Iain Banks: The Algebraist

The Dwellers, at least in their mature form, thought slowly. They lived slowly, evolved slowly, travelled slowly and did almost everything they ever did, slowly. They could, it was alleged, fight quite quickly. Though, as far as anybody was able to determine, they had not had to do any fighting for a long time. The implication of this was that they could think quickly when it suited them, but most of the time it did not appear to suit them, and so — it was assumed — they thought slowly. It was unarguable that in their later years — later aeons — they conversed slowly. So slowly that a simple question asked before breakfast might not be answered until after supper. A rate of conversational exchange, it occurred to Fassin, that Uncle Slovius — floating in his now-quite-still pool with a trancelike expression on his tusked, puffy face — seemed determined to emulate.

“The Tranche Xonju, it concerns… ?” Slovius said suddenly. “Clutter poetry, Diasporic myths and various history tangles,”

Fassin answered.

“Histories of which epochs?”

“The majority have still to be dated, uncle. Some may never be, and possibly belong with the myths. The only readily identifiable strands are very recent and appear to relate to mostly local events during the Machine War.”

Uncle Slovius nodded slowly, producing small waves. “The Machine War. That is interesting.”

“I was thinking of attending to those strands first.”

“Yes,” Slovius said. “A good idea.”

“Thank you, uncle.”

Slovius lapsed into silence again. A ground-quake rumbled distantly around them, producing tiny concentric rings in the liquid of Slovius’s pool.

The civilisation which comprised the Dwellers of Nasqueron, with all their attendant fellow flora and fauna, itself formed but one microscopic fragment of the Dweller Diaspora, the galaxy-spanning meta-civilisation (some would say post-civilisation) which, as far as anyone could tell, preceded all other empires, cultures, diasporas, civilisations, federations, consocia, fellowships, unities, leagues, confederacies, affilia and organisations of like or unlike beings in general.

The Dwellers, in other words, had been around for most of the life of the galaxy. This made them at least unusual and possibly unique. It also made them, if they were approached with due deference and care, and treated with respect and patience, a precious resource. Because they had good memories and even better libraries. Or at least they had retentive memories, and very large libraries.

Dweller memories, and libraries, usually proved to be stuffed full of outright nonsense, bizarre myths, incomprehensible images, indecipherable symbols and meaningless equations, plus random assemblages of numbers, letters, pictograms, holophons, sonomemes, chemiglyphs, actinomes and sensata variegata, all of them trawled and thrown together unsorted — or in patterns too abstruse to be untangled — from a jumbled mix of millions upon millions of utterly different and categorically unrelated civilisations, the vast majority of which had long since disappeared and either crumbled into dust or evaporated into radiation.

Nevertheless, in all that flux of chaos, propaganda, distortion, drivel and weirdness, there were nuggets of actuality, seams of facts, frozen rivers of long-forgotten history, whole volumes of exobiography and skeins and tissues of truth. It had been the life-work of people like Chief Seer Slovius, and was the life-work of people like Chief Seer-in-waiting Fassin Taak, to meet with and talk to the Dwellers, to adapt to their language, thoughts and metabolism, to — sometimes virtually, at a remove, sometimes literally — float and fly and dive and soar with them amongst the clouds of Nasqueron, and through their conversations, their studies, their notes and analyses, make what sense they could of what their ancient slow-living hosts told them and allowed them to access, and so enrich and enlighten the greater, quicker meta-civilisation which presently inhabited the galaxy.

“And, ah, Jaal?” Slovius glanced at his nephew, who looked sufficiently surprised for the older male to add, “The, oh, what’s their name… ? Tonderon. Yes. The Tonderon girl. You two are still betrothed, aren’t you?”

Fassin smiled. “We are indeed, uncle,” he said. “She is returning from Pirrintipiti this evening. I’m hoping to meet her at the port.”

“And you are… ?” Slovius gestured with one flipper hand. “Still content?”

“Content, uncle?” Fassin asked.

“You are happy with her? With the prospect of her being your wife?”

“Of course, uncle.”

“And she with you?”

“Well, I hope so, I believe so.”

Slovius looked at his nephew, holding his gaze for a moment. “Mm-hmm. I see. Of course. Well.” Slovius used one of his flipper hands to wave some of the blue glowing liquid over his upper chest, as though he was cold. “You are to be wed when?”

“The date is fixed for Allhallows, Jocund III,” Fassin said. “Somewhat under half a year, body time,” he added helpfully.

“I see,” Slovius said, frowning. He nodded slowly, and the action caused his body to rise and fall slightly in the pool, producing more waves. “Well, it is good to know you might finally be settling down at last.”

Fassin considered himself to be a dedicated, hard-working and productive Seer who spent well above the average amount of time at the sharp end of delving, actually with the Nasqueron Dwellers. However, due to the fact that he liked to complete each interlude of this real, useful life with what he called a ‘proper holiday’, the older generation of Sept Bantrabal, and especially Slovius, seemed to think he was some sort of hopeless wastrel. (Indeed, Uncle Slovius seemed reluctant to accept the term ‘proper holiday’ at all. He preferred to call them “month-long blind-drunk stoned-out benders getting into trouble, fights and illicit orifices in the flesh pots of—” well, wherever; sometimes Pirrintipiti, the capital of ’glantine, sometimes Borquille, capital of Sepekte, or one of Sepekte’s other cities, sometimes one of the many pleasure habitats scattered throughout the system.)

Fassin smiled tolerantly. “Still, I shan’t be hanging up my dancing shoes just yet, uncle.”

“The nature of your studies over your last, say, three or four delves, Fassin. Have they followed what one might term a consistent course?”

“You confuse me, uncle,” Fassin admitted. “Your last three or four delves, have they been in any way linked thematically, or by subject, or through the Dwellers you have conversed with?”

Fassin sat back, surprised. Why ever would old Slovius be interested in this ? “Let me think, sir,” he said. “On this occasion I spoke almost exclusively with Xonju, who provided information seemingly at random and does not fully appear to understand the concept of an answer. Our first meeting and all very preparatory. He may be worth following up, if we can find him again. He may not. It might take all of the months between now and my next delve to work out—”

“So this was a sampling expedition, an introduction?”

“Indeed.”

“Before that?”

“A protracted conference, with Cheuhoras, Saraisme the younger, Akeurle Both-twins, traav Kanchangesja and a couple of minors from the Eglide adolescent pod.”

“Your subjects?”

“Poetry, mostly. Ancient, modern, the use of image in the epic, the ethics of boasting and exaggeration.”

“And the delve before?”

“With Cheuhoras alone; an extended lament for his departed parent, some hunting myths from the local near-past and a lengthy translation and disposition on an epic sequence concerning the adventures of ancient plasmatics voyaging within the hydrogen migration, perhaps a billion or so years ago, during the Second Chaos.”