life in the midst of it -and given the amount of time they were being told there was before the invasion took place, there was every likelihood he'd still be in-planet when it happened - then he wanted – needed - one last delve of his own, into Borquille's underworld, its own hazy, clouded, turbulent and dangerous nether-environment. He suddenly had things to do and people, or at least one person, to meet. The delay caused by Ganscerel might work out quite usefully. Of course, they probably wouldn't want to let him out of their sight, so he'd have to find a way round that.

  He also suspected that they wanted the whole delve done at a distance, from Third Fury, with him and Ganscerel and Paggs Yurnvic all lying wired up in the base there and communicating with remotes down in Nasqueron itself. (Certainly Ganscerel wasn't capable of jumping into a gascraft, breathing gillfluid and taking multiple gees, squished in shock-gel - he hadn't even done any of that stuff when he was young.) Fassin would have to try and find a way round that, too.

  He complained as crossly as he could pretend about not being allowed to get on with things, and then demanded some time off.

  'You mean, leave?' Somjomion said, goggle-eyed. ‘I believe you have some very intense briefing and training ahead of you, Major Taak. Many days' worth which will have to be crammed into hours. There is absolutely no time for leave.'

  He explained about Ganscerel's age, infirmity and therefore slow rate of travel. Somjomion looked indignant, but checked this, finally having another hurried conference with the Hierchon himself. 'Indeed,' she said, sighing, 'Chief Seer Ganscerel is profiled as being unable to withstand forces greater than 1.5 gee, and is already complaining at the prospect of that. It will be nine days before he can reach the Third Fury base.' Colonel Somjomion narrowed her eyes at Fassin. 'We shall proceed with your fuller briefing first thing tomorrow, Major Taak. If there is any time left over, a day or two of leave may be granted. I guarantee nothing.'

  'So. Another Emergency,' Saluus said. He smiled broadly. Tm told I have you to thank for this, Fass.' He held out a slim flute. Fassin accepted the glass. 'Entirely my own work.' Sal was, he supposed, one of the few people in the system for whom the prospect of a War Emergency Plan coming into force was genuinely cause for celebration.

  'Really?' Saluus said. 'You're even more eminent than I thought. And you still look about twenty, you dog.' Sal laughed the easy laugh of a man who could afford to be generous with his compliments. Sal chinked glasses. They were drinking cham­pagne; some ancient Krug with a meaningless date all the way from Earth and probably worth as much as a small spaceship. It had a pleasant taste, though not many bubbles.

  The two men stood on a balcony, looking out over the caldera. The surging waters beneath formed a great frothed slope spreading all around from underneath the house, a shallow cone of billows and hummocks of foam all furiously bunching and collapsing and rushing ever outwards to where the fractious turmoil settled slightly and became merely wildly charging waves. The balcony was just above the equatorial rim of the house so the column of water actually supporting the place was hidden from them, but the crater walls, a couple of kilometres distant, echoed with the tumult.

  They had climbed up here after a modest reception and light lunch with a few of Sal and his wife's friends - notables all -who were here for the afternoon. Fassin had secured an invi­tation to stay for a couple of days, until the Shrievalty needed him back in Borquille. He had changed out of his dark grey Shrievalty uniform into casual clothes.

  Sal leaned back against the barrier. 'Well, thank you for coming to visit.'

  Fassin nodded. 'Thank you for inviting me.'

  'My pleasure. Just mildly surprised you asked.'

  'They trust you, Sal.' Fassin gave a small shrug. ‘Ineeded to get away from all that military shit and they wouldn't let me just skip out the door of the palace and into Boogeytown.' He looked out at the tumbling waters. 'Anyway' - a glance at Sal - 'been too long.' He wanted to give the impression that this had been a good excuse to effect some sort of reconciliation he'd long wanted to make. He and Sal had met up only very occasionally over the two centuries since the wormho
le's destruction, usually at the sort of gigantic social events it was hard to get out of but easy to remain alone within. They hadn't really talked.

  Even now, meeting up, there were whole aspects of their lives that somehow didn't need to be gone into. How and what they had each been doing was a matter of public record and it would almost be an insult to inquire. Fassin had recognised Sal's wife from news and social images, hadn't really needed introducing. There hadn't been a single person at the reception below, alien or otherwise - servants apart, obviously - about whom Fassin, who was no great social observer, couldn't have written a short biography. Saluus probably didn't know as much about Fassin as vice versa, but he'd already congratulated him on his engage­ment to Jaal Tonderon, so he knew that much (or, more likely perhaps, he just had an efficient social secretary with a good database).

  'So, what can you tell me, Fass?' Sal asked casually. He wrin­kled his nose. 'Can you say anything?'

  'About the Emergency?'

  'Well, about whatever's causing all the fuss.'

  There was more than a fuss; there was low-level war. Starting the day after martial law was declared there had been a sequence of attacks, mostly on isolated and system-edge craft and settle­ments, though with some worrying assaults further in-system, including one on a Navarchy dock-habitat in Sepekte's own trailing Lagrange that had killed over a thousand. Nobody knew whether it was Beyonders behind this resurgence of violence, or the E-5 Discon advanced forces, or a mixture of both.

  More oddly, but for Fassin far more disturbingly, somebody had nuked the High Summer house of Sept Litibiti, back on 'glantine, just the day before; missiled it from space like it was a military facility. Bizarre and unprecedented. The place had been empty save for a handful of unlucky gardeners and cleaners, keeping the place ticking over until the appropriate season, but it made Seers throughout the system worried that they'd suddenly, for some reason, become targets. Fassin had sent a message to Slovius saying that maybe they should consider shifting the whole Sept elsewhere on 'glantine. Head for an out-of-season hotel, perhaps. He'd yet to receive a reply, which might be Slovius ignoring his advice, or just the authorities' new message-traffic checking and censoring software struggling to cope. Neither would surprise.