question: Where was the group gathered on the night Adrienne questioned the ship's purpose? answer: They were gathered in the South Ballroom paragraph: Fact: Some places are timeless. Days passed, weeks passed, but I couldn't tell if it had been months or years since I was rescued. All there was, all I remembered, was a blur. Gathering for drinks in the parlors, playing dress up with all the fine clothes I found in the closets (some of it modern, some of it period dress for special themed events), idling in the lounges. Now and then, a new face mingled in the crowd. Other faces washed out, fading into the backdrop of carpets and fake glass chandeliers and the muted hum of the engines. One of these evenings, we were gathered in the South Ballroom for post-dinner drinks, lounging on couches and watching other members of our populace move in circles on the dance floor. (The 'South' was in the title to suggest that there were more ballrooms. There weren't.) Sarah's circle had picked up another newcomer, Adrienne, a short blond girl who we all agreed was barely old enough to attend a traditional university back on Earth, let alone work on the ship in whose wreck Jefferson had found her. Maybe it was her curiosity, asking a question I should have asked long before, that turned the conversation serious; maybe there was just something special about that evening. Maybe we had all tired of the frivolity of our life, hitting some threshold or some breaking point. Regardless, when Adrienne asked what the ship's purpose was, we all gave it a measure of thought. We dredged up half-fledged theories and inchoate explanations, tossing these out the same way we pitched ideas about the art films. 