The Hydrogen Sonata

“I have their experiences, all the sensory data they collected,” the You Call This Clean? told her. “They can’t stop you reviewing those.”

“That,” Tefwe said, “will have to do.”

“There’s a surprise at the end,” the ship told her. “Shall I warn you?”

“What, and spoil the fun? Why no.”

So she watched herself take the aphore from the stables at Chyan’tya, by the Snake river, with its smells of bell-blossom and strandle flower, even-cluss and jodenberry, then head out across the Pouch to the hills. She saw the pair of raptors wheel across the blaze of blue sky, could taste the heat in her mouth at the day’s peak, and lay panting with the mount in the shade of the desiccant umbrel.

She went up into and then through the mountains. She skipped her other self’s memory of sleep; it saved time but also it felt like an intrusion too far, even though this person was still and really herself.

She met with the drone Hassipura, surveyed its intriguing but somehow pathetic little empire of tunnels, channels and pools of scald-dry sands. She heard where she — yet another, sequential version of her — might find QiRia, and left.

She watched herself — there was always that distance at first, like watching a play or a film, before you lost yourself in it — as she stood up within the tall sways of bronze and copper-coloured grasses, then walked to the deserted station and waited for the rattling train-tram thing.

She could smell the air, and sense the locals, the folds, trying not to stare at her. She was carried on up into the mountains, into the vast echoing kingdom of the Sound, and waited to be allowed in to the hearkenry, then followed the Docent Luzuge, and was, finally, granted her audience with the elusive Mr QiRia.

The eyes — the sockets that now housed ears — came as a shock. That certainly counted as a surprise.

She — her other self — didn’t get long to gawk at the man’s mutilated face. There was some commotion outside, audible over, or at least through, the crushing weight of the Sound.

The door at the rear of the cell was thrown splintering open and some sort of shining, multi-limbed drone, all angles and barbs, came tearing in and halted by QiRia’s seat. It drew itself up as though to strike. QiRia had jumped when the door had been thrown open and was turning towards the machine, which screeched, “Arrest! Surrender self!” in a metallic scream pitched so high it cut right through the Sound.

Tefwe’s suit had gone to full deployment the instant the door had started moving, covering her head in a close-fitting semi-transparent helmet. She jumped up and threw open the shutters, letting the Sound roll in. There was a white flash and she felt something hit her hard in the back, though without causing pain. She threw herself through the matting curtains and out of the window, landing on the cold slope of scree outside and hurtling in a zigzag down towards the nearest cover — a dark mass of metre-high boulders. “Ship!” she yelled. “You getting all this? Get me off here!”

“Suit lower dorsal area seventy per cent compromised,” the suit told her solemnly. She could feel heat bleeding through where the blow from behind had hit, making her back warm.

“Shit!” she said as she dived for a gap between two of the boulders. She never got there. A second, much more powerful shot — from above, from a weapon platform she hadn’t even known was there — hit her between the shoulders and blew her neck and head off.

Most of her landed in a bloody, fiery, smoking heap just before the collection of boulders; her head flew further and thudded off the top of one of the boulders, bouncing to the ground just beyond. Then the view, from the scout missile or whatever had been accompanying her, flashed once and disappeared too.

The Rapid Random Response Unit, suddenly subject to the aggressive attentions of a small flotilla of Oglari vessels, executed a very risky manoeuvre, succeeded in snapping Tefwe’s still-just-about- alive head back to itself and then flared wildly off at its highest possible, engine-field-addling acceleration.

The whole incident caused some highly vocal distress and outrage for the Oglari, allegedly entirely on behalf of their valued allies and grateful charges, the Uwanui. Apologies for the misunderstanding were dutifully expressed by the Rapid Random Response Unit, its home GSV and other respected Culture worthies, but further favours and indulgences were now owed or at least expected by both the Oglari and the Uwanui.

Apparently, neither Contact nor Special Circumstances was particularly impressed with these developments.

“These things accrue,” Tefwe muttered to herself.

“All on-boarded?” the You Call This Clean? asked.

“I experienced everything the other two experienced, so I suppose so,” she said. “But I got killed, for fuck’s sake.”

“That was the surprise.”

“Thanks. Think I’ll go back to Storage now. Full asleep. No dreams.”

“Certainly.”

“And next time you want to wake me up—”

But the ship had already started putting her under. It strongly suspected that there had been only one more word to come in that sentence of Tefwe’s, and that it would have been the word “don’t”.

Yes, but… plausibly deniable, the ship decided.

“Of course we’re close. We’ve always been close. We’re mother and daughter. You might not understand; you’re a man. Men rarely do. It’s a different thing. You really have to be a mother to understand, frankly. Even some daughters don’t understand, to tell the Prophet’s truth. Not that I’m saying Vyr doesn’t. That would be going too far. But she is independent. Very independent. But I’m not complaining; I’m not the complaining sort, not at all. That’s how I raised her, you see? That’s what I wanted for her. I always meant her to be her own person, not tied to my purse strings. And she hasn’t wanted to become a mother herself, what with the Subliming, obviously. Or really had time, for that matter. Very busy. She’s always been very busy. And not always with things that she can tell me about either, if I’m telling the truth and you know what I mean. You know. Well, I’m sure you do, in your type of work. I’m not saying she was some sort of secret agent or anything, but you could tell — well, I could tell, being her mother, as I say, and I do have a gift for these things even if I say so myself, though it’s not just me, not really; it’s all my friends, I’m very modest, they’re the ones who’ll tell you I have a gift, almost a sight for these things… but there were things she obviously couldn’t tell me, things that were secret that it was best for me not to know I suppose. I’m not surprised, I’m really not. She’s very bright, very capable girl, very able to take care of herself, and trustworthy. And loyal. Loyal, too. Very loyal. She takes after me in that way, it’s part of the bond we share.”

“It’s just that according to the logs of the ship here, she doesn’t seem to visit very oft—” the first young man started to say, before his companion held up one hand to stop him.

She’d already forgotten their names, but the one who’d just been talking was the nicer of the two because he smiled more and looked at her properly and just had a nicer manner. The other one was even younger — barely more than a boy — and harder-looking somehow and didn’t even seem to have noticed let alone appreciated the very flattering and daringly clingy lounge dress she’d worn especially.

Inter-Regimental Intelligence on Trimestal Secondment! How grand did that sound! And they were interested in her little girl! In a good way, obviously; they had been very polite and deferential ever since they’d called the apartment from their aircraft on their way to see her, and even the small, hard-faced one who was probably only interested in boys anyway had been scrupulously courteous and mannerly from the instant he and the nice, jolly, fuller-faced one had crossed the threshold of the apartment.

Apparently, though they couldn’t confirm or deny anything, naturally, Vyr was still alive. And not just alive, but involved — the implication seemed to be — in something important. Her little girl! Well, it was no surprise really. She’d always known, at the back of her mind, despite all the silly, niggling things that the girl had done and said over the years, that Vyr would live up to the promise she’d shown when she was younger, and make her mother proud of her. It had only been a matter of time.

In fact, all the times she hadn’t bothered to visit or get in touch and had seemed indifferent or intolerant or just seemingly wanting to be hurtful on the rare occasions when she did deign to show up suddenly made complete sense now; she’d just been trying to protect her mother! She should have known that’s what it had been. Of course she’d loved and respected her old mum; how could she not? She just hadn’t been able to bring her into her secret life in case it jeopardised her safety. Logical. Loving and sensible at the same time. Well, frankly, about time!

Warib could feel herself getting quite excited with all these thoughts; her breath was coming rather quickly