by Linda Nagata
Pasha had spent years on the planet, studying the weave of lifeforms there. The posting to Long Watch had let her extend her research to the microscopic life existing within the nebula—the so-called gnomes and governors—biomachines whose activities maintained the nebula and drove its defensive functions. She could see herself continuing that research for years to come, either aboard Long Watch or remotely, from her apartment in the city of Silk. And she might have been content with that, if Urban had not come.
From the short time she’d spent reviewing the summaries of the Null Boundary Expedition, she knew it had been wonderfully successful. Lifeforms had been discovered in varieties never before seen in known history, and stranger than she’d ever thought could be. The cleverness and adaptability of life fascinated her and forced the question: What else might there be to discover?
Her thoughts turned to the Hallowed Vasties. Surely some form of life remained there, re-forged in the cataclysms that had washed over the once-cordoned stars. That version of herself that would go with Urban, would have the chance to discover what was left.
She was fiercely determined to go.
She had never thought an opportunity would come to leave Deception Well. All past proposals to outfit a starship had been rejected by the council, but now her prospects were utterly changed. Such luck to be here aboard Long Watch! To have this chance.
She only feared to be that version of herself that stayed behind.
And I am that version.
This consciousness—me—the mind thinking these thoughts aboard Long Watch, who was herself, Pasha Andern. She was trapped here. It was only a copy of herself who would go as a ghost to Dragon while she stayed behind . . . unless she chose not to stay at all, to leave no copy of herself behind.
Could she, in good conscience, make such a decision?
“Why not?” she growled aloud.
She had no spouse, no devoted lover. Her parents were alive and active, but she rarely saw either them or her thirteen siblings who all lived on the planet with families of their own.
Pasha was the loner of her parents’ brood.
It was not that she was deficient in social skills, or that she didn’t like people. She did. She enjoyed the company of others; she had many friendships. She just tended to get distracted by her work, and she didn’t have the same need for close companionship that drove so many others. Her family was used to her disappearing from their lives for years at a time. Pasha did not think her absence would leave many scars.
But if she stayed? She imagined herself growing bitter, always wishing she’d been the one to go. She didn’t want that.
So she composed another group message, this one addressed to her family. She embroidered an explanation to soften the blow, but at its core her message said, I will leave an archived copy of myself in the city library against some extraordinary circumstance, but please do not petition to wake it up. My true self is now bound for the Hallowed Vasties.
<><><>
Urban passed the hours with Clemantine in sweet indolence and quiet conversation. She told him of her return to Deception Well. He told her of some of the things he’d seen after she’d left the Null Boundary Expedition and what he’d learned of the Chenzeme.
None of the hard details. Nothing on the people they’d both known and loved.
“It’s there in the library files,” he reminded her. And with a sly smile he asked, “Do you still think I’m a trick of the Chenzeme?”
She shrugged, beautifully, naked again, afloat and in indulgent ease within the little quarantine chamber. “When my ghost returns I’ll know the truth.”
He reached for her. She rolled against him. Another long kiss. “Not tired yet?” she asked, and he laughed.
They passed the time entangled in body and mind until Urban succumbed to sweet fatigue and vague dreams.
Sometime later, she roused him, her husky voice soft in his ear. “Wake up, son. Get dressed. We’re going to break quarantine.”
“What?” he asked groggily. “Why?”
She gathered loose clothing left to drift in their little chamber. Some of it hers, some assembled for him.
She pulled a shirt on, saying, “Kona’s here. He’s come to see you.”
A frisson of shock. “He’s still awake? Still aware?”
She shrugged, reaching to pull on gray leggings. “He might have been in cold sleep, but he’d wake up for this. I did.”
Ancient guilt, resurfacing. “I wanted to see him,” Urban confessed.
“Did you?”
“Yes. I didn’t expect to.” They had not parted on good terms.
“Get dressed,” Clemantine repeated as the chamber expanded in size.
Urban obeyed, scrambling to pull on snug-fitting trousers and a long-sleeved shirt, heart racing, dreading this reunion would not go well.
A subtle air current warned him. He turned, to see a doorway retracting open, a still-familiar figure on the other side.
Clemantine spoke first, as if to ease the awkwardness of this encounter. “Hello, Kona,” she said. “I wondered if you’d come.”
He came in, but no farther than he needed to. He arrested his glide as soon as he cleared the door, revealing Pasha’s slight figure behind him, and Riffan, looming protectively at her side. Both entered cautiously now that quarantine was broken.
Urban spared them only a quick glance before his gaze returned to Kona. He shared his father’s dark complexion. Kona’s eyes were dark too, his gaze as intense and intimidating as Urban remembered it. He had used to wear his black hair in a thick mass of tiny braids tied loosely together behind his neck, but this avatar had close-cropped hair, as Urban did. It made them look very much alike, though Kona’s face and his features were broader, his body more muscular, his disposition far more stern.
Urban’s taut smile was met by a stony gaze. The weight of centuries between them.
In a gruff voice Kona acknowledged what he must see as a most unlikely circumstance: “You lived.”
