Greg Egan - The Arrows of Time

Every child was also taught that this incontestable fact did nothing to rob them of their freedom. The laws of physics bound people’s choices to their actions, as firmly as they bound a tumbling rock’s positions from moment to moment into a single, coherent history. Though no one ruled unchallenged over their own flesh – no one could be immune to coercion or injury, no woman to spontaneous division – the exceptions only made it clearer that most acts were acts of will. An omniscient observer who could read the fine details of the tapestry would see that woven into the pattern: deliberation beside resolve, resolve beside deed. Each choice would have its own complex antecedents, inside the body and beyond it – but who would wish to sit in isolation, churning out decisions that came from nowhere?

Ramiro had long ago reconciled himself to this picture of time and choice, and though he couldn’t claim to perceive his own life in these terms from day to day, he felt no disquiet at all at the prospect of the timeless point of view growing more compelling.

But Greta’s system would do far more than confront the travellers with a stark confirmation of abstract principles that most of them already acknowledged. The one thing a message from the future couldn’t tell a person was what they would have decided in the absence of that message – it would not be as if the ordinary deliberation really had taken place elsewhere, and was now being delivered to them as a kind of executive summary to spare them from needlessly repeating the effort. The old process wouldn’t merely be rendered more efficient, so it reached the same endpoint with less uncertainty or stress. The endpoint itself could be completely different.

And even if it wasn’t, was that all that mattered? Ramiro stopped walking and moved to the side of the corridor so he wasn’t blocking the guide rope. If he heard from the future that he’d raised Rosita’s child, then in the end he would choose to make that happen. If he heard that he hadn’t, he would choose differently. He couldn’t claim that this would turn him into some kind of hollow puppet, when both outcomes were already possible in the ordinary course of events.

But the nature of the decision would still be utterly different if he reached it with foreknowledge. All that the need for consistency could impose was the requirement that he actually went along with the choice – however reluctantly, resignedly or apathetically he closed the loop. The revelation wouldn’t need to ring true, or fill him with joy, or cast any light on the dilemma it resolved. He merely had to be capable of acceding to it – of muttering ‘Yeah, that’ll do.’

He couldn’t live like that – and he couldn’t stand by and let the Council force it on everyone else for the next six generations. Greta’s promise that the information would be contained was just wishful thinking; that would certainly make the technology more useful to its owners, but Ramiro had no doubt that the content of the messages would still leak out.

And the sooner he broke his own promise, the safer he’d be. He called out to a woman approaching on his left, ‘Excuse me!’

She stopped. ‘Yes?’

‘My name’s Ramiro, I’m an automation engineer.’

The woman looked puzzled, but she introduced herself. ‘I’m Livia, I’m a shedding technician. Didn’t you—?’

‘Lose an exploding leg near the Station? Yes, I’m that idiot.’

Livia paused expectantly. Famous or not, his claim on her time was strictly limited.

Ramiro said, ‘I’ve just heard that the Council is planning a new messaging system; they invited me to work on it, but I declined. If they build it, it will affect all of us, so if you can spare a couple of lapses I’d like to tell you about it.’

By the time he was halfway through his account there were six more people listening. Ramiro confined his message to the science itself; people could ponder the implications at their leisure, and if he started philosophising that would only encourage disputatious onlookers.

When he’d finished, Livia thanked him and walked away, but some of the others gathered nearby in heated discussion. Ramiro left them to it; it was more important to keep spreading the word than to try to influence one small debate. He raised a schematic on his chest and spread his arms. ‘New messaging system! Hear all about it!’

A dozen people walked past him, bemused or embarrassed, but then a woman stopped. ‘What new system?’

‘The one that uses light from the orthogonal cluster to bring information from the future.’

‘You’re joking?’

Ramiro said, ‘Hear me out, then decide for yourself.’

As he started speaking, more people gathered, while the remnants of his last audience dispersed. In a chime or two there’d be no hope at all of tracking down everyone who knew about the scheme, let alone locking them up.

‘You should ask Pio for some debating tips,’ Medoro suggested. ‘He’s the expert.’

Agata hummed frantically. ‘Are you going to help me or not? I only have three more days to get this right.’ The last time she’d sought Medoro’s advice he’d fobbed her off with an excuse about the camera creating a conflict of interest. The Councillors themselves were required by law to stay out of the debates, but if every last person who had some stake in the outcome kept themselves at arm’s length from the process there’d be no one left with a reason to argue the case on either side.

Medoro relented and invited her into his apartment. ‘I’ll do what I can. If your enemies portray you as part of my self-serving cabal, so be it – but when we’re in public you’ll have to call me “puppet master” and answer to “stooge”.’

Agata rewarded this suggestion with silence.

He said, ‘Seriously, wouldn’t Lila be more use to you?’

‘Lila’s staying out of this. I’m not sure if she’s even made up her mind how she’ll be voting.’ Agata hadn’t pushed her on the matter, and she respected Lila’s right to take a different view, but without even her long-time mentor backing her she was beginning to feel desperately isolated.

‘What’s your brother’s position?’ Medoro asked.

‘Against, of course!’

‘Why “of course”? What happened to protecting our descendants from unforeseen risks?’

Agata said, ‘Don’t ask me for his detailed rationalisation, but from what I’ve heard he’s claiming that the messaging system is the unforeseen risk – unforeseen by everyone but him, since he warned us that there’d be dire consequences from the clash of arrows.’

‘Fair enough,’ Medoro judged. ‘His message from the future told him that the rest of us would soon want messages from the future – but he couldn’t tell us that until now, because otherwise we might have wanted our messages sooner.’

Agata buzzed wearily; at least she wouldn’t be debating Pio. ‘Have your own family taken positions?’

‘Gineto against, Serena for, Vala undecided.’ Medoro didn’t seem too worried by the split. ‘But they all gave me grief that I didn’t go public.’

‘That’s unfair,’ Agata protested. ‘Ramiro had it all laid out for him. We were just guessing – it would have been irresponsible to start a rumour when we weren’t even sure of the facts.’

‘Hmm.’ Medoro sounded unconvinced, so Agata let the subject drop.

She said, ‘But now Ramiro is courage personified, and I have to stand in front of a crowd of his admirers and tell them he’s wrong.’

‘I’m sure you’ll have admirers too,’ Medoro teased her.

‘For what? My theorems on sectional curvature?’

‘Why not? Any idiot can set himself on fire.’ Medoro rearranged himself on the guide rope. ‘Anyway, you don’t need to attack Ramiro. His arguments aren’t unreasonable: of course there could be drawbacks if the system is abused. But that doesn’t mean we can’t minimise the risks.’