Greg Egan - The Eternal Flame

“Soon we’ll be testing the luxagen field theory to one part in a gross-to-the-fourth!” Romolo marveled.

“That’s impressive.” Carlo made a mental note to ask Carla if this really was true, or was just enthusiastic hyperbole.

Half a chime before the moment itself, the twelve Councilors filed in, ending all the small talk. Councilor Massimo made a speech, congratulating Carla and Patrizia for their persistence but hedging his bets in case something went wrong.

When Massimo was done, Leonia took it upon herself to start counting down to the launch. Soon everyone was joining in. Carlo spotted Carla and dragged himself toward her.

“Where is this ‘rebounder’ thing again?” he joked.

She pointed out of the dome at the cubical device, a stride or so wide, resting against a platform at the top of a short post.

“And you expect us to believe that that is going to accelerate forever?”

“Until it overheats,” Carla replied. “With luck, it could keep going for half a year.”

“Three!” Leonia screamed, eager to be heard over everyone accompanying her. “Two! One!”

Carlo saw blue-white light spilling from the chassis, bright but not remotely as intense as the exhaust from any sunstone engine. A little fuel was being burned in there, but it was not being used for propulsion. The light it emitted was priming Carla’s strange device, a crystal whose energy levels had been finely split by its own orderly, polarized light field. For all that Carlo had had the principles explained to him, for all the workshop tests he’d witnessed, if he was honest, a part of him still refused to believe that a lamp in a box could have the power of flight.

But the brashly named Eternal Flame did ascend, sliding up along the platform that restrained it against the faint push of centrifugal force, crossing the edge and breaking away painfully slowly. Its exhaust was a coherent beam of ultraviolet light, so there was nothing to be seen with the naked eye but the spillage from its lamp. Carlo was torn between an ecstatic sense of triumph and pride, and unworthy thoughts of just how easily a small concealed air tank could have produced the same results.

When the rocket finally rose above the top of the dome, people began cheering. It seemed to take less than half as much time to double its height. Leonia started nagging Tamara to let her view it through the telescope—and by the time she succeeded that was no longer absurd: Carlo could barely see it with his unaided eyes. When he took his turn at the telescope, Tamara slipped a UV-fluorescing filter into the optics—and the base of the receding rocket was transformed into a dazzling circle. If the beam hadn’t been aimed to one side of the dome, it would have been blinding.

Councilor Prospero gave the second speech, reminding everyone that he’d always been opposed to bringing orthogonal matter into the Peerless , and welcoming this encouraging sign that such a dangerous strategy would soon be proved unnecessary. Carlo thought of Silvano; he owed his friend a visit. Now that he’d been voted out of high office he was sure to make much better company.

Patrizia handed out food, but tactfully steered away from Carlo. He’d grown used to seeing her beside Carla: one post-maternal, the other fasting, and the difference in their size no longer looked strange to him. But the sight of so many women eating in public was hard to ignore. When he woke in the night with hunger pangs he could remind himself of the burden he was sharing with his co—but to be reminded that the burden itself was redundant was harder to take.

By evening the celebrations were growing muted. One by one, the guests congratulated the experimenters and departed. Leonia sat harnessed at the telescope, tirelessly checking and re-checking the rocket’s progress.

Carla approached him. “I’m leaving now,” she said. “Can we go together?”

“Of course.” Carlo bade farewell to the others, tickling Leonia until she moved aside and let him take a last peek at the Eternal Flame .

In the corridor, Carla was pensive.

“How long do you think it will take to scale up now?” he asked her. “To engine size?”

“A dozen years at least,” she said. “Maybe twice that.”

She’d hinted at a similarly daunting time scale before, but Carlo wasn’t convinced. “You’ve spent too long begging for resources, it’s made you pessimistic. Now that you’re the Council’s favorite, all of that’s going to change.”

Carla buzzed. “The Council can be as magnanimous as they like, but we’re talking about enough spin-polarized clearstone to cover the base of the mountain. We don’t even have that much ordinary clearstone, of any kind. We’re going to need to find ways to manufacture it.”

“I know. But once you get started,” Carlo predicted, “you’ll find new ideas, new short-cuts, new improvements. Isn’t that how it always goes?”

“I hope so,” she said. “Maybe Leonia will see the engines completed. Her generation, if things go well.”

They’d reached Carlo’s apartment.

“Will you invite me in?” she asked him.

He was afraid now. “Why would I do that?”

Carla put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve had everything I wanted from life. I’ve completed everything I hoped to complete. Our children should be born now, before you’re much older. Don’t you want to see our grandchildren?”

Carlo felt himself shivering. “I don’t care about that. I don’t want to lose you.”

“And I don’t want to go the way of men,” she said. “It almost happened to me once, out at the Object. That’s not the end I want.”

“It won’t seem as bad if you’ve seen your own daughter,” Carlo promised. “That’s what makes it easier for men. You should talk to Patrizia! She’ll tell you!”

Carla was unswayed. “You know I made up my mind a long time ago.”

“Change it,” he pleaded. When he’d joined her in the famine he’d told himself it would help undermine her resolve: by letting her eat a little more, she’d be one step closer to Patrizia—and clear-headed enough to be envious that her own concentration was still not quite as good.

“I can’t,” Carla said. “It’s not in me. Ever since I was a child this is what I’ve imagined.”

“Because you never knew you’d have a choice!” Carlo shuddered and added angrily, “What did I fight for, if it wasn’t that choice?”

Carla squeezed his shoulder. “And now I’m making it. You didn’t waste your time. Maybe our daughter will choose differently.”

She pushed open the door and dragged herself into the apartment. Carlo clung to the rope in the corridor, wondering what she’d do if he simply fled. He did not believe she’d stop taking holin; she’d keep trying to persuade him, without bludgeoning him with a threat like that. But if he kept refusing her—stint after stint, year after year—she’d find a co-stead easily enough.

Ever since I was a child this is what I’ve imagined. Those words were just as true for him. And when he set aside the part of himself that understood how much more was possible, all he wanted to do was give in to that ache and fulfill that glorious longing.

Carla appeared in the doorway.

“Come to bed,” she said. “We should sleep on this. We can lie together and see what the morning brings.”

Appendix 1:

Units and measurements