Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

banks. Just sentimental,
maybe.’
    Futurity said, ’Oh, not that.’ The Hierocrat in his hurried
briefing had made this clear. ’They’d worked too hard on you, Michael
Poole. They put in too much. Your Virtual representation is now more
information-rich than I am, and information density defines reality.
You may not be a god. You may not even be Michael Poole. But whatever
you are, you are more real than we are, now.’
    Poole stared at him. ’You don’t say.’ Then he laughed, and turned
away.
    Still the Ask Politely burrowed deeper into the kernel of the
Galaxy.

 
VII
     
     
    At last the Ask Politely, with its Kardish escort, broke through
veils of stars into a place the crew called the Hole. Under the same
strict guarantees as before, Poole brought Mara to the observation
deck.
    The ship came to a halt, suspended in a rough sphere walled by
crowded stars. This was a bubble in the tremendous foam of stars that
crowded the Galaxy’s centre, a bubble swept clean by a black hole’s
gravity. Captain Tahget pointed out some brighter pinpoints; they
were the handful of stars, of all the hundreds of billions in the
Galaxy, whose orbits took them closest to Chandra. No stars could
come closer, for they would be torn apart by Chandra’s tides.
    When Futurity looked ahead he could see a puddle of light,
suspended at the very centre of the Hole. It was small, dwarfed by
the scale of the Hole itself. It looked elliptical from his
perspective, but he knew it was a rough disc, and it marked the very
heart of the Galaxy.
    ’It looks like a toy,’ Mara said, wondering.
    Poole asked, ’You know what it is?’
    ’Of course. It’s the accretion disc surrounding Chandra.’
    ’Home,’ Poole said dryly.
    ’Yes,’ Mara said. ’But I never saw it like this before. The
Kardish shipped us out in their big transports. Just cargo scows. You
don’t get much of a view.’
    ’And somewhere in there - ’
    ’Is my daughter.’ She turned to him, and the washed-out light
smoothed the lines of her careworn face, making her look younger.
’Thank you, Michael Poole. You have brought me home.’
    ’Not yet I haven’t,’ Poole said grimly.
    The Ask Politely with its escort swooped down towards the centre
of the Hole. That remote puddle loomed, and opened out into a broad
sea of roiling gas, above which the ships raced.
    Infalling matter bled into this central whirlpool, the accretion
disc, where it spent hours or weeks or years helplessly orbiting,
kneaded by tides and heated by compression until any remnants of
structure had been destroyed, leaving only a thin, glowing plasma. It
was this mush that finally fell into the black hole. Thus Chandra was
slowly consuming the Galaxy of which it was the heart.
    Eventually Futurity made out Chandra itself, a fist of fierce
light set at the geometric centre of the accretion disc, so bright
that clumps of turbulence cast shadows light days long over the
disc’s surface. It wasn’t the event horizon itself he was seeing, of
course, but the despairing glow of matter crushed beyond endurance,
in the last instants before it was sucked out of the universe
altogether. The event horizon was a surface from which nothing, not
even light, could escape, but it was forever hidden by the glow of
the doomed matter which fell into it.
    Poole was glued to the window. ’Astounding,’ he said. ’The black
hole is a flaw in the cosmos, into which a Galaxy is draining. And
this accretion disc is a sink as wide as Sol system!’
    It was Mara who noticed the moistness on Poole’s cheeks. ’You’re
weeping.’
    He turned his head away, annoyed. ’Virtuals don’t weep,’ he said
gruffly.
    ’You’re not sad. You’re happy,’ Mara said.
    ’And Virtuals don’t get happy,’ Poole said. ’It’s just - to be
here, to see this!’ He turned on Futurity, who saw anger beneath his
exhilaration, even a kind of despair, powerful emotions mixed up
together. ’But you know what’s driving me crazy? I’m not him. I’m not
Poole. It’s as if you woke me up to torture me with existential
doubt! He never saw this - and whatever I am, he is long gone, and I
can’t share it with him. So it’s meaningless, isn’t it?’
    Futurity pondered that. ’Then appreciate it for yourself. This is
your moment, not his. Relish how this enhances your own identity -
yours, uniquely, not his.’
    Poole snorted. ’A typical priest’s answer!’ But he fell silent,
and seemed a little calmer. Futurity thought