Линда Нагата - Edges

Brave indeed, and clever.

Also dangerous.

Your greatest fear: that they will destroy this starship—destroy themselves—to destroy you. Certainly nothing short of that will unseat you.

But it does not have to go that way. These are an adaptable people. They have learned to live with the ancient regime. They can learn to live with you.

Kona messaged the ship’s company. He asked everyone to gather in the amphitheater.

At the appointed time, they filed in from the starlit darkness of ship’s night. Worried faces turned his way as he waited on the dais. Resentful faces, too. The wonder of what they were doing had made it easy to overlook the risk, but the risk had always been real. No one could be confused on that point any longer.

*All are present , a DI informed him.

Even Urban was in attendance. Kona had messaged him privately, *You will come. I need you to be there and you need to be visible.

Of course he’d protested: *I don’t see the purpose of this. What are you going to tell them? They already know what happened. They watched the logs, just like you did.

*Yes , Kona had agreed. *They know what happened. But I want them to understand it in a way that leaves room for hope. I want them united and focused on finding a means to survive.

So Urban was with him, a shadow among shadows standing on the side of the dais.

Kona waited while people took their seats, murmuring assurances to one another. No panic so far, but only a few here had ever faced an existential threat. He noted Vytet at the end of the first row. Clemantine in the middle, in front of him, her fiery glare reserved for Urban. Pasha beside her, arms crossed, grim. He searched for Shoran and found her standing in the back. She noticed his regard and gave him a supportive nod. Tarnya was with her.

People settled, eyes turned to him, and he began, saying, “Thank you for coming. I think we can all agree that what happened today is a disaster. It’s a threat to our future. But we should also agree that we are nowhere close to being defeated.”

He gestured at the night outside. “Look around! If we weren’t so damn well-informed, this night would be no different from any other.”

“Not true!” Shoran called from the back. “It’s a lot quieter out there! Kind of pleasant.”

This earned scattered chuckles. Laughter on a cliff’s edge. A good sign.

“The essential point,” Kona said, “is that despite the excitement of the day, we are not in immediate danger. The containment capsule is quiescent. The infestation has not spread. The only foreign tissue we’ve found outside the capsule is inert—harmless molecular fragments, but potential treasure that might provide clues to help us develop countermeasures. As strange as it may sound, we are okay , for now, and we are insured against the future. We all have copies of our ghosts archived aboard Griffin . Regardless of what happens here, we will go on.”

Clemantine leaned forward in her seat. “Abandoning Dragon is not an acceptable option,” she said in a clipped voice that carried easily. “We’ve made a home here. Finally. After nearly four centuries—and I am not willing to give it up.”

Clemantine had been a refugee once—she and Vytet and Kona together. All three of them driven from their home by the Chenzeme—an ancient trauma now re-surfacing with this new threat. Kona, too, recalled clearly the horrors of that age, the long, dangerous, rootless years, the gamble they’d undertaken settling at Deception Well.

She continued, “If we can’t control this thing, then we have to burn it out.” Her gaze shifted back to Urban. “Regardless of the damage, and rebuild from what’s left.”

Urban looked at her, arms crossed, eyes glaring. “Love to. But it’s too late for that.”

“It’s true,” Vytet said, her tall figure unfolding as she stood up from her seat. “The infestation is too widespread. While we believe the containment capsule remains the point of primary activity, the entity has rooted itself into the ship’s systems, and those roots are a big problem. We might be able to expel the capsule, but we can’t burn those roots without losing essential systems, perhaps irreplaceable systems. And if we leave them, it’s likely the fragments will start a new infestation growing, one that might be more aggressive than what we’re faced with now.”

Vytet spoke in a patient voice that she probably meant to be soothing, but it came off as patronizing, and Clemantine reacted, rising to her feet. “That’s why we have to burn out all of it, regardless of the damage.” She turned to Kona. “We cannot let this thing defeat us. We cannot let it turn us out, turn us into refugees again.”

He held his hands up, palms out, asking for patience. “This is different from what happened to us at Heyertori. When the Chenzeme struck us, our world died. We lost nearly everyone we’d ever known or loved. But as we stand here tonight, no one has been hurt. Nothing has been lost—”

“Except our sovereignty,” Urban interrupted.

Kona drew a breath, striving for patience.

“Except our sovereignty,” he acknowledged.

He waited while Clemantine took her seat again. Then he said, “It’s true. We are living with an existential threat in our midst, at the mercy of a greater power. But we are alive, and not defeated. We are not going to allow ourselves to be defeated.

“Gathered here tonight are some of the best minds ever to come out of Deception Well. I ask that all of you come together, consult with Urban’s ghost army of experts, and explore every possible option regardless how far afield. Is there a way that we can make this work? Can we go on without abandoning Dragon ?”

“You mean learn to live with it?” someone asked in a thoughtful tone. A raised hand in a middle row let Kona identify the speaker as Naresh.

Clemantine twisted around as if to rebut this, but Riffan spoke first, rising out of obscurity from a seat near one end of the third row. “ Yes . Maybe that’s what we will have to do,” he said in a quiet, conciliatory voice. “Let’s remember this ship is already a collection of many diverse lifeforms. Perhaps we might find a compromise and learn to live with this one too.”

“You mean if it leaves us no choice?” This objection came from Alkimbra, who sounded as angry as Clemantine.

Shoran answered this in a calm but powerful voice. “Our choices are certainly limited. Keep in mind that we cannot physically abandon this ship. A ghost on Griffin will not save this version of me or that version of you. Either we learn to beat this thing or we learn to live with it. Those are the only options for these avatars aboard Dragon .”

Alkimbra rose to face her. The historian was not a tall man, but his rough-hewn features and his heavy eyebrows, drawn together in a scowl, lent a fierce emphasis to his words. “We cannot be afraid to start again! We must not hesitate to do so. Our resources have already been defeated twice by this thing. It’s obvious that Griffin is our best, our only, option. We should close off all contact between the two ships before—”

“No!” Naresh interrupted, and he too stood. “Riffan is right. We are all here on a voyage of discovery. What does it say of our resolve if we respond to this first encounter by running away? Far better to find a compromise with this entity. Remember, at the start, it offered to cooperate—”

“It defeated our best Makers!” Alkimbra reminded him. “Twice! If we live with it, we live at its mercy.”