Edges

Chapter 20

Pasha awoke in a small sunlit bedroom. She looked around without raising her head, recognized nothing, and wondered if a chunk of her recent memory had been overwritten.

Her bed cradled her within its low padded sides for which she was grateful. Even before sitting up, she felt dizzy, out of balance.

The room was done in light colors: white walls, a white carpet on a warm-brown wooden floor, translucent white curtains framing an open window with blue sky and sunlit foliage visible beyond, and an opaque gel door the color of golden honey. Through the window there came birdsong and a floral scent that sweetened the air.

“Welcome,” the room told her, speaking as a gentle-voiced woman. “This is your new home aboard the starship Dragon. Please be cautious upon arising. You’ll need to adjust your sense of balance to compensate for the centripetal force generated by the rotation of the gee deck.”

Questions flooded Pasha’s mind. She remembered departing for Dragon. It had been a decision made in haste, but also in certainty. Now doubt caught up with her.

This pleasant room—how had she come to be here? It made no sense. She should have instantiated as a ghost, but this was no simulation. The queasiness in her belly affirmed her physical reality. She wondered if this was Dragon after all. How could it be? Living quarters on that ship still needed to be built.

She closed her eyes, conscious now of her racing heart. Drawing a few deep breaths, she strove to calm herself. Then she checked her atrium—and her heart boomed louder.

“Why is there no network?” she asked aloud.

The house responded without actually answering her question: “There will be an orientation session for the community in just a few minutes. When you’re ready, follow the path outside your front door. Everything will be explained.”

She arose, staggering a little against the unaccustomed angular force of the rotating deck. A poor simulation of gravity, she decided sourly, and so much weaker than the gravity she’d grown up under at Deception Well that she worried an awkward move might launch her into the ceiling.

Clothing budded off an active surface of the inner wall: a beige tunic and pale-green leggings, the same thing she’d been wearing in the zero-gravity environment of Long Watch. She dressed quickly. Then said, “Show me my image.”

A full-size projection appeared within the interior wall. She studied herself for a few seconds. It all looked right, except for her wide-eyed expression of fright. She ran fingers through the layers of her short white-blond hair, smoothing it, pushing it behind her ears, striving for calm. Pressed her palms against her still-queasy stomach. She’d had her physiology adjusted for the zero gravity aboard Long Watch; she would need a similar mod for this horrid circular motion.

Voices outside now:

Do you know what’s going on?

No! Was it supposed to be like this?

Is this really Dragon?

Concentrating on each step to keep her balance in the weird gee, she passed through the gel doorway, the touch of its parting edges soft and dry against her arms. A living room was on the other side: mats and pillows and a small kitchen in one corner. Large open windows looked out on a garden of low, spreading trees and lush shrubbery. Scattered among the verdure were neat cottages with white curved walls and miniature meadows on their roofs. Very sweet. Very civilized.

Very wrong.

The front entrance was open, its gel door retracted out of sight. She stepped outside under a low ceiling simulating a bright blue midday sky streaked with distant white skeins of clouds. She wobbled only a little.

A small stone patio flowed into a paved path where three bewildered-looking people wandered, dressed in the brightly colored, body-hugging fashions that were popular in the city of Silk; another individual appeared in the doorway of a cottage across the path, wearing a formal suit of tunic and trousers in muted colors. With relief, Pasha recognized all four as friends and colleagues. They saw her and immediately gathered around.

“Pasha! What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” she answered.

“This isn’t what we expected.”

“I’m just as surprised,” she agreed. And concerned.

“Where are we supposed to go?” one asked.

She said, “Let’s follow the path.”

The house had not said what direction to go, but Pasha didn’t think it mattered. The curve of the deck was easily visible despite the softening effect of the expansive garden. In either direction, there couldn’t be far to walk. She staggered a few steps, arms out for balance, but then her body began to work out how to compensate for the deck’s angular pull, and she steadied. A few more steps and her nausea began to recede.

People joined them as they walked, far more than Pasha expected to see. Urban had said he wanted up to twelve volunteers… but there were so many more. Where had they come from? Why were they here?

Among those she recognized were scientists, historians, and a scout famous from her explorations of Deception Well’s planetary surface. Others were strangers. Without a network connection her atrium could not query theirs for an identity.

