The Arrows of Time

Ramiro lay on the floor of the tent, one arm covering his faceplate; Azelio was crouched beside him, his head bowed in thought. They had spent eight days stripping as much as they could out of the Surveyor, preparing themselves for the grim contingency that an explosion might leave the hull damaged but not entirely beyond repair. Tools and medical supplies filled the tent; its three neighbours held the rebounder panels, parts of the cooling and navigation systems, and their entire stock of food. Agata understood now why there’d been so much dust around in the preceding days.

‘I’ve found it,’ Tarquinia announced calmly. ‘Six strides from the rim of the hull.’

Ramiro sat up. ‘What is there, exactly?’

‘About what you’d expect,’ Tarquinia replied. ‘A UV receiver on a board with a photonic processor. And a cable leading from the processor into the explosive.’ Agata felt sick. She could see the blue dust that had filled Medoro’s workshop; she could picture it spilling from the broken hull to mix with the Esilian soil.

‘No other components on the board?’ Ramiro pressed her.

Tarquinia said, ‘Remember when we shot up into a high orbit, to maintain contact with the probe? If that didn’t set this thing off, nothing will. There’s no accelerometer here.’

‘Is the beam warm?’ Ramiro asked.

Tarquinia buzzed curtly. ‘Yes! I just drilled a hole in it.’

‘You should leave it for a chime and see if it cools down completely,’ Ramiro pleaded. Agata understood his logic: a passive system that needed an external signal to wake it would not be generating heat, but the kind of photonics required to detect an incision in the cable would have to be constantly active.

‘If it gave out a heat signature, that would defeat the whole point of trying to hide it,’ Tarquinia replied.

Ramiro said, ‘I think they would have imagined the cooling system still running while we were doing this.’

‘All right,’ Tarquinia agreed reluctantly. ‘I’ll wait.’

Agata caught Azelio’s eye and they exchanged grimaces of relief. Tarquinia’s unwavering conviction that Verano would have gone out of his way to make the bomb ‘safe’ was probably justified – but impugning the man’s honour was quite low on everyone else’s list of calamities to avoid.

Ramiro took off his helmet and rubbed his eyes. ‘I should be doing this,’ he muttered. Agata offered no opinion; in the end it had been Tarquinia’s decision.

‘Is anyone hungry?’ she asked. ‘I could go and bring some loaves.’ She hadn’t seen Ramiro eat all day.

Azelio said, ‘I’ll go with you.’

As they unzipped the entrance to the tent a gust of wind entered, sending the walls ballooning out and loosening the stake holding down one corner; it was only the collection of heavy tools arrayed across the floor that kept it from peeling up from the ground. Ramiro went and put a foot on the wayward corner, and Agata dashed out to fix the stake. With the wind pelting her with dust the food run seemed like more trouble than it was worth; she returned to the tent.

Tarquinia’s voice came over the link. ‘The beam’s down to ambient temperature,’ she announced. ‘There’s no heat coming from the bomb.’

‘How’s your visibility?’ Ramiro asked anxiously. They could hear the wind rising; the dust had to be obscuring the sunlight entering the Surveyor’s window.

‘Good enough,’ Tarquinia assured him. ‘I’m going to cut the cable.’

Ramiro said, ‘You’re tired now, and there’s not much light. Why don’t you wait for the storm to pass?’

Agata heard the drill start up again; Tarquinia would need a third hole to insert the shears.

Ramiro paced the tent. Azelio crouched in a corner, staring at the floor. The whining of the drill came to an end, replaced by a gentle scraping noise as the folded instrument was manoeuvred through the hole.

‘I’ve got the shears around the cable,’ Tarquinia announced. Agata saw Ramiro’s faced contorted with fear. There was a soft click of the blades meeting.

The wind rose up, pelting the wall of the tent with dust. But one word came clearly through the link.

‘Done.’

As Agata trudged up the rocky incline, the patch of bright ground beside the Surveyor remained visible in her rear gaze. But it looked so out of place against the dark valley floor that a part of her mind began to discount it, treating it as nothing but a flaw in her vision. The first few times she felt it vanish from her mental map of her surroundings she panicked, scanning the view for the comforting beacon until it snapped back into focus, acknowledged again as real. But after a while she stopped worrying and let it fade into the landscape. Tarquinia and Ramiro were not going to turn out the lights and hide from her. When the time came she’d have no trouble finding her way back.