Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

straining for a black
sky. Minda saw roots tangle as they dug into crevices in the ice,
seeking the warmth of deeper levels, perhaps even liquid water.
    But in no more than a few seconds it was over. The heat the ghost
had hoarded for an unknown lifetime was lost to the uncaring stars,
and the small native forest was freezing in place for another
millennium of dormancy. Then the air frosted out once more.
    At last Minda fell.
    But there was something beneath her now, a smooth, dark sheet that
would keep her from the ice. She collapsed onto it helplessly. A
thick, stiff blanket stretched over her, shutting out the starry
sky.
    She wasn’t warm, but she wasn’t getting any colder. She smiled and
closed her eyes.
    When she opened her eyes again, the stars framed a Spline ship,
rolling overhead, and the concerned face of her cadre leader,
Bryn.
     
    The Spline rose high, and the site of Minda’s crash dwindled to a
pinpoint, a detail lost between the tracery of the abandoned city and
the volcano’s huge bulk.
    ’It was the motion of the vegetation that our sensors spotted,’
Bryn said. Her face was sombre, her voice tired after the long
search. ’That was what drew us to you. Not your heat, or even your
ghost’s. That was masked by the volcano.’
    ’Perhaps the ghost meant that to happen,’ Minda said.
    ’Perhaps.’ Bryn glanced at the ghost’s hide, spread on a wall.
’Your ghost was astonishing. But its morphology is a logical outcome
of an evolutionary drive. As the sky turned cold, living things
learned to cooperate, in ever greater assemblages, sharing heat and
resources. The thing you called a silver ghost was really a community
of symbiotic creatures: an autarky, a miniature biosphere in its own
right, all but independent of the universe outside. Even the skin
that saved you was independently alive… This is a new species for
us. Evidently we have reached a point where two growing spheres of
colonisation, human and ghost, have met. Our future encounters will
be interesting.’
    As the planet folded on itself, Minda saw the colony of the ghosts
rising over the chill horizon. It was a forest of globes and
half-globes anchored by cables; gleaming necklaces swooped between
the globes. The colony, a sculpture of silver droplets glistening on
a black velvet landscape, was quite remarkably beautiful.
    But now a dazzling point of light rose above the horizon,
banishing the stars. It was a new sun for Snowball made by humans,
the first of many fusion satellites hastily prepared and launched.
The ghost city cast dazzling reflections, and the silver globes
seemed to shrivel back.
    Bryn said, watching her, ’Do you understand what has happened
here? If the ghosts’ evolution was not competitive as ours was, they
must be weaker than us.’
    ’But the ghost gave me its skin. It gave its life to save me.’
    Bryn said sternly, ’It is dead. You are alive. Therefore you are
the stronger.’
    ’Yes,’ Minda whispered. ’I am the stronger.’
    Bryn eyed her with suspicion.
    Where the artificial sun passed, the air melted, pooling and
vaporising in great gushes.
     
    After that first contact, two powerful interstellar cultures
cautiously engaged. One man, called Jack Raoul, played a key role in
developing a constructive relationship.
    To understand the creatures humans came to know as ’Silver Ghosts’
- so Raoul used to lecture those who were sceptical about the mission
that consumed his life - you had to understand where they came
from.
    After the Ghosts watched their life heat leak away to the sky,
they became motivated by a desire to understand the fine-tuning of
the universe. As if they wanted to fix the design flaws that had
betrayed them.
    So they meddled with the laws of physics. This made them
interesting to deal with. Interesting and scary.
    Relationships deepened. The ’Raoul Accords’ were established to
maintain the peace, and give humans some say in the Ghosts’
outrageous tinkering with the universe.
    But times changed. The Coalition tightened its grip on human
affairs.
    Three centuries after Minda, there was rising friction between
Ghost and human empires. And Jack Raoul found himself out of
favour.

 
THE COLD SINK
AD 5802
     
     
    ’I called on Jack Raoul at the time appointed, acting in my
capacity as a representative of the Supreme Court of the Third
Expansion. Raoul submitted himself to my custody without complaint or
protest.
    ’I must record that the indignity of the armed