frown, the helplessness of a shrug, and the pointed amusement of a smirk. “I don't know how to do those things, sir. Who do you think I am? Who do you think
you
are? We don't become interstellar heroes just because you walk into a room.”
There were scattered sniggers at this from the other kids.
“You're all staying here illegally,” Feck pointed out, fluttering his hand in annoyance. “What I would say is, who's taking care of you if not yourself?”
“There are libraries here,” Conrad said, “right? You can pick up a block of wellstone and start asking questions. They still teach that in the schools, I assume? Research?”
Raoul shrugged. He wasn't going to commit to an answer one way or the other.
“Anyone else?” Conrad tried.
It went on like that for a while, and Conrad eventually decided there were three separate problems here. First there was the obvious ignorance of these people. He found this personally disgusting and offensive—how could they look themselves in the mirror?—but in all fairness they simply had no practical experience. Doing
anything
. Nor did they need any in the eternal lives the Queendom had mapped out for them.
They were drowning in knowledge, but actually absorbing some, actually learning a skill, was something they did for amusement, not for money or survival. Their minds simply didn't work that way. Of course, they'd all been born on Earth. If this conversation were taking place in a Lunar dome or asteroid warren, a planette or a spin-gee city in interplanetary space, he might have better luck. Presumably, ignorance could still be fatal in places like that, and would be discouraged.
Secondly, though, there was the problem of authority. Conrad and Xmary didn't have any. They had surprised the crowd with their leaping and prancing, and yes, their status as returning star voyagers did carry a certain shock value. These kids had never met anyone like them; nobody had. They were clearly impressed. But it didn't mean they would
listen
.
And there was a third problem which perhaps overshadowed the other two.
“Maybe the platform
needs
sinking,” one kid suggested at one point.
“I'm happy to risk my life,” said another. “And I don't even have current backups.”
“What point are you trying to make with this self-defense crap?” asked a third, with genuine puzzlement.
And finally Conrad understood:
these kids were deathists
. Not Fatalists, perhaps, but not the sworn enemies of Fatalists, either. The philosophy of random mass murder did not strike them as obviously wrong. “There are too many people,” they'd said several times already. “There's no purpose for any of this. Maybe there used to be, but we've never seen it.”
And it was a strangely difficult point to argue with; Conrad had groaned under the same burdens in his own youth. The answers had been different then, but the questions had not. And yet, life—any life—was full of challenges. Could it really be so different here?
“You may feel a greater urgency,” he suggested, “when death is actually imminent.”
chapter seven
in which certain difficulties
are unmasked
“Your Majesty,” said Reportant Bernhart Bechs to the Queen of Sol, “this seems an awkward time for the king to be absent. Did you ask him to leave a copy behind?”
“No,” she said, not only to Bechs but to the other reportants here, clustered around her and her Palace Guards in a buzzing hemispherical swarm. Ordinarily her personal press cordon was set at eighty meters, with strict acoustic volume limits to discourage uninvited chitchat, but this was a press conference. Typically these would be handled by her press secretary or by some crisis-specific bureaucrat, but there was a lot going on this week, and she had dozens of copies working all across the solar system. Printing out one more was hardly a bother, and people were burning with curiosity anyway, so she had generously permitted the paparazzi to approach within
you
are? We don't become interstellar heroes just because you walk into a room.”
There were scattered sniggers at this from the other kids.
“You're all staying here illegally,” Feck pointed out, fluttering his hand in annoyance. “What I would say is, who's taking care of you if not yourself?”
“There are libraries here,” Conrad said, “right? You can pick up a block of wellstone and start asking questions. They still teach that in the schools, I assume? Research?”
Raoul shrugged. He wasn't going to commit to an answer one way or the other.
“Anyone else?” Conrad tried.
It went on like that for a while, and Conrad eventually decided there were three separate problems here. First there was the obvious ignorance of these people. He found this personally disgusting and offensive—how could they look themselves in the mirror?—but in all fairness they simply had no practical experience. Doing
anything
. Nor did they need any in the eternal lives the Queendom had mapped out for them.
They were drowning in knowledge, but actually absorbing some, actually learning a skill, was something they did for amusement, not for money or survival. Their minds simply didn't work that way. Of course, they'd all been born on Earth. If this conversation were taking place in a Lunar dome or asteroid warren, a planette or a spin-gee city in interplanetary space, he might have better luck. Presumably, ignorance could still be fatal in places like that, and would be discouraged.
Secondly, though, there was the problem of authority. Conrad and Xmary didn't have any. They had surprised the crowd with their leaping and prancing, and yes, their status as returning star voyagers did carry a certain shock value. These kids had never met anyone like them; nobody had. They were clearly impressed. But it didn't mean they would
listen
.
And there was a third problem which perhaps overshadowed the other two.
“Maybe the platform
needs
sinking,” one kid suggested at one point.
“I'm happy to risk my life,” said another. “And I don't even have current backups.”
“What point are you trying to make with this self-defense crap?” asked a third, with genuine puzzlement.
And finally Conrad understood:
these kids were deathists
. Not Fatalists, perhaps, but not the sworn enemies of Fatalists, either. The philosophy of random mass murder did not strike them as obviously wrong. “There are too many people,” they'd said several times already. “There's no purpose for any of this. Maybe there used to be, but we've never seen it.”
And it was a strangely difficult point to argue with; Conrad had groaned under the same burdens in his own youth. The answers had been different then, but the questions had not. And yet, life—any life—was full of challenges. Could it really be so different here?
“You may feel a greater urgency,” he suggested, “when death is actually imminent.”
chapter seven
in which certain difficulties
are unmasked
“Your Majesty,” said Reportant Bernhart Bechs to the Queen of Sol, “this seems an awkward time for the king to be absent. Did you ask him to leave a copy behind?”
“No,” she said, not only to Bechs but to the other reportants here, clustered around her and her Palace Guards in a buzzing hemispherical swarm. Ordinarily her personal press cordon was set at eighty meters, with strict acoustic volume limits to discourage uninvited chitchat, but this was a press conference. Typically these would be handled by her press secretary or by some crisis-specific bureaucrat, but there was a lot going on this week, and she had dozens of copies working all across the solar system. Printing out one more was hardly a bother, and people were burning with curiosity anyway, so she had generously permitted the paparazzi to approach within
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