FC

Earth-built colony keel, grounded

Colony Ship Kindred

A ship that became the ground under a people. Built 2189 at an Earth yard, off the road by 2192 and down along the line she cut up an Ostry valley with four hundred aboard — 'When the Kindred came down, we were four hundred, and the ship would never rise again.' Five generations later she is a long barrow with a bare spine: her main hold is the hall of names, her forward hold is Vessa's shelves with the node-cores behind glass and a lock, her after body — quarried for four keels in the first generation — is the speaking-yard under the roofed ribs, and the mast at the head of her spine has been saying 'we are still here' into a sky that was not listening for longer than anyone alive.

Operator
The Ferren of Ostry — her descendants
Registry
Earth yard's mark, build code and year (2189) stamped on the log-core casing; the registry legible on the lid of the sealed ship's case
Series
Wide Sky
Drawn as
As grounded on Ostry in 2312 — a hundred and twenty years after landfall — on the day the Dawnward's landing party walked her (Wide Sky, chapter 4), before the lift. The SITE sheet carries her whole life as dated revisions: the cells and the after body cut in the first generation, the skylight three or four generations back, the yard roofed in her second century, and the two years after the lift. The PRINT sheet draws the one walk.
Sheet 1 General arrangement — profile, looking to port 112.0 m overall · 224 frames at 500 mm
D1 D2 D3 D4 The emitter shed — Topside — the dorsal frame (exterior) · frames 4–12 · published 1-01 The node-emitter mast — Topside — the dorsal frame (exterior) · frames 12–30 · published 1-02 The clear frame — Topside — the dorsal frame (exterior) · frames 30–212 · published 1-03 Berthing and burn couches, as was — Gallery deck · frames 36–88 · fixed 2-01 Timber galleries — the children's place — Gallery deck · frames 88–152 · published 2-02 After body, cut away — the keel quarry — Gallery deck · frames 152–218 · derived 2-03 Forward hold — the shelves — Hold deck · frames 36–88 · published 3-01 Main hold — the hall of names — Hold deck · frames 88–152 · published 3-02 The long table and the speaker's place — Hold deck · frames 104–136 · published 3-03 The speaking-yard — under the opened ribs — Hold deck · frames 152–212 · published 3-04 Cells, forward — the bay emptied — Machinery deck · frames 36–76 · published 4-01 Lower stores — the grain store and the condensers, as was — Machinery deck · frames 76–156 · fixed 4-02 Drive spaces, spent — Machinery deck · frames 156–218 · published 4-03 Head of the kept span — the mast, with the emitter shed at its foot Forward cells — 'at eleven per cent and falling', Day 106 The dorsal run, 'scoured and patched, plates over plates' — read as the old radiator line, plated over The hall door The skylight, cut through the plate over the hall by somebody's great-grandmother The names — both walls, column after column, 'the earliest small and neat and shallow, the latest still bright' The speaker grille on a shelf of its own under the names, wired into the old spine, on a loop The main rib — where the grandmother recorded the message, where the speaker stands, where the last names are written Racks along the aft frames of the yard Foot of the kept span Astern: the line she cut coming down, running up the valley behind her 1 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 220 FRAME
Sheet 2 Deck plans — 4 decks, looking down 26.0 m maximum beam

The outside of the barrow, not a floor: the spine kept bare for five generations, with the mast at its head and the emitter shed at the mast foot. Drawn as a band so the mast, the shed and the kept span can be stationed; nobody walks inside it.

The emitter shed · frames 4–12 · published · Wide Sky, chapter 15 — 'the light in the emitter shed meant Odai was doing what Odai did. The speaker of the Ferren had the access panel open and a wrench in his hand, servicing a transmitter that had already done everything it was ever going to do.'; ch15:113 — 'Thirty years I climbed this hill at night' The node-emitter mast · frames 12–30 · published · Wide Sky, chapter 4 — 'at its head stood the mast they had crossed seventeen days of road to answer. Noon hung over the valley, dull enough that the mast threw only half a shadow.' The node-emitter mast The clear frame · frames 30–212 · published · Wide Sky, chapter 4 — 'A hundred metres of her old dorsal frame had been kept clear of growth for five generations, scoured and patched, plates over plates' The clear frame 1 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 220 PORT STBD
  1. 1-01 The emitter shed Fr 4–12 published Wide Sky, chapter 15 — 'the light in the emitter shed meant Odai was doing what Odai did. The speaker of the Ferren had the access panel open and a wrench in his hand, servicing a transmitter that had already done everything it was ever going to do.'; ch15:113 — 'Thirty years I climbed this hill at night'

    A shed with a lamp on at night for thirty years, an access panel, a wrench and a roll of cloths (ch15:121). Its existence is published; its place at the mast foot on the rise is the drawing's. The kit inside is older than the Dawnward: 'That kit is older than this ship — older than me — and it's still on frequency after all this time.' (Wide Sky, chapter 3).

