Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

Earth.’
    ’Yes. A human Galaxy was just a dream. Earth is the home of man,
and as long as Earth exists, man will endure.’
    ’But it isn’t enough,’ Symat said.
    ’No. Because the Xeelee are here.’
    ’People are fleeing. The booths - ’
    Her face, a mask of imploded skin, crumpled a little, showing
disgust. ’The booths. A solution for cattle bred for defeat, beaten
before they are even born. Have you ever heard of Original Sin?’
    ’No.’
    ’Child, you know there is a better way. And that is why you must
go to Saturn.’
    His mind was reeling. ’I don’t know anything about Saturn. What
must I do there?’
    ’You will know,’ she said. She fell back on her pillow, her eyes
closing, but she kept hold of his arm. ’It is why I made you, after
all…’
    Symat, electrified, astonished, could only stare at her.

 
IV
     
     
    Port Sol fell away into the dark. Symat and Mela were travelling
ahead of the ice moon on its endless cycling trajectory between the
spheres of Earth and Saturn, but where Port Sol took years to
complete a single orbit, the flitter would take only days.
    And now the flitter had a third passenger. The Curator wore his
antique robe with its tetrahedral sigil, and his broad face was fixed
with his habitual smile. But as Port Sol dwindled to a point of
crimson light Symat thought he saw fear in his Virtual eyes.
    It had been Mela’s idea to bring him. ’You might be able to help
us,’ she had told him. ’You know this Luru. You might be able to
figure things out.’
    ’I’m a Curator,’ he had protested. ’I keep these human museum
pieces alive. I’m not designed to interpret their mad ramblings.’ But
Mela had kept on, pressing him to come.
    Symat was reluctantly fascinated by this exchange. He reminded
himself that they were both expressions of a much vaster interlinked
awareness. As the Curator and Mela argued it was as if he was
listening to the internal debate of a single mind.
    They certainly weren’t human, not even Mela; Symat was the only
human here. And as the darkness closed in on the ship he felt
increasingly alone, and far from home.
    The flitter had internal partitions you could turn opaque, and he
shut himself up inside a little boxy room. He didn’t want to deal
with the Curator and his resentful wittering, and he didn’t much even
want to be with Mela.
    After a day of this Mela asked to see him. He wouldn’t let her in,
so she just walked through the walls, protocol warnings sounding. She
shook her arms and flexed her fingers until all her rogue pixels had
settled back into place. ’That hurt.’
    Symat was lying on a pallet. ’Then don’t do it.’
    She sat down uncertainly. ’What are you doing?’
    ’Nothing.’ He had been reading, watching silly kids’ Virtuals,
stuff he had liked years ago. Now he felt oddly self-conscious and
shut it all down.
    She asked, ’You want to play a game?’
    ’No, I don’t want to play a stupid game.’
    ’What’s the matter with you? You’re not much fun.’
    ’I don’t feel like fun. I feel - ’
    ’What?’
    ’I’m sick of being pushed around. My parents wanted me to follow
them into the booths. So I ran away. But then the Conclave got hold
of me, through you. Now I find this stupid old woman, Luru, who says
she planned me for some purpose long before I was even born. And I’ve
ended up coming all the way out here, into the dark.’
    ’Welcome to my world,’ Mela snapped. ’That’s how I feel all the
time. The Curator too, probably.’
    ’You aren’t human.’
    ’But we’re sentient,’ she hit back. ’Is that how you think of me,
just a part of some kind of trap?’
    He flinched. ’I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.’
    She softened a little. ’Anyway, Virtual or human, what difference
does it make? Look around, Symat. Everything is old. Everything in
the universe has been shaped by humans, or their enemies. Every
important decision was made long ago. So we have very little choice
about things. My mother used to feel the same way,’ she said, a
little wistfully.
    It was the first time she’d mentioned any detail of her parents.
’She did?’
    ’She said she’d always felt like a child herself, a child who had
grown up in the halls of some vast and dusty museum, where everything
was frozen and on display, out of her reach… Look, Symat, if you do
have some purpose, it must be important.’
    ’But if I’ve got no choice about any of this, what is there for
me?’
    She thought