The Hydrogen Sonata

~That’s interesting, Berdle sent. ~Just lost feed from my scout missile. That is a little worrying.

Finally, at a doorway bearing an unmistakable resemblance to a vulva, the soup-faced person bowed and left them. The vulva irised, opening.

“This is a bit gross, isn’t it?” Pyan whispered. “It’s not just me thinking this, no?”

Cossont followed Berdle down a short, narrow corridor. Cossont’s earbud beeped to signal it was losing all external reception — something it had never done anywhere else in or on the Girdlecity, in all the years she’d lived within it.

They arrived into a chamber where a large, barrel-chested, handsome-looking man with vivid red skin and an unfeasible number of phalluses reclined on a giant, tipped bed. He was smiling at them. He wore a roomy-looking pair of shorts, so the penis he’d likely been born with was perhaps the only one not visible, but he had plenty of others, sprouting — short, stubby, flaccid — from at least forty points on his body, including four on his calves, six on each thigh, similar numbers on his upper and lower arms and one each where the nipples would have been on a mammal. His head, feet and hands looked normal. Around his thick neck lay something like a giant charm bracelet, weighed down with chunky trinkets, mostly jewel encrusted. He was attended by naked people — mostly females — all of whom had the heads of animals and mythical creatures.

~Again, Berdle sent, ~The atmosphere is full of sexually stimulating compounds. And I’ve found my scout missile. Oh-oh, as we say. I’m going to stop communicating like this for now, unless there’s an emergency. May no longer be secure.

“Oh-oh?” Cossont was thinking.

“Again,” Pyan whispered, “overdosing on sheer vulgarity.”

The roof above was not transparent but fashioned from some luxuriantly thick, crimson ruched material, centrally gathered so that it looked like a sphincter, and glistening as though dripping wet.

“Ms Berdle, Ms Cossont,” the man said in his deep, thick voice. “Pleased to meet you.” Then he opened his mouth a little wider and let a very long tongue snake out and delicately lick at first one eyebrow then the other, shaping them both neatly into place. The tongue disappeared again. He opened his eyes wide; he had fabulously pale blue irises, almost shining. His eyeballs rolled back into their sockets, the blue irises disappearing. They were replaced from below by dark red irises which rose into place and steadied. “Excuse me,” he said. “These pupils work better in daylight.” He smiled widely, showing very white teeth. “And to your familiar, Ms Cossont. Pyan, isn’t it? Welcome to you too.”

“Permission to speak?” Pyan said, sounding excited.

“No,” Cossont said quietly, then to Ximenyr said, “Hello. Thank you for seeing us.”

“And thank you for watching me,” Ximenyr said, and unhooked something from his collar of trinkets, holding it up in front of his face and inspecting it. It looked like a short thin pen or stylus of some sort, barely bigger than a child’s finger. Ximenyr looked at Berdle. “Your life signs are weirder than the lady’s familiar, so I’m guessing this belongs to you.”

“It does,” Berdle said. “My apologies. I was concerned you might refuse to see us initially and we might need some help in securing an audience. Also, I am impressed you were able to sense its presence and capture it. Congratulations.”

“Thank you. Flattery is always so satisfying,” Ximenyr said with what certainly appeared to be a sort of beatific sincerity. “Especially from…” he waved one long, elegant hand, exquisitely manicured “… an avatar, avatoid? Something of that nature?”

“Indeed, of the Culture vessel Mistake Not…”

There was just a hint of a pause; Cossont was fairly sure their host was listening on his own earbud.

“Voyeured upon by a Culture Mind,” Ximenyr said, sounding impressed. “I really am flattered. Though there is an all-hours feed from about eight different cameras all centred on this bed right here, so I’m not entirely sure why you bothered. Video only at points, so maybe you wanted the audio? Yeah? Anyway.” He nodded behind them. “Please; take a seat.”

Two of the animal-headed people — the heads looked as real, alive and functional as every other part of their human bodies — set two tall chairs behind them. Cossont and Berdle both sat. The dozen or so unusually headed people stood, arms folded, round the curved wall of the cabin.

Ximenyr held the tiny scout missile out. “I’m going to keep this, okay?” The little machine was secured to his charm necklace by an extendible chain.

“I would prefer to have it returned,” Berdle said.

“Don’t doubt,” Ximenyr said. “But you did invade my privacy.” There was some muffled spluttering and laughing at this from the people looking on, and Ximenyr’s face split into a smile again. He glanced round some of the animal-headed people. “Hey, you know what I mean.” He looked back at Berdle, grinning. “Anyway. Might let you have this back. But you need something from me, I’m sort of supposing, otherwise why, in an entirely cogent sense, would you be here in the first place? Hmm?” He set the tiny missile back where it had been, resting on his chest between what looked like an android’s thumb and a thick crystal cylinder, striped with encrusted jewels.

“It’s about Ngaroe QiRia,” Cossont said, glancing at Berdle.

“Gathered.” Ximenyr nodded at her. “Like the arms, incidentally. Who did that for you?”

“Frex Gerunke.”

“Know him. Helped teach him. Nice work? All working fine?”

“Perfectly.”

“And a Lords jacket. You really into them?”

“I played with them,” she confessed. “Briefly.” She really might have to change out of the Lords of Excrement jacket at some point, she realised.

“Really? You’re not mentioned in the playgraphy.” He seemed to think. “Unless you’re Sister Euphoria.”

Cossont sighed. “Guilty.”

Ximenyr smiled broadly. “Estimable, Ms Cossont. I’ve played tenser, a little sling, never the volupt. Hear it’s harder.”

“A little.”

“Four arms make it easier?”

“No; that’s for the elevenstring.”

“Ha! The Undecagonstring? I’ve heard they’re fucking insane.”

“No, that’s just those who play them.”

Ximenyr laughed. “Nobody’s played an elevenstring for the Party; you could audition while you’re here. That would help round things off.”

“Thank you, but we have more urgent business,” she told him.

“Yes, my friend Mr QiRia.”

“My friend too,” Cossont said.

“Really?” Ximenyr looked sceptical. “Can’t recall him mentioning you.”

Cossont sighed again. “That does not surprise me.”

Ximenyr grinned, stroked his chin. “Well, his memories are a little… compartmentalised. How do you know him?”

“I met him twenty years ago, just after he’d been a leviathid — a sea monster — for decades, on a place called Perytch IV. We only met up for a few days, but we talked a lot. How about you?”

“Oh, I knew him before then, back when I was horribly young and doing…” he held up one arm and stroked a couple of the penises on it “… this kind of thing for what passes for a living, amongst us.” He shrugged. “Rather than a profound artistic statement both exploring and interrogating the prospect of a willed self-extinctive event being sold as a civilisational phase-change cum level upgrade.”

“When he was here five years ago,” Berdle said, “was Mr QiRia having some sculption carried out?”

The man in the bed frowned. “Sculption; now there’s a word I haven’t heard for a while. Technically correct, I guess. Used to be called plastic surgery or bodily amendment or, well, lots of things.” He waved one arm again. “Anyway, I’m afraid that’s a private matter, Mr Berdle; I can neither confirm nor deny, and… all that shit.”

“May we simply ask why was he here, then?” Berdle asked.

“Still not going to tell you, fella,” Ximenyr said, shaking his head. “QiRia and I are old pals, that’s all I can say. Met him a few times, last time just as the Party was starting. But he was friends with my mother, and with her father before her, so I guess he’s pretty ancient even by Culture standards — and I won’t be giving away too much