The Hydrogen Sonata

~It would help to know the intended location of any such attempted disloc, to help confirm the nature of enemy intentions, Agansu sent, approaching the great open balcony that gave out onto the tunnel which held the approaching airship.

~That is entirely compatible with our own intentions. We’ll let you know where any disloc was targeted, whether successful or not.

~Thank you.

There were people ahead. The spaces around the airship Equatorial 353 had been becoming more populated over the days he had been keeping pace with it. Ground vehicles rumbled slowly past ahead on a broad roadway; they were gaudy, booming with music. Across the gulf of the tunnel he could see a train, trundling, keeping pace, searchlights on it pointing back at the airship, flicking slowly off and on again as they passed behind supporting struts. A smaller airship, like a tiny white cloud made solid, appeared from a side tunnel and drew slowly ahead of the Equatorial 353, scattering clouds of sparkling, coloured dust which a rear-facing laser lit up in gyrating abstract patterns.

The skin of the Equatorial 353 exhibited a series of large moving images, as though projected onto its smooth curvature. There appeared to be seven or eight of these distorted displays covering the airship’s surface at any one time. Some of the photographs were stills, most moved, and they sometimes fused together to provide larger images. Some appeared only to make any sort of sense considering the airship as a whole, in other words imagining the form of the display on the other side of the craft. The most common themes appeared to be records of earlier art installations aboard the craft over the last few years, nature in the form of plants and animals, historical and presently existing forms of transport, and pornography.

~We carry four sixty-four-unit platoons of marine combat arbites, the 8*Churkun’s captain told him. ~They are at your disposal, Colonel. Shall I have my tactical engagements officer ready some or all of them for deployment?

~Please do.

He had to push through a small parade of people — dressed in motley, many dancing as they moved, some singing, some chanting — to get to the edge of the space where the balcony gave out onto the open tunnel of curving ribs and spiralling pipes. There he found the Equatorial 353, filling the monstrous tube like a comically slow shell in the biggest, least efficient gun ever made.

Then Colonel Agansu had a sudden, literal flash of memory, and remembered the magnified shadow of his own suited form being thrown out across the elevator shaft within the Incast facility on Bokri as the combat arbite Uhtryn, behind him, was dissolved in a pointillist spray of tiny, fierce anti-matter explosions, blasting a blindingly intense sleet of radiation past him, through him.

~How many of the combat arbites do you need, Colonel?

A chorus of beeps, trills, clangs and musical phrases — followed by some cheers and the start of a fireworks display from the top of the giant airship — announced that it was midnight on Zyse, and the Instigation was only two days away.

~All of them.

Twenty-one (S -2)

“Because you’re liable to get killed.”

“That doesn’t seem to be stopping you.”

“Of course not. I’m an avatar. ‘Killed’ doesn’t even mean the same thing for me. You’re a bio; I’ve seen how you guys die and it’s messy.”

“I meant as the ship. The Mistake Not… You’re liable to get killed. Aren’t you?”

“A slightly more weighty consideration, I accept, but even then; I’ve already transmitted my mind-state to my home GSV and switched to full combat readiness, so I’m kind of ready for death. And anyway, not dead yet.”

“This is my fight, though, isn’t it? More than yours?”

Berdle sighed. “This is about the Gzilt, but the Culture appears to be all mixed up in it, through QiRia, so it’s our problem to sort out.”

“It’s still basically about us. You can’t do everything. You’re not our… parent.”

“You’re not even backed-up, Cossont. If you die, you die.”

“Can’t you back me up?”

“No.”

She had a sudden thought. “Did you back-up QiRia, his mind-state from the grey cube?”

“Yes. Also transmitted, with a note it’s private and to be wiped if the original survives.”

She frowned. “Why can’t you back me up?”

“You’ve no neural lace; even starting right now it would take far too long. We’re already out of time.” Berdle waved his hands, as though exasperated. “Why are you so keen to risk your life anyway? You’re a military reservist civilian facing Subliming in a couple of days; why the rush to die? And, I’m telling you: having you present will make my job harder, not easier. You won’t be contributing, you’ll be jeopardising.”

“First of all, on that last point, I don’t believe you. I think you’re just trying to protect me, being all male- gallant. I’m flattered but there’s no need.”

“I’m a fucking razor-arsed starship, you maniac! I’m not male, female or anything else except stupendously smart and right now tuned to smite. I don’t give a fuck about flattering you. The few and frankly not vitally important sentiments I have concerning you I can switch off like flicking a switch.”

“Anyway. You can’t keep me prisoner on the ship. You’re Culture and I’m a free agent. I demand to be set down in the Girdlecity.”

“They are looking for you, remember? They think you trashed Fzan-Juym with your bare hands or whatever the fuck.”

“So you’d better look after me then.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you! I don’t need that extra workload! And if you insist on quitting the ship I’ll put you down wherever I damn well please, not where you specifically demand, so there you are; you can’t win.”

Cossont, already dressed in the same figure-hugging under-suit she’d worn at Bokri, stood looking levelly at the avatar across the module’s lounge. “If you don’t give a fuck about flattering me,” she said slowly, “and if you can just switch off any sentiments you have concerning me, you can do that down there, on the planet, in the Girdlecity, in the airship. So you don’t have to worry about me, and I will help, not hinder.”

Berdle stared at her. Then he smiled, and relaxed. His tone of voice changed. “I don’t know about you, Vyr,” he said, conversationally, “but I’m sort of posturing here.” He shrugged. “If you insist on coming, you can, though it’s your funeral and I won’t risk any part of what I’m supposed to be doing to keep you safe at all, not if it’s a trade-off; just nothing.” He shook his head. “I thought maybe you were just putting on a sort of good-enough show. You know; so you could feel okay about yourself even though you didn’t want to go, or expect to. So, one last chance, in all seriousness: please don’t come.”

“One last time: I want to. Take me with you.”

Berdle sighed. “Okay. You can’t say you weren’t warned. Put that on.” He nodded behind Cossont. She turned round to see a bizarre vision of a man in close-fitting armour — half mirror, half soot-black, headless — marching out of an alcove, growing an extra pair of arms and peeling itself open as it approached her.

“What’s that?”

“A better suit. I’m downloading a copy of QiRia’s mind-state to it now, so we can access the old geezer’s memories direct if we get hold of his eyes without the ship around. Go on; just step in as you are. We’ve ninety seconds before we snap aboard, so don’t take too long.”

“I thought we had ten minutes!”

“Not any more; the ship’s powering back out again, hoping to lure the battleship away from Xown.”

“Shit.” Cossont stepped over to the suit and then into it; it flowed closed around her, leaving the helmet