Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

admire in Dakk: strength, an
ability to command, to win loyalty. Part of me wanted to help her.
Another part wanted to push her away.
    But mostly I was just aware of the bond that connected us. It
didn’t matter whether I liked her or loathed her; whichever way, she
was always going to be there, for the rest of my life. It wasn’t a
comfortable notion.
    Varcin was watching me. I got the idea he knew what I was feeling.
But he turned to business, steepling his fingers.
    ’Here’s how it is. We’re scrambling to download data, to put
together some kind of coherent picture of what happened downstream.’
Downstream - not the last bit of time-hopping jargon I was going to
have to get used to. ’You have surprises ahead of you, Ensign
Dakk.’
    I laughed a bit shrilly, and waved a hand at the captain.
’Surprising after this? Bring it on.’
    Dakk looked disgusted. Tarco placed a calming hand on my back.
    Varcin said, ’First, you - rather, Captain Dakk - will be charged.
There will be a court of inquiry.’
    ’Charged? What with?’
    Varcin shrugged. ’Negligence, in recklessly endangering the ship.’
He eyed Dakk. ’I imagine there will be other counts, relating to
various violations of the Druz Doctrines.’
    Dakk just smiled, a chilling expression. I wondered how I ever got
so cynical.
    Varcin went on, ’Ensign, you’ll be involved.’
    I nodded. ’Of course. It’s my future.’
    ’You don’t understand. Directly involved. We want you to serve as
the prosecuting advocate.’
    ’Me? Sir.’ I took a breath. ’You want me to prosecute myself. For
a crime, an alleged crime anyhow, I won’t commit for twenty-four
years. Is there any part of that I misunderstood?’
    ’No. You have the appropriate training, don’t you?’
    Dakk laughed. ’This is their way, kid. After all who knows me
better?’
    I stood up. ’Commissary, I won’t do it.’
    ’Sit down, ensign.’
    ’I’ll go to Captain Iana.’
    ’Sit. Down.’
    I’d never heard such a tone of command. I sat, frightened.
    ’Ensign, you are immature, and inexperienced, and impetuous. You
will have much to learn to fulfil this assignment. But you are the
necessary choice.
    ’And there’s more.’ Again, I glimpsed humanity in that
frosted-over Commissary. ’In four months’ time you will report to the
birthing complex on Base 592. There you will request impregnation by
Ensign Hama Tarco, here.’
    Tarco quickly took his hand off my back.
    ’Permission will be granted,’ said Varcin. ’I’ll see to that.’
    I didn’t believe it. Then I got angry. I felt like I was in a
trap. ’How do you know I’ll want a kid by Tarco? No offence,
butthead.’
    ’None taken,’ said Tarco, sounding bemused.
    Now the Commissary looked irritated. ’How do you think I know?
Haven’t you noticed the situation we’re in? Because it’s in the
Torch’s record. Because the child you will bear - ’
    ’Will be on the Torch, with me,’ said Dakk. ’His name was
Hama.’
    I swear Tarco blushed.
    ’Was? The kid was called Hama?’ I felt a kind of panic. Perhaps it
was the tug of a maternal bond that couldn’t yet exist, fear for the
well-being of a child I’d only just learned about. ’He’s dead, isn’t
he? He died, out there in the Fog.’
    Varcin murmured, ’One step at a time, remember, ensign.’
    Dakk leaned forward. ’Yes, he died. He rode the Sunrise. He was
the one who took a monopole bomb into the Xeelee Sugar Lump. You see?
Your child, Dakk. Our child. He was a hero.’
    One step at a time. I kept repeating that to myself. But it was as
if the wardroom was spinning around.

 
II
     
     
    In Dakk’s yacht, I sailed around the huge flank of the
Assimilator’s Torch. Medical tenders drifted alongside, hosing some
kind of sealant into the living ship’s mighty wounds.
    The injured Spline had been allowed to join a flotilla of its
kind, regular ships of the line. Living starships the size of cities
are never going to be graceful, but I saw that their movements were
coordinated, a vast dance. They even snuggled against each other,
like great fish jostling.
    Dakk murmured, ’Some of these battered beasts have been in human
employ for a thousand years or more. We rip out their brains and
their nervous systems - we amputate their minds - and yet something
of the self still lingers, a need for others of their kind, for
comfort. So we let the distressed swim together for a while.’
    I listened absently.
    The yacht docked, and the