Their conceit derived from Urban’s personality, he understood that. Within the tailored personas of the Apparatchiks, conceit had become distilled and concentrated, just like the qualities that let them acquire and sustain their essential skills. Each one of them a specialist, sentient and self-aware but focused obsessively on their subjects of interest and incapable of distraction or boredom. They made for deeply irritating company but they were his crew and they supported him in his position and his ambition.
Turning to the Engineer, Clemantine spoke with exaggerated regard, “It’s clear to me now why you’re so good at what you do.”
“You’ll get bored with him,” Urban assured her. He gestured at the 3-D illustration. The actual warren was already under development, its initial growth phase begun hours earlier. “Let’s see how far we’ve gotten.”
The courser was, in some sense, a living thing—or more accurately, a mosaic of diverse lifeforms woven into one monstrous bio-mechanical organism. It had the shape of a long tapered cylinder. Deep in that cylinder’s core, banks of active tissue worked to sort and store vast quantities of material that could be extracted when needed and then recombined to build nearly anything. Around the core, and comprising the bulk of the ship, was a layer of bio-mechanical tissue interleaved with Chenzeme computational strata. Another computational layer, this one composed of millions of Chenzeme philosopher cells, wrapped the outer hull.
The philosopher cells glowed with white light. Each was effectively a tiny mechanistic mind, neither conscious nor self-aware but adaptable, capable of thought, containing memory, and perpetually engaged in simultaneous machine-sharp debates that ran in currents across the cell field. The cells formed alliances and gambled opinions, the links between them made and shattered a thousand times a second as they tested the validity of ideas and intentions, and negotiated consensus. Together the philosopher cells formed the mind of the ship, an intellectual machine specialized for the ruthless pursuit and destruction of lifeforms not of their kind—except that Urban controlled them now.
He’d hijacked the ship by introducing a parasitic neural system into its structure. A molecular war had ensued as an army of Chenzeme nanomachines attempted to defend against the invasion, but the Makers Urban brought with him had proved capable of more rapid adaptation. He’d swiftly come to dominate the ship’s Chenzeme mind.
His neural system had continued to expand, growing ever more intricate over centuries, reaching everywhere within the warship. He’d tested his control under demanding circumstances and concluded it was absolute—at least under the ship’s current configuration.
The warren growing within Dragon’s bio-mechanical tissue would change things. He’d never before tried to create a human-friendly inholding. The Engineer had consulted with the Bio-mechanic and they’d agreed it could be done and that for the first time, Urban could exist as a physical avatar aboard Dragon, alongside Clemantine and those volunteers, now inbound, who would comprise the ship’s company.
Still, Urban regarded the project as an experiment, one that must advance with great care.
The illustration of the completed warren refreshed to show current progress. The first stage was complete: An enveloping barrier wall now enclosed the site. The wall’s exterior was composed of Chenzeme tissue, with a neutral layer on the inside.
A barrier was essential. If human tissue mixed with Chenzeme, an immune response would be triggered, setting off a new molecular war.
Within the safety of that enclosed space, the warren was just beginning to take shape.
“A basic habitat to start with,” Clemantine said.
Urban nodded. “I want to work out if it’s possible to design a rotating deck, to give us at least a light simulated gravity. But there’s time.”
“Time is something we have in quantity,” she agreed, her words spiced with dark humor.
“Sooth.” A vast expanse of time stretching far ahead of Dragon.
A DI whispered to him that Clemantine’s newest ghost had arrived after the hours-long transit from Long Watch. He watched her face, watched anxiety and worry take over her expression as this new ghost joined its memories to hers. She gazed at him and then looked around, her shoulders slowly relaxing as her two timelines poured into this singular moment.
“So it’s done,” she said. “And here we are.” But whether she spoke in relief or resignation, he couldn’t tell.
“You’ve been busy,” he reminded her, nodding at the projection of the growing warren.
“Yes. We’ll make this work.”
“I hope so.”
She cocked her head. “Are you still worried about our inbound company?”
“Why shouldn’t I worry? These people of the Well—”
“They’re our people,” she reminded him.
He shrugged. “Maybe once. But they’re not like us. The people I grew up with never spent time as ghosts—unless things have changed?”
“No. I think that’s still the same.”
He gestured at the projection. “The warren isn’t ready yet. Even when this first phase is done, our living space is going to be small, cramped, dull. This is all an experiment. I can’t risk expanding too quickly.”
“Understood,” she said cautiously. Then added, “This looks similar to the warren aboard Long Watch so it won’t be unfamiliar.”
“We’re only getting two from Long Watch.”
“Riffan Naja and Pasha Andern,” she reminded him.
“Right. And maybe they can handle life in the warren for a time, but there will be others. How are they going to react when they’re faced with the reality here? I don’t want them falling apart because this warren is too small and cramped, while the library overwhelms them. So I’m thinking of holding them in the archive until—”
“No, Urban.”
“Just until I get the ship fully modified. It’ll be easier for them. Better, if they wake to a secure, comfortable, familiar environment. And they’ll never miss the time away.” He hesitated as a DI whispered another update. “Kona’s here,” he told her.
Kona winked into existence alongside them. He glanced their way, suspiciously eyed the Engineer within his frame, and then turned a swift circle, taking in the blue gradient of an otherwise featureless environment. “Where is this?”
“Ship’s library,” Urban said.
Clemantine continued their debate. “Let them at least instantiate as ghosts,” she insisted. “Then let them choose to enter the archive if that’s what they want. Don’t treat them like toys that you can take out and play with when you get bored.”
“What’s under discussion?” Kona asked.
Clemantine summarized it. Urban, eyes narrowed, prepared his argument, sure that Kona would take her side. But he surprised them both by saying, “Urban is right. No one has been vetted for this company. There wasn’t time. It’s just whoever happened to be in the right place at the right time, in the right mood to make a life-changing decision. Some are going to wake up to what they did and wonder why. So let’s make the transition as easy as—”
“A new ghost is coming in,” Urban interrupted. “I’m shifting it to the archive.” He raised two hands to forestall Clemantine’s objection. “Where it will stay for as short a time as possible, okay?” He turned to Kona. “Could you figure out who these people are? Why they’re here? And if we want them all?”
“Link me to their bios and I’ll look, but it’s been a long time since I was active. It’s unlikely I’ll know most of them.”