Greg Egan - The Eternal Flame

“How could anyone answer that?” Amanda replied bluntly. “Maybe all your well-wishers are faking their allegiance. Or maybe just a few of them are. But no one’s forcing you to go anywhere; you can stay here with your daughter as long as you wish. I’ll swap apartments with you, if you like.”

Patrizia said, “If you go out, there’ll be people you trust on every side of you. But if you prefer, we could have witnesses come in one at a time to see the baby, so they can tell their friends. Whatever happens, there’ll still be doubters and believers on voting day.”

“I don’t want to be a prisoner here,” Tamara said. She looked around the room at all her friends, at the cluster of bodyguards by the door. Erminia might be in danger for her entire life, but the greatest protection would come when she ceased to be unique, then ceased to be unusual. If she had to be treated as a kind of political mascot first—in order for there to be any prospect of such change—it was too late to plot any other course.

She turned to Amanda. “Thank you for your offer, and for all your hospitality. But I think it’s time I went home.”

Amando and Macario left the apartment first, to ask the people outside to give them some space. Tamara heard excited chatter as the implications spread through the crowd. After a while Amando returned. “We can’t clear the whole route in advance,” he said. “But this looks like a reasonable start.”

All the men made their way out into the corridor, followed by the four women who’d been with Tamara on the raiding party. Clutching her daughter, Tamara approached the doorway, then dragged herself through. Peering past her protectors, she could see the corridor lined with people far into the distance, until its curvature curtailed the view.

Someone nearby spotted Erminia. “That’s the child,” the woman told her friend quietly. Tamara met her gaze; the woman tipped her head slightly, a greeting that made no demands.

Ada touched Tamara’s elbow. “You take the central guide rope; I’ll go in front of you, Carla behind, with Patrizia and Macaria on the side ropes.”

“All right.”

The five women took their places, then Addo and Pio, Amando and Macario completed the ranks. Tamara wondered how long she’d need to travel this way. A couple more days? A couple more years?

The group began dragging themselves down the corridor. Tamara cradled Erminia in her upper right arm, using the other three to keep herself steady and secure on the rope. The child did not seem alarmed by all these strangers; she stared at Tamara and pulled faces at random, pausing only if they elicited mimicry or a buzz of mirth from their target.

With her face bent toward her daughter, Tamara could watch the bystanders ahead with her rear gaze. She’d been afraid that even the most benign of them might try to get too close, eager to interact with Erminia, risking a dangerous crush. But everyone kept a respectful distance, watching intently as mother and daughter approached, speaking quietly among themselves.

There were a few men in the crowd, but if they’d come with ill feelings they were hiding them well: most of their faces lit up at the sight of the child. Apart from the sheer density of people, Tamara didn’t sense any danger at all; anyone lunging at her from within this mass of supporters was likely to be grabbed long before they encountered her official bodyguards. It was strange and daunting to be part of such a spectacle, but she was not afraid.

As the group approached the first turn, Tamara spotted Erminio and Tamaro. She let her gaze slide over them, as if she hadn’t recognized them. They were stony-faced, but she could imagine their rage. She concentrated on her daughter and did her best to betray no emotion at all: no gloating over this victory, no fear of retribution. Their lives and hers were disentangled now, surely. Let them follow their rules with anyone who wished to share them, and she’d follow her own.

“Word will spread fast,” Patrizia said excitedly. “By tomorrow, there won’t be a woman on the Peerless who thinks this is too dangerous to pursue.”

“Perhaps.”

“We should have brought some food, though,” Patrizia lamented. “We should have let people see you eating your fill. That would be an image for every woman to take with her on voting day—with every hunger pang reminding her of how she could be rid of the famine.”

Tamara said, “Now you’re starting to scare me.”

They might win the vote, she thought. It was not beyond hope now. But if they did, what would that mean? For everyone who took this first tentative sign of the method’s safety as glorious news, there’d be others who’d remain bitterly opposed to it. For every Amando who’d happily classify her as an honorary man, there’d be a Tosco denouncing her as unfit to raise a child as she ushered in the extinction of his sex.

There was no prospect of victory, just a truce enforced by the balance of numbers. Whatever the vote delivered, true freedom still lay generations away.

44

Carlo woke hungry, but he kept the food cupboard locked. He left the apartment as quickly as he could, knowing that if he lingered he’d be tempted to break his routine.

He reached the entrance to the observatory a few chimes early, but Carla was already waiting for him.

“I thought you’d be out there doing final checks,” he said.

Carla was amused. “If anything fails after all the tests we’ve done, it will be too late to fix it now. Today, all I did was wind the springs and set the launch time.”

She sounded calmer than he was, and he was doing her no favors by being anxious on her behalf. He widened his eyes and offered her his hand. “Shall we go through, then?”

The weightless observatory platform was crisscrossed with guide ropes for the occasion, but so far only Patrizia and her daughter were present. Carlo greeted them as they approached.

“The big day at last!” he enthused.

“I woke up three bells ago,” Leonia replied proudly.

“She did indeed,” Patrizia lamented.

“I had trouble sleeping too,” Carlo said. “It’s not every day you see a new kind of rocket.”

Onesto, the archivist, was next to arrive. He’d been following Carla and Patrizia around the mountain ever since they’d started work on the project, taking notes at every step.

“The official witness to history is here,” Carlo teased him. “Come to record the moment for future generations.”

Onesto said, “In that role, I’m entirely redundant. I’m sure everyone here will pass on the story themselves.”

“But you’ll do a more professional job,” Carlo granted.

“Perhaps,” Onesto replied. “I only wish I’d started shadowing the inventors sooner. I was in on some of their early conversations by chance, but I missed the most important ones.”

“We’ve told you as much as we remember!” Carla declared.

“Exactly,” Onesto agreed sadly. “Edited and censored and tidied up. I don’t blame you, but that’s what memory does.”

“Does it really matter?” Patrizia wondered. “The techniques that work will be repeated, the results we proved will be taught and retaught. Does anyone need to know how much we blundered about, getting there?”

Onesto said, “Imagine the time, a dozen generations from now, when wave mechanics powers every machine and everyone takes it for granted. Do you really want them thinking that it fell from the sky, fully formed, when the truth is that they owe their good fortune to the most powerful engine of change in history: people arguing about science.”

Assunto and Romolo arrived—Carla’s ex-boss and ex-student—followed by Tamara and Erminia, then Ada with her co and her daughter Amelia. As Carla reminisced with Ada, Romolo chatted excitedly with Carlo about his last trip to the Object. He seemed to bear no resentment at all toward the colleagues who’d rendered his work there peripheral.