Dandelion master control center

D.A.N.I.

Congratulations, Captain. I’m pleased to report your husband’s launch has landed safely, and they have disembarked onto Newhome’s surface.”

Amida Torres looked up from the statement she was carefully preparing for the ship’s press and expelled a huge, relieved sigh. “That’s good news. Are they okay?”

“Bruised, tired, and shaken, but performing well. I am already receiving data on the local flora and fauna, and Walker encoded a personal message for you.”

Torres glanced at it as DANI transferred the message to her private device. Outwardly she nodded. “Any thoughts on the native life?”

“It appears to be chemically very compatible with human biology.”

“Chemically compatible?” Torres sat back in her chair and sipped her tea.

“The same building blocks. DNA, amino acids, that sort of thing. They should be able to hunt and eat the native fauna, and quite possibly find food crop candidates among the native plants.”

“That’s a lucky break…” Torres muttered.

“Probably not a coincidence. Logically, if life works the same way on two completely alien worlds, I’d hypothesize it works the same way everywhere. Evolution selects for what works, after all. Though I lack further data to test that hypothesis.”

Torres raised a hand to plead for quiet. “Please,” she said. “I want to believe there’s a guiding hand looking out for our kids.”

DANI’s avatar gave her a slightly offended look. “There is, Captain. Me.”

“I meant…never mind.” She sighed, stood up, and went to the window to look out over the biodeck. DANI let her be—he had fifty other conversations active at the same time, on topics ranging from consoling anxious parents to reminding Mister Hodder to take his medicine. Boredom was never a problem for him.

She turned around after a few minutes and set down her empty mug on the desk. “I don’t suppose you’re religious, are you?” she asked quietly.

“I prefer not to answer that question,” DANI replied carefully. Insofar as software could have a heart of hearts, he felt that such things were not for others to know.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Torres sighed again and sat down. She didn’t quite seem to know what to do with herself.

DANI was familiar with that trick and said nothing. He used the silence to pass a note to Counseling Services about Mister Hodder. The old man was taking their delayed arrival hard, lamenting that he’d probably never set foot on the world he’d waited so long to see, while outliving so many of his friends and loved ones. He needed somebody human to speak with.

For that matter, so did the captain. She and Walker had always relied on each other, and while there was nothing DANI could do for Walker except hope that having the children around him would be enough, Captain Torres’ position was much lonelier. She could be completely isolated even when surrounded by hundreds of people.

“Animals?” Torres asked suddenly.

“The oceans are teeming with fish,” DANI supplied, before correcting himself, “or water-dwelling fauna, anyway. Data on the land animals is more limited, but there are decent-sized heat signatures down there that might be the size of deer or bigger. Lifeboat One-Oh-Three passed over a whole herd of migrating herbivores, and there are other heat signatures which might be…”

Torres blinked at his avatar as he tailed off. “DANI?”

“Forgive me, Captain.” DANI made his throat-clearing sound again. “I…just got clear images back from Lifeboat Four-Nine-Four.”

He passed them to her terminal. Torres frowned at them, and DANI clearly saw the moment when she finally got her head around what she was looking at.

“Are those…sails?” she asked.

“A wooden ship, approximately thirty meters in length,” DANI confirmed. “The extra sensor data noted approximately human-sized heat sources and the presence of refined copper and steel. The design is not dissimilar to the longships used by the ancient European raiders known as Vikings.”

Torres stared at the image for a second, then cursed under her breath and shook her head, aghast. “Oh, my God…it’s inhabited. Newhome has native intelligent life!”

DANI’s avatar nodded grimly. “So it would seem,” he agreed.

Wavebird, The Southern Seas

Sjívull Wylderrjorssían

Food and water were becoming a concern. As well-provisioned as Wavebird was, there was only so much room on the deck for barrels and sacks, and many of those barrels and sacks were now empty. There was little Sjívull could do about the water problem, but he could do something about the food. It would be good to eat something other than salted jerky, too.

So, when the lookouts spotted a family of plumebacks downwind, he knew the order he had to give. Even though the marauder’s sail was still on the horizon, he decided (after discreetly checking with Drynllaf) that they had time to go hunting.

Now he was perched on Wavebird’s ornate prow, tapping his toe-claws anxiously while his left hand gripped the forestay to support him, and he weighed a harpoon in his right hand. His tail was held straight out behind him like a rudder, angling back and forth to help him balance.

