The Arrows of Time

‘Is that really so strange?’ Agata replied. ‘If everyone on the Peerless was confronted with the certain knowledge that the course they were on was suicidal, then there’s no way they’d persist with it – unless some freakishly unlikely set of events undermined the efficacy of their intentions. With three years’ warning to achieve the necessary swerve, what could possibly stop them? The engines would need to drop off, and every last person capable of improvising any kind of substitute would need to die of some convenient affliction. I don’t believe for a moment that the cosmos contains anything so unlikely.

‘But taking an unknown risk is different. If we don’t know exactly what would make us safe, there’s no need for an endless barrage of misfortune to keep us from finding the right solution.’

Azelio abandoned the argument and the cabin fell into a despondent silence. Ramiro almost wished he hadn’t argued against Agata’s first, cheerful verdict. He couldn’t imagine what Azelio was going through, but even his own brief, hallucinatory experiences of fatherhood offered a hint. Nothing could be more harrowing than being forced to contemplate the death of the children you’d promised to protect.

‘Maybe the Councillors are going to shut down the system themselves,’ he suggested. ‘Just because Greta denied it doesn’t mean they won’t do it.’

‘But why would they?’ Tarquinia asked irritably.

‘If it’s a choice between that and the destruction of the Peerless,’ Ramiro replied, ‘then I don’t believe they’d choose the latter. Whatever their flaws, they’re not that deranged.’

Azelio was taking no comfort from the theory. ‘But are they deranged enough to think that that’s their choice? If you can’t avoid a meteor by choosing your trajectory, how can you avoid it just by switching off the messaging system?’

Agata had a different objection. ‘If they did shut down the system, wouldn’t that be an unsupported loop? They’d only be doing it because they learnt that it was going to happen.’

‘There’s not much complexity to it, though,’ Ramiro argued. ‘It’s hardly the same as learning a whole new theory of the vacuum from your future self; all they have to do is flick a switch.’

‘The Council wouldn’t want the mountain destroyed,’ Tarquinia agreed, ‘but they might well share Azelio’s view about their choices. They’ve come into this looking for a vindication of the system – so I don’t see anything inconsistent if they find themselves receiving three years’ worth of reports from the future that all describe them clinging to their original position: that the whole thing’s a boon, and there couldn’t possibly be any reason to shut it down deliberately.’

Ramiro ran his hands over his face. ‘Forget the Council, then. Let’s assume that there’s no chance of them causing the disruption. What’s the next most benign explanation?’

‘We could do it ourselves,’ Tarquinia suggested.

‘How?’ Azelio demanded. ‘What could we do that would be harder to see coming than a meteor at infinite speed?’

‘I have no idea yet,’ Tarquinia admitted. ‘But at least we’re isolated from the messaging system for a few more stints. We ought to be less vulnerable to the innovation block.’

Agata said, ‘But in the end, it would only be the shutdown itself that would have driven us to find a way to cause the shutdown.’

‘And that’s meant to stop us?’ Tarquinia was undeterred. ‘If that kind of loop really is too unlikely to be true, then we’ll find out eventually. But the only way to know is to try it.’

Ramiro recalled his own farcical attempt to steal the authorship of the fake inscription from her. It still seemed wisest to keep that to himself, but he didn’t need to confess anything to make the case for a more robust strategy.

He said, ‘There are plenty of people on the Peerless who could have planned this shutdown long before they heard about it.’

‘You mean saboteurs?’ Agata asked coldly. ‘The people who murdered the camera team? You want to replace a meteor strike with a bomb?’

‘Of course not.’ Ramiro spoke more carefully. ‘Most of the anti-messagers found those murders abhorrent, but a group of them could still be planning a way to cause the disruption without hurting anyone. And if they’re intent on using explosives at all, we can try to replace that with something better.’

Tarquinia understood. ‘We have seven stints to work out a plan of our own, and then we can try to sell it to these would-be saboteurs. That way it becomes a hybrid effort: their motives predate the news of the disruption, but if they’ve left the details too late we might be able to offer them a technological edge.’

Azelio hummed with frustration. ‘What’s all this talk of replacement? If a meteor is going to hit us, it’s going to hit us! You can devise as many ingenious plans as you like to try to sabotage the system at the very same moment, but if there’s a rock on its way, nothing you do is going to make it disappear.’