Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

launch
configuration to withstand this high-acceleration cruise phase. And
the daily routines of the long voyage had to be set up - the most
important of them being cleaning.
    The Ship was a closed environment and its interior had plenty of
smooth surfaces where biofilms, slick detergent-proof cities of bugs,
would quickly build up. Not only that, the fall-out of the Ship’s
human cargo - flakes of skin, hair, mucus - were seed beds for
bacterial growth. All of this had to be eliminated; Captain Andres
declared she wanted the Ship to be as clean as a hospital.
    The most effective way to achieve that - and the most
’future-proof’, in Andres’s persistent jargon - was through the
old-fashioned application of human muscle. Everybody had to pitch in,
even the Captain herself. Rusel put in his statutory half-hour per
day, scrubbing vigorously at the walls and floors and ceilings around
the nanofood banks that were his primary responsibility. He welcomed
the mindlessness of the work; he continued to seek ways in which to
distract himself from the burden of thought.
    He was briefly ill. In the first couple of weeks, everybody caught
colds from everybody else. But the viruses quickly ran their course
through the Ship’s small population, and Rusel felt obscurely
reassured that he would likely never catch another cold in his
life.
    A few days after launch Diluc came to find him. Rusel was up to
his elbows in slurry, trying to find a fault in a nanofood bank’s
waste vent. Working non-stop, Rusel had seen little of his brother.
He was surprised by how cheerful Diluc appeared, and how
energetically he threw himself into his own work on the air cycling
systems. He spoke brightly of his ’babies’, fans and pumps,
humidifiers and dehumidifiers, filters and scrubbers and
oxygenators.
    In their reaction to the sudden severance of the launch, the crew
seemed to be dividing into two rough camps, Rusel thought. There were
those like Diluc who were behaving as if the outside universe didn’t
exist; they were bright, brash, too loud, their laughter forced. The
other camp, to which Rusel felt he belonged, retreated the other way,
into an inner darkness, full of complicated shadows.
    But today Diluc’s mood seemed complex. ’Brother, have you been
counting the days?’
    ’Since launch? No.’ He hadn’t wanted to think about it.
    ’It’s day seven. There’s a place to watch. One of the observation
lounges. Captain Andres says it’s not compulsory, but if…’
    It took Rusel a moment to think that through. Day seven: the day
the Coalition convoy was due to reach Port Sol. Rusel flinched from
the thought. But one of his worst moments of that chaotic launch day
was when he had run down that desperate father and driven on, without
even having the courage to watch what he was doing. Perhaps this
would atone. ’Let’s do it,’ he said.
    Ship Three, like its four siblings, was a fat torus. To reach the
observation lounge the brothers had to ride elevators up through
several decks to a point in the Ship’s flattened prow, close to the
rim. The lounge, crammed with Virtual generation gear, was already
configured for the spin-up phase to come, and most of its furniture
was plastered to the walls, which would become the floor. It was big
enough for maybe fifty people, and it was nearly full; Rusel and
Diluc had to crowd in. Pharaoh Andres - now Captain Andres, Rusel
reminded himself - was here, sitting in a deep, heavy-looking chair,
front and centre before an immense, shining Virtual.
    A ball of ice spun grandly before their eyes. It was Port Sol, of
course; Rusel immediately recognised its icy geography of ancient
craters, overlaid by a human patterning of quarries and mines,
habitats and townships, landing ports. In the inhabited buildings
lights shone, defiantly bright in outer-system gloom. It was a
sculpture in white and silver, and it showed no sign of the chaotic
panic that must be churning in its corridors.
    The sight took Rusel’s breath away. Somewhere down there was Lora;
it was an almost unbearable thought, and he wished with all his heart
he had stayed with her.
    The Coalition convoy closed in.
    Its ships materialised from the edge of the three-dimensional
image, as if sliding in from another reality. The fleet was dominated
by five, six, seven Spline warships. Confiscated from the expelled
Qax, they were living ships each a kilometre or more wide, their
hulls studded with weapons and sensors and crudely