The Hydrogen Sonata

Cossont just smiled.

They had crossed the few decades from Xown in the Mureite system to Eshri in Izenion within the 5*Gelish-Oplule, a regimental cruiser about as fast as anything the fleet possessed. Tired, and with nothing seemingly expected of her after they’d transferred to the ship above Xown, she’d slept aboard in a cabin of a size significantly above that her reactivated rank would normally have called for and wondered if she had the bulk of the elevenstring to thank for this; they’d quartered it with her.

She’d risen, done a little practice — it had been unsatisfactory, thanks to a deep background hum the ship was making which interfered with some of the internal resonating strings — and thought she’d have time to breakfast with the crew and maybe try to get more out of Etalde regarding what was going on, even if it was just gossip, when they’d arrived, and Etalde was there at her cabin door offering to carry the elevenstring to the cruiser’s hangar and the waiting pinnace.

“No food?” Pyan yelped. She’d just let it fasten itself round her neck. It tended to nibble at whatever Cossont ate and breakfast was its favourite meal.

Etalde frowned at the creature. “That thing is security-cleared, isn’t it?”

“Sadly,” Cossont said. “We’re there?” she asked. “Already?” She stared at Etalde’s plump, gleaming face. “Sir?” she added. She hadn’t even had time to be issued with a proper uniform; all she had was her civilian trews and frankly inappropriate jacket. Luckily the avatar, when worn as a cape usually, covered the more garishly offensive parts of the logo.

“Yes,” the commissar-colonel said. “Ship kind of pushed it. All a bit rushed. You fit to go?”

“No food?” Pyan said again, plaintively.

“No food,” she confirmed, turning and letting Etalde pick up the elevenstring’s black case while she grabbed her jacket and folded it inwards.

“No food,” the familiar said quietly, as though to itself. “Cripes.”

“This is Marshal Boyuter, Commander in Chief. I’m General Reikl, marshal elect; this is General Gazan’tyo.” The two men and one woman — Reikl, who’d been speaking — smiled at her. She nodded. “Please,” Reikl said. “Sit.”

The room was small, functional, mostly filled with a square table and four seats. It felt like it was deep within the hurtling asteroid. There was no screen, holo display or obvious processing presence at all.

Cossont sat. She wore Etalde’s jacket over her shoulders; he’d been left in an antechamber several thick, closed doors back. He had charge of her jacket, the familiar and the elevenstring, all guarded by two troopers in full armour and a pair of combat arbites like frozen explosions of mercury and knife-blades. Cossont’s earbud, receiving and transmitting only on the asteroid’s own channels since she’d come aboard, had shut itself off entirely. She’d been asked to hand it over all the same and so had left that behind too.

“Are you well, Lieutenant Commander?” Reikl asked her.

“Thank you, yes, ma’am.”

“Sorry we couldn’t find you a uniform jacket with the requisite number of arms,” Reikl said, smiling again. “I imagine one is being prepared as we speak.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Cossont sat with her upper hands clasped on the table, the other pair hanging down; it disturbed people less that way, were they of a disturbable nature.

“Now,” Reikl said. “To business. None of this is being recorded, minuted or monitored elsewhere—”

“Far as we know,” Marshal Boyuter said, smiling first at her, then Reikl, who nodded impatiently.

“As far as we know,” she agreed.

The marshal was thin, grey-looking, his pale face part-covered with a colourful tattoo that looked both fresh and unfinished. Cossont had the feeling she was looking at a life-task, still incomplete. She’d been out of the services for nearly twenty years and even now didn’t feel terribly military, despite being told her commission had been reactivated, but it was still slightly shocking to see somebody so senior exhibiting something so non-regulation as a facial tattoo. Oh well. As people were continually pointing out — strange times.

