Stephen Baxter: Resplendent

‘Another example. The Qax intend to force mass migrations of people, a mixing, a vast melting pot.’ She touched her chest. ‘Then even this will be lost, you see, in a few generations – the differences between us, the history embedded in our bodies, our genes, our blood types. All mixed up, the data lost for ever. There is a simpler proposal to replace our human names with some form of catalogue numbers. So even the bits of history lodged in our names will be lost. It will only take two or three generations before we forget…’

Luru was shocked at the thought of such cultural vandalism.

Cana evidently read her expression. ‘So at last we’ve dug far enough into Luru Parz to find a conscience. At last we’ve found something that shocks you. And you’re wondering why any human being would cooperate with such monstrosity. I’ll tell you why. The alternative is worse. The alternative is the destruction of the species – an option the Qax have considered, believe me. That is why we are here, we who collaborate. That is what we must work ceaselessly to avoid.’

She stood, restless, and picked a slate off the wall. ‘Look at this. It is data on the deletion of data: a recursive register of destruction. And when all the primary information is gone, of course, we will have to delete this too. We must even forget that we forgot. And then forget that in turn. It will go on, Luru, a hierarchy of deletion and destruction, until – on one last data slate in an anonymous office like this – there will remain a single datum, the final trace of the huge historic exercise. If it falls to me I will erase that last record, gladly. And then there will be no trace left at all – except in my heart . And,’ she added softly, ‘yours.’

Luru, half understanding, was filled with fear and longing.

Cana eyed her. ‘I think you’re ready. You face a choice, Luru Parz.’ She reached into her desk and produced a translucent tablet the size of a thumbnail. ‘This comes from the Qax themselves. They are able to manipulate biochemical structures at the molecular level – did you know that? It was their, um, competitive edge when they first moved off their home planet. And this is the fruit of their study of mankind. Do you know what it is?’

Luru knew. The tablet was the removal of death.

Cana set the tablet on the desk. ‘Take it.’

Luru said, ‘So it is true. You have been bought with life.’

Cana sat, her face crumpling into sadness; for an instant Luru had the impression of very great age indeed. ‘Suddenly you have grown a moral sense. Suddenly you believe you can judge me. Do you imagine I want this? Should I have followed the others to Callisto, and hidden there?’

Luru frowned. ‘Where? Jupiter’s moon?’

Cana regained the control she had momentarily lost. ‘You judge, but you still don’t understand, do you? There is a purpose to what we do, Luru. With endless life comes endless remembering .

‘We cannot save the Earth from the Qax, Luru. They will complete this project, this Extirpation, whatever we do, we jasofts. And so we must work with them, accept their ambiguous gift of life; we must continue to implement the Qax’s project, knowing what it means. For then – when everything else is gone, when even the fossils have been dug out of the ground – we will still remember . We are the true resistance, you see, not noisy fools like Symat Suvan, we who are closest of all to the conquerors.’

Luru tried to comprehend all of this, the layers of ambiguity, the compromise, the faintest flicker of hope. ‘Why me?’

‘You are the best and brightest. The Qax are pleased with your progress, and wish to recruit you.’ She smiled thinly. ‘And, for exactly the same reasons, I need you. So much moral complexity, wrapped up in a single tiny tablet!’

Luru stood. ‘You told me you remembered how it was, before the Qax. But Symat said all the old pharaohs died during the Occupation. That nobody remembers.’

Cana’s face was expressionless. ‘If Suvan said that, it must be true.’

Luru hesitated. Then she closed her hand around the tablet and put it in a pocket of her tunic, her decision still unmade.

When she returned to Mell Born she found it immersed in shadow, for a Spline ship loomed above the ruins. The Spline rolled ponderously, weapon emplacements glinting. There was a sense of huge energies gathering.

Her flitter skimmed beneath the Spline’s belly, seeking a place to land.

The crude shanty town was being broken up. She could see a line of Directorate staff – no, of jasofts – moving through the ramshackle dwellings, driving a line of people before them, men, women and children. Beetle-like transports followed the line of the displaced, bearing a few hastily grabbed belongings. The jasofts were dressed in skinsuits, their faces hidden behind translucent masks; the raw surface of Earth was not a place where inhabitants of the great Conurbations walked unprotected.

A small group lingered near the electric blue walls of the Qax facility, robes flapping, their stubborn defiance apparent in their stance. One of them was Symat, of course. She ran to him.

‘I didn’t think you would return.’ He waved at the toiling, fleeing people. ‘Are you proud of what is being done to us?’

She said, ‘You are manufacturing superheavy elements, here in this facility. What is the real reason? Have you lied to me, Symat?’

‘Only a little,’ he said gently. ‘We do understand something of the creatures of the rocky forest that has flourished beneath our feet.’

‘Yes?’

‘We know what they eat. We have tried to provide them with food, to get their attention—’

Without warning a thread of ruby-red light snaked down from the hide of the Spline. Where the starbreaker touched, buildings disintegrated, panels and beams flying high into the air. From the heart of the old Qax facility came a scream of tortured air, a soft concussion, a powerful, blood-red glow. The ground shuddered beneath their feet.

‘It has begun.’ She grabbed Symat and tried to pull him towards her flitter. ‘Symat, please. You were my cadre sibling; I don’t want to see you die. This isn’t worth a life.’

A blankness came into his eyes, and he pulled away from her. ‘Ah. Not your life, a pharaoh’s life, perhaps.’

‘I am not yet a pharaoh—’

He wasn’t listening. ‘You see what a dreadful, clever gift this is? A long life makes you malleable. But my pitiful life – a few decades at best – what is the use of such a life save to make a single, defiant gesture?’ He stepped away from her deliberately. He closed his eyes, and raised his arms into the air, robe flapping. ‘As for you – you must make your choice, Luru Parz.’

And from beneath Symat’s feet a bolt of dazzling light punched upwards, scattering debris and rock, and lancing into the heart of the Spline. There was a stink of meat, of corruption.

A shock wave billowed over her, peppering her with hot dust. Luru fell back in the rubble, stunned. Symat was gone, gone in an instant.

And the roof of flesh above her seemed to tip. The Spline sank with heavy gentleness towards the ground.

And she was going to be crushed beneath its monstrous belly. She turned and ran to her ship.

The flitter, saving itself, squirted towards the narrowing gap of daylight beneath that descending lid of flesh. Luru, bloody, bruised, filthy, cowered in her seat as immense pocks and warts fled above her head. A dark, steaming fluid gushed from the Spline’s tremendous wound; it splashed over the ground, a lake of blood brought from another star.

Suddenly she burst into daylight. From the air she could see how the raking starbreaker beam had left a gouge in the earth like an immense fingernail scratching a tabletop. But the gouge was terminated by the dying Spline, a deflating ball, already grounded.