by Greg Egan
‘A little excitement?’ Agata would have thought Tarquinia’s encounter with the rogue gnat had given her enough for a lifetime. ‘We’ll be unreachable. If anything goes wrong, there’ll be no one to help us.’
‘Hence . . .’ Tarquinia spread her arms.
‘You think these exercises are going to protect us?’
‘They’ll nudge the odds in our favour,’ Tarquinia insisted. ‘If you ever start taking them seriously. But if you want certainty, feel free to tell Greta that you refuse to fly until they’ve built the messaging system and confirmed the Surveyor’s return.’
‘Would that be so terrible?’ Agata retorted. ‘Or would the whole thing become worthless to you, if you knew you’d be safe?’
‘Not at all,’ Tarquinia said mildly. ‘But I don’t think the politics would work out. If we postponed the launch until your side achieved everything it wanted, then whatever chance the Surveyor had of defusing tensions would vanish.’
‘That’s true.’ Agata glanced back towards the mountain. ‘We’re getting awfully far from the Peerless.’
Tarquinia declined the opportunity to remind her exactly how many orders of magnitude larger her comfort zone needed to be. ‘So do you want to correct our drift and take us back to the slopes?’
‘How?’
Tarquinia detached the tank from her own cooling bag. ‘Incrementally. Small bursts, then wait and observe the effects.’
Agata accepted the tank with her left hand, then brought her arms together behind her back so she could grip it with her right hand as well.
‘You’ll need to hang on to me,’ she told Tarquinia.
‘Right.’ Tarquinia complied. ‘The belt hook alone leaves too much freedom, it’d be asking for trouble.’
Agata said, ‘If we were doing this for real, I’d leave the whole thing up to you.’
‘Pretend I’ve lost consciousness.’
‘In that case I’d cut you loose.’
‘And fly the Surveyor back on your own? Good luck with that.’
Agata closed her front eyes so she could concentrate on the task. She took her time estimating the position of their combined centre of mass, then she aligned the axis of the tank to pass through it while pointing more or less in opposition to the direction in which she believed they were drifting.
She opened the valve, counted one pause, then shut off the air.
The thrust was slightly off-centre, imparting a small amount of spin, but at least she hadn’t lost her grip on the tank. Agata waited until she’d come full circle, then she released a second burst along a shifted axis that largely compensated for the first unwanted torque.
Tarquinia said, ‘See, you’re a natural.’
Agata took a moment to process the remark for traces of sarcasm. She said, ‘There’s only one downside if I get us back safely.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I don’t want anyone believing that they could put their life in my hands.’
‘Because . . . ?’
‘I think we’ll all be much safer,’ Agata explained, ‘if everyone around me is so terrified of the prospect of relying on me in an emergency that they work twice as hard to ensure that it never comes to that.’
Tarquinia said, ‘Don’t worry: there’s nothing you can do to rob me of my healthy respect for the possibility that your incompetence will kill me.’
The guards all knew Agata by sight, but she still had to sign a patch to enter the workshop. When she reached the Surveyor, Verano and half a dozen of his team were conducting inspections – shining serious-looking instruments on the polished grey stone around the edges of the rebounder panels – but he motioned to her to go inside anyway.
The airlock’s safety mechanisms had been disengaged to allow people to crawl through the entry hatch unimpeded. Agata emerged in the front of the upturned cabin and slid down the tarpaulin that had been spread protectively across the long, curved clearstone window that presently faced the workshop’s floor.
As she rose to her feet she heard a rustle of paper from one of the rooms above her. ‘Hello?’ she called up.
‘It’s only us!’ Azelio replied. The first two faces that appeared staring down at her belonged to Azelio’s niece and nephew, Luisa and Lorenzo. ‘Come and join us,’ Azelio suggested, squatting down to shoo the children away from the opening.
