brother. Why not wipe out your enemy completely and be done with
it?’
‘Far better to keep them alive and weak,’ Cira replied, ‘than to turn against ourselves and reduce some women to playing the role of men.’
Agata arrived at the celebration later than she’d intended. It was easy enough to make allowances for the time it took to climb the rope ladders between the levels she
frequented day to day, but when a journey took her up or down the old helical staircases she found it impossible not to dawdle. For six generations these elaborately carved grooves had been nothing
more than peculiar decorations wrapping the walls of horizontal tunnels, but to traverse them now meant treading on stone that had last been used this way when Yalda was alive. If Agata spotted a
blemish in the rock she had to stop and inspect it in the moss-light, hoping that someone who had walked on the home world – famous or obscure, she didn’t care – might have carved
their name into these steps.
As she entered the observation chamber, she saw that at least six dozen people had shown up. The space couldn’t have held many more, but there were similar festivities taking place up and
down the mountain’s rim. She squeezed her way through the crowd, moving aimlessly until someone called out to her.
‘Agata! Over here!’ It was Medoro’s sister, Serena. The whole family was gathered around a table by the edge of the dome.
Agata approached, trying not to be distracted by the view before she’d greeted everyone. The lighting in the chamber was subdued, but she still needed to stare out at the sky to convince
herself that she really was seeing it – that her vision wasn’t being blocked by reflections from the interior. All the long, orderly star trails she’d grown up with, the great
meridional arcs that together filled half the sky, had shrunk into the kind of tiny, random lines of colour that she’d only ever known before as the signature of the orthogonal cluster. This
was the ancestors’ sky. In less than a chime, the mountain would be at rest with respect to the home world. Apart from the effect of the
Peerless
’s displacement on the
arrangement of the nearest stars, and apart from the absence of Hurtlers and the sister-world-turned-sun, Gemma,
this
was the view that anyone on the night side of the planet would be
seeing right now.
‘Cira didn’t come?’ Medoro asked, feigning puzzlement.
Agata wasn’t in the mood for jokes about her family – and apparently Medoro’s own relatives felt the same way: Gineto reached over and gave his nephew an admonitory thump on
the arm, to Serena’s amusement. ‘Feel free to do that yourself whenever he annoys you,’ she suggested to Agata. ‘It’s the only way we manage to put up with
him.’
Vala said, ‘Agata and her mother have been through enough. Just let her enjoy the party.’
Medoro cast Agata an imploring glance, as if he expected her to defend him.
She said, ‘Don’t worry, nothing could spoil this day for me.’
‘Not even a Hurtler strike?’ he joked.
Agata spread her arms and turned to face the sky. ‘Here we are, come and get us!’ For a day or two they’d be as vulnerable as the ancestors – but that felt more like a
gesture of solidarity than a real source of danger.
‘Not even engine failure?’ Medoro persisted.
‘Our exhaust will be heading into the home cluster’s future,’ Agata replied. ‘That’s no different from the ancestors lighting a lamp, or the stars in the home
cluster shining. There is no magical thermodynamic curse that can stop us making the turnaround. Or do you think Yalda and her friends couldn’t walk east when the Hurtlers’ arrow of
time pointed west?’
‘And yet they were careful not to launch against the arrow,’ Medoro noted.
‘For which we should be grateful,’ Agata declared. ‘That let us observe the orthogonal cluster for six generations before losing sight of it. Better that than
it?’
‘Far better to keep them alive and weak,’ Cira replied, ‘than to turn against ourselves and reduce some women to playing the role of men.’
Agata arrived at the celebration later than she’d intended. It was easy enough to make allowances for the time it took to climb the rope ladders between the levels she
frequented day to day, but when a journey took her up or down the old helical staircases she found it impossible not to dawdle. For six generations these elaborately carved grooves had been nothing
more than peculiar decorations wrapping the walls of horizontal tunnels, but to traverse them now meant treading on stone that had last been used this way when Yalda was alive. If Agata spotted a
blemish in the rock she had to stop and inspect it in the moss-light, hoping that someone who had walked on the home world – famous or obscure, she didn’t care – might have carved
their name into these steps.
As she entered the observation chamber, she saw that at least six dozen people had shown up. The space couldn’t have held many more, but there were similar festivities taking place up and
down the mountain’s rim. She squeezed her way through the crowd, moving aimlessly until someone called out to her.
‘Agata! Over here!’ It was Medoro’s sister, Serena. The whole family was gathered around a table by the edge of the dome.
Agata approached, trying not to be distracted by the view before she’d greeted everyone. The lighting in the chamber was subdued, but she still needed to stare out at the sky to convince
herself that she really was seeing it – that her vision wasn’t being blocked by reflections from the interior. All the long, orderly star trails she’d grown up with, the great
meridional arcs that together filled half the sky, had shrunk into the kind of tiny, random lines of colour that she’d only ever known before as the signature of the orthogonal cluster. This
was the ancestors’ sky. In less than a chime, the mountain would be at rest with respect to the home world. Apart from the effect of the
Peerless
’s displacement on the
arrangement of the nearest stars, and apart from the absence of Hurtlers and the sister-world-turned-sun, Gemma,
this
was the view that anyone on the night side of the planet would be
seeing right now.
‘Cira didn’t come?’ Medoro asked, feigning puzzlement.
Agata wasn’t in the mood for jokes about her family – and apparently Medoro’s own relatives felt the same way: Gineto reached over and gave his nephew an admonitory thump on
the arm, to Serena’s amusement. ‘Feel free to do that yourself whenever he annoys you,’ she suggested to Agata. ‘It’s the only way we manage to put up with
him.’
Vala said, ‘Agata and her mother have been through enough. Just let her enjoy the party.’
Medoro cast Agata an imploring glance, as if he expected her to defend him.
She said, ‘Don’t worry, nothing could spoil this day for me.’
‘Not even a Hurtler strike?’ he joked.
Agata spread her arms and turned to face the sky. ‘Here we are, come and get us!’ For a day or two they’d be as vulnerable as the ancestors – but that felt more like a
gesture of solidarity than a real source of danger.
‘Not even engine failure?’ Medoro persisted.
‘Our exhaust will be heading into the home cluster’s future,’ Agata replied. ‘That’s no different from the ancestors lighting a lamp, or the stars in the home
cluster shining. There is no magical thermodynamic curse that can stop us making the turnaround. Or do you think Yalda and her friends couldn’t walk east when the Hurtlers’ arrow of
time pointed west?’
‘And yet they were careful not to launch against the arrow,’ Medoro noted.
‘For which we should be grateful,’ Agata declared. ‘That let us observe the orthogonal cluster for six generations before losing sight of it. Better that than
Similar Books
