The Hydrogen Sonata

“Yes. Read my terminal for the detail.”

The drone was silent for a moment. “Spat on you did it?” it said. “Can’t have been that thirsty.”

“Patently.”

“I’m going to be visiting various parts of the complex over the next hour or so. Do you have anything to let you float?”

“No.”

“You’d better climb on top of me if we’re still to converse, then. I take it you do still wish to converse. It would be too much to hope that you just happened to be passing by sheer coincidence and are now happy to be on your way.”

“Thank you, I will. And of course I’m here for a purpose.”

“I’d kind of guessed.” The drone made a slow swoop to about mid-thigh level on Tefwe. She climbed aboard, sitting cross-legged on its broad back. It rose into the hot, dry air, heading up about ten metres to a sort of little depot of machinery set on a levelled area where the rock had been melted and allowed to cool. Patches were like glass, reflecting the sharp glare of the sun.

The aphore, nestling in the shade of a house-sized boulder, raised its head when it caught sight of her on the drone. It looked confused. Then it put its head back down to the shadow-dark sand and closed its eyes again. The drone lifted a small tube and appeared to inspect it, turning it this way and that in front of the high-magnification band running along its blunt snout. It replaced it, moved to another rack of what looked like miniaturised mining equipment.

“So, come far?” it asked.

“Far enough.”

“Who sent you?”

“Bunch of ships.”

“Will I have heard of any of them?”

She reeled off the relevant names.

“Is this SC?”

“Not generated. Some EUAs are helping out. Think they’re bored. It’s a bit quiet right now.”

“Ah, Elements Usually Associated,” the drone said, and managed to sound almost wistful. “And is the Smile Tolerantly really involved, actively?”

“No. It’s more… wanted.”

“And what do you want, Tefwe?”

“From you? To know the location of our old chum Ngaroe QiRia.”

“Ah. I suppose I should have guessed. What makes you think I know that?”

“Oh, come on.”

“All right. What makes you think I would tell you?”

“It’s important.”

“Why?”

“Long story. He might remember something that backs up a claim somebody’s made. Claim that might make a big difference to a lot of people.”

“You are going to have to do better than that.”

“How long have we got?”

“All day.”

“Okay.” She told him the background. By the time she was finished the drone had carried her almost to the summit of the outcrop. From here, maybe sixty metres above the surface of the desert and the salt pans, she could see pretty much the whole network of the sandstream complex: all the silicaducts, channels and pools, lakes, pools and weirs and all the raising wheels and screws that lifted the sands from the base of the outcrop. From above, it looked even more like it was all done with flowing, dyed water; foreshortened like this, you couldn’t see the relatively steep slopes required to make the sands move under gravity. The raising wheels turned slowly, scooping sand from one pool to deposit it in a higher one. The wheels in particular, seen en masse, made the whole outcrop look like a giant clock powered by sand and sunlight.

She could see the aphore, still trying to keep in the shade of the rocks far beneath as the sun moved across the sky. The animal was making thin, whinnying noises. Probably thirsty, Tefwe thought.

The high desert was flat and shining, dotted with dark outcrops like jagged islands on that sea of salt, hot sand and dust. The pale writhing column of a dust devil danced in the distance, like a ghostly impersonation of a waterspout. The view of the encircling mountains, all shimmering in the heat, was bleakly impressive. She did feel a little exposed though. The skin on the back of her hands had gone quite silvery-white under the sunlight. The sky above was a hazy shining blue; a cobalt blister like a vast, concentrating lens with her at the focal point. This stark, intense azure was the true colour of the desert, she thought.

Her stomach made a faint, delicate rumbling sound. She wondered when she had last eaten; her body was using the ambient heat to drive many of the processes that usually would have needed the chemical fires produced by food. Her real body, the one still Stored somewhere inside the You Call This Clean?, wouldn’t have been able to do this, any more than it would have silvered up on prolonged exposure to harsh sunlight. Her own skin would have started to tan.

“I remember that Ngaroe had some affinity with the Gzilt,” the drone said, once she’d told it all she knew. “At one time I thought he might have been one of them originally, many bodies ago.”

“Seems he’s still on his first.”

“My, that is a long, long time to be in the one body,” the drone said, sounding genuinely impressed. “I knew he was old, but that old? Really?”

“Apparently.”

“He could still be lying. He used to lie a lot, I recall.”

“He might be lying. But then he might not. Anyway, what do you think? Important enough to let me know where the hell the old fuck is?”

“What would be intended for him?”

“Just going to be asked what he knows. Nothing untoward.”

“What if he is uncooperative?”

“Ha! When was he otherwise?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Then I leave empty-handed. But at least we can say we tried.”

“Nothing further?”

“Nobody’s going to drug him or read his mind or anything. These are perfectly normal Minds involved here, with honour, self-respect and all that usual uptight shit.”

“I will need your word on this.”

“You have it. If he won’t tell me, he won’t tell me. End.”

“My information is five years old.”

“Barely yesterday, by QiRia’s geriatric standards.”

“He told me he was going to… lose, or donate, or abandon, or get rid of something — he used all four terms when we talked — then go to contemplate The Mountains of the Sound, on Cethyd, in the Heluduz system.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Few have.”

“Just… these mountains?”

“He wasn’t sure where exactly he’d be going but there’s an Outworlders’ Quarter, so probably there. Claimed he’d already been for a look and talked to… ah.”

“Deleted at random?”

“Nearly. Still have it. Docent Luzuge. Somebody called Docent Luzuge. If he, she or it is still alive and active, this person would know where to find him.”

Tefwe’s pen terminal picked up the words. It was a lot smarter than the old pen terminals Tefwe had been used to, and the kind of smart that found it relatively easy to hide from the level of investigatory tech the drone had. The terminal had been effectively awake and evaluating everything it had been sensing since shortly before Tefwe and the aphore had arrived at the outcrop. It was getting jostled about in the bottom of a pocket in her thin shirt