Edges

by Linda Nagata

  Kona shouted in alarm. “Vytet!”

  Corruption and chaos! Why was it possible to step into a file? Was there a flaw in the library’s environment that allowed it? Could the data that was Vytet’s ghost be lost within the data of the files?

  No, he told himself. That was ridiculous. The library was surely designed to be used in such a way.

  Gathering his courage, Kona followed Vytet’s lead. He stepped into the file—

  And emerged into a circular room walled in stacks of horizontal files, much smaller than the files that had appeared on the path. Some were labeled with characters from writing systems Kona did not recognize, but most had labels he could read.

  Vytet was there, her face luminous with delight. “This interface is for browsing,” she concluded as she surveyed the stacks. “Look.”

  She touched a file with the label Planets. Immediately, it expanded into a doorway that led into a second room walled in more stacked files. She gestured at the room. “Through here, I suspect, we could begin to browse more deeply into the topic of planets. No doubt a chain of rooms will open depending on the specific query. A real planet? A fantasy planet? A gas giant? A terrestrial world?”

  But instead of entering, she tapped the side of the doorway. It reverted to its original configuration of stacked files. She brushed the stack, causing it to scroll up. Then she touched another file, seemingly at random. Kona saw that it was labeled Plants. The doorway opened again, but onto a different room, colored a different hue.

  “Plants,” Vytet mused. “Another vast topic. There must be tens of thousands of linked rooms beyond this starting point, no doubt cross-linked to many disciplines.”

  She closed the doorway again. “I could wander happily in here for ten thousand years!” She reached for another file.

  “Vytet,” Kona said, holding out a restraining hand. Urban had urged him to help Vytet feel at home, but clearly she was going to master this bizarre environment far faster than he. “Vytet, there will be time for all this. Right now, we’ve got a complex project to undertake, and we need your skills.”

  <><><>

  As the warren neared completion, Urban assembled resurrection pods in each of the four residential chambers. Soon after, he awoke, his newly grown body held close to the chamber’s curving wall, prevented from drifting in the absence of gravity by luminous white, warm ribbons of wall-weed.

  The flattened tendrils lined the entire chamber. Most were short, ten centimeters, their soft glow the only source of light. They swayed in concert: slow, beguiling patterns designed to stir the air as they absorbed pollutants and regenerated the oxygen content. For several seconds Urban made no move, content to watch the hypnotic motion, to breathe, to exist.

  The wall-weed, this chamber, his living breathing avatar—all roused in him a sense of wonder. When he’d hijacked the courser, he had not imagined a day would come when he could exist aboard it as a physical being. He had thought it impossible to establish a human outpost amid the hostile alien tissue—but time had extended his ambition. Now his plans, his hopes for the future, were becoming actualized, real at last.

  He stirred. The extended tendrils of wall-weed that held him sensed the intent in his muscles and retracted. He kicked free, brushing away the sticky remnants of his resurrection, grateful to be alive and even happier knowing this avatar’s existence would not need to end in some short time.

  A gap opened in the wall-weed, enough to allow clothing to bud from the wall’s generative surface. He dressed quickly and hauled himself through the chamber’s gel door, eager for company.

  <><><>

  In her virtual existence, Clemantine could tap the ship’s senses and perceive its mass, its relative motion, its ever-growing distance from Deception Well, its position among the stars—factors that assured her of the reality of her situation, as strange as that still seemed.

  But when she woke into physical existence, that reality felt tenuous. Nothing in her tiny residential chamber anchored her to a specific place or time. She might have been aboard Long Watch, or even back on the Null Boundary Expedition—and wasn’t either option more plausible than resurrection in a chamber stashed deep within the bio-mechanical tissue of a Chenzeme warship?

  She entertained the possibility that she was caught within a strange corrosive dream born out of want and madness and information decay. A head game that made her heart beat a little faster.

