The Arrows of Time

‘Why?’ he asked, dropping any pretence that there was still some doubt about Giacomo’s plans. ‘The disruption is enough. The Council will be humiliated, they’ll fall at the next election. The system will never be restarted. What more could you want?’

Giacomo embarked on a long, loud story about someone’s feud with someone else in their student days. Ramiro began to think that the meeting was over; he finished his meal and began picking up crumbs from the plate.

But then the story ended and Giacomo spoke.

‘This is the fulcrum,’ he whispered. ‘This is our one chance. Or how many generations will be forced to bear the same ruthless people holding power? Prisoners locked up without trial? Men treated as lesser beings, made for one purpose alone? The disruption is not enough; there needs to be damage and chaos. The Council needs to fail the people so badly that they don’t dare set foot on the mountain again. Let them run away to Esilio or die in their private fortresses. In two days everything will change for ever. There’s nothing to lament in that. But if we want our time to come, there has to be a price.’

Ramiro lay sleepless in his sand bed, staring out into the moss-lit room. If the messaging system’s tubes were breached, their walls might still hold against the pressure. The Council would have known all along that this kind of damage was possible; they must have taken steps to minimise the consequences.

But all the earlier construction along the axis had been carried out with no conception that it would ever be exposed to the void. Walls could be strengthened after the fact, seals could be laid down. But nothing would ever render the resulting patchwork the same as the solid rock of the hull that had been kept intact for that purpose from the start.

If the tubes gave way, whole precincts would crumble. People would be battered by the winds and debris, even if they didn’t end up out in the void. Before the breach could be repaired there would be all the damage and chaos that Giacomo could desire.

But what other possibilities remained? Ramiro could still summon up a slender hope that if he went to the Council promising to reveal the details of the attack, they would agree to a voluntary shutdown. Maybe all the stubbornness Greta had displayed in public had only been for show.

Was that what he wanted, though: the Council triumphant? Could he really have half of Vincenzo’s version – the disruption as a bluff to expose the saboteurs – without the messaging system starting up again and the same dismal paralysis descending across the mountain for six more generations? With his rash confession to Agata he’d destroyed any chance of Tarquinia’s hoax convincing anyone that the system was redundant. And if he was sentencing people to the dust and darkness of Esilio, how many more would die there than would fall victim to Giacomo’s plan?

He wanted change. He wanted the Council crushed. He wanted the men who came after him to be more than timid appeasers like his uncle, who’d clutched at their prescribed role with pathetic gratitude then done their best to instil the same subservient mentality in the next generation.

Whatever choice he made, whatever side he took, some lives would be endangered and some people would die. All he could do was look beyond that to the fate of the survivors. One path would lead, at best, to a miserable exile for the dissenters and generations of tyranny for everyone who remained on the mountain. The other would bring turmoil and grief for a while, but it would also bring a chance of enduring freedom.

32

Agata flipped over a dozen pages before realising that her concentration had deserted her and she had no idea what she’d been looking at.

She pushed the book away across her desk. Even if she stumbled on some crucial insight that had informed Medoro’s design, what could she do with it in a day and a half? She wasn’t going to build a magical machine that could reach through solid rock and turn the messaging system to dust.

There was knocking from outside. Agata dragged herself to the door.

‘Are you busy?’ Serena asked.

‘Not really.’ Agata invited her in.

Medoro’s books were arranged around the room, stacked by subject and ordered by hastily assigned priorities.

‘You’re sorting through everything already,’ Serena observed. She glanced at the desk, at the open book.

‘I got caught up in Principles of Photonics,’ Agata explained. ‘Once you’ve read the first page it’s impossible to put down.’

‘We should go for a walk,’ Serena suggested. ‘Give yourself a break.’

‘All right.’ Agata wasn’t sure what this would be in aid of, but she followed Serena out into the corridor.

They moved along the guide rope in silence for a while, single file with Agata in front. Then Serena said quietly, ‘I’ve been talking to some friends about the disruption.’

‘Yeah?’

‘We all agreed that we have to do something.’ Serena met Agata’s rear gaze. ‘So if you have any plans of your own, maybe we can work together.’