ALL IN A BLAZE

AD 5478

On some level Faya Parz had always known the truth about herself. In the background of her life there had been bits of family gossip. And then as she grew older, and her friends began to grey, even though she had had to give up her Dancing, she stayed supple - as if she was charmed, time sliding by her, barely touching her.

But these were subtle things. She had never articulated it to herself, never framed the thought. On some deeper level she hadn't wanted to know.

She had to meet Luru Parz before she faced it.

It all came to a head on the day of the Halo Dance.

The amphitheatre was a bowl gouged out of the icy surface of Port Sol. Of course the amphitheatre was crowded, as it was every four years for this famous event; there was a sea of upturned faces all around Faya. She gazed up at the platforms hovering high above, just under the envelope of the dome itself, where her sister and the other Dancers were preparing for their performance. And beyond it all the sun, seen from here at the edge of Sol system, was just a brighter pinprick in a tapestry of stars, its sharpness softened a little by the immense dome that spanned the theatre.

`. . . Excuse me.'

Faya glanced down. A small woman faced her, stocky, broad-faced, dressed in a nondescript coverall. Faya couldn't tell her age, but there was something solid about her, something heavy, despite the micro-gravity of Port Sol. And she looked oddly familiar.

The woman smiled at her.

Faya was staring. `I'm sorry.'

`The seat next to you-'

`It's free.'

With slow care, the woman climbed the couple of steps up to Faya's row and sat down on the carved and insulated ice. `You're Faya Parz, aren't you? I've seen your Virtuals. You were one of the best Dancers of all.'

`Thank you.'

`You wish you were up there now.'

Faya was used to fans, but this woman was a little unsettling. `I'm past forty. In the Dance, when you've had your day, you must make way.'

`But you are ageing well.'

It was an odd remark from a stranger. `My sister's up there.'

`Lieta, yes. Ten years younger. But you could still challenge her.'

Faya turned to study the woman. `I don't want to be rude, but-'

`But I seem to know a lot about you, don't I? I don't mean to put you at a disadvantage. My name is Luru Parz.'

Faya did a double-take. `I thought I knew all the Parz on Port Sol.'

`We're relatives even so. I'm - a great-aunt, dear. Think of me that way.'

`Do you live here?'

`No, no. Just a transient, as we all are. Everything passes, you know; everything changes.' She waved her hand, indicating the amphitheatre. Her gestures were small, economical in their use of time and space. `Take this place. Do you know its history?'

Faya shrugged. `I never thought about it. Is it natural, a crater?'

Luru shook her head. `No. A starship was born here, right where we're sitting, its fuel dug out of the ice. It was the greatest of them all, called Great Northern.'

`You know a lot of history,' said Faya, a little edgy. The Coalition, focusing on mankind's future, frowned on any obsession with lost heroic days.

Luru would only shrug. `Some of us have long memories.'

A crackling, ripping sound washed down over the audience, and a pale blue mist erupted over the domed sky. And now the first haloes formed, glowing arcs and rings around the brighter stars and especially around the sun itself, light scattered by air full of tiny ice prisms. There were more gasps from the crowd.

`What a beautiful effect,' said Luru.

`But it's just water,' Faya said.

So it was. The dome's upper layers of air were allowed to become extremely cold, far below freezing. At such temperatures you could just throw water into the air and it would spontaneously freeze. A water droplet froze quickly from the outside in - but ice was less dense than water, and when the central region froze it would expand and shatter the outer shell. So the air was suddenly filled with tiny bombs.

On this ice moon, cold was art's raw material.

The main event began. One by one the Dancers leapt from their platforms. They were allowed no aids; they followed simple low-gravity parabolas that arched between one floating platform and the next. But the art was in the selection of that parabola among the shifting, shivering ice haloes - which were, of course, invisible to the Dancers - and in the way you spun, turned, starfished and swam against that background.

As one Dancer after another passed over the dome, ripples of applause broke out around the amphitheatre. Glowing numerals and Virtual bar graphs littered the air in the central arena; the voting had already begun. But the sheer beauty of the Dance silenced many of the spectators, as the tiny human figures, naked and lithe, spun defiantly against the stars.