Agata climbed the rope ladder up to the doorway and clambered into the cabin. After going through the turnaround it was easy to adjust her perceptions to make everything look normal; all the vertical shelves running along the wall in front of her served as a perfect cue to define the ultimate, functional orientation of the room.
The children had a thick sheaf of pictures with them that they were in the process of pinning to the soft wooden board on which they knelt. ‘This is just the start,’ Luisa explained. ‘There’s a new one for every stint.’
‘Every stint of your uncle’s journey?’
‘Yes.’
Agata was impressed. ‘That’s a lot of pictures.’ All the ones she could see looked like impressions from the children’s own skin – there were no photographs or artificial images. Some were obviously meant as portraits of family members, but there were more fanciful works as well: scenes with strange animals surrounded by giant flowers; Esilio suspended in the void, sprouting improbably huge mountains, the black disc of its sun covering the star trails. ‘You’re good at keeping the colours aligned,’ she said. ‘I could never do that.’ It was quite a skill to raise exactly the right shapes for each dye, with enough precision that the combined result of three or four separate impressions was as sharp as this.
‘I can teach you,’ Luisa offered.
‘I won’t have time.’
‘I’ll teach you when you get back.’ Luisa smoothed the paper beneath her hands but turned her rear gaze to Agata. ‘It’s not so long that I’ll have forgotten how. I’ll only be seven.’
‘Is this the Surveyor?’ Agata asked, pointing to a grey lenticular shape with a beam of yellow light emerging from the middle.
Lorenzo said, ‘Yes. I did that one.’
‘Is it going to Esilio, or coming back?’
‘Coming back is at the end.’ Lorenzo gestured towards the stack of images yet to reach the board. Luisa hushed him, as if he might be spoiling a secret.
‘I hope we didn’t keep you from something,’ Azelio said.
‘I was just going to look around again. Fix things in my mind.’ Agata knew that sounded strange, but the more familiar she became with the craft’s interior, the less anxious she felt about the prospect of seeing nothing else on their journey to Esilio for the next six years. ‘I want to get accustomed to the place in small doses, and then I’ll be ready for it non-stop.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘I never thought about bringing my own changes of scenery.’ She moved aside to let Lorenzo continue with the strip of images he was attaching.
‘You can share the pictures if you like,’ Azelio replied. ‘Believe me, I’ll be asking to borrow your books.’
‘Can I share them?’ Agata asked Luisa.
‘Of course,’ Luisa replied affably.
Lorenzo said, ‘Just be careful you don’t smudge them.’
Agata took her leave. To reach her own cabin she had to descend and then climb a different ladder. The layout was a mirror image of Azelio’s; she’d already stacked the shelves with books, the vertical piles made less precarious by restraining strings.
She knelt on the blank wooden picture board, wondering if it would seem strange to the rest of the crew if she pinned a photograph of Medoro there. Or maybe she could have a stylised print made that looked like a skin impression, and then it wouldn’t stand out too much among the borrowed pictures from the children.
Agata walked over to the shallow indentation that would hold her sand bed. She leant against it and imagined waking in this spot, gazing up at the cabin’s moss-free ceiling, everything around her muted grey in the safety l
ight.
But she’d woken in the same apartment for more than six years, and that had never felt oppressive. Here, there would be a reward for her patience drawing inexorably closer – the kind of guarantee that her work had never been able to provide. To walk on a planet, to tread on open ground beneath the stars would be extraordinary. Between that, the test of Lila’s theory, and the chance to rid the mountain of Medoro’s killers, she ought to have more than enough to sustain her.
Agata climbed down the ladder and crawled out through the airlock. It was time to start saying her farewells.
17
Ramiro couldn’t understand why Rosita had brought Vincenzo with her to the launch party. He didn’t need to spend his last few chimes before departing watching the man hovering possessively around his sister, while the two of them made small talk with the vapid dignitaries who’d descended on Verano’s workshop like an infestation of mites.
