Линда Нагата - Edges

Pasha wasn’t naive. She knew this was how starships were traditionally organized, but a long-standing social covenant dictated that by accepting passengers, Urban had also accepted a responsibility to respect both the rights and the lives of those under his care.

Pasha needed him to remember that. “My understanding,” she said, speaking slowly as a hush fell across the gathering, “was that we would transfer to this ship and instantiate as ghosts. From that perspective, we would be able to oversee the growth of our own avatars and occupy them at our discretion.”

He met her glare with a resentful gaze. “There were complications,” he told her.

“Let’s all sit down,” Kona said from his post at the side of the dais. “We have a lot to go over.”

A rustling, as those who were standing took their seats again. Pasha felt a touch on her arm. Tarnya, standing a step behind her. Their gazes met. Worry lines etched Tarnya’s brow. “Let’s hear what he has to say,” she urged softly. “There has to be a reason.”

Behind her words, the unspoken entreaty: Be reasonable .

And of course Tarnya was right. Anger and outrage had their place, but neither could undo the past. Right now, Pasha needed to hear the facts. Everyone did.

A deep sigh as she worked to compose herself. Then a nod to Tarnya, and they both took their seats.

Urban stepped back to the center of the dais. His gaze moved across the gathering. “You,” he said to them, “all of you together, were the first complication we faced.” He swept his hand in a gesture that took in the gathering. “I invited two people. I accepted two others. Pasha recruited everyone else. There are now sixty-six people aboard Dragon . Far more than I was prepared for when we left the Well. But I rejected no one. I accepted every ghost that came through the gate.”

Pasha was caught off balance at finding herself singled out for criticism. Her cheeks burned. It was true she’d put out the word that the expedition was open for volunteers, but, “I didn’t exactly recruit,” she said defensively. “I just… let a few friends know about the opportunity.”

“And friends let friends know,” Tarnya whispered. “That’s how I found out.”

Riffan spoke from his position at one side of the gathering, sounding conciliatory when he said, “Urban, I think none of us suspected the enthusiasm this voyage would inspire.”

This drew from Urban a slight, cynical smile. “In my time, the people of Silk were quiet and cautious. I didn’t think I’d get ten volunteers.” He shrugged. “I should have remembered we’re all the restless descendants of frontier people.”

Pasha’s cheeks burned again, hearing these words as a grudging, condescending apology. Not all your fault, Pasha!

She gritted her teeth. She had acted precipitously, it was true. But she was here. So were the others. They were bound for the Hallowed Vasties and that was a victory. She could handle a little embarrassment.

Crossing her arms, she leaned in, listening to Urban’s explanation.

“ Dragon is a hybrid ship,” he told them. “A careful balance has to be maintained between its human and Chenzeme elements. That balance would have been thrown into conflict if we’d tried to immediately establish a habitat and life support for sixty-six people. Even the virtual environment of the library couldn’t handle that number—and we were wary of that approach anyway, since we knew most of you have never lived an exclusively virtual existence.”

He looked to Kona, who nodded his agreement, adding, “Self-determination is an intrinsic right, but it must sometimes yield, on a temporary basis, when safety demands it.”

Pasha leaned back, appreciating the challenge posed by their unexpected numbers, and the neat logic of Urban’s long-term solution—but she resented it anyway. Hard to overlook four absent centuries.

A question from one of the back rows: “Kona, were you active during this period?”

“I was, along with Vytet.” He gestured toward the bearded Founder whose name Pasha had not been able to recall. “We were both consulted and agreed to the course that was taken. Rather than courting disaster, we chose patience.”

Pasha noticed Tarnya nodding a tentative acceptance of this explanation. She looked around, and was unsettled to see many others expressing agreement too. Of course, Kona was well known. Loved and respected. He’d led these people, or their ancestors, through the most harrowing times of their history. Most would be willing to trust his judgment. But not all.

“ Four centuries of patience?” someone called out in an angry voice.

From Urban, that cynical smile. “Literally, we ran into problems.”

He told them of the lost outriders and the ensuing resource shortage. “We couldn’t rebuild the outriders and complete the gee deck. Not until we made up our margins. The most efficient way to do that was to go hunting. To find another Chenzeme courser, lure it in, disable it, and take from it what we needed—and that’s what we did.”

A murmur of disbelief, of trepidation. Pasha’s heart raced, half in anger because he had to be lying—it would be madness to seek out a Chenzeme warship—and half in fear that he was mad enough to truly do such a thing.

“And here we are,” someone said in a bold voice balanced between amusement and anger.

Pasha leaned forward and looked down the row to see that it was Shoran, standing up from a seat near the end.

Shoran gestured at the sunlit garden beyond the pergola’s shade. “Here we are, surprisingly alive, on a beautiful deck that appears fully finished. I surmise we had the misfortune to sleep through a grand adventure?”

Urban looked puzzled, as if uncertain of Shoran’s deeper meaning. “Sooth,” he agreed. “It’s done.”

Pasha heard murmurs of relief:

Glad I wasn’t awake for that.

I would have died of fright.

“No, Shoran is right,” she muttered. “I would rather have been awake. It’s better to die aware.”

Tarnya turned a sympathetic gaze her way, but said nothing as questions erupted:

How was it done?

What damage was incurred?

Urban assured them, “The full history is in the library, and summaries have been prepared for you. You’ll be adopted by the network in the next several seconds and then you can review it all for yourselves.”

He looked to the side where Clemantine stood. She nodded as if to tell him to go ahead.

“Welcome to Dragon ,” he said. “You each have your own reasons for being here, but one reason I hope we all share is an abiding curiosity about what happened to our ancestral worlds and what survives there now. We’re still a century of travel time from the closest star of the Hallowed Vasties, but we’ve already found our first artifact—and our first puzzle. I sent an outrider to investigate. It’s stealthed, so we can’t track its progress and we won’t get a report until it’s back in range—another ninety days or so—time enough for you to catch up on our history.”

He jumped down from the dais, putting an end to his speech just as Pasha’s atrium linked her into the ship’s network. Oh, she admired the strategy. She had gotten only halfway out of her seat when she sank back down, her resolve to confront him yielding to curiosity. What artifact had been found? And where exactly were they going, and why?

Without leaving her seat, she pulled up the summary reports Urban had mentioned and began to read.

“You did good,” Kona said, his voice pitched just loud enough to draw Urban’s gaze as he left the dais. “Now you should stay. Make yourself accessible. Answer questions.”