Resplendent Read Free Page B

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