She approached them anyway, she approached everyone, asking if they had a network connection. No one did.

Pasha wondered again if they really were aboard Dragon. Amid the low buzz of conversation that surrounded her, she heard that question asked again and again by others.

Before long, the path wended around a lattice wall, and then they reached a pavilion where many more people were already gathering. At the center of the pavilion was a large oval pergola covered in neat vines bearing little star-shaped flowers. The pergola sheltered a small amphitheater with a low dais facing four curved tiers of seats.

Riffan was there, smiling, urging the new arrivals to take seats as if he was some kind of authority, someone who knew what was going on. This did not sit well with Pasha. It offended her to be kept in the dark like a child. She meant to demand an explanation, but as she started toward him, those who had arrived ahead of her moved inside and she saw that Urban was also standing there.

Urban, who was master of Dragon, to whom they had all entrusted their lives. Better to direct her questions at him.

She separated herself from the anxious swirl of her friends and angled toward him. But after a few steps, she realized she was mistaken. This tall man with the dark complexion was Kona, not Urban. He beckoned to her… no, to everyone in her group. “Please,” he told them, “no questions yet. Take a seat and everything will be explained.”

Pasha was tempted to question him anyway, but a woman just behind her spoke first. “Kona! By the Waking Light, it’s a comfort to see you here! But what is this place? Are we really aboard Dragon?”

Pasha looked over her shoulder, identifying the speaker as the planetary scout.

Kona knew her by name. “Greetings, Shoran,” he said. There was fondness in his voice, but he put her off anyway. “Everything will be explained. Please take a seat.”

Shoran’s chin lowered, her eyes narrowed in a combative expression.

“Please,” Kona said in an undertone. “I need your cooperation, your example. Things have not gone quite as we expected.”

“That’s easy to see,” Shoran replied tartly. Her gaze shifted as she took in Pasha watching her. Their eyes met. Shoran inclined her head: an invitation. “Come,” she said to Pasha as if they were friends though they’d never met. “Let’s cooperate for now. We can conspire to revolution later, if the explanation does not suit.”

Pasha went with her reluctantly, leaving Kona to face his next interrogator. But then Shoran, who was a tall woman, recognized someone over the heads of those looking for seats. “Mikael!” she called out in profound relief. “There you are!” She stopped to wave.

Pasha went ahead on her own. The sooner everyone was settled, the sooner they would all learn the truth.

She took a seat in the first row, nodding to the woman on her right whom she recognized as a politician, one who’d served on Silk’s city council.

“I’m Tarnya,” the woman said, her voice rich and pleasant and possessing an equanimity absent from nearly everyone else.

“Pasha.” They gently bumped knuckles. Then Pasha turned to the stocky man seated on her left, whom she’d met before. “Alkimbra, isn’t it?” she asked, remembering he was a historian, but not knowing much else about him.

“You’re Pasha, right?” he asked as they touched knuckles. “I’m here because a friend forwarded a copy of the announcement you sent.” He gestured—at the auditorium, or the gee deck around it, or perhaps the whole strange situation. “This is not what I expected. Do you know—?”

“I don’t,” she interrupted. “I don’t know any more than you do.”

She turned her attention to the dais, deliberately ending the exchange, fretting that she could somehow be blamed for this situation—and on the dais she saw Urban. This time, she was certain it was him.

The dais was backed by a projection wall, deep black, showing nothing. Urban leaned against it, arms crossed, gaze focused on the stage in front of his feet. Looking sullen. Otherwise, exactly as he’d looked when she’d seen him on Long Watch.

Clemantine was nearby. She stood to one side of the dais in the company of a tall, gaunt man with black hair long enough to tie at the nape of his neck, and the unsettling, anachronistic embellishment of a short but heavy beard. Something about him—though certainly not the beard—made him seem familiar to Pasha, as if he was someone she ought to know. Another member of the founding generation, she suspected.

Behind her, the sound of shuffling feet and low, worried voices, as the seats filled in. People were still coming in. She was amazed at how many. She tried to count heads. At least forty-five. Or fifty? Maybe more.

