The Algebraist (40 page)

‘This is his house, then, yes?’ the colonel had asked when they’d first seen it from the foredeck of the
Poaflias.

Fassin had looked around, using sonosense and magnetic to search for the section of the derelict CloudTunnel that the house had once been anchored to, but couldn’t find it anywhere nearby. He’d already checked the
Poaflias’s
charts. The stretch of CloudTunnel no longer showed up on the local holo maps, implying that it had either drifted much further away - which was unlikely - or had fallen into the depths.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, looks like it.’

They’d had to turn the
Poaflias
around and return to Munueyn. Sholish, badly injured, had been taken to hospital. The surgeons had given him an even chance of surviving. He’d heal best left in a drug coma for the next few hundred days. There was nothing more they could do.

Y’sul could have taken on any number of Youths and Adolescents eager to take his crippled servant’s place, but he’d turned them all down - a decision he’d regretted just a day or so later once they’d set out again, when he’d realised he had nobody to shout at.

They’d avoided challenges, other ships and mines of all sorts, finally making the journey in ten days. The Sage Jundriance was attended by a couple of burly Prime servants, Nuern and Livilido, each dressed in fussily ornate and ill-fitting academic robes. They were sufficiently senior to have servants of their own; a half-dozen highly reticent Adults who looked like identical sextuplets. They were big on scurrying but almost autistically shy.

The senior of the two elder servants, Nuern - a mouean to Livilido’s one-rank-more-junior suhrl - had welcomed them, allocated rooms and informed them that his master was engaged in the task of cataloguing the remaining works in the libraries - as Y’sul had warned, a significant proportion of the contents had been given away since Valseir’s accident. Probably only the remoteness of the house had prevented more scholars showing up to pick over the remains. Jundriance was, however, in slow-time, so if they wanted to speak to him they would have to slow to his thought-pace. Fassin and the colonel had agreed. Y’sul had announced he was having none of this and took the
Poaflias
on a cruise to explore the local volume and see what there might be to hunt.

‘Your duty should be to wait for us,’ the colonel had informed him.

‘Duty?’ Y’sul had said, as though hearing the word for the first time.

They had a half-day or so, at least, while Jundriance was informed by a message on his read-screen that he had visitors. If he would see them immediately, they could go in before dark. Otherwise it could be some long time…

‘Colonel,’ Fassin had said, ‘we will have to go into slowdown for some time. Y’sul might be as well amusing himself nearby - ’ Fassin had turned to look at Y’sul to emphasise the word ‘- as mooching about this place for who knows how long.’

- He’ll get into trouble.

- Probably. So, better trouble close to home, or trouble further away?

Hatherence had made a rumbling noise and had told Y’sul, ‘There is a war on.’

‘I’ve checked the nets!’ Y’sul had protested. ‘It’s kilo-klicks away!’

‘Really?’ Nuern had said, perking. ‘Has it started? The master doesn’t allow connections in the house. We hear nothing.’

‘Began a dozen days ago,’ Y’sul had told the servant. ‘We’ve been in the thick of it already. Barely avoided a smart mine on the way here. My servant got himself injured, may die.’

‘A smart mine? Near here?’

‘You are right to be concerned, my friend,’ Y’sul had said solemnly. ‘The presence of such ordnance hereabouts is another - the real - reason why I’ll take my ship on patrol around you.’

‘And your servant, injured. How terrible.’

‘I know. War is. Other than that, elsewhere in the hostilities, barely a spineful of deaths so far. Couple of Dreadnoughts crippled on each side. Far too early to tell who’s winning. I’ll keep a fringe cocked, let you know what’s happening.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Not at all.’

- You’re right, Hatherence had signal-whispered to Fassin as this exchange was taking place. - Let’s just let him go.

- You can signal the ship from your esuit while still in slowdown?

-Yes.

-Okay.

‘You will stay nearby?’ Fassin had asked Y’sul. ‘You won’t let the
Poaflias
venture too far out?’

