Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

colony here.’ Again that odd hesitation. ’But I,
too, am stranded in this place. I came to investigate the city.’
    ’And you were caught by the volcano?’
    ’Yes. What is worse, my investigation did not advance the goals of
the colony.’ She sensed it was studying her. ’You are shivering. Do
you understand why? Your body knows it is losing heat faster than it
is being replaced. The shivering reflex exercises many muscles,
increasing heat production by burning fuel. It is a short-term
tactic, but - ’
    ’You know a lot about human bodies.’
    ’No,’ it said. ’I know a lot about heat. I am equipped to survive
in this heat-sink landscape for extended periods. You, however, are
not.’
    It was as if cadre-leader Bryn was lecturing her on the endless
struggle that was the only future for mankind. We cannot be weak. The
Qax found us weak. They enslaved us and almost wiped our minds clean.
If we are unfit for this new world, we must make ourselves fit.
Whatever it takes. For only the fittest survive. If she let herself
die before this enigmatic silver ghost, she would be conceding the
new world to an alien race.
    Impulsively, she began to stalk into the shallow valley, towards
the antique city. Maybe there was something there she could use to
signal, or survive.
    The silver ghost followed her. It swam over the ground with a
smooth, unnatural ease; it was a motion neither biological nor
mechanical that she found disturbing.
     
    She pushed through snowed-out air. The cold seemed to be settling
in her lungs, and when she spoke her voice quavered from
shivering.
    ’Why are you here? What do you want on Snowball?’
    ’We are’ - a hesitant pause - ’researchers. This world is like a
laboratory to us. This is a rare place, you see, because
near-collisions between stars, of the kind that hurled this world
into the dark, are rare. We are conducting experiments in
low-temperature physics.’
    ’You’re talking about absolute zero. Everybody knows you can’t
reach absolute zero.’
    ’Perhaps not. But the journey is interesting. The universe was hot
when it was born,’ the ghost said gently. ’Very hot. Since then it
has expanded and cooled, slowly. But it still retains a little of
that primal warmth. In the future, it will grow much colder yet. We
want to know what will happen then. For example, it seems that at
very low temperatures quantum wave functions - which determine the
position of atoms - spread out to many times their normal size.
Matter condenses into a new jelly-like form, in which all the atoms
are in an identical quantum state, as if lased…’
    Minda didn’t want to admit she understood none of this.
    The ghost said, ’You see, we seek to study matter and energy in
configurations which might, perhaps, never before have occurred in
all the universe’s history.’
    She clambered over low, shattered walls, favouring hands and feet
which ached with the cold. ’That’s a strange thought.’
    ’Yes. How does matter know what to do, if it has never done it
before? By probing such questions we explore the boundaries of
reality.’
    She stopped, breathing hard, and gazed up at the hovering ghost.
’Is that all you do, this physics stuff? Do you have a family?’
    ’That is… complicated. More yes than no. Do you?’
    ’We have cadres. I met my parents before I left home. They were
there at my Naming, too, but I don’t remember that. Do you have
music?’
    ’More yes than no. We have other arts. Tell me why you are
here.’
    She frowned. ’We have a right to be here.’ She waved an arm over
the sky. ’Some day humans are going to reach every star in the sky,
and live there.’
    ’Why?’
    ’Because if we don’t, somebody else will.’
    ’Is that all you do?’ the ghost asked. ’Fly to the stars and build
cities and compete?’
    ’No. We have music and poetry and other stuff.’ Defensively, she
plodded on through deepening snow. ’Soon we’ll change this world.
We’re going to terraform it.’ She had to explain what that meant. ’It
will be a heroic project. It will require hard work, ingenuity and
perseverance. Also we have brought creatures with us that are used to
the cold. We found them on an ice moon a long way from our sun, a
place called Port Sol. They have liquid helium for blood. Now we farm
them. They can live here, even before the terraforming.’
    ’How remarkable. But there are already creatures living here.’
    ’We’ll put them in cases,’ said Minda.