It was, admittedly, good to know that there was no prospect of Corrado raising the children, but he wished Rosita had simply told him that she’d found someone to take his place without parading the substitute in front of him. He already knew that he was superfluous. Rosita might well have waited four more years before shedding, but by the time he returned he’d be far too old to play any part in the children’s lives.
As Ramiro stood watching them, Greta approached, a plate of food in one hand.
‘Do you think you’ll have grandchildren, the next time we meet?’ he asked her.
‘I hope not. My son will only be ten years old.’
‘Really?’ Ramiro remembered her taking time off for the shedding, but it felt like a lifetime ago. ‘So are you here in some official capacity, or is it just your way of saying how much you’ll miss me?’
‘I’m sure the pain of your absence will be bearable,’ she replied. ‘And brief. As soon as the system’s up and running, it will be as if you’re already back.’
Ramiro buzzed sceptically. ‘I know the Council won’t formally postpone it, but after the election I suspect they’ll be willing to let things slide. Technical problems with various components, deadlines missed, new reports commissioned . . .’
‘That’s not going to happen,’ Greta said firmly. ‘Nothing’s been put on hold. If we delayed completion until the Surveyor returned, what would that be saying? That if Esilio turns out to be uninhabitable, the whole thing is off?’
Ramiro had never expected the Council to make the fate of the messaging system hostage to the Surveyor’s discoveries, but to rush ahead with it now seemed like a wasted opportunity to let things cool off. Then again, if the early news about Esilio was promising, that might compensate for the way it was obtained.
‘So you think you’ll know exactly what we’re going to find, before we’ve even found it?’
‘Of course,’ Greta replied. ‘I’m sure we’ll get the system built in less than two years. There’s a good chance that we’ve locked up the bombers, and in any case our security is far better now.’
‘I don’t want to come back to find that you idiots have blown each other up.’ Ramiro was still stealing glances at Rosita and Vincenzo; he hated the idea of Greta sensing his discomfort, but he couldn’t help himself. ‘Maybe I’ll just stay on Esilio, and spare myself all the needless travel. I’m sure Azelio can brief you on the planet’s suitability as well as I could.’
‘So you’ll let the agronomist return, and try to farm the new world all by yourself?’
‘There might be other inhabitants there already,’ Ramiro suggested. ‘I don’t mind if they’re living backwards; it ought to make for some interesting conversations.’
Greta knew he wasn’t serious, but she still insisted on crushing his fantasy. ‘The astronomers did a ten-year spectral analysis, before the turnaround. If there were plants growing on Esilio, we’d know about it.’
That much was hard to dispute. Even though they hadn’t been able to image the star and planet separately, over time the astronomers would have picked up any small variations in the spectrum as different regions of the planet’s surface rotated in and out of view. ‘What if their farms are in caves, like ours?’
‘So they have agriculture underground, but there’s no natural vegetation on the surface?’
Ramiro wasn’t in the mood to concede anything. ‘Maybe you’ll know the answer before I do, but that’s no guarantee that it won’t surprise you.’
He looked away, and spotted Tarquinia and her family nearby. Her brother, Sicuro, had extruded extra arms to help him hold the children but they kept trying to squirm out of his grip. Tarquinia was talking with her uncle, and the conversation appeared intense; Ramiro decided not to intrude. He checked the countdown on a display screen suspended from the ceiling; the crew would start boarding in less than three chimes.
Councillor Marina called for silence, then began delivering an oration that was less about the Surveyor’s actual goals than the motives of the people who’d authorised the mission. ‘This conciliatory project is proof that the mountain is still governed with the interests of every traveller in mind. Only those who seek to turn us against each other will fail to be inspired by this beacon of cooperation and mutual understanding.’
As the speech was finishing, Ramiro caught Agata’s eye. The testing of Lila’s theory hadn’t rated a mention – which was a pity, since it was the only observation they’d be making that carried no risk of disappointment. The truth about gravity would be worth knowing, whatever it turned out to be.