‘Of course! I swear! And I shall ask our two fine fellows here to extend you every courtesy on my behalf!’

They were to be seen at once. Nuern had shown them into one of the outer library pods. The library had a roof of diamond leaf looking directly upwards into the vermilion-dark sky. Jundriance was settled into a dent-desk near the centre of the near-spherical room, facing a read-screen. Around him, the walls were lined with shelves, some so widely spaced that they might have doubled as bunk space for humans, others so small that a child’s finger might have struggled to fit. Mostly these held books, of some sort. Spindle-secured carousels tensioned between the walls and between the floor and a network of struts above held hundreds of other types of storage devices and systems: swave crystals, holoshard, picospool and a dozen more obscure.

They’d joined Jundriance at his desk, floating through the thick atmosphere to his side. Nuern had swung dent-seats into place and they’d both clamped onto one, Hatherence positioning herself with Fassin between her and the Sage. Jundriance, of course, gave no sign of having noticed them.

They’d slowed. It had been much easier for Fassin than for Hatherence. He’d been doing this for centuries; she’d been trained in the technique but had never attempted it for real. The experience would be a jerky, shaky journey for her, at least until they smoothed out at the Sage’s pace.

The day darkened quickly, then the night seemed to last less than an hour. Fassin concentrated on his own smooth slowdown, but was aware of the colonel seeming to wriggle and shift in her dent-seat. The Sage Jundriance appeared to stir. By the next quick morning, something actually changed on his reading screen; another page. That day passed quickly, then the next night went quicker still. The process continued until they were down to a factor of about one-in-sixty-four, which was what they had been told Jundriance had come up to meet them at - he’d been even slower until their arrival.

They were about halfway there when a signal-whisper had pinged into the little gascraft. - You receiving this all right, major?

- Yes. Why?

- I just interrogated the screen reader. It was working in realtime until the
Poaflias
arrived.

- You sure?

- Perfectly.

- Interesting.

Finally they were there, synchronised to the same life-pace as the Sage. The short days became a slow, slow flicker above them, the orange-purple sky beyond the diamond leaf alternately lightening and dimming. Even at this pace, the great tall veils of gas seemed to hang above them in the sky, unmoving. Fassin had experienced the feeling he always got when he first went into slowdown during a delve, the disquieting sensation that he was a lost soul, the feeling of being in a strange sort of prison, trapped in time inside while life went on at a quicker pace outside, above, beyond.

Jundriance had turned off his read-screen and greeted them. Fassin had asked about Valseir but somehow they’d got onto the subject of life-pace itself.

‘One feels sorry for the Quick, I suppose,’ the Sage said. ‘They seem ill-suited to the universe, in a way. The distances between the stars, the time it takes to travel from one to another… Even more so, of course, if one is thinking of travelling between galaxies.’

A hole in the conversation. ‘Of course.’ Fassin said, to fill it.
Are you fishing for something, old one?
he thought.

‘The machines. They were much worse, of course. How unbearable, to live so quickly.’

‘Well, they mostly don’t live at all now, Sage,’ Fassin told him.

‘That is as well, perhaps.’

‘Sage, can you tell us any more about Valseir’s death?’

‘I was not there. I know no more than you.’

‘You were… quite close to him?’ Fassin asked.

‘Close? No. No, I would not say so. We had corresponded on matters of textual verification and provenance, and debated at a remove on various questions of scholarship and interpretation, though not regularly. We never met. I would not say that that constituted closeness, would you?’

‘I suppose not. I just wondered what drew you here, that’s all.’

‘Oh, the chance to look through his library. To take what I might for myself. That is what drew me. His servants took some material before they left, others - mostly scholars or those who chose to call themselves such - came and took what they wanted, but there is still much here, and while the most obvious treasures are gone, much of value may remain. It would be derelict to ignore.’

‘I see. And what of Valseir’s libraries? I understand you are continuing to catalogue them?’

