The Algebraist

by Iain M. Banks

  They could look forward, Fassin had every reason to believe, to a long life together, and just as it had been sensible to marry within his profession — and to make a match that would meet with the enthusiastic approval of their respective Septs, strength­ening the bonds between two of the most important Seer houses - so it had been only prudent to take that likely longevity into account.

  Of course, as Slow Seers Fassin and Jaal's shared future would be absolutely if not relatively longer than that of most of their contemporaries, and radically different; in the slow-time of a long delve, Seers aged very slowly indeed, and Uncle Slovius's four­teen centuries, while short of the record and not yet (thankfully, naturally) his limit, should not be difficult to surpass. Seer spouses and loved ones had to schedule their slow-time and normal life carefully so as not to get too out of synch with each other, lest the protagonists lose touch emotionally. The life of Tchayan Olmey, Fassin's old mentor and tutor, had hinged on just such an unforeseen discontinuity, leaving her stranded from an old love. 'Anything wrong?' Jaal asked him.

  'Just this, ah, interview thing.' He glanced at the antique clock across the room. 'Who's it with?'

  'Can't say,' he told her. He'd mentioned having an appoint­ment for an interview later when he'd first met Jaal off her suborb shuttle at the house port in the valley below, but she'd been too busy telling him about the latest gossip from the capital and the scandal regarding her Aunt Feem and the Sept Khustrial boy to question him any further on the matter. Her shower, their supper and then more urgent matters had taken prece­dence thereafter.

  'You can't say?' she said, frowning, turning further round towards him, lifting and repositioning one dark breast on his light brown chest as she did so. There was something, he thought, not for the first time, about an aureola more pale than its surroundings . . . 'Oh, Fass,' Jaal said, sounding annoyed, 'it's not a girl, is it? Not a servant girl? Fucking forfend, not before we're married, surely?'

  She was smiling. He grinned back. 'Nuisance, but has to be done. Sorry.'

  'You really can't say?' She shifted her head, and blonde hair spilled over his shoulder. It felt even better than it looked.

  'Really,' he said.

  Jaal was staring intently at his mouth. 'Really?' she asked.

  'Well.' He licked his teeth. ‘I can say it's not a girl.' She was still staring intently at his mouth. 'Look, Jaal, have I got some sort of foreign matter lodged in there?'

  She pushed her mouth slowly up towards his. 'Not,' she said, 'yet.'

  'You are Fassin Taak, of the Seer Sept Bantrabal, 'glantine moon, Nasqueron gas-giant planet, Ulubis star and system?'

  'Yes, I am.'

  'You are physically present here and not any sort of projec­tion or other kind of representation?'

  'Correct.'

  'You are still an active Slow Seer, domiciled in the seasonal houses of Sept Bantrabal and working from the satellite-moon Third Fury?'

  'Yes, yes and yes.'

  'Good. Fassin Taak, everything that will pass between you and this construct is in strictest confidence. You will respect that confidence and communicate to others no more of what we shall talk about than is absolutely necessary to facilitate such conduct as will be required of you in furtherance of whatever actions you will be asked to perform and whatever goals you will be asked to pursue. Do you do understand that and agree?'

  Fassin thought about this. Just for an instant as the projec­tion had started talking it had suddenly occurred to him that the glowing orb looked a lot like a Plasmatic being (not that he'd ever met one, but he'd seen images), and that moment of distraction had been sufficient for him to miss the full meaning of what had been said. 'Actually, no. Sorry, I'm not trying to be –'

  'To repeat . . .'

  Fassin was in the main audience chamber at the top of the Autumn House, a large circular space with views in every hori­zontal direction and a dramatic transparent roof, all blanked out. For now its contents consisted of a single seat for him and a stubby, metallic-looking cylinder supporting a globe of glowing gas hovering above its centre. A fat cable ran from the squat cylinder to a floor flap in the middle of the chamber.

  The gas sphere repeated what it had just said. It spoke more slowly this time, though happily with no trace of irritation or condescension. Its voice was flat, unaccented, and yet still seemed to contain the hint of a personality, as though the voice of a particular individual had been sampled and used as a template, from which most but not all expression had been removed.

  Fassin heard it out, then said, 'Okay, yes, I understand and agree.'