  2. 1-02 The node-emitter mast Fr 12–30 published Wide Sky, chapter 4 — 'at its head stood the mast they had crossed seventeen days of road to answer. Noon hung over the valley, dull enough that the mast threw only half a shadow.'

    At the head of the dorsal frame — the head of the hundred metres her people sweep. Its height is the drawing's; it is tall enough to throw half a shadow at a dull noon.

  3. 1-03 The clear frame Fr 30–212 published Wide Sky, chapter 4 — 'A hundred metres of her old dorsal frame had been kept clear of growth for five generations, scoured and patched, plates over plates'

    Swept, scoured, patched, plates over plates. The skylight over the hall is cut through this run — an opening in the plate, so it appears as a mark and not a room. Read as the old dorsal radiator run, plated over (derived; see hull.physics).

Key

  • Science
  • Propulsion
  • Power
  • Habitation
  • Stores
  • Access
  • Communications

Grade of every figure on these sheets

  • published Stated in the books. If a drawing disagrees, the drawing is wrong.
  • derived Arithmetic on published facts; the working is given.
  • fixed Canon was silent here and the drawing decided.

Principal figures

Each figure carries its grade: published (the books state it), derived (arithmetic on what they state) or fixed (the sheet's own decision, bounded by what the books rule out).

  • Length overall

    112 m

    derived224 frames @ 500 mm

    The dorsal frame kept clear of growth for five generations is published at one hundred metres (Wide Sky, chapter 4); the hull runs a little past it at both ends. One hundred metres of clear frame is the only dimension canon states for her, and the drawing is built so that it comes out exact — see the checks. No frame of hers is numbered in seventeen chapters; her people say 'the ribs', 'the main rib', 'the aft frames'.

  • Beam

    26 m

    fixedspec ruling 2026-08-01

    A colony keel reads wide — 'a long dark barrow with a spine' (Wide Sky, chapter 4). Canon never gives the figure. Bounds: the speaking-yard is 'a roofed hull-space built to light three hundred' (The Widened Road, chapter 21); the hall musters a town of nineteen hundred by household queue (Wide Sky, chapter 11,:127).

  • Height

    18.4 m

    derivedfour bands, floor heights below

    As built. As found, the line of her is softened by turf, by a century of plates over plates, and by the roof over the opened after body. The hall is tall enough for galleries in the ribs and a skylight high up (Wide Sky, chapter 11,:7).

  • Hull age

    123 yr at 2312

    publishedWide Sky, chapter 12 — 'an Earth yard's mark, a build code, and a year. 2189.'; ch12:11 — 'landfall survey, 2192, authenticated down to the instrument serials'; ch12:13 — 'a hundred and twenty years young'

  • Complement

    400 at landfall; 1,900 by 2312; never rose again

    publishedWide Sky, chapter 15 — 'When the Kindred came down, we were four hundred, and the ship would never rise again.'; Wide Sky, chapter 11 — 'We are one thousand nine hundred, roadmaker.'

  • physics

    undefined

    fixedspec ruling 2026-09-21; §2a; Wide Sky, chapter 15; The Widened Road, chapter 16; The Widened Road, chapter 17

    GRAVITY — SPIN OR NOTHING, AND THE SHEET RULES NOTHING. Built 2189, she predates the seam-tapped deck field (era gate ~2200s): 'Before the tapped field, gravity is spin or nothing.' No ring appears anywhere on the page — the whole silhouette is 'a long dark barrow with a spine' (The Long Charter, chapter 4) — so the sheet draws no spin section and no deck field: four hundred rode the road in zero-g on a voyage planned short. Her class says why that was tolerable: she is a KEEL, a colony hull built to land and be lived in — her distress protocol is 'KEEL GENERAL DISTRESS' in 'formats written for keel-ships', 'the distress protocol issued to colony ships of the Kindred's generation' (Bergen Limit, chapter 16–151; Bergen Limit, chapter 17). Her flight profile is the founders' own lullaby, one burn, the seam, one descent, the ground: 'Ten for the burn, nine for the road, eight for the long fall, seven for the quiet' (The Long Charter, chapter 15). THRUST AXIS — the drive is aft on the centreline (drive-section stock, The Long Charter, chapter 15); under the one burn the decks stood as walls and the colonists lay in burn couches facing aft ('raised on burn tables and cargo rolls', The Long Charter, chapter 15); at every other moment of her life, coasting or grounded, the decks lie parallel to the keel she skidded in on ('along the line she had cut coming down', The Long Charter, chapter 4). MASS — cells forward (The Long Charter, chapter 15), drive aft, seed and water in the holds between: a long hull balanced about the holds on the thrust line. RADIATORS — none named; the hundred metres of dorsal frame 'scoured and patched, plates over plates' (The Long Charter, chapter 4) is read as the old dorsal radiator run, stripped and plated over after landfall (derived). PRESSURE — in 2312 nothing is sealed: skylight cut (The Long Charter, chapter 11), after body 'opened out and roofed' (The Long Charter, chapter 15), a roof whose seams the frost works at (Bergen Limit, chapter 21). The 2312 sheet draws no pressure boundary. Gravity on the sheet is Ostry's.

