The Clockwork Rocket

abused limbs completely. She rose to her feet and took a step back, then rolled her shoulders and chirped with bliss as she rearranged half the flesh in her torso. Her two small wounds ended up at the sides of her back.

The guard said irritably, “Could you groom yourself outside?”

“With pleasure.” Yalda didn’t waste time asking him who’d paid her fine; Tullia would know which businesswoman from the Solo Club had taken pity on her, and would be able to advise her on the proper way to express her thanks.

Yalda moved slowly down the corridor toward the dazzling rectangle of light that marked the entrance to the barracks. She would never have lasted a year; she could admit that now. She would have been dead or insane in a dozen stints. She needed to visit the chemistry department at the first opportunity, and come back with something volatile enough to turn this whole abomination into rubble.

She stepped out beneath the sky, shivering, humming softly to herself. For a moment she was hurt that Tullia wasn’t waiting on the street to welcome her back to freedom, but that was petty; the world hadn’t come to a halt, Tullia still needed to earn a living. She extruded two fresh arms and shielded her eyes as she looked around, trying to orient herself.

“Yalda?” A male figure approached through the haze of brightness.

“Eusebio?” Yalda had lost count of all the lessons they’d missed. First her three stints on Mount Peerless, and now this unexplained absence. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t get word to you—”

He was close enough now for Yalda to read the embarrassment on his face. Of course he would have heard exactly what had happened to her.

“May I walk with you?” he said.

“Of course.” She let Eusebio lead the way; she had yet to recover her sense of direction, let alone decide where she wanted to go.

Eusebio remained silent for some time, his gaze directed at the ground. “If you choose to end our arrangement,” he said finally, “I’ll understand your decision. And I’ll pay you for the lessons to the end of the year.”

Yalda struggled to make sense of this strange invitation. Was he trying to tell her that he was so ashamed of her scandalous behavior that he no longer wished to be her student—but he expected her to act, sparing him the unpleasantness of having to dismiss her?

“Actually, I’d rather go on tutoring you,” she said coolly. If he wanted to be rid of her, he’d have to find the courage to spell it out.

Eusebio shuddered, emitting a hum that sounded more like shame than disgust. “I can’t believe you’re not angrier,” he said wonderingly. “It was my fault; I should have warned you.”

Yalda stopped walking. “What should you have warned me about?”

“Acilio, of course. All of them—but Acilio’s the worst.”

Yalda was utterly lost now. “How could you have known that Acilio would decide to throw a rock at me?” Unless the cosmos was spherical after all, and Eusebio had sat in his apartment one night reading the harmonics for the entire future.

“I couldn’t,” he replied. “And that might well have been sheer coincidence. But once he found out who you were, that you were connected to me…”

Yalda struggled to absorb this. “You mean, he asked for that huge reparation as a way of getting at you?”

Eusebio said, “Yes. Of course you humiliated him, so he didn’t care what harm he did to you, but the penalty was chosen for my edification.”

It was Eusebio who’d paid the fine and set her free. But she’d only faced the prospect of a lifetime in the cells in the first place because of some childish dispute between him and Acilio.

And she had been the last to know about any of this. When the sergeant had urged her to reconsider the resources at her disposal, he’d been hinting that he expected her to beg her wealthy employer to come to her aid.

“So what now?” she said bitterly. “You’ve bought me, you own me?”

Eusebio recoiled, wounded. “I was remiss in not warning you about my enemies, but I’ve never treated you with anything but respect.”

Yalda could not dispute that. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Acilio is nothing to me!” Eusebio declared. “I don’t want to fight with him! But his grandfather and my grandfather are rivals. It’s all so tedious it would merely be a tired old joke if it didn’t damage other people’s lives. All I want to do is get an education and make something of myself. But I should have warned you that I have adversaries who’ll treat anyone close to me as fair game.”

“It might have been helpful,” Yalda agreed.

“I’ll give you their names, I’ll show you their portraits,” Eusebio promised. “Everyone you should avoid.”

“I probably shouldn’t injure… anyone, really,” Yalda decided.

Eusebio said, “These are people you don’t even want to bump in a queue.”

“I see.” Yalda contemplated the situation. “Is this over now? Or will Acilio have something more in mind for me?” She wasn’t keen on being shuttled in and out of prison until Eusebio was bankrupt. Couldn’t these idiots learn to ruin each other in pointless games of chance, instead?

“I don’t think he’ll repeat himself,” Eusebio said carefully. “And it’s one thing to exploit an opportunity, but using you to bludgeon me repeatedly would be seen as rather crass.”

“Well, that’s a relief. I’m so glad there are standards to be upheld.”

Eusebio met her gaze; he was still ashamed over what had happened, but he’d done all he could to make amends. “So what do you say about our lessons?”

“I want them to continue,” Yalda said. “Draw up a guide for me, on surviving the whims of Zeugma’s ruling class, and then we can get on with the things that matter.”

The prison guards hadn’t returned the coins the police had taken from her pocket, but Yalda still had some money in the bank. The clerk looked dubious when he compared the signature she made on her chest with a print of it on paper, and insisted on asking her three of her secret questions as well.

“Give the largest proper factor of the eighth power of a gross plus five gross squared plus eleven?” The clerk interrupted her before she could answer. “What kind of question is that?”

“Too easy?” Yalda wondered. “You might be right.”

She bought a loaf in the markets, then walked past the place where Antonia’s stall had been.

She couldn’t face the university yet; she sat in a quiet park until evening, then went to Tullia’s apartment.

Tullia greeted her with a look of pure astonishment. “What happened? I heard rumors of some preposterous fine, but they wouldn’t tell me anything at the barracks. I was waiting for you to send me a message!” She ushered Yalda inside; the apartment was lit only by plants once more, but prison had given Yalda astronomer’s eyes and every sheet of paper in the room stood out clearly.

She explained what Eusebio had told her. Tullia said, “Next time I complain about my own students, you now have permission to slap me in the head.”

“Any news about Antonia?”

“I met her three days ago,” Tullia replied. “In the markets, with her co. She insisted that she was with him voluntarily; he insisted that nothing was going to happen to her by force.”

“Did you believe him?”

“Does it matter what I believe? There’s nothing we can do now.”

“I was so stupid,” Yalda said angrily. “The police weren’t even looking for her—”

“And what about Eusebio!”

“What about him?” Yalda wasn’t going to blame him for her own carelessness. “Any fool could have picked a fight with me that night; even if Eusebio had warned me about Acilio, the same thing might have happened with someone else.”

Tullia went over to one of her plants and dug into the soil with narrow fingers, finally plucking out a vial.

“Did the police find your holin?” Yalda asked her.

“Not a scrag. You should have some now; you’ve missed a lot of doses.”