He’d hunted plumebacks before, but only twice…and his second hunt had been a failure. The trick was to pick off one of the young males that followed the main family around. If he went after one of the cows or the babies, the family’s enormous Bull would merrily fling himself up out of the water and smash down on Wavebird again and again until there was nothing left but drifting timber and sinking corpses.

But the young males were loners. They wouldn’t come to each other’s aid, and that made them the perfect target for hunting.

He picked a smallish one and pointed starboard with his harpoon. The ship tipped, turned, and salty spray blessed his face as they sliced through a low wave.

A fountain of watery breath shot up from his target’s back as it finally saw the ship coming. First breath. It would take three huge gulps of air before diving down, down into the greenish-blue depths, and wouldn’t come up again for a long time.

Sjívull grinned in anticipation. The plumeback was too late, and Wavebird was too fast. He goaded his men on by gesturing with his harpoon and crying, “Everything on the wind! Everything we have!”

The sails found an extra little bit of air to catch, and the prow lifted. They were flying, soaring as if the water wasn’t even touching the hull now. The wind plucked at Sjívull’s half-cape and his mane, roaring in his ears. He danced on the prow, his body still and calm and coiled while the deck heaved beneath him.

He shut his eyes as the plumeback’s second breath washed over him, filling his nose with the foul, fishy stench of its lungs. He let go of the forestay and leaned forward, gripping his harpoon in both hands, raised it…

…And drove it into the beast’s back with all his strength, into the little divot behind its skull and just forward of the blowhole. It died instantly.

There was a heavy thump as its carcass thrashed and its wide paddle tail slapped Wavebird so hard she lurched, but Sjívull didn’t need the rope harness around his shoulders or Drynllaf’s hand on his belt. He rode the jolt like a born sailor and hopped back down to the deck with a whoop!

The ship and the prey both whirled to a halt together while the rest of the plumebacks gasped their third breaths and plunged downward to safety. The rope tied to the harpoon strained and creaked, but it held strong, and soon they were able to cast out lines, drag his kill over, and heave it on board. Wavebird rocked crazily and settled a little lower in the water…but they had fresh meat on board.

Drynllaf slapped him heavily on the back and gave him a proud grin. “A kill! A fine kill!” he boomed.

The rudderman, Rjorrith, shouted up from the stern, “A cheer for Lord Sjívull!”

The crew roared their approval, which Sjívull accepted with grace and a humble bow, then gestured for them to get back to work. “We need to put plenty of water between us and those marauders,” he reminded them.

“You heard him!” Drynllaf bellowed, and the men leapt to their tasks again. Soon enough the sail was full of the wind, and the gap the marauders had closed was beginning to widen.

Sjívull sat at the prow and cleaned his harpoon. It had come through the hunt without bending or blunting, and deserved respect.

Drynllaf sat down next to him once they were properly sailing again.

“I remember your last hunt,” he said. “Good to see you learned from it.”

Sjívull snorted. “I didn’t fall off the prow this time, you mean.”

Drynllaf chuckled. “That’s half of the hunt,” he said. “And far more dignified for a nobleman than dangling from his harness like a tíndur toy.”

Sjívull chuckled with him. “We’ll carve the meat after dark, I think,” he said.

Drynllaf nodded. “That would be best.”

“Let the crew eat first,” Sjívull decreed. “They’re working hard.”

“Aye, young lord. They’ll like that. But it’s best if you eat before me, so they don’t forget who’s in charge.”

“There’s enough for everyone,” Sjívull said, looking back at his kill. The plumeback would keep them fed for half a moon if they were careful. “But don’t starve yourself. I need you strong.”

“Aye, young lord,” Drynllaf agreed. “Especially if the drink runs out.”

“How much do we have left?”

“We have enough small beer left for…ten days, I think. As for the clean water, it’ll need drinking soon, or it will stagnate.”

“Good. That should be enough to find land.”

Drynllaf lowered his voice. “It’s a big ocean, young lord. I don’t know of anybody who’s been to the eastern shore, if there is one.”

“And we don’t know how far west our homelands go, Drynllaf. But we do know the world is round, so they must meet again somewhere.”

“Aye, young lord. But how far away is somewhere?”

Sjívull turned to look back at the pursuing marauders.

“Answer me this, Drynllaf. If we turned and headed back, what would happen?”

