Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

 
CADRE SIBLINGS
AD 5301
     
     
    Before she was called into Gemo Cana’s office for her awkward new
assignment, Luru Parz had never thought of her work as
destructive.
    Cana stood before the window, a portal whose natural light
betrayed her high status in the Extirpation Directorate. Red-gold
sunset light glimmered from the data slates fixed to the walls of the
office. Beyond the pharaoh’s round shoulders Luru could see the
glistening blown-silicate domes of the Conurbation’s residential
areas, laced by the blue-green of canals.
    And on the misty horizon a Qax ship, a Spline, cruised above
occupied Earth, swivelling like a vast eyeball. Where it passed there
rose a churning wave of soil and grass and splintered trees.
    ’Never,’ Cana murmured. ’You never thought of it that way, as
destructive. Really? But we are destroying data here, Luru. That is
what >Extirpation< means. Obliteration. Eradication. A rooting
out. Have you never thought about that?’
    Luru, impatient to get back to work, didn’t know how to reply. If
this was some new method of assessment it was obscure, Cana’s
strategy non-obvious. In fact she resented having to endure this
obscure philosophising from Cana, who most people regarded as a musty
relic cluttering up the smooth running of the Directorate. Among
Luru’s friends and pushy rivals, even to report to a pharaoh was seen
as a career impediment. ’I’m not sure what you’re getting at.’
    ’Then consider the library you are working on, beneath Solled Laik
City. It is said that the library contains an ancestral tree for
every man, woman and child on the planet, right up to the moment of
the Occupation. You or I could trace our personal history back
thousands of years. Think of that. And your job is to destroy it.
Doesn’t that make you feel at least’ - Cana’s small hands opened,
expressive - ’ambiguous, morally?’
    Cana was short, stocky, her scalp covered by silver-white fuzz.
Luru, her own head shaven, knew nobody else with hair, a side-effect
of AntiSenescence treatment, of course. Cana had once told Luru she
was so old she remembered a time before the Occupation itself, two
centuries back. To Luru, aged twenty-two, it was a chilling idea.
    She thought over what Cana had said. ’I don’t even know where
>Solled Laik City< is - or was. What does it matter? Data is
just data. Work is just work.’
    Cana barked laughter. ’With a moral void like that you’ll go far,
Luru Parz. But not everybody is as - flexible - in their outlook as
you. Not everybody is a fan of the Extirpation. Outside the
Conurbation you will encounter hostility. You see a satisfying
intellectual exercise in the cleansing; they see only destruction.
They call us jasofts, you know. I remember an older term.
Quislings.’
    Luru was baffled. Why was she talking about outside? Outside was a
place for ragamuffins and bandits. ’Who calls us jasofts?’
    Cana smiled. ’Poor little Luru, such a sheltered life. You don’t
even remember the Rebellion, do you? The Friends of Wigner - ’
    ’The Rebellion was defeated five years before I was born. What has
it to do with me?’
    ’I have a new assignment for you,’ Cana said briskly. ’Do you know
Symat Suvan?’
    Luru frowned. ’We were cadre siblings, a couple of dissolutions
ago.’ And, briefly, lovers.
    Cana eyed her; Luru sensed she knew everything about her
relationship. ’Suvan left the Conurbation a year ago.’
    ’He became a ragamuffin?’ Luru wasn’t particularly shocked; Symat,
for all his charm, had always been petulant, difficult,
incompliant.
    ’I want you to go and talk to him, about his research into
superheavy elements… No, not that. None of that matters. I want you
to talk to him about minimising pain, and death, for himself and
others. He has got himself in the way, you see.’
    Luru said stiffly, ’I don’t think this assignment is appropriate
for me. My relationship with Symat is in the past.’
    Cana smiled. ’A past you’d rather forget, a little Extirpation of
your own? But because of that past he might listen to you. Don’t
worry; this will not damage your glittering career. And I know that
bonds between cadre siblings are not strong. They are not intended to
be. But you might persuade this boy to save his life.
    ’I know you judge me harshly, Luru, me and the other pharaohs.
Just remember that our goal is always to minimise distress. That is
the reason I work in this place. It is my job, and yours, to