Greg Egan - The Clockwork Rocket

“That’s what rockets do,” Eusebio replied modestly. “Ascend.”

“When does it fall down again?” Giulio asked.

“This one won’t,” Eusebio predicted.

Yalda wasn’t so sure. Through the protective filter the rocket had almost dimmed to invisibility; Eusebio would have gauged its progress by eye, but it would take the precise measurements of their independent observer to confirm its ultimate destination.

Giulio raised his head so he could peer over the intervening bodies and see what Nereo was up to. Nereo was propped up on a special bench that Amando had constructed; this allowed him to watch a clock with his rear gaze at the same time as he followed the rocket through the theodolite. Yalda could see a list of pairs of times and angles written along the length of Nereo’s right arm; as she watched, he added one more pair then looked away from the theodolite and began producing further columns of numbers. The rocket would still be burning fuel—so there was still a chance that it could lose stability and drive itself back toward the ground—but on the assumption that it would do no worse, now, than if it had simply cut off its engines at the last clear observation, Nereo could give a tentative verdict on its fate.

“It’s escaped the world’s gravity,” Nereo declared. “I suspect it’s heading for an eccentric orbit around the sun with a period of several dozen years.”

“How can it have escaped ?” Giulio asked. “Are you saying it’s already reached a height where gravity’s negligible?”

His tone of incredulity was appropriate, but he’d missed the point. Nereo said, “At the altitude it had reached on my last observation, gravity is barely diminished—but it was already moving rapidly enough to guarantee that it would never be brought to a halt. Not by the world—though the sun still had hold of it.”

Yalda looked to Amando, and together they managed to slide the tinted pane aside without the pieces falling on them. The bunker’s five occupants climbed to their feet and scrambled up onto the sand, slipping between the ground and the mirror.

Yalda searched the sky, high to the east. There weren’t many Hurtlers today to confuse the view, and she could see a faint gray speck that could only be Eusebio’s house-sized pillar of rock—engines still blazing, still gaining speed. The escape velocity for the sun itself was only three times greater than the world’s. Given the results from earlier yield experiments, if the rocket burned all its fuel without mishap it could actually end up leaving the solar system.

Giulio addressed Eusebio. “You should come to Red Towers and talk about your plans. Nereo’s already given public lectures on rotational physics, so the ideas aren’t completely new to people, but I can run some articles in the Report beforehand to help your audiences prepare.”

Yalda wondered what was in the crops around Red Towers that was missing from Zeugma’s diet.

Eusebio said, “I’d be delighted.”

Yalda thanked Nereo for his participation. “It’s a pleasure,” he said. “I don’t know if your guess about the Hurtlers is right, but I’m glad someone’s thinking about these possibilities.”

“I can’t interest you in a place on the rocket?”

Nereo buzzed with mirth. “I’d rather stay safe on the ground, and wait for your dozen-fold-great-grandchildren to tell me all the marvelous science they’ve discovered.”

Yalda said, “I get that answer a lot.”

She wished she could have spent longer with Nereo, but he and Giulio needed to get back to Red Towers. Amando brought one of the trucks out of the shed and sped off across the desert with their guests.

Eusebio turned to Yalda. “Will you come to Red Towers with me? Tour the show?”

“If I can get leave from the university.” Yalda hesitated. “Do you think you could pay me a small fee for that?”

“Of course.” Eusebio had invited her several times to become an employee, but so far she’d resisted; she’d wanted to retain her independence, in order to be able to speak her mind to him freely.

She added apologetically, “If I’m not teaching I won’t get paid, and it’s not fair on Lidia and Daria to be looking after the children with no help.”

“Hmm.” Eusebio had already made it clear that he disapproved of what the three of them were doing: women—however capable they could be in other spheres—had not been shaped by nature for the raising of children. There were plenty of widowers in Zeugma desperate for heirs, and prepared to treat them like the flesh of their own co.

But he had more important things to think about than the flaws in Yalda’s domestic life. “Beyond spreading the news to the citizenry of Red Towers,” he said, “I’m hoping your colleague Nereo can arrange a meeting for me with his patron.”

“You can’t get an introduction to Paolo yourself?” Yalda was amused. “Whatever happened to the plutocrats’ network?”

“ Networks , plural. They’re not all joined together.”

“Why do you want to meet Paolo?”

“Money,” Eusebio replied bluntly. “My father’s set a ceiling on my investment in the rocket. If I’m going to have to build the whole structure myself—mining and transporting all the sunstone, incorporating it into an artificial shell… if I tried to match the scale of Mount Peerless the costs would be greater by a factor of several gross, but even the smallest viable alternative is far beyond what I can afford on my own.”

“Have you thought of bribing all the people who are entitled to vote on the observatory?” Yalda suggested. “Not just with a shiny new telescope—with money they can put in their own pockets?”

Eusebio was insulted. “I’m not a fool; that was my very first plan. But Acilio has the Council scrutinizing the University’s business very closely, and he has so many spies in the University himself that I doubt I could get away with that kind of thing.”

Yalda joked, “I’m always willing to kill Ludovico, for a nominal fee.”

Eusebio regarded her with a neutral expression for an uncomfortably long moment.

“Don’t tempt me,” he said.

As the train approached Red Towers, Yalda was surprised to discover that the city still lived up to its name. She’d read that the local calmstone deposit with the eponymous hue had been mined out long ago, but now she could see with her own eyes that the skyline still bore an unmistakable red tint. Perhaps the original buildings had been lovingly preserved. Either that, or they’d all been recycled as decorative veneer.

Nereo met her at the station—along with all four of his children, who fought with each other for the thrill of carrying her luggage. Seeing how young they were, Yalda guessed that his co must have lived almost as long as her own grandfather. Nereo was still healthy, though—and no doubt he’d made arrangements for the children to be cared for even if some tragedy struck him down.

“Your friend Eusebio’s already at the house,” Nereo said.

“He had some business in Shattered Hill,” Yalda explained. “We’ve come in from opposite directions.”

Nereo lived within his patron’s walled compound. Yalda’s skin crawled as they walked past the sentries with their knife belts, but the children took the sight for granted. “It’s just a tradition,” Nereo told her, noticing her discomfort. “Paolo has no enemies; those weapons have never been used.”

“Don’t the guards get bored, then?”

Nereo said, “There are worse jobs.”

Eusebio was sitting on the floor in the guest room, reading a copy of The Red Towers Report . He greeted Yalda, then added in a tone of disbelief, “This man Giulio actually read and understood every word in the briefings I sent him. He raises some objections and concerns, but… they’re all entirely sensible .”