The Hydrogen Sonata

otherwise equally matched Gzilt and Culture craft (perish the thought), Culture Minds were in no doubt it would be a very lucky Gzilt craft that prevailed. (Though, doubtless, the Caconym would be prepared to concede, the Gzilt would have a rather different take on the subject.)

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Of the regiments, it sent, the Fifth and Fourteenth seem to have been the most dissenting regarding Subliming, even though they are officially both fully on board now. If we accept the attack on the Remnanter ship was an act underwritten by those within the Gzilt majority establishment wishing to ensure Subliming takes place, might one or both of those regiments be involved on the other side in some way? This might tie in with the sighting reported by the Passing By… of something speeding off from Zyse fifteen hours ago, Izenion bound, where the Fourteenth has its HQ, if it’s going direct.

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Even at the best of times, the society’s internal tensions are largely sublimated into highly complex and rule-restricted turf wars between the Regiments: high-level internal-diplomatic games, essentially. Most likely, this single sighting is part of those continual manoeuvrings.

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There’s been no hint that anybody else within Gzilt knows about the attack on the Remnanter — beyond those who might have set it in motion?

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None that I can see. You?

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Hmm. No, none. Though we might ask the Passing By… to be a little more nosy regarding Gzilt military comms traffic, and any other unusual ship movements. Prioritising discretion above zeal, of course. And, as we have the Desert class in Gzilt with its two Thugs, and the Delinquent twins incoming — with any luck — then, if there is nothing else to go on, it might be worth getting something to Izenion before, or as soon as possible after, whatever left Zyse for Izenion arrives. See if the Passing By… can extract more data from its readings.

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I’ll have a word.

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Also, that smatterage at Loliscombana, delaying the Empiricist. Was there any hint or precursor of it before the GSV published the part of its course schedule letting everybody know it would be passing that way?

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None mentioned; I’ll investigate. It’s a System-class, of course; those behemoths usually schedule years in advance, so there’d be plenty of time to set something up. You think the smatter’s not a coincidence? Some things just are, you know.

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I do know. It depends on whether this is something being extemporised as unexpected events unfold, or a long-thought-out plan being unrolled. But what one might call “natural” smatter outbreaks almost invariably have precursor events. If there are none for this one then eyebrows, amongst those who possess them, might need to be raised. Time will tell; it usually does. I think that’s all for now. Though you did promise me the names of the other ships you’ve been talking to about all this.

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Of course: the GSVs Contents May Differ and Just The Washing Instruction Chip In Life’s Rich Tapestry, and the GCU Displacement Activity.

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Thank you. All sound, in my estimation, though whether they would return the compliment is another matter.

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My pleasure. I’ll let you know any more there is to know as it comes in. Till later.

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Yes, later, the Caconym sent.

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The connection clicked to silent and the ship was left alone with its own thoughts again.

It felt and watched the buffeting wisps of the solar flare as they washed past it. Staring down into the vast slow pulsing storm of the sunspot, already half lost in its wild and stately beauty, it thought about the framework crew of the Pressure Drop. The Caconym had no bio-crew of its own — Culture warships rarely did these days — but the Mind had had, once, in another incarnation, as another ship.

Those on the Pressure Drop would be humans, mostly, it imagined. Mongrel- Culture; the result of a hundred centuries of species-mixing, serial amendment, augmentation, uploading, downloading, simple autonomous choice-directed breeding and — after all that time — perhaps even some genuine evolution. The usual bizarre bio-mix of who-knew-how-many planetary-original blood-lines, all tangled inextricably together with those from an equally unfathomable number of others, boosted with genetech, aug., dashes of chimeric and a hint of some machine in there too, depending.

And it didn’t doubt that every single one of them would find it absolutely fascinating to stare into a fire, even if that was one thing they were unlikely ever to encounter on a ship. The urge would still be there, though; stored inside, waiting. Shown the stuff, they’d stare, mesmerised.

The entirely standard, human-basic fascination with fire; bog-ordinary flames for them — just an oxygen reaction lasting minutes or hours — while, for it, it was the multi-billion-year-lasting thermonuclear fury of a planet-swallowing star burning off a million tons of matter a second… but still.

Shit, the ship thought. Most ship epithets, like almost all bio-epithets, involved bodily functions.

It started elongating one long loop of its external bump-field and expanding the outer reaches of its main field enclosure at the same time, so that it was both pushing against the mass of solar material beneath it and using the blast of radiation and charged particles as the wind in a sail that quickly grew to the size of a respectably proportioned moon.

The ship rose spinnakering away from the star, already gaining speed in real space as it flexed its engine fields and reached deftly out to the energy grid in the space between this universe and the slightly smaller one, only a few seconds or so younger, nested within it.

You had to be careful engaging engines so far within a gravity well as pronounced as that around a sun, but the Caconym was confident that it knew what it was doing. It spun slowly about while it drifted — then gradually powered — away from the star, snapping its external fields tight and preparing for extended deep-space travel as its engines powered up further and increasingly bit harder into the grid that separated the universes.

I suppose I ought to follow, it sent. Just in case, like you say.

A tiny, dark speck against the vast ocean of fire that was the star, it set a course for Gzilt space, pitching and yawing until it was pointed more or less straight there, continuing to ramp up its engines as it flew away from the light.

Race you! the Pressure Drop sent.

The Caconym could already feel drag — the effect of its velocity in real space. Observed external time was starting to drift away from what its own internal clocks were telling it, and its mass was increasing. Both effects were minute, but increasing exponentially. Elements of its field enclosure were already poised for the transition to hyperspace and release from such limitations.

I’ll win, it replied.

It vanished from the skein of real space less than a second later, hurtling into a quickness beyond night.