The Hydrogen Sonata

“No, I just, no; here, come here, hold me, hold me like this. Here, I’ll… Be my presence, hang over me, embrace me. I need you. Do anything for you. I give myself. I need to give myself. Oh, you don’t hate me for being so needed, do you? I am. I know I am. My own needing, it betrays me.”

“Oh, my darling. I love that you need me as much as I, desperately, need you. But don’t distress. What is it? What can…?”

“You don’t think they’re lying to us, the Sublimed, the Presence; you don’t think they’re lying to us, deceiving us, do you?”

“What? Is that…? Not for a moment. Oh, be calm, Virisse. Of course not. Do you think I would risk losing you? If I thought for a moment there was any danger they lied to us, that what we’re offered isn’t true, that we might simply die or be blown away like mist, I’d never even think of this, for myself, for you, for us, for all the people.”

“Isn’t it like a threat, though, this thing, hanging over us? I look at it some days, hanging over the city, over us, and it makes me shiver.”

“It used to make me catch my breath, sometimes, I’ll give you that. What can I say, Virisse? Promises take many shapes, and the more… momentous they are, the more they might look like threats. All great promises are threats, I suppose, to the way things have been until that point, to some aspect of our lives, and we all suddenly become conservative, even though we want and need what the promise holds, and look forward to the promised change at the same time. So we have that great grey shape hanging over us, over the parliament itself, as a reminder that this is where the final decision was taken, this is where we made up our minds. And it reminds us that there are powers and forces beyond us, that we are in the process of surrendering our full authority in this, and of taking a great new leap.”

“Is it too late?”

“What? I’m sorry, my love, I didn’t—”

“Is it too late? Can we still unmake our minds?”

“Well, no, it isn’t. We can all change our minds, right up until the last moment.”

“Must there always be forces beyond us?”

“Oh, my love, there always have been. The Sublimed have been there for ten billion years, the Elders too; we are just one species, not here for the longest time, then here for a while, then gone again, just like everybody else. But we’ve always known there is something worthwhile in just being ourselves, in being us as well as we can. We’ve found, been given a way, to symbolise this, in the Book of Truth, but the real truth is that every species feels the same thing, and every one is right.

“We all think we’re special, and in a way we are, but, at the same time, that feeling of being special is one of the things that’s common to us all, that unites us and makes us the same as each other. And when that feeling of… specialness is questioned, we feel threatened, naturally. We all do. I do. We have the Subliming drawing near, and we seem to be collecting alien warships, with Culture ships already arrived — two more this evening, the Empiricist tomorrow — and the Liseiden and the Ronte arriving in days, both seeming to think the other is the interloper while we feel they both are. The eyes of the galaxy are on us, and this ought to be a time of quietness and reflection and measured preparation, a time of looking back with gentle pride on all we’ve achieved, and yet… we have a regiment HQ attacked and thousands killed, and an undignified scramble going on over our heads over our spoils, and all sorts of absurd rumours and stories swirling about, but we—”

“I just worry. I worry that we’ve swept ourselves along somehow, got all too excited over something we haven’t thought through, that… that… people have persuaded us to do something we’re still not ready for.”

“Well, Septame Banstegeyn is a very persuasive man, I’ll give you that.”

“I didn’t just mean—”

“No, you did. And I know what you mean. But you have to see that we become… symbols for ourselves. One person can seem to be the instigator, the power behind some… great powerful current within a society, but they’re not necessarily producing it; they may be at the front, and they may have some small, immediate influence over its direction hour by hour or day by day, but really they are swept along by it too, by the force of all those people behind them, by the idea they all represent and are all borne along by. But, Virisse, what talk is this for the bed? We have so few of these opportunities, my love, let’s not waste this one in worry. Let’s sweep each other away, like this… and this… and this…”

“Yes. Yes, you’re right. I’ll be your spoils, fight over—”

“Ow! What—?”

“What?”

“I don’t know. My finger. A jab, like a thorn. My love, there? Of all places? Why, what have you been doing?”

“What? Don’t laugh! No, what? Let me see!”

“Here. My finger. See? Poor finger.”

“Let me see, let me see!”

“Ah, so pleasantly engaged, so sharply interrupted.”

“Let me—”

“Oh. Worth one tiny injury for such a sweet kiss. You make me swoon… Oh, wait a moment, you really are. I really am… swoon. My. My head is quite… quite…”

“No!”

“It’s all right. I’m just, it’s just… Oh… I’m glad I’m lying dow—”

“No, Sef, no! Say…! Oh. Oh, of course; me too. I should. Should have… he… how could…? Oh, the fool…”

“Going dark… What, you too? My love? Have we…? Is this some…? Are we being…? Are we be—?”

“Doesn’t know. Oh, the cruel, the stupid!”

“Not, not feeling… so good. Where’s my — it was here. I need to call — Oh, fuck, I’m really…”

“I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry. Please…”

“Never — it doesn’t… just hold…”

“I’m sorry! I’m so—”

“Just hold…”

“So sorry…”

“Just…”

“So…”

Nineteen (S -6)

“Wasn’t anything found?”

“Mere traces, Septame. Some form of highly sophisticated, very hi-tech device, already starting to dissolve into her flesh and blood the moment after it had delivered its payloads.”

“Payloads?”

Physician General Locuil nodded. “The first, almost certainly, into the president. The second, into Ms Orpe. Possibly a few seconds apart, perhaps almost at the same time. There is so little left of the device — so little not turned into its constituent molecules, at any rate — it’s hard to tell, but the likelihood is it was something tuned to Sef’s own genes, something that would only activate at her touch. Then, once it had delivered the toxin into her, it would deliver its second payload into the carrier, into Orpe.” Locuil held up his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “To stop her talking, we have to assume. We also have to assume that she knew the device was in there, but didn’t know it would kill the president. She might have thought it was going to drug her, or — given where it was — she might have thought it would, you know, enhance things for her, for both of them. We can’t know.”

The physician general sighed, sat back. He massaged his face with one hand. He sat across the septame’s desk from Banstegeyn. Marshal Chekwri sat nearby; no others were present in the septame’s private study in his town house, though both the marshal and the physician general had staff waiting in an ante-room along with Banstegeyn’s own people, including Jevan and Solbli.