The mutiny

The mutiny is a revolt by colonists aboard the ark ship Gilgamesh, who refuse to be left on a moon without an atmosphere while the ship goes on without them. When Holsten Mason is woken in chapter 3.1 the fighting has already begun. The mutineers, led by Scoles, take Mason and the chief engineer Isa Lain hostage, steal a shuttle and run for the green planet, where the satellite destroys it and most of them die.

Background

Guyen planned to put a colony in the Kern’s World system before the Gilgamesh set out for the next terraforming project. Lain says the colonists picked for it were to go down awake to start the work, with the rest shipped after them as freight.

Brenjit Nessel calls the base an icebox and says the commander made the mistake of showing them their new home: generations living inside boxes, tending the vats and never seeing the sun except as another star. In her account it exists so that Guyen can claim the system for Earth. Scoles says nobody signed on for the journey to end freezing in a death trap on a moon without an atmosphere.

The rising

Lain says the mutineers got into the armoury before it kicked off. Karst’s security detail answers with disruptors and firearms, and the fighting spreads through the corridors without either side forcing a conclusion. Mason is pulled from his suspension chamber to serve as hostage and translator. He is dumped beside Lain in a small systems room, hands bound behind them.

Scoles opens a channel to Guyen and offers a trade. Guyen answers that Lain’s team can cover for her, says he will not negotiate with those who defy his authority, and cuts the link. Nessel tells Mason he will go free if the mutineers win. She believes Lain arranged the shipping of the colonists, and says that shooting her would be justice.

Scoles has a fallback. His people hold one shuttle bay, and if the ship cannot be taken they mean to fly to the green planet, with Mason to talk the satellite round. When the move starts he orders Lain shot. Mason argues that they need her to fly the shuttle and threatens to sabotage it, and Scoles gives way.

Escape

Lain says Karst has taken the air vents. The mix changes under the mutineers and they pull on oxygen masks with visors and radio links. The group runs for the bay, firing at an armoured security detail whose suits resist bullets. Scoles opens the bay doors over the safeties as he leaves, to put vacuum between himself and the pursuit.

Aboard the shuttle Lain cuts every link between the comms panel and the rest of the ship’s systems, so the satellite can reach nothing but the radio. She and Mason talk on a private channel worked through the tongue controls of his mask.

Kern and the crash

Kern warns the shuttle away from the planet. Lain reconnects the comms to a distress signal from the satellite, which disrupts Kern and Eliza’s transmissions. Kern regains control and fires as the shuttle nears the atmosphere. The shot shears off the rear half of the shuttle, with half the mutineers in the hold, and the cabin falls towards the forest.

Seven people come out of the crash. Ants the size of a hand kill Bales outside the wreck, and the survivors abandon the burning cabin. A spider watches from the trees, and Scoles shoots it. Karst lands the security shuttle, having made a deal with Kern to clear the survivors off her world. He takes Mason and Lain aboard, says he will take no prisoners, and his men shoot Scoles and the pilot Tevik. Nessel reaches the trees and is not followed.

Aftermath

Mason, Lain and Karst’s team sit out solitary decontamination on their return. When Mason next walks to the shuttle bays he still sees bullet scars the maintenance crews have not repaired. Karst later keeps one rule, that nobody gets the guns, and names the mutiny as his reason. Guyen calls the mutineers traitors and says they got what they deserved, though most of them were already dead, and he does not count the cargo sent down to the moon base among them. The colony goes ahead anyway, and its last messages reach the ship long after the base has begun to die.

Unanswered questions

• How many colonists joined the revolt, and how many died aboard the ship.
• What became of the mutineers in the shuttle hold when the rear half was cut away.
• What happened to Nessel in the forest.
• How much of the rescue was Guyen’s plan and how much Karst’s own decision.