Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

penetrated the Black Ghost’s hide if
not for Borno’s attack, which the Black Ghost clearly hadn’t
anticipated.
    Teel said, ’So the most powerful Ghost in generations was defeated
by human qualities: Borno’s raw anger and courage, and the Black
Ghost’s own arrogance.’
    The Integumentary murmured, ’And what could be more human than
savagery and arrogance?’
    Hex was still trying to understand what had happened. ’Ghost, when
your sun died, there was a bloody battle for survival. You’ve spent a
million years denying that about yourselves. But the Black Ghost saw
it was precisely that streak of primitive brutality you had to
rediscover to fight humanity. It might even have succeeded. But you
couldn’t bear the image of yourself it showed you, could you?’
    The Integumentary said, ’The Black Ghost was an anomaly. This is
not what we are, what we aspire to be.’
    Teel looked at Hex. ’Pilot, it isn’t just their past that the
Ghosts want to expunge, but what they have glimpsed of their future -
or anyhow that’s what the analysts in the Commission for Historical
Truth have made of this incident.’
    It was a question of natural selection. For centuries, Ghosts had
been losing battles to humanity. Only those capable of dealing with
humans - of anticipating human intentions, of thinking like a human -
survived to breed. ’It’s a selection pressure,’ Teel said. ’Only
those Ghosts who are most like us have been surviving. So maybe it’s
not surprising that there should emerge a Black Ghost, a Ghost so
like a human it organises its own hierarchical society, fights a war
like a human commander. What do you think about that, Ghost?’
    The Integumentary rose up out of the palette cradle. ’I am
relieved our business together is done. The Black Ghost is dead. The
exploitation of interdimensional energy will be closed down, the
research destroyed. It is a weapon too dangerous to be used.’
    ’Until we rediscover it,’ Hella murmured.
    Teel wasn’t done yet. ’You can’t stand this, can you, Ghost? You
needed humanity to resolve this problem among yourselves. And to do
it, you had to think like a human yourself, didn’t you?’
    The Integumentary said, ’It is true that we would rather go to
extinction than to become like you. Is that something you take pride
in? Pilot, the ancient star system will be restored to its proper
time. You have only seconds before the energy pulse that will follow.
I tell you this as a courtesy. We will not speak again.’ And it
disappeared, as if folding out of existence.
    Jul said, ’Seconds?’
    Hella said, ’How fast can this thing go, pilot?’
    ’Let’s find out,’ Hex said, and she flexed her gloved hands.
’Everybody locked in? Three, two, one - ’
     
    The Black Ghost inspired its kind’s last effective stand. After
its fall, the Ghosts’ political unity fragmented, and they fell back
everywhere.
    For the Ghosts, the consequence of defeat was dire.

 
THE GHOST PIT
AD 7524
     
     
    As soon as the Spline dropped out of hyperspace our flitter burst
from its belly.
    After our long enclosure in the crimson interior of the huge
living ship, it was like being reborn. Even though I had to share
this adventure with L’Eesh, my spirits surged.
    ’Pretty system,’ L’Eesh said. He was piloting the flitter with
nonchalant ease. He was about sixty years old, some three times my
age, a lot more experienced - and he didn’t miss a chance to let me
know.
    Well, pretty it was. The Jovian and its satellites were held in a
stable gravitational embrace at the corners of a neat equilateral
triangle, the twin moons close enough to the parent to be tidally
locked. And beyond it all I glimpsed a faint blue mesh thrown across
the stars: an astonishing sight, a net large enough to enclose this
giant planet, with struts half a million kilometres long.
    I grinned. That netting, that monstrous grandiosity, was typical
Ghost. It was proof that this Jovian system was indeed a Ghost pit -
a new pit, an unopened pit.
    Which was why its discovery had sent such a stir through the
small, scattered community of Ghost hunters. And why L’Eesh and I
were prepared to fire ourselves into it without even looking where we
were going. We were determined to be the first.
    Already we were sweeping down towards one of the moons. Beneath a
dusty atmosphere the surface was brick red, a maze of charred
pits.
    ’Very damaged landscape,’ I said. ’Impact craters? Looks as if
it’s