The Hydrogen Sonata Read online

  They’d been expecting it; the Presence hadn’t come as a surprise – these things always appeared when a people, a civilisation, was preparing for and committed to Subliming – but, somehow, actually seeing it there had still come as a shock.

  Banstegeyn remembered watching the poll figures wobble; parliament, the media and his own people were canvassing the general population all the time back then, and the commitment levels had dipped significantly when the Presence had appeared. He’d worried. This was so much what he wanted, what he believed in and knew was right, what he himself had spent his life working towards and staked his reputation on; this would be his legacy and his name would live for evermore in the Real, no matter what lay ahead in the Sublime. It was utterly the right thing to do; he had known this and still knew this with absolute certainty, and yet still he’d worried. Had he been too bold? Had he tried to make everybody go too soon: a decade early, a generation, even?

  But then the figures had rallied. And only grown since. The commitment was still there. It would all happen.

  He looked away, past Jevan’s handsome but slightly vacant face, and Solbli’s pleasantly matron-like look of admiration and pride, sparing them both a quick smile, then turned as he heard footsteps hurrying up towards him.

  “Septame Banstegeyn! A historic day!”

  “Another step closer,” President Geljemyn said as the group around her parted to admit him. Banstegeyn glanced at various faces, distributing quick smiles and curt nods of his own. There were three trimes: Yegres, Quvarond and Int’yom; the full extant set, basically, given that the rest were Stored, awaiting the pre-waking before the Sublime. Quvarond counted as an opponent, Int’yom was a geriatric nonentity but he was his geriatric nonentity, and Yegres did as Int’yom told him.

  Six of his fellow septames were also present; five his, one neutral. An only slightly better than average for/against ratio, amongst those left. Two generals, an admiral, no press. Quite a lot of puffiness and glistening skin all round, he noticed; signs of drunkenness.

  The president still wore her vulgarly cheap little time-to on a band round her wrist, he observed. It was the sort of thing retailers had given away, back in the day. She’d been gifted many far more elegant, tasteful and expensive time-tos since, but had made a point of sticking with this one. It cycled between showing the number of hours left, and the days. Currently it was on days, reading “S -22”. His own example, displayed on his chest like a small but important honour, was delicately beautiful, purely mechanical, exquisite in its workmanship and eye-poppingly expensive.

  The almost normal-looking Ambassador Mierbeunes was there from the Iwenick, representing the Liseiden, as was the Culture’s current most senior representative to Gzilt; Ziborlun. This silver-skinned creature was an avatar of the ancient Systems Vehicle that was currently gracing the skies of somewhere not too far away, no doubt. There was a bigger, grander, much more flattering GSV on its way for the formal ceremonies in the days immediately preceding the Subliming, allegedly, but they’d yet to see any sign of it.

  Banstegeyn was also aware of Orpe, the president’s beautiful AdC, looking at him as he joined the huddle round Geljemyn. The girl was trying not to smile too much, looking away from him now and again. He didn’t return the look. Doubtless many already guessed, but there was no need to make things easy for people.

  “Another step closer, Madame President,” he agreed, accepting a soft drink from a steward and holding it aloft.

  “Eternity here we come,” Trime Yegres said, raising his glass. “We go to our Reward.”

  Drunk, Banstegeyn decided.

  The president looked amused. Much seemed to amuse her. It was one of her faults. “The Subliming makes all of us sound like religious zealots,” she said.

  Yegres swallowed, looked at the silver-skinned being across from him and said, “I’m sure our Culture friends think we’ve always sounded like religious zealots.”

  Ziborlun made a small bow. Its silver skin looked less unnatural in lamp light. “Not at all,” it said.

  Yegres frowned at it. “You’re very … diplomatic,” he told the creature, slurring his words. “Are you sure you’re Culture?”

