Iain Banks - The Hydrogen Sonata

Taking its mildly eccentric habits and interests with it into its new home, the Caconym ’s Mind — the Caconym , basically — pursued its strange little hobbies and kept itself pretty much to itself, even while remaining on the sort of everlasting standby that Culture ships of its kind were expected to maintain, just in case.

It wasn’t a hermit — Culture warships were strongly counselled not even to think of becoming true hermits — it kept up, in a general sort of way, with what was happening in the galaxy, and there were always a few respected and responsible ships who knew how to contact it if they really needed to, but it had few acquaintances and fewer friends, none of whom expected any real degree of chattiness from it and who were quite used to hearing nothing from it for hundreds of days at a time.

So it was surprised when a message pinged in, from, apparently, somebody being so informal that even many of the usual signal protocols could be cheerfully dispensed with.

∞

Cac, chumlet, how are you?

∞

The sender was, according to a minimal ration of the usual embedded personal codings and eccentricities of glyph-expression, its old friend the MSV Pressure Drop . Though, of course, that sort of signal addenda could be copied.

It sent back along the same signal route:

PD?

∞

The same.

∞

Even without the normal protocols, it was possible to work out the other craft’s rough position through the beam direction and reply delay, even after only a couple of signals. It looked like the Pressure Drop was relatively close by; only five or six years off. Practically next door, and only a couple of systems away in this sparsely starred part of the galaxy.

Unless the other ship was introducing a deliberate delay into its replies, of course, in which case it could be almost on top of it. The Caconym immediately clicked on its track scanner and looked down the signal beam. Nothing there. A few of its internal systems — kicking in like an animal flight-or-fight response — flicked off again, winding back down.

∞

I am in every respect excellent, as you might expect, it replied . Shall I assume the same of you?

∞

Do. Still obsessed with them sparkly bits then?

∞

The Caconym relaxed a little more; the other party certainly expressed itself as though it was the Pressure Drop . Still, to get so close before announcing oneself was unusual. A more paranoid ship, the Caconym thought, would almost feel like it had been getting snuck up on.

The signals it was responding to had originally arrived via a beam spread wide enough to encompass the whole of the solar system it was within, with the implication that the Pressure Drop hadn’t known where within the system its friend was (though it might have guessed, near the sun — that was where the beam was focused now), but to be so discoverable, even by another Culture ship, was, if not alarming for a wandering war-craft, at least worthy of note.

∞

My interest in stars — their formation, development and death, ability to harbour and promote life, affect, empower and destroy all around them and so on — remains. Though obviously I struggle to couch it as poetically as you.

∞

Are you with our friends the field-liners?

∞

The Caconym had a long-standing interest in and relationship with various of the galaxy-wide outposts of the creatures who inhabited the magnetic field lines of certain stars.

∞

No. Holidaying, as of recently; magnetosphere-surfing for the most part. I intend to resume my studies of the inhabitants at a later date.

∞

Not talking to you, then?

∞

Of course they’re talking to me. We have a highly complex and mutually beneficial dialogue, when necessary. The question I might ask is why are you talking to me?

∞

Your oldest friend can’t say hello without occasioning such suspicion?

∞

Who’s suspicious? It’s been so long, and you’ve been so quiet. I thought perhaps you’d expired without telling me.

∞

If I’ve been quiet, it’s because I take my cue from you. But yes, it’s been a while. I’ve been busy. Well, indolent. The effect is the same. I’ve managed to whittle my population down to a framework crew of the like-minded, so all is harmonious.

∞

So, what brings you to this neck of the scrub?

∞

Technically, the serendipity of a tour — for pleasure; like yourself I have discovered a rich seam of auto-indulgence in myself — during which I had made swinging by your own current location, however out of the way, something of a priority, for reasons which are beginning to escape me.

∞

I shall endeavour to be more scintillating.

∞

However, there is something which has come to my attention which might interest you.

∞

And what would that be?

∞

A matter of potential thorniness. It involves the Tiny-wee Tucked-away. The vastness beyond vast.

∞

Oh fuck.

∞

Now, before you—

∞

I may have to overwrite those bits of myself. I tell you, I wish to have no more to do with the promise, process or result of Outloading, Instigating, Subliming, Enfolding or any other synonym relating to the activity or state of basically buggering off up one’s own or indeed anybody else’s fundament.

∞

The Sublime. The almost tangible, entirely believable, mathematically verifiable nirvana just a few right-angle turns away from dear boring old reality: a vast, infinite, better-than-virtual ultra-existence with no Off switch, to which species and civilisations had been hauling their sorry tired-with-it-all behinds off to since — the story went — the galaxy had still been in metaphorical knee socks.

The Sublime was where you went when you felt you had no more to contribute to the life of the great galactic meta-civilisation, and — sometimes more importantly, depending on the species — when in turn you felt that it had no more to offer you. It took a whole civilisation to do it properly, and it took a long, long time for most civilisations to come round to the idea, but there was never any hurry; the Sublime would always be there. Well, provided only that blind chance, your own stupidity or somebody else’s malevolence didn’t lead to your outright obliteration in the Real in the meantime.

Exactly what it was like in there was debatable: very, very few came back and none came back less than profoundly altered. These few returnees were also seemingly incapable of describing the realm they had left, however recently, in any detail at all.

It was wonderful; that was the general tone of the vague, dreamy reports that did come back. And almost beyond comparison, literally indescribable. The absolutely most splendid wonders, experiences and achievements of the Real and all those within it were as nothing to the meanest off-hand meanderings of the Sublime. The most soaring, magnificent, ethereal cathedrals to reason, faith or anything else were as mere unkempt and dilapidated hovels compared to the constructions — if they could even be described as such — within the Sublime. That was about all anybody had to go on, but at least the reports never varied in one respect; no one ever came back saying, shit, it’s horrible; don’t go.