Systems

The beacon

published

Her last working throat

'Two generations of message on one patient emitter, crying into the dark on the Kindred's last working throat.' (Wide Sky, chapter 15). The old woman's plea — '…to whoever opened the road: we are still here.' — and under it Odai's warning — 'If this reaches Earth: do not open the road wider.' (Wide Sky, chapter 4,:125), on a loop, with 'a run of numbers, one word that kept returning' (Wide Sky, chapter 3) — the word is Ostry. Old hardware kept old habits: 'the handshake carried its reference fix — the brightest reliable neighbour, position and magnitude embedded in every cycle so a listener could true the bearing' (Wide Sky, chapter 3), in 'a format so old the decoder went to deep archive for the protocol' (Wide Sky, chapter 3). The Dawnward's mast had it for four years before anyone believed it: 'Forty-one log entries across four years and two refits: within tolerance' (Wide Sky, chapter 3). Played back in the hall from 'a hand-sized speaker grille … wired into the old spine' (Wide Sky, chapter 4); recorded 'under the main rib' of the yard (Wide Sky, chapter 15); kept alive on the cells (Wide Sky, chapter 15).

  • Reference fixBrightest reliable neighbour, position and magnitude, every cycle
  • Housekeeping stampEmitter health and sky brightness in every send since landfall — 'Founder spec — a navigation aid nobody ever used.'
  • Heard earlyFour years on the Dawnward's mast floor, logged as noise
  • ⚠ SPOILER — after the lift (2312–2314)'carrier up, nothing riding it, a lit window in an empty house' (The Widened Road, chapter 16); then 'KEEL GENERAL DISTRESS. ALL STATIONS. ASSISTANCE IMMEDIATE. REPEAT UNTIL ANSWERED.' — originator block KINDRED (The Widened Road, chapter 16–153); eleven sends in a fixed rotation, then twelve (The Widened Road, chapter 17,:73)

Wide Sky, chapter 15; Wide Sky, chapter 3,:107,:131,:169; Wide Sky, chapter 4–125; Wide Sky, chapter 10; The Widened Road, chapter 17,:23

The cells

published

Forward; one removed to the plant-house at landfall, still serving

'Forward cells at eleven per cent and falling.' (Wide Sky, chapter 15) on Day 106. The one that survives hums in the town's plant-house 'on a bed of dressed stone … squat, patched, older than everyone alive on the planet, still turning out current for a town that had planned its whole shape around the reach of that hum' (Wide Sky, chapter 5); 'The hum of the Kindred's cell came up through the floor, the loudest thing on the world' (The Widened Road, chapter 20). Its endurance is why the town exists and why the mast is still up. It is a valley over from the hull and is not drawn aboard; the town's grid runs from it 'shoulder-high on timber poles, sheathed in woven fibre and lacquered dark' (Wide Sky, chapter 5), and the town 'banked its power at dusk like a fire' (Wide Sky, chapter 5).

  • Day 106 after landfallForward cells 11 % and falling
  • 2312One cell on dressed stone in the plant-house, running — and set to 'run without hands'

Wide Sky, chapter 15; Wide Sky, chapter 5; The Widened Road, chapter 20,:95

Drive, spent

published

Never to turn again; quarried for iron

'the ship would never rise again' (Wide Sky, chapter 15). What is left of the drive section is the speaking-iron — 'a metre of ship-metal, drive-section stock, worn bright at the grip' (Wide Sky, chapter 15) — which is what a people uses for a gavel: 'The iron came down butt-first on the plating, one strike, like a gavel.' (Wide Sky, chapter 15). Flight profile, as the founders sang it to their children: 'Ten for the burn, nine for the road, eight for the long fall, seven for the quiet' (Wide Sky, chapter 15).

