Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

had
donned the green armband of his enemies with shameless ease.
    She said, ’Will you turn me in?’
    ’Why should I?’
    ’Because I’m trying to use Qax technology. This action is
doctrinally invalid.’
    He shrugged. ’You saved my life.’
    ’Anyhow,’ she said, ’it’s not working.’
    He frowned and poked at the dirt. ’Do you know anything about this
kind of technology? We used a human version in the Port Sol’s life
support - cruder than this, of course. Nanotech manipulates matter at
the molecular or atomic levels.’
    ’It turns waste into food.’
    ’Yes. But people seem to think it’s a magic dust, that you just
throw at a heap of garbage to turn it into diamonds and steak.’
    ’Diamonds? Steak?’
    ’Never mind. There is nothing magic about this stuff. Nanotech is
like biology. To >grow<, a nanotech product needs nutrients,
and energy. On Sol we used a nutrient bath. This Qax stuff is more
robust, and can draw what it needs from the environment, if it gets a
chance.’
    She thought about that. ’You mean I have to feed it, like a
plant.’
    ’There is a lot of chemical energy stored in the environment. You
can tap it slowly but efficiently, like plants or bacteria, or burn
it rapidly but inefficiently, like a fire. This Qax technology is
smart stuff; it releases energy more swiftly than biological cells
but more efficiently than a fire. In principle a nano-sown field
ought to do better than a biologically planted crop…’
    She failed to understand many of the words he was using. Though
she pressed him to explain further, to help her, he was too busy.
    Meanwhile Ingre, Rala’s cadre sibling, became a problem.
    Despite her ideological earnestness she was weak and ineffectual,
and hated the work in the fields. A drone supervisor, a collaborator,
one of her own people, punished Ingre more efficiently than any Guard
would have done. And when that didn’t work in motivating Ingre to
work better, she cut off Ingre’s food ration.
    After that Ingre just lay on her bunk. At first she complained, or
railed, or cried. But she grew weaker, and lay silent. Rala tried to
share her own food. But there wasn’t enough; she was going hungry
herself.
    Rala grew desperate. She realised that the Guards, in their brutal
incompetence, were actually going to allow Ingre to die, as they had
many others. She could think of only one way of getting more
food.
    She wasn’t sexually inexperienced; even the Qax hadn’t been able
to extirpate that. Pash was easy to seduce.
    The sex wasn’t unpleasant, and Pash did nothing to hurt her. The
oddest thing was the spacegoer’s exoskeleton he wore, even during
sex; it was a web of silvery thread that lay over his skin. But she
felt no affection for him, or - she suspected - he for her. Unspoken,
they both knew that it was his power over her that excited him, not
her body.
    Still, she waited for several nights before she asked him for the
extra food she needed to keep Ingre alive.
    Meanwhile, in the Conurbation, things got worse. Despite the
maintenance rotas the stairwells and corridors became filthy. The air
circulation broke down. The inner cells became uninhabitable, and
crowding increased. Then there was the violence. Rumours spread of
food thefts, even a rape. Rala learned to hide her food when she
walked the darker corridors, scuttling past walls marked with bright
green tetrahedral sigils, the most common graffito.
    The Conurbation was dying, Rala realised with slow amazement. It
was as if the sky itself was falling. People spoke even more
longingly of the Qax Occupation, and the security it had brought.
    One day Pash came to her, excited. ’Listen. There’s trouble.
Factional infighting among the Green Guards.’
    She closed her eyes. ’You’re leaving, aren’t you?’
    ’There’s a battle at a Conurbation a couple of days from here.
There are great opportunities out there, kid.’
    Rala felt sick; the world briefly swam. They had never discussed
the child growing inside her, but Pash knew it existed, of course. It
was a mistake; it hadn’t even occurred to her that the contraceptive
chemistry which had circulated with the Conurbation’s water supply
might have failed.
    She hated herself for begging. ’Don’t leave.’
    He kissed her forehead. ’I’ll come back.’
    Of course he never did.
     
    The brief factional war was won by a group of Green Guards called
the Million Heroes. They wore a different kind of armband, had a
different ranking