Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

over. Nothing moved,
save us and the dust. Not even the sun: the ’days’ here lasted as
long as an orbit of the moon around the Jovian, which was about ten
standard days.
    Over it all loomed the bridge. It rose lumpily from beyond the
horizon. It looked crude - almost unfinished - but it became a thread
that arrowed through the clouds, making the sky stretch into a third
dimension.
    And what a complex sky it was. The sister moon scowled down,
scarred and bitter, and the Jovian primary loomed massively on the
horizon, the corners of a great celestial triangle forever frozen in
place.
    The Spline ship rolled over the horizon, tracking its low orbit.
It was like a moon itself, a mottled, meaty moon made grey by the
dusty air. Even from here I could see the big green tetrahedron on
its hull, the sigil of free humanity. The leathery hull-epidermis of
the Spline was pocked with sensor arrays; we had spent a lot of money
to ensure our capture of any wild Ghosts was recorded and certified,
to preserve the value of the hides. Of course our problem was we had
no way to get back up to the Spline, which we could see so
clearly.
    As we walked L’Eesh studied me, his inhuman Eyes glistening. ’It
looks as if we are going to spend some time together.’ I didn’t
reply.
    ’So. Tell me about yourself.’
    ’I’m not interested in playing head games with you, L’Eesh.’
    ’So defensive, little Raida! I did know your mother.’
    ’That doesn’t give you the right to know me.’ I saw a chance to
get the upper hand. ’Listen to me, L’Eesh. I think I know what’s
going on here.’
    Know your prey. This was my first pit, but I had prepared myself.
The Ghosts seem to use only a small number of pit types - our flitter
had been designed to cope with some of the common variants - and when
Pohp sent us her cryptic message, I knew what she must have been
talking about.
    Vacuum energy: even in ’empty’ space there has to be some energy,
a ground energy level, because of quantum uncertainty. What was
important for us was the effect this had - and the effect of the
Ghosts’ tinkering.
    ’Think of an atom,’ I said. ’Like a little solar system with the
electrons as planets, right? But what keeps a negative electron out
of the positive nucleus?’
    ’Vacuum energy?’
    ’Right. The electron, and everything else, is surrounded by a sea
of vacuum energy. And as fast as the electron loses energy and tries
to spiral in, the vacuum sea supplies some more. So the electron
stays in orbit.’ I peered up at the complicated sky. ’Those weapons
extracted some of the vacuum energy from the substance of our
flitter. Or lowered the level of the background, so the vacuum energy
drained away: something like that. All the electrons spiralled in,
and molecular structures fell apart.’
    L’Eesh listened, his face unreadable. Presumably he knew all this.
His silence was more impressive than my babbling, even to me.
    We walked on.
    I felt naked without a weapon. I dug around among a thick patch of
bones. I found a long, thin shaft that might have been a thigh-bone.
I cracked it against a rock; it splintered, leaving a satisfactorily
vicious point. As we walked I put myself through elementary drill
routines.
    A spear will take down a Ghost, but you have to be careful. The
key resource you get from a Ghost is his hide - a perfectly
reflective heat trap, with a thousand applications. Now that Ghosts
are so rare, wild hides are a luxury item. People sell little squares
and triangles of hide for use as charms, curios: this was, after all,
a lucky species that survived the death of its sun, so the story
goes.
    Anyhow if you come at a Ghost with a jabbing weapon, you should
try to get your spear into the carcase along the spin axis, where the
hide is a little thinner, and you won’t rip it unnecessarily. Then
you just follow the trail of excrement and blood and heat until he
dies, which might take a day or two. Ghosts don’t leave spoor, my
mother used to say. So you have to cut him an asshole.
    L’Eesh was watching me analytically. ’You’re, what, twenty,
twenty-one? No children yet?’
    ’Not until I can afford to buy them out of the Coalition
draft.’
    He nodded. ’As Hily did you. I knew her ambition for you. It’s
good to see it realised so well. It must have been hard for you when
she died. I imagine you got thrown into a cadre by the Commissaries -
right?’
    ’I won’t talk to you about my mother, L’Eesh.’
    ’As you