Линда Нагата - Edges

*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 to 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.

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.