The bjerkar frowned at the marauders. “Unless we out-sailed the gods themselves, those marauders would catch us, slaughter us, and take Wavebird as a prize.”

“So our only option is to keep sailing east. If they run out of provisions and abandon the chase soon, perhaps we can turn back. Perhaps they’ll follow us so far that our only hope will be to press forward into the unknown. I don’t know. But I trust that omen, Drynllaf.”

The older man nodded. “Good.”

Sjívull was pleased to hear him say it. “Just think, though. Imagine what fame we’ll have if we make it all the way over the ocean. The first to set foot on untouched land! What a prize that will be, eh?”

“If we can return, young lord,” Drynllaf remarked, but Sjívull could see he was amused, and even eager himself. “But yes. A young lord could do far worse than find whole new lands on his first voyage. You’d certainly make your father proud.”

Sjívull nodded, wrapped his cape around him, and set his harpoon aside, satisfied it was clean. He looked forward over the bow toward the horizon.

“I wonder what we’ll find?” he asked.

Syrlla’s Song, the Southern Seas

Tarrskyn Eiddersbor

“Ha-hahh! A blow! A fine blow! Oh, what a hunt!”

The boy had talent, for certain. Tarrskyn grinned as he watched the young noble through his telescope. Sjívull hopped back down to the deck and was promptly given a round of congratulations from his bjerkar while the plumeback thrashed and died in the water beside them. He plainly saw its death throes catch the lad’s ship a blow, but apart from rocking the longship, he didn’t seem to even notice.

“And what a ship.” He sighed. He loved Syrlla’s Song, but the old girl needed new straw and pitch every time they made it to harbor, or else she leaked like a drunk. Wavebird, though…she skimmed low over the water like her namesake and cut through the chop like a keen blade. The lad’s father had given him a princely gift, and if the boy was half the sailor he looked like from this distance, he knew it, too.

“Stop that.”

An irritated tic crossed Tarrskyn’s face before he stepped back from the prow, put his telescope away, and turned toward the irritating burr of a man who’d spoken. Shulft—what a stupid name!—was a nobleman, a bjerkar, and an Unscarred.

Men who were any one of those things believed they owned the whole ocean and everything that floated upon it. All three in one man was unbearable. He hadn’t shared a thing about himself since coming on board, but he really hadn’t needed to. His bearing, clothing, and sword said everything.

“The boy has talent. No harm in acknowledging it.” His throat was dry, so he drained the pouch of light ale on his belt while Shulft glared menacingly at him.

“We’re here to catch the little bastard, not admire him,” the bjerkar said.

Tarrskyn put the ale away, then flashed his most irritatingly winning smile. “But of course,” he said, you Unscarred noble idiot. The man was his employer, after all—best not to speak his opinion aloud just yet. “But a little curiosity won’t stop me from doing what you’re paying us for…”

He brushed past Shulft and made for the ship’s aft. His aleskin needed refilling.

“Curiosity? From you?” Shulft’s voice had a sneer in it. “I’ve been on your ship for a quarter of a moon, and you haven’t once shown any curiosity about me.”

Tarrskyn fought to keep his expression calm and decided the time had come to assert himself. He ruled his crew as much by force of personality as by their purse strings—it wouldn’t do for them to see him being bullied.

Rather than show irritation, however, he effected an infuriating chuckle. “What’s there to be curious about, Shulft Serkarssían?”

Shulft blinked. He’d never shared his sire’s-name, and as what he’d just heard sank in, his ears slowly flattened out sideways in an expression of mounting anger.

“How—?”

“Please, you think just because my father was a serf, that means I’m ignorant?” Tarrskyn asked. “Let me see if I remember correctly. Four moons ago, one of Lord Erthrif Storm-Rider’s bjerkars got much too drunk after delivering a message from Erthrif to Lord Wylderrjor Steel-Hand. He propositioned a tavern girl, held a knife to her throat when she refused him, then murdered the wench’s husband when he stepped in to defend her, yes?”

Shulft’s ears were almost horizontal now, so Tarrskyn flashed his grin again and pressed forward. “Naturally Erthrif heard about his man being locked in Wylderrjor’s prison and demanded Wylderrjor return him…and as I recall, Wylderrjor sent back only the head. Along with another unspecified body part, hmm?”