Kona’s low commanding voice rose easily over the background noise. “Find a seat,” he warned. “You’ll want to be sitting down when you hear this.” He joined Clemantine beside the dais, studying the gathering. Pasha glanced back, to see that the seats behind her had all filled in. People hushed one another. When the last murmurings ceased, Kona turned to the dais. “Urban? We’re all here.”

Only then did Urban look up. Warily, he eyed the gathering. A glance at Clemantine, and then he straightened and uncrossed his arms. “It’s taken some time for us to reach this point,” he said, speaking loudly so that he could be easily heard throughout the gathering. He stepped to the side of the dais as the projection wall lit up behind him, white on black, displaying a simplified star chart with only a few features labeled.

Pasha studied the chart. She noted the position of Deception Well, skipped over the grouped stars labeled as the Committee, and jumped across the screen to Tanjiri and Ryo, two outlying stars of the Hallowed Vasties. Dragon was also marked on the chart, but the ship’s position made no sense. It was shown to be a full eighty percent of the way to those first stars of the Hallowed Vasties and that was absurd.

Pasha looked next at the top of the star chart where there was a label that read Today’s Date. Numerals followed, though it took a few seconds for her to make sense of them. She leaned forward, hugging herself, her queasiness rising again as she did the math.

If that date was real, then three hundred ninety-three years had elapsed since she’d sent her ghost to Dragon, and they were only a little more than a century away from the edge of the Hallowed Vasties.

A gasp from Tarnya beside her. More gasps and inarticulate cries of shock from across the gathering. Pasha rose to her feet. Fist clenched, she cried out, “You had no right!”

Tarnya was on her feet too, saying, “You must explain this!” Her voice discernible among a chorus of protests only because she was close by.

Looking deeply irritated, Urban stalked across the dais. Of all the raucous crowd, he focused his gaze on Pasha and in a voice strong enough to rise over the noise, he said, “It was necessary.”

Pasha took this as a challenge, took a step forward. The crowd quieted behind her. “Necessary to leave us archived and helpless for almost four hundred years?” she demanded.

“Yes.”

She shook her head. She could not accept this, did not want to. To keep them archived—and for so long!—was an outrageous violation of every person’s natural right of self-determination and it left her frightened for the future. Urban was the mind of the ship; he was its master. He held all actual power, leaving the rest of them to live at his discretion.

Pasha wasn’t naive. She knew this was how starships were traditionally organized, but a long-standing social covenant dictated that by accepting passengers, Urban had also accepted a responsibility to respect both the rights and the lives of those under his care.

Pasha needed him to remember that. “My understanding,” she said, speaking slowly as a hush fell across the gathering, “was that we would transfer to this ship and instantiate as ghosts. From that perspective, we would be able to oversee the growth of our own avatars and occupy them at our discretion.”

He met her glare with a resentful gaze. “There were complications,” he told her.

“Let’s all sit down,” Kona said from his post at the side of the dais. “We have a lot to go over.”

A rustling, as those who were standing took their seats again. Pasha felt a touch on her arm. Tarnya, standing a step behind her. Their gazes met. Worry lines etched Tarnya’s brow. “Let’s hear what he has to say,” she urged softly. “There has to be a reason.”

Behind her words, the unspoken entreaty: Be reasonable.

And of course Tarnya was right. Anger and outrage had their place, but neither could undo the past. Right now, Pasha needed to hear the facts. Everyone did.

A deep sigh as she worked to compose herself. Then a nod to Tarnya, and they both took their seats.

Urban stepped back to the center of the dais. His gaze moved across the gathering. “You,” he said to them, “all of you together, were the first complication we faced.” He swept his hand in a gesture that took in the gathering. “I invited two people. I accepted two others. Pasha recruited everyone else. There are now sixty-six people aboard Dragon. Far more than I was prepared for when we left the Well. But I rejected no one. I accepted every ghost that came through the gate.”

Pasha was caught off balance at finding herself singled out for criticism. Her cheeks burned. It was true she’d put out the word that the expedition was open for volunteers, but, “I didn’t exactly recruit,” she said defensively. “I just… let a few friends know about the opportunity.”

“And friends let friends know,” Tarnya whispered. “That’s how I found out.”

Riffan spoke from his position at one side of the gathering, sounding conciliatory when he said, “Urban, I think none of us suspected the enthusiasm this voyage would inspire.”

