Schild’s Ladder

Tchicaya leaned back against the wall, unfazed by its transparency. He said, "Why did you come here?"

She shaded her eyes against the borderlight. "I thought you’d decided that we were never going to have this argument."

"If you think I’ve shut you up, now’s your chance."

"You know why I’m here," she said. "Don’t pretend it’s a mystery." The glare was too much; she turned to stand beside him. "Do you want to come with me, to this thing of Kadir’s?"

"You must be joking. Do you think I’m a provocateur, or just a masochist?"

"This isn’t factional. He’s invited everyone." She frowned. "Or are you afraid to spend ten minutes in the company of people who might disagree with you?"

"I spent ten years on Pachner."

"Keeping your mouth shut."

"No. I was honest with everyone I met."

"Everyone who asked. If the issue came up."

Tcicaya moved away from her angrily. "I wasn’t sure of my plans, when I first arrived. And when I was sure, I didn’t walk around with a banner that read I’m off to the Rindler, to make certain the same fate befalls as many other worlds as possible. Does that make me dishonest? Does that make me a coward?"

Mariama shook her head. "All right, forget Pachner. But if you’re so sure of your position now, why don’t you come with me? No one’s going to lynch you."

"It would be inflammatory. What makes you think Kadir wants the company of people who disagree with him?"

"There’s an open invitation," she protested. "Check with the ship if you don’t believe me."

She was right. Tchicaya’s Mediator had filtered it out automatically; he’d told it to classify general announcements by known factional allegiances, to keep him from being distracted, and depressed, by news of events where Yielders were unlikely to be welcome.

"I’m tired," he said. "It’s been a long day."

"You’re pathetic." Mariama walked away without another word.

Tchicaya called after her, "All right! I’ll come with you!" She didn’t stop. He ran to catch up with her.

They walked in silence for a while, then Tchicaya said, "This whole iron curtain thing is insane. Within a decade, we’ll find a way to pin some state to the border that will freeze it in place. If we worked on it together, it would take half as long."

Mariama regarded him coolly. "If we froze it, you think that would be enough?"

"Enough for what?"

"Enough to satisfy either side."

"Ideally, I still want to cross through," Tchicaya admitted. "We shouldn’t have to flee from this, or annihilate it. We should be able to adapt. If the ocean comes a few meters inshore, you retreat. A few kilometers, you build a dike. A few thousand…you learn to live in boats. But if freezing the border turns out to be possible, and it rules out exploration, I’d just have to accept that."

Mariama was skeptical. "And you’d take no risks at all, from that moment on? You’d do absolutely nothing that had a chance of unfreezing it? You’d let it sit there for a hundred thousand years, undisturbed, and you wouldn’t be tempted in the least?"

"Oh, I see. That’s the logic that dictates the use of Planck worms? If you don’t wipe the whole thing out of existence, some Yielder is certain to come along eventually, and unplug the dike."

Mariama didn’t reply. They entered the module where the wake was being held, and walked up the stairs.

On the map Tchicaya consulted, Kadir’s cabin had been merged with a dozen of his neighbors', producing a roughly circular room. Ahead of him, the entrance was wide open, and music wafted out into the corridor.

Mariama’s clothes changed as they approached the doorway, forming a pattern of woven bands broken up by ellipses, in earthen colors. "You look good in that," Tchicaya observed. The comment elicited a reluctant flicker of warmth in her eyes, and she knew him too well to mistake it for insincere flattery, but she walked on into the room without a word. He steeled himself, and followed her.

There was quite a crowd inside, talking, eating, a few people dancing. Tchicaya could see no other Yielders, but he resisted the urge to ask his Mediator to hunt for friendly signatures.

Images of Zapata shone from the walls. The planet from space; aerial views of towns, mountains, and rivers. Tchicaya had spent forty years on Zapata, moving from continent to continent, never really settling down long enough to make close friends.