The marshal sat relaxed in his seat, almost slumped, playing continually with what looked like some sort of multi-tool and rarely looking directly at her after an initial, staring inspection when she’d first entered the room. He’d frowned at her twin sets of arms. General Gazan’tyo was rotund, ever-smiling and seemed to communicate solely by nods. He had a variety of small time-tos scattered about the chest of his uniform jacket, as though he didn’t entirely trust any of them and was looking for a consensus. If she hadn’t known — well, assumed — better, Cossont might have thought both men were on drugs.

Reikl was different: thin and bright-eyed, she sat upright and looked sharp, tense, almost predatory. “What you are going to hear has until now been restricted to the three of us in this cabin,” she told Cossont.

“And whoever it was originally meant for,” the marshal added quietly, staring at the multi-tool. He let it go and it floated into the air a little, making a low whirring noise.

Reikl looked pained for an instant, then said, “This was information we came by… indirectly.” She glanced at the marshal as though expecting another interruption but he was reaching out to the little multi-tool, clicking it off. It fell into his other hand, poised beneath.

“There has been a communication from our erstwhile benefactors the Zihdren,” General Reikl said, smiling thinly at Cossont. “It’s in the nature of these pre-Subliming times, apparently, to do this kind of thing: to make one’s peace where there might have been discord, answer puzzling questions and generally settle accounts with those about to make the transition.”

“Old scores,” the marshal muttered.

“The communication was due to be delivered immediately before the Instigation. However, it came to light before it was supposed to,” Reikl said.

“Intercepted!” General Gazan’tyo said suddenly, still smiling his broad smile.

“Intercepted,” Reikl agreed. “By another regiment, on behalf, we believe, of our political betters.”

The marshal dropped the multi-tool onto the desk, scooped it up again. Reikl didn’t even glance; she kept Cossont fixed with her gaze. “You’re a musician, Ms Cossont, aren’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said, wondering why her rank had been dispensed with.

“Tell me about your time on…” The general gave a small smile. “You’ll have to forgive me.” She took out a notebook of real paper from a uniform pocket, consulted it. Again, it was very strange to see somebody, especially somebody of such seniority, not having names and other information immediately to hand, transmitted by earbud or implant straight into their head. A notebook! Cossont thought. Could the local processing have broken down so much in the lead-up to Subliming that even the regimental high command refused to rely on it? That seemed absurd. “The Anything Legal Considered, I believe is the name?” Reikl said, leaving the notebook open on the table.

“Ah, that,” Cossont said. She’d sort of always known there was a chance what happened during her student exchange years would come back and bite her.

“Yes, that,” the general said. “Everything, please. And not in your own time; we’re in a hurry here.” She didn’t look at either of the males in the room but Cossont got the impression the general would have liked to.

“I was on an exchange programme, on a Culture ship; a GCU called the Anything Legal Considered—”

“I have it as an LCU,” the general interrupted.

“Sorry, yes,” Cossont said, flustered. “It was. Anyway, I was playing the volupt, that is, I’d passed my… Doesn’t matter. Anyway,” she said, taking a deep breath, “I’d talked to the ship about the, another instrument called the eleven… the Antagonistic Undecagonstring, and—”

“‘Antagonistic’?” Reikl said.

“Um, just means that applying manual tension to one set of strings applies it to others as well,” Cossont said. “Or decreases it, depending.” Reikl gave a curt nod. Cossont went on: “I told the ship how I planned to try it some day if I could get my hands on a good example, and it looked it up and, ah, well, long story short: it built one for me. Presented it to me as a surprise on my birthday. I started playing it, with the ship’s help; it had made a sort of twin-arm prosthetic which… anyway,” Cossont said, feeling herself shrinking under the general’s gaze, “I became very interested in the instrument, the ship knew this and — this was near the end of the exchange; it was a two- year, ah exchange — it asked if I wanted to meet somebody who claimed to have met Vilabier. The Younger; T. C. Vilabier; he composed the piece that… it’s the most famous piece written for the elevenstring. The first… the piece