  “In all seriousness,” Ambassador Mierbeunes said, meaning he was about to say something fatuous, flattering or both, “I have never entirely understood why the Book of Truth is regarded as a religious work at all.” He looked round, blandly suave as ever, smiling. “It would seem more like—”

  “That would be because it is the basis of our religion,” Trime Quvarond informed him curtly. Banstegeyn didn’t bother repressing his smile; he’d found the Iwenick male annoying while they’d been conducting negotiations; now they’d concluded them he was insufferable.

  “Well, in that sense,” Mierbeunes said smoothly, still smiling, “obviously and completely a religious work, of course, without question …” He continued to witter.

  Banstegeyn had just become aware of a uniform at his side.

  “Marshal Chekwri,” Solbli whispered softly in his ear, overriding the earbud cancel. She rarely got this wrong.

  “Marshal Chekwri!” Banstegeyn said loudly, mostly to shut the Iwenick up, and turned to greet the Commander in Chief of the Home System Regiment.

  The marshal of the First bowed to all, clapped her hands gently in front of her. “May I drag you away?” she asked him. She looked at Geljemyn. “Madame President?”

  Geljemyn nodded. “If you must,” she said.

  “All yours!” Yegres said merrily. “Don’t hurry bringing him back! Ha ha!”

  “Excuse me,” Banstegeyn said. He beamed a smile round all of them, though it soured a little when it got to Yegres.

  He suspected only Orpe would be truly sad to see him go.

  He followed the marshal back up the steps, trailed by Jevan and Solbli. When they got inside, the marshal turned to his AdC and secretary and smiled as she said, “Thank you.”

  Jevan and Solbli looked at Banstegeyn, who gave the tiniest of nods. They looked forlorn as he and the marshal stepped into an elevator.

  When the lift started to drop, he looked at the marshal and said, “What?”

  The marshal just looked at him with her tired old eyes in her tired old face, and smiled thinly.

  He hoisted one eyebrow, then nodded. “Hmm,” he said, more to himself than her.

  There were places under the parliament building few people ever got to see, or even knew were there. This was one. The room was round with concave black walls but was otherwise unremarkable, holding a round table and some seats; Banstegeyn’s office was bigger. And had a better view, obviously. More of note had been the three metre-thick doors they had had to negotiate to get here, each of which had swung closed behind them.

  “Now?” Banstegeyn asked the marshal after the room’s own massive door had thudded shut.

  “Now,” the marshal confirmed.

  “How bad is it?”

  Chekwri nodded. “It is within what was expected. We just have more detail, choices for action.” She glanced towards the centre of the room. “Shall we?”

  They sat. “Scavengers? The other thing? What?”

  “The other thing,” Marshal Chekwri confirmed.

  Banstegeyn sighed. Chekwri was one of only a handful of people who knew – not counting whoever knew who wasn’t supposed to; he shivered to think how many of them there might be. “What detail, what choices?” he asked her.

  “The leak was only to the Fourteenth,” the marshal told him.

  He nodded. One regiment. That wasn’t so bad. Still bad enough. “Would be, wouldn’t it?” he said. The Fourteenth – the Socialist-Republican People’s Liberation Regiment, 14, to give it its full title – had been the most sceptical regarding Sublimation from the start, even if it too had finally – at least apparently – come onside. “Who was responsible?”

  “Nobody,” the marshal told him.

  He looked at her. “Somebody is always responsible,” he told her.
r />   She shook her head. “This was something generated within the Mind-set or the subsidiary substrate mechanisms of the Churkun itself. The ship had a one-off spy … you’d have to call it a program, it was so old and tiny; a virus, sitting in its computational matrix. Whatever it was – it deleted itself immediately – it had been in there since before the ship itself was constructed, while the Mind-set was still in virtual form, being test-run by the shipyard’s Technology and Processing Department, four hundred and seventy years ago. Even then, it might not have required anybody within the Tech Department to plant it; could be done from outside.”

  “And it was doing nothing all that time?”

  “Just waiting for something to come along sufficiently game-changing to be worth betraying its presence for.”

  “And nobody found it?”

  “Obviously.”

  “Or nobody who wasn’t also a traitor, at least,” Banstegeyn said, glancing away.

