Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

the moons came swooping out of the dark into
the inner system, entering complicated orbits that shuttled between
Earth and the greatest planets, Jupiter and Saturn.
    And with each moon’s passage Earth’s orbit was deflected, just
slightly.
    With a long series of slingshots Earth was gradually nudged
outward from the sun, while the giants were subtly moved closer. It
was as if the Ascendents had linked Earth to its giant cousins with
immensely long chains, that drew them slowly together. It was going
to take a million encounters with moons the size of Port Sol to move
the Earth out to its destination, a new orbit around Saturn. At the
rate of two or three encounters a year that would require thousands
of centuries. But the undying always had time in abundance, time and
patience. And Earth was on its way.
    It was a typical undying project, on immense timescales, but
low-tech. But you had to keep a sense of perspective, Symat thought.
Where the Xeelee had blocked the light of suns across a supercluster
of galaxies, all humans could manage was to nudge one little world
across Sol system.
    And in the end even this monumental exercise in persistence hadn’t
been enough. The immortals had saved Earth from the expansion of its
sun. Now the Xeelee had come to Sol system, and a new danger
loomed.
    But again, it seemed, the undying had been preparing.
     
    The three of them continued to walk among the ranks of immortals,
each in her station, each with her number.
    As they passed the dimly stirring figures, the Curator kept
smiling.
    Symat asked curiously, ’Why do you grin like that?’
    ’None of them can see well. But many of them respond to simple
shapes.’
    ’A smiling human face,’ said Mela, wondering. ’Like a baby. A baby
can recognise a smiling face almost as soon as it’s born.’
    ’Yes. Remarkable, isn’t it? As if life is a great circle. That’s
why we smile all the time.’ He tapped the green tetrahedron on his
breast. ’A lot of them seem comforted to see this too. We’re not sure
why. It must be a very ancient symbol, of something.’
    Symat asked the Curator about the medical-station numbers.
    ’They are for our purposes. We number them in order of age, as
best we can. When one dies you have to renumber those younger -
though young scarcely seems appropriate for creatures such as these!
- but there are so few it isn’t a great burden.’
    As they walked the age numbers fell away, below twenty, fifteen,
and at last to single figures. Symat felt his heart unaccountably
thump. And then the Curator brought them to a bed, where a short,
slim form lay, obscured by her translucent tent. The bed was adorned
by a single digit: 1.
    ’The oldest,’ Mela breathed.
    ’She has been called many names,’ the Curator said. ’Leropa, Luru
Parz, other variants; perhaps one of these is her original given
name. If she knows she won’t tell us. She claims to know the date of
her birth, but it’s so long ago we can’t reconcile her dates with
current chronologies more precisely than within five thousand
years… Take a good look, Symat. She is certainly the oldest human
being any of us will ever see. She is probably a million years old.
Think of that!’
    Suddenly the woman’s eyes flickered open. Mela gasped.
    Symat stepped forward, his pulse hammering in his ears. And as he
came by the bed a hand like a claw shot out to grab his wrist. He
forced himself not to flinch, for fear he might snap bones like dry
twigs.
    Her black eyes were on him. She opened a ruined mouth and
whispered, ’There are questions you need to ask.’
    To a fourteen-year-old she was a figure from a nightmare. But her
leathery palm was warm on his skin. She was old, she was very
strange, but she was human, he could feel that. ’I don’t know how it
must be,’ he said.
    ’What?’
    ’To be like you.’
    She closed her eyes briefly; he could actually hear the dry skin
rustle on her eyeballs. ’If you knew how many times I have been asked
that… I have thought the same thoughts so often they don’t need me
to think them any more. Perhaps I am a robot, then. Certainly I am no
longer human, if I ever was, since the moment I took that pill given
me by Gemo Cana, that murderous witch…’
    ’Who?’
    ’But that is why I am valuable, you see. I and my kind. For, long
after love and hate are gone, even after meaning is lost, we keep on
and on and on. And, given enough time, we achieve greatness.’
    ’You moved the