Greg Egan - The Arrows of Time

Tarquinia had not repaired the lost occulter with stone and glue. This one and the last had not picked up their cargo in any manoeuvre out on the slopes; the bombs had been glued into place in a workshop somewhere. But how and why would Giacomo’s people have retrieved occulters from the slopes in order to do that? The answer was that they hadn’t. They’d built occulters for themselves, and affixed the bombs before sending them out.

Agata moved her grip and began cutting through the second post. Three bombs diverted out of a dozen had seemed glorious. Three out of an unknown swarm could mean anything.

Before she severed the second post completely, she stopped to think through her choices. If she spent air carrying the bomb onto the same kind of path as the others, that would be the end of her contribution; she’d have too little air left to intervene in any other way. But if there were already enough bombs waiting above the light collectors to cause the disruption, there was no need for this one to be carefully positioned. She could simply let it fall away into the void.

Agata looked up across the rock face; she could see a glimmer from the transition circle reflected in the dome of one of the light collectors. How many other bombs had been grabbed and slowed and sent to play their part in the pyrotechnics? She should trust her fellow searchers to have caught at least half a dozen by now – all the more so, given how plentiful they’d turned out to be.

She had one hand around the arm of the occulter, which remained firmly attached to the mountain. She snapped the second post and tossed the freed bomb over her shoulder, watching with her rear gaze as it tumbled down and disappeared.

But how many remained, clinging to the rock, waiting to make a final dash towards the collectors? A dozen? A gross? Agata closed her eyes and thought of letting go, falling clear of everything and losing herself in the stars.

She’d wanted a glimpse of the reunion before she died, but in the end the only thing that the future had ever promised her was the cosmos meeting up with itself: every particle, every field, every wrinkle in space matching perfectly as they came full circle. The geometry that achieved that had no need to please her; it was what it was, and she’d never been more than a tiny part of it. The miracle was that she’d lived to understand its nature as well as she had. But if a meteor struck or the bombs blew the axis open, she did not want to stay and witness the carnage.

Agata opened her eyes. Her right arm was aching; she pulled herself up and managed to grab the occulter with her left hand as well, but it was too awkward maintaining both holds so she let her right arm rest completely. She checked the clock on her belt by touch; less than two chimes remained to the disruption. She wasn’t going to flee. She had no hope of finding another occulter on the rock face, but the time was approaching when the bombs could come to her.

She stared down into the transition circle, but then she caught herself and turned her gaze to the side, trying to adjust for her own rotation and the arc that her adversary would need to follow as it fought to cancel its greater sideways velocity and spiral in on the target.

She waited; the stars moved by serenely.

A dark speck interrupted the blaze of the colour trails. Agata didn’t wait to guess its nature; she pushed away and let herself fall. As she plummeted beside the rock face she hunted for the occulter and found it again. It was almost level with her, hewing close to the rock just a saunter away. She started her jetpack and began arresting her fall, just in time – the thing was above her now. She drew an arrow on her chest, angled in anticipation, and rose to meet the machine.

She collided with it, her arms outstretched, grabbed it and held it fast. They tumbled together and struck the rock; the mountain scraped at her shoulder, shredding fabric and skin. Agata shouted from the pain and tried to form an arrow that would lift her clear, but nothing happened. Her jetpack was gone, smashed and torn away.

The half-circle of dawning stars wheeled around her. Agata looked directly at the thing in her embrace; she could feel its feeble puffs of air trying to get it back on course. All she could do was apply whatever muscular force she had left and hope that would be enough to propel it out of range.

Her left arm was useless after the blow from the mountain, but she managed to bring her legs up and brace her feet against the stone box. She watched the stars spinning, and thought her way into their cycle. Then she pushed her legs out and drove the occulter away.

The recoil slammed her against the rock. She closed her eyes as the mountain tore into her body.

A light appeared, penetrating her eyelids, filling her skull. Agata embraced the radiance and vanished.

‘One day there’ll be a whole set of synthetic influences that we can administer with a photonic device,’ Maddalena predicted. ‘There’ll be tools for every occasion, but the best will be the one that forces the recipient to tell the truth.’

‘That’s your vision of the future, is it? That’s what you’ve taken away from all this?’ Ramiro stopped himself; whether she was goading him deliberately or not, he was wasting his energy. ‘Just sign the release form and I’ll get out of your way.’

‘There’ll still be a trial,’ Maddalena insisted stubbornly. ‘You know we can implicate her in the sabotage.’

‘Whatever you say.’

Maddalena sprinkled dye on her palm and signed the form. Having released the longest-serving untried prisoners, the Council, even in its death throes, was still fighting every smaller concession. Nobody in the mountain was quite sure what Tarquinia had or hadn’t done, but compared to four years without trial, four stints did not evoke quite so much passion. Ramiro had had the money for a bond himself, but it had taken all his time to collect the requisite eight dozen signatures from disinterested travellers willing to attest that her ongoing imprisonment offended their sense of justice.

He left Maddalena’s office and headed for the jail.

At the guard post there was more bureaucracy to deal with. Ramiro tried to stay calm as all the paperwork he’d lodged was scrutinised and complained about and the associated photonic records summoned, peered at and misunderstood.

After half a bell of this idiocy, the guard told him, ‘Just wait now. We’re bringing her out.’

Ramiro watched her gait as she emerged. If she’d been shackled, she showed no sign of it now. He dragged himself forward and embraced her.

‘Are you all right?’

‘You know what they say,’ Tarquinia replied. ‘There’s no greater honour than following Yalda, mother of all prisoners.’

Ramiro wasn’t sure if she was being sarcastic.

‘What did you hear about the disruption?’ he asked, as they moved away down the corridor, side by side on the guide ropes.

‘Explosions at the base. People coming and going from the void. The confused version everyone got in the aftermath – that’s all, no details.’

Ramiro said, ‘Two of the tubes were breached at the base, but they were resealed in time. Giacomo’s group had their own occulters; they would have torn open the axis if they could.’

Tarquinia had thought things over for too long to be surprised by the betrayal. ‘What stopped them?’

‘Agata,’ Ramiro replied. ‘With a couple of dozen friends. They went out onto the base and tossed the bombs into the sky. Only three light collectors were physically damaged. It was the flash from the explosions that caused the disruption.’

Tarquinia absorbed that in silence.

‘They saved the Peerless ,’ Ramiro said. His gratitude was sincere, but he still felt like a hypocrite.