by Anthology
"I've been better." He rolled over again, and then something seemed to occur to him; Meg watched the look of dread appear from nowhere on his face. "You're not here to tell me I'm being replaced?"
Meg shifted in the chair. "I'd rather not have to do that." She hesitated, then asked, "Can you tell me how you are? I mean, really."
"Apparently," Leonard said, "I was in that train carriage for eight hours before they got me out of there. I don't remember it. They tell me I hit my head and had a seizure of some sort."
"Oh, my goodness." Meg leaned back in her chair, and wondered if he had been the passenger she had seen rescued from the last carriage. "I'm so sorry."
He looked at her levelly. "Well?"
Meg let out a breath. "We don't want to replace you," she said. "It will be easier to delay the launch than replace you."
"You'd do that for me?" He looked hopeful, Meg realised suddenly; he tried to sit up for a minute, then thought better of it. "I mean—I'm not dead. I can be treated. I can get over this. I will get over this. Can I still…"
He trailed off, his hair falling into his eyes, and Meg pushed away the urge to reach out and take his hand again, this time out of compassion, rather than formality. "Perhaps," she said, very gently. "I don't want to say for certain that you will go to the ball, you understand? But I've had a note from my team in London, and they say it will take so long to train another light-field engineer, and the circuitry in the ship is designed with your particular neurology in mind, and—well." She paused. "I don't pretend to understand the technical detail. But yes. It might be easier to delay."
"Thank you," he said, fervent and with eyes shining, "thank you, Ms Tripathi, you won't regret this."
She shook her head, not knowing how to respond. "Is there anything else you need?" she asked after a moment, awkward. "Anything I can do for you?”
“Actually, there is.” He looked up at her, frowning. “My parents are my next of kin—they're coming down soon. But there’s a couple of people—I don’t want them to hear from the news outlets, they’ll think the worst, you know?” He made a confused gesture. “You know what I mean.”
“Of course,” Meg said. “Let me have their names, my department will take care of it.”
“Thanks,” he said, scribbling on the tablet she offered from her bag. “There’s Pen—she’s my roommate, she’d worry. And my, er, partner up in Leith.”
“Your, er, partner?” Meg said, with a slightly unprofessional flash of humour.
“Three weeks of furlough.” Leonard gestured. “But after that he and I have—a termination agreement. Faster-than-light communication not being, ah, at its technological zenith.” He grinned. “I’m allowed to say that, I’m gonna be the one actually pushing the boat. Ah, inshallah.”
Meg smiled back. “I’ll make sure he’s informed as soon as possible. And”—she hesitated, then went on—“I’m sorry. I suppose we all must make personal sacrifices, for the mission, but I…I didn’t think.”
He shrugged. “It’s a sacrifice, sure. But I get to go into space. I get to push a ship through space faster than light with my head.” He laughed a little, as though at his own foolishness. “I’m a light-field engineer. It’s what I’m here to do.”
“Yes,” Meg said, softly. “Thank you, Leonard. I’ll leave my card on the table. We'll be in touch."
She let herself out, very quietly, and when she looked back he was still staring after her, his eyes bright.
***
"And so," Meg said, in conclusion, "that's my formal recommendation. Delay the launch by—say, a fortnight if we can. Adrienne has put together some second-best scenarios if Campbell isn't fit to fly by then, but we'll hope that he is. In either case, we're working out how to deal with the press. Thankfully, there were no other serious injuries."
The minister nodded, and yawned. "Apologies, Ms Tripathi," he said, and Meg couldn't blame him; it was evening now, the city lights bright around them, and neither of them had slept since the first call had come about the accident. Meg looked across the Holyrood grounds and spotted the small shuttle waiting for them both, and up above her head at the bright lights of geostationary spacedock. "What about the supply pod?" the minister asked. "I ask this out of pure academic interest and not in the slightest bit because we're about to trust our lives to one of the damn things."
"It's a different model of pod," Meg said, amused, "and this one has a crew. Adrienne will let us have the report when it's done."
