The Arrows of Time

Ramiro wasn’t so confident, but if the Council was intent on declining the role he was happy to match their stubbornness. It was his nature to oppose the messaging system, and history had finally offered him a route to its destruction just a few stints long. Until a meteor fell from the sky to show him up as an irrelevant trespasser, all he could do was keep following that path, and hope that the footprints in the dust ahead really were his own.

30

‘I knew you’d want your old job back,’ Celia declared.

Agata wasn’t sure if she should take this claim literally. She was surprised that Celia remembered her at all, though they had been on duty together when the bomb went off. In the four years since she’d been here the ramshackle office hadn’t changed, but the new construction along the axis had made it much harder to reach.

‘I mean, now that you can’t do cosmology,’ Celia clarified, holding out the patch for Agata to sign.

‘Exactly,’ Agata agreed, forming her mark and accepting the tool belt from her supervisor. ‘I thought I’d better make myself useful somehow.’

‘Do you think it’s a meteor coming?’ Celia asked phlegmatically.

‘No one can rule that out,’ Agata replied. ‘But I’m still hoping that it’s just a glitch in the system.’

Celia looked sceptical, but she didn’t press Agata for a detailed hypothesis. ‘Don’t take offence,’ she said, ‘but some of the older workers find it helpful to rehearse their resorptions and extrusions before going in.’

‘I’ll try that,’ Agata promised.

She made her way towards the entrance to the cooling system, trying to appear mildly dejected for the surveillance cameras: the woman who’d travelled across the cosmos to confirm Lila’s great theory, reduced to menial labour – and this time with no zealous strike-breaker’s pride. In truth, she was ecstatic that she’d been allowed to take the job. The automated employment system, bless it, had had no idea how far from ‘current’ her experience really was, and more to the point she had clearly not been flagged as any kind of security risk.

Agata dutifully shortened and stretched her legs half a dozen times before fitting her access key to the hatch. As she descended into the cool air of the tunnel she felt a twinge of claustrophobia and her memories of the blast came rushing back. She would never stop mourning Medoro, but she let the grief move through her mind like a familiar presence, with no need for elaborate rituals or acknowledgements.

She made her way up-axis as swiftly as she could, advancing through the blackness, searching the walls for patches of red. Whoever had worked this section before her had been diligent; she saw only the tiny specks of new growth, easily disposed of with a quick flash from her coherer. As far as she knew no one else would be coming here now, but she’d resolved to do a passable job every shift in case there was an unannounced inspection. If her rushed work wasn’t quite as thorough as that of her younger colleagues she could always blame her failing eyesight, but there could be no excuse for great glowing colonies of moss.

She reached the end of her allotted segment of the tunnel with almost a bell to spare, then she turned and raced back towards the start. The hard part was doing it quietly, keeping her feet low and lengthening her strides instead of breaking into a run. People were used to hearing workers in the tunnels, but the sound of outright sprinting might attract attention.

Light from the open hatch marked her entry point, but when she arrived at the ladder she slid the hatch closed above her and waited for her eyes to readapt to the dark. A couple of strides down-axis from the hatch, a hardstone grille covered the width of the tunnel. Peering between the bars she saw nothing: no flashes from the coherer of another tunnel worker burning off moss. Agata hadn’t quizzed Celia about anyone else’s shifts, but she’d chosen the latest of the time slots on offer. It was possible that right now there was no one at all between her and the cooling chamber.

She lay on the floor of the tunnel and rearranged herself so that she could reach down her throat and retrieve the small bundle of tools she’d swallowed. The rags they were wrapped in were covered with clumps of food and digestive resin; she shuddered but managed to avoid emitting a hum of revulsion as she flicked her hand clean.