Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

hydrogen would fuse too easily,
and there would be no hydrogen, nothing to make stars - or water. You
see how critical it all is? No doubt the Ghosts’ science of
fine-tuning is advancing considerably here on the Orion Line, even as
it serves its trivial defensive purpose…’
    Jeru glared at him, her contempt obvious. ’We must take this piece
of intelligence back to the Commission. It might be the key to
breaking the Orion Line, at last. We are at the pivot of history,
gentlemen.’
    I knew she was right. The primary duty of the Commission for
Historical Truth is to gather and deploy intelligence about the
enemy. And so my primary duty, and Pael’s, was now to help Jeru get
this piece of data back to her organisation.
    But Pael was mocking her. ’Not for ourselves, but for the species.
Is that the line, Commissary? You are so grandiose. And yet you
blunder around in comical ignorance. Even your quixotic quest aboard
this cruiser was futile. There probably is no bridge on this ship.
The Ghosts’ entire morphology, their evolutionary design, is based on
the notion of cooperation, of symbiosis; why should a Ghost ship have
a metaphoric head? And as for the trophy you have returned with’ - he
held up the belt of Ghost artefacts - ’there are no weapons here.
These are sensors, tools. There is nothing here capable of producing
a significant energy discharge. This is less threatening than a bow
and arrow.’ He let go of the belt; it drifted away. ’The Ghost wasn’t
trying to kill you. It was blocking you. Which is a classic Ghost
tactic.’
    Jeru’s face was stony. ’It was in our way. That is sufficient
reason for destroying it.’
    Pael shook his head. ’Minds like yours will destroy us,
Commissary.’
    Jeru stared at him with suspicion. Then she said, ’You have a way.
Don’t you, Academician? A way to get us out of here.’
    He tried to face her down, but her will was stronger, and he
averted his eyes.
    Jeru said heavily, ’Regardless of the fact that three lives are at
stake - does duty mean nothing to you, Academician? You are an
intelligent man. Can you not see that this is a war of human
destiny?’
    Pael laughed. ’Destiny - or economics?’ He said to me, ’You see,
child, as long as the explorers and the mining fleets and the colony
ships are pushing outwards, as long as the Third Expansion is
growing, our economy works. But the system is utterly dependent on
continued conquest. From virgin stars the riches can continue to flow
inwards, into the older mined-out systems, feeding a vast horde of
humanity who have become more populous than the stars themselves. But
as soon as that growth falters…’
    Jeru was silent.
    I understood some of this. This was a war of colonisation, of
world-building. For a thousand years we had been spreading steadily
from star to star, using the resources of one system to explore,
terraform and populate the worlds of the next. With too deep a break
in that chain of exploitation, the enterprise broke down.
    And the Ghosts had been able to hold up human expansion for fifty
years.
    Pael said, ’We are already choking. There have already been wars,
young Case: human fighting human, as the inner systems starve. Not
mentioned in Coalition propaganda, of course. If the Ghosts can keep
us bottled up, all they have to do is wait for us to destroy
ourselves, and free them to continue their own rather more worthy
projects.’
    Jeru floated down before him. ’Academician, listen to me. Growing
up at Deneb, I saw the great schooners in the sky, bringing the
interstellar riches that kept my people alive. I saw the logic of
history - that we must maintain the Expansion, because there is no
choice. And that is why I joined the armed forces, and later the
Commission for Historical Truth. Not for ideology, not for misty
notions of destiny, but for economics. We must labour every day to
maintain the unity and purpose of mankind. We must continue to
expand. For if we falter we die; as simple as that.’
    Pael raised an eyebrow. ’Perhaps I have underestimated you. But,
Commissary, sincere or not, your creed of mankind’s evolutionary
destiny condemns our own kind to become a swarm of children, granted
a few moments of loving and breeding and dying, before being cast
into futile war.’
    Jeru snapped, ’It is a creed that has bound us together for a
thousand years. It is a creed that unites uncounted trillions of
human beings across thousands of light years. Are you strong