Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

like
[untranslatable - body parasites? ]. We wash the decks for
them with our blood, while they keep water from our children. And
you, you [untranslatable - an obscenity? ] allowed it to
happen. And do you know why?’ Hilin stepped closer to the shrine, and
his face loomed in Rusel’s vision. ’Because you don’t exist. Nobody
has seen you in centuries - if they ever did! You’re a lie, cooked up
by the Autarchs to keep us in our place, that’s what I think. Well,
we don’t believe in you any more, not in any of that
[untranslatable - faeces? ]. And we’ve thrown out the
Autarchs. We are free!’
    ’Free’ they were. Hilin and his followers looted the Autarchs’
apartments, and gorged themselves on the food and water the Autarchs
had hoarded for themselves, and screwed each other senseless in
blithe defiance of genetic-health prohibitions. And not a single deck
panel was swabbed down.
    After three days, as the chaos showed no signs of abating, Rusel
knew that this was the most serious crisis in the Ship’s long
history. He had to act. It took him another three days to get ready
for his performance, three days mostly taken up with fighting with
the inhibiting protocols of his medical equipment.
    Then he ordered the Cloister door to open, for the first time in
centuries. It actually stuck, dry-welded in place. It finally gave
way with a resounding crack, making his entrance even more
spectacular than he had planned.
    But there was nobody around to witness his incarnation but a small
boy, no more than five years old. With his finger planted firmly in
one nostril, and his eyes round with surprise, the kid looked
heartbreakingly like Tomi, Diluc’s boy, long since dead and fed to
the recycling banks.
    Rusel was standing, supported by servomechanisms, gamely clutching
at a walking frame. He tried to smile at the boy, but he couldn’t
feel his own face, and didn’t know if he succeeded. ’Bring me the
chief Druids,’ he said, and a translation whispered in the air around
him.
    The boy yelled and fled.
    The Druids actually knelt before him, covering their faces. He
walked very cautiously among them, allowing them even to touch his
robe. He wanted to be certain they accepted his reality, to smell the
dusty tang of centuries on him. Maybe in their hearts these monkish
philosophers, like Hilin, had never really believed in the Elder’s
existence. Well, now their messiah had suddenly reincarnated among
them.
    But Rusel himself saw them as if through a flawed lens; he could
hear little, feel less, smell or taste nothing. It was like walking
around in a skinsuit, he thought.
    He was an angry god, though. The rules of Shipboard life had been
broken, he thundered. And he didn’t just mean the recent mess. There
must be no more water empires, and no knowledge empires either: the
Druids would have to make sure that every child knew the basic rules,
of Ship maintenance and genetic-health breeding.
    He ordered that the Autarchs should not be returned to their seats
of power. Instead, the governing would be done, for this generation,
by a Druid - he picked out one terrified-looking woman at random. As
long as she ruled wisely and well, she would have the Elder’s
backing. On her death the people would select a successor, who could
not be more closely related to her predecessor than second cousin. No
more dynasties.
    The old Autarchs and their brood, meanwhile, were to be spared.
They would be shut away permanently in their amphitheatre prison,
where there were supplies to keep them alive. Rusel believed they and
their strange slow-growing children would die off; within a
generation, a tick of time, that problem would go away. He had done
his share of killing, he thought.
    Then he sighed. The worst of it had still to be faced. ’Bring me
Hilin,’ he ordered.
    They dragged in the corridor king, tied up with strips of cloth.
He had been assaulted, Rusel saw; his face was battered and one arm
seemed broken. This erstwhile rebel was already being punished for
his blasphemy, then, by those who sought the favour of the Elder. But
Hilin faced Rusel defiantly, strength and intelligence showing in his
face. Rusel’s scarred heart ached a little more, for strength and
intelligence were the last features you wanted in a transient.
    Hilin had to die, of course. His flayed corpse would be displayed
before the shrine of the Elder, as a warning to future generations.
But Rusel didn’t have the courage to watch it done. He