Edges

by Linda Nagata

  The arrival of a submind from that version of her on Dragon’s high bridge made it clear how close she’d come to annihilation. When Griffin had fired its steerage jets, seeking an angle that would let it target Dragon, Urban had been prepared to fire first. A few more seconds and he would have had no choice.

  But the Bio-mechanic refused any responsibility for this close call, informing her, *The number of connections available to you was a matter of chance, dependent on the quantity of needles that got through. The number was sufficient, or we would not be here now.

  *We’re here now only because I refused to lose the argument.

  She wasn’t sure victory was something to celebrate. The violent, hateful contempt of the cell field would be with her always now, her will constantly engaged to guide and dominate the argument. A foot forever on the throat of a murderer. Urban’s words. Despite the time she’d spent on Dragon’s bridge, she felt the truth of them only now.

  The malice that circulated among Griffin’s philosopher cells far surpassed what she’d known aboard Dragon—whether because Urban’s presence had filtered the intensity or because Dragon had mellowed after centuries locked under his influence, she didn’t know.

  She had brought Griffin under control, but she felt changed by the effort. Colder. More stern and unforgiving. Not entirely herself anymore. Tainted by the merciless contempt of the Chenzeme.

  A second submind arrived from across the expanding gulf that separated her from Dragon. It brought her memories from all three of the aspects she’d left behind. From her ghost in the library, a vision of the two coursers: Griffin bright with its luminous hull and Dragon still dark. That ghost had rejoined her core self in the forest room. Kona, Riffan, and Vytet were there too, with a victory celebration underway, while on the high bridge, she asked Urban:

  When will you waken the hull cells?

  When your hold on Griffin is stronger.

  All of it, dreamlike. A mirrored existence that did not feel real to her. A lost world, yet more important to her than the ugly dimension she occupied.

  A dream that made her reality endurable.

  She set Griffin’s course to run parallel to Dragon, a hundred kilometers between them, while the Bio-mechanic and the Engineer worked to map the ship’s interior and inventory its internal storage.

  Another submind arrived, bringing her memories of that other world that was no longer her world, that she could only know now through memories—and in those memories she questioned herself: What is going on over there? Why haven’t I sent a submind back to Dragon? Why are my memories being passed in only one direction? What are you hiding?

  The truth, Clemantine wanted to say. She was hiding the truth.

  Our paths have branched.

  Her other self didn’t know that yet. She never would know it—not in the way I know it.

  But to silence these confused memories that demanded an explanation, she opened a channel to herself:

  *Hey.

  *What is going on? Her own voice answering, calm but sharp.

  *There will be no synchronization, she announced. *I am not going to send any subminds to you. Stay as you are and be the better version of us.

  Seconds of silence elapsed. When that other Clemantine spoke, it was not to argue, but only to gain insight. *Is it the toxin of the Chenzeme mind you’re protecting me from? Or is it the way you’ve changed yourself to endure it?

  The calm, rational tone of this response triggered a quiet pride that spilled across the cell field where it was interpreted as an affirmation of power:

 

 

  *It’s for both those reasons, she told her other self. *Going forward, we take separate paths. But keep sending me your subminds. Bind me to you in that way. Keep me human.

  *Sooth. I understand.

  <><><>

  The Bio-mechanic and the Engineer worked together to complete the conversion of the captured ship. They grew the computational strata to support a library and linked that library to the fleet. Cameras were added to the hull, and a radio antenna. They continued to expand the bridge, growing additional neural fibers so that Clemantine’s senses extended throughout the ship and her command of it was assured. And they initiated the growth of two new outriders.

  The Bio-mechanic had spent centuries studying Dragon’s internal systems and had long ago discovered a preexisting Chenzeme protocol used to create new coursers. He activated that protocol. Clemantine observed as the process unfolded.

  Step by step, over many days, matter was assembled and organized into the basic structure of two proto-ships that took shape within the reservoir of bio-mechanical tissue just beneath the hull cells. The heat of activity was a distraction to Clemantine, drawing her attention ever back to the dense and growing masses. She thought of them as parasites, feeding off of Griffin, weakening the ship as they grew stronger.

  She resented them, wanted to eject them from the body of the ship.

  – negate that! –

  Griffin had been seized for the purpose of growing these outriders. She forced herself to edit her animosity, but her animosity returned. Only slowly did she realize it came from the philosopher cells. That led her to discover a feedback loop. By Chenzeme standards, Griffin was too small to reproduce, so the cells resisted, pushing to eject the growth.

  *Interesting, the Bio-mechanic said, when she presented the problem to him. *Not an issue encountered with Dragon, given it’s always been a much larger ship.

  *Close the feedback loop, she told him.

  Afterward, she monitored the growth of the outriders with a sense of satisfaction, not resentment.

  <><><>

  A message from Urban: *You’re secure now.

  *Yes.

  *I’m going to wake Dragon’s philosopher cells.

  *Affirmative. We are allied Chenzeme.

  *We will be, he answered. *But Dragon’s philosopher cells were ready to fight when I put them under. They’ll come out the same way. I’ll suppress that, but expect Griffin to be provoked.

  *Understood. I’m ready.

  She watched across the hundred kilometer gulf as points of white light wakened on Dragon’s hull. Her own cells noticed it immediately and fell silent, watching the white glow expand in lacy channels that widened until all of Dragon’s hull was illuminated. To human eyes, the light appeared constant, but Griffin’s cells saw it as a pulsing communication. They reached swift consensus on its meaning:

 

  Clemantine blocked a counter threat, instead presenting an argument to initiate a process of negotiated alliance:

  – identify self/other: we are chenzeme –

  The argument was considered, tested, approved, and a tentative consensus achieved. Intricate patterns of light, generated throughout the process, allowed Dragon to follow the debate from across the gulf, and to understand its conclusion.

  Dragon accepted the argument, responding:

 

  A sense of victory flushed across the cell field, while Clemantine worked to define the relationship between the two ships: – we are allied chenzeme –

  The philosopher cells affirmed this argument:

  And Dragon, driven by Urban’s will, echoed it:

  Reassurances continued to be traded for hours, confirming the new status of the ships as paired coursers—instinctive behavior that allowed them to work together without trying to kill one another.

  <><><>

  The proto-ships continued to grow within Griffin’s hull. They achieved the mass of outriders. They would have continued growing into massive proto-coursers, but the Bio-mechanic interrupted the process.

  The assembly of the new outriders would be completed after they separated from Griffin. To achieve the separation, the Bio-mechanic hooked into the ship-building process again, near the end this time. A signal went out t
o the philosopher cells. It directed the field to split neatly above each proto-ship. Bio-mechanical motion pushed them free, imparting a slight momentum so that they drifted away from Griffin.

  They were given the names of their predecessors, Khonsu and Pytheas, as swarms of Makers under the Engineer’s direction set to work assembling their internal components.

  Behind them, Griffin’s hull sealed shut again and a long process commenced that would draw in, consolidate, and reorganize the courser’s interior to compensate for the loss of mass.

  Griffin had become a smaller ship.

  Small, but still toxic with malice, still deadly.

  *I am going to change that attitude, Clemantine told her other self.

  As time passed, she would strive to re-train the cells, to dilute their instinctive hate, their contempt. It was the only way she could conceive of enduring the years ahead.

  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.