The Clockwork Rocket

Yalda understood. She’d cared for Tullia’s children as well as she could, but for all the genuine moments of joy she’d felt in their presence, she knew it was not the same as the love her father had felt for her.

When Eusebio left, Yalda put out the lamp and sat in the dark. The only certainty lay with the waves that wrapped the cosmos like the wrinkles in her prison sleeve: they would come full circle in agreement with themselves, along with everything they’d built. Nothing else could be relied upon. No one truly controlled their own body; no one ruled over the smallest part of the world.

And yet… it was still in the nature of every person that their will, their actions, and the outcome could be in harmony. That could never be guaranteed, but nor was it so rare that it could be dismissed as a meaningless farce. The will, the body and the world could never be brought into perfect alignment, but knowledge could bind the three strands together more tightly. The right knowledge could have granted Tullia and Eusebia more power over their bodies; the right knowledge could have brought Benedetta safely to the ground.

Yalda was tired of mourning; nothing more could be done for the dead and the divided. The only way to do justice to their memory would be to find the knowledge that would allow the generations that followed them to live without the same risks and fears.

13

Giorgio threw a farewell party for Yalda in his home, a few saunters west of the university. Though she’d been working full-time on the Peerless for six years he had never officially relieved her of her post with the physics department, so it was also a kind of retirement celebration. Zosimo, the only one of her fellow students who had remained in academic life, gave an amusing speech about her early discoveries. “It used to be the case that if you came across someone reading a scientific journal and they kept turning the pages sideways or upside-down, it was a sure sign that they had no idea what they were looking at. Now, thanks to Yalda, it’s proof that you’re in the presence of an expert in rotational physics.”

As Yalda wandered among the guests, she struggled to keep her feelings from turning into grief or self-pity. It might have been better to have vanished without ceremony, but if it was too late for that she could still try to make the break as painless as possible. The day before, she had bid farewell to Lucio, Claudio and Aurelio in a final letter—short and simple, as Lucio had never learned to read as well as his co—but even without this parting note they would not have been expecting to see her again. When Giusto died and she did not visit the family to join them in mourning, they would have understood that she was never coming back. She still wished her brother and her cousins well, but she could not be part of their lives. Now she had to start thinking of her friends in Zeugma the same way.

Daria found her in the courtyard, and instead of offering distracting small talk chose to tackle the subject head-on. “In the old days,” she said, “every dozen generations, families would split up and the travelers would move a whole severance away. With no mechanised transport, that was it: no hope of visits, no hope of returning.”

“Why?” Yalda had heard of the custom, but she’d never understood its purpose.

“They thought it was healthy, to bring new influences to the children.”

“A separation wasn’t enough?” The new farm her father had bought had been that far from the one where she’d grown up.

Daria said, “There was less travel then, less mixing of people for other reasons. This was a way of forcing it.”

Yalda buzzed skeptically. “Was it worth the effort? Were the children any healthier?”

“I don’t know,” Daria admitted. “It’s difficult to study that kind of thing. But every biologist accepts that influences spread from person to person; some make us sick, some make us stronger. I’m glad your travelers will be coming from every city; at least they’ll be starting with a good mixture.”

“So what do we do if the mixture grows stale?” Yalda wondered.

“Learn enough about the things themselves to make new ones of your own,” Daria replied smoothly.

“Ah, as simple as that.” Was an influence a kind of… gas? A kind of dust? How did it leave and enter the body? What exactly did it do when it encountered your flesh? Nobody had the faintest idea.

Daria said, “If the Peerless comes back without that trick, I’ll just have to hang on long enough to work it out for myself.”

“What are you waiting for?” Yalda scolded her. “The Peerless isn’t an excuse for everyone else to take a four-year holiday. You should think of it as a contest; you should be trying to beat the travelers to as many discoveries as possible. We might have the advantage of time, but you’ll always have the advantage in numbers.”

Daria was amused by this idea, but not dismissive. “It would be a matter of some pride,” she conceded, “if we could greet them with at least one triumph of our own.”

Lidia entered the courtyard, accompanied by Valeria and Valerio.

“You missed the speeches,” Daria informed them.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Lidia replied. She embraced Yalda. “Is it true that you’re going to be a Councilor on the flying mountain?”

“Dictator, I think,” Daria corrected her.

Yalda said, “More like a factory supervisor: as far as I’m concerned, my main job will be to ensure that all the machinery is being operated safely. For the first year or two that’s likely to take precedence over everything else, but once the technical issues are under control we’ll have to make arrangements for… ongoing governance.”

“That sounds promising,” Lidia enthused. “In a city of runaways, no one is going to settle for anything less than a fair division of power.”

“Do you want to come and organize that for me?” Yalda pleaded. “Right now, I’m just hoping that any heated disputes can wait until after I’m dead.”

Lidia pretended to be taking the invitation seriously, but it was clear what her answer would be.

The children had been hanging back, waiting for Lidia to finish her greeting. Valerio embraced Yalda awkwardly then went looking for food, but Valeria didn’t flee.

“Are you enjoying your studies?” Yalda asked her.

“I like lens design,” Valeria replied.

“It’s an important subject.” Eusebio had promised to hire Valeria to work on the fire watch project—and cheap, light, wide-field telescopes would be part of the equipment every village would need.

“I brought a gift for you,” Valeria said. She handed Yalda a wooden tube.

“Thank you.” Yalda removed the cap and pulled out a sheet of paper.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, touched and intrigued. “What is it?”

“Do you remember Nereo’s equation?” Valeria asked her.

“Of course.” Yalda had not had the time to do any original work in optics for years—and Nereo himself had