Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

peculiar
ships? Look at the detour we have had to make, even though we have a
bomb on board! Why not just run ships under human control, as we
always have?’
    Tahget sighed. ’Because we have no choice. When the Coalition
collapsed, the Navy and the state trading fleets collapsed with it.
Acolyte, unless you are extremely powerful or wealthy, in this corner
of the Galaxy a ship like this is the only way to get around. We just
have to work with the Builders.’
    Futurity felt angry. ’Then why not tell people? Isn’t it a lie to
pretend that the ship is under your control?’
    Tahget blinked. ’And if you had known the truth? Would you have
climbed aboard a ship if you had known it was under the control of
low-browed animals like those?’
    Futurity stared out as the Shipbuilders swarmed excitedly along
their access tubes, seeking food or mates.

 
VI
     
     
    With the encounter at 3-Kilo apparently complete, the Ask Politely
sailed back towards the centre of the Galaxy. To Futurity it was a
comfort when the ship slid once more into the crowded sky of the
Core, and the starlight folded over him like a blanket, shutting out
the darkness.
    But ships of the Kardish Imperium closed around the Ask Politely.
Everybody crowded to the windows to see.
    They were called greenships, an archaic design like a
three-pronged claw. Part of the huge military legacy of the
Galaxy-centre war, they had once been painted as green as their names
- green, the imagined colour of distant Earth - and they had sported
the tetrahedral sigil that had once been recognised across the Galaxy
as the common symbol of a free and strong mankind. But all that was
the symbology of the hated Coalition, and so now these ships were a
bloody red, and they bore on their hulls not tetrahedrons but the
clenched-fist emblem of the latest Kard.
    Ancient and recycled they might be, but still the greenships
whirled and swooped around the Ask Politely, dancing against the
light of the Galaxy. It was a display of menace, pointless and
spectacular and beautiful. The Politely crew gaped, their mouths
open.
    ’The crew are envious,’ Futurity murmured to Poole.
    ’Of course they are,’ Poole said. ’Out there, in those greenships
- that’s how a human is supposed to fly. This spiky, lumbering beast
could never dance like that! And this >crew< has no more
control over their destiny than fleas on a rat. But I suppose you
wouldn’t sign up even for a ship like this unless you had something
of the dream of flying. How they must envy those Kardish
flyboys!’
    Futurity understood that while the Politely had fled across the
Galaxy there had been extensive three-way negotiations between the
Ideocracy, the Imperium and the Ecclesia about the situation on
Politely. All parties had tentatively agreed that this was a unique
humanitarian crisis, and everyone should work together to resolve it,
in the interests of common decency. But Earth was twenty-eight
thousand light years away, and the blunt power of the Kard, here and
now, was not to be denied.
    So, with its barnstorming escort in place, the ship slid deeper
into the crowded sky. The whole formation made bold faster-than-light
jumps, roughly synchronised. Soon they penetrated the Central Star
Mass.
    Futurity found Poole in the observation lounge, staring out at the
crowded sky. The nearest stars hung like globe lamps, their discs
clearly visible, with a deep three-dimensional array of more stars
hanging behind them - stars beyond stars beyond stars, all of them
hot and young, until they merged into a mist of light that utterly
shut out any disturbing darkness.
    Against this background, Poole was a short, sullen form, and even
the Mass’s encompassing brilliance didn’t seem to alleviate his heavy
darkness. His expression was complex, as always.
    ’I can never tell what you’re thinking, Michael Poole.’
    Poole glanced at him. ’That’s probably a good thing… Lethe, this
is the centre of the Galaxy, and the stars are crowded together like
grains of sand in a sack. It’s terrifying! The whole place is bathed
in light - why, if not for this ship’s shielding we’d all be fried in
an instant. But to you, acolyte, this is normal, isn’t it?’
    Futurity shrugged. ’It’s what I grew up with.’
    He tried to summarise for Poole the geography of the centre of the
Galaxy. The structure was concentric - ’Like an onion,’ Poole
commented - with layers of density and complexity centred on Chandra,
the