Greg Egan - The Eternal Flame

Marzio touched Carlo’s shoulder. “Come and watch the launch.”

Everyone gathered around the observation window, an octagonal slab of clearstone a couple of strides wide set in the floor beside the airlock. When Carlo looked down he could see all four travelers still on the ladder, the white fabric that enclosed their bodies catching the starlight. The Gnat itself was directly below the window, a dark silhouette hanging from a dozen thick support ropes. As he watched, Ada or Tamara stepped from the ladder through the vehicle’s open hatch, and a moment later a small lamp lit up inside the cabin.

Pio said, “Imagine the farewells at the launch of the Peerless . This is nothing.” Carlo wanted to thump him, but he did have a point. Not one traveler who’d marched into the mountain, not one father or child or co left behind, had had the slightest hope of a reunion when the voyage was over. His own generation’s troubles weren’t small, but no one had lived without sorrows.

As Carla reached the end of the ladder she looked up and waved, sweeping her arm across a wide arc. Her exuberance was unmistakable, and Carlo felt a sudden rush of happiness. This was what she wanted. She had balanced everything against the dangers and wanted it still. Whatever had passed in the night, he hadn’t robbed her of this chance. He was tired of feeling ashamed and fearful. Why couldn’t he just rejoice?

Carla climbed through the hatch. As Ivo followed her, Carlo leaned back and let Silvano, behind him, get a better look.

Marzio said, “They’ll pressurize the cabin, but keep their cooling bags on just in case.”

In case the vehicle itself sprung a leak, or worse. In case the Gnat fell apart, and the crew had to try to make their way back with air rockets.

Carlo stepped away from the window and checked the clock beside the airlock, its dials specially calibrated for the launch. A little more than a chime remained.

“What if they’re not ready?” he asked Marzio.

“They can delay for a revolution or two,” Marzio replied. “Or a dozen, if it comes to that. The orientation of the Peerless has to be just right, or the boost they get from the spin will be wasted, but they have more than enough fuel to cope with a variation in the timing.”

“Good.” Carlo made his way back to the window. Everyone in the crew had performed endless safety drills. The two navigators were equally proficient; Ada had been prepared to fly the Gnat herself. And the ancestors had managed to launch a whole mountain into the void; this modest expedition should not be beyond their descendants.

When Carlo looked down the whole vehicle was dark again. That was a good sign, he remembered: Carla had told him that they’d extinguish the lamps once everything was in place and they were ready for the launch. Ada and Tamara were astronomers, used to working by touch and starlight.

Marzio counted. “Five. Four. Three. Two. One.”

Inside the Gnat , the clockwork released the clamps that had been gripping the support ropes. Carlo’s skin tingled with fear and awe as the dark shape fell away into the void. He staggered slightly; Silvano put a hand on his shoulder.

The silhouette shrank against the star trails, dropping straight toward the bright, gaudy circle that marked the division of the sky. But the rendezvous point didn’t lie in that plane, the Gnat couldn’t simply be flung toward its destination. Marzio began counting again. Carlo braced himself.

The tiny dark point erupted with light as the Gnat ’s sunstone engines burst into life. “We can still do it,” Pio said softly. The skills that had lofted the Peerless from the home world hadn’t been lost.

The dazzling speck of radiance stretched into a blinding streak of light, then the Gnat disappeared from view. Carlo looked up; at the opposite edge of the window, Ivo’s grandchildren were still gazing down from their father’s arms.

“That looked like a clean burn to me,” Addo opined, as if he’d spent his life watching events just like this.

Marzio said, “It won’t be long now.”

“I don’t think the relay clerks will be slacking off today,” Silvano joked.

The paper-tape writer clanged. Marzio walked over to it and read out the message from the observatory. “Intact and on course.” He let the tape fall from his hand. “Roberto is seeing light of the right size and brightness, from the right direction, heading the right way.”

Carlo wanted that to be enough, but he couldn’t keep silent. “And if the engines were damaged, we’d know? If anything had burned too fast or too slowly…”

“Everything is fine,” Marzio declared. “The launch was perfect. The Gnat is on its way.”

23

When the glare of the exhaust had vanished from the windows and her weight had died away with the shuddering of the engines, Tamara relaxed her tympanum and unhooked her harness. The starlit cabin was dark to her dazzled front eyes, and the only sound she could discern was the soft rhythmic ticking of the nearest clock.

She pulled off her helmet, which remained attached to her cooling bag on the end of a short cord. “Is everyone all right?” she asked. Ada, Carla and Ivo responded in turn, their hesitation sounding more like diligence than a lack of confidence: the answer was too important to be given without a pause or two of mental and physical self-inventory.

Tamara took hold of the guide rope beside her couch and dragged herself toward the center of the cabin, where the three mutually orthogonal ropes, offset slightly, didn’t quite meet. She opened her dark-adapted rear eyes; the view they added was so much crisper than the gray shadows in front of her that it felt as if she had a lantern strapped to the back of her head. She could see her fellow crew members clearly now; Ada had taken off her helmet, and Carla was in the process of doing so. The bright horizon line of the home cluster’s stars shone through the windows, its hoop tilted satisfyingly against the Gnat ’s axis. That small geometric hint alone told her that they were not wildly off-course: it was unlikely that any serious mishap with the engines could have left the craft so close to its expected orientation.

“No pain, no dizziness, no hearing problems?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” Ada replied, propelling herself with her legs from the couch. She drifted across the cabin before grabbing one of the transverse guide ropes.

“I am too,” Carla said. Ivo took off his helmet before responding, “My right shoulder’s a bit sore. I think my arm got pinned in an awkward position when the engines fired. It’s not even worth resorbing though; a short rest will fix it.”

Tamara wasn’t too worried; Ivo’s age left him more vulnerable than the rest of them, but this sounded no more serious than the twinges he’d owned up to after the most strenuous of the safety drills. Resorbing and re-extruding a limb was difficult without removing your cooling bag, and though the cabin’s air was cooling them perfectly well, the ideal was to keep the bags on at all times in case there was an unexpected breach.

She said, “Ivo, I want you resting for the next six bells, but when Carla’s checked her own equipment you should talk her through the checks on your own.”

“Right,” Ivo agreed.

Tamara dragged herself away from the center of the cabin and took her place beside one set of theodolites, mounted within the polyhedral dome of a window. Ada, at the opposite window, had her own duplicate instruments, including a separate clock. Tamara began with some star measurements, establishing the Gnat ’s orientation precisely, then she aimed the theodolite with the widest field in the direction where she expected to sight the next scheduled flash from a beacon.