possibilities. The ship may be broadcasting a false ID tag. It may be the vanguard of some sort of attack. It may be a derelict, under remote control or AI guidance—or just drifting, in which case it is merely an archaeological treasure and a hazard to navigation.”
“But setting aside those possibilities for the moment”—Danilaw paused for emphasis, and to get his breath under his words so he would sound calm and capable—“Ciz, it is entirely likely that we are about to reestablish contact with the Jacob’s Ladder, a vessel whose notoriety should require no exposition.”
It might not require it but, if necessary, the exposition was there, keyed into every attendee’s infothing and available for perusal at the slide of a finger. Both of the Councillors ducked their heads, flicking through the information while Danilaw paused to let what he’d just said sink in. Yet despite that, Danilaw was confident that all three of his colleagues knew the basics.
And if they didn’t know the history, they’d have heard of the legends. The Jacob’s Ladder showed up regularly as a plot point in fashionable entertainments, cast in the role of an enclave of fanatics, an insane asylum, and a lair of monsters all in one.
It was a trope so hoary and reliable that Danilaw thought of it as a predictable cliché. So he folded his arms on the table and tried not to feel like a character in a drama. The holographic representation in the center of the table helped. Watching the nearly invisible blip that was the Jacob’s Ladder’s estimated position float apparently motionless in a 3-D model of the Sanctuary system made it seem manageable, a crisis on a human scale.
“Which means,” said Gain, her voice crisp with authority and good sense, “we are in all likelihood also about to reestablish contact with unrightminded, primitive humans. Possibly a large number of them.”
“Barbarians,” Captain Amanda agreed. “It may be impossible to relate to them without conflict.”
“Barbarians is a loaded term,” Danilaw said, “and one I’d prefer to avoid. They’re premodern humans.”
Captain Amanda shook her head, the sharp edge of her glossy black bob moving against the brown skin of her neck. She disagreed, but not strongly enough that she would countermand Danilaw’s command. He watched as she drew a breath and re-aimed the conversation, feeling lucky in the egolessness of this unexpected addition to his team. If she really believed he was misguided, he thought she would intervene more strongly. For now, she’d registered her opinion and was content to trust his judgment.
Instead of arguing, she began providing historical context. “They left Earth, among other reasons, to avoid rightminding. There’s no telling what they are like, after all this time, or what their society has become.”
Danilaw nodded. “At this point, depending on how fast they’ve been moving, we can assume they have undergone at least a few centuries of social development. They were radical Christians, and we’re a millennium out of practice in dealing with people who are locked into anomalous temporal lobe feedback. We just don’t know how to handle the faithful anymore. They may be pacifists or militant, religious or atheistic. Or both, or all four, in Mendelian combinations. At this point, if any significant number have survived for any length of time, they probably no longer represent a homogenous society.
“Worse, approximately one percent of unrightminded humans are psychopaths, and a considerably larger proportion—perhaps as much as thirty percent—are sophipaths, leading to entire societies devoted to upholding untenable ideologies. The pathological brain is no more wired to accept evidence contradictory to its dogma than a flutterby is wired to understand that the image of the rival it attacks in a mirror is its own reflection. The more argument erupts, the more people grow wedded to defending their sophistries, and those who attempt to guide a resolution through compromise are seen as traitors to both groups.”
Gain tapped her fingers on the thick table edge. Her mouth worked. “You make it sound like they are a bunch of sociopaths.”
Captain Amanda shook her head, but Danilaw thought it was more in elaboration than contradiction. “Sociopathy is a relatively minor element. Basically, unrightminded humans are almost incapable of rational thought. If you think of them as small children, without impulse control, any understanding of the subjectivity of emotion, or the ability to compromise, you will not be far wrong. And the crew and passengers of the Kleptocracy-era sublight ships were the worst of the lot—delusional to the point of sacrificing entire ecologies on