Her thoughts turned to the Hallowed Vasties. Surely some form of life remained there, re-forged in the cataclysms that had washed over the once-cordoned stars. That version of herself that would go with Urban, would have the chance to discover what was left.
She was fiercely determined to go.
She had never thought an opportunity would come to leave Deception Well. All past proposals to outfit a starship had been rejected by the council, but now her prospects were utterly changed. Such luck to be here aboard Long Watch! To have this chance.
She only feared to be that version of herself that stayed behind.
And I am that version.
This consciousness—me—the mind thinking these thoughts aboard Long Watch, who was herself, Pasha Andern. She was trapped here. It was only a copy of herself who would go as a ghost to Dragon while she stayed behind… unless she chose not to stay at all, to leave no copy of herself behind.
Could she, in good conscience, make such a decision?
“Why not?” she growled aloud.
She had no spouse, no devoted lover. Her parents were alive and active, but she rarely saw either them or her thirteen siblings who all lived on the planet with families of their own.
Pasha was the loner of her parents’ brood.
It was not that she was deficient in social skills, or that she didn’t like people. She did. She enjoyed the company of others; she had many friendships. She just tended to get distracted by her work, and she didn’t have the same need for close companionship that drove so many others. Her family was used to her disappearing from their lives for years at a time. Pasha did not think her absence would leave many scars.
But if she stayed? She imagined herself growing bitter, always wishing she’d been the one to go. She didn’t want that.
So she composed another group message, this one addressed to her family. She embroidered an explanation to soften the blow, but at its core her message said, I will leave an archived copy of myself in the city library against some extraordinary circumstance, but please do not petition to wake it up. My true self is now bound for the Hallowed Vasties.
Urban passed the hours with Clemantine in sweet indolence and quiet conversation. She told him of her return to Deception Well. He told her of some of the things he’d seen after she’d left the Null Boundary Expedition and what he’d learned of the Chenzeme.
None of the hard details. Nothing on the people they’d both known and loved.
“It’s there in the library files,” he reminded her. And with a sly smile he asked, “Do you still think I’m a trick of the Chenzeme?”
She shrugged, beautifully, naked again, afloat and in indulgent ease within the little quarantine chamber. “When my ghost returns I’ll know the truth.”
He reached for her. She rolled against him. Another long kiss. “Not tired yet?” she asked, and he laughed.
They passed the time entangled in body and mind until Urban succumbed to sweet fatigue and vague dreams.
Sometime later, she roused him, her husky voice soft in his ear. “Wake up, son. Get dressed. We’re going to break quarantine.”
“What?” he asked groggily. “Why?”
She gathered loose clothing left to drift in their little chamber. Some of it hers, some assembled for him.
She pulled a shirt on, saying, “Kona’s here. He’s come to see you.”
A frisson of shock. “He’s still awake? Still aware?”
She shrugged, reaching to pull on gray leggings. “He might have been in cold sleep, but he’d wake up for this. I did.”
Ancient guilt, resurfacing. “I wanted to see him,” Urban confessed.
“Did you?”
“Yes. I didn’t expect to.” They had not parted on good terms.
“Get dressed,” Clemantine repeated as the chamber expanded in size.
Urban obeyed, scrambling to pull on snug-fitting trousers and a long-sleeved shirt, heart racing, dreading this reunion would not go well.
A subtle air current warned him. He turned, to see a doorway retracting open, a still-familiar figure on the other side.
Clemantine spoke first, as if to ease the awkwardness of this encounter. “Hello, Kona,” she said. “I wondered if you’d come.”
He came in, but no farther than he needed to. He arrested his glide as soon as he cleared the door, revealing Pasha’s slight figure behind him, and Riffan, looming protectively at her side. Both entered cautiously now that quarantine was broken.
Urban spared them only a quick glance before his gaze returned to Kona. He shared his father’s dark complexion. Kona’s eyes were dark too, his gaze as intense and intimidating as Urban remembered it. He had used to wear his black hair in a thick mass of tiny braids tied loosely together behind his neck, but this avatar had close-cropped hair, as Urban did. It made them look very much alike, though Kona’s face and his features were broader, his body more muscular, his disposition far more stern.
Urban’s taut smile was met by a stony gaze. The weight of centuries between them.
In a gruff voice Kona acknowledged what he must see as a most unlikely circumstance: “You lived.”
“I thrived,” Urban corrected—and immediately regretted the childish defiance in his voice. So much time had gone by. So much had changed. What could be gained by holding on to old animosities? He glided closer. “It’s good to see you, Dad. I’m glad you came.”
They talked.
Kona was proud to recount the history of Deception Well since Urban had left. Like Clemantine, he was part of the founding generation, born in another age, on another world, a witness to the brutal murder of that world by the Chenzeme’s robotic warships. He’d made it his task, his duty, to ensure the survival of his people. He’d led them through all the harrowing early years at Deception Well, re-elected time and again as council chair.
But no more.
“I stepped down after the warships were built,” he told Urban. “And I started passing the years in cold sleep.” A knowing glance at Clemantine. “I woke every ten years to check on things—and I instructed a DI to wake me at any news of an outside threat. Are you a threat?”
Urban answered this with a half-smile, acknowledging the implicit menace of Dragon’s presence. “Not to anyone here,” he said. “You know I’m not coming in-system? This is just a fly-by, trading information.”
“I’ve been told.” Kona hesitated then, seeming doubtful, uncertain. “This Chenzeme courser…” He trailed off, leaving the sentence unfinished.
What had he meant to say? Was it a question? A judgment? Maybe a plea for confirmation. “It’s all true,” Urban said. “It is a Chenzeme courser, and it’s mine.”
Kona sighed. His demeanor softened. “Urban, that’s astonishing. It’s an incredible triumph. It’s something that’s never been done before, not in any history we know. The knowledge you’ve gained—you must have mapped every vulnerability in that ship, learned to hack its communications. This could be a turning point in our self-defense strategy.”
“I hope so,” Urban said, his cheeks warm, thinking that all of this sounded like rare praise. It was good to hear, and he responded to it with enthusiasm. “All the details on how we did it, everything I’ve learned about the ship, are included in the files I transferred. The molecular libraries are complete. With that information you can modify Long Watch and take it out hunting for a Chenzeme courser.”
Shocked silence met this proposition, followed by curt laughter from Kona, who interpreted it as a joke, and a simultaneous silent protest from Clemantine, *You’re not serious?