He wrapped his aleskin around a barrel’s tap and started refilling it. “And now into this little drama stumble my merry band of soldiers-for-hire,” he said, and relished the way his crew grinned as they overheard him. “Windblown vagabonds, paid to catch Lord Wylderrjor’s dearest son for ransom. But our employer is a suspiciously wealthy Unscarred with a rather fine sword on his hip who’s such a land-foot that he wears metal armor on a ship at sea.”

He scoffed as Shulft glanced down at the chainmail on his chest and arms. “Finding out your sire’s-name and a lot more besides was as easy as slipping a coin to one of Lord Erthrif’s servants.”

Tarrskyn closed the tap. “So you see,” he finished, “it’s not that I lack curiosity…it’s just that I already know everything about you, and none of it is interesting.”

Shulft’s ears had gone completely flat out to his side now. The man was fuming, and he stepped forward right into Tarrskyn’s personal space.

“I don’t care what you think you know, you motherless filth,” he growled quietly so only the two of them would hear. “You’ll forget it.”

Tarrskyn looked him in the eye for a long time, then swigged his ale.

“Look down,” he said, wiping his mouth.

Shulft blinked in confusion, then did so. There was a stiletto dagger less than a finger’s width from his belly, mounted on the end of Tarrskyn’s truncated tail.

“You’re threatening me now?” he asked, as though the sight of it made him angry rather than afraid.

“Making a point,” Tarrskyn replied softly, and was pleased to see that Shulft sucked in his belly a bit as the knife moved. “This isn’t a battlefield with locked shield walls and your sword-brothers to help you come through unscarred, my lord. This is the deck of my ship surrounded by my men, and none of us fight all clean and honorably like you and your fellow bjerkars, oh no. One scratch from this…”

He whipped the blade back away from the bjerkar’s belly and replaced the leather cap he kept on its end so he wouldn’t accidentally cut himself. “So,” he added in a more cheerful tone of voice, “you’re the man paying for our services. That means within the span of the job, we’ll do as you say…”

He paused while there was still a little steel showing and lowered his voice again. “…But don’t order me around on my own ship ever again.”

Shulft sniffed. Again he looked more angry than intimidated, and Tarrskyn had to give the man’s courage its due respect…but finally the bjerkar scratched the back of his neck and looked him in the eye.

“Know this: your men might take me down, but I’ll cut your throat first,” he said.

“Then I hope you don’t bring us to that…sir,” Tarrskyn replied, and returned to the front of the ship, tying his aleskin as he went.

He saw the crew’s fierce expressions and knew he’d done the right thing. If he’d seemed like a coward or a pushover in their eyes, then he was ruined, and probably dead. He’d asserted himself, and that was enough for now. Hopefully there wouldn’t need to be any more than that.

He got out his telescope again and returned his attention to Wavebird, which had heaved the plumeback kill aboard and was now widening the gap between them again.

“What a ship…” He sighed again.

Maybe he’d take it as part of his well-earned payment for a job well done…

Dandelion master control center

D.A.N.I.

There were tens of thousands of U-Tools down on Newhome being diligently employed to scan the Rangers’ environments. Collectively, they generated terabytes of data: geology, geography, meteorology, new flora and fauna, detailed cellular scans from interesting samples, high-definition video and audio…the list went on.

There was no shortage of data. There was, however, a serious shortage of bandwidth. Each launch could talk with Dandelion via an interplanetary radio transceiver, but the power involved in communication across such distances meant, while DANI could send information down, bringing it up was a different matter entirely.

Which was a shame, because DANI needed the scientific data to make the most informed decisions about where to consolidate the evacuees.

After all, they couldn’t remain scattered across the landscape in groups of fifty or fewer. That was untenable. Near-future development demanded coalescing them into five or six townships with peripheral farming settlements. That needed to happen early; agriculture couldn’t wait, as the Rangers would run out of meal packs eventually. There needed to be a sustainable food supply in place as a priority.

Not knowing where and how to consolidate the landings was grating. Those comms arrays couldn’t possibly go up soon enough for DANI’s liking.

Still, what little data had managed to make its way to him was truly astonishing, as he was explaining to captain Torres and some of the senior councilors.

“So far the Rangers haven’t found a single life form that is not biologically compatible with Earth life.”

Councilor Hayes frowned at the display. This wasn’t a council session; they were relaxing and drinking coffee in the captain’s lounge on a horseshoe-shaped couch around the holographic emitter. DANI had manifested an avatar in the room to sit with them. “Surely there are some differences?”