Wide Sky, chapter 15,:55,:65

The four keels

published

Cut from her bones, five generations old — one drawn on its cradle beside her

'Keels didn't climb so much as commit. Five generations old, cut from the Kindred's bones for a heavier world, they went up the ascent corridor on a pillar of thrust with the grace of furniture and all the mass in the world behind the decision.' (The Widened Road, chapter 19). Ferren-built, Ferren-flown: 'Our own keels fly … Ferren hands on Ferren helms. Your corridor; our ships.' (Wide Sky, chapter 11). One is drawn small on its cradle beside the hull: 'a grain hauler with five generations of Ostry weather in her plates and six days of Silva's new steel underneath' (Wide Sky, chapter 13); a lift jet that 'went amber, edged red' (Wide Sky, chapter 13); 'The keels take ground power from the cradles until the last lift.' (The Widened Road, chapter 20); 'The cradle feet iced in the night. My cells cold-soak faster every hour she sits.' (The Widened Road, chapter 21); a hatch whose 'dogs went over one at a time, another pair of hands helping his on the wheel', webbing rows, a port, 'the keel's old frame ticked and knocked' (The Widened Road, chapter 21). Four, not five — the count that closes the evacuation ledger (Wide Sky, chapter 20).

  • CountFour
  • Age at the liftFive generations
  • Loads, 2312Sixty-eight aboard the third keel up, forty-one of them children; 1,140 on the four keels at the mouth
  • ⚠ SPOILER — 2314'her flanks carried two years of new patch-plate over the old' (The Widened Road, chapter 21); Keel Three a hundred and nine aboard (The Widened Road, chapter 19); forty-nine on the last keel out (The Widened Road, chapter 21)

The Widened Road, chapter 19; Wide Sky, chapter 11; Wide Sky, chapter 13,:7,:93; Wide Sky, chapter 17; Wide Sky, chapter 20; Wide Sky, chapter 26; The Widened Road, chapter 17; The Widened Road, chapter 20; The Widened Road, chapter 21,:11,:131

The log-core

published

A grey cylinder, a polished band, a year

'a grey cylinder as tall as Vale's collarbone, its casing polished bright in a band where five generations of hands had touched it in passing. Under the polish the maker's stamp survived: an Earth yard's mark, a build code, and a year. 2189.' (Wide Sky, chapter 12). 'landfall survey, 2192, authenticated down to the instrument serials' (Wide Sky, chapter 12); 'Landfall survey, and forty years of log besides.' (Wide Sky, chapter 12); the arrival fix 'took its bearings from three bright stars' (Wide Sky, chapter 6); 'the Kindred's clock had run alone for a hundred and twenty years' (Wide Sky, chapter 6); 'The Kindred's log had listened as well as spoken: generations of traffic marks' (Wide Sky, chapter 12). A Ferren machinist passing it 'laid two fingers on the band' (Wide Sky, chapter 18). Kept in the shelves; carried up in 'a sealed ship's case with the Kindred's registry still legible on the lid' (Wide Sky, chapter 5). Title-block inset, standing, with the stamp.

  • Built2189
  • Landfall survey2192
  • Log keptForty years after landfall
  • Arrival fixThree bright stars

Wide Sky, chapter 12,:11,:39,:89; Wide Sky, chapter 6,:127; Wide Sky, chapter 18; Wide Sky, chapter 5,:143

What was checked

The books state distances aboard this ship. The drawing has to produce the same ones or it is wrong — so it is made to, and the working is shown. These run again on every build; a compartment moved by a metre fails them.

  • “One hundred metres of dorsal frame kept clear of growth for five generations” Wide Sky, chapter 4 — 'A hundred metres of her old dorsal frame had been kept clear of growth for five generations, scoured and patched, plates over plates, and at its head stood the mast'

    The kept span runs from the mast at F12 (1-02 begins) to the foot of the clear frame at F212 (1-03 ends): 200 frames at 500 mm = 100.0 m. The mast is the head OF the clear frame, not a thing standing outside it — what her people sweep runs from its foot. Unchanged 2026-09-21. Pass.

  • “Built 2189, landfall survey 2192, a hundred and twenty years before the Dawnward” Wide Sky, chapter 12,:11,:13

    2312 − 2192 = 120 years, as the page has it ('a hundred and twenty years young', ch12:13). The yard stamp and the survey date bracket three years from the yard to the ground. Age at the print date: 2312 − 2189 = 123. Pass.

