Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

It was
guarded around the clock.
    After the first month or so, the battles started in the sky. You
would see glowing lights on the horizon, or sometimes flashing shapes
in the night, threads and bursts of light. All utterly silent. All
these ships and weapons were human. The oppression of the Qax had
been lifted, only for humans to fall on each other.
    Actually there was a lot of information to be had from the
traders’ lists, if you knew how to read them. Rala saw how few the
traders really were. She sensed their insecurity, despite the gaudy
weapons they wielded: so few of us, so many of them. And now there
were challenges from the sky. The traders’ rule was fragile.
    But though people muttered about the good old days under the Qax,
nobody did anything about it. It wouldn’t even occur to most drones
to raise a fist. Besides there was no place else to go, nothing else
to eat. Beyond the city there was only the endless nano-chewed dirt
on which nothing grew.
    There was never enough to eat, though.
    In a corner of her cell, away from prying eyes, Rala examined the
silvery Qax replicator dust. This stuff had made food before; why
wouldn’t it now? But the dust just lay in its bowl, offering
nothing.
    Of course the food hadn’t come from nothing. A slurry of seawater
and waste had been fed to the dust through pipes in the wall. Somehow
the silver dust had turned that muck into food. But in the pipes now
there was only a sticky, greenish sludge that stank like urine. She
scraped a little of this paste over the dust, but still,
treacherously, it sat inert. She hid it all away again.
     
    She had been aware of Pash’s interest in her from the first moment
they had met.
    She built on that tentative relationship. She talked to him about
her work, and drew him out with questions about his background. He
told her unlikely tales of worlds beyond the Moon, where humans had
once built cities that orbited through rings of ice. Perhaps she was
developing an instinct for survival; Pash’s interest was something
she could exploit.
    Eventually he began to invite her to his room. The room, once
owned by a jasoft, was set beneath the Conurbation’s outer wall. It
had a view of the sky, where silent battles flared.
    ’I don’t know what you want here,’ she said to him one evening.
’You traders. Why do you want a Conurbation? You aren’t very good at
running it.’
    ’There are worse than us out there.’
    ’It isn’t wealth you want, is it?’ She had struggled to understand
that trader word, long expunged from her language; for better or
worse the Qax had for centuries imposed a crude communism on mankind.
’There’s no wealth to be had here.’
    ’No. There are only people.’
    ’Yes. And where there are people, there is power to be wielded.
And that’s what you want, isn’t it?’
    He fell silent, and she wondered if she had pushed him too far.
She sighed. ’Tell me about Sat-urn again - ’
    The door slammed open. Somebody was standing there, silhouetted by
bright light.
    Instinctively Rala stepped forward, spreading her arms to hide
Pash. A light shone in her face.
    The intruder said, ’I represent the Interim Coalition of
Governance. The illegal seizure of this Conurbation by the bandits of
the GUTship Port Sol is over.’
    ’We are both drones.’ She rattled off details of her identity and
work assignment.
    ’You must stay in your cell. In the morning you will be summoned
for new details. If you encounter the Port Sol crew - ’
    ’I will report them.’
    There was shouting in the corridor; the Coalition trooper,
distracted, hurried away.
    Pash murmured, ’Lethe. Look.’
    Beyond the window, in the reddening sky, a Spline ship was
hovering, a great meaty ball pocked with weapons emplacements. But
this was no Qax vessel; a green tetrahedral sigil, a human symbol,
had been crudely carved in its flank.
    ’Things have changed,’ Rala said dryly.
    Pash asked, ’Why did you shelter me?’
    ’Because I have had enough of rulers,’ she snapped. ’We must be
ready. You will have to shave your head. Perhaps one of my robes will
fit you.’
     
    The Coalition had its own, different theory about how to run a
Conurbation.
    They were all evicted from the city. The people stood in sullen
ranks - mostly Conurbation drones, but with at least one trader,
Pash, camouflaged among the rest. They had been given tools, simple
hoes and spades. The walls of the Conurbation loomed above them all,
scorched by