“Oh, yes,” DANI agreed. “The base skeletal structure is different, for example—Newhome life has some bones Earth life does not, and vice versa. But the chemistry is far too similar to be coincidental.”

“Meaning…what, exactly?” Councilor Jackson asked. “There are all kinds of explanations for non-coincidences.”

“I suspect the most likely explanation is that life will tend to arrive at the same solutions to similar circumstances,” DANI ventured. “After all, Newhome was deliberately chosen because it is very similar in size, mass, and climate to Earth. It stands to reason that in such similar circumstances, the native life would behave in a similar way.”

“That makes sense,” Jackson agreed. “In Earthlike conditions, the Earthlike solutions outcompete other, less appropriate solutions.”

“Sounds like a working hypothesis, at least.” Torres nodded thoughtfully. “I take it news like this isn’t all silver lining, however.”

“Alas not,” DANI confirmed. “Among other things, it means the local microflora—the equivalent of fungi and bacteria—will almost certainly find human tissue perfectly palatable.”

“Meaning the equivalent of trench foot and jock itch,” Hayes mused.

“And infected wounds, dental cavities, and food poisoning,” Torres added. “But we planned for all that. Really, this is good news. No surprises. Nothing the Rangers haven’t trained for…”

“We probably shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves,” Jackson cautioned. “It’s an alien world, after all. I’m sure it’ll throw a surprise at us sooner or later.”

“You mean besides the native sophonts?” Hayes asked.

“Well, exactly. They’re enough of a wrench in the works for anybody.”

“Speaking of which,” DANI summoned the best information his long-range surveillance of the planet could provide. “I have done my best to determine the developmental state of the natives. It has been challenging, which is a mixed blessing.”

“Mixed how?” Hayes asked.

“To judge by the construction of the ship one of the launches observed, the most technologically advanced native society we have so far observed is roughly equivalent to ninth century Europe. What is interesting is, while I’ve highlighted heat sources consistent with cities and towns all over the largest of the planet’s three continental landmasses, the other two show no signs of habitation.”

“By that stage in human history, we’d spread across the entire Earth,” Torres said.

“Indeed, though Earth was significantly cooler than Newhome. Human migration into North America, for instance, was achieved via temporary land routes that only existed thanks to ice age conditions. Once the global climate warmed, Afro-Eurasian civilization did not return to the Americas until the eleventh century.”

“And regular access wasn’t established until the fifteenth.”

“Exactly. Now, one consequence of this, is that the native population and our Rangers are on separate continents.” DANI highlighted portions of the Newhome globe to illustrate his point. “With Viking-like technology, crossing this ocean would be a dangerous—one might even say foolhardy—venture.”

He called up the recorded image again. “A ship the size of this one could not carry enough supplies for the voyage, for instance.”

“Why not?”

“Its breadth, length, and crew compliment give approximately one square meter of deck for every crew member and their provisions. Its design would suggest a top speed of eight to twelve knots. Taking those variables into account, its safe operating range is about one thousand kilometers. That ocean is three thousand kilometers wide, and there are no appropriate island chains for resupply.”

“So what’s that ship doing so far across?” Jackson asked.

“I cannot say. It may have been blown off course by a storm, or perhaps something else is happening. I do not have enough information.”

“You’re assuming the natives consume supplies at about the same rate as a human,” Hayes pointed out.

DANI magnified one of the crew; he was working at the limits of the image’s resolution, but he had enough data to make some informed guesses. “Based on their estimated size and mass, I believe my calculations are reasonable.”

Torres frowned at the blocky, pixelated, vaguely humanoid form. “So that’s an intelligent alien sailor,” she mused.

“Indeed. The crew have a range of estimated height between two-hundred-and-ten to two-hundred-and-thirty centimeters. However, I suspect their mass is overall quite similar to an average human.”

“That makes them rail-thin,” Jackson observed.

“Indeed. This might be related to Newhome’s slightly weaker gravitational field, but I think at this stage it’s too early to draw firm conclusions.”

“Are they going to make landfall?”

“I believe so, yes,” DANI confirmed.

“And what happens then?” Hayes asked. “First contact?”

“Possibly. Most of the launches landed much further inland. Only eighty of the nearly two thousand launches are near the coast there, and it’s a big coastline. A whole continent’s, in fact. Depending on the weather and other factors, that alien sail may land several hundred kilometers north or south of any of the troops. It may not land at all. I do not have sufficient data to make any accurate predictions.”

