Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

not
scientists. We do not dance.’
    ’No,’ said Arles earnestly. ’Our re-engineered hearts are too cold
for that. Or to desire to make babies to fill up the empty spaces.
Yet we are needed, we long-lived ones.
    ’It is impossible to begin to grasp the scale and complexity of an
interstellar war in a human lifetime. And yet the brevity of human
life is the key to the war: we fight like vermin, for to the Xeelee
we are vermin - that is the central uncomfortable truth of the
Doctrines. We, who do not die, are a paradoxical necessity,
maintaining the attention span of the species.
    ’But we know our flaws, Hama. We know that those brutish creatures
down there in the Post, busily fighting and fornicating and breeding
and dying, they are the true heart of humanity. And so we must defer
to them.’ He eyed Hama, waiting for him to respond.
    Hama said with difficulty, ’I am not - happy.’
    ’You were promised integration, not happiness.’
    ’I failed to find the girl. La-ba.’
    Arles smiled in the vacuum. ’I traced her. She escaped to the
sensor installation.’
    ’What installation?’
    ’In the tethered asteroid. Another renegade lives up there. To
what purpose, I can’t imagine.’
    ’This place is flawed,’ Hama said bitterly.
    ’Oh, yes. Very flawed. There is a network of drones who provision
the renegade. And there are more subtle problems: the multiple births
occurring in the Vat; the taking of trophies from kills; the
dancing… These drones seek satisfaction beyond the Doctrines. There
has been ideological drift. It is a shame. You would think that in a
place as isolated as this a certain purity could be sustained. But
the human heart, it seems, is full of spontaneous imperfection.’
    ’They must be punished.’
    Arles looked at him carefully. ’We do not punish, Hama. We only
correct.’
    ’How? A programme of indoctrination, a rebuilding - ’ Arles shook
his head. ’It has gone too far for that. Even arguments of utility
cannot outweigh the gross Doctrinal drift here. There are many other
Observation Posts. We will allow these flawed drones to die.’
    There was a wash of agreement from the Commissaries all over the
Galaxy, all of them loosely bound to their thinking, all of them
concurring in Arles’s decision.
    Hama found he was appalled. ’They have done their duty here for
five thousand years, and now you would destroy them so casually, for
the sake of a little deviance?’
    Arles gripped Hama’s arms and turned him so they faced each other.
Hama glimpsed cold power in his eyes; Arles Thrun was already five
centuries old. ’Look around, Hama. Look at the Galaxy, the vast
stage, deep in space and time, on which we fight. Our foe is
unimaginably ancient, with unimaginable powers. And what are we but
half-evolved apes from the plains of some dusty, lost planet? Perhaps
we are not smart enough to fight this war. And yet we fight even
so.
    ’And to keep us united in our purpose, this vast host of us
scattered over more galaxies than either of us could count, we have
the Doctrines, our creed of mortality. Let me tell you something. The
Doctrines are not perfect. They may not even enable us to win the
war, no matter how long we fight. But they have brought us this far,
and they are all we have.’
    ’And so we must destroy these drones, not for the sake of the war
- ’
    ’But for the sake of the Doctrines. Yes. Now, at last, you begin
to understand.’
    Arles released him, and they drifted apart.
     
    La-ba stayed with the Old Man.
    She woke. She lay in silence. It was strange not to wake under a
sky crowded with people. She could feel her baby inside her, kicking
as if it was eager to get to the Birthing Vat.
    The floor shuddered.
    The Old Man ran to her. He dragged her to her feet. ’It begins,’
he said.
    ’What?’
    ’They are cutting the cable. You must go back.’ He took her to the
hatch that led to the hollow cable.
    A We-ku was there, inside the cable, his fat face split by a grin,
his stick-out ears wide.
    She raised her foot and kicked the We-ku in the forehead. He
clattered to the floor, howling.
    The Old Man pulled her back. ’What did you do?’
    ’He is a We-ku.’
    ’Look.’ The Old Man pointed.
    The We-ku was clambering to his feet and rubbing his head. He had
been carrying a bag full of ration packs. Now the packs were littered
over the floor, some of them split.
    The Old Man said, ’Never mind the food. Take her back.’ And he
pushed at La-ba again,