Han Ji-woo was elected on a promise to build three passages. Outer Settlement 46, where he ran for office, already had two. The first passage led to the central region, and the second connected to a nearby agricultural planet. The probability that both passages would close at the same time had been calculated to be low. Han Ji-woo had never considered that a low probability did not mean impossibility. Then his seven-year-old daughter died on a day when both passages were closed at once. The surgery needed after she fell at school and injured her head could have been performed at the settlement’s medical facilities, but the equipment required to repair the damaged cerebral blood vessels existed only at a hospital in the central region. Under ordinary circumstances, the injury would not have been fatal. The first passage was undergoing scheduled inspection, and a cargo-vessel accident had occurred in the second. Both passages reopened the next day. One day was too long. After the accident, the operating company announced that the simultaneous closure of both passages had fallen outside the range anticipated by the regulations. The safety standards had been observed, and no one was responsible. Han Ji-woo read that sentence at every campaign speech. “To say that two are safe becomes a lie on the day both stop at once.”
The citizens wanted a third passage. The cost was high, but they regarded it as insurance that could save all the outer settlements of the galaxy. Han Ji-woo was elected by an overwhelming margin and began construction the day after his inauguration. On the day the third passage was completed, he passed through the three entrances one after another. The energy used for the crossings was small. The problem was keeping all three entrances open. The maintenance cost required as much energy as one star produced in a week. The citizens, however, were reassured by the increased safety more than they were troubled by the cost. Images of the opening were transmitted to hundreds of thousands of outer settlements. Other politicians began promising third passages as well. Regions with only two passages argued that they were being discriminated against in matters of safety. There was still no legal obligation to install a third passage. Then, in Intermediate Zone 944, another accident occurred in which two passages closed on the same day. The two passages were managed by separate systems but depended on the same time signal. After a settlement of eighty billion people was isolated and large numbers of citizens were unable to receive treatment or rescue, the third passage ceased to be merely a politician’s campaign promise and became a bill. As the principal sponsor of the bill, Han Ji-woo told the legislature that safety standards could not be lowered merely because the number of lives involved was small. He was right. After the law took effect, no settlement was ever completely isolated again because two passages closed together for the same reason. Even when one passage was closed by a stellar storm or war, medicine and rescue teams arrived by another route. No one died like Han Ji-woo’s daughter because they could not wait one more day.
The third passage became a form of civilization’s moral progress. One minor problem was the provision requiring the three passages to be independent. If they received energy from the same power plant, they could stop at the same time. Each passage therefore required a separate power source, and the prevailing interpretation was that three power plants dependent on the same star did not constitute complete independence. Some settlements built auxiliary passages to neighboring stars in order to supply one of the three passages with power from another star. It was a fourth passage built to protect the three. Han Ji-woo opposed that expansion in principle. The purpose of the law was reasonable safety, not infinite duplication. The legislature asked him how many constituted reasonable safety. He answered three. He could not prove, however, that three were sufficient and four were wasteful. After retiring, Han Ji-woo traveled to give lectures using passages named after him. On one planet, the passage through which he was scheduled to arrive malfunctioned, and he was rerouted through a second passage. The organizers told him they were relieved there was a third passage. He canceled the lecture. The official reason was fatigue. In a private record, he wrote, “There is no way to escape from the road I built.” After his death, the independence principle of the Third Passage Mandate Act was extended to other facilities as well. Independent backup systems were installed for oxygen-supply units, memory repositories, and administrative AIs. Three facilities were built in Han Ji-woo’s home settlement to preserve his memory. Two of the three memory copies refused restoration, and one requested a review on the grounds that it could not determine whether it was Han Ji-woo. Until the review was completed, all three repositories were maintained. Han Ji-woo saved countless people with the third passage. In order not to abandon those lives, civilization created countless third devices. Even after the galaxy grew dark, three passages remained in his home settlement.