Iain Banks - The Algebraist

· Sir. Taince kept her thought-voice calm, but inside it was her turn to whoop. Submerged in her dark womb of fluid, tubes and wires, her fists clenched, a smile appeared on her until then frowning face, and a little shiver shook her cradled body.

The Kehar family house on Murla, an island off the south coast a few hundred kilometres from Borquille, was another spherical building, a quarter of the size of the Hierchon’s palace, but remarkable for being balanced on top of a great upthrust of water, precisely like a ball balanced on a water jet in a fairground.

Saluus Kehar, perfectly groomed, glowing with health and generally looking as smoothly gleaming as one of his company’s spaceships, met Fassin personally on the slim suspension bridge connecting the house with the spit of land jutting out into the ancient drowned caldera where the waters foamed and roared and spumed and the house balanced, barely trembling, on the giant column of water.

“Fassin! Great to see you! Hey! That uniform suits you!”

Fassin had thought he’d be briefed-indoctrinated-psyche-tested-pep-talked-fuck-knows-whatted and then bundled aboard ship to be whisked straight to Nasqueron. But even faced with arguably the single greatest emergency in its history, the Ulubine bureaucracy had a set way of doing things, and central to this ethos appeared to be not doing anything too momentous too quickly, just in case.

The rest of the session in the Hierchon’s audience chamber after the AI projection had issued its orders and asked for questions had involved a great deal of talk, speech-making, point-scoring, back-covering, back-targeting and pre-emptive blame-avoidance. The image of Admiral Quile answered all the questions tirelessly and with a patience that was probably the most sure sign possible that it really was an AI talking. A human — especially an admiral, used to being obeyed instantly and without argument — would have lost patience long before the proceedings finally ground to a halt. Fassin had been pointed at and referred to several times, and been left with the distinct impression that this was all his fault. Which, he supposed, in a way it was. It had all gone on so long that Fassin’s stomach had perhaps in sympathy with a large component of the mood in the chamber — started grumbling. He hadn’t eaten since early breakfast on ’glantine, after all.

“You are quite sure?” the image above the cooking-pot device asked eventually, when even the most talkative of those present seemed to have run out of questions to ask and points — and delicate portions of the anatomy — to cover. There was no hint of either pleading or relief in the projection’s voice. Fassin thought either would have been appropriate.

“Very well, then. I will bid you farewell, and good luck.”

The image of the human male with a bald, tattooed scalp and lined face, standing there in his much-decorated armoured suit, looked around them one last time, executed a short, formal bow to the Hierchon and disappeared. Nobody seemed to know quite what to do for a moment. Then the black, pot-bellied machine in the centre of the floor started to make a loud humming noise. Shrievalty Colonel Somjomion and Cessorian Clerk-Regnant Voriel, attending as best they could to the machines they had been put in charge of when the others had been required to leave the chamber, started peering intently at various screens and controls. The circle of mirror-armoured troopers each tapped one ear, then brought up their guns, pointing them at the cooking-pot device, which was humming loudly now and starting to glow in the infrared. The hum rose and took on extra harmonics, deepening until the machine was visibly vibrating. Some of those close to the device either drew back or looked like they wanted to, as if fearing that the machine was going to explode. The air around its ribbed flanks shimmered. Above it, the atmosphere seemed to writhe and quiver, as though some mutant ghost of the image that had stood there was still fighting to escape.

Then, just as the pot-bellied thing started to glow a deep cherry red around its midriff, it all faded away: noise and vibration and heat. People relaxed. Somjomion and Voriel took deep breaths and nodded at the Hierchon. The troopers shouldered their arms. Whatever complex substrate inside the dark device had played host to the AI image of the Admiral had been turned to slag.

The Hierchon Ormilla spoke from his glittering esuit. “I invoke the full emergency powers of the War Emergency Plan. Martial law will be declared at the close of this extended session. Let those earlier excluded resume their places.”

The flurry of politicking that Fassin had witnessed earlier was made to look mild in comparison as — without actually telling anybody not cleared to know about it any details — what was becoming known as The Current Emergency was talked over and enhanced roles and new responsibilities were discussed, squabbled over — between and within departments — revised, re-revised, traded, further discussed and re-re-revised before finally being handed out.

Fassin’s belly was still making noises when the full session broke up and he was called to a briefing with his superiors in the Shrievalty Ocula. They kept him waiting in an ante-room within the Ocula’s floor inside the Hierchon’s palace; he shed one layer of his cumbersome court clothes and found some human food in a dispenser in a curving outside corridor with a view over the reception plaza. (Long evening shadows, towers and spires burnished red with sunset. He looked for some obvious sign that the city, planet and system were all under martial law again, but saw nothing.) He was still wiping his fingers when they called him in.

“Major Taak,” Colonel Somjomion said. “Welcome.” He was shown to a large circular table surrounded by uniformed Shrievalty personnel. They were mostly human or whule, though there were two jajuejein doing their best to look humanoid and seated, and a single oerileithe in a duller and slightly smaller version of the Hierchon’s esuit, the discus of which was half-hidden in a wide slot in the floor. It seemed to radiate chill and dominate the room, all the same.

Somjomion indicated the oerileithe. “This is Colonel Hatherence,” she told Fassin. “She will be your superior in this mission.”

“Pleasure, sure,” the oerileithe boomed, twisting fractionally towards Fassin. The Colonel’s esuit had no transparent faceplate like the Hierchon’s, just armour and sensors, giving no sign of the creature within.

Fassin nodded. “Ma’am.” He’d thought the only oerileithe in the system apart from the Hierchon were basically Ormilla’s near family and his girlfriends (’harem’ was, though only just, too pejorative). He wondered whether Colonel Hatherence fitted neatly into either category or not.

It was explained to him that they could not, of course, just send him off alone to do what he was supposed to do. Over the next hour, as communications, memos and remote audiences with the Hierchon himself interrupted Somjomion, Fassin was gradually given to understand that the task assigned quite specifically to him alone was one which would nevertheless unar-guably be best accomplished if he was escorted and overseen by people the Hierchon and his claque of cohorts felt they could actually trust.

Accordingly, Fassin would not be alone on his next delve. He would benefit from the protection and guidance of Colonel Hatherence here, and from that of two of his fellow human Seers, Braam Ganscerel, Chief Seer of the most senior Sept of all, Sept Tonderon, and — as Fassin’s junior — Paggs Yurnvic of Sept Reheo, with whom he had worked before. Chief Seer Ganscerel was currently readying himself to return as rapidly as possible from a habitat orbiting Qua’runze, and would rendezvous with Colonel Hatherence, Major Taak and Seer Yurnvic on Third Fury, from which the delve or delves would be conducted, as soon as possible.