Greg Egan - The Arrows of Time

Serena said, ‘You’ll have to forgive me if I seem jealous.’

Agata was bewildered. ‘Of what?’

‘You did more or less meet the ancestors,’ Vala interjected – gently teasing her daughter with the hyperbole.

‘So everyone’s seen the pictures of the inscription?’ Agata had never been sure how people would respond; a part of her had been afraid that the find would be written off as a crude fake by an ancestor-worshipper. ‘They’re taking it seriously?’

‘Of course!’ Serena replied. ‘That was the biggest news at the startup, apart from the… other thing.’ She glanced over at Arianna, making it clear that they weren’t discussing the disruption in front of her.

Gineto said, ‘It’s the only reason I voted to keep the system running after the trial: we needed a piece of good news like that.’

‘You changed your vote?’ Agata was surprised, and a little disturbed. This sounded like a rationalisation for putting himself on the winning side.

‘It would have been hypocritical to claim that I wished I hadn’t heard about the inscription,’ Gineto insisted.

‘But if the majority vote had been to shut down the system—?’

‘As I said, the inscription was my only reason,’ Gineto replied.

‘What was the vote?’ she asked him. ‘Do you remember?’

‘Less than one in a gross against.’

Agata fell silent. If the system had stretched on unbroken all the way to the reunion, as she’d once imagined – endorsed at referenda again and again – would its persistence have been a true measure of its virtues, or just a self-affirming stasis, as pathological as the innovation block?

She glanced across the room and saw Ramiro talking to his sister; he did look shockingly old beside her, and her children seemed impatient to be somewhere else.

An archivist with a camera separated herself from the crowd and called to everyone to move into position. ‘What position?’ Agata asked. Then she understood.

Serena said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s not as if you can get it wrong.’ But as the group squeezed together to fit into the shot, she seemed to be looking around for reference points herself, anxious to conform to her own recollection. What happened, Agata wondered, to the woman or man whose nature demanded of them that they find a different spot or adopt a different posture than the one recorded in the famous image of the Surveyor ’s return? That urge would have to have been beaten out of them somehow, or they would have been absent from the picture all along.

Agata turned to face the camera. In her rear gaze she could see people trying out their expressions, as if their imitations could fail to be perfect. As the archivist raised her camera, Agata struggled to hide the shame she could feel beginning to show on her own face. Perhaps it was the proper response to the plight that she’d helped to foist on the mountain, but she didn’t want the whole of the Peerless seeing her reach that conclusion, three years before she’d reached it herself.

‘I’m here to see my brother, Pio,’ Agata told the guard.

The woman held out a photonic patch, connected to the wall by a cable. ‘Form your signature.’ Agata brought the squiggle onto her palm and pressed it against the patch.

‘Valuables?’

Agata handed over the key to her apartment.

‘Do you still have any pockets?’

‘No.’

‘Please resorb all your limbs.’

Agata hesitated, wondering what would happen if she argued, but then she released the guide rope and complied. Her torso drifted slowly towards the floor of the entrance chamber; the guard intervened and caught hold of her with four hands, then she began prodding Agata’s skin with her fingertips, searching for any concealed folds. Agata closed her rear eyes and turned her front gaze towards the ceiling, wondering if the guards had access in advance to the outcomes of these searches. Why should they look too hard, if they knew they’d find nothing? But if there was well-hidden contraband, a tip-off might enable them to find it more easily. Or would that be yet another unlikely loop, self-consistent but hugely improbable?

When it was over, the guard let Agata fall, leaving her to reshape herself and catch the rope again. ‘This is your pass,’ the woman explained, handing her a red disc. ‘Please don’t lose it.’

‘Do I lose it?’ Agata asked.

‘Of course you don’t,’ the guard replied. ‘Because I asked you not to.’

‘Right.’ Agata suppressed a shiver.

‘Visiting room three. Go through.’

Agata pushed open the swinging doors and followed the corridor into the prison complex. It was quieter than she’d expected, given the number of people still interned; all she could make out were some faint scraping noises in the distance, barely audible over the twang of the guide rope as she advanced. The two visiting rooms she passed were empty; she entered the third and harnessed herself to the desk. As she waited, she forced herself to glance around the room – she didn’t want to be seen searching obsessively for the cameras, but to have stared at a fixed spot on the wall and shown no curiosity about her surroundings would have been equally suspicious.

She struggled to keep the possibilities straight in her mind: if the authorities were going to catch her conspiring with saboteurs then they would have known that for the last three years – but they couldn’t arrest her until she’d had a chance to do whatever deed revealed her guilt. Once she’d been arrested, though, even if they kept that from becoming public knowledge, surely Lila or Serena would notice her absence and send her a message about it? Or better yet, send a message to their earlier selves to be passed on to her in person; that would be less likely to be detected and intercepted.

So was the lack of any warning a proof that she wouldn’t be caught? Or did the fact that she’d received no messages at all from her future self mean that everything would turn bad very quickly?

Agata heard a door creak open in the distance, then the clank of hardstone links, an almost rhythmic sound as the prisoner approached. When the guard escorting Pio reached the doorway, Agata loosened the harness and pulled herself closer, but she still couldn’t see her brother.

‘Please stay back,’ the guard instructed her. The woman held a loop of chain in one hand. She dragged herself over to the wall and attached it to a clamp, then turned and said, ‘Come.’

Pio pulled himself into the room along the guide rope, moving nimbly despite the stone bar that transected his torso. ‘Hello Agata,’ he said.

‘Hello.’ For a moment she was numb, then the sight of Pio’s gaunt frame became too much and she started humming softly. She was far from convinced of his innocence, but no one had come close to establishing his guilt. If he had murdered Medoro and the others then he deserved to be locked up until he died – but what did she know for sure? Only that he’d viewed the messaging system with the same degree of alarm and revulsion from the start as she now felt for it herself.

The guard watched as Pio climbed into the harness on his side of the desk. ‘You have three chimes,’ she told Agata. Then she withdrew into the corridor.

Agata composed herself, but she reached over and squeezed her brother’s shoulder while the gesture still had a chance of seeming innocent and spontaneous. In the flicker before her palm touched his skin, she formed the words: On your side. Tell me how to help.She tried not to worry about how long it would take him to read the message if he hadn’t been expecting it; the action had a natural timescale of its own, and if she over-thought it that would show.

Pio leant back and examined her appraisingly. ‘Detours really do work the way they taught us in school,’ he marvelled. ‘Twelve years in that box. How did you stay sane?’