[ This is the problem, when fewer people are around who remember how things started. No one tells the new arrivals anything. ]

You didn't think the Porter was merely a machine, did you? The entire setup makes less sense when you don't know that much, how small a hand the government has in any of it. They're just working damage control, trying to handle a situation that's been thrust on them as much as it has been on us.

Lachesis is the one who controls it, the Porter is merely her abode. She shares her name with an ancient Greek deity, presiding over fate. Her sisters would weave the thread of life, or sever it at its end. She measured its length, as she does with our time as imPorts.

She's been much less sociable since we lost the last Earth to her older sister. But I've never had a moment's doubt that she's still in there.