Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

always believed your
thinking wasn’t bleak enough for this job, Pala. I was wrong.’
    Bicansa looked bewildered. ’What are you talking about? Since the
First landed, we have thought of this sphere as a place that gives
life, not death.’
    Dano said, ’You wouldn’t think it was so wonderful if you
inhabited a planet of this star as the sphere slowly coalesced - if
your ocean froze out, your air began to snow… Pala is right. The
sphere is a machine that kills a star - or rather, its planets, while
preserving the star itself for future use. I doubt if there’s
anything special about this system, this star.’ He glanced at the
sky, metal Eyes gleaming. ’It is probably just a trial run of a new
technology, a weapon for a war of the future. One thing we know about
the Xeelee is that they think long term.’
    Bicansa said, ’What a monstrous thought. My whole culture has
developed on the hull of a weapon! But even so, it is my culture. And
you’re going to destroy it, aren’t you? Or will you put us in a
museum, as you promised Sool?’
    ’Not necessarily,’ Pala whispered.
    They both turned to look at her. Dano murmured threateningly,
’What are you thinking, Missionary?’
    She closed her eyes. Did she really want to take this step? It
could be the end of her career if it went wrong, if Dano failed to
back her. But she had sensed the gentleness of Sool’s equatorial
culture, and had now experienced for herself the vast spatial scale
of the sphere - and here, still more strange, was this remote polar
colony. This was an immense place, she thought, immense both in space
and time - and yet humans had learned to survive here. It was almost
as if humans and Xeelee were learning to live together. It would
surely be wrong to allow this unique world to be destroyed, for the
sake of short-term gains.
    And she thought she had a way to keep that from happening.
    ’If this is a weapon, it may one day be used against us. And if so
we have to find a way to neutralise it.’ The suit whirred as she
turned to Bicansa, ’Your people can stay here. You can live your
lives the way you want. I’ll find ways to make the Commission accept
that. But there’s a payback.’
    Bicansa nodded grimly. ’I understand. You want us to find the
Xeelee flower.’
    ’Yes,’ whispered Pala. ’Find the off-switch.’
    Dano faced her, furious. ’You don’t have the authority to make a
decision like that. Granted this is an unusual situation. But these
are still human colonists, and you are still a Missionary. Such a
deal would be unprecedented.’
    ’But,’ Pala whispered, ’Bicansa’s people are no longer human. Are
you, Bicansa?’
    Bicansa averted her eyes. ’The First were powerful. Just as they
made this star-world fit for us, so they made us fit for it.’
    Dano, astonished, glared at them both. Then he laughed. ’Oh, I
see. A loophole! If the colonists aren’t fully human under the law
you can pass the case to the Assimilation, who won’t want to deal
with it either… You’re an ingenious one, Pala! Well, well. All
right, I’ll support your proposal at the Commission. No guarantees,
though.’
    ’Thank you,’ Bicansa said to Pala. She held out her Virtual hand,
and it passed through Pala’s suit, breaking into pixels.
    Dano had been right, Pala thought, infuriatingly right, as usual.
He had seen something in her, an attraction to this woman from
another world she hadn’t even recognised in herself. But Bicansa
didn’t even exist in the form Pala had perceived, not if she endured
this gravity. Was she, Pala, really so lonely? Well, if so, when she
got out of here she would do something about her personal life.
    And she would have to think again about her career choice. Dano
had always warned her about an excess of empathy. It seemed she
wasn’t cut out for the duties of a Missionary - and next time she
might not be able to find a legal loophole to spare the victims of
the Commission’s heavy charity.
    With a last regretful glance, Bicansa’s Virtual sublimated into
dusty light.
    Dano said briskly, ’Enough’s enough. I’ll call down the flitter to
get you out of here before you choke to death.’ He turned away, and
his pixels flickered as he worked.
    Pala looked out through the car’s window at the colony, the
sprawling, high-gravity plants, the dusty, flattened lens of shining
air. She wondered how many more colonies had spread over the varying
gravity latitudes of the star shell, how many more