“I thrived,” Urban corrected—and immediately regretted the childish defiance in his voice. So much time had gone by. So much had changed. What could be gained by holding on to old animosities? He glided closer. “It’s good to see you, Dad. I’m glad you came.”
<><><>
They talked.
Kona was proud to recount the history of Deception Well since Urban had left. Like Clemantine, he was part of the founding generation, born in another age, on another world, a witness to the brutal murder of that world by the Chenzeme’s robotic warships. He’d made it his task, his duty, to ensure the survival of his people. He’d led them through all the harrowing early years at Deception Well, re-elected time and again as council chair.
But no more.
“I stepped down after the warships were built,” he told Urban. “And I started passing the years in cold sleep.” A knowing glance at Clemantine. “I woke every ten years to check on things—and I instructed a DI to wake me at any news of an outside threat. Are you a threat?”
Urban answered this with a half-smile, acknowledging the implicit menace of Dragon’s presence. “Not to anyone here,” he said. “You know I’m not coming in-system? This is just a fly-by, trading information.”
“I’ve been told.” Kona hesitated then, seeming doubtful, uncertain. “This Chenzeme courser . . .” He trailed off, leaving the sentence unfinished.
What had he meant to say? Was it a question? A judgment? Maybe a plea for confirmation. “It’s all true,” Urban said. “It is a Chenzeme courser, and it’s mine.”
Kona sighed. His demeanor softened. “Urban, that’s astonishing. It’s an incredible triumph. It’s something that’s never been done before, not in any history we know. The knowledge you’ve gained—you must have mapped every vulnerability in that ship, learned to hack its communications. This could be a turning point in our self-defense strategy.”
“I hope so,” Urban said, his cheeks warm, thinking that all of this so
unded like rare praise. It was good to hear, and he responded to it with enthusiasm. “All the details on how we did it, everything I’ve learned about the ship, are included in the files I transferred. The molecular libraries are complete. With that information you can modify Long Watch and take it out hunting for a Chenzeme courser.”
Shocked silence met this proposition, followed by curt laughter from Kona, who interpreted it as a joke, and a simultaneous silent protest from Clemantine, *You’re not serious?
Urban shrugged. No need to frighten anyone. Not now.
Hiding behind an apologetic smile, he deftly shifted the conversation to his plans for the journey to come. He spoke with passion, he spoke from the heart, only gradually realizing he was seeking Kona’s approval, striving to win that nod of assent he had never gotten when he left on the Null Boundary Expedition.
The thought silenced him. Engendered a thread of anger. Some things never change. But that was wrong. It was a child’s complaint. Given time, everything changed. Growing up, he’d only ever thought of Kona as a stern parent. He’d never really known him as a person, and after today he never would, unless . . .
“You could come with me,” he said.
As soon as the words were out, he wondered if it was a mistake. A raised eyebrow from Clemantine suggested it might be. Through his atrium she asked, *You sure that’s a good idea?
It was true that growing up, he’d chafed under his father’s authority—but that was a long time ago.
*I was a kid then, Urban reminded her.
Did she roll her eyes?
“You should come,” he insisted aloud to Kona.
It felt suddenly critical to grasp this chance to know the man who had given him life, this man who had devoted his life to securing a future for his people. Urban could see now that as a kid he’d resented Kona’s devotion to duty, and on some level he must have feared being trapped in a similar role.
A thousand years allowed for a hell of a perspective.
He said to Kona, “All your life, everything you’ve done has been out of duty, to see that our people survived. Maybe it’s time for a change. This voyage is not about survival. It’s a quest for knowledge. Who knows what we’ll find? Aren’t you curious?”
“The council has consistently voted against an expedition like this,” Kona told him.
“Of course they have,” Urban said dismissively.
The people of Silk were conservative, cautious—especially the founding generation, which included both Kona and Clemantine. That wasn’t a bad thing. A stable culture had helped them to survive in a dangerous world. But Urban had festered in Silk, too restless and reckless to ever really belong. “The council doesn’t have a say in it this time.”
Riffan spoke in a tentative tone, reminding them of his presence. “I had been hoping to persuade the council to reconsider, although I admit it didn’t seem likely.”
This proved to be a wrong turn in the conversation. Kona’s gaze hardened. His hand sliced the air in a gesture that took in Riffan, Pasha, Clemantine, but mostly Urban. “So you’ve dismissed their concerns and taken it on yourself—”
“Yes, I have,” Urban interrupted. “And I’ll be gone in a few hours.”
“Do you really believe your control of the courser is absolute?”
“You don’t need to worry about that.”
“Of course I need to worry about it,” Kona said. “If it’s mapped our existence here, if it’s designated us as a future target—”
“No,” Urban said. He thrust his hand out, gesturing toward the faraway courser. “I’m there now, monitoring and directing the ship’s mind. I won’t let it draw a conclusion like that.”
“Your control is that refined?”
“Yes.”
“Then why haven’t you taken it over completely? Phased out the Chenzeme aspects? Evolved the ship to be a purely human thing?”
Purely human.
Ancestral human.
