Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

genetic-health
rules wouldn’t allow any such thing. So the Autarchs were seeking to
dominate their populations with their own long lives, not numbers of
offspring.
    Andres seemed to find all this merely intellectually interesting,
a working-out of genetic games theory. Rusel wondered what would
happen if this went on.
    He continued his random wandering. Everybody was busy, intent on
their affairs. Some even seemed happy. But it all looked drab to
Rusel, the villagers dressed in colourless Ship’s-issue clothing,
their lives bounded by the polished-smooth bulkheads of the Ship.
Even their language was dull, and becoming duller. The transients had
no words for ’horizon’ or ’sky’ - but as if in compensation they had
over forty words describing degrees of love.
    He allowed his consciousness to return to his own body. When he
surfaced, he found Andres watching him, as she so often did.
    ’We need a new way to interface with the transients,’ she said
again. ’Some of the Autarchs are tough customers, Rusel. If they
start to believe we’re weak - for instance, if we sleep for three
days before delivering the answer to the simplest question - ’
    ’I understand. We can’t let the transients see us.’ He sighed,
irritated. ’But what else can we do? Delivering edicts through
disembodied voices isn’t going to wash. If they don’t see us they
will soon forget who we are.’ ’Soon’, in the language of the Elders,
meaning in another generation or two.
    ’Right,’ she snapped. ’So we have to repersonalise our authority.
What do you think of this?’ She gestured feebly, and a Virtual
coalesced in the air over her head.
    It showed Rusel. Here he was as a young man, up to his elbows in
nanofood banks, labouring to make the Ship sound for its long
journey. Here he was as a young-ish Elder, bald as ice, administering
advice to grateful transients. There were even images of him from the
vanishingly remote days before the launch, images of him with a
smiling Lora.
    ’Where did you get this stuff?’
    She sniffed. ’The Ship’s log. Your own archive. Come on, Rusel, we
hardly have any secrets from each other after all this time! Pretty
girl, though.’
    ’What are you intending to do with this?’
    ’We’ll show it to the transients. We’ll show you at your best,
Rusel, you at the peak of your powers, you walking the same corridors
they walk now - you as a human being, yet more than human. That’s
what we want: engagement with their petty lives, empathy, yet awe.
We’ll put a face to your voice.’
    He closed his eyes. It made sense, of course; Andres’s logic was
grim, but always valid. ’But why me? It would be better if both of us
- ’
    ’That wouldn’t be wise,’ she said. ’I wouldn’t want them to see me
die.’
    It took him a while to work out that she meant that she, Andres,
the first of the Elders, was failing at last. Rusel found this
impossible to take in: her death would be to have a buttress of the
universe knocked away. ’But you won’t see the destination,’ he said
peevishly, as if she was making a bad choice.
    ’No,’ she said hoarsely. ’But the Mayflower will get there! Look
around, Rusel. The Ship is functioning flawlessly. Our designed
society is stable and doing its job of preserving the bloodlines. And
you, you were always the brightest of all. You will see it through.
That’s enough for me.’
    It was true, Rusel supposed. Her design was fulfilled; the Ship
and its crew were working now just as Andres had always dreamed they
should. But only two hundred and fifty years had worn away, only half
of one per cent of the awesome desert of time he must cross to reach
Canis Major - and now, it seemed, he was going to have to make the
rest of that journey alone.
    ’No, not alone,’ said Andres. ’You’ll always have the Ship…’
    Yes, the Ship, his constant companion. Suddenly he longed to
escape from the endless complications of humanity and immerse himself
in its huge technological calm.
    He lay back in his Couch and allowed his mind to roam once more.
This time his awareness drifted away from the bright warm human
bubble at the Ship’s heart, out through the crowded torus of the hull
to the realm of the pulsing ramjet engines, the wispy gravitational
wings behind which the Ship sailed, and the vast spaces beyond. The
Ship had covered only a fraction of its epic journey, but already it
was climbing out of the galactic plane and the Core, the crowded
heart of