  'Good. This construct is an emissarial projection of the Mercatorial Administrata, sub-Ministerial level, with superior-rank authority courtesy of the Ascendancy, Engineer division, Senior Engineer level, Eship Est-taun Zhiffir, portal-carrying. It is qualified to appear sentient while not in fact being so. Do you understand this?'

  Fassin thought about this too and decided that he did, just. 'Yep,' he said, then wondered if the projection would under­stand colloquial affirmatives. Apparently it did.

  'Good. Seer Fassin Taak, you are hereby seconded to the Shrievalty Ocula. You will have the honorary rank—'

  'Hold on!' Fassin nearly jumped out of his seat. 'The what?' 'The honorary rank of—' 'No, I mean I'm seconded to the what?' 'The Shrievalty Ocula. You will have the honorary—' 'The Shrievalty?' Fassin said, trying to control his voice. 'The Ocula?' 'Correct.'

  The baroque, intentionally labyrinthine power structures of the latest, Culmina-inspired Age, incorporating the aspirations of and enforced limitations on at least eight major subject species and whole vast subcategories of additional Faring races as well as (by its own claim) 'contextualising' various lesser civilisations of widely varying scope and ambitions and, peripherally at least, influencing entire alien spectra of Others, held many organis­ations and institutions whose names the utterance of which people - or at least people who knew of such things - tended to greet with a degree of respect shading into fear.

  The Shrievalty was probably the least extreme example; people might respect it - many would even find its purpose rather boring - but few would fear it. It was the paramilitary Orderdisciplinefaculty of technicians and theorists in charge of what had once been called Information Technology, and so it was also, though less exclusively, concerned with the accept­ably restricted remnants of Artificial Intelligence technologies still extant in the post-War epoch.

  The Machine War had wiped the vast majority of AIs out of existence throughout the galaxy over seven thousand years ago, and the Culmina-inspired - and -enforced - peace which followed had stabilised around a regime which both forbade research into AI tech and demanded the active help of all citizens in hunting down and destroying what few scattered vestiges of AI might still exist. Organised on military lines with a bracing infrastruc­ture of religious dogma, the Shrievalty was charged with the running, administration and maintenance of those IT systems which were anywhere near being sufficiently complex to be in danger of becoming sentient, either through accident or design, but which were considered too vital to the running of their various dependent societies to be shut down and dismantled.

  Another Order, a rather more fear-inspiring one, the Lustrals of the Cessoria, had been formed to hunt down and destroy both AIs themselves and anybody who attempted to create new ones or protect, shelter or otherwise aid existing examples. But that had not prevented the formation within the Shrievalty of an Intelligence section - the Shrievalty Ocula - whose duties, methods and even philosophy significantly overlapped with those of the Lustrals. It was the Ocula, this somewhat shadowy, slightly grim-sounding unit which Fassin was being ordered to become part of, for no reason that he could immediately fathom.

  'The Ocula?' Fassin said. 'Me? Are you absolutely sure?'

  'Absolutely.'

  Technically, he had no choice. To be allowed to do what they did, the Seers had to be an officially recognised profession within the Miscellariat, the
catch-all term for those useful to the Mercatoria who did not fit inside the more standard subdivi-sional categories, and as such all Seers were subject to full Mercatorial discipline and control, committed to obeying any order issued by anybody properly authorised and of a suffi­ciently superior rank.

  Yet this virtually never happened. Fassin couldn't remember anyone from Sept Bantrabal ever being seconded by order in peacetime, not in nearly two thousand years of Sept history. Why now? Why him?

  'May this briefing continue?' the glowing orb asked. 'It is important.'

  'Well, yes, all right, but I do have questions.' 'All relevant questions will be answered where possible and prudent,' the orb told him.

  Fassin was thinking, wondering. Did he really have to accept this? What were the punishments for disobeying? Demotion? Forced resignation? Banishment? Outlaw status? Death?

  'To resume, then,' the gas globe said. 'Seer Fassin Taak, you are hereby seconded to the Shrievalty Ocula. You will have the honorary rank of provisional acting captain for security clear­ance purposes, with exceptions made as required by authorised superiors, the principal honorary rank of major for seniority and disciplinary purposes, the honorary rank of general for reward purposes and the honorary rank of field marshal for travel-priority purposes. This construct is unable to negotiate regarding the aforesaid. Do you find the foregoing acceptable?' 'What if I say no?'

