Edges

Chapter 9

From his post within the restricted span of the high bridge, Urban monitored Clemantine’s tour of the lower cardinals. He logged the time she stayed at each node and the data she perused.

I trusted you. Past tense. She’d said it to shake him up and it had worked. She’d seen his concern and now she was looking for a discrepancy. A difference between what was and what ought to be. She wouldn’t find an answer out among the cardinals, but eventually she would work it out, or Vytet would. One of them would think to run the equations on Dragon’s immense mass.

In all likelihood, Clemantine would never forgive him.

Vytet spoke to him in the library—another version of him, but he heard that conversation:

“You can’t assume this pre-construction phase is safe just because it uses all Chenzeme elements,” she argued, her brows knitting in frustration. “It is not a Chenzeme process. It will not be using elements in a way known to Chenzeme instinct.”

The Bio-mechanic answered her, though from within his frame he aimed his impatient glare at the Engineer, not at Vytet. “It is using elements in a known way,” he insisted.

The Engineer amended this claim, “To a point.”

Most of the courser’s mass was bio-mechanical tissue and stored material, but it was organized around a structural frame—the bones of the ship. The plan was to synthesize sheets of this framing material, shaping them into a huge cylinder surrounding a short segment of the core. The cylinder would be stationary, anchored to the ship’s frame. A second cylinder within the first would rotate on magnetic tracks, just fast enough to provide a small pseudo-gravity.

Urban—that version of him in the library—said, “All we’ve done is to adapt the processes that we used when we grew the outriders. It’ll be fine.” At the same time, the version of him on the high bridge continued to track the passage of Clemantine’s ghost as she transited the last of the cardinals.

In the library, Vytet remained uneasy. “I’m confident the design of the gee deck will serve our purpose, if it’s presence doesn’t trigger a defensive reaction in the surrounding tissue—but it’s such a large structure, it’s hard to see how it could fail to be recognized as an artificial and invasive growth.”

“Barrier issues are my responsibility,” the Bio-mechanic said brusquely. “And I have already taken these concerns into account. The outer cylinder will have a reactive surface using Chenzeme molecular signaling to mimic the hull of an ancillary ship under construction.”

“Is that a permanent solution?” Vytet asked.

“Of course,” the Bio-mechanic said. “So long as the correct molecular signals are produced, the cylinder will not trigger a defensive response.”

“That’s not the only factor,” Urban said. “It matters how fast we consume resources. The first outrider we tried to grow was lost because we went too fast. Looked like uncontrolled growth, a runaway event. The entire mass of the half-formed ship was ejected.”

On the high bridge, a mental twinge. He had not meant to bring up the topic of Dragon’s mass.

For a moment, Vytet looked distracted, her brow wrinkled as if chasing an elusive thought, but the Bio-mechanic reclaimed her attention with an acerbic dismissal of Urban’s cautionary story. “Not a relevant issue,” he said, waving away any concern with a sweep of his hand. “Acceptable growth rates are now well understood.” He fixed his cold gaze on Vytet. “Focus your concern on your own responsibility. Leave me to mine.”

From the high bridge, Urban watched Clemantine’s ghost depart from the last cardinal, returning to her atrium, where it vanished from his perception.

Alone in her chamber, Clemantine studied a schematic of Dragon’s structure, made visible through the augmented reality generated by her atrium. Glowing silver threads mapped the filaments of the neural bridge. Wherever the threads intersected, a tiny bead indicated the presence of a cardinal node.

The schematic showed tens of thousands of filaments linking to the ship’s outer skin of philosopher cells, which together comprised the ship’s composite mind. Those filaments were separate from the rest of the bridge. They led back to a spiraling trunkline of bridge tissue that linked to the lower threads at only a handful of points.

Clemantine was sure she must have passed those points during her inspection, but she had not perceived them. They’d been hidden from her. Her access had been limited to the lower threads only.

The message was clear. The philosopher cells were off-limits to her. Urban didn’t want her interacting with them. He didn’t want her tempted to interact.

Why?

She pondered this question, understood there could be many reasons. None boded well.