  Then her atrium connected to Dragon’s network. Immediately, she created a ghost and sent it to the library. That ghost sent a slow-pulse of subminds back to her, effectively linking her again to the ship’s senses, affirming the reality of her existence aboard Dragon. She sighed in relief and then messaged Urban: *You there?

  *Waiting for you, he answered with no perceptible delay.

  She dressed in the simple clothing and quiet colors she preferred, then hurried to join him, speeding down the empty passage outside her residential chamber. A U-shaped turn brought her to a common area she called the forest room.

  It was an expansive space, with room enough to play in, and nooks around its perimeter to contain cozier gatherings. “Up” was defined by a projection of a pergola entwined with a climbing camellia that became real wherever its branches descended; chips of bright blue sky glinted past dark glossy green leaves. “Down” was a floor of light-gray cushioned tiles imitating the look of sandstone, but with a soft texture. White panels rose halfway up the side walls—a visual cue to separate accessible space from the projection of a sunlit forest that lay beyond.

  Clemantine had engineered the forest room so that the brightness and angle of simulated sunlight coincided with ship’s time, now late afternoon. She was last to arrive, coming in just behind Kona. The relief of her renewed physical existence demanded contact so she touched his muscular shoulder. He turned to trade a quick hug.

  “Thank you for this,” he told her. “It’s beautiful. A welcome respite from the library.”

  “A work in progress,” she said.

  When Dragon began to accelerate, they would have a sense of gravity. Until then, they had to put up with zero gee. So why not try to enjoy it? She kicked off to join Urban and Vytet, who were already bouncing and tumbling in the open space beneath the pergola.

  Vytet had traded her ghost’s coverall for silky soft-brown pantaloons and a creamy tunic with deep pockets, a contrast to Urban who was, as always, dressed in snug trousers and a long-sleeved shirt, both in utilitarian dark gray.

  Happily, his mood was brighter than his clothing. He saw her coming and reached for a pendulous gray-barked camellia branch that snaked to meet his hand. The branch became rigid just long enough for him to pivot off it and launch himself toward her. They met in a whirling embrace. Traded a quick kiss before she pushed him away.

  “Go make me breakfast,” she ordered, baring her teeth in a fierce and playful grin. “I’m starving.”

  “Already done.” He twisted to kick off the ceiling. “I’ve ordered breakfast for everyone.”

  <><><>

  They gathered in a large nook on the side of the forest room. Distant birdsong could be heard past the soft rustle of wind in the canopy. The light shifted as clouds drifted past the face of a simulated sun. Bulbs of water and sweet juices budded from the ceiling, low-hanging fruit, ready to pick.

  Clemantine plucked a pink bulb. Sipped it as she hooked a foot through a stirrup. Guava, she decided—then pasted the bulb to a pedestal table, freeing her hands to accept a warm bun passed to her by Urban. She bit into it to find a spicy protein filling inside bread rich with calories.

  Calories were the cost of physical existence. Though they had retained the look of ancestral humans, internally they were highly evolved. Hosts of Makers inhabited their bodies, continuously repairing damage to their cells and protecting them from infestation—and consuming energy to do it. Their atriums burned calories too, at a terrific rate. So they were burdened with more demanding metabolisms than their ancestors, making frequ
ent large meals a necessity, and an important part of their social culture.

  Clemantine took another bite of the bun, relishing the taste of spice and fatty oil. “You were always good with a fabricator,” she told Urban, deliberately bumping up against him.

  “Hey!” he objected as water squirted from the bulb in his hand.

  A dart glided out of the forest, unfolding into orange and brown butterfly wings that swept forward to embrace the water globule, corralling the spill. The artificial creature released a jet of air that changed its trajectory, sending it to the pergola overhead where it shifted back to a virtual object, and then fluttered out of sight.

  “Nice,” Vytet said with admiration.

  “Butterfly tenders,” Clemantine told her. “I found the pattern in the library.”

  More buns emerged—an easy food to eat in zero gee—and fresh fruits in bite-sized pieces stacked in edible, transparent tubes. Colorful blocks of dense jellies too, packed with nutrients and calories.