  'Punitive actions will be taken. Certainly against you, prob­ably against Sept Bantrabal and possibly against the 'glantine Slow Seers as a whole. Do you find the above mentioned second­ment details acceptable?'

  Fassin had to shut his mouth. This floating bladder of glowing gas had just threatened not only him, not only his Sept and entire extended family and all their servants and dependants, but the major focus of uniquely important work being done on the entire planet-moon, one of the three or four most important centres for Dweller Studies in the entire galaxy! It was so outrageous, so surely disproportionate, it almost had to be a joke.

  Fassin thought back, desperately trying to fit all that had happened to him today, with Slovius, with Verpych, with every­body who would have to be in on the joke, into a scenario more plausible than the one he was apparently faced with: an appallingly high-level projection from a portal-carrying Eship still a dozen light years away ordering him to join an allegedly no-holds-barred intelligence unit answering to an Order and a discipline he knew no more about than any other lay person, and with the force of the Administrata and the Engineers behind it.

  'Do you find the above-mentioned secondment details acceptable?' the orb repeated.

  Or maybe, Fassin thought, Sept Bantrabal as a whole was being made fun of here. Maybe nobody here knew this was a practical joke. Would somebody go to all this trouble just to make him look foolish, to frighten him? Had he ever antagon­ised anybody with the resources to set something like this up? Well…

  'Do you find the above-mentioned secondment details acceptable?' the orb said again.

  Fassin gave in. If he was lucky this was a joke. If not, it might be very stupid and even dangerous to treat it as such when it wasn't.

  'Given your crude and objectionable threats, I don't really have much choice, do I?'

  'Is that an answer in the affirmative?'

  'I suppose so. Yes.'

  'Good. You may ask questions, Seer Fassin Taak.'

  'Why am I being seconded?'

  'To facilitate the actions you will be asked to perform and to help achieve whatever goals you will be requested to pursue.'

  'What would those be?'

  'Initially, you are commanded to travel to Pirrintipiti, capital city of 'glantine planet-moon, there to take ship for Borquille, capital of Sepekte, principal planet of the Ulubis system for further briefing.'

  'And after that?'

  'You will be expected to carry out actions and pursue goals as detailed in said briefing.'

  'But why? What's behind all this? What's this all about?'

  'Information regarding what you ask is not carried by this construct.'

  'Why the Shrievalty Ocula, specifically?'

  'Information regarding what you ask is not carried by this construct.'

  'Who has ordered this?'

  'Information regarding what you ask is not—' 'All right!' Fassin drummed his fingers on the arm of his seat. Still, this projection had to have authority from somebody, it would have to know where it stood in the vast web of Mercatorial rank and seniority. 'What rank was the person who ordered this?'

  'Administrata: Shrievalty Army-Group Chief of Staff,' the orb said. (Well, that went right to the top, Fassin thought. Whatever piece of nonsense, military bullshittery or wild-goose chase this was all about, it was one being authorised by somebody with no excuses for not knowing better.) 'Ascendancy: Senior Engineer,' the projection continued. (Ditto; Senior Engineer didn't sound as Grand-High-Everything-Else impressive as Army-Group Chief of Staff, for example, but it was the highest rank in the Engineers, the people who made, transported and emplaced the wormholes that stitched the whole galactic meta-civilisation together. In terms of ultimate power, and regardless of species, an SE probably way out-wielded a CoS.) 'Omnocracy:' the orb said, with what sounded like a note of finality, 'Complector.'

  Fassin sat and stared. He blinked a few times. He was aware that his mouth was open, so he closed it. His skin had seemed to tighten, all over his body. A fucking Complector! he thought, already wondering if he hadn't misheard. One of the Culmina ordered this?

