Greg Egan: The Clockwork Rocket

“How do they know that they should stop making light?” she wondered.

Aurelia buzzed with amusement. “Because the sun’s coming up?”

“But how do they know that ?” Yalda persisted. “Plants don’t have eyes, do they?”

“They probably feel the heat,” Aurelio suggested.

Yalda didn’t think the temperature had risen all that sharply. Yet the whole field had grown dim as they were speaking, the night’s glorious red blossoms reduced to pale gray sacs hanging limply from their stalks.

She walked back toward Giusto, still pondering the question, remembering too late that she’d meant to race all the way to demonstrate her confidence in her new anatomy. Her father approached, on four legs too, Lucia and Lucio fussing at his pouches as they tried to even out the load.

“I think we’re ready,” Vito said. “Scram, you two!” Aurelio leaped off Yalda’s back, rolling into a tight ball as he hit the ground; his co followed, shouting triumphantly as she landed on top of him.

Dario was still not walking unaided, and he was muttering to his helpers about everyone crawling back into the ground and declaring a day of rest. Yalda was untroubled by this; if he didn’t believe she could carry him safely he wouldn’t even have risen, let alone cooperated as much as he had. Claudia and Claudio brought him over to her, and she knelt down on her rear legs to enable him to climb onto her back. He hadn’t bothered with arms before, but now he extruded three pairs, his chubby torso growing visibly thinner as the six ropy limbs stretched out to encircle her. Yalda was fascinated by the texture of his skin; the bulk of it appeared as elastic as her own, but scattered across the smooth expanse were countless small patches that had grown hard and unyielding. The skin around them was wrinkled and puckered, unable to spread out evenly.

“Are you comfortable?” Vito asked him. Dario emitted a brief, drab hum suggesting a burden borne without complaint. Vito turned to Yalda. “And you?”

“This is easy!” she proclaimed. She rose up and began promenading around her assembled family. Dario was heavier than the two of his grandchildren combined, but Yalda was untroubled by the load, and increasingly sure-footed in her new form. Giusto had chosen her shape well; as she peered down at Dario he lowered his head and rested it between her shoulders. Even if his grip loosened he could probably doze off without falling, but she would watch over him every step of the way.

Lucia called out to her, “Well done, Yalda!”

After a moment Lucio added, “Yeah, well done!”

A strange, sweet thrill ran through Yalda’s body. She was not the useless lump anymore, eating as much as any two children, clumsy as an infant half her age. If she could do this simple thing for her grandfather, she would finally have earned her place in the family.

With the sun clearing the horizon and a cool breeze blowing from the east, Yalda followed her father down the narrow path that ran south between the fields. Though the wheat had lost its nocturnal splendor, the fat yellow seed cases near the tops of the stalks always attracted more interest from adults than the delicate hues of the crop’s floral light—and when they came across two of their neighbors, Massima and Massimo, out baiting vole burrows, the talk was of nothing else. Yalda stood patiently, motionless save for the quivering required to send alighting insects on their way, ignored by everyone as they voiced their hopes for the coming harvest.

When the three of them had moved on, Dario noted disapprovingly, “Still no children! What’s happening with them?”

“That’s none of our business,” Vito replied.

“It’s unnatural!”

Vito was silent for a while. Then he said, “Perhaps his thoughts are still of her.”

“A man should think of his children,” Dario replied.

“And a woman?”

“A woman should think of them too.” Dario noticed Yalda’s rear gaze on him. “You concentrate on the road!” he commanded, as if that were sufficient to render the conversation private.

Yalda obeyed him, shifting her gaze to make him less self-conscious, then waited for the gossip to continue.

But Vito said firmly, “Enough! It’s not our concern.”

The path ended at a junction. To the right, the road led straight to the village, but they took the opposite turn. Yalda had set out this way many times before—playing, exploring, visiting friends—but she had never gone far. When she went west, it didn’t take long to notice the changes: soon the crossroads were spaced closer together, other people were passing her, and she could hear trucks chugging between the fields even if she couldn’t see them. The welcoming bustle of the village reached out and made itself felt long before you actually arrived. Traveling east was different: the same quiet and solitude with which you began the journey promised to stretch on forever. Had she been alone, the prospect of spending an entire day walking away from every familiar sign of life would have terrified her. As it was, she felt a desolate ache at the sight of the rising sun ahead of her, with the realization that even when it set she would still be heading in the same direction.

Yalda looked toward her father. He said nothing, but he met her gaze reassuringly, quelling her fears. She glanced down at Dario, but his eyes were closed; he’d drifted back to sleep already.

They passed the morning trudging through farmland, surrounded by fields so similar that Yalda was driven to hunt for patterns in the pebbles by the roadside just to prove to herself that they really were making progress. The idea that they might have lost their way and circled back was fanciful—the road was straight, and they’d been following the sun—but spotting these private signposts made a welcome diversion.

Around noon, Vito roused Dario. They turned off the road and sat in the straw at the edge of a stranger’s field. Yalda could hear nothing but the wind moving through the crop and the faint hum of insects. Vito produced three loaves and Yalda offered one to Dario, who remained on her back; for a moment he appeared to be preparing to make a new limb for the occasion, but then the tentative bud on his shoulder disappeared and he used an existing hand to take the food.

“Have you ever been in the forest before?” Yalda asked him.

“A long time ago.”

“Why were you there? Was someone sick?”

“No!” Dario was scornful; he might be willing to play along with Doctor Livia’s ideas just to keep his family happy, but no one would have countenanced such nonsense in the past. “The forest was closer then.”

“Closer?” Yalda didn’t understand.

“Bigger,” Dario explained. “Some of these fields weren’t fields back then. When we weren’t busy with our own work, we used to help clear new fields, at the forest’s edge.”

Yalda turned to Vito. “Did you go too?”

“No,” he replied.

Dario said, “Your father wasn’t around then. This was in your grandmother’s time.”

“Oh.” Yalda tried to imagine Dario as a vigorous young man, plucking trees right out of the ground, her grandmother working beside him. “So the forest reached out to where we are now?”

“At least,” Dario said. “The trip only took us half a morning. But then, we weren’t carrying anyone on our backs.”

They finished their loaves. The sun had passed its highest point; Yalda could see their shadows slanting to the east. Vito said, “We should get moving again.”

As they set off down the road, Yalda kept her rear eyes on Dario to be sure that his grip didn’t falter. She could always wrap him in arms of her own, if necessary. But though he appeared a little drowsy from the meal, his eyes remained open.