Линда Нагата - Edges

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.