A pause. ‘Continuing. Yes.’ The old, dark-carapaced Sage seemed to stare at the dark read-screen. ‘Hmm,’ he said. He turned fractionally to look at Fassin. ‘Let me see. Your use of the word "continuing" there.’

‘I understood that Valseir had been cataloguing his libraries,wasn’t he?’

‘He was always so secretive. Was he not?’

- I’m getting light-comms leakage here, Hatherence sent.

- Tell me if there’s a burst after this:

‘And dilatory. Hapuerele always said that Valseir was more likely to win the All-Storms Yachting Cup than ever finish cataloguing his libraries.’

Another pause. ‘Quite so, quite so. Hapuerele, yes.’

- Leakage. Hapuerele does not exist?

- Exists, but he had to ask elsewhere just there. Shouldn’t have.

‘I would like to take a look round some of the libraries myself. I hope you don’t mind. I shan’t disturb you.’

‘Ah. I see. Well, if you think you can be discreet. Are you seeking anything in particular, Mr Taak?’

‘Yes. And you?’

‘Only enlightenment. And what would it be that you are looking for, if I may ask?’

‘Exactly the same.’

The old dweller was silent for a while. In real-time, most of an hour passed. ‘I may have something for you,’ he said eventually. ‘Would you care to slow down a little more? No doubt this, our present pace, seems surpassing slow to you; however, I find it something of a strain.’

‘Of course,’ Fassin told Jundriance.

- I’ll have to leave you here, major.

- Lucky you. I’ll try to keep this short.

- Good luck, Hatherence sent.

‘However, I shall leave you at this point, sir,’ the colonel said to the Sage.

‘Pleasant to have met you, Reverend Colonel,’ Jundriance told her. ‘Now then,’ he said to Fassin. ‘Let me see. Half this pace, I think, Seer Taak, would suit me better. A quarter would suit me better still.’

‘Shall we try half, then, initially?’

He was back in just three days. Hatherence was inspecting the contents of another library when he found her. The room was almost perfectly spherical, with no windows, just a circle of dim light shining from the ceiling’s centre and further luminescence provided by bio strips inlaid on each shelf, glowing ghostly green. Further stacks of shelves like enormous inward-pointing vanes made the place feel oddly organic, as though these were ribs, and they were inside some vast creature. The colonel was floating near one set of close-stacked shelves near the library’s centre, strips of green light ribbing her esuit.

‘So soon, major?’ Hatherence said, replacing a slim holocrystal on a shelf half full of them. At the same time as she spoke, she sent: - Our friend had nothing of interest?

‘Sage Jundriance gave me so much to think about that I decided I’d better come back to normal speed to think it over,’ Fassin replied, then signalled, - The old bastard gave me fuck all; basically he’s trying to stall us.

‘Well, I have been studying while you were conversing.’

‘Anything of interest?’ he asked, floating over towards her.

- There are signs that many more Dwellers were staying here until not long ago. Perhaps only a few days long ago. ‘The house system seems to think there ought to be a catalogue of catalogues somewhere. In fact that there ought to be multiple copies of it lying around.’

‘A catalogue of catalogues?’ Fassin said. - Other Dwellers?

‘The first catalogue that Valseir compiled, listing the catalogues of individual works he would then draw up.’ - Perhaps as many as ten or twelve. Also, I get the impression Livilido and Nuern are more, or at least other, than they appear.

‘One catalogue for everything would be too simple?’ Fassin asked, then sent, - I didn’t think they seemed like ordinary servants either. So where are all these multiple copies?

- I suspect they have been removed. They would be the key to beginning a methodical search, the colonel replied, then said, ‘I gather it seemed to him the logical way to proceed. Certainly there is no shortage of material, even yet, when much of it has been removed. One catalogue would, I suppose, be cumbersome.’ The Colonel paused. ‘Of course, a single giant database with freely dimensioned subdivisions, partially overlapping categories and subcategories, a hierarchically scalable cross-reference hyperstructure and inbuilt, semi-smart user-learning routines would be even more to the point and far more useful.’