Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

had once
more hit on the essence of the situation here. The pharaohs were the
refugees now, and Reth’s configuration space - if it existed at all -
might prove their ultimate bolt-hole. Gemo Cana was escaping, leaving
behind the consequences of her work, for good or ill. But did that
justify killing her?
    Sarfi was crying. ’Mother, please. I’ll die.’
    The pharaoh turned her head. ’Hush,’ said Gemo. ’You can’t die.
You were never alive. Don’t you see that?’ Her back arched.
’Oh…’
    Sarfi straightened and looked at her hands. The illusion of
solidity was breaking down, Hama saw; pixels swarmed like fat, cubic
insects, grudgingly cooperating to maintain the girl’s form. Sarfi
looked up at Hama, and her voice was a flat, emotionless husk, devoid
of intonation and character. ’Help me.’
    Again Hama reached out to her; again he dropped his hands, the
most basic of human instincts invalidated. ’I’m sorry.’
    ’It hurts.’ Her face swarmed with pixels that erupted from the
crumbling surface of her skin and fled her body, as if evaporating;
she was becoming tenuous, unstable.
    Hama forced himself to meet her gaze. ’It’s all right,’ he
murmured. ’It will be over soon…’ On and on, meaningless
endearments; but she gazed into his eyes, as if seeking refuge
there.
    For a last instant her face congealed, clearly, from the
dispersing cloud. ’Oh! ’ She reached out to him with a hand that was
no more than a mass of diffuse light. And then, with a silent
implosion, her face crumbled, eyes closing.
    Gemo shuddered once, and was still.
    Hama could feel his heart pulse within him. His humanity was warm
in this place of cold and death. Nomi placed her strong hand on his
shoulder, and he relished its fierce solidity.
    Hama faced Reth. ’You are monsters.’
    Reth smiled easily. ’Gemo is beyond your mayfly reproach. And as
for the Virtual child - you may learn, Hama Druz, if you pass beyond
your current limitations, that the first thing to be eroded by time
is sentiment.’
    Hama flared. ’I will never be like you, pharaoh. Sarfi was no
toy.’
    ’But you still don’t see it,’ Reth said evenly. ’She is alive -
but our time-bound language can’t describe it - she persists,
somewhere out there, beyond the walls of our petty realisation.’
    Again the moon shuddered, and primordial ice groaned.
    Reth murmured, ’Callisto was not designed to take such hammer
blows. The situation is reduced, you see. Now there is only me.’
    ’And me.’ Nomi raised the laser pistol.
    ’Is this what you want?’ Reth asked of Hama. ’To cut down
centuries of endeavour with a bolt of light?’
    Hama shook his head. ’You really believe you can reach your
configuration space - that you can survive there?’
    ’But I have proof,’ Reth said. ’You saw it.’
    ’All I saw was a woman dying on a slab.’
    Reth glowered at him. ’Hama Druz, make your decision.’
    Nomi aimed the pistol. ’Hama?’
    ’Let him go,’ Hama said bitterly. ’He has only contempt for our
mayfly justice anyhow. His death would mean nothing, even to
him.’
    Reth grinned and stepped back. ’You may be a mayfly, but you have
the beginnings of wisdom, Hama Druz.’
    ’Yes,’ Hama said quietly. ’Yes, I believe I do. Perhaps there is
something there, some new realm of logic to be explored. But you,
Reth, are blinded by your arrogance and your obsessions. Surely this
new reality is nothing like the Earth of your childhood. And it will
have little sympathy for your ambitions. Perhaps whatever survives
the download will have no resemblance to you. Perhaps you won’t even
remember who you were. What then?’
    Reth’s mask sparkled; he raised his hand to his face. He made for
the pallet, to lie beside the cooling body of his sister. But he
stumbled and fell before he got there.
    Hama and Nomi watched, neither moving to help him.
    Reth, on his hands and knees, turned his masked face to Hama. ’You
can come with me, Hama Druz. To a better place, a higher place.’
    ’You go alone, pharaoh.’
    Reth forced a laugh. He cried out, his back arching. Then he fell
forward, and was still.
    Nomi raked the body with laser fire. ’Good riddance,’ she growled.
’Now can we get out of here?’
     
    There was a mountain.
    It rose high above the night-dark sea, proudly challenging the
featureless, glowing sky. Rivers flowed from that single great peak,
she saw: black and massive, striping its huge conical flanks, merging
into