Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

and far
beyond. And it was the true home of every human who would ever live.
I was thrilled. As our flitter cut into the atmosphere and was
wrapped in pink-white plasma, I felt Tarco’s hand slip into mine.
    At least during the journey in we had had time to spend together.
We had talked. We had even made love, in a perfunctory way.
    But it hadn’t done us much good. Other people knew far too much
about our future, and we didn’t seem to have any choice about it
anyhow. There could be no finer intelligence than a knowledge of the
future - an ability to see the outcome of a battle not yet waged, or
map the turning points of a war not yet declared - and yet what use
was that intelligence if the future was fixed, if we were all forced
to live out pre-programmed lives? I felt like a rat going through a
maze. What room was there for joy?
    I hoped I was going to learn this wasn’t true in the Commission’s
future libraries. Of course I wasn’t worrying about the war and the
destiny of mankind. I just wanted to know if I really was doomed to
become Captain Dakk, battered, bitter, arrogant, far from orthodox -
or whether I was still free, free to be me.
    The flitter swept over a continent. I glimpsed a crowded land, and
many vast weapons emplacements, intended for the eventuality of a
last-ditch defence of the home world. Then we began to descend
towards a Conurbation. It was a broad, glistening sprawl of
bubble-dwellings blown from the bedrock, and linked by canals. But
the scars of the Qax Occupation, fifteen thousand years old, were
still visible. Much of the land glistened silver-grey where
starbreaker beams and nano-replicators had once worked, turning
plains and mountains into a featureless silicate dust.
    The Commissary said, ’This Conurbation itself was Qax-built. It is
still known by its ancient Qax registration of 11729. It was more
like a forced labour camp or breeding pen than a human city. It was
here that Hama Druz himself developed the Doctrine that has shaped
human destiny ever since. It is the headquarters of the Commission. A
decision was made to leave the work of the Qax untouched. It shows
what will become of us again, if we should falter or fail…’
    And so on. His long face was solemn, his eyes gleaming with a
righteous zeal. He was a little scary.
    We were taken to a complex right at the heart of the old
Conurbation. It was based on the crude Qax architecture, but
internally the bubble dwellings had been knocked together and
extended underground, making a vast complex whose boundaries I never
glimpsed.
    Varcin introduced it as the Library of Futures. Once the Libraries
had been an independent agency, Varcin told us, but the Commission
had taken them over three thousand years ago. Apparently there had
been an epic war among the bureaucrats.
    Tarco and I were each given our own quarters. My room seemed huge,
itself extending over several levels, and very well equipped, with a
galley and even a bar. I could tell from Captain Dakk’s expression
exactly what she thought of this opulence and expense. That bar made
a neat Poole’s Blood, though.
    It was very strange to be in a place where a ’day’ lasted a
standard day, a ’year’ a year. Across the Expansion the standards are
set by Earth’s calendar - of course; what else would you use? A ’day’
on Base 592, for instance, lasted over two hundred standard days,
which was actually longer than its ’year’, which was around half a
standard. But on Earth, everything fit together.
    On the second day, the court of inquiry was to resume. But Varcin
said that he wanted to run through the Commission’s findings with us
- me, Captain Dakk, Tarco - before it all unravelled in front of the
court itself.
    So, early on that crucial day, the three of us were summoned to a
place Varcin called the Map Room.
     
    It was like a vast hive, a place of alcoves and bays extending off
a gigantic central atrium. On several levels, shaven-headed,
long-robed figures walked earnestly, alone or in muttering groups,
accompanied by gleaming clouds of Virtuals.
    I think all three of us lowly Navy types, Tarco and I, even the
older Dakk, felt scruffy and overwhelmed.
    Varcin stood at the centre of the open atrium. In his element, he
just smiled. And he waved his hand, a bit theatrically.
    A series of Virtual dioramas swept over us like the pages of an
immense book.
    In those first few moments I saw huge fleets washing into battle,
or limping home decimated; I saw