The Eternal Flame

19

Carlo abandoned the voles a bell earlier than usual to join the celebration in the hall below the main physics workshop. The corridors along the way were lined with posters for Silvano’s next election rally, promising voters the chance to MAKE YOUR CHILDREN PROUD.

Carla had urged him to invite all his colleagues and their families, but as far as he could see only Amanda and her co had turned up. The whole chamber was festooned with chains of small lamps, and—rather cruelly for the women, Carlo thought—there were baskets of seasoned loaves attached to every cross-rope, putting out an aroma that made it hard even for a moderately well-fed man to focus on anything else.

Patrizia, Carla’s young student, clung to a rope near the center of the hall, fending off an endless barrage of congratulations. “It took the three of us to get this far,” she kept saying. “And I didn’t solve the stability problem, that was Carla.” Her modesty appeared entirely sincere, but when Carlo moved among the clusters of physicists orbiting this star all he heard was talk of the urgent need to start applying “Patrizia’s principle” to some new problem or other.

He tried not to begrudge the girl her share of acclaim, but it undercut his sense that he ought to join in the rejoicing out of simple loyalty. What was there to celebrate, really, in this minuscule advance in the theory of solids? It had made Carla happy, and no doubt it would have some kind of payoff eventually, but what urgent need had it fulfilled? The ancestors would be oblivious to however long it took to find the cure to their woes. The travelers didn’t have that luxury.

Carla caught up with him. “Are you enjoying yourself?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“You don’t seem to be talking to anyone.”

Carlo said, “I get all the luxagen-speak I need from you.”

She feigned a punch at his shoulder. “Actually, it’s not all physicists here. Don’t you want to meet the woman who’ll be flying the Gnat?”

“That astronomer who found the Object?”

Carla emitted an exasperated hum. “Where have you been hiding for the last stint? Tamara gave birth. This is her replacement, Ada.”

Reluctantly, Carlo followed her across the hall. Ada was surrounded by her own circle of admirers, but they parted for Carla and she made the introductions.

“You’re a biologist, aren’t you?” Ada asked Carlo.

“That’s right.” There was an awkward silence, and Carlo realized that he was expected to say something more about his work, but he knew how that was likely to end. Everyone had heard the story of his amputation, and he was tired of being the butt of that joke.

Ada said, “Maybe you can answer this for me. Why should lizard skin be sensitive to infrared light?”

Carlo was about to deny that any such thing was true, when he realized what she was talking about: one of the chemists had extracted a component of the skin that fluoresced in visible light when it was illuminated with IR. “I’m not sure that it’s actually sensitive, in that the animal would know when it’s being exposed to infrared. As far as I’m aware it’s just a fluke, a chemical property with no biological significance.”

“Fair enough,” Ada said. “I was just curious, it seemed so strange.”

Carlo wasn’t really in the mood for small talk, but he didn’t want to embarrass his co. What did he know about this woman? “You must have been surprised when your colleague stepped down,” he ventured.

“It wasn’t that formal,” Ada replied. “She didn’t resign, we just got word from her family.”

“Ah.” That was shocking in its own way, but it made a lot more sense. No one in their right mind would give up the chance to fly the Gnat, but it wasn’t unheard of for couples with other plans entirely to wake in the night and let instinct take over.

“I wanted to see the children,” Ada said sadly. “But her co’s a farmer, and they’re quarantined with blight.”

“Quarantined?” Carlo had no reason to doubt her word, but he was taken aback. “I worked with wheat myself, not long ago. Wheat blight’s not usually that hard to control.”

“Her father said it was something new,” Ada explained.

Carlo felt a twinge of anxiety; he’d met half a dozen of his agronomist friends a few days earlier, and they hadn’t mentioned a new strain of blight. Had his defection so offended them that they were shutting him out of the loop? Or maybe they’d just been too busy teasing him about his mutinous fingers.

“Well, good luck with the journey,” he said. He started to back away along the rope when he caught Ada casting a quizzical glance at Carla, as if she’d expected something more from the exchange. Carlo paused, wondering which further nicety would be most appropriate: congratulations on her promotion, or commiserations on the fate of her friend.

Carla said, “Ada’s offered me a place on the Gnat.”

Carlo turned to Ada; her expression made it clear that this was the subject she’d been waiting to discuss. “I thought that was all down to the lottery,” he said.

“When the winner pulled out we asked the Council to reconsider,” Ada explained. “They agreed to let us choose a new crew member on the basis of their expertise. Tamara had talked about picking another chemist—but orthogonal matter isn’t something that chemists have actually worked with. Since Carla seems to have solved Yalda’s First Problem… I thought she might stand the best chance of also solving the Third.”

Carlo felt sick. Carla seemed excited, but he could tell that she was fearful too. A moment ago he’d told himself that no sane person could give up a chance like this, but his perspective had undergone a wrenching shift.

“She didn’t solve the stability problem overnight,” he said. “Do you really expect a once-in-a-generation breakthrough to be repeated on demand? Under pressure, in that tiny vehicle…?”

Ada raised a hand reassuringly. “That’s not what I was thinking at all. I don’t expect the mysteries of orthogonal matter to be resolved on the spot. I just want someone with us who’s familiar with the new ideas, and who’ll have a chance of applying them if the opportunity arises. Ivo’s a brilliant chemist with a vast amount of experience, but there’s no point telling him to start thinking of luxagens as waves. And frankly, there’s no point telling me either; I have no idea what it implies.”

Carla said, “We’ll have a few days to decide. But Ada wants to take the final crew list to the new Council for approval at their first meeting, so this is the time to ask her any questions.”

“Right.” Carlo struggled to clear his head. The mere thought of his co inside the Gnat as it receded to invisibility was painful enough, but now he had to face up to the purpose of the mission: capturing a mountain-sized mass of fuel by setting it alight. Orthogonal rocks that no one understood sprouting flame wasn’t the worst-case scenario—it was the whole plan.

He looked to Carla again. As anxious as she was, it was plain that this was what she wanted. And after all her work with the tarnishing experiments, all the false starts and blind alleys, all the grief Assunto had given her… didn’t she have the right to this moment of glory? He wasn’t going to tell her to be content that she’d done her bit for the ancestors.

What he owed her now was encouragement. That, and whatever he could do to ensure that she remained safe.

Carlo dragged himself closer to Ada.

He said, “Tell me what you’ll do if you start a wildfire on the Object. I want to know where the Gnat would be, relative to the point of ignition, and how you can be sure you’ll be able to get clear in time.”