  • “The shelves open off the hall” Wide Sky, chapter 4 — 'A man was waiting by the hall door as they came out of the shelves'; Wide Sky, chapter 15 (the forward hold); Wide Sky, chapter 11 (the hall is the main hold)

    3-01 forward hold ends at F88 and 3-02 main hold begins at F88 on the same deck: the two share a bulkhead, so a party leaving the shelves stands in the hall by its door. The door annotation sits at F92, inside the hall's forward end. Corrected 2026-09-21: the shelves were on D2 above the forward hold; the page puts the reader and the bench IN the forward hold. Pass.

  • “The speaking-yard is aft of the hall, under the opened ribs, with racks along the aft frames” Wide Sky, chapter 15; The Widened Road, chapter 21; The Widened Road, chapter 19

    3-04 spans [152, 212] and begins where the hall ends; 2-03 (the keel quarry, D2) spans [152, 218] directly over it, so the yard's roof is the roof over the cut and not hull plate — as 'opened out and roofed' requires. The yard is 60 frames at 500 mm = 30.0 m long, room for benches to a count of three hundred. The racks annotation at F206 lies inside the yard's after end. The main rib at F152 is the frame both rooms share. Pass.

  • “The cells are forward” Wide Sky, chapter 15 — 'Forward cells at eleven per cent and falling.'

    Hull midpoint is F112. 4-01 spans [36, 76]: its after end at F76 is 36 frames at 500 mm = 18.0 m forward of amidships, and the bay lies under the forward hold, not under the drive. Corrected 2026-09-21 from F120–156 (aft of midships). Pass.

  • “Four keels, and the evacuation ledger closes on them” Wide Sky, chapter 20 — 'Three hundred and seventy-two gone up in the early launches. Eleven hundred and forty out on the four keels … Fifty-one in this hold … Forty-four dead of the going … Two hundred and ninety-three under the sun'; Wide Sky, chapter 17; Wide Sky, chapter 26; The Widened Road, chapter 17; The Widened Road, chapter 21

    372 + 1,140 + 51 + 44 + 293 = 1,900, the town's census (Wide Sky, chapter 11). Five chapters say four keels; the sheet says four. 'Keel five' (Wide Sky, chapter 13) is read as the fifth ascent on the marshal band in a chapter that counts lifts ('The third keel went up from the north field', ch13:3). Corrected 2026-09-21 from 'five keels of 2312'. Pass.

  • “The keels were cut in the first generation, not in 2312” The Widened Road, chapter 19 — 'Five generations old, cut from the Kindred's bones for a heavier world'; Wide Sky, chapter 13 — 'five generations of Ostry weather in her plates'; The Widened Road, chapter 19 — 'The keels sat fuelled and turned-around on the field'

    A hull that is 'five generations old' at the 2312 lift was cut within a generation of the 2192 landfall. 2-03 is therefore graded as a century-old cut on the 2312 sheet, and the yard beneath it is 'the first speaking under these ribs' (Wide Sky, chapter 15). Pass.

  • “The hall is tall enough for galleries in the ribs under a skylight” Wide Sky, chapter 11,:7

    3-02 floor at z 4.4 with 5.2 m of hold height, and 2-02 the galleries at z 9.6 with 4.4 m above: 9.6 m clear from the hall floor to the underside of the topside band, the galleries at mid-height in the ribs and the skylight (F114, in the kept span [30, 212] and over the hall [88, 152]) in the plate above them. Pass.

  • “No spin section and no deck field” §2a (bible ruling): 'Before the tapped field, gravity is spin or nothing'; Wide Sky, chapter 4; hull.physics

    Build year 2189 is before the ~2200s era gate; the only exterior sentence on the page is 'a long dark barrow with a spine' with no ring in it. The sheet draws four horizontal bands on a keel datum, a drive aft on the centreline and nothing that turns. Ruled 2026-09-21. Pass.

  • “She skidded in; she did not land on her drive” Wide Sky, chapter 4 — 'The ship lay half a day up the valley, along the line she had cut coming down.'

    The keel is the datum and the decks are horizontal as found; the scar annotation at F222 runs astern up the valley; 4-03 is drawn as spent drive on the thrust line, not as a landing foot. Corrected 2026-09-21 from 'she came down on them'. Pass.

Service history

Compiled from

  • Wide Sky — chapters 03, 04, 05, 06, 08, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 20, 26 (built, frozen)
  • The Widened Road — chapters 05, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (built, frozen)
  • The Closing Sky — chapter 13 (no hull description)
  • landfall ~2192)