Such things were important to Kona. Urban had let himself forget that. Now that he was reminded, he felt himself regressing into familiar patterns, taunting the old man. “I could do that, but then I’d make myself a target for other Chenzeme ships.”
“It’s camouflage, then?” Kona asked.
“It’s an adaptation. A hybrid existence. The purely human won’t survive out there. If you want to come with me, you need to accept that. You need to be willing to adapt.” He tapped his own chest. “This is me, but this one persona wasn’t enough to ensure survival, so I created a staff of assistant personalities based on me.”
“Sentient assistants?” Kona asked suspiciously.
“Yes. My Apparatchiks are sentient and self-aware, but they’re artificial. Not human. I still trust them to make decisions, to do what needs to be done.”
Kona glanced at Riffan and Pasha, at Clemantine. “And if those needs conflict with the freedoms or even the existences of your companions on this voyage? Whose need takes priority?”
Urban’s brows knit. He shook his head. “That’s not realistic. Not given the resources I can command.”
“But what will the status of your companions be?” Kona pressed. “Will they have a choice of where you go? What you risk?”
Urban aimed a resentful gaze at Riffan, whose request to accompany the expedition had initiated this kind of complication. “I’ve laid out my goal,” Urban said. “The details can be worked out on the way.”
This wasn’t enough for Kona. “You are the master of the ship,” he pressed. “Every decision is ultimately yours.”
“Sooth,” Urban conceded. This was true and he meant it to stay that way.
Clemantine spoke as a mediator. “This is no different from our situation on the Null Boundary expedition,” she reminded them. “Like then, we’ll work to achieve consensus.”
Pasha waded in. “The voyage is a risk. Every voyage is. No one denies that.”
“Agreed,” Kona said. “But it’s the nature of that risk that should be made clear.” He looked again at Urban. “I want it understood that you are not as human as you appear. You are the ship, aren’t you? You or some version of you, melded with the courser’s Chenzeme mind and affected by it. Who knows what’s changed with you in the centuries you’ve been locked up with that monstrous intelligence?”
“I know,” Urban answered. “I know who I was, who I am, and I know what I will never allow myself to be.” He let himself drift a little closer to Kona, their gazes locked. He said, “You’re not actually arguing with me, are you? You’re arguing with yourself, looking for some reason to stay behind, like it’s your duty to stay here. But you don’t have to stay. You’ve done your part. If you’re bored with your existence here, admit it, dissolve whatever husks you have, and move on.”
Clemantine’s brows rose. “It’s one thing to send a ghost, but you’re suggesting Kona should abandon the Well? Leave our people? Leave nothing behind? That’s not something he would ever—”
“No,” Kona interrupted her. A brusque syllable. “Urban knows what he’s saying. I won’t split my existence. It’s all or nothing.”
Urban sensed imminent victory. He might come to regret this victory, but what the hell. If he could tear the old man loose from his past, from a duty that had weighed on him with the gravity of a dark star but that he’d carried anyway, carried for centuries, and set him instead on a new and hopeful venture—it would be worth it. “So you’re coming?” he pressed.
Kona’s expression remained stern, but after a few seconds he conceded with a nod. “I’ve lived this same life too long. It’s time to begin again.”
<><><>
Kona withdrew to spend his final hours arranging his affairs and writing missives to explain his decision and to lay out his last thoughts on the possible futures of Deception Well.
Pasha and Riffan had their own concerns, so Urban and Clemantine were left alone as time wound down.
Urban still had no network access to Long Watch, but the data gate
that linked him to his chain of outriders remained open. Subminds started to arrive through it—partial personas, derived from ghosts but requiring far less data to define them—finally completing the hours-long journey from Dragon.
Some of the subminds belonged to Urban, some to Clemantine. They brought memories from their ghosts aboard Dragon, so Urban knew the status of the ship and of Clemantine’s reaction to it.
He grinned, knowing he had won her over. “You’ve seen it all now,” he said to her. “You know it’s real.”
She nodded, not answering at first. To his dismay, he saw apprehension in this version of her. Rising fear, now that the moment had come. He worried she would change her mind, that she would delete her ghost from Dragon, leaving him alone again—but she extinguished that doubt, saying, “All right. Let’s do this. I’ll pass the access code to Pasha. You and I, with these final memories, can go on ahead.”
<><><>
Ghost patterns required vast complexes of data. Their transfer took time.
Urban departed first. He left his husk unconscious, with disintegration processes underway to ensure no one could revive that version of himself against his wishes.
Clemantine watched his consciousness leave his body, and then the swift decay process that followed, beginning with a clouding and then a blackening of the eyes. The sight disturbed her enough that she turned away.
Urban had not always regarded his physical self as something disposable. This was a new aspect of him. It troubled her how easily he had abandoned this incarnation of himself.
Still, there was no other way to reach the courser.
She drew a deep breath, preparing herself. The ghost she’d sent to inspect Dragon remained there, but its experiences had returned to her through the arriving subminds and were now integrated. She possessed a memory of visiting the ship and of affirming everything Urban had told her. She looked forward to her return—but she was despondent too.
All or nothing, Kona had said. Clemantine felt the truth of it.