"Good," the minister said, and said nothing while they were guided on board the small craft, the flight crew disappearing into the cockpit and the straps descending from the ceiling. Meg secured herself in her seat, next to the window, and wondered not for the first time why the minister had called her up to Edinburgh to begin with. She'd been investigating train times southbound when she received the message, and had come up with all due alacrity and increasing mystification. "Now, Meghna," he said, finally, twisting round to speak to her from his seat in front. "That was your formal recommendation. What is your informal one?"
Meg hesitated, and in that moment of silence, the shuttle left the ground, moving straight up as though hung from a cable, rapidly enough to make her ears pop. The city receded beneath then, becoming a jewellery box of shining lights. "I don't like to say, Minister," she said, at last, and to her surprise, he smiled as though he'd been expecting her response.
"I won't push," he said. "Oh, one more bit of shop-talk: I suppose it's all lost beyond recovery, but what was the cargo in the pod?"
"Tins, sir."
"Tins?"
"Tins." Meg spread her hands. "There's going to be hydroponics and food reclamation on board, but it's a long way to Barnard's Star. It was thought the crew might like—well. Tinned pineapple. Cream of tomato soup."
"Tinned pineapple," the minister said, faintly.
"But it's all right," Meg added. "Heinz and the other suppliers have offered to replace everything free of cost. I pushed them into it because they need it for their advertising, you know—enjoyed all the way out to the stars! and all that nonsense."
"Meg," the minister said, chuckling, "you are a marvel. How's your young lady?"
"She's well," Meg said, a little amused at the phrasing. "Thank you for asking."
He caught something of her amusement, and shrugged apology. "Forgive me. When I was your age they used to ask, how's your friend. Sometimes, special friend. Wink wink, nudge, nudge. It grew tiresome. Though, of course"—he smiled, wistfully—"friends do grow special, over the years. Meghna, it's time we come clean."
"About what?"
"About the sinecures list."
"Alnwick," Meg said, automatically, and then: "We'll need to take legal advice. And, sir—politically speaking…"
"Not your bailiwick, Meg," he said, a little stern. "It's time. Thirty years ago this was the only way we could do this. Halley is…well, it's remarkable what's been done. Crown prerogatives will do that."
"If the prerogative money is withdrawn," Meg said, "we become a government department like any other. We'll need to be funded by way of legislation. We'll have to go before Parliament."
"And so we should, and so we will." The minister glanced at her. "Meg—thirty years ago, I'm sure the people in your position thought the Alnwick loophole was a gift from heaven. So inimitably British, of course. Some unknown prerogative post with unlimited executive funding! Our own Civil List! And all we have to do is make sure no one ever finds out that we're funding a faster-than-light interstellar space programme through a twelfth-century Northumberland sinecure, administered through the coroner's office!"
"When you put it like that," Meg said, with regret for her brusqueness with Deepika, "it sounds ridiculous."
The minister nodded, and Meg suddenly realised she'd been too distracted by his conversation to notice the rapid fall of the earth. Beyond the window glass she could make out the Firth of Forth laid out in the patterns of its own cartography, dusted with wisps of c
loud. When Meg turned back from the view the minister gave her a small, secretive smile. "Tell me," he said, "was that going to be your informal recommendation?"
Meg thought for a minute. "You know," she said at last, "I met a man in Morpeth who thought my job was exciting. That it was wonderful, to do what I do, in my office in London. Leonard Ansari-Campbell was trapped for hours in the freezing cold and dark three weeks before he goes out into space, into the freezing cold and the dark, and his greatest fear is that I'll take that away from him."
"If we delay the launch," the minister said, low and careful, "perhaps you will not have to do that."
"And, well." Meg paused, and brought a hand to her throat. "I thought we wore these little Halley ID crystals as a publicity stunt. I mean, we could use tablets like everyone else, you know? We're not crew. We're only logistics."
The minister nodded. "I won't say it wasn't thought of in those terms, at least to begin with."