Here, at last, was Lieta herself, ready for the few seconds of flight for which she had rehearsed for four years. Faya remembered how it used to feel, the nervousness as her body tried to soar - and then the exhilaration when she succeeded, one more time.

Lieta's launch was good, Faya saw, her track well chosen. But her movements were stiff, lacking the liquid grace of her competitors. Lieta, her little sister, was already thirty years old, and one of the oldest in the field; and suddenly it showed.

At the centre of the arena a display of Lieta's marks coalesced. A perfect score would have showed as bright green, but Lieta's bars were flecked with yellow. A Virtual of Lieta's upper body and head appeared; she was smiling bravely in reaction to the scores.

`There is grey in her hair,' murmured Luru. `Look at the lines around her eyes, her mouth. You have aged better than your ten-years-younger sister. You have aged less, in fact. There is no grey in your hair.'

Faya wasn't sure how to respond. She looked away, disturbed.

`Tell me why you gave up the Dance. Your performances weren't declining, were they? You felt you could have kept going for ever. Isn't that true? But something worried you.'

Faya turned on her in irritation. `Look, I don't know what you want-'

`It's a shock when you see them grow old around you. I remember it happening to me, the first time - long ago, of course.' She grinned coldly.

`You're frightening me.' Faya said it loud enough to make people stare.

Luru stood. `I'm like you, Faya Parz. The same blood. You know what I'm talking about. When you need to see me, you'll be able to find me.'

Faya waited in her seat until the Dance was over, and the audience had filed away. She didn't even try to find Lieta, as they'd arranged. Instead she made her own way up into the dome.

She stood on the lip of the highest platform. The amphitheatre was a pit, far below, but she had no fear of heights. The star-filled sky beyond the dome was huge, inhuman. And, through the subtle glimmer of the dome walls, she could see the tightly curving horizon of this little world of ice.

She closed her eyes, visualising the pattern of haloes, just as it had been when Lieta had launched herself into space. And then she jumped.

Though she had no audience, she had the automated systems assess her. She found the bars glowing an unbroken green. She had recorded a perfect mark. If she had taken part in the competition, against these kids half her age, she would have won.

She had known what Luru was had been talking about. Of course she had. Where others aged, even her own sister, she stayed young. It was as simple as that. The trouble was, it was starting to show.

And it was illegal.

Home was a palace of metal and ice she shared with her extended family. This place, one of the most select on Port Sol, had been purchased with the riches Faya had made from her Dancing.

Her mother was here. Spina Parz was over sixty; her grey, straying hair was tied back in a stern bun.

And, waiting for Faya, here was a Commissary, a representative of the Commission for Historical Truth. Originally an agency for ferreting out Qax collaborators, the Commission had evolved seamlessly into the police force of the Coalition, government of Sol system. This Commissary wore his head shaved, and a simple ground-length robe.

Everybody was frightened of Commissaries. It was only a couple of generations since Coalition ships had come to take Port Sol into the new government's deadly embrace, by force. But somehow Faya wasn't surprised to see him; evidently today was the day everything unravelled for her.

The Commissary stood up and faced her. `My name is Ank Sool.'

`I'm not ageing, am I?'

He seemed taken aback by her bluntness. `I can cure you. Don't be afraid.'

Her mother Spina said wistfully, `I knew you were special even when you were very small, Faya. You were an immortal baby, born among mortals. I could tell when I held you in my arms. And you were beautiful. My heart sang because you were beautiful and you would live for ever. You were wonderful.'

`Why didn't you tell me?'

Spina looked tired. `Because I wanted you to figure it out for yourself. On the other hand I never thought it would take you until you were forty.' She smiled. `You never were the brightest crystal in the snowflake, were you, dear?'

Faya's anger melted. She hugged her mother. `The great family secret . . .'

`I saw the truth, working its way through you. You always had trouble with relationships with men. They kept growing too old for you, didn't they? When you're young even a subtle distancing is enough to spoil a relationship. And-'

`And I haven't had children.'

`You kept putting it off. Your body knew, love. And now your head knows too.'

Sool said earnestly, `You must understand the situation.'

`I understand I'm in trouble. Immortality is illegal.'

He shook his head. `You are the victim of a crime - a crime committed centuries ago.'

