The Clockwork Rocket

How close had she come to snatching a few more years for herself, by risking the futures of all the young women who still had their lives ahead of them? How close had she come to stealing the hard-won promise of Prospera, Ausilia and Fatima—Fatima who’d never shown her anything but loyalty, who’d had the love and courage to pluck her from the void?

What had she imagined her own role would be? To see the journey through to the end? To return to Zeugma to share the triumph with Eusebio, and join in the celebrations with all her lost friends? She’d made her choice: she’d been vain enough to believe that the Peerless needed her. But it needed her only to set its course; everything else belonged to the generations to follow.

Yalda composed herself. Once her body was still again she felt calm and lucid.

She’d played her part, and it was almost over. But now she knew what needed to be done.

Isidora’s co worked in the pharmacy, and he’d done the same job for eight years back home. Yalda met him to gauge his loyalties. While Sefora was in charge he would follow her instructions, but he accepted Yalda’s right to replace her. And he did not want his own co to lose control over her body.

Yalda picked a dozen young women to accompany her. They made their move a bell before the main shift began; none of the junior pharmacists put up any serious resistance, and by the time Sefora came on duty Yalda’s team had the holin store surrounded.

“Are you going to punish me for doing what you asked?” Sefora demanded angrily. She looked to her colleagues for support, but they wouldn’t meet her gaze; they were backing the new guard.

“I’m not punishing you at all,” Yalda replied. “You served the Peerless well, but now this job needs someone new. You can retire to a life of ease.”

“Really?” Sefora emitted a mirthless buzz. “Is that what you intend doing yourself?”

Yalda said, “You can hear about my plans at the meeting, along with everyone else.”

Yalda surveyed the faces of the assembled crew. “I wish we had holin for everyone in the mountain,” she said, “but that’s beyond our control now. So the time has come for the women like myself who would use the most of it to step aside, and leave what remains to those who have the most to lose.”

She listed the replacements for a dozen senior positions. A trace of discontent rippled through the crowd, but she could see expressions of acceptance, too. There was no painless way through the shortage, but any other scheme would have ended in insurrection.

“On the question of who should take my place as leader,” she said, “everyone knows there is an obvious choice.” Yalda stretched out an arm toward Frido, who was clinging to a rope near the front of the hall. “But before I appoint my successor, I need to ask him if he’s willing to meet some conditions.”

Frido said, “Tell me what you want.”

“When I step down,” Yalda said, “I want the right to choose my own co-stead. And when I’m gone, I want my family to be left unharmed. I want my co-stead and my children to be given your respect and protection, and to suffer no revenge.”

Frido regarded her with an expression of wounded horror. “What kind of monster do you take me for? Yalda, you have the love and respect of everyone here. No one will harm your family.”

“You give me your word, before the whole crew?” she insisted.

“Of course. Everything you’ve asked for, I promise it will be done.”

Yalda had no idea what was going through his mind, but what else could he have said? She’d just granted the young runaways the best prospects they could have hoped for to make it through the holin shortage. If Frido had so much as hinted that he expected to assert some bizarre, paternalistic right to veto her choice of co-stead, they would have torn him apart.

She said, “Then it’s done. I resign the leadership in your favor. If the crew accepts you, the Peerless is in your hands.”

Frido moved forward, toward the stage. Behind him, half the crew began chanting Yalda’s name—affirming her decision, not rejecting her successor, but it still made Frido flinch.

Watch your back, Yalda thought. Get used to it. That’s what your life is going to be like now.

20

Fatima moved ahead of Yalda down the center of the stairwell, pausing now and then to allow her to catch up. Yalda didn’t mind being hurried along this way; if they’d been traveling side by side they would have had to pass the time discussing the reason for their journey.

When they came to the first radial tunnel, Fatima let herself free-fall most of the way, only snatching at the rope ladder when she began to veer away from it. Yalda declined to follow her example, and descended slowly, rung by rung. The locked doors they encountered along the way did not appear marked, let alone damaged. No one had been sufficiently motivated to try to assassinate the half-forgotten saboteur.

In the abandoned navigators’ post above the second-tier engines, Yalda waited outside the cell. Nino trusted Fatima, so it was best that he hear most of this from her. But after a few lapses, she invited Yalda in.

“Hello, Yalda.” Nino hung in the center of a sparse network of ropes. He was much thinner than she remembered him, and he kept his eyes averted as he spoke.

“Hello.” The cell was crowded with books and papers. As in Yalda’s own apartment their not-quite-weightless state would make them difficult to manage, but the place had been kept scrupulously tidy.

“Fatima explained your proposal. But she wasn’t able to say what would happen if I refused you.”

“Nothing is by force,” Yalda said. “Whatever you choose, I’m willing to take you to the summit and do my best to protect you.”

“I don’t know if I could look after myself up there,” he said. “Let alone… anyone else.”

Fatima said quietly, “I’ll help.”

Nino seemed paralyzed, unable to reach a decision. How could any of them know what was or wasn’t possible? Yalda surveyed the papers stacked against the rear wall. “We can come back for these later,” she said. “Unless there’s something you need?”

Nino buzzed softly. “I never want to be in the same room as the sagas again.”

Outside the cell he faltered, gawping at the preposterous spaces around him. Had Fatima never broken the rules and let him out during a visit? Perhaps he’d refused, afraid that even a small taste of freedom would make his imprisonment too hard to bear.

On the journey back Fatima was patient, demonstrating to Nino how to negotiate the changing forces on his body. Yalda looked on, trying to be equally encouraging herself, but wondering if she’d made a terrible mistake. Nino might learn to be agile again, but what had she done to his spirit? When she’d been teaching him, she’d had no doubt that his memories of his children were keeping him sane. But he’d spent more than three years excluded from any kind of normal life—and she still didn’t know if he’d be accepted back into the community of the Peerless.

When they left the central stairwell in the academic precinct, Nino blinked and squinted at the lamps around