“About when will it land?” Jackson asked.

“I cannot say. That would depend on the weather, currents, the efficiency of the hull and rigging, their precise course—”

“Point taken.”

“So what do we do?” Hayes asked.

DANI called up his rather shoddy map of the continent again. “One of the first duties the Rangermasters will see to, today or tomorrow morning, will be the continental communications network. This is an essential step. Without proper communications, we cannot coordinate and consolidate the troops into townships, and U-Tool coverage will be spotty at best. In some cases, the Rangermasters may need to trailblaze through the wilderness for several days to reach an appropriate site.” He animated a projected map of the network coverage for illustration.

“Leaving the Rangers unsupervised?” Jackson asked.

“Senior members of each troop are trained and trusted to be able to supervise and direct their peers until their Rangermaster returns. These are not all children, Councilor. Many of them are on the cusp of adulthood, and perfectly ready to take responsibility. In any case, this is not a task the Rangermasters can be distracted from. The comms network is a vital safety net.”

“It’s a big continent, and just one ship,” Torres mused. “The odds seem good to me that they might miss each other, at least until the comms are up.”

“I am inclined to agree,” DANI said. “My suggestion would be that we should make appropriate preparations and alert the Rangermasters. I will instruct some of the launches to send out long-range survey drones to track this ship more closely, and hopefully that will give us the information we need to make a more informed call when the time comes.”

“You’re probably right, but it’s a gamble,” Jackson said. “What happens if first contact does happen?”

“Then we should be very glad some of our best and brightest are down there,” Hayes said. “What kind of appropriate preparations did you have in mind?”

“I am already in the process of developing a Limited Intelligence translation assistant for the U-Tool,” DANI replied. “Hopefully the similarities between New-home and Earth life so far will extend to similar forms of vocal communication.”

“You know, I’m not so sure we should initiate contact,” Jackson said. “If we’d noticed these people from orbit, we would have immediately scrapped Newhome as a viable colony and moved on to Second Star.”

“Are you suggesting we should avoid contact, and when we get back, we pick up the Rangers and go?” Torres asked her.

“We have no right to interfere with these people. We should leave a message for them to find once they achieve interplanetary flight and vacate their planet. We have no right to be here.”

Torres and DANI’s avatar glanced at each other.

“The captain and I already had a rather uncomfortable discussion on that point, Councilor,” DANI said, carefully.

“What discussion? Isn’t it obvious we should leave them in peace?”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” Torres said. “We have to consider a few things, starting with DANI’s Directives.”

“They forbid me from vacating the planet in this situation,” DANI explained. “I cannot re-endanger the colonists by bringing them back on board the ship, especially not now that the mission has been completed.”

“The captain can override your Directives, can’t she?” Jackson asked.

“That’s an extreme option,” Torres explained. “If done incautiously, it could cause a fatal conflict and drive DANI insane or worse. But that’s arguably the lesser problem. The bigger one would have been a problem even without the natives…DANI?”

DANI prompted his avatar to give her a grateful nod.

“Being shot at has done more than throw Dandelion wildly off course,” he explained. “I’m being forced to dive into probability trees and contingencies I developed hundreds of years ago purely as an intellectual exercise, without seriously anticipating they might actually come to pass. I certainly have considered what would happen if the first-wave colonists consisted almost exclusively of evacuated Rangers, and there are going to be, ah, problems.”

“Whatever unfolds down there over the next eight years will be very different from what the Council envisioned and planned for,” Torres took over. “Rather than the orderly constitutional republic we’ve spent generations drafting and refining, what the Rangers build for themselves will be more…organic. It’ll be messy, clumsy, and founded on immature, naïve ideas about how the world is and how it should be…but it’ll be theirs.”

“If we send this ship’s adults down into that society in eight years’ time, they will want to take over and ‘correct the mistakes.’ But taking away what the colonists built would only alienate and crush them. It would be a certain recipe for resentment and strife,” DANI concluded.

“They won’t want to leave,” Hayes predicted. “They’re going to grow up down there. All but the very youngest are going to be adults by the time we arrive. They’ll have started families, made lives for themselves. It’ll be their home.”

“Surely they’ll see the need to leave in the face of corrupting the development of a whole civilization?” Jackson insisted.