  Clemantine could not resist playing with the butterflies that swooped among them. By blocking the slow-moving creatures from their task of gathering escaping crumbs, she could induce more butterflies to emerge. Urban joined in, the nook fluttered with wings, and for a few minutes, laughter prevented eating.

  “Let them do their job,” Kona urged at last.

  “All right,” Clemantine conceded.

  She grabbed another bun, just one more.

  The air cleared. The last few butterflies fluttered away, their mass reabsorbed by the walls as they transited to virtual creatures.

  Clemantine closed her eyes, allowing herself a sigh of contentment.

  It turned out Urban was not familiar with such a benign emotion. He touched her shoulder. Asked, “Are you all right?”

  She opened her eyes again. “I’m good, thank you. No, I’m good thanks to you. Thank you for not forgetting me.”

  He grinned. “Forget you? How could I? Anyway, I knew you’d be missing me.”

  “Smart ass.”

  Vytet raised her arms in an extravagant stretch that emphasized her height and the thinness of her body. “Ah,” she sighed. “It feels good to be real, to exist in this space. I admire the efficiencies of a virtual existence, but I also love being alive.”

  “Sooth,” Kona agreed. “This is a good first step. Still a lot of planning and assembly to do.”

  “A lot of people to get out of the archive,” Clemantine added. “I think we should start. There’s room. This warren was designed to accommodate twelve.”

  Silence, extending across awkward seconds. Frowning, she turned to Urban to find a distracted look on his face as if he’d checked out of the conversation, checked into some other reality. Vytet looked uneasy, twirling the translucent blue shell of an empty bulb in the air.

  Only Kona met her gaze. “I want to do the right thing too,” he rumbled. “But we can’t wake everyone. So how do we choose who to wake? And how do we explain that choice later, to those who weren’t chosen? We’d create a situation in which some are seen as privileged over others.”

  Clemantine reached out and caught the twirling bulb, annoyed at its carefree motion. “That’s an easy problem to fix. We’ll rotate. Each of us returns to cold sleep after an allotted time, with the choice to continue as a ghost in the library.” She shoved the bulb against the wall, where it was swiftly absorbed.

  “That’s not going to work,” Urban said quietly, his gaze still unfocused as if he was somewhere else. “Right now, the library doesn’t have the capacity to support a high-res existence for everyone. The computational strata are being expanded, but—”

  “But it will take time,” Clemantine interrupted, anticipating what he would say because she’d heard it so many times already. “Just like everything else.”

  “Yes,” Urban agreed. “This is no easy thing.”

  She wrestled her temper down. He was trying. She could not deny it. He was doing what he could, given the unexpected number of recruits. But it was crushing to know the archived ghosts would not even have the choice of a virtual existence.

  Moderating her tone, she said, “We could still rotate. Take turns here and in the library. Let people participate in the life of the ship, in the decisions that will need to be made.”

  “And if someone refuses to return to cold sleep?” Kona asked her. “If people begin waking out of turn? Once they’re given agency, they’ll be able to do what they want.”

  “No,” Urban said, his focus finally returning to the discussion. “I can enforce any restriction.”

  Vytet bit a thumbnail, looking worried.

  Kona asked, “At what cost? Deprive people of agency and you sow resentment, and dissension.”

  Vytet slid her thumbnail out from between her teeth. “We’re better than that,” she argued. “Every archived individual is fifth level. Rational and cooperative. They’ll grasp the necessity of rotation.”

  Clemantine sighed, feeling defeated. “I wish it was so,” she said to Vytet. “But we can’t be sure of that.” The idea of further delay vexed her. It was inherently unfair to keep people locked up and helpless in the archive. But Kona had a point.

  “I worked security for years,” she reminded them. “Even normal, rational, cooperative people behave in unpredictable ways in extreme circumstances.” She did not want to concede the argument. Still . . . “Waking in a cramped warren aboard an alien ship to face the consequences of a decision—made in haste—to leave behind loved ones and all that’s familiar, with no way out and no way back, is an extreme circumstance. Who knows how anyone will react?”

