Edges

Chapter 30

“Thank you for coming,” Pasha said, ushering Clemantine into her cottage. “Please, have a seat.”

Clemantine eyed her warily but said nothing as she took one of the two white cushy chairs arranged alongside a garden window.

Pasha signaled privacy screens to close across the door and the windows, cutting off the view of the garden and all outside light.

Clemantine’s finely sculpted eyebrows rose to put a question mark over a steely gaze. “You’re working on a contingency plan?” she asked as Pasha sat down. “Some harsh means to rid us of the entity?”

The accuracy of this guess caught Pasha by surprise. She folded her hands in her lap to hide their sudden trembling. Her invitation had given nothing away. She’d merely said, I request your discretion, and a private meeting.

“Was I so transparent?” she asked in a subdued voice.

“I think we know each other’s views.”

Only in part. Clemantine had despised the entity from the beginning, but that did not mean she would agree to act outside the consensus of the ship’s company. Pasha had meant to feel her out on the topic, but now it was out in the open and she needed Clemantine, needed at least this one ally, so she confessed, “Yes, you’ve guessed correctly. I have a plan ready.”

Two days had passed since the entity’s brief appearance, with no sign of it since and no hint of activity at the containment capsule. The incident had generated heated discussions. Naresh and his allies imagined the entity cautiously testing the ship’s company—weighing their hostility, their rationality, their adaptability—evaluating whether they would make worthy allies.

Pasha’s grim opinion was different. She saw its behavior as seduction: It’s teasing, stoking our curiosity, hinting at rewards—‘we will help each other’—tactics to establish an emotional connection… and reduce the threat Griffin presents to its existence.

She looked for some hint of sympathetic interest in Clemantine’s eyes, but saw only stern reserve. She pushed on anyway, her heart tripping in shallow rhythm. “Griffin can deny this ship to the entity, but that is not the outcome we want. Instead—”

Clemantine cut in. “Instead, what we want is to extricate the entity from Dragon and eliminate it. You don’t need to convince me of that. I want that thing off this ship if we have to burn half our mass to do it.”

Pasha squeezed her hands together. Fear of what she was proposing reduced her voice to a soft monotone. “It would take only twenty-three percent of the ship’s mass… at most. That number comes from my own calculations. I’ve done a lot of work over the years.”

This won a slight nod from Clemantine. Go on.

Pasha said, “I’d like you to ask Griffin’s Engineer to check my work. Look for flaws, refine the design with an eye toward limiting the scale of damage. After that, it’s a matter of implementation.”

“Are you planning a unilateral shock attack?” Clemantine asked coldly.

“No. I have no plans to initiate an attack. I intend this as insurance. Something to have in reserve, ready to use, when this long truce finally breaks.”

“You think it’s inevitable?”

“Yes. But if I’m wrong, no harm done.”

“Assuming your preparations remain secret. If the entity suspects what you’re doing, it could kick off conflict.”

“Yes. Stealth is essential. That’s why I can’t seek consensus. It’s why I’m asking only you.” She added bitterly, “Naresh and his allies would never agree anyway.”

Clemantine said, “Urban would not agree.”

Pasha froze, her heart hammering, trying to read intent behind Clemantine’s stony expression—and failing. She sensed an imminent defeat.

But then Clemantine’s gaze softened. Worry creased her brow. She said, “Urban’s strategy all along has been to play for time, learn what we can, improve our position. But I think time is short. The entity will show itself again, and it will be welcomed by many. There may even be a consensus for alliance. But I can’t forget what it said to Urban.”

She quoted the entity’s words as recorded on video: “‘I will restore all my players and the world I made for them.’”

Her thin expressive eyebrows knit. “It has plans of its own that don’t involve us, except as a means to an end.”

Pasha drew a deep melancholy breath. “I think it’s worse than that. I think we are players, already caught up in a game devised by this thing.”

Clemantine considered this. After a few seconds, she said, “Send me your plan. I’ll ask Griffin’s Engineer to evaluate it. If this is a game, we need to be ready to change the rules.”

After several hours, they met again with the privacy screens sealed.

Clemantine looked grim as she took a seat. Pasha braced herself, expecting to hear of some fatal flaw in her carefully developed assault plan. Instead, Clemantine said, “Griffin’s Engineer agrees the strategy you’ve developed could work as intended.”

“Oh good! That is good… right?”

An uncertain shrug. “If Dragon survives. If we’re not left marooned and helpless, our reef destroyed and our rare elements all consumed.”

“Oh.” The assault would be ugly and traumatic. Pasha knew that. She’d run her own simulation. “We wouldn’t launch the process unless we had to. It’s insurance. A step short of calling on Griffin… and we’ll be able to seed a new reef from Griffin or one of the outriders.”

Clemantine said, “The news isn’t all positive. The Engineer did not believe the plan could be implemented in secret—and I think he’s right. The amount of materiel that will need to be synthesized and precisely placed…” She shook her head. “I don’t have the skill to direct an operation like that. I don’t think you do either.”

“No, you’re right,” Pasha said. “We’ll need help with that.”

“Urban won’t agree—”

Pasha waved this off. “I don’t think he could do it anyway. It’s the Bio-mechanic we need. I worked with him when I was studying the governors. He despises the entity and he’s half-mad with frustration that he’s never been able to match its defenses. Plus, he’s as ruthless as the Chenzeme. I think he’ll help us.”

Clemantine looked skeptical. “You think he’d take on a task this significant, this dangerous, and not tell Urban?”

“If he wants to beat the entity,” Pasha said. “And he does.”

“All right, then. Ask him.”

With Clemantine’s permission secured, Pasha went to the library where she summoned the Bio-mechanic to a private chamber.

He manifested with crossed arms, a curled lip, and a scornful glare.

Despite an extensive search through the vast complexes of the ship’s tissue, the Bio-mechanic had failed to discover where the entity’s avatar had been grown—a defeat that had left him in a caustic temper.

“Have you brought me another clever plan to work against our mutual enemy?” he asked in a voice toxic with sarcasm.

Pasha answered sweetly, “Yes, I have! And I think this one is within your reach.”