Greg Egan - The Eternal Flame

Tamara was shaken, but she tried to keep everything in perspective. Nobody could contemplate an upheaval like this with perfect equanimity; just raising the subject was always going to create some bitter divisions. But only a few people had turned violent. And the last thing she wanted to do was vote down the research for the sake of a quiet life.

“It’s a shock to hear it put so starkly,” she admitted. Even after days of rumors and third-hand accounts, it had taken Amanda’s testimony to make the results real to her. “But no one would be forced to use this method. Who can complain about being offered a new choice?”

“No one,” Livio replied. “Until a couple want two different things.”

His words gave Tamara pause, but she pressed ahead. “Have you decided how you’ll vote?” she asked.

“For the research to continue,” he said. “And you?”

“The same.” Tamara was relieved that he hadn’t been intimidated by the turmoil. “You’re not worried that it might cause conflict?”

“Of course it will cause conflict,” Livio said. “But if they shut down the research now, that would lead to just as much violence. And all the same experiments would be carried out in the end—in secret, probably less safely. There is no perfect solution to this mess.”

This mess? Tamara continued along the rope in silence for a while, but she couldn’t leave things there.

“What would you say if I wanted to have a child this way?” she asked him.

Livio didn’t need to consider his answer—but then, he must have known for days that he’d be facing this question eventually. “I’d say you’re entitled to do what you wish with your body.”

“So you’d have no problem with it?”

He turned to her. “You’re not my property, Tamara. But you’re not my flesh either. We made an agreement for our mutual benefit, but if one of us reneges on that agreement, it’s void. I’m not going to help you raise a child I played no part in creating—and I’m certainly not going to pass my entitlement on to any such child. What I want is a co-stead who will give me two children of my own. If you can’t accept that prospect any more, our obligations to each other are over.”

When Tamara arrived in the observatory’s office, Ada was looking through a sheaf of papers. “Have you seen these?” she asked, holding up one sheet.

“No.” Tamara took it.

“It’s just a copy,” Ada explained. “But Carla signed a digest of the whole thing—with a statement saying she found it in Carlo’s apartment.”

Tamara read the first sheet, then asked for the rest. It was an autopsy report on two arborines: a mother and her child, one of the births induced by the light players. The mother’s body had been found to contain a second blastula, hidden beneath the skin of her chest—grossly malformed, but apparently still growing at the time she’d been euthanised, five days after the birth. The child, the daughter, had abnormal structures in her brain and her gut, and adhesions throughout her malleable tissues.

“So much for the miracle of light,” Ada said glumly.

“Amanda didn’t mention any of this.” Tamara was confused. “I thought all the arborines were sent back to the forest.”

“Three mothers and their children did go back. But apparently Amanda hasn’t been telling us about the fourth one.”

Tamara re-read the report. “How do we know this isn’t a forgery?”

“I was suspicious too,” Ada admitted. “But I checked the digest.”

Tamara hummed impatiently. “I meant, what if someone planted a forgery in the apartment for Carla to find?”

“You’d think she’d know her own co’s writing,” Ada reasoned.

“Why? Tamaro never saw any of my work notes.”

“And look how that turned out,” Ada joked.

“I’m serious!” Tamara protested. “They lived apart most of the time; she might not be the best person to authenticate this.”

Ada spread her arms. “Who would you prefer? Amanda claims it’s not Carlo’s writing, but if she lied about the fourth arborine—”

“And I suppose Tosco says it looks authentic?”

“Yes. All right, he’s obviously biased,” Ada conceded. “Still, that’s two witnesses against one.”

Tamara took the report over to the relay station and began checking the digest herself.

“You don’t trust me , now?” Ada complained.

“Anyone can hit the wrong button by mistake.”

“And I did, twice,” Ada retorted. “But you know what that gives you.” The odds against an error making a forgery look authentic were astronomical.

The machine shuddered and declared the digest valid.

Tamara said, “They should autopsy the other arborines.”

“That sounds good in principle, but who’s going to identify them?” Ada replied. “Amanda just has to point out some healthy specimens instead of the real ones—”

“I don’t believe this!” Tamara punched the desk. “You know what kind of state Carla must be in! Someone’s fooled her, that’s all!”

Ada jokingly feigned a flinch away from her. “All right! Stay calm! I never said that was impossible.”

Tamara gave up arguing the point. “The only way to sort this out is with new research,” she said. “That’s more important than ever now.”

Ada eyed her warily. Tamara said, “Don’t you dare tell me you’re changing your vote!”

“I’m not!” Ada assured her. “But let’s be honest: it’s a lost cause now.”

Roberto entered the office, back from his shift, so Tamara dropped the subject. The last time she’d raised the vote in his presence his discomfort had been palpable.

“Anything interesting out there?” she asked him.

Roberto stretched his shoulders wearily. “What do you expect?” he replied. “You only get one Object in a lifetime.”

In the observatory Tamara sat harnessed to the bench, dutifully searching the sky for passing rocks, but as the shift wore on it grew harder for her to keep her mind on the star trails in front of her. She was tired of having her future dictated by people and events beyond her control. She needed to take her fate into her own hands.

If she gave up on co-steads—and gave up on children—wouldn’t that set her free? It was what she should have done the moment she escaped from Tamaro. If she kept taking holin and nothing went wrong, she might live for another six or seven years. What was there to regret in that? She wasn’t afraid to go the way of men when the time came.

But a part of her still balked at the decision. She’d never obsessed about the children she’d had no hope of seeing—never named them, never even pictured them—but when she thought about relinquishing all hope of their existence she felt a kind of hollowness pervading her flesh. It was as if she’d spent her life tacitly aware of them, not as ideas but as a physical presence: two latent bodies nestling under her skin, waiting to be born.

She looked away from the telescope, intending to rest her eyes for a moment, but as she gazed out through the transparent dome she caught sight of something that her narrower search had missed. About a third of the way up from the horizon, there was a visible break in the bright orange streak that usually formed part of a single long star trail. The gap was about half an arc-lapse—half the width of her thumb held out at arm’s length. If it was a passing rock it was either phenomenally large or phenomenally close; the saner interpretation was that a small piece of detritus had somehow adhered to the clearstone of the dome itself. But she had barely had a chance to ponder the fastest way to test that possibility when the star trail abruptly became whole again.

Tamara cranked the telescope as quickly as she could to the point where she’d seen the thing, estimating the coordinates from half a dozen surrounding features. There was nothing visible at the original location—and nothing nearby on the azimuthal arc along which any obstruction stuck to the rotating dome would have traveled.