Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

pity in his brother’s eyes - pity for him,
from a withered, dying man.
    He could bear to stay only a few minutes more. He would never see
his brother again.
    He tried to talk over his feelings about Diluc’s death with the
Captain. But Andres was dismissive. ’Diluc was a coward who shunned
his duty,’ she said. ’Anyhow, better when the first crew have all
gone. They always saw us as peers, to some extent. So they resisted
our ideas, our leadership; it was natural. We’re totally alien to the
new sort, and that will make them more malleable.
    ’And the new lot never suffered the trauma of seeing Port Sol
trashed before their eyes. The psychological trauma ran deep, Rusel;
you aren’t the only one… This new batch are healthier, adjusted to
the environment of the Ship, because they’ve known nothing else. When
there’s only them left, we’ll be able to get things shaken down
properly around here at last. You’ll see.’
    With relief Rusel returned to his studies, away from the
complications of humanity. Once more time flowed smoothly past him,
and that difficult day receded down the dimming corridors of his
memory.
    No more relatives came to see him, ever again.

 
VI
     
     
    ’… Rusel. Rusel!’ The voice was harsh - Andres’s voice.
    Sleep was deep these days, and it took him an age to emerge. And
as he opened himself to the light he swam up through layers of dream
and memory, until he became confused about what was real and what
wasn’t. He always knew where he was, of course, even in his deepest
sleep. He was on the Ship, his drifting tomb. But he could never
remember when he was.
    He tried to sit up. The Couch responded to his feeble movements,
and its back smoothly lifted him upright. He peered around in the
dim, golden light of the Cloister. There were three Couches, great
bulky mechanical devices half bed and half medical support system:
only three, because only three of the Elders stayed alive.
    Somebody was moving around him. It was a transient, of course, a
young woman, a nurse. He didn’t recognise her; she was new since he’d
last been awake. She kept her eyes averted, and her hands fluttered
through an elaborate greetings-with-apology ritual. He dismissed her
with a curt gesture; you could eat up your entire day with such
flim-flam.
    Andres was watching him, her eyes sharp in her ruin of a face. She
looked like a huge bug in her cocoon of blankets.
    ’Well?’ he snapped.
    ’You are drooling,’ she said mildly. ’Not in front of the
transients, Rusel.’
    Irritated, he wiped his chin with his sleeve.
    ’Oh,’ she said, her tone unchanged, ’and Selur died.’
    That news, so casually delivered, was like a punch in the throat.
He turned clumsily, weighed down by blankets and life-sustaining
equipment. The doctor’s Couch was surrounded by transients who were
removing her mummy-like body. Working in silence, cautiously,
reverently, they were trembling, he saw dimly.
    ’I never did like her much,’ Rusel said.
    ’You’ve said that before. Many times.’
    ’I’ll miss her, though.’
    ’Yes. And then there were two. Rusel, we need to talk. We need a
new strategy to deal with the transients. We’re supposed to be
figures of awe. Look at us. Look at poor Selur! We can’t let them see
us like this again.’
    He glanced cautiously at the transient nurses.
    ’Don’t worry,’ Andres said. ’They can’t understand. Linguistic
drift. I don’t think we should allow transients in here any more. The
machines can sustain us. Lethe knows there are enough spare parts,
now we have so many empty Couches! What I suggest is - ’
    ’Stow it,’ he said crossly. ’You’re always the same, you old
witch. You always want to jam a solution down my throat before I even
know what the problem is. Let me gather my thoughts.’
    ’Stow it, stow it,’ she parroted, grotesquely.
    ’Shut up.’ He closed his eyes to exclude her, and laid back in his
Couch. Through the implant in the back of his skull he allowed data
from his body, the Ship, and the universe beyond filter into his
sensorium.
    His body first, of course, the slowly failing biomachinery that
had become his prison. The good news was that, more than two
centuries after his brother’s death, his slow ageing had bottomed
out. Since he had last checked - Lethe, all of a month ago, it seemed
like yesterday, how long had he slept this time? - nothing had got
significantly worse. But he was stuck in the body of a
ninety-year-old