  The marshal frowned. “I think if we start assuming there might be traitors within the fleet’s virtual crews we make traitors of ourselves. Saboteurs, at the very least. This was something so small, in a set of substrates so vast, it was possible for it to hide. Once it was in there, no further—”

  Banstegeyn’s eyes went wide. “What about the other ships?” he blurted.

  The marshal sat back fractionally at being interrupted, but said, calmly, “All those still with us are checking. Now they have a rough idea what they’re looking for, it’s hoped they can either find anything similar or give themselves a clean bill of health within days.”

  Banstegeyn was appalled. “Days?”

  “Impossible to do any quicker. The fleet, such as it is, these days, remains fully operational in every other respect; the techs – the ships too – maintain there is absolutely zero possibility of anything similar taking over any part of the running of the vessels; stuff like this can watch and wait and signal if it finds a way, but it can’t affect.”

  “And the Churkun?” Banstegeyn asked. “What’s it – is it returning to—?”

  “The Churkun announced its determination to Sublime as soon as possible,” the marshal said. “Nothing more has been heard of it since so either it has already gone or it is still preparing to.” Chekwri smiled humourlessly. “I understand that the aftermath of battle, even a one-sided one, is not generally considered to constitute the most favourable condition for the instigation of Sublimation.” The pretended-at smile disappeared. “And kindly keep that secret, too, Septame. The ship didn’t announce this publicly and we’d rather people think it’s still with us; the fleet’s reduced enough as it is.”

  Banstegeyn opened his mouth, seemed to catch himself, then said, “All right. Never mind. What about the Fourteenth?”

  “We are almost certain—”

  The septame held up one hand. “‘We’?”

  “An absolute minimum of my best, most trusted people know we’re looking for something, not what it is,” the marshal said. “It’s all in hand, all working. The good, the very good news is that we are almost certain the information is held by probably only one substrate in the Fourteenth’s HQ, and known to a handful of their top brass, at most. Nobody else. Not yet.”

  “Not yet for how long?”

  “Can’t say. All we know is they haven’t tried to share this so far, to the best of our knowledge.”

  Banstegeyn looked to one side and rubbed his fingers as though testing the feel of an invisible piece of cloth. “Of course, they might not do anything with it. They might just sit on it.”

  “That is a possibility,” the marshal said, sounding doubtful.

  “We could just ask them, I suppose,” he said, looking at the marshal, and smiling. “They might even listen to reason.”

  “We could,” she said. “They might.” She held his gaze, kept her expression neutral.

  “Let’s do that, then,” the septame said, sitting back. The marshal’s face betrayed the tiniest flicker of surprise. “Though,” Banstegeyn said, sitting forward again, “take me through what else you were thinking of.”

  Chekwri frowned. “One approach might preclude the other. To ask would be to warn, and then any other choice would be closed off.”

  “What if,” the septame said, “one waited to make this appeal to reason until the other choice was available … at a moment’s notice?”

  The marshal seemed to think for a moment. “Given the capabilities of the technologies involved, especially the potential rapidity of response they possess, even a moment might be warning enough to turn a potentially successful action into one that was sure to fail.”

  “Hmm,” Banstegeyn said, sitting back again. “Then it would certainly be foolish to give any greater degree of warning, wouldn’t it?”

  The marshal’s eyes narrowed a little as she said, “Quite.”

  “What did you have in mind?” he asked her. “What does it involve?”

  “It involves a fast, powerful ship, a single surgical strike with full end-operator tactical-choice freedom and – in case any further action is required – a micro-force of just two: a highly augmented special forces field-colonel and a non-humanoid combat arbite.”

  “And this would be in, on—”

  “Eshri, Izenion system.”

  Banstegeyn bit his lower lip. He looked away. “Against our own people …”

  “Who put a piece of spyware into another regiment’s capital ship nearly five hundred years ago, who might have done the same thing to other elements of the fleet and who could, if they wanted …” The marshal let her voice trail off.