Tarquinia was already moving towards the airlock. Ramiro searched the crowd and finally caught sight of Rosita again; she was standing beside one of the food tables. He nodded a curt farewell to Greta, then wove his way through the obstacle course towards his sister.
Vincenzo wasn’t far away, but he was talking to someone else while Rosita helped herself to the spiced loaves. She’d put on a lot of weight since Ramiro had last spoken to her.
‘How soon?’ he asked.
‘A couple of stints,’ she replied.
‘I hope it goes well.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Rosita said. ‘And the children will be fine. Don’t worry about anything.’
‘All right.’ She hadn’t brought Vincenzo here to humiliate him, he realised. The sight of her living her own chosen life, undeterred, had been meant to reassure him.
‘Good luck,’ she said.
‘Thanks.’ In his rear gaze Ramiro could see Tarquinia motioning to him impatiently. ‘I’ll see you when I get back.’
As he turned, he felt the weight of something like grief: the burden he’d shirked all his life but never quite renounced was utterly lost to him now.
He caught up with Tarquinia, Agata and Azelio beside the airlock. They’d rehearsed the exit half a dozen times, and as they donned their corsets, cooling bags and jetpacks, Ramiro cushioned himself with the familiarity of it all.
Agata said, ‘Think of Yalda parting from Eusebio, knowing that she’d never return. This is nothing.’
‘Yalda’s an invention,’ Ramiro told her, straight-faced. ‘She’s no more real than anyone from the sagas.’
Agata stared at him, appalled by this heresy, but before she could summon a reply he put on his helmet. When she finally launched into an improvised defence of the historical Yalda he just frowned apologetically and feigned incomprehension.
Verano had had to build a whole new airlock to get the Surveyor out into the void, but the shiny clearstone chamber in front of them covered a small portal that had been here since Marzio’s time. Ramiro was the last to squeeze into the chamber; he slid the door closed and watched blue resin oozing out of the frame, taking on a green tint as it expanded and solidified to make a hermetic seal.
Tarquinia’s voice came through the link in his helmet. ‘Evacuating airlock.’ Ramiro felt the fabric puff out around his limbs as the pressure in the chamber dropped.
Tarquinia squatted down and broke the seal on the portal, then cranked the circular aperture open. She w
as the first to descend, seizing hold of the short stone ladder that protruded above the opening as she placed her feet on the rungs of rope below.
Azelio followed, then Agata. Ramiro felt a twinge of annoyance; he’d made a bet with Tarquinia that Agata would pull out at the last moment – and Tarquinia had made it clear that once they were on board she’d be accepting no resignations. At the edge of the portal he hesitated; he could see the assembled guests gawking from behind the cordon. Backing out now would almost be worth it, just for the joy of telling these idiots that he wouldn’t be cleaning up their mess after all.
Almost, but not quite. He grabbed the top of the ladder and began the descent.
Ramiro emerged facing the black hemisphere of empty sky. The light spilling through from above lit the way well enough, and as it tapered off his eyes adjusted to the starlight. He glanced down to see the dark disc of the Surveyor, enmeshed in support ropes, still standing on its rim but inverted compared with its orientation in the workshop.
Only two helmeted figures remained on the ladder below him; Tarquinia was already inside. The craft’s interior had been kept pressurised for the sake of Azelio’s seedlings, so it was necessary for each of them to wait their turn to cycle through the Surveyor’s small airlock. As Azelio opened the hatch, Ramiro pictured himself releasing his hold on the ladder, starting up his jetpack and fleeing across the slopes. If he hadn’t left it so late he might have thought up a way to fake his own death out here. There were probably a few antimessagers still walking free who would have been willing to shelter him.
Agata entered the airlock. Ramiro’s pride had the better of him now: he wasn’t going to hand a moral victory to any ancestor-worshipping messager. He started down the ladder slowly, timing his steps so that he wouldn’t arrive too soon.