  A Complector sat at the clear undisputed pinnacle of the Mercatoria's civil command structure. Each one held absolute power over a significant galactic volume, usually with a defin­able locus, like a stellar cluster or a minor or even a major galactic arm. The least senior of them would be in charge of hundreds of thousands of stars, millions of planets, billions of habitats and trillions of souls. As well as their subject Administrata, they commanded the chiefs of all the other Ascendancy divisions within their jurisdiction - Engineers, Propylaea, Navarchy and Summed Fleet - and they were always Culmina. The only thing which outranked a Complector was a bigger bunch of Complectors.

  Fassin thought for a moment, trying to calm himself down. Remember this could be a joke. The very fact that a Complector's authority had been invoked almost made it more likely that it was, it was just so preposterous.

  On the other hand, he had the disquieting feeling, prompted by a half-remembered school lesson he probably ought to have been paying more attention to, that falsely invoking a Complector's authority was potentially a capital offence.

  Think, think. Forget the Complector; back to the moment. What assumptions might he be making here? Any of the ego? (He'd had this psychological check-sum routine drilled into him at college, where he'd scored high on what was usually called the Me-me-me! scale. Though not as high as Saluus Kehar.) Well, he could think of one egotistical assumption he might be making immediately.

  'How many other people are being similarly summoned?' he asked.

  'By emissarial projection, only yourself.'

  Fassin sat back. Well, that certainly felt pleasing, but he suspected it was probably a much worse sign than it appeared.

  'And by other means?'

  'You will be joining a group of senior officials in Borquille, capital city of Sepekte, for further briefing. This group will number approximately thirty.'

  'And what will be the subject of this briefing?'

  'Information regarding what you ask is not carried by this construct.'

  'How long am I likely to be away from home? Do I just go to Sepekte, get "briefed" and come back? What?'

  'Officers of the Shrievalty Ocula are expected to undertake extended missions with minimal notice.'

  'So I should expect to be away a while?'

  'Officers of the Shrievalty Ocula are expected to undertake extended missions with minimal notice. Further information regarding what you ask is not carried by this construct.'

  Fassin sighed. 'So is tha
t it? You've been sent to tell me to go to Sepekte? All this . . . kerfuffle, for that?'

  'No. You are to be informed that this is a matter of the utmost consequence and gravity, in which you may be asked to play a significant part. Also that information has come to light which indicates that there is a profound and imminent threat to Ulubis system. No further details concerning this are carried by this construct. You are commanded to report to the palace of the Hierchon in Borquille, capital of Sepekte, principal planet of the Ulubis system, for further briefing, no later than hour Fifteen tomorrow evening, the ninth of Duty, Borquille-Sepekte local time. Gchron, 6.61 . . .' The sphere started to restate the time of Fassin's appointment at the Hierchon's palace the following day in a variety of different formats, as if to remove any last excuse for him not getting there on time. Fassin sat, staring at a beige-blank section of polarised window on the far side of the chamber, trying to decide what the hell to make of all this.

  Oh, fuck was the best he could come up with.

  '. . . The eighteenth of November, AD 4034, rHuman,' the glowing orb concluded. 'Transport will be provided. Baggage allowance is one large bag, carryable, plus luggage required to transport full formal court dress for your presentation to the Hierchon. A gee-suit should be worn for the outgoing journey. Any further questions?'

  Verpych thought for a moment. 'Military-grade hysteria.' Slovius shifted in his tub-chair. 'Explain, please?' 'They are likely over-correcting for earlier dismissiveness, sir.' 'Somebody's been telling them there's a problem, they've been pooh-poohing it, then suddenly woken up to the threat and panicked?' Fassin suggested. Verpych nodded once.

  'The decisional dynamics of highly rigid power structures make an interesting study subject,' Tchayan Olmey said. Fassin's old tutor and mentor smiled across at him, a calm, gauntly grey presence. The four of them sat at a large round table in Slovius's old study, Slovius himself supported in a large semi-enclosed device that looked like a cross between an ancient hip bath and a small flier. Fassin thought his uncle's tusked, whiskered face looked more animated, and even more human, than it had for years. Slovius had announced at the start of the meeting that for the duration of whatever emergency they might be involved in, his slow demise was being halted; he was fully back in charge of Sept Bantrabal. Fassin had been appalled to find that there was some small, mean, self-aggrandising part of him which felt disappointed and even slightly angry that his uncle wasn't going to keep slipping into the hazy, woozily uncaring senility that led to death.