It was all the fault of the Qax, as so many things were. During their Occupation of Earth the Qax had rewarded those who had collaborated with them with an anti-ageing treatment. The Qax, masters of nanotechnological transformations, had rewired human genomes.

`After the fall of the Qax the surviving collaborators and their children were given the gift of mortality.' The Commissary said this without irony.

`But you evidently didn't get us all,' Faya said.

Sool said, `The genome cleansing was not perfect. After centuries of Occupation we didn't have the technology. In every generation there are throwbacks.'

`Throwbacks. Immortals, born to mortal humans.'

`Yes.'

Faya felt numb. It was as if he was talking about somebody else. `My sister-'

Her mother said, `Lieta is as mortal as I am, as your poor father was. It's only you, Faya.'

`We can cure you,' Sool said, smiling. `It will be quite painless.'

`But I could stay young,' Faya said rapidly. She turned to Sool. `Once I was famous for my Dancing. They even knew my name on Earth.' She waved a hand. `Look around! I made a fortune. I was the best. Grown men of twenty-five - your age, yes? - would follow me down the street. You can't know what that was like; you never saw their eyes.' She stood straight. `I could have it all again. I could have it for ever, couldn't I? If I came out about what I am.'

Sool said stiffly, `The Coalition frowns on celebrity. The species, not the individual, should be at the centre of our thoughts.'

Her mother was shaking her head. `Anyhow, Faya, it can't be like that. You're still young; you haven't thought it through. Once I hoped you would be able to - hide. To survive. But it would be impossible. Mortals won't accept you.'

`Your mother is right,' Sool said. `You would spend your life tinting your hair, masking your face. Abandoning your home every few years. Otherwise they will kill you. No matter how beautifully you Danced.' He said this with a flat certainty, and she realised that he was speaking from experience.

`I need time,' she said abruptly, and forced a smile. `Ironic, isn't it? Just as I've been given all the time anybody could ask for.'

Spina sighed. `Time for what?'

`To talk to Luru Parz.' And she left before they could react.

`I am nearly two hundred years old,' said Luru Parz. `I was born in the era of the Occupation. I grew up knowing nothing else. And I took the gift of immortality from the Qax. I have already lived to see the liberation of mankind.'

They were in a two-person flitter. Faya had briskly piloted them into a slow orbit around Port Sol; beneath them the landscape stretched to its close-crowding horizon. Here, in this cramped cabin, they were safely alone.

Port Sol was a Kuiper object: like a huge comet nucleus, circling the sun beyond the orbit of Pluto. The little ice moon was gouged by hundreds of artificial craters. Faya could see the remnants of domes, pylons and arches, spectacular microgravity architecture. But the pylons and graceful domes were collapsed, with bits of glass and metal jutting like snapped bones. Everything was smashed up. Much of this architecture was a relic of pre-Occupation days. The Qax had never come here; during the Occupation the moon had been a refuge. It had been humans, the forces of the young Coalition, who had done all this damage in their ideological enthusiasm. Now, even after decades of reoccupation and restoration, most of the old buildings were closed, darkened, and thin frost coated their surfaces.

Luru said, `Do you know what I see, when I look down at this landscape? I see layers of history. The great engineer Michael Poole himself founded this place. He built a great system of wormholes, rapid-transit pathways from the worlds of the inner system. And having united Sol system, here, at the system's outermost terminus, Poole's disciples used great mountains of ice to fuel interstellar vessels. It was the start of mankind's First Expansion. But then humans acquired a hyperdrive.' She smiled wistfully. `Economic logic. The hyper-ships could fly right out of the crowded heart of Sol system, straight to the stars. Nobody needed Poole's huge wormhole tunnels, or his mighty ice mine. And then the Qax came, and then the Coalition.'

`But now Port Sol has revived.'

`Yes. Because now we are building a new generation of starships, great living ships thirsty for Port Sol's water. Layers of history.'

`Luru, why should I be tainted in this way? Why my family?'

`It's common on Port Sol,' Luru said. `Relatively. Even during the Occupation, and again under the Coalition's persecution, the undying fled to the outer system - to the gas giants' moons, to here, a forgotten backwater. Yes, this was a hideout for undying.'

`I know. That's why the Coalition were so brutal.'

