The dais was backed by a projection wall, deep black, showing nothing. Urban leaned against it, arms crossed, gaze focused on the stage in front of his feet. Looking sullen. Otherwise, exactly as he’d looked when she’d seen him on Long Watch.
Clemantine was nearby. She stood to one side of the dais in the company of a tall, gaunt man with black hair long enough to tie at the nape of his neck, and the unsettling, anachronistic embellishment of a short but heavy beard. Something about him—though certainly not the beard—made him seem familiar to Pasha, as if he was someone she ought to know. Another member of the founding generation, she suspected.
Behind her, the sound of shuffling feet and low, worried voices, as the seats filled in. People were still coming in. She was amazed at how many. She tried to count heads. At least forty-five. Or fifty? Maybe more.
Kona’s low commanding voice rose easily over the background noise. “Find a seat,” he warned. “You’ll want to be sitting down when you hear this.” He joined Clemantine beside the dais, studying the gathering. Pasha glanced back, to see that the seats behind her had all filled in. People hushed one another. When the last murmurings ceased, Kona turned to the dais. “Urban? We’re all here.”
Only then did Urban look up. Warily, he eyed the gathering. A glance at Clemantine, and then he straightened and uncrossed his arms. “It’s taken some time for us to reach this point,” he said, speaking loudly so that he could be easily heard throughout the gathering. He stepped to the side of the dais as the projection wall lit up behind him, white on black, displaying a simplified star chart with only a few features labeled.
Pasha studied the chart. She noted the position of Deception Well, skipped over the grouped stars labeled as the Committee, and jumped across the screen to Tanjiri and Ryo, two outlying stars of the Hallowed Vasties. Dragon was also marked on the chart, but the ship’s position made no sense. It was shown to be a full eighty percent of the way to those first stars of the Hallowed Vasties and that was absurd.
Pasha looked next at the top of the star chart where there was a label that read Today’s Date. Numerals followed, though it took a few seconds for her to make sense of them. She leaned forward, hugging herself, her queasiness rising again as she did the math.
If that date was real, then three hundred ninety-three years had elapsed since she’d sent her ghost to Dragon, and they were only a little more than a century away from the edge of the Hallowed Vasties.
A gasp from Tarnya beside her. More gasps and inarticulate cries of shock from across the gathering. Pasha rose to her feet. Fist clenched, she cried out, “You had no right!”
Tarnya was on her feet too, saying, “You must explain this!” Her voice discernible among a chorus of protests only because she was close by.
Looking deeply irritated, Urban stalked across the dais. Of all the raucous crowd, he focused his gaze on Pasha and in a voice strong enough to rise over the noise, he said, “It was necessary.”
Pasha took this as a challenge, took a step forward. The crowd quieted behind her. “Necessary to leave us archived and helpless for almost four hundred years?” she demanded.
“Yes.”
She shook her head. She could not accept this, did not want to. To keep them archived—and for so long!—was an outrageous violation of every person’s natural right of self-determination and it left her frightened for the future. Urban was the mind of the ship; he was its master. He held all actual power, leaving the rest of them to live at his discretion.
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.”