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.”
“Only until we learn to defeat it,” Urban said, stepping into the light. “We will learn to beat it. It’s just a matter of time.”
“We have to learn to beat it,” Pasha said. She rose, tentatively turning to face the gathering. “Remember the scuttled starships, the choice their crews made. Our responsibility extends beyond our own survival. We cannot take this thing with us to Tanjiri.”
At this, anxious murmurs arose across the gathering, people debating with their neighbors. Kona straightened his shoulders, grateful that it was all out in the open now.
“We have options,” he said. “For now, we have time. With luck, we’ll have time to carry out studies, to undertake experiments, to find a way forward. But there are things we need to do right now to shore up our security and insure our future. First among them, we have to protect Griffin. Alkimbra is right about that. Regardless of anything else, we cannot let the entity infiltrate our second ship.” He looked down from the dais, eyeing Clemantine. “The first step I propose is to close Griffin’s data gate. Don’t allow any direct traffic from Dragon.”
Her eyes narrowed, considering. “Do that and you’ll isolate her, that other version of me.”
“No. We’ll just add a step.” He turned to Urban. “If we can bring one of the outriders between us. Use it as a data relay.”
A tentative nod.
Back to Clemantine. “We allow only essential traffic from Dragon. Log files, vetted library updates—the Scholar can sort that out—updates for the archive, and of course, your subminds. All of it passes to the relay, where it’s inspected. If it proves clean, it gets forwarded to Griffin, but only at specific, predetermined times. Any emergency communications can be made by radio.”