Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

’So where do we go
from here?’
    ’We just want to know what you’re feeling,’ Pelle said to Symat.
’What made you - ’ She faltered.
    ’Run away?’
    ’You don’t have to say sorry, son. We just want to understand.
’
    His father leaned forward. ’What I want to know is, where did you
think you were going? You know your geography. There’s nowhere to
go.’
    Pelle snapped, ’Hektor. He’s fourteen years old. What kind of
plans do you expect him to make?’
    Hektor said, ’This is all about the booths, isn’t it? Everybody
else goes through happily enough. All your little friends have gone.’
He ticked off names on his fingers. ’Jann. C’peel. Moro - ’
    ’I don’t want to go into a booth,’ Symat said testily.
    As always his father seemed genuinely mystified. ’Why not?’
    Symat waved a hand at the shining glass walls. ’Because this is my
home. My world. My universe! I hardly know anything about it. Why
would I want to walk into nothing?’
    ’Not nothing,’ Hektor said. ’A pocket universe, connected to our
own by an umbilical of - ’
    ’Symat,’ his mother cut in, ’I wouldn’t change a hair on your
head. Don’t ever think that, not ever. But I want what’s best for
you. And this - it’s as if you are refusing medical treatment, say.
We can’t just ignore it. Believe me, going into a booth would be the
best choice - the Xeelee are coming - in the long run it’s the only
choice.’
    ’I think that’s the trouble,’ Mela put in brightly. ’The trouble
is he doesn’t believe you.’
    Hektor snarled, ’Who asked you, Virtual?’
    Mela flinched.
    Pelle held up her hand. ’No. She’s right. Symat, we’ve always
tried to educate you. But on some level we’ve failed.’ She seemed to
be coming to a rehearsed suggestion. ’So let us show you. Give us one
day, that’s all. Just listen, watch, for one day. Try to see things
from our point of view. And then you can see how you feel about the
booths.’
    Symat hesitated. ’What if I still don’t want to do it?’
    ’Then we won’t force you,’ his mother said.
    ’In fact we can’t,’ Hektor said stiffly. ’That’s the law. But you
need to understand that we’re going through the booths, with or
without you. After that you can do what you want. Stay here. Move
away. There are others who choose not to come. Other oddballs and
deadbeats - ’
    ’Just give us one day,’ Pelle said firmly.
    Symat glanced at Mela. She nodded. ’All right,’ he said.
    Hektor stood up. ’Then let’s not waste any more time.’ He spoke to
the air. ’Ready the flitter. We leave in five minutes.’ He clapped
his hands, and the bot began to clear away the barely touched
food.
    Pelle patted Symat’s arm. ’Don’t worry,’ she said. ’We can always
eat on the ship - ’
     
    The flitter rose from Mars like a stone thrown from a crimson
bowl. The little craft tumbled slowly as it climbed, sparkling. Mela
peered out of the flitter’s transparent hull, wide-eyed; evidently
she had never seen the world like this.
    From here you could clearly see how Mars was divided into two
hemispheres, barren landscapes of hot and cold, separated by a narrow
belt of endless twilight. The canals, shining blue-black, laced
across this precious strip. Kahra, a capital city almost as old as
man’s occupation of Mars itself, was a green jewel that glimmered on
the desert skin of the planet.
    Looking down now, it struck Symat for the first time that Kahra
was set slap in the middle of the twilight band, exactly poised
between dark and light. But he knew that when Kahra had been founded
Mars had still spun on its axis. He wondered if that positioning was
a happy accident - or if the slowing rotation of Mars had somehow
been managed so that Kahra ended up exactly where it needed to be. He
had no idea how you might control the spin of a whole world, but
then, it was said, the people of the past had had powers beyond the
imagination of anybody now alive.
    As the flitter swept through its rapid suborbital hop, the sun
rose. Bloated, surrounded by a churning corona, the sun’s scarlet
face was pocked by immense spots. Symat’s father had told him that
the whole of the sun was a battleground between forces beyond human
control, and from here it looked like it.
    The flitter swooped down towards Dayside, the sunlit face of Mars.
On blasted crimson rock cities still glittered. But there was no sign
of life, no movement in the cities, and the canals were