The room was full of declarations. Someone quoted Oppenheimer quoting the Bhagavad Gita. Tanaa said even a 1 percent chance of blowing up the planet was too much. “We always knew there were risks,” Tanaa said, “but this is insane.”

“Here’s the thing,” said Milton when the initial outrage had died down. “This technology was always a last resort. We went into this knowing we were leaping into the dreadful darkness. And I give you all my word: This technology will never see use, unless we all judge that the human race is past the brink of self-destruction.”

He paused again. Everybody inspected his or her hands.

“The sad truth is, there is a strong possibility our entire species is hosed, unless we act. It’s all too easy to imagine a number of different scenarios in which conflicts escalate to the point where doomsday weapons are unleashed. Or a total environmental collapse happens. If we see an overwhelming likelihood of that happening, and if we have confidence that we can keep a wormhole open for long enough to transport a sustainable population, then we have a duty to proceed.”

Nobody spoke for a while, as everybody chewed on this.

Anya was the one who decided to jump straight to being process-oriented. “What kind of safeguards or guarantees do we put in place to make sure the device isn’t activated unless we’re all convinced the world is in a near-doomsday situation?”

Earnest wanted to know just how many people they could hope to gather at short notice and send through the portal in the time it remained open. Not to mention supplies. Could they have a whole colony’s worth of people and material stashed someplace nearby, for the green light? Could they attempt to fly in people from other parts of the world, to maintain a diverse gene pool, in lieu of their original plan to build identical machines all over the planet?

“Let’s not derail into talking about logistics,” said Tanaa. “We’re still on the ethical question.”

“There is no ethical question,” said Jerome, another engineer, who wore tight braids and a collarless shirt. “As long as we all agree it won’t be used unless the world is for-certain doomed. That’s clear-cut. We have a moral imperative to prepare a safeguard.”

Milton was sitting back and letting them all argue, either waiting for them to come around to his point of view on their own, or else watching for the right opening to seize control again. Meanwhile, they were suffocating, sitting on folding chairs or beanbags, while Milton had an Aeron. Laurence flinched at the thought that history was being made in this disused server room, which was acquiring a sour-cabbage odor.

“I don’t think anybody in this room is qualified to make the decision we’re attempting to take on here,” said Sougata.

“And there’s someone somewhere else who is?” said Jerome.