The Hydrogen Sonata

original and unique, she thought, as she canted backwards, arms still hopelessly wheeling.

Berdle, enveloped in fire, stepped forward and caught the strap of her shoulder bag one-handed. He stopped her, held her, then grabbed her round the waist with his other hand and pulled her forward, back into the alcove.

“Best get down,” he said, kneeling within the alcove. She dropped to her haunches, taking cover behind the metre of wall between the jammed-opened doors and the corridor. Berdle stripped the remains of his burning clothes off and threw them down the elevator shaft. His skin had gone silvery. There was no mark on his back at all; she’d have expected an exit wound. Actually, she’d have expected him to be blown in half.

“What the fuck?” she asked. She was trying hard not to shriek.

“Didn’t quite see that coming in time,” Berdle said, turning and grinning at her. “Managed to…” a hole appeared, instantly, in his back; she could see straight through his body to his silvery thighs. The hole was big enough for her to have put her fist in. The smooth hole closed up again, just as quickly. “… but not quite fast enough; caught some round the edges. Sorry about that.” He nodded at the floor. “Lost the scout missile.” Cossont looked at the floor, where half of the little scout missile that had been holding the doors open earlier lay, gently smoking.

The avatar put one finger to the edge of the alcove, flicked it out and brought it back just as another bright beam came lancing past where his finger had been an instant earlier. The edge of wall flared and a heavy detonation came from somewhere past them down the corridor; a blast of light followed by a body-shaking tremble beneath their feet and a pulse of blast, forcing Cossont to lower her head briefly. Grey smoke was drifting along the ceiling and a whole spectrum of alarms went squawking, warbling and howling all around them.

Then there was a dull, seemingly very distant thud, almost infra-sound deep. The ribbon of dark smoke in the lift shaft, extending from the burning clothes Berdle had discarded, trembled in the column of air.

~Oof! Hit bottom, Parinherm sent. ~95 per cent disabled, but still alive! End-run, I’m guessing. Nice working with you. Powering dow—

“Parinherm is still alive,” Berdle told Cossont. “We are being fired at by some sort of military arbite stationed just at the line-of-sight curve-limit of the corridor to the right. To the left, eighty metres away, one corridor higher, advancing this way at jogging speed, is a Gzilt person in a full battle suit armed with a laser assault rifle. This may be the Colonel Agansu person who contacted us earlier. I have two knife missiles to the left, within this corridor. They are holding fire while Gzilt civilians on a tour are evac— Wait. I’m being contacted. Excuse me.”

~Android/avatar entity, this is Colonel Agansu. Do you read? Come in.

“Colonel Agansu wishes to talk,” Berdle told Cossont. “Given our situation and the time we have to wait for the ship to return, I believe keeping him talking is to be preferred to having him or his adjuncts shooting at us.”

“The ship,” Cossont said. Her teeth wanted to chatter. She tried to stop them. “How long? It was still two- thirds of an hour away—”

“It is returning a little faster now,” the avatar said. “Though we still need to stall the Colonel. I intend, therefore, to engage him in conversation.”

“You engage away,” she told him.

~Android/avatar entity, in the corridor, this is Colonel Agansu. Do you read? Come in.

~Colonel Agansu, Berdle sent. ~To what do we owe such destructive attention?

~Ah. And who might I have the pleasure of addressing?

~You knowing my name; is that really necessary, Colonel?

~My knowing it is strictly speaking unnecessary, I’ll grant, Agansu sent. ~However, purely for form’s sake, we might as well exchange names; sobriquets, at least.

~I fail to see how this will make any material difference to our exchanges, of information or fire.

~I don’t mean to imply we are at all likely to become friends, sir. But a degree of civilised politeness should not prevent us discharging our duties.

~Or our weapons.

~Of which you seem to possess rather few, following the destruction of your knife missile, not to mention the demise of your fellow at the bottom of the elevator shaft. I am somewhat tempted to send the arbite up the corridor towards you, just to see what you are able to put in its way to stop it; however, I am aware that Ms Cossont is relatively vulnerable compared to your good self, and may come to some harm in any resulting fire-fight, even while you might remain quite hale and hearty. The arbite is already in a state of some confusion following what it thought was a centre-body 100 per cent kill-shot which you seem, nevertheless, to have survived. Is Ms Cossont well?

~Well enough.

~You know, I think I am going to—

~My name is Berdle, Colonel Agansu. Interesting to make your acquaintance.

~Likewise, Berdle.

~I did ask, earlier, to what we might owe such destructive attention, if you recall?

~Indeed you did, Agansu sent. ~Well then, Berdle, the answer would be: to Ms Cossont, and possibly the device which the facility’s records show she recovered a few minutes ago. As I said earlier, I would like to talk to Ms Cossont. Face to face; human to human. Also, I think it might be germane if I were to be allowed to inspect the device she retrieved. I strongly suspect you will have to accede to my requests in time, Berdle. We do rather have you at a disadvantage, wouldn’t you say? There was a pause, and then the colonel sent, ~I certainly would.

Berdle looked at Cossont, glanced at the ceiling and said quietly, “The person in full battle gear — who I’m assuming is Colonel Agansu — is now almost overhead, possibly ready to make ingress here, either down the shaft behind you or straight through the floor. The tour party near the combat arbite’s position is still not quite clear of the likely destruction volume, were I to let the two knife missiles off the leash. Excuse me; I must let Colonel Agansu talk at me some more.”

~You might benefit from being a little more cautious, Colonel, Berdle sent. ~We are less at a loss than you appear to imagine.

~Are you really? The colonel sounded amused.

~We are. We are currently mustering and preparing our forces, Colonel. You have my word.

~I’m sure I do, Agansu said, with mock seriousness. ~And that it is worth everything in the current situation, I feel certain. Nevertheless, the fact remains that you do not benefit from the presence of a friendly ship nearby, whereas I do. As well as, as you may have noticed, a very capable combat arbite.

~Yes. I trust the combat arbite is not in any way… precious to you, Colonel?

Berdle heard the colonel laugh. ~Ah, dear. How fine the line is between acceptably defiant bravado and hopelessly delusional boasting. You were doing so terribly well up until that point.

~I am sorry to be such a disappointment to you, Colonel Agansu.

Berdle glanced at Cossont again. “The tour party near the combat arbite’s position is now clear of the likely destruction volume and the knife missiles are cleared to fire,” the avatar told her. “Due to the nature of the munitions being used, the corridor is about to become extremely bright. We are trying to keep damage to a minimum, but — ah; here we go…”

The air in the corridor seemed to fill and streak with fanned white light, intensely bright; it almost looked like the smoke-hazed air was being lit by lasers, but something about the quality of the light itself and the way the smoke in the corridor was tugged after whatever it was that was making its way down the corridor argued against this. Cossont had never paid all the attention she might have in weaponry identification or whatever they’d called it back in military academy.

It really was astoundingly bright; it was as though part of the surface of a blue-white sun had suddenly appeared in the corridor, searing, bleaching everything. The light cut off; what had seemed like a brightly lit space in front of them suddenly looked dull.

An instant later a series of colossal, still greater outbursts of light — just barely distinguishable as being made up of hundreds of small, searingly bright flares rather than being a single massive eruption — made a white sun of the end of the corridor to their right. In the instant between the light and the trailing sound of the fusillade, what probably was laser light came flicking through the hazed air, filling the patch of corridor Cossont could see with sparkling bars of cerise light.

Explosions shook and battered her from both sides. She put her head down, wondering if she’d have had any