A settlement with only one passage always faced the risk of isolation. A settlement with two passages was worth not twice as much, but more than ten times as much. That value had been established by the collective judgment of countless individuals. The Intermediate Zone 44 Disaster broke that consensus. Eighty billion people lived in Intermediate Zone 44. Three planets formed a single habitation zone and depended on outside supplies for part of their atmosphere, water, and food. The primary passage connected to the central trade network, and the reserve passage to a neighboring star system. The two passages had been built by different manufacturers. Their entrances were installed on opposite sides of the planets, and their power networks and management AIs were separate. The system had never failed an independence test. Then both passages closed on the same day.
The Galactic Standard Time reference network transmitted an incorrect value for a very brief period. The two management AIs used different programs but received the same standard-time signal. A possible causal conflict was detected at both entrances, and each system closed its passage in accordance with regulations. The primary passage identified the error eleven seconds later. The reserve passage identified it fourteen seconds later. Neither reopened on its own. Each had been designed to reopen only after receiving confirmation that the other passage was safe. The primary passage waited for the reserve passage, and the reserve passage waited for the primary passage. Local technicians attempted to disable the safety mechanisms. Regulations prohibited them from disengaging the anti-time-reversal systems without external verification. The local government invoked emergency authority, but the central institution authorized to approve the order was on the other side of the passage. The colony still had its own power generation and food supplies. For the first three days, citizens regarded the incident as a temporary interruption of traffic. On the fourth day, the atmospheric-control network began to run short of catalyst. The atmospheres of the three planets were not naturally breathable. Their atmospheric-control facilities had been designed to operate on the assumption that catalyst would be supplied at regular intervals. The emergency reserve was recorded as sufficient for three months, but the actual stock was enough for seventeen days. The reserve had been reduced after the manufacturer announced that the catalyst’s service life had been extended.
The extended service-life figure had been calculated for the temperature and pressure conditions that existed while the passages were operating normally. From the eighteenth day, air quality began to deteriorate. The colonial government shut down factories and began moving citizens into cryogenic sleep. There were not enough units for everyone. Children, patients, and technicians responsible for life-support facilities were given priority. Rescue supplies had been prepared in a neighboring star system. The far entrance of the reserve passage was still intact. But the supplies could not be sent because the warning that forcibly opening the passage might create a causal contradiction through the accumulated time difference had not been cleared. On the twenty-seventh day after the accident, the central institution approved an emergency order. The approval signal, transmitted without using a passage, took thirty-six years to reach Intermediate Zone 44. The passages reopened thirty-six years later. Of the eighty billion inhabitants, approximately nine thousand remained in a restorable state. Those who woke believed they had been isolated for several weeks. Outside, a generation had passed. The accident investigation commission concluded that both passages had operated as designed. Closing after receiving an incorrect time signal was consistent with regulations. Refusing to reopen without external verification was also consistent with regulations. The commission classified the cause of the accident as a “lack of independence” between the two passages. Although their manufacturers and power networks were different, they shared the same standard-time signal and approval system. The proposed solution was a third passage.
The new passage was to connect to a star system different from those of the first two and use a different energy source, time reference, and management AI. The calculation was that even if the first two passages closed together, external verification could still be obtained through the third. Its official name was the Habitation-Zone Connection Continuity Guarantee Act. Citizens called it the Third Passage Mandate Act. Opponents pointed to the cost. Millions of colonies already operated two or more passages. Transporting and maintaining a new entrance for every one of them would require the additional output of thousands of stars. Supporters read the names of those who had died in Intermediate Zone 44, one by one. Each person read one hundred names, and then another person read the next hundred. The readings were broadcast across the galaxy through the Life Protection Coalition’s own communications network. The astronomical cost of installing a passage remained an issue, but the law passed by an overwhelming margin. No one failed to understand that a third passage possessed a value that could not be converted into money. The cost was passed on to the next generation, but there was greater confidence that the continuing development and growth of civilization would solve the problem without difficulty.
