The Eternal Flame

we can slow this thing down enough to keep it in reach, the next generation can deal with the practicalities.”

“Or the next generation could catch up with it and fetch it back,” Ada suggested. “They’ll have had time to think deeply about the results we’ve seen, and work out what’s really going on. We know the Object’s trajectory with very high precision now. We can’t lose track of it.”

Tamara almost seemed swayed, but then Ivo interjected angrily, “We came here to capture the Object! That was the mission the Council approved: to take samples, to do calorimetry, then to trigger a blast that would leave this thing motionless. If we give up now, all we’ll be bequeathing our descendants is a longer journey and a more difficult version of the task we should have done ourselves. We’ve had three generations of theorizing about orthogonal dust, and that’s left us none the wiser. The only way to understand this material is by experiment.”

Ada said, “You’ve just completed a whole set of experiments! Do you really want to get any closer to something that can set every tool and container you have on fire?”

“I have the air tools,” Ivo insisted.

“Which can only carve powderstone,” Ada replied.

Ivo rummaged through the spectra, then pulled out one strip. “Here! The gray mineral, in the north. As you said, luxagen-swapped or not, the basic properties of a substance are the same. Except for the ultraviolet line, this spectrum is the spectrum of powderstone! To the eye, this rock looks like powderstone! Physically, there is no reason why it shouldn’t be every bit as soft as powderstone.”

Ada and Tamara looked to Carla. “I can’t argue with that,” she said. “It ought to have the same mechanical properties as the ordinary mineral. But from what we’ve just seen, if a speck of it touches anything—”

Ivo said, “There’ll be air flowing out of my cooling bag, constantly. The Mite has an air shield around it too. I’ve practiced this: I know I can take a sample of powderstone without touching it.”

Tamara was silent for a while. “All right,” she said reluctantly. “If you’re still confident that you can do this, I’m not going to stand in your way.”

She reeled in one of the guide ropes to make some room, then Carla helped Ivo slide the Mite out of its storage bay and bring it to the middle of the cabin. It was less a vehicle in its own right than a kind of chemistry workbench fitted out for the void, with air jets attached. As Ivo’s understudy, Carla had had her own rehearsals with a mock-up of the thing, maneuvering it around the Peerless and practicing the descent from orbit. After a few days she’d become quite comfortable with the way it moved—but she’d lost count of the number of gentle collisions she’d had with the mountain.

She moved aside to let Ivo run through his equipment checks. Ada watched the process with an expression of contained disapproval, though Carla suspected that what she most resented was Tamara ignoring her advice. Ada had prepared herself to lead the mission, to bear the final responsibility for everything they did. However much she’d rejoiced to learn that her friend was alive after all, it must have been difficult to relinquish that commanding role.

Tamara told Ivo, “I want you to limit yourself to the powderstone outcrop. Trying to get samples anywhere else will be too difficult; that one mineral will have to serve as a surrogate for all of them.”

“I can live with that,” he replied. He was testing the recoil balance for his air blades, hovering beside one of the remaining guide ropes, proving that he could maintain a fixed separation from it even as he waved the invisible cutting jets about. “Whatever’s responsible for that ultraviolet line looks like the strongest reaction in every case. So if we can quantify the energy release for powderstone—”

Ada said, “What’s wrong with your right arm?”

“Nothing.” Ivo shut off the cutting jets and held up the accused arm for inspection. “Why would you even —?”

“You’re favoring the left one,” Ada said flatly.

“That’s not true,” he protested. “This is a whole new limb! Since I re-extruded it there’s been no pain at all.”

Tamara said, “Hold onto the rope and give the Mite some spin around a vertical axis, using your right hand.”

Ivo buzzed, offended. “Why would I ever need to do that? If I need to adjust the orientation, that’s what the air jets are for.”

“I know,” Tamara said quietly. “I just want to see how strong that arm is.”

Ivo gripped the rope beside him as she’d asked, and reached for the edge of the Mite with his right hand. He managed to get it spinning, but his struggle to ignore the pain was obvious now.

Carla understood: the flesh from his battered right arm hadn’t recovered, because he hadn’t actually managed to resorb it. He had gone through the motions of drawing it into his torso and making it appear that he was extruding an entirely new limb, but the injury had kept the damaged tissue stuck at its original site.

Ada said, “You can’t go out there with an injury.”

Caught out in his deception, Ivo had no reply. Carla couldn’t help feeling some relief that he had been spared the risk of the excursion—but Ada seemed altogether too pleased with the outcome. Ada had had the chance to revel in her own skills, as no navigator had for generations; why should Ivo be cheated of the same kind of fulfillment? What satisfaction was there in tossing sand at the Object, watching the fireworks, then running away? He was a chemist, and he’d come here to do chemistry: he needed to get as close to dirtying his hands as possible, without actually going up in flames in the process.

Carla heard herself saying, “I’ll go with him. I’ll be his right hand.”

“There’s no provision for two operators in the mission plan,” Ada replied, as if that settled it.

“I know how to use the Mite,” Carla said, stubbornness winning out over fear. “If Ivo had had to stay behind for some reason, I’d be the one charged with doing his job. But with a mild injury like this… he’s got too much experience to be replaced. We can add a second harness to the Mite, go out together, and I’ll be there to back him up if he needs it.”

Ada turned to Tamara, scowling. “You can’t possibly countenance this!”

Tamara said, “Ivo?”

“We can make it work,” he said, glancing at Carla with an expression of newfound respect. “I’m sure we can.”

“Let’s just try some rehearsals first,” Tamara said cautiously. “Each of you operating the Mite up here in orbit, with the other in harness as a passenger. If you strike any problems, the whole thing is off.”

“Of course,” Carla agreed. “That sounds fair.” She could feel her whole body growing charged with excitement, even as the voice of prudence in her head began howling in disbelief.

Ivo reached over and placed his palm against Carla’s, their skin making contact through the small apertures they’d cut into the cooling bags.

Ready? he wrote.

As I’ll ever be, Carla replied.

She glanced up at the Gnat, a dozen strides above them; Ada and Tamara were looking out through the window, their forms visible in the starlight but their faces impossible to read.

Carla rested the exposed fingertips of her lower right hand against the dials of the clock on the underside of the Mite, and wriggled a little to make herself more comfortable. She and Ivo were harnessed to a long flat plate that ran beside the main structure, held apart from it by six narrow struts. Struts and plate alike were hollow, and covered in fine holes; just as air flowed out through the fabric of her cooling bag, every part of the Mite was leaking, sending a thin breeze wafting out into the void in the hope of warding off danger. For all the sense this made, Carla still felt almost comically exposed—as if a solid hull like the Gnat’s might have offered them greater protection.

Ivo reached down and opened the valve on the air jet to his left. In itself, the kick of acceleration was barely noticeable; Carla merely felt as if one side of her harness had been drawn a little tighter. But when she looked up