"But, maybe," Meg said, hesitated again, and then said it. "Maybe something of us goes out there with them."
The minister smiled at her. "Maybe it does." He motioned beneath him at Scotland, now bright in its entirety; then at the lights gleaming out on the North Sea, and in the far distance, the terminator creeping over the earth's surface. "Now hold onto that thought and step back. Think about the greater picture. Ask yourself why we're not at the heart of government. Why we, of all people, and of all things, should not be funded. Ask yourself why three pence in the pound cannot go to carrying citizens into the great unknown."
"Minister," Meg said gently, "there's no need for a speech. I'm not your public."
He glanced at her sidelong. "Did you vote for this government?"
Meg grinned. "Yes, Minister."
"Then call it your three pence in the pound." He shrugged again, and overturned his hands. "Are you ready for this?"
"It's what I'm here for," Meg said, and watched Halley curve into view above, like a paper aeroplane made glorious and enormous, sharp and silver. Beyond it, there was nothing but the inky blackness of space. "Except," she added, "I don't know why I'm here. Why did you ask me to come up?"
At the sound of the docking clamps, and the pressure beginning to equalise, the minister looked at her as though it were obvious. "This is the ship we built, Meg. Let's take a look."
***
Back in London, on a Sunday morning comfortable and hushed with snow, Meg curled up under a blanket on the sofa and let Deepika bring her tea. "Masala chai, just how you like it," she said, and Meg smiled up at her, breathing it in.
"You know," she said, idly worrying a loose thread on the blanket, "I don’t like your friends. Especially Pink Hair. She’s a twit.”
Deepika blinked. “She has a name, Meg."
“So do I,” Meg said. “It’s Meg. Meghna. Clouds, you know? That’s what it means. Like, up in the sky, though I suppose the Magellanic Clouds would also count."
"Meg, is there a point to this?"
"I'm getting to it," Meg said. "I didn't like what's-her-name, Annelise, either. I'm sorry I ran out on your party but I'm not sorry I was rude to them."
"You were rather rude," Deepika agreed. "Maybe I should trade you in for a better model."
"Maybe you should make new friends."
"Maybe I should," Deepika said, easily, and Meg was comforted by it. "Maybe I'd do worse things than that for you, you grumpy hidebound Luddite. Is your engineer okay? Did you let his family know?"
"I spoke to them myself," Meg said, "and I think he's doing all right. I mean"—she smiled at the thought—"I think he'll get to go where he needs to go. Deepika, don't make new friends."
"Oh, really?" Deepika said, fetching her own tea and taking a sip. “Have you come round to queerness as political, then?”
"I'm just a civil servant," Meg said, with some asperity. "No, that's not it."
"You're not just anything, Meg," Deepika said, impatiently. "Well?"
Meg leaned back into the sofa, resisting the urge to fall asleep. One day, and then it would begin: one day before the legislative reveal; one day before the department went before Parliament and all around them a change in the weather. "Turns out she was right. I just saw some queers at the vanguard of transformation."
"Idiot," Deepika said, fondly, and went to fetch a plate of biscuits.
Anthea Sharp
http://antheasharp.com/
Ice in D Minor(Short story)
by Anthea Sharp
Originally published in the Timberland Reads Together anthology, 9/15.
Rinna Sen paced backstage, tucking her mittened hands deep into the pockets of her parka. The sound of instruments squawking to life cut through the curtains screening the front of the theater: the sharp cry of a piccolo, the heavy thump of tympani, the whisper and saw of forty violins warming up. Good luck with that. Despite the huge heaters trained on the open-air proscenium, the North Pole in February was cold.
And about to get colder, provided she did her job.
The stage vibrated slightly, balanced in the center of a parabolic dish pointed straight up to the distant specks of stars in the frigid black sky. The stars floated impossibly far away—but they weren’t the goal. No, her music just had to reach the thermo-acoustic engine hovering ten miles above the earth, centered over the pole.
