The Hydrogen Sonata

somebody shouting, “Sir, could this delay the Subliming?” while the acting president was talking urgently with his advisors.

Somebody else shouted out, “Sir, will you be putting yourself forward as a candidate, and will there even be an election?” and yet another person yelled, “Has President Geljemyn’s back-up been woken up yet?” After that, more shouting made it difficult to hear individual questions.

Berdle, sitting beside an open-mouthed Cossont, looked at her and said, “Well, this is interesting.”

Cossont, not long woken, dressed in a loose, voluminous robe, just stared at the screen. “The president’s dead?” she said.

“No,” Berdle told her, “that’s the new one. The avatar nodded at the old man on the screen. “Seems to work a bit like having a king; there always is one, no matter how many you bump off. Until you have a revolution or something.”

“She’s dead?” Cossont repeated.

“President Geljemyn is no more,” Berdle agreed. “And we — the Culture — appear to be in the frame somehow. That seems a bit unfair.”

“I liked President Geljemyn,” Pyan said, draping itself round Cossont’s shoulders. “She had a nice smile. Who is this old person again?”

“New president,” Berdle told it. “Acting President Int’yom.”

“I see. No, he hasn’t got such a nice smile.”

“You’re right,” Berdle said. “He hasn’t, has he?”

“No! He just hasn’t, has he? It’s just not there for him.”

“I know,” Berdle agreed, smiling.

Cossont looked from the screen to Berdle. “What the fuck is going on?”

The avatar shrugged, looked serious. “Long story. Power struggle, I suppose. Though that seems a little pointless, if everybody’s going to Sublime soon anyway. Though they might not be, now.” Berdle looked at Cossont. “And whether they do or not might come down to what happens when we get back to Xown and the Girdlecity, in about three days.” The avatar assumed a look of some thoughtfulness. “Bit of a responsibility, really.”

Cossont shook her head, looked back at the screen. “Oh, fuck…”

“‘Rescinded’! What can be “rescinded’? We had an agreement! We have done nothing! What have we done? Tell us what we have done! Prove anything!”

The individuals of the Ronte delegation were being dragged, inert, out of the adapted house in the diplomatic quarter that had been their home. As many media trucks were present as security vehicles.

The individual Rontes in their exo-suits had been covered in grapple nets by the security para-militaries after being effector-stunned in the early morning raid. The nets were supposed to disable their exo-suits and leave only basic life-support working, but while the aliens and their suits themselves were just dead weights being hauled out across the garden to the waiting police fliers, some sort of float-cam or drone device controlled by the aliens was still functioning, hovering over the scene and dodging attempts to shoot it by the security people.

“This is a diplomatic mission! On what authority do you—?” A small Gzilt security drone succeeded in landing a bore charge on the Ronte device, which jerked, went silent, then fell trailing smoke to the ground and thudded into a flowerbed.

The last exo-suited Ronte was bumped and dragged into the security flier. The ramp closed and the craft took off.

“I am standing here with Ambassador Mierbeunes of the Liseiden,” a reporter said to a float-cam. “Ambassador Mierbeunes, are you surprised to find the Ronte being treated in this way, while your own clients have been declared the new allies of the Gzilt?”

“Well, while I entirely understand the many and various pressures which are brought to bear on an alien delegation of this nature…”

“Has the Culture helped the Ronte or not?”

“Yes. Specifically, one of our ships helped a squadron of twelve of their vessels get from where they were to the Gzilt system outskirts. They’ve since turned about.”

“Twelve ships? Is this an invasion force?”

“Hardly, Mr… Kresele, isn’t it? No, their ships and weapons are quite primitive. Check the specs; freely available. And why would the Culture be helping anybody invade anybody else, let alone help anybody invade the Gzilt, who have been our friends for millennia? And why would anybody invade a people about to Sublime in the first place? Come now; at least try to make sense here. Yes, ma’am. Ms Aouse, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Hi. Have you helped the Ronte in any other way?”

“Certainly not, as far as I know. And I would have been told.”

“So you could have been helping them.”

“To do what? Destroy the Fourteenth’s HQ? That’s ridiculous. That was not them. And it certainly wasn’t us.”

“Who do you think was responsible, then?”

“I don’t know. But it’s more likely that one of your own ships gone rogue, rather than the Ronte or the Culture, destroyed the Fzan-Juym, and I leave it to you to judge how absurd a proposition that is.”

“Ziborlun! Was the Culture ship working in league with the Ronte acting on orders, and, if so, whose?”

“Oh. So we’ve gone from ‘helping’ to ‘working in league with’, have we? I see. The ship — the Beats Working, a tiny ship with a crew of five humans — had no orders. It still has no orders. It was doing what it and its crew thought was the right thing, at all points, including when it offered to help the Ronte get here faster. And at that stage, let’s not forget, the Ronte still thought you were their friends and, apart from anything else, wanted to get here in time to help celebrate the Subliming.”

“Somebody must have issued the orders.”

“No, they didn’t. There were no orders. You have much work to do, Mr Diria, understanding how the Culture works. Yes, ma’am. Ms Zige, isn’t it?”

“Has the Culture been spying on Gzilt?”

“If we have, obviously not enough, because we seem to be as confused as everybody else about what the hell is going on here. Yes; gentleman at the back.”

“Who’s that smart-arse?” Cossont asked, scowling at the screen from within the heavy robe. “Looks like a ship’s avatar.”

“That’s right,” Berdle said. “Ziborlun. The avatar of the MSV Passing By And Thought I’d Drop In.” Berdle seemed to hesitate, then said, “Ah. I don’t think you’re going to like this.”

“What?” she said.

The image switched to yet another press conference and a senior policeman flanked by two First Regiment Intelligence and Security officers. Somebody’s face was shown on an insert on the screen. Cossont knew she knew the person for about half a second before she realised; it was her own face. “We would be very interested in interviewing Ms Cossont,” the head cop was saying. “And, yes, she is a contributory suspect in the matter of the destruction of the regimental headquarters of the Fourteenth Regiment, on Eshri.”

“WHAT?” Cossont yelled, jumping to her feet. Pyan had to hang on tight to stay round her shoulders.

“Told you you wouldn’t like it,” Berdle said.

“Oh, Vyr, are you an outlaw?” Pyan said, sounding excited.

“But I haven’t done anything!” Cossont shouted.

Berdle looked at her, head tipped. “My, you really are naive, aren’t you?”

The ship dance of triumph that had been ‘The Approaching Eclipsing of One Sun by Another’ was abandoned in mid-final formation. On confirmation of the humanoid treachery, all ships somersaulted about, went to full power and simultaneously began a maximally tight zooming loop, twisting as they turned so that at all points throughout the manoeuvre their drives were presented towards their earlier destination, the planet Zyse in the system of Gzilt.

The drone Jonsker Ap-Candrechenat, representative of the Culture ship Beats