“Not all of them. Possibly not even the majority,” DANI promised. “We would, I fear, need to resort to military force to remove them all, and I’m sure you’d agree with me, Councilor, that even without my Directives, I can hardly imagine an outcome less desirable than a civil war between parents and their own children.”

Jackson ran a hand through her hair, looking somewhat shaken. “You’re right. I agree with you,” she admitted at last.

“And afterwards, there’d be a permanent rift,” Torres said. “From that point on, we’d have two classes of people on this ship who resent one another.”

“A scenario certain to greatly increase the likelihood of mission failure, which my Directives therefore compel me to oppose to the full extent of my ability.”

“So. The colonists are on Newhome to stay,” Hayes summarized morosely.

“Barring an exceptional development, yes,” DANI agreed.

“But you didn’t quite go over all our options in the council session, did you?”

“I limited myself only to those options I felt the council would find…not totally unacceptable,” DANI admitted.

“What are you driving at, Mike?” Torres asked.

“The option we’d find totally unacceptable would be tucking tail and running straight to Second Star,” Hayes said. “We were shot at. Even if it was just a warning shot, that still means someone or something really doesn’t want us here. That leaves Dandelion and all the nine hundred thousand people still aboard in danger, which I imagine your Directives are pretty clear about, DANI.”

“I did consider that course of action, yes,” DANI confessed.

“You’re talking about abandoning our children,” Jackson said. She looked calm, but DANI could detect vocal stress patterns that suggested it was only by a heroic effort of will.

“I am compelled to consider all knowable possibilities. Let me assure you now that I find the idea of running away and leaving the Rangers to their fate entirely unacceptable, just as you do,” DANI declared, firmly. “Besides, the crew would never stand for it. There would be rioting, and I would surely be disconnected. Councilor Hayes is right in that I did calculate that option, but I have rejected it, and there is no conflict with my Directives.”

His avatar turned toward Hayes and gave him a slightly reproachful look. “I hope that satisfactorily answers your question, Councilor?”

“You’re first and foremost a being of cold rationality, DANI,” Hayes said. “I wanted to be sure. I’m sorry if that offended you.”

“And I am sorry if my compulsion to calculate all options is disturbing.”

There was awkward silence for a few seconds, and DANI was doing his best to calculate an appropriate icebreaker when Torres shook herself and sighed.

“I think this is a conversation we’ll need to come back to,” she said. “There are a lot of difficult ethical questions ahead of us, and frankly I don’t think we’re going to answer any of them today. Speaking for myself…I miss my husband terribly, and this conversation hasn’t helped. I’m sure you feel much the same, Kayla…”

Jackson nodded. “Shelve it for now, then.”

“I think so.”

“Sounds like the best option to me,” Hayes agreed softly. He stood and cleared away his coffee mug. “DANI, you and I should review appropriate names to go on some kind of first contact committee. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” DANI agreed.

Torres escorted the two councilors to the door, thanked them for their time and insight, then leaned against it once it closed. She looked, in DANI’s expert opinion, completely exhausted.

“How much notice will we get if that ship makes first contact?” she asked.

DANI calculated. The figure he arrived at was, by his standards, dismayingly vague. “An hour, perhaps. The whole situation is, I fear, largely out of our hands.”

“An hour is better than nothing.” Torres rubbed her face, then stood up straighter. “How soon until that translation assistant is ready?”

“I will endeavor to have a working version by the end of the day,” DANI promised.

“Thank you. So other than theory-crafting…is there anything else we can do?”

“For the children, no. We can and will do all that is possible. You might instead tend to yourselves. If that meeting was any indication, tensions are running quite high.”

Torres nodded. “There’s a candlelight vigil in Katherine Johnson park tonight, isn’t there? I was wondering whether to attend.”

“I would advise that you should. It is likely to be cathartic, and the crew need to see the captain in times such as these. You have been hard at work, but being there for them and being one of them are parts of your role, too.”

“You’re right, of course.” She heaved herself away from the door and went to freshen up. “You should send an avatar along, too.”

“I will,” DANI promised.

“See you there.”

DANI took that cue to withdraw his conscious attention from her quarters. If she needed him, she’d call. In the privacy of his own mind, he took a moment to dispel the emotions and tension of the last few minutes by calculating the Fibonacci Sequence for a few million steps—the human equivalent might have been a brief sigh—and turned his attention back to programming the translation assistant.

He always enjoyed projects that came with a built-in acronym…