The Hydrogen Sonata

his skin and flesh just falling away, under his clothes, exactly as if his flesh had turned to jelly. She felt her mouth open, had time to wonder if they were under attack from some sort of flesh-melting weapon, then noticed that the avatar was watching this whole process with nothing more than interest.

“Shedding excess weight,” Berdle said through her helmet.

He stood in a neatly circular pool of fleshy stuff, reduced to something not far off a skeleton, though one with what still looked like a covering of skin; clothes hanging off him, face like a skull, his knees the widest part of his legs and his elbows the widest part of his arms above his wire-thin wrists, wrinkled skin covering all exposed surfaces.

Then he filled slowly out again, as though his still-skin-covered bones — or what passed for bones — were themselves expanding. His skin became smooth again, his face filled out. Then his clothes fell away too, joining the thick puddle at his feet, all of which turned white and developed folds. The avatar — equipped with a perfectly respectable-looking penis, Cossont was pleased, in a general kind of way, to see — stooped and picked up the stuff that had recently been the equivalent of skin, flesh and muscle and which was now a convincing, if quite thick, white robe, which he let drop on from above. There was another one, still round his feet. He lifted it with one foot, handed it to her.

“Best I can do,” he said.

“No, no; bravo.”

“You’ll need to lose the outer suit; sorry.”

“That’s okay.” The suit split down the front and she stepped out of it. It collapsed and compressed into something that looked like a sort of flattened, elongated black crash helmet.

“We won’t have to go out the same way we came in, will we?” she asked.

Berdle shook his head. “Highly unlikely. Just the under-suit would keep you safe, anyway.”

The under-suit was changing too; expanding slightly, so that, in most places, its surface was about a centimetre or so out from her own skin. It was changing colour and texture too, coming to look convincingly like skin. A thin layer crept over her face, making her skin feel tight.

“That feels weird.”

“Yes, but you’re unrecognisable,” the avatar told her. Berdle’s face had changed too; he looked nothing like he had the last time they’d been here. Still good-looking, but less striking.

Cossont looked down at herself. “Weird,” she said. “I feel more naked now than I do when I’m naked.” She pulled the thick, heavy shift on over her head. It lay, weighty, on her shoulders. “There’s only one set of arm holes!”

Her lower arms had to hang down inside the pale shift.

“Those extra arms are the one thing about you it’s hard to disguise,” Berdle said.

“Hmm,” she said. “Yeah, I suppose it is better if we don’t advertise those.”

“Take the shift off as late as you can,” Berdle suggested.

“Okay. What about Mr Q?” Cossont asked, She recalled the avatar telling her while they’d still been on the Mistake Not… that QiRia’s mind-state had been put into the outer suit.

“I’ve already transferred him to the inner suit,” Berdle told her. “He’ll run slower but feel free to wake him up and talk to him if you want; he’s functional.”

“Maybe later.” Cossont used one foot, toeing the compacted outer suit. “This?”

“Stays here unless we need it, when it becomes a drone. Though it’ll blow its cover the instant it switches on its AG or a lift-field.” Berdle straightened, flexed, looked at her. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be. Let’s go.”

~We are quite certain there is no way they could already be aboard? Colonel Agansu asked the Churkun’s captain.

~We are reasonably certain, the captain replied. ~Not absolutely certain.

Agansu found this reply inadequate, but chose not to say anything. People were cheering all around him. He looked at the airship. The Equatorial 353 was displaying a countdown on its hull now; giant numbers three hundred metres high were clicking down the time to zero. There was half a minute to go.

Boarding gantries had swung out from various opened galleries and balconies dotted along the side of the airship, where crew could be seen opening doors and preparing to extend the gantries the last few metres that would let people use them to board. The gantries ended in complicated-looking up-and-over constructions that let them extend over the roadway parapet. Agansu watched the nearest one lower slowly towards the roadway surface, just ahead. A crew-person from the airship stood on the bottom step of the lowering gantry, holding a flimsy-looking gate closed, preparing to open it.

People were already jostling to get close to the steps. Agansu, simply massing much more than any human of his size, had no difficulty in shouldering people out of the way and making his way quickly to the front. He made suitably placatory gestures and muttered, “Excuse me,” several times, to avoid unnecessary unpleasantness, though he did hear some complaints. Soon he was walking at a slow stroll with the gated steps facing him and various people jostling him ineffectually at his sides and back.

~Colonel, I’m going to hand you over to our marine operations officer now, the captain sent. ~The Culture ship is returning and showing every indication it intends to pull to a stop here in about ten minutes, and my full attention is required to be focused on this development.

~I see, Agansu replied.

~Marine operations here, Colonel. I’ve had all units looking for anything remotely like a ship avatar and so far nothing’s registering. With this many units in a minimum double-shell configuration we’ve got really good triangulation and background grain size, so something ought to have shown up by now. I think the person or people you’re looking for is/are already aboard. Also, a closer inspection of the airship has identified a few spaces that are not fully shielded. Our surveillance specialist has started putting equipment in there, though it’s not proving easy to gain access to the rest of the vessel. Do you want us to look for a place to disloc you aboard?

~That will not be necessary, Agansu replied, looking across to the giant figures displayed on the airship’s skin. Just a few seconds left. He could see more galleries appearing on the side of the vessel as portions of the hull folded inwards. Doors were opening. ~I am about to board now, conventionally. Inform Marshal Chekwri.

~Acknowledged, sir. Will do. We’ve got insect-plausible surveillance devices entering the apertures opening in the airship, though the shielding is going to make keeping in touch with them difficult; we’ll need a lot to keep a comms chain open. Also, I’m just getting some civilian feed here from the airship; public channel. Seems this Ximenyr person is heading… for the top of the ship, but the only way in is through some big water tank, from the bottom.

~Thank you, Agansu sent, as the countdown shown on the side of the airship reached zero. A great ragged cheer went up all around and the crew-person on the steps just ahead of him opened the boarding gate.

Agansu stepped onto the gantry, feeling it dip under his weight. ~Continue to monitor me, he sent, ~and have arbites near, ready to lend close support.

~Sir.

He smiled at the crew-person.

Cossont was letting the shift drop from round her shoulders, with Berdle just behind her, sheltering her — “The lady is modest,” he’d told the people helping. Just then, right at the entrance to one of the translucent spheres, something happened to several of the lights shining into the giant tank. One in particular, off to the side, flared brightly, then seemed to go out entirely. Most of the rest kept on flickering as they dimmed.

Everybody in the space under the tank was looking at the lights. Cossont, forewarned by Berdle, was almost the only person not distracted. She stepped quickly out of the fallen shift and into the glutinously resisting field protecting the entrance to the sphere. Warm water swirled rapidly up round her almost immediately; she was raised off her feet a little as it reached her neck. She lifted her head, with the breather device clamped in her mouth and over her nose, as the waters closed over her and the valve above opened. She was borne up anyway, but kicked as well, catching a hazy, distorted glimpse of Berdle picking up her shift and walking across the space — beneath her, now — to deposit it on a shelf. The lights seemed to return to normal as the view below disappeared.

“The maze is fairly simple,” Berdle said through the suit’s earbuds as she bumped head-first into what felt