Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

that
the old threat had been vanquished, nobody needed the Coalition any
more. Perhaps, therefore, the Ideocrats dreamed cynically, a
conjuring-up of future threats might be enough to frighten a
scattered humanity back into the fold, where they would be brought
once more under a single command - that is, under the Ideocrats’
command - just as in the good old days. Whether those potential
threats ever came to pass or not was academic. The cause was the
thing, noble in itself.
    The Ideocrats’ attention focused on Chandra, centre of the Galaxy
and ultimate symbol of the war. The great black hole had once been
used as a military resource by the foe of mankind. What if now a
human force could somehow occupy Chandra? It would be a hedge against
any future return by the Xeelee - and would be a constant reminder to
all mankind of the threat against which the Ideocracy’s predecessor
had fought so long, and on which even now the Ideocracy was focused.
A greater rallying cry could hardly be imagined; Ideocracy
strategists imagined an applauding mankind returning gratefully to
its jurisdiction once more.
    But how do you send people into a black hole? Eventually a way was
found. ’But,’ Poole said, ’they had to break their own rules…’
    Far from resisting human evolution, the Ideocrats now ordered that
deliberate modifications of mankind be made: that specifically
designed post-humans be engineered to be injected into new
environments. ’In this case,’ Poole said, ’the tenuous atmosphere of
a black hole.’
    ’It’s impossible,’ said Captain Tahget, bluntly disbelieving.
’There’s no way a human could live off wisps of superheated plasma,
however you modified her.’
    ’Not a human, but a post-human,’ Michael Poole said testily. ’Have
you never heard of pantropy, Captain? This is your age, not mine!
Evolution is in your hands now; it has been for millennia. You don’t
have to think small: a few tweaks to the bone structure here, a
bigger forebrain there. You can go much further than that. I myself
am an example.
    ’A standard human’s data definition is realised in flesh and
blood, in structures of carbon-water biochemistry. I am realised in
patterns in computer cores, and in shapings of light. You could
project an equivalent human definition into any medium that will
store the data - any technological medium, alternate chemistries of
silicon or sulphur, anything you like from the frothing of quarks in
a proton to the gravitational ripples of the universe itself. And
then your post-humans, established in the new medium, can get on and
breed.’ He saw their faces, and he laughed. ’I’m shocking you! How
delicious. Two thousand years after the Coalition imploded, its
taboos still have a hold on the human imagination.’
    ’Get to the point, Virtual,’ Tahget snapped.
    ’The point is,’ Mara put in, ’there are people in the black hole
air. Out there. Those ghostly shapes you see are people. They really
are.’
    ’It’s certainly possible,’ Poole said. ’There’s more than enough
structure in those wisps of magnetism and plasma to store the
necessary data.’
    Futurity said, ’But what would be the point? What would be the
function of these post-humans?’
    ’Weapons,’ Poole said simply.
    Even when Greyworld was ripped away and destroyed by Chandra’s
tides, the satellite black hole would sail on, laden with its
accretion disc and its atmosphere - and carrying the plasma ghosts
that lived in that atmosphere, surviving where no normal human could.
Perhaps the ghosts could ride the satellite hole all the way into
Chandra itself, and perhaps, as the small hole was gobbled up by the
voracious central monster, they would be able to transfer to
Chandra’s own much more extensive atmosphere.
    ’Once aliens infested Chandra,’ Poole said. ’It took us three
thousand years to get them out. So the Ideocrats decided they were
going to seed Chandra with humans - or at least post-humans. Then
Chandra will be ours for ever.’
    Captain Tahget shook his head, grumbling about ranting theorists
and rewritings of history.
    Futurity thought all this was a wonderful story, whether or not it
was true. But he couldn’t forget there was still a bomb on board the
ship. Cautiously, he said to Mara, ’And one of these - uh,
post-humans - is your daughter?’
    ’Yes,’ Mara said.
    Tahget was increasingly impatient with all this. ’But, woman!
Can’t you see that even supposing this antiquated