  “… potentially jeopardise the whole Subliming,” the septame said, still looking to one side, rubbing his lip now. He looked at her. “How soon can we put all this together?”

  “It already is together, Septame. The assets are presently in transit for Izenion.”

  Banstegeyn widened his eyes. “Are they now?”

  “I instructed the battle-cruiser Uagren to depart Zyse system for Izenion twenty minutes ago. It is recallable at any point. It seemed rash to hesitate once the materiel and personnel were collated. And nothing irresilable happens without your express permission.”

  “How long until I would have to make a decision?”

  “The Uagren’s travel time to Izenion is between forty-six and fifty-four hours, depending on whether it flies through or comes to a local stop. Say forty-five hours to go yes/no on any pre-agreed action re the former, though if there’s no further sign of development from the Fourteenth HQ, I’d advise the local stop; that way we have a chance of dealing with any loose ends or unanticipated post-strike outcomes immediately rather than half a day later; there’s nothing else we can get to Izenion sufficiently quickly to provide immediate back-up if the Uagren commits to a fly-through mission. In that case, say fifty-three hours. To leave time to switch from one mission profile to another – fly-through to local stop – a decision would be required thirty-eight hours from now. That would be your first decision-point: in thirty-eight hours.”

  “And if I decide nothing; if no decision is made?”

  “The ship flies straight through Izenion system and loops back to return here without taking any action at all.”

  “Good. Let’s leave that as the default, for now.” He took a deep breath. “So. Thirty-eight hours, forty-five and fifty-three. I’ll try to remember.”

  The marshal smiled thinly. “Obviously we must accept that the usual restrictions apply to committing any part of this to any form of memory other than that we were born with.”

  Banstegeyn lifted his time-to from his chest and twirled a platinum knob on it. “I take it it won’t represent too great a security threat if I set an alarm.” He aligned the alarm hand, then looked up at the marshal’s expressionless face. She remained silent. He sighed, let the time-to fall back against his chest. “Really?”

  “It would be circumstantial, but in the event of something going wrong and a subsequent investigation …”

>   “A subsequent investigation?” Banstegeyn said, incredulous. “We’re supposed to be Subliming in …” he glanced at the time-to, “… twenty-two days, one hour.”

  “Nevertheless. Foolish to risk what need not be risked. I’ll be in touch shortly before a decision is needed.”

  Banstegeyn sighed and unset the alarm. He looked at Chekwri. “This does have to happen, you know,” he said. “The Subliming. It has to happen now, and completely, or not …” Another sigh. He felt suddenly tired. “I’ve looked at the statistics, the sims. For a species like ours, if there’s a stall, it’s likely to take another three to five generations before it actually happens. That’s …” He shook his head. “That’s why this has to happen, Madame Marshal.”

  Marshal Chekwri, Commander in Chief of the Home System Regiment, was silent a little while longer, then said, “That is why we will make sure that it does, Septame.”

  Five

  (S -22)

  The Caconym, a Culture Limited Offensive Unit of the Troublemaker class, spun slowly above the forest of writhing, wildly shining loops that was the surface of the orange-red star Sapanatcheon. The ship rotated gently in the midst of the blasts of radiation, charged particles and magnetic force coming swirling in from almost every direction, though mostly from below, where a sunspot the size of a gas giant planet was passing slowly beneath. The LOU was taking readings and collecting data, for what it was worth, but really it was just watching, admiring.

  The LOU was a modern ship with an old Mind, part of an experiment of sorts to see how that would work. The theory was that pairing a capable new vessel with a wise old Mind would somehow present the best of both worlds, especially for one of the Culture’s relatively few warships, which would be fully expected to sit/drift/race around all its anticipated life doing nothing whatsoever, or at least nothing whatsoever to do with what it had been designed for. The trouble with this idea, as the Caconym had been amongst the first to point out, was that – simulations aside – you would never really know how your theory was standing up to reality until the shit hit the intractor, when it tended to be a bit too late for rethinks and refits.