At first, a third passage was mandatory only for habitation zones above a certain population. Because transporting a new entrance to its destination took decades, the slow-ship industry grew again. Wormhole manufacturers, power companies, and time-management firms also expanded. Construction of third passages created new jobs in peripheral settlements. Colonies below the population threshold demanded that the law be extended to them under the Declaration on the Right to Connection. The question was whether a lower level of safety could be imposed simply because fewer people lived in a settlement. The courts ruled that the value of life could not be measured according to the number of residents. The third-passage requirement was extended to every inhabited colony. This time, the Life Protection Coalition did not need to read any names. One research station in the periphery was home to 103 researchers. The primary passage carried an average of twelve users a day, and the reserve passage was used four times in a year. After the third passage was completed, its first user was a politician attending the opening ceremony. After he left, no one used the third passage for eighteen years. Throughout those years, however, the entrance and stabilization facilities continued to operate. The government proposed reducing the operating level of passages with low usage. Numerous organizations aligned with the Life Protection Coalition objected that the less frequently a passage was used, the more important it was that it remain open during an emergency. Through the continuing demands and efforts of these organizations, inspections of third passages increased, and as inspection personnel traveled through them, usage rates rose as well. Every inspection team was required to include at least three people designated by the Life Protection Coalition. Because the Coalition was a nonprofit organization sustained by voluntary participation and donations from citizens, the Central Union government could no longer ignore its arguments. The administrative authority submitted the usage figures as evidence of the necessity of the passages.
Among the major donors to the Life Protection Coalition were twelve families that had accumulated immense wealth through the slow-ship industry during the early period of galactic civilization. Even before the wormhole network existed, they had owned vast private estates in several stellar regions and found it inconvenient to share routes and schedules with other citizens through public passages. When the Third Passage Mandate Act recognized mutually independent passages as a condition of safety, the twelve families argued that the same principle should apply to their private estates. Their reasoning was that compulsory use of public passages violated the independence and safety of private property. At first, each family was permitted only one private emergency passage. Families with estates in multiple stellar regions then argued that, because there was no way to know where an accident might occur, each stellar region required its own independent passage. One family, which owned the largest number of territories, installed a separate passage in every stellar region it possessed. The number of private passages owned by that family exceeded the total number of public passages operated by some entire stellar alliances. As galactic trade expanded, merchants of the trade alliances and people who had recently accumulated wealth demanded the same right. They argued that waiting times and inspections at public passages delayed transactions, and that if one person’s travel was delayed, supply contracts in several star systems could be affected at once. Private passages came to be called not luxury goods, but logistics safety facilities. Later, people who had suddenly become wealthy through the trading of mining rights, people who inherited land rights on rare planets, and people who became rich overnight through lotteries and probability investments also applied for private passages. The law had no basis for distinguishing the wealth of old families from wealth acquired by chance. Court rulings followed that there was no reason to deny a private passage once an applicant had demonstrated the ability to pay its installation and maintenance costs.
As the number of private passages increased, the interests of the Life Protection Coalition and the wealthy naturally began to overlap. The twelve families and merchants of the trade alliances donated large sums to the Coalition’s disaster-relief funds and research programs. The Coalition argued that all passages had to remain independent of one another and that the operation of safety facilities should not be reduced merely because they were used infrequently. The donors promised that their private passages could be made available to the public rescue network in an emergency. They were not often used in actual rescue operations, but the mere possibility that they could be used was enough for private passages to be incorporated into the galaxy’s reserve safety network. The Life Protection Coalition did not conceal the names of its donors. Its position was that the value of a life saved with money donated by a wealthy person was no different from the value of any other life. Critics pointed out that those who owned more passages were making the largest donations to the organization demanding more passages. The Coalition replied that the existence of an interest did not make an argument about safety false.
The cost of maintaining the independence of public passages, however, was greater than expected. Small settlements found it difficult to maintain three separate sets of energy sources and time references, so they shared facilities with neighboring colonies. The three passages connected to those shared facilities once again depended on the same infrastructure. Because maintenance expenses were paid from the Central Union government’s budget, the many individuals who fed off the passage system called it easy money. The third-passage requirement was extended to other facilities. Regulations were introduced requiring independent backup systems for atmospheric-control equipment, generators, memory repositories, and management AIs. When it was found that several devices could fail for the same reason, another system was added to monitor that common cause. After the law came into effect, accidents in which an entire habitation zone died because of the failure of a single passage disappeared completely. The law perfectly achieved its original purpose of saving lives. Humanity celebrated the completion of galactic civilization in the truest sense. Its success also made the law difficult to reduce. Meanwhile, as the maintenance cost and use of the passage network increased exponentially, proposals were made to begin by reducing entrances with low usage. Opponents presented the number of deaths that had been prevented since the law took effect. The list of those deaths was blank.
Those arguing for reduction presented the total amount of energy required to maintain the passages. But before the records of eighty billion people, anyone wishing to argue that a third passage was unnecessary had to prove that the same accident would never happen again. That was impossible.