Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

must have. You’re nothing
but a refugee from Chandra; you came to 478 with nothing. Who helped
you smuggle a bomb on board? Who equipped you with the means to use
it? And why? I know what you want - I don’t understand, but I’ve
heard what you said. What I don’t know is what your benefactors want.
And I need to know.’
    She returned his stare defiantly. ’I want to go back to my
cabin.’
    But Tahget wouldn’t back down. The stand-off was tense, and
Futurity, his heart pumping, couldn’t see a way out.
    Poole intervened. ’Mara, it may be best to tell him what he wants
to know.’
    ’But - ’
    ’Telling him who helped you will make no difference to you. You
aren’t going to come this way again, are you? And I can see the other
point of view. Captain Tahget is responsible for his ship.’ Mara
hesitated, but Poole continued to reassure her. ’I believe he’ll keep
his word. Just tell him.’
    She took a deep breath. ’Her name is Ideator First Class
Leen.’
    Tahget growled, ’Who?’
    But Futurity was shocked. He knew the name: the person who had
helped Mara set all this up was a priest belonging to the Guild of
Virtual Idealism.
    Poole’s jaw dropped when he heard this. ’My own makers! How
delicious.’
    Mara began to explain how the Ideator had helped her smuggle the
bomb and other equipment aboard, but Tahget waved her silent. ’If
that bunch of illusionists was involved, anything could have been
done to us and we wouldn’t know it.’ His suspicious frown deepened.
’And then, once you were aboard, you asked for Poole himself. So was
that part of the scheme?’
    ’No,’ she insisted. ’The Ideator did tell me Michael Poole had
been reincarnated on 478. But it was my idea to ask for him, not
hers.’
    Poole shook his head. ’I’m not part of this, captain, believe me.
I’m a mere creature of the Idealists - rather like Mara here, I
suppose.’
    Now the Captain’s ferocious stare was turned on Futurity. ’And
you,’ Tahget snarled, his scar livid. ’What do you have to do with
it? The truth, now.’
    Futurity, flustered, protested, ’Why, nothing, Captain. You know
why I was brought in - to negotiate with Mara. You asked for the
Ecclesia’s help! And I don’t understand why you’re even asking me
such a question. I’m an Engineer, not an Idealist.’
    Tahget snorted. ’But you’re all alike, you Guilds. All of you
clinging to your petty worldlets, with your stolen fragments of the
soldier’s faith, your saintly relics and your shrines!’
    Futurity was shocked. ’Captain - believe me, Engineers and
Idealists would never cooperate on a scheme like this. It’s
unthinkable.’ He hunted for the right word. ’We may seem alike to
you. But we are rivals.’
    ’Maybe that’s the point,’ Poole said smoothly. ’Acolyte, I imagine
the Idealists have their own flow-through of pilgrims, along with
their money.’
    ’Yes, that’s true.’
    ’What, then, if Mara’s bomb goes off? What will be the impact on
the Ecclesia’s trading?’
    ’We don’t think of it as trading but a duty to helpless - ’
    ’Just answer the question,’ Tahget growled.
    Futurity thought it through. ’It would be a disaster for us,’ he
conceded. ’A refugee makes her journey only once in her lifetime. She
brings her children. If she can choose, nobody would come to a place
so unsafe as to allow something like this to happen.’
    ’No more refugees with their meagre savings for you to cream,’
Poole said, watching Futurity’s reaction with a cold amusement. ’No
more pilgrims and their offerings. Your rivals would have struck a
mighty economic blow, would they not?’
    Tahget said, ’My company certainly wouldn’t touch your poxy little
globe with a gloved hand, acolyte. Perhaps we won’t anyhow.’ A vein
throbbed in his forehead. ’So we are all puppets of those
illusionists. And there’s not one of them within light years, whose
head I can crack open!’
    Mara had listened to all this. Now she said, ’None of this
matters. What does matter is me, and my daughter.’
    ’And your bomb,’ said Poole softly.
    ’Take me back to my cabin,’ she said. ’And don’t ask me to leave
it again before we get to Chandra.’
    With a curt nod, Tahget dismissed her.
    Futurity went back to his own room. He was relieved the little
crisis was over, but his cheeks burned with shame and anger that this
whole incident had been set up to get at his own Ecclesia - that
another Guild should be