Everyone clambered down into the bunker. It had been years now since a rocket had exploded at launch, but these precautions weren’t arduous, and though the dust was even thicker down here it was good to get out of the wind.
Yalda lay between Frido and Fatima, watching the mirrored horizon. The rocket was almost lost in the brown haze. She glanced over at the clock; there were three lapses still to go.
Leonia said, “What if she loses her resolve, then regains it? If we come out of the bunker and that thing goes off—”
“That’s not going to happen,” Yalda replied. “She’ll launch at the agreed time, or not at all.”
“What if something jams inside the engine feed?” Ernesta asked. “How can you walk away from that safely, if it might unjam at any time and fire the engines?”
Yalda said, “There’s a backup system to close off the liberator tanks. And if that doesn’t work, Benedetta knows how to take the whole engine feed apart.”
Time passed in silence. Fatima touched her arm warily. Yalda opened her eyes and looked at the clock. Frido counted softly, “Three. Two. One.”
The radiance of burning sunstone burst through the haze and lit up the plain. Benedetta hadn’t flinched; she hadn’t waited one flicker past the chime. As the rocket rose smoothly into the sky the walls of the bunker shook, but it was no more than a gentle nudge. Yalda felt a rush of empathetic delight. This courageous woman had pushed the lever, and the rocket had done her bidding. Cool breezes would be flowing over her skin, her weight would be no more than half above normal, and with her tympanum held rigid the noise of the engine wouldn’t trouble her too much. Yalda, braced the same way, barely registered the sound of the launch as it reached her.
When the rocket went off the edge of the mirror, Yalda scrambled out of the bunker and stood watching it ascend. Frido followed her, and though she gave no instructions to the recruits everyone soon joined them.
In less than a chime Benedetta would be four slogs above the ground—almost nine times the height of Mount Peerless. From her bench, she would be peering through the window and watching the horizon growing ever wider. Yalda’s skin tingled vicariously at the thought of this foretaste of the greater journey: to ascend and return, without the bitterness of parting from the world forever.
Frido had a theodolite on a tripod set up beside the bunker, but Yalda was content to use her naked eyes, merely checking the time on the clock that sat behind them both. Distance soon dimmed the rocket to a faint white speck, but it was not so pale that there was any ambiguity when the engines shut off and it vanished entirely. Now Benedetta would be weightless, as if she’d stepped into the skin of one of her descendants from the generations who would know nothing else.
The rocket would rise another two slogs before gravity brought it to a halt. As five lapses passed, Yalda pictured it slowing, approaching its peak. Would Benedetta have any way of knowing that she’d reached the midpoint of her journey, apart from the reading on her own clock? How well could you judge your speed, when the landscape that offered the only cues was at such a great remove? Yalda tried to imagine the view from this pinnacle, but the task defeated her. She would have to wait to hear it in the traveler’s own words.
For five more lapses the rocket would fall freely, then the engines would start up again, burning more fiercely than during the ascent, slowing the vehicle sufficiently for the parachute to take over and ease its fall. Yalda kept her rear eyes on the clock and her forward gaze raised to the zenith, trying not to be distracted by the Hurtlers.
Frido spoke quietly, his words for her alone. “Something’s wrong,” he said. “It’s coming down too fast.”
Yalda couldn’t agree. He had watched more launches then she had, but he was more anxious too; his perceptions were skewed.
The flame grew closer, its intensity becoming painful; in her mind’s eye Yalda followed it down to a point just a few strolls from the launch site. Benedetta would meet them halfway across the plain, waving and shouting triumphantly.
She waited for the flame to cut out, watching the clock as the moment approached. But when it had passed, the engines were still blazing.
“Something’s wrong,” Frido repeated softly. “The burn must have started late.”
As he spoke, the flame went out. Yalda fixed the clock’s reading in her mind: six pauses after the scheduled time. If the entire burn had been delayed for six pauses, the rocket would have been moving more than ten dozen strides per pause faster than intended when the engines cut out and the parachute was unfurled. Falling faster, from a lower altitude.
“What can you see?” Yalda asked him. The recruits were starting to notice their whispering, but Yalda ignored them and watched Frido searching the sky with the theodolite’s small telescope. The unlit rocket itself would be impossible to make out from this distance, but if the parachute was open the white fabric would catch the sun.
Yalda saw it first—her view was wider, and no telescope was needed. Not a flutter of sunlight on cloth, but the full glare of burning sunstone again. She touched Frido’s shoulder; he looked up and cursed in amazement.
“What’s she doing?” he asked numbly.
“Taking control,” Yalda said. The engines had no provision for manual operation, but Benedetta must have dragged the useless timing mechanism out of the way and re-opened the liberator feed herself.
Fatima approached. “I don’t understand,” she complained.
Yalda addressed the recruits, explaining what she believed was happening. The timer must have jammed for a few pauses while the rocket was in free fall, delaying everything that followed. The parachute must have been torn away when it unfurled at too high a speed. The only way to slow the rocket’s descent now was with the engines. Benedetta would try to execute a series of burns that would bring her to the ground safely.
She said no more; all they could do now was watch and hope. But even with perfect knowledge and perfect control, a powered landing could only be a compromise. You needed to be as low as possible before you finally cut the engines, to spare yourself from the fall—but the lower you descended, the more the ground below you would trap heat from the rocket’s exhaust.
And Benedetta did not have perfect knowledge, just a sense of her own weight to gauge the engine’s thrust and an oblique view of the landscape from which to judge her height and velocity. As Yalda watched, the burn intended to slow the rocket’s fall went on too long; the piercing light hung high above the plain for a moment then rose back into the sky.
The flame went out, leaving the rocket invisible again. Yalda tried to think her way back into the cabin, to regain the sense of empathy she’d felt at the moment of launch. Benedetta had already shown quick thinking and resolve, but what she needed most was information.
The engines burst into life once more, showing the rocket far lower than before. Yalda watched it approaching the horizon, afraid it was not slowing quickly enough, but as it entered the dust haze, sending rippling shafts of light and shade across the plain, her spirits soared. It was easier now to judge its trajectory, and it looked as near to perfect as she could have wished. If Benedetta cut the engines at the lowest point, the fall might be survivable.
The flame dimmed slightly, but it did not go out. Yalda peered into the dust and glare, struggling to discern any sign of motion. Frido reached over and touched her arm; he was looking through the theodolite. “She’s trying to get lower,” he said. “She knows she’s close, but she doesn’t think it’s good enough.”
“Is it good enough?”
Frido said, “I think so.”
