The Clockwork Rocket

The servant ushered Yalda, Nereo and Eusebio into the dining room, then withdrew.

Paolo was standing at the far end of the room, flipping through a thick stack of papers. He looked younger than Yalda had expected, perhaps a bit more than two dozen years old. He put the papers down on a shelf and approached, gesturing at a wide circle of cushions on the floor. “Welcome to my home! Sit, please!”

Nereo introduced Yalda and Eusebio. Yalda tried not to be intimidated by the opulence of the room; the walls were decorated with an abstract mosaic, and there was a bewildering array of food spread out in front of them, almost none of it familiar to her. To her eye, there was enough to feed at least a dozen people—and when six young men entered the room, the quantity began to seem almost reasonable—but it turned out that Paolo’s sons were just passing through to greet his guests, and would not be joining them.

Six sons! Had he adopted some of them, or taken two co-steads? Either way, if it was a family tradition the house would be overflowing with grandchildren.

The formalities over, Paolo sat with them and urged them to start eating. Yalda made a conscious decision not to hesitate—not to stare at the dishes and try to guess their origins. She was confident that nothing here would be too repellent, let alone dangerous, so it didn’t really matter that she had no idea what she was putting in her mouth. The first few flavors were strange, but not unpleasant. She decided to adopt a fixed expression of mild enjoyment and maintain it throughout the meal, regardless.

Paolo addressed Eusebio. “I’ve heard about your rockets; an extraordinary venture.”

“It’s only just beginning,” Eusebio replied. “To send people safely into the void will take many more years of work.”

“I admire the audacity of your vision,” Paolo said, “and I appreciate that the Hurtlers might well become dangerous. But what exactly do you think your travelers will bring back from a trip into empty space?”

“That’s difficult to predict,” Eusebio admitted. “Imagine, though, how wondrous our cities would appear to a visitor from the eleventh age. They had no engines, no trucks, no trains. Only the crudest lenses. No reliable clocks.”

“But what comes next?” Paolo wondered. “An engine that runs a little more smoothly? A clock that loses no time in a year? Undoubtedly civilized refinements, but how would they safeguard us against the Hurtlers?”

Eusebio said, “Have you heard of the Eternal Flame?”

Yalda was glad she’d already committed to a policy of benign inexpressiveness.

Paolo buzzed amiably—not mocking his guest, but treating this invocation as if it could only have been meant as deliberate, flippant hyperbole.

Eusebio’s tone remained scrupulously polite, but Yalda could see him struggling to keep his frustration in check. “The old stories of the Eternal Flame were misguided in their details,” he said, “but modern ideas suggest that such a process might actually be possible.” He turned to Nereo. “Am I wrong about that?”

Nereo said cautiously, “Rotational physics doesn’t rule it out immediately, the way our earlier understanding of energy did.”

Paolo was surprised. “Honestly?” He put down the loaf he’d been chewing. “So all those wild-eyed alchemists might simply have given up too soon? Ha!” He shot Nereo a reproving glance, as if his science adviser might have thought to mention such an interesting fact a few years earlier.

Eusebio said, “Sir, may I tell you one message we received very clearly from the people of Red Towers last night?”

“Certainly,” Paolo replied.

“My venture, as it stands, is too modest,” Eusebio confessed. “Nobody believes that a few dozen people in a vehicle perhaps the size of this compound could survive long enough to reap the benefits of their situation. The basic physics of the trajectory puts no limit on the length of their journey—no limit on the advantage they could have over us in years. But the practicalities of their situation will be the determining factor. A robust society requires a certain scale, in both people and resources. An isolated camp in the desert with well-chosen supplies might endure for a generation or two, but it takes a whole city to flourish for an age.”

Paolo said, “I understand.” He was silent for a while. “But how large a rocket would be large enough? No one knows. It’s a very big risk to take, based on nothing but guesswork.”

“If it stops the Hurtlers from destroying us,” Eusebio replied, “how could it not be worth it?”

“But that judgment depends not only on the travelers succeeding,” Paolo reasoned, “but also on an absence of other solutions. The same resources spent here on the ground might solve the problem more efficiently. I can’t speak for others, but I do like having my own money doing its work somewhere nearby, where I can watch over it.”

“Yes, sir.” Eusebio lowered his gaze. The rejection could not have been clearer.

Paolo turned to Nereo. “So, perhaps the Eternal Flame could be made real?”

“Perhaps,” Nereo conceded reluctantly. “But there are a number of subtleties to be considered, some of which we barely understand.”

“What if I hired a gross of chemists to go out into the desert and start testing every possible combination of ingredients? Somewhere far from any people they could harm?” Nereo didn’t reply immediately, but Paolo was already warming to his own vision. “We could require that each experiment take place at a location on the map that encoded the particular choice of reagents. That way, it would be apparent from the positions of the craters which reactions should never be attempted again.”

“Ingenious, sir,” Nereo declared. He was being sarcastic, but Paolo chose to take him at his word.

“The credit,” Paolo replied, “should go to our guest, who delivered this inspiration to me.” He bowed his head toward Eusebio.

Throughout their second, final show in Red Towers, Eusebio kept up an admirably professional veneer of optimism, but as soon as they were back in Nereo’s guest room he slumped against the wall.

“It’s too much,” he said numbly. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“We can find someone else to take over the recruitment drive,” Yalda suggested.

“I’m not talking about the recruitment drive! The whole project is impossible. I should give up this idiocy and go back to the railways; let someone else worry about the Hurtlers. I’ll probably be dead before the worst of it, anyway. Why should I care?”

Yalda walked over to him and touched his shoulder reassuringly. “So Paolo won’t invest in the rocket. He’s not the only wealthy person on the planet.”

“But Red Towers is as good as it gets,” Eusebio said. “Journalists here understand the whole message. People listen to our plan and offer intelligent, constructive criticism. But no one here will volunteer to be a passenger, and the man who owns half the city would rather try to resurrect alchemy as his weapon against the Hurtlers than watch his money disappear into the void.”

“It’s a setback,” Yalda admitted. “But don’t make any decisions right now. Things might look different after a few days.”

Eusebio was unconvinced, but he tried to receive her advice graciously. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I couldn’t throw this all away in an instant if I wanted to. It’s not as if someone’s going to walk up to me tomorrow and offer to buy the mining licenses.”

Yalda woke in the night, unsure for a moment where she was. She raised herself up on her elbows to look around the room. Soft-edged shadows tinged with spectral colors stretched across the floor from beneath the window, framing Eusebio’s sleeping form.

He was beautiful, she realized: tall and strong, perfectly shaped even in slumber. How had she never seen that before?

But it was the thought of him that had woken her. If they brought their bodies together now, she was sure she could extract the promise from him. Her flesh wouldn’t die; she’d let her mind and its anxieties fade away, leaving her children with a devoted protector. He was the closest thing to a co she could hope for, and she did not believe he would refuse her. Not here, alone with her; not if she insisted.

She rose to her feet and stood watching him, imagining his skin pressed against her own, rehearsing the words that would convince him. If Paolo could have six sons, why should Eusebio limit himself to two? She would not say a word against his co; she wasn’t asking him to betray his lifelong partner, only to enlarge his prospective