No doubt he was jealous of his command. Dragon was his pride as well as an avatar of his existence. He guarded its structure just as he guarded the structure of his own body, protecting the ship’s Chenzeme elements, resisting any suggestion of re-making the courser into a human ship.

But what if the reason was some fault of hers?

I do trust you, she’d said.

He had not responded with any similar assurance, an omission that now made her suspicious of her unknown past. Had she, in that other timeline, given him reason not to trust her? Made a fatal mistake or failed at some critical juncture?

He had denied it, but could she believe him?

Easy to find out. All she had to do was access the data cache that held the details of her other life. She’d resisted because she was sure grief waited for her there. Regret too, and maybe jealousy for a life she hadn’t lived.

Even so, it was weakness to hide from the truth. She’d succumbed to a failure of nerve. Shame brushed her, knowing she needed to review those records regardless of what they held.

She could confront Urban only when they stood on equal ground.

An alert reached Urban on the high bridge. A DI whispered the news. Clemantine had accessed the data cache he’d set aside for her.

Fear flushed through the architecture of his ghost, defying its limited capacity for emotion. A dangerous fear because on the high bridge his emotions and his intentions were shared across a hundred thousand connections with Dragon’s vast field of philosopher cells.

Fear among the cells implied an enemy unexpectedly close at hand. Casual debate gave way to immediate consensus:

Energy flowed to the gamma-ray gun. It began to deploy, while the Near Vicinity was re-scanned for a target. The closest object out there was the outrider, Khonsu.

Urban set his will against the consensus to attack—

– hold –

– calm –

—issuing this command simultaneously from his hundred thousand connections, a coordinated response that flooded the field, forcing a new consensus.

At the same time, he edited his ghost, numbing its capacity to feel fear, tension, anger, boredom. Creating the personality he thought of as the Sentinel, not really a personality at all.

A submind brought the memory of this incident to his ghost in the library. Emotions too dangerous to be experienced on the high bridge now became his. He reacted by abandoning the squabbling discussion still going on between Vytet and the Bio-mechanic. He withdrew into a different reality, a private space within the library, where he set his will against the turmoil of these emotions:

– hold –

– calm –

He had wanted Clemantine to open the cache, he’d wanted her to understand what had happened, but he feared her judgment. He feared she’d hate him for what he’d done.

I couldn’t save him!

Things had gone too far. He’d had to end it. He’d had no choice—but a last accusation still echoed in his mind: You are the courser now.

Bitter truth.

He had only just joined himself to the courser, his control over it tenuous but real when he chose to use Dragon’s gun for the first time, destroying what he loved and feared.

Stop! he told himself. Don’t go back there.

That era was over and he would not revisit it. He pushed the memories away and waited for her judgment to fall.

Subminds shunted between the library and the high bridge, syncing thoughts between the dual versions of himself—the one anxious and regretful, the other artificially calm. He kept watch over the stars of the Near Vicinity as hours slipped past. Enough hours to allow her to go through everything the cache contained, his own memories part of it.

Surely she would contact him soon? Say something. He needed her to say something. Anything?

Nothing.

She didn’t stir from her chamber. His fear grew. He was afraid of what she would do. Afraid she would hide herself away in cold sleep, depriving him of any chance to win her forgiveness.

He checked the ship’s log, assured himself she had not retreated into cold sleep yet.

Without thinking too hard about whether or not it was a good idea, he messaged her:

*Hey.

No answer. Not for ominous seconds. Then finally, a single husky syllable: *Hey.

Enough to give him hope. *Are we okay? he asked her.

*Heh, she scoffed. *You were monitoring the cache?

*Yes, he admitted. He held his breath, waiting for her to say something more. Waiting. More seconds ticking past. Too many of them. When she finally did speak, her voice was hoarse, syllables catching in her throat:

*You want to know how I feel?

He didn’t answer. She knew the answer.

She said:

*I don’t blame you for it. That’s what you want to hear, right? And it’s true. You did what you had to do. You did what I hope I would have done.

Another long pause—his gratitude made this one easier to endure—before she added, *I didn’t think you had it in you.

She might have meant that as an insult or a compliment, he didn’t care. He only wanted to know, *Are we okay?

*We will be, she assured him. *Now go. I need to grieve.