Hero.
Rala spread her hands. ‘Look around you. The Qax did a good job of making our world uninhabitable. They even levelled mountains. But this bit of Qax technology is reversing the process. Look at it this way. Perhaps we can use their own weapons against the Qax. Or is that against your doctrine?’
‘I don’t know. I’d have to ask my political officer.’ The Hero let the weapon drop. ‘I’m not changing my decision. I’m just postponing its implementation.’
Rala nodded sagely.
After that, as the weeks passed, she saw that the patch she had cultivated was spreading, a stain of a richer dark seeping through the ground. Her replicators were now turning soil and sunlight not just into food but into copies of themselves, and so spreading further, slowly, doggedly. The food she got from the ground became handfuls a day, almost enough to stave off the hunger that nagged at her constantly.
Ingre said to her, ‘You have a child. I knew they wouldn’t hurt you because of that.’
‘It’s OK, Ingre.’
‘Although betraying you was doctrinally the correct thing to do.’
‘I said it’s OK.’
‘The children are the future.’
Yes, thought Rala. But what future? We are insane, she thought, an insane species. As soon as the Qax get out of the way we start to rip each other apart. We rule each other with armbands, bits of rag. And now the Million Heroes are prepared to starve us all - they might still do it - for the sake of an abstract doctrine. Maybe we really were better off under the Qax.
But Ingre seemed eager for forgiveness. She worked in the dirt beside her cadre sibling, gazing earnestly at her.
So Rala forced a smile. ‘Yes,’ she said, and patted her belly. ‘Yes, the children are the future. Now here, help me with this sieve.’
Under their fingers, the alien nano seeds spread through the dirt of Earth.
During the churning of the post-Qax era, we undying, our actions during the Occupation misunderstood, were forced to flee.
The Interim Coalition of Governance consolidated its power, as such agencies do, and proved itself to be rather less than interim.
But from the ranks of the Coalition’s stultifying bureaucracy emerged one man whose strange genius would shape human history for twenty thousand years.
REALITY DUST
AD 5408
An explosion of light: the moment of her birth.
She cried out.
A sense of self flooded through her body. She had arms, legs; her limbs were flailing. She was falling, and glaring light wheeled about her.
… But she remembered another place: a black sky, a world - no, a moon - a face before her, smiling gently. This won’t hurt. Close your eyes.
A name. Callisto.
But the memories were dissipating. ‘No!’
She landed hard, face down, and was suffused by sudden pain. Her face was pressed into dust, rough, gritty particles, each as big as a moon to her staring eyes.
The flitter rose from liberated Earth like a stone thrown from a blue bowl. The little cylindrical craft tumbled slowly as it climbed, sparkling, and Hama Druz marvelled at the beauty of the mist-laden, subtly curved landscape swimming around him, drenched as it was in clear bright sunlight.
The scars of the Occupation were still visible. Away from the great Conurbations, much of the land glistened silver-grey where starbreaker beams and Qax nanoreplicators had chewed up the surface of the Earth, life and rocks and all, turning it into a featureless silicate dust.
‘But already,’ he pointed out eagerly, ‘life’s green is returning. Look, Nomi, there, and there …’
His companion, Nomi Ferrer, grunted sceptically. ‘But that greenery has nothing to do with edicts from your Interim Coalition of Governance, or all your philosophies. That’s the worms, Hama, turning Qax dust back into soil. Just the worms, that’s all.’
Hama would not be put off. Nomi, once a ragamuffin, was an officer in the Green Army, the most significant military force yet
Rala spread her hands. ‘Look around you. The Qax did a good job of making our world uninhabitable. They even levelled mountains. But this bit of Qax technology is reversing the process. Look at it this way. Perhaps we can use their own weapons against the Qax. Or is that against your doctrine?’
‘I don’t know. I’d have to ask my political officer.’ The Hero let the weapon drop. ‘I’m not changing my decision. I’m just postponing its implementation.’
Rala nodded sagely.
After that, as the weeks passed, she saw that the patch she had cultivated was spreading, a stain of a richer dark seeping through the ground. Her replicators were now turning soil and sunlight not just into food but into copies of themselves, and so spreading further, slowly, doggedly. The food she got from the ground became handfuls a day, almost enough to stave off the hunger that nagged at her constantly.
Ingre said to her, ‘You have a child. I knew they wouldn’t hurt you because of that.’
‘It’s OK, Ingre.’
‘Although betraying you was doctrinally the correct thing to do.’
‘I said it’s OK.’
‘The children are the future.’
Yes, thought Rala. But what future? We are insane, she thought, an insane species. As soon as the Qax get out of the way we start to rip each other apart. We rule each other with armbands, bits of rag. And now the Million Heroes are prepared to starve us all - they might still do it - for the sake of an abstract doctrine. Maybe we really were better off under the Qax.
But Ingre seemed eager for forgiveness. She worked in the dirt beside her cadre sibling, gazing earnestly at her.
So Rala forced a smile. ‘Yes,’ she said, and patted her belly. ‘Yes, the children are the future. Now here, help me with this sieve.’
Under their fingers, the alien nano seeds spread through the dirt of Earth.
During the churning of the post-Qax era, we undying, our actions during the Occupation misunderstood, were forced to flee.
The Interim Coalition of Governance consolidated its power, as such agencies do, and proved itself to be rather less than interim.
But from the ranks of the Coalition’s stultifying bureaucracy emerged one man whose strange genius would shape human history for twenty thousand years.
REALITY DUST
AD 5408
An explosion of light: the moment of her birth.
She cried out.
A sense of self flooded through her body. She had arms, legs; her limbs were flailing. She was falling, and glaring light wheeled about her.
… But she remembered another place: a black sky, a world - no, a moon - a face before her, smiling gently. This won’t hurt. Close your eyes.
A name. Callisto.
But the memories were dissipating. ‘No!’
She landed hard, face down, and was suffused by sudden pain. Her face was pressed into dust, rough, gritty particles, each as big as a moon to her staring eyes.
The flitter rose from liberated Earth like a stone thrown from a blue bowl. The little cylindrical craft tumbled slowly as it climbed, sparkling, and Hama Druz marvelled at the beauty of the mist-laden, subtly curved landscape swimming around him, drenched as it was in clear bright sunlight.
The scars of the Occupation were still visible. Away from the great Conurbations, much of the land glistened silver-grey where starbreaker beams and Qax nanoreplicators had chewed up the surface of the Earth, life and rocks and all, turning it into a featureless silicate dust.
‘But already,’ he pointed out eagerly, ‘life’s green is returning. Look, Nomi, there, and there …’
His companion, Nomi Ferrer, grunted sceptically. ‘But that greenery has nothing to do with edicts from your Interim Coalition of Governance, or all your philosophies. That’s the worms, Hama, turning Qax dust back into soil. Just the worms, that’s all.’
Hama would not be put off. Nomi, once a ragamuffin, was an officer in the Green Army, the most significant military force yet
Similar Books
Before The Scandal
Suzanne Enoch
High Price
Carl Hart
Spare Brides
Adele Parks
A Coven of Vampires
Brian Lumley
His Holiday Heart
Jillian Hart
Raw, A Dark Romance
Tawny Taylor
Air Time
Hank Phillippi Ryan
The Secret Life of Uri Geller
Jonathan Margolis
Spheria
Cody Leet
Animals in Translation
Temple Grandin