  Kona was a master politician; easy for him to cast his voice in a grim tone when he said, “All it would take to create a cascade of resentment is one person refusing to return to cold sleep.” He shot a hard look at Urban. “Whether you force the issue or not.”

  “I’ll do what’s needed,” Urban responded.

  It sounded like a warning. Clemantine heard it that way and felt a need to intervene. “We don’t want to reach that point.”

  “Agreed,” Kona said. “Our best path forward is to treat everyone equally.”

  Vytet’s fists were shoved deep into the pockets of her tunic. “It’s too late for that. You and Clemantine are exceptions because you were invited by Urban. But I came with the rest. And I’m the only one awake, the only one who can take part in this discussion. It isn’t fair.”

  “You’re right,” Kona told her. “It’s not fair, but it’s necessary, because you are the one I trust to design the gee deck.” His gaze shifted to Clemantine and then to Urban. “Let’s focus on that. Get the gee deck designed. Get it built. Then bring everyone out simultaneously into a comfortable environment, one they can begin to think of as home—and we’ll all be better off in the end.”

  Urban looked irritated and a little puzzled. “You understand it could take years to finish the gee deck?” he asked.

  “Years?” Clemantine echoed in disbelief.

  He looked at her, the intensity of his gaze reminding her of the Engineer. “If we encroach too quickly into Chenzeme territory, we risk igniting a molecular war.”

  She turned to Kona. “Years,” she said, the word feeling toxic in her mouth.

  Kona looked disgruntled. “That’s a disappointment,” he admitted. “But it doesn’t change the argument.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “No. I don’t. We’ll be centuries on this voyage. A few initial years invested in setting up our infrastructure won’t make any difference in the long run.”

  Logically, that was true. But it felt wrong. Clemantine looked around their small circle, still half-expecting someone else to voice an objection—but who would? Not Urban. He met her gaze with a stony, resentful stare. Vytet wouldn’t look at her at all: hands still deep in her pockets, shoulders hunched, gaze averted, body language that declared she’d removed herself from this decision.

  “Years,” Clemantine said once more, this time in resi
gnation.

  “It’ll be all right,” Kona said. “People will understand.”

  Clemantine raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  “It’ll be all right,” he said again.

  Chapter

  8

  Urban kept watch from the high bridge, cognizant of the grandeur around him: distant blue suns, furiously bright, illuminating nebulas light years across; the perfect repeating rhythm of pulsars; streamers of cold dust longer than he could transit in ten thousand years; the remote electromagnetic cacophony of star death at the galactic center.

  And always, he remained mindful of the nearest stars and of the ship’s precise position among them.

  Dragon had coasted as it left the vicinity of Deception Well, its velocity less than five percent light speed, allowing the fleet of outriders to catch up and then to move ahead into their customary formation: a long, staggered line around Dragon’s vector of travel. Khonsu was now closest, then Artemis, Lam Lha, Pytheas, and Elepaio, with Fortuna in the lead. Ninety light-minutes between each ship: a vanguard to warn him of hazards to come.

  Urban issued an advisory: *Five minutes until we commence acceleration.

  *Ready, Clemantine acknowledged. Kona and Vytet echoed her assurance.

  At the scheduled hour he directed the philosopher cells to accelerate. They fed the propulsion reef with pulses of fierce ultraviolet radiation, enough to stimulate activity across its surface.

  The reef was an aggregate entity, like a coral reef, made of billions of tiny cooperating organisms—polyps—layer upon layer of them, with those on the surface seeming most alive.

  The polyps functioned in a manner so utterly alien Urban speculated they had originated in some other Universe. Each was capable of synthesizing nanoscale particles of exotic matter from the zero point field—matter that decayed in an instant—but with a billion events per microsecond the cumulative effect was to tweak the structure of space-time. Not randomly.