Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

mankind;
the common principles, common purpose, the belief that has driven the
Expansion so far. But isn’t it obvious that you are failing? Look at
this place.’ He waved a Virtual hand through Doel’s hair; the woman
flinched, and the hand broke up into drifting pixels. ’This woman is
a mother, apparently some kind of matriarch to her extended family.’
He pronounced those words with loathing. ’They don’t even live in
their Coalition-provided Conurbation domes. It’s as if Hama Druz
never existed!
    ’And if the Druz Doctrines were to collapse, the Commission would
have no purpose. Think of the good you do, for you know so much
better than the mass of mankind how they should think, feel, live and
die. Your project is actually humanitarian! It has to continue. But
if it is to prevail mankind needs purification. An ideological
cleansing. And that’s what the bright fire of war will give us.’
    I could see that his arguments, aimed at the Commissary’s vanity
and self-interest, were leaving a mark. I got a sense of the great
agencies of the Coalition as shadowy independent empires, engaging in
obscure and shifting alliances. And now each agency would contemplate
the possibility of a war as an opportunity to gain political capital.
It was queasy listening. But there’s a lot I didn’t want to know
about how the Coalition is run. Still don’t, in fact.
    They had forgotten the Academician. But Tilo was still trying to
speak. He showed me more bits of evidence he had assembled on his
data desk - me, because I was the only one still listening. ’But I
think I know now why the volcanism started here, Lieutenant. Forget
the star: this planet has an unusually high dark-matter concentration
in its core. Under such densities the dark matter annihilates with
ordinary matter and creates heat.’
    I listened absently. ’Which creates the geological upheaval.’
    He closed his eyes, thinking. ’Here’s a scenario. The Xeelee have
been driving dark-matter creatures out of the frozen star - and,
fleeing, they have lodged here - and that’s what set off the
volcanism. It was all inadvertent. The Xeelee are trying to save
stars, not harm planets. They probably don’t even know humans are
here… The damage to the planet is entirely coincidental.’
    But nobody paid any attention to that. For, I realised, we had
already reached a point where evidence didn’t matter.
    Kard ignored the Academician; he had what he wanted. He turned to
the people of the village, muddy, exhausted, huddled together on
their rooftop. ’What of you? You are the citizens of the Expansion.
There are reformers who say you have had enough of colonisation and
conflict, that there are enough people in the sky, we should seek
stability and peace. Well, you have heard what we have had to say,
and you have seen our mighty ships. Will you live out your lives on
this drifting rock, helpless before a river of mud - or will you
transcend your birth and die for an epic cause? War makes everything
new. War is the wildest poetry. Will you join me? ’
    Those ragged-ass, dirt-scratching, orthodoxy-busting farmers
hesitated for a heartbeat. You couldn’t have found a less likely
bunch of soldiers for the Expansion. But, would you believe, they
started cheering the Admiral: every one of them, even the kids.
Lethe, it brought a tear to my eye.
    Even Xera seemed coldly excited.
    Kard closed his Eyes; metals seams pushed his eyelids into ridges.
’We are just a handful of people in this desolate, remote place. And
yet here a new epoch is born. They are listening to us, you know -
listening in the halls of history. And we will be remembered for
ever.’
    Tilo’s expression was complex. He clapped his hands, and the data
desk disappeared in a cloud of pixels, leaving his work
unfinished.
     
    We mere fleshy types had to stay on that rooftop through the
night. We could do nothing but cling to each other as the muddy tide
rose slowly around us, and the kids cried from hunger.
    When the sunsats returned to the sky, the valley was transformed.
The channels had been gouged sharp and deep by the lahar, and the
farms had been smothered by lifeless grey mud, from which only
occasional trees and buildings protruded. But the lahar was flowing
only sluggishly now.
    Lian cautiously climbed to the edge of the roof and probed at the
mud with her booted foot. ’It’s very dense.’
    Tilo said, ’Probably the water has drained out of it.’
    Lian couldn’t stand on the