Greg Egan - The Clockwork Rocket

The faintly rotting smell of the place was not quite the same as any odor Yalda recalled from childhood, and the violet light reflecting back from the ceiling was more eerie than nostalgic. Still, it might be good for people to come here now and then to remember—or in later generations, to imagine—the world from which this small, imperfect sample of life’s richness had been plucked.

Yalda had received no reports of damage to the farms, but she stopped at one of the caverns of wheat to inspect the crop with her own eyes. Like the forest below, this field had been established for years, so if it had survived the briefly elevated gravity there was no reason to think it couldn’t go on thriving. Half the red flowers were open and shining healthily, while the other half slept. As she walked between the rows, alone, she noticed an occasional broken stalk or disheveled flower, but none of the plants had been uprooted. She’d seen worse than this back home after a few stiff gusts of wind.

There’d been a ceiling collapse in one of the medicinal gardens, so Yalda made that her next stop. As she walked down the tunnel from the stairwell, the drab glow of the moss gave way to a richer light than even the forest had offered, and her first glimpse revealed a lush, vibrantly colored mosaic of plants spread out across the cavern. It was only when she reached the entrance that she saw the pile of rubble to her left, and the dozen or so people trying to clear it without trampling any of the precious shrubs.

Yalda approached the group, calling out a greeting. Everyone acknowledged her politely, but only one of the workers offered more than a deferential nod.

“Yalda! Hello!”

“Fatima?”

Fatima walked over to her, picking her way carefully through the debris and crushed plants.

“Was anyone hurt?” Yalda asked.

“No, we were all in the dormitory when it happened.”

“That’s something.” Yalda looked up at the ceiling, which had lost a chunk the size of a small house; they were above the sunstone lode here, so the walls had no need for protective cladding, but the natural mineral formation exposed by the original excavation must have been less stable than the engineers had thought. “What about the plants?”

Fatima gestured at the rubble. “All of that used to be soldier’s ease.” Yalda knew the blue-flowered shrub, which had grown wild near the farm; its resin helped with wound-healing, though some less-than-helpful chemist had found a way to modify it to produce the melding formulation so beloved of the police.

“Don’t take it too badly,” Yalda said. “There’s plenty more in the other gardens, and you’ll get it started here again in a stint or two.”

Fatima didn’t actually appear grief-stricken by the loss. “We’ve really left the world behind?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” Yalda assured her.

“You’ve looked back and seen it?”

“Yes.” Yalda was sure that Fatima understood perfectly that if they had not reached the void they’d simply be dead—but with the weight of everything restored to normal, nothing in this cave conveyed the truth to her senses. “You should see it for yourself. All of you. Who’s the supervisor here?”

“Gioconda.” Fatima pointed her out.

Yalda approached the woman and asked her how the work was proceeding, then negotiated a break in a bell’s time when anyone who wished could come with her to the nearest observation chamber.

“I’d like to see the world, myself,” Gioconda said. “Before it’s too faint.”

While they waited, Yalda helped shift the rubble. Gioconda was planning to use it to build a series of paths through the garden—covering the bare soil between the plots that currently provided a sanctuary for weeds—but the larger pieces of stone would need to be broken up, and all of the paving would need to be bound to the netting so it would remain in place when the Peerless ceased accelerating.

The work was relaxing, and the team seemed to be in good spirits. Once the schools started up, Yalda decided, it would not take much more to make this flying mountain as good a place to live as any small town. It would never match Zeugma’s range of cuisines—or be visited by touring entertainers—but there was nothing to stop people inventing their own new dishes, or devising their own variety shows.

The observation chamber wasn’t far; the edge of the mountain was less than a stroll away, and then a short descent took them to a clear-domed cave much like the one on the navigators’ level. Yalda hadn’t come prepared with coordinates, but she managed to locate the world’s tiny crescent without too embarrassing a delay.

The gardeners lined up to take turns looking through the theodolite, and Yalda watched their faces as they stepped away, silent and reflective. The ultimate purpose of the Peerless was more remote than ever now, with the site of its hoped-for return promising only to fade and vanish, never to be seen again in their lifetimes. But Yalda detected no signs of despair. They were not of the world anymore, but they had their own home to advance and protect. Best of all, even in parting they had not become rivals or deserters: if the Peerless flourished, the old world would share the rewards.

When everyone had seen what they’d come here to see, Yalda showed them Pio’s stark terrain, then Sitha’s glorious color trail.

“When will we be able to see the orthogonal stars?” Fatima asked impatiently.

“Not for a while yet,” Yalda replied. “So far we’ve barely changed the angle we make with starlight.” She looked around the chamber at the others. “Is there anything else someone would like to see?”

One of the gardeners, Calogera, gestured toward the barren slope beyond the dome. “I’d like to see the traitor Nino falling past: thrown off the peak of the mountain, on his way down into the engine’s flames.”

Yalda didn’t speak until the cheering stopped, which gave her time to decide that it would be best not to respond at all. “I’ll need to get moving now,” she said. “I have more inspections to perform. I wish you well with your repairs.”

Yalda returned to the navigators’ post. A cell had been constructed in a corner of the room, but the builders had rendered it inconspicuous, the wall blending seamlessly with the original, the triple-bolted door almost invisible. Frido and Babila had been opening the small hatch and tossing in loaves without exchanging a word with the occupant, and with a floor of soil packed with worms to eat the prisoner’s faeces, there really was no reason the door would ever need to be opened.

It took Yalda two days to work up the courage to pull the bolts and step into the cell. They weren’t torturing their prisoner with darkness; the walls here emitted the same mossy red glow as they did outside. Nino sat, unrestrained, in a corner; he did not look up as she closed the door behind her and approached.

Yalda sat on the floor in front of him. “Is there anything you want to say to me?” she asked.

“I’ve told you everything,” Nino replied dully. “If there are other saboteurs, the Councilor never mentioned them to me.”

“All right. I believe you.” Why would Acilio have told this man anything, beyond the instructions he needed to complete his own task? “Your confession is complete. So what now?”

Nino kept his eyes on the floor. “I’m at your mercy.”

“Maybe,” Yalda said. “But you must have your own wishes.”

“Wishes?” Nino made it sound like an infant’s nonsense-word.

“If you had a choice,” Yalda persisted, “what would your fate be?”

Nino took a while to respond. “Never to have listened to the Councilor. Never to have got into debt. Never to have seen a second sun in the sky.”