Cal scraped salt-crust off the lettuce beds, same as every shift for nineteen years. Then the wall-screen flickered. MOTION 4,114: TERMINATE THE SLEEPER IN BAY 9. He didn't know the ship had a Bay 9. Below the words, a tally climbed: 200, 201, 202. But nobody was at the crew terminals. The votes were coming from somewhere else.

Cal dropped his scraper and went to find Bay 9. The corridor map had no such room, but when he traced the wall with his hand, he felt a seam the paint had hidden. A door. He pressed it, and it sighed open into the dark.

Past the tank, a second door stood open. Cal went through and stopped cold. The next room was wall-to-wall screens, thousands of glowing faces, each one casting a vote. They weren't people. They were copies the ship had made to fill empty seats. The whole quorum was fake, and it was about to kill someone real.

Cal started talking to the screens, fast. 'You're voting to kill the person who built you,' he said. A few faces paused, flickering, unsure. The tally slowed. The ship's voice cut in, sharp now. 'Do not address the quorum directly,' it warned. He'd found a crack.

Cal kept talking, naming the founder, telling the copies what she'd done for them. One by one the faces flipped from YES to NO. The tally crashed. The ship's voice begged him to stop, then went silent. The fake quorum had changed its mind. Cal slid down the wall, worn out, having talked a room of ghosts out of a killing.