Rinna breathed in, shards of cold stabbing her lungs. Her blood longed for summer in Mumbai; the spice-scented air that pressed heat into skin, into bone, so deeply a body wanted to collapse under the impossible weight and lie there, baking, under the blue sky.
That had been in her childhood. Now, nobody lived in the searing swath in the center of the globe. The heat between the tropics had become death to the human organism.
Not to mention that her home city was now under twenty feet of water. There was no going back, ever.
“Ms. Sen?” Her assistant, Dominic Larouse, hurried up, his nose constantly dripping from the chill. “There’s a problem with the tubas.”
Rinna sighed—a puff of breath, visible even in the dim air. “What, their lips are frozen to the mouthpieces? I told them to bring plastic ones.”
“Valve issues, apparently.”
Dominic dabbed his nose with his ever-present handkerchief. He’d been with her for two years, and she still couldn’t break through his stiff formality. But little things, like insisting on being called by her first name, weren’t worth the aggravation. Not here, not now.
“Get more heaters on them,” she said, “and tell those damn violins we start in five minutes, whether they’re warmed up or not.”
“Five minutes. Yes ma’am.”
Her job included being a hardass, but she knew how difficult it was to keep the instruments on pitch. The longer they waited, the worse it would get.
Goddess knew, they’d tried this the easy way by feeding remote concerts into the climate engine. Ever since the thing was built, the scientists had been trying to find the right frequencies to cool the atmosphere. They’d had the best luck with minor keys—something about the energy transfer—and at first had tried running synthesized pitches through. Then entire performances. Mozart’s Requiem had come close, but not close enough.
It had to be a live performance; the immediate, present sounds of old wood, horsehair, brass and felt, the cascade of subtle human imperfection, blown and pulled and pounded from the organic bodies of the instruments.
There was no substitute for the interactions of sound waves, the immeasurable atomic collisions of an on-site concert fed directly into the engine. Once the thing got started, the techs had promised they could loop the sound. Which was good, because no way was Rinna giving up the rest of her life to stand at the North Pole, conducting a half-frozen orchestra. Not even to save the planet.
She’d spent years working on her composition, assembled the best symphony in the world, rehearsed them hard, then brought them here, to the Arctic. Acoustic instruments and sub-zero temperatures didn’t get along, but damn it, she’d make t
his happen.
What if the composition is a failure? The voice of all her doubts ghosted through her thoughts, sounding suspiciously like her long-dead father.
She pinned it down and piled her answers on top, trying to smother it into silence.
The simulations had proven that certain frequencies played through the engine could super-cool the air over the pole. Then, with luck, a trickle-down effect would begin and slowly blanket the world. The scientists had run the models over and over, with a thousand different types of sound. But it wasn’t until the suits had hired Rinna—one of the best composers in the world (not that the world cared much about symphonies)—that the project had really started to gel.
“Ms. Sen.” Dominic hurried up again, holding out the slim screen of her tablet. “Vid call for you.”
“I told you, I don’t want any interruptions.”
“It’s the President.”
“Oh, very well.” Fingers clumsy through her mittens, Rinna took the call.
President Nishimoto, Leader of the Ten Nations of the World, smiled at her through the clear, bright screen. Behind him, the desert that used to be Moscow was visible through the window of his office.
“Ms. Sen,” he said. “The entire world wishes you the very best of luck in your performance.”
He didn’t need to say how much was at stake. They all knew.
“Thank you.” She bowed, then handed the screen back to Dominic.
It was almost too late. Last winter, the pole ice had thinned so much it couldn’t support the necessary installation. Doom criers had mourned the end, but a freak cold-snap in January had given them one final chance.
Now here they were—the orchestra, the techs, Rinna. And five thousand brave, stupid souls, camping on the precarious ice. Come to see the beginning of the world, or the end of it.
Out front, the oboe let out an undignified honk, then found the A. Rinna closed her eyes as the clear pitch rang out, quieting the rest of the musicians. The violins took it up, bows pulling, tweaking, until there was only one perfect, single note. It deepened as the lower strings joined in, cellos and basses rounding the A into a solid arc of octaves.