Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

he was five
years old, and every time it finishes up the same. Us being
reasonable, him getting angry and stubborn.’
    Symat and Pelle spoke at once. ’And you think that’s my fault?’
’Hektor, please - ’
    Unexpectedly Mela stepped forward. She said gravely, ’No wonder
you argue. You’re starting out from different premises. Different
positions. You’re different kinds of people.’
    Hektor’s eyes narrowed.
    ’What do you mean, different?’ Pelle said. ’He’s my son. How
different can he be?’
    ’The Scourge has been continuing now for three hundred thousand
years. To the Xeelee the Scourge is a conscious project. To humans it
has become our environment.’ Mela’s voice was neutral, her words not
quite her own, Symat thought. ’A steady force applied to a population
for long enough becomes a selection pressure. In such an environment
those able psychologically to accept the reality of inevitable defeat
will prosper. And that is why you are prepared to walk trustingly
into the booths, even without knowing what lies beyond. Your
ancestors have learned to accept similar bolt-holes without question,
far back into your history. You’ve been preadapted to accept the
booths for ten thousand generations! Perhaps even that was part of
the grand design of the Scourge.’
    Hektor said, ’You’ve got a wide perspective for a twelve-year-old.
’
    Symat, troubled, thought he glimpsed the Conclave, the vast
composite mind for which Mela was sometimes, it seemed, a mouthpiece.
’She’s right, though, isn’t she? But why can’t I just walk into the
booths with the rest?’
    ’Because you’re different,’ Mela said, sounding almost amused.
’Can’t you see that? You don’t even look the same.’
    Symat glanced around at his family, his tall, elegant, long-boned
Martian parents towering over his own squat, thick-boned form.
    Mela said, almost mischievously, ’The differences go all the way
down to the genes. You could almost be called a throw-back, Symat.
But you know what? You’re just as you’re meant to be.’
    Pelle snapped, ’What are you talking about?
    Symat demanded, ’Who meant me to be this way?’
    Hektor turned on the girl. ’You’re getting on my nerves. Why are
you here?’
    Mela seemed upset by the family’s brief unity in hostility to her,
but she quickly recovered. Symat thought it was as if new data were
continually being downloaded into her head. ’Symat, you don’t want to
follow your parents into the booths. The trouble is you can’t imagine
an alternative. But there is another way out.’
    ’There is?’
    ’It depends on you. The Conclave wanted to reach you, Symat.
That’s why I’m here. If you hadn’t found me, it would have been
somebody else. Another Virtual. There is somebody who would like to
meet you. Very much indeed.’
    She no longer sounded like a twelve-year-old girl at all. Looking
into her eyes, Symat began to feel frightened. In the corner of his
eye he saw his mother, distressed, cling to Hektor’s arm.
    ’Where will I have to go?’
    ’Far from Mars…’ Mela smiled, suddenly herself again. ’Isn’t it
exciting?’

 
III
     
     
    Pelle insisted they loan her son the family flitter for his jaunt:
’At least it will keep him safe.’ With very bad grace, Hektor
agreed.
    So Symat and Mela climbed aboard the ship once more, just the two
of them. The flitter rose until the world shrank to a scrap of floor.
Symat felt as if he had climbed to the top of a pole a million
kilometres tall, and vertigo crowded his mind.
    A Virtual of his mother’s face appeared before him, concerned. ’We
have to hand the ship over to the Mist,’ she said.
    Up to this point the ship had been under the override of his
parents, down on Mars. But now the lofty agencies who had summoned
Symat through Mela would take control of the flitter and guide him
into the darkness, out of his parents’ protection.
    ’You don’t have to go, you know,’ Virtual Pelle said in a rush.
She glanced at Mela with a trace of malevolence. ’You don’t have to
do what she says. And you won’t - oh, you won’t lose face if you turn
around and come back to us.’
    ’Mother, I’m caught up in some kind of mystery. I need to
understand. I’m making an adult choice. I think.’
    She nodded, her lips tight. ’Then I won’t stop you. But I’ll be
tracking you every step of the way.’ The Virtual shut itself down,
dispersing in a cloud of pixels.
    The ship flipped over, and