`Yes. Many undying escaped the Coalition invasion, and fled further. A flock of generation starships rose from the ice of Port Sol, even as the Coalition ships approached, commanded by undying; nobody knows what became of them. But while they were here, you see, the undying perturbed the gene pool, with their own taint of longevity. It's not a surprise that throwbacks like you, as the Commission calls you, should arise here.'

`Luru Parz, I don't know what to do. Will I have to hide?'

`Yes. But you mustn't be ashamed. There is an evolutionary logic to our longevity.' Luru clutched a fist over her heart. `Listen to me. Before we were human, when we were animals, we died after the end of our fertile years, like animals. But then, as we evolved, we changed. We lived on, long after fertility ended. Do you know why? So that grandmothers could help their daughters raise the next generation. And that is how we overcame the other animals, and came to own the Earth - through longevity. Immortality is good for the species, even if the species doesn't know it. You must hide, Faya. But you must not be ashamed of what you are.'

`I don't want to hide.'

`You don't have a choice. The Coalition are planning a new future for mankind, an expansion to the stars that will sweep on, for ever. There will be no place for the old. But of course that's just the latest rationalisation. People have always burned witches.'

Faya didn't know what a witch was.

And then a Virtual of Faya's mother's face congealed in the air before her, the bearer of bad news about Lieta.

Faya and Spina held each other, sitting side by side. For now they were done with weeping, and they had readmitted Ank Sool, the Commissary.

`I don't understand,' Faya said. It was the brevity that was impossible to bear - a handful of Dances, a flash of beauty and joy, and then dust. And why should her sister die so suddenly now, why was her life cut short, just as the prospect of eternity opened up for Faya? `Why Lieta? Why now?'

Sool said, `Blame the Qax. The pharaohs never bred true. Many of their offspring died young, or their development stopped at an unsuitable age, so that immortality remained in the gift of the occupiers. The Qax were always in control, you see.'

Faya said carefully, `Commissary, I think I will always suspect, in a corner of my heart, that you allowed this death to happen, in order to bring me under control.'

His eyes were blank. `The Commission for Historical Truth has no need of such devices.'

Spina grasped her daughter's hands. `Take the mortality treatment, dear. It's painless. Get it over, and you will be safe.'

`You could have sent me to the Commission as a child. I could have been cured then. I need never have even known.'

Sool said dryly, `So you would blame your mother rather than the Qax. How - human.'

Spina's face crumpled. `Oh, love, how could I take such a gift away from you - even to protect you?'

`It's your decision,' said Sool.

`It always had to be,' said her mother.

Again she swept into orbit with Luru Parz, seeking privacy.

This is how it will be for me from now on, she thought: hiding from people. I will be one of a handful of immortal companions, like crabbed, folded-over Luru here, standing like unchanging rocks in a landscape of evanescent flowers.

That or mortality.

`I can't stand the thought of seeing them all growing old and dying around me. For ever.'

Luru nodded. `I know. But you aren't thinking big enough, child. On a long enough timescale, everything is as transient as one of your Halo Dances. Why, perhaps we will even live to see the stars themselves sputter to life, fade and die.' She smiled. `Stars are like people. Even stars come and go, you see. They die all in a blaze, or fade like the last light of the sun - but you've never seen a sunset, have you? The glory is always brief - but it is worth having, even so. And you will remember the glory, and make it live on. It's your purpose, Faya.'

`My burden,' she said bleakly.

`We have great projects, long ambitions, beyond the imagination of these others. Come with me.'

Tentatively Faya reached out her hand, Luru took it. Her flesh was cold.

`I will have to say farewell-'

`Not farewell. Goodbye. Get used to it.'

Before they left she visited the amphitheatre, one last time. And - though she knew she could never let anybody watch her, ever again - she Danced and Danced, as the waiting stars blazed.

Even as the Coalition hardened its grip on mankind, and continued its hideous cleansing of Sol system, it launched a new thrust to the stars.

The Third Expansion of mankind was the most vigorous yet and, driven by the new ideology of Hama Druz, the most purposeful.

I and those like me tried to stay out of the way of the engines of history.

As the Expansion unfolded humanity once more encountered alien kinds, and re-engaged in wider Galactic history. It was only a little more than eighty years after the liberation from the Qax that a first contact of devastating significance was made.