Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

diffuse
planet, this whole cluster orbited the centre of the Galaxy. Every
hundred million years it plunged through the Galaxy’s disc, and in
those catastrophic interludes all the dust was stripped out of the
spaces between the stars. Thus there was no unburnt gas to make new
stars out of, no rock dust to make new planets. That was why the
fleet needed to demolish planets for their iron. Rock, metals were
scarce between the worlds.
    Of course Kard was right about the hazards of a main disc
crossing. This planet would be bombarded with spiral-arm hydrogen and
dust. A single dust grain would deliver the energy of a fission bomb.
The place would be flooded with X-rays, if the atmosphere wasn’t
stripped off completely.
    Maybe, maybe. But - Xera learned, checking her data desk, which
she’d hung around her neck - the last plane crossing was only a
couple of million years ago. There were nearly a hundred megayears
yet before that calamity had to be faced again. Time enough for
anybody.
    This wasn’t an academic debate. If she could prove the planet
harboured intelligence, it might be spared demolition, its human
colonists allowed to continue their way of life. If not…
    Kard stopped again, breathing hard. ’Take a break.’ He dumped the
stretcher and squatted down, took a handful of pea pods from his
improvised backpack, and crammed them into his mouth, pods and
all.
    The spare suit had extracted some water from the vegetable matter.
Xera took one of its sleeves and dribbled water into the mouth of
Stub. His breathing was irregular, his face pasty. She opened the
cloak a little at his neck, trying to make him easier.
    Kard recoiled from the stink that came out of the cloak, an earthy
melange of blood and shit, the smell of a wounded human. ’Lethe, I
hate this.’ He turned away. ’You think the base is far?’
    ’I don’t know. Not far, surely.’
    He nodded, wordless, not looking at her.
    Tomm sat quietly and watched them, bare feet tucked under his
legs. He didn’t ask for food or drink. Of the three of them he was by
far the freshest.
    Xera glanced again at her data desk. It had been working on the
observations she’d been able to make before the landing. Now the desk
showed that Home and its two siblings were locked into a
figure-of-eight orbital motion. It was an exotic but stable solution
to the ancient problem of how three bodies would swarm together under
gravity. More common solutions resembled planets conventionally
orbiting a sun, or three worlds at the corners of a rotating
equilateral triangle.
    She tried to discuss this with Kard. He knew a lot more about
orbital dynamics than she did. But he was definitively not
interested.
    Xera pulled the dreaming mould out of the tied-up suit. A little
dehydrated, it was cold to the touch but not unpleasant. She could
tell nothing by just looking at it.
    Uncertainly she handed it to Tomm.
    The boy pressed his hands against the mould. He looked vaguely
disappointed. ’This one’s too dry.’
    ’Tomm, what happens when you touch the mould?’
    ’Like if you’re sick.’ Tomm shrugged. ’The mould helps you.’
    ’How?’
    He said some things the floating translator unit couldn’t handle.
Then he said, ’Time stops.’
    Kard sat up. ’Time stops? ’
    ’Like that. The mould doesn’t see time - ’ Tomm made chopping
motions. ’One bit after another. Step, step, step. It sees time all
as a piece. All at once.’
    Kard raised hairless eyebrows.
    Xera felt like defying him. ’We need to keep open minds, Admiral.
We’re here to seek out the strange, the unfamiliar. That’s the whole
point. We know that time is quantised. Instants are like grains of
sand. We experience them linearly, like a bug hopping from one grain
to another. But other perceptions of time are possible. Perhaps -
’
    Kard looked disgusted. ’These dirt-diggers would call my ass
sentient if it would hold back the starbreakers one more day.’ He
leaned towards the boy, who looked scared. ’Do you understand what
we’re doing here? Planets like yours are rare, in a globular cluster.
That’s why we need to blow up your world. So we can use what’s inside
it to make more ships and weapons.’
    ’So you can blow up more worlds.’
    ’Exactly. Slime mould and all.’
    ’Isn’t that what the Qax did to humans?’
    Xera choked a laugh.
    Kard glared. ’Listen to me. You’re just a snot-nosed earthworm kid
and I’m a rear admiral. And any time I want to I could - ’
    Stub’s