Линда Нагата - Edges

One of the circular plates has been lifted on a hinge, exposing an opening in the floor. This is where your footprints originate. You crouch at the edge and peer in.

Cold, cold air. And darkness. A silver ladder descends. You count the rungs you can see: fifteen. Despite the ladder, you’re sure this is not a shaft. Sparks and trails of light interrupt the otherwise velvet darkness below, suggesting a vast space. This, you know: It is an underground sea, but not filled with water. Another unsourced fact.

You descend the ladder. On the tenth rung your feet encounter a freezing gel. Drizzles of gel dart up your calves, circle your thighs, weave about your groin. You continue to descend, your skin puckering in the cold as the gel strands flow over your shoulders and veil your head. You give yourself up to it, releasing your grip on the ladder to subside into a gel ocean.

Tiny bright lights distract your mind as a slow current rolls your body. Consciousness fades… though as it goes you wonder if this dull state of mind you’ve been enduring even deserves the word.

A message from Clemantine forestalled panic when the walls of the isolation chamber contracted, cutting off the cameras and eliminating all sight and sound of what was happening in that space.

Her message said:

*Take no action. Give me time. Understood?

Too well understood. From his post on the bridge, Riffan glared at his workstation’s screen, cursing the banality, the triviality of sexual desire. Against the wonder of Urban’s return, his capture of a Chenzeme courser, the question of what he intended to do with that ship, of where he intended to take it… this tryst struck Riffan as both dull and dangerous. Clemantine had left him with an order to dissolve the chamber with herself in it if anything went wrong. But how was he to know?

Still, Riffan had done as she requested. He’d taken no action, using the time instead to send an army of DIs combing through the river of data that constituted the library Urban was transferring to Long Watch . Years would be needed to thoroughly analyze everything that library held. It was a task that would consume the working hours of hundreds of researchers and Riffan was certainly keen to learn of all that had been discovered among the star systems that lay swan of Deception Well.

And yet he was even more anxious to learn what Urban’s future plans might be.

Riffan had come to Long Watch to search for surviving human civilizations, new human migrations, or a renewal of life among the Hallowed Vasties. But the telescope time he’d earned with his service had turned up no evidence of any life at all beyond the protective nebula of Deception Well.

This did not mean his studies had been a waste of time. A negative result was still useful data. It was proof he’d done all that could be done from the vicinity of the Well.

He had not confessed his plans to anyone, but it was his intention, when his time aboard Long Watch was done, to present the results of his studies to the security council and to challenge them to take the next step.

The crux of the argument he would make:

If anyone remains alive out there, they are alive because they stayed hidden, and they will not be found unless we, the people of the Well, screw up our courage and venture forth from our refuge here on the frontier’s edge, to find them.

And now here was Urban, his presence testimony to the rewards of exploration.

An anxious sigh. A quick glance around the silent bridge confirming Pasha, Enzo, and Zira, all at their stations. They took no notice of him, enraptured as they were by the data from the new library posting to their screens.

Riffan turned back to his own screen, scanning the summaries gathered by a DI trained in information science. He found descriptions of terrifying encounters with robotic Chenzeme ships, of the discovery of great technologies eons old, of alien lifeforms devolved from sentience, of an encounter with a human settlement where none should be, and the conquest of the courser that Urban had named Dragon .

Life is long , he mused, full of strange twists and imbued with wonder . Urban had dared to venture swan , and by doing so he’d made discoveries that redefined human history. Riffan envied him that, and he regretted that he’d been born too late to be part of the Null Boundary Expedition.

A link flashed to life on his screen, interrupting these restless reflections. Anxious excitement shot through him as he realized the link was from Clemantine.

A sharp gesture of acceptance and her image coalesced on screen, a head-and-shoulders view. Urban drifted behind her. He eyed Riffan with an arrogant half-smile while Clemantine appeared breathless, on edge, a ruddy heat in her brown cheeks. In a softly matter-of-fact voice she told him, “Urban is bound for the Hallowed Vasties, to discover what is left there. I’m going with him. There’s nothing you need to do. No need to break quarantine. I’ve sent a ghost to confirm what he’s told me. I’ll stay where I am, here with Urban in the isolation chamber, until it returns. I can work from here, complete my survey of his library and gather the data we’ll need to take with us. Once we upload, you can dissolve this chamber and everything in it. No need to take any risks of inadvertent contamination.”

Riffan stared at her, stunned at this news, although he realized that on some level he’d been expecting it. “Truly?” he whispered past a dry throat. Jealousy burned in him. A bitter wonder. “The Hallowed Vasties?”

Misunderstanding the root of his shock, Clemantine sought to reassure him. “It will require an immense time to reach the Vasties. We understand that.”

“Yes. Yes, of course,” Riffan said, waving off any such concern as anxious words tumbled one after another. “Of course it will require time and it will be worth any amount of time that must be invested because the greatest mystery of our time, the unanswerable question of our age is: What happened? What happened to the Hallowed Vasties? And to answer this question we must venture beyond the sanctuary of the Well.”

What a fool he felt! He had meant to use his unsuccessful surveys to lobby for just such an expedition, one that would follow in reverse their ancestors’ migration route from Earth and yes . Yes, an expedition to the Hallowed Vasties would require an immense stretch of time. Centuries.

Given the distance and the risks it was unlikely anyone who signed on would ever return, but what did it matter? Those who wanted to go need not send their core selves. They could create avatars for the purpose. A version of themselves to stay, and one to go. The knowledge they gathered might be sent back to Deception Well in a series of robotic messenger ships propelled by the zero-point reef.

A grand project, truly. An inspirational project. A project Riffan had hoped to ignite and to take part in.

Others had lobbied for such a project in the past. The resources were within reach and there had never been a shortage of volunteers. But each time the idea had been proposed, the security council had withheld approval. Deception Well’s founding generation remembered too well the perils and fraught choices of the past. They feared such an expedition would draw the attention of the Chenzeme, and that the trajectory of such a starship would be mapped back to the Well.

Riffan had been resolved to try the idea again, he’d invested years in preparation, but now here was Urban, embarked on the voyage Riffan had dreamed of undertaking, asking no one’s permission. Seeking an answer to the unanswerable question.