This drew from Urban a slight, cynical smile. “In my time, the people of Silk were quiet and cautious. I didn’t think I’d get ten volunteers.” He shrugged. “I should have remembered we’re all the restless descendants of frontier people.”

Pasha’s cheeks burned again, hearing these words as a grudging, condescending apology. Not all your fault, Pasha!

She gritted her teeth. She had acted precipitously, it was true. But she was here. So were the others. They were bound for the Hallowed Vasties and that was a victory. She could handle a little embarrassment.

Crossing her arms, she leaned in, listening to Urban’s explanation.

“Dragon is a hybrid ship,” he told them. “A careful balance has to be maintained between its human and Chenzeme elements. That balance would have been thrown into conflict if we’d tried to immediately establish a habitat and life support for sixty-six people. Even the virtual environment of the library couldn’t handle that number—and we were wary of that approach anyway, since we knew most of you have never lived an exclusively virtual existence.”

He looked to Kona, who nodded his agreement, adding, “Self-determination is an intrinsic right, but it must sometimes yield, on a temporary basis, when safety demands it.”

Pasha leaned back, appreciating the challenge posed by their unexpected numbers, and the neat logic of Urban’s long-term solution—but she resented it anyway. Hard to overlook four absent centuries.

A question from one of the back rows: “Kona, were you active during this period?”

“I was, along with Vytet.” He gestured toward the bearded Founder whose name Pasha had not been able to recall. “We were both consulted and agreed to the course that was taken. Rather than courting disaster, we chose patience.”

Pasha noticed Tarnya nodding a tentative acceptance of this explanation. She looked around, and was unsettled to see many others expressing agreement too. Of course, Kona was well known. Loved and respected. He’d led these people, or their ancestors, through the most harrowing times of their history. Most would be willing to trust his judgment. But not all.

“Four centuries of patience?” someone called out in an angry voice.

From Urban, that cynical smile. “Literally, we ran into problems.”

He told them of the lost outriders and the ensuing resource shortage. “We couldn’t rebuild the outriders and complete the gee deck. Not until we made up our margins. The most efficient way to do that was to go hunting. To find another Chenzeme courser, lure it in, disable it, and take from it what we needed—and that’s what we did.”

A murmur of disbelief, of trepidation. Pasha’s heart raced, half in anger because he had to be lying—it would be madness to seek out a Chenzeme warship—and half in fear that he was mad enough to truly do such a thing.

“And here we are,” someone said in a bold voice balanced between amusement and anger.

Pasha leaned forward and looked down the row to see that it was Shoran, standing up from a seat near the end.

Shoran gestured at the sunlit garden beyond the pergola’s shade. “Here we are, surprisingly alive, on a beautiful deck that appears fully finished. I surmise we had the misfortune to sleep through a grand adventure?”

Urban looked puzzled, as if uncertain of Shoran’s deeper meaning. “Sooth,” he agreed. “It’s done.”

Pasha heard murmurs of relief:

Glad I wasn’t awake for that.

I would have died of fright.

“No, Shoran is right,” she muttered. “I would rather have been awake. It’s better to die aware.”

Tarnya turned a sympathetic gaze her way, but said nothing as questions erupted:

How was it done?

What damage was incurred?

Urban assured them, “The full history is in the library, and summaries have been prepared for you. You’ll be adopted by the network in the next several seconds and then you can review it all for yourselves.”

He looked to the side where Clemantine stood. She nodded as if to tell him to go ahead.

“Welcome to Dragon,” he said. “You each have your own reasons for being here, but one reason I hope we all share is an abiding curiosity about what happened to our ancestral worlds and what survives there now. We’re still a century of travel time from the closest star of the Hallowed Vasties, but we’ve already found our first artifact—and our first puzzle. I sent an outrider to investigate. It’s stealthed, so we can’t track its progress and we won’t get a report until it’s back in range—another ninety days or so—time enough for you to catch up on our history.”

He jumped down from the dais, putting an end to his speech just as Pasha’s atrium linked her into the ship’s network. Oh, she admired the strategy. She had gotten only halfway out of her seat when she sank back down, her resolve to confront him yielding to curiosity. What artifact had been found? And where exactly were they going, and why?

Without leaving her seat, she pulled up the summary reports Urban had mentioned and began to read.