Schild’s Ladder

Tchicaya gave her a warning look that he hoped would steer her away from the subject. With a stranger, he might have asked his Mediator to handle the subtext, but he didn’t believe either of them had changed so much that they couldn’t read each other’s faces.

He said, "Any more children?"

She nodded. "One. Emine. She’s six hundred and twelve."

Tchicaya smiled. "That’s very restrained. I’ve had six."

"Six! Are any of them with you here?"

"No." He took a moment to realize why she was asking; he’d always sworn that he’d never leave a child before a century had passed. "They’re all on Gleason; large families are common there. The youngest is four hundred and ninety."

"No travelers among them?"

"No. What about Emine?"

Mariama nodded happily. "She was born on Har’El. She left with me. We traveled together for a while."

"Where is she now?"

"I’m not certain." She admitted this without a trace of reticence, but Tchicaya still thought there was a hint of sadness in her voice.

He said, "One thing about being planet-bound is, once you’ve committed to the place, that’s it. Even if you wander off to the other side of the world, everyone else who’s chosen to stay is just a few hours away."

"But two travelers? What does that guarantee?" Mariama shrugged. "Chance meetings, every few hundred years. Or more often, if you make the effort. I don’t feel like I’ve lost Emine."

"Of course not. Nor the others. What’s to stop you visiting the ones who’ve stayed put?"

She shook her head. "You know the answer to that. You’re like a cross between a fairy-tale character and some kind of…rare climatic disaster."

"Oh, come on! It’s not that bad." Tchicaya knew there was a grain of truth in what she said, but it seemed perverse to complain about it. When he was made to feel welcome, it was as a visitor, a temporary novelty. When your child had lived with three or four generations of their own descendants, for centuries, you were not a missing piece of the puzzle. But he never expected to slot in, anywhere. Once he’d told the crib on Turaev that his birth flesh could be recycled, he’d given up the notion that somewhere there’d always be a room waiting for him.

He said, "So what about Emine’s other parent?"

Mariama smiled. "What about your partner back on Gleason? The one you raised six children with."

"I asked first."

"What is there to say? She stayed on Har’El. Not even Emine could drag her away." Mariama lowered here eyes and traced a fingertip over the edges of one of the abstract carvings.

Tchicaya said, "If you could drag everyone with you, what would be the point of leaving? There were cultures back on Earth that traveled across continents, whole extended families together — and they were usually more conservative than the ones that stayed put, or the ones that spawned diasporas."

Mariama scowled. "If two travelers happened to have a child, would that constitute a tribe?"

"No. But traveling is not about a change of scenery. It’s about breaking connections." Tchicaya felt a sudden sense of déjà vu, then realized that he was quoting her own words back at her. He’d got into the habit long ago of using them on other people. "I’m not saying that there’d be anything wrong if six whole generations uprooted themselves together, if that’s not a contradiction in terms. But they wouldn’t stay together for long — or at least, they wouldn’t without imposing rules on themselves a thousand times more restrictive than any they’d needed when they were planetbound."

Mariama said irritably, "You’re such a fucking ideologue sometimes! And before you call me a hypocrite: it’s always the converts who are the worst."

"Yeah? That’s not such a convenient axiom for you, if you remember that it cuts both ways." Tchicaya raised his hands in apology; he wasn’t really angry or offended yet, but he could see where they were heading. "Just…forget I said that. Can we change the subject? Please?"

"You can tell me what happened on Gleason."

Tchicaya thought for a while before replying. "Her name was Lesya. I was there for a hundred and sixty years. We were in love, all that time. We were like bedrock to each other. I was as happy as I’ve ever been." He spread his arms. "That’s it. That’s what happened on Gleason."

Mariama eyed him skeptically. "Nothing soured?"

"No."

"And you don’t wish you were still there?"

"No."

"Then you weren’t in love. You might have been happy, but you weren’t in love."

Tchicaya shook his head, amused. "Now who’s the ideologue?"

"You just woke up one morning and decided to leave? And there was no pain, and no rancor?"

"No, we woke up one morning, and we both knew I’d be gone within a year. Just because she wasn’t a traveler doesn’t mean it was all down to me. What do you think? I lied to her at the start?" He was becoming so animated he was messing up the bed; he stroked the sheet, and it tightened. "You know how I think she’ll feel, if the border reaches Gleason?"