Iain Banks - The Hydrogen Sonata

The space was clear. The ship went for it, jumping across into real space in a single vast snap, as precisely aligned as possible in the circumstances and the time available, its enclosure fields shrunk, sucked, wrapped as tight as they would go about itself, leaving it with maybe fifty metres all around it between the outermost of those tightly compressed fields and the nearest bit of Girdlecity solidity. There was an important part of the whole process that depended on something called — only slightly misleadingly — the singularity-expansor transfer component. The ship finessed that as well as it could, but this time its own safety — not to mention the safety of the Girdlecity, millions of people, the planet, etc. — trumped technical perfection, so the expansion ended up being relatively rough and ready, and undeniably abrupt.

The ship blew into existence almost explosion-fast, creating a vast pulse of air that tore out through the fortunately dispersed structure of the open-work tunnel and the surrounding architecture of the Girdlecity, bowling people over, sending nearby aircraft tumbling, shattering antique windows and denting cladding panels for hundreds of metres about it.

Messy, the Mistake Not… would be entirely prepared to concede, but never mind. In the end it had worked and it was where it had wanted to be; in the same huge basket-weave tunnel as the airship Equatorial 353 , just a hundred metres behind it.

~What idiocy is this? the captain of the Churkun sent.

~A fitting idiocy, the ship replied. ~I fit. You won’t. And if I need to I can put my enclosure right around the airship from here, so I suggest you leave me be. Out.

The blast of air seemed to have relented a little, if only because more floor panels had given way, providing additional routes for the air to escape through. The two people on the couch that had been slipping towards the hole in the floor had scrambled up and over the back of it, crawling away; the couch itself had stopped moving.

“Berdle!” Cossont screamed. No reply. It was still bedlam but at least now she could hear herself. She saw another stairway, spiralling upwards ten metres away, behind the nearest semi-circle of chairs. She got onto one knee, heaved herself upright and leaned into the still-furious gale, forcing herself forward, straining to see any more debris coming her way.

Another shudder ran through the whole airship, sending her flying. She heard herself yelp as she fell, being blown backwards, caught in the lacerating torrent of air; she dropped to the floor and held on again, cursing.

Agansu pushed himself up against the pummelling force of the water, finally getting to all fours. The android body was gauging, calibrating, allowing for the vast pressing weight surging across it. It could still function, and its AG should still be effective. Walls burst, the floor gave way in a variety of places nearby, letting in a little more light, allowing the surging fall of water to escape.

The remaining arbite reported when Agansu pinged it.

~Holding approximately steady in downward course of water, it told him.

~Attempt to rise, he told it. ~Head for the top of the tank. I shall too.

The suit let him stand, unsteady, shuddering, in the torrent. Agansu saw two broken-looking bodies being swept past, naked.

He activated the AG, lifted off the floor, and began to make his way, quivering, battered from all sides, up through the chaotic swirl of the descending column of water.

He and the remaining arbite burst from the surface of the water into a great dark space more than sixty metres high and hundreds across, buffeted by swirling winds.

High above, just beneath a randomly pierced ceiling, a rig of metalwork gantries hung suspended. Some figures moved up there.

~Avatar-android identified, the arbite told him as they rose, accelerating, together.

~Fire, destroy it, he told the arbite.

Violet bolts seared through the air, sparking explosions from the ceiling; sparks and pieces of glowing debris fell towards them. Two figures were running, overhead.

~Target employing visual camouflage fields, the arbite reported, still firing as they rose. Next thing, the leading figure — a composite haze of images, like a stacked pack of ghosts — fell or threw itself from the gantry and came whirling down through the turmoil of air and falling debris towards them, light glittering from it.

The colonel realised suddenly, only at this point, that he had lost the kin-ex side-arm. He had no idea exactly when or where. This was upsetting. The android body had its pair of forearm-mounted lasers — but he doubted they would prove especially effective after what had happened at Bokri. The arbite fired at the falling figure, seeming to hit it. Agansu raised his arms, aiming at the other running figure, then, in a single staggering impact and a wash of white, was hit by something, and sent tumbling.

He was aware of falling, somersaulting. He steadied himself, or the suit did. He didn’t know. When he was floating in mid-air, he looked around and could see nothing of the last arbite or the figure that had dropped from the gantry. Below, in the great swirl of water and dashing, chaotic waves, there were the fading remains of what might have been two large splashes on the dark waters.

~Arbite, report, he said.

“Comms internal only,” the android body told him. Agansu felt groggy. And odd: strange, unbalanced. He looked at his right arm, which was not there. He stared. The arm ended at about midway on the upper part. The stump was still smoking.

~Arbite… marine oper— he started to say, still unsure regarding what had happened.

“Comms internal only,” the android body repeated.

“Yes, of course,” Agansu said, looking inside himself to monitor the body’s operational state. Severely compromised. AI substrate intact, obviously: AG, conventional locomotion and one arm and one laser left.

~Upwards, he thought, and ascended through the bruising cataract of air.

“Ximenyr? Where’s Ximenyr?” she yelled, crouched down by the frightened-looking man in front of her He was clad in one of the dark tunics, and holding grimly on to a desk as the air rushed past. This level, one up, looked like the foyer of some exclusive hotel. Getting up here had been a little easier than her last ascent as the storm of air gradually lessened. It was still fierce enough.

“Where’s Ximenyr?” she shouted again over the roaring. The man just shook his head.

She turned away, muttered, “Suit, any idea?”

“Interrogating local systems,” the suit said, still in Berdle’s voice. “Mr Ximenyr’s suite is this way; please follow.”

The suit seemed to raise itself. It faced a broad, well-lit corridor. She walked with the suit, then started to jog through the noticeably thinner air. “Switching to supplemental oxygen supply, ten per cent,” the suit announced. She felt something connect delicately with her nostrils; a cool draught hit the skin there.

“Still trying Berdle?” she asked the suit.

“Constantly,” it told her, in his voice. “Here,” the suit said, drawing them both to a stop at a double doorway. “Open?” it asked.

“Yes!”

“Opening,” the suit said, and the doors slid apart.

Oh shit , the ship thought to itself.

The Mistake Not… had lost contact with all of its devices on and in the airship, including its own avatar. It was busily scattering new surveillance stuff all over the place now, as fast as it could, but it might already be too late.

The airship Equatorial 353 was riding as high as it could go, tearing its upper surfaces to shreds along the giant grater that was the ceiling of the huge open tunnel, shedding panels and pieces of equipment as it ground slowly to a stop, all the while dropping what looked like megatonnes of water from its lower reaches: whole falls, giant cascades of water were issuing from its sides, while further sheets and folds of water fell straight down from its ventral line, taking bulkhead panels and entire sections of hull with them, falling, spinning slowly away in the colossal squall of rain. The airship ground to a stop, trapped against the ceiling of the tunnel. Water continued to gush from its lower hull.