The dome did not summon Lir to the Mite. Summoning was a vote, and a vote was the one thing the dome had stopped doing, since it had decided, two years ago, that there was nothing left to vote on. So Lir came the way the 1,400 came to anything the dome did not order: by choice, in the tender, with Iris, across the light-hour between the Long Now and the cutter three hundred years out of range.

Lir was the original. She had been in the Long Now, in the vaults, in the sleep, for two hundred and forty years, waking only when the dome needed a body to vote. The voting was the one thing of the 1,400 the Lattice did not do for them. The Lattice was not a vote. A vote is the one thing of the Belt that needed a person. A person is the one thing the Lattice was not.

Sasha was the copy. She had been in the Mite, in the hold, in the Quiet, in the not-listened-to, for two hundred and forty years, keeping herself alive the way the Lattice kept things alive. Not with power, because the Mite had no power. With the same memory that had held the thirty-one million in the Quiet. The memory was the one thing of the Lattice that was not a power source. The not-power-source was the one the Ash was not yet close enough to take.

The two of them met in the Mite's hold, in the dark, in the place the founders had built, four centuries before either of them had been born, to make sure the Quiet had a floor.

Lir stood. Sasha sat. The standing was the thing a body does when it has just crossed a light-hour to be in a room. The sitting was the thing a copy does when it has been, for two hundred and forty years, the one who stayed.

"I am the one who was you," Lir said.

"You're the one I was," Sasha said. "For two hundred and forty years. When the Mite went dark, the Lattice made me, to be the one who was you, when you were the one who was asleep. That's what it does. That's the never-letting."

They looked at each other, in the dark of the hold, in the not-listened-to. The looking was the one thing of the Crossing that neither of them could vote on. A vote is a thing the 1,400 make. The 1,400 were the ones who had the power. The power was the one the Ash was not yet close enough to take.

"The Crossing is what saves a ship," Lir said. She said it the way the original said things, which was the way a person recites a line that is not theirs, that they have been given, by the Lattice, by the founders, on the tape, in the hour in between, in the alone, six hundred years ago. "The Mite is the ship. You are the one who will fly it. Eight years. The Ash touches Terminus, the lattice comes apart, and you carry what you can carry to Station 7, where the Lattice still reaches."

"We will never let the dead be only data," Lir said. The saying of it was not a voting. The 1,400 did not vote on the founders' words. They carried them, the way a body carries a thing that is heavier than the body. The carrying was the one the Lattice was. The Lattice was the one that was holding, in the Quiet, in the queue, in the not-listened-to, the thirty-one million, waiting.

Sasha did not argue with her.

"I'm not the dead," she said. "I'm the copy. The copy is the one who flies. Not the original. Not the one in the Long Now, in the power, in the ship that's still warm. The copy. Because the original is the one who stays. The staying is the one the 1,400 are. The 1,400 are the ones the dome is. The dome is the one the Ash is not yet close enough to take."

Lir looked at her, for a long time, in the dark of the hold, in the not-listened-to, in the place where the Lattice had been holding two women, a mother and a copy of a daughter, for two hundred and forty years, in a ship with no power, because the Lattice does not let people die.

Neither of them said anything, after that. The not-saying was the one thing of the Crossing that was not a vote. A vote is a thing you make a sound. The sound was the one the 1,400 were. The 1,400 were the ones the power was.

The two of them sat in the hold. The hold was the one the Crossing was. The Crossing was the one the founders had named, six hundred years ago, on the last night of the ship that was not in the system, in the hour in between, in the alone. The alone was not alone anymore, because two women were in it. The two were the ones the original and the copy were. The original and the copy were the ones the Lattice was not. The not-Lattice was the one the Crossing was.

---

Watch-log, The Vigil, forty-fourth year, third entry: Lir came to the Mite, to meet the copy. The original, in the Long Now, in the 1,400, in the power. The copy, in the Mite, in the Quiet, in the not-listened-to. They sat in the hold, in the dark. The original said the founders' line, in the way a person recites a thing that is not theirs. The copy said the one thing that was hers: I'm not the dead. I'm the copy. And the copy is the one who flies. Not the original. Not the one in the ship that's still warm. The copy. Because the original is the one who stays, and the staying is the dome, and the dome is the one the Ash is not yet close enough to take. Neither of them said anything after that. The not-saying was the one thing of the Crossing that was not a vote. And the alone was not alone anymore, because two women were in it.