The Arrows of Time

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Ramiro sulked. ‘What kind of expert on gravity are you, if you can’t summon it at the flick of a switch?’

Agata said, ‘The kind who understands enough to be willing to bet that that’s never going to happen. I’ll give you a gross to one that no one will discover such a thing between now and the reunion.’

Ramiro scowled. ‘To be verified how? I thought your theory was that inventors would always censor the messages they sent into the past – since that’s more probable than their ideas appearing out of nowhere.’

Agata wasn’t going to let these complications stand in the way of a good bet. ‘I think they could tell us what they’d built. They just couldn’t tell us how it worked.’

Ramiro stretched his arms and buzzed wearily. Most of the cabin lights were off, and behind him the home-cluster stars filled the view. It was Ancestors’ Day all over again – only this time it would last for three years.

‘The reunion could be happening right now,’ Agata marvelled. ‘Even as we speak, the Peerless could be approaching the home world.’

‘It’s not the first time you could have said that. Or didn’t you notice?’ Ramiro was wearing his corset, so he sent the sketch to the nearest console. ‘About a stint before mid-turnaround, our line of simultaneity would have had just the right slope.’

‘It’s the first time it’s “now” by the home world’s reckoning as well as our own,’ Agata replied.

Ramiro was bemused. ‘Name any two events in the cosmos, and there’s a definition of time that makes them simultaneous. If I can’t actually witness this great moment – let alone take part in it – just how excited do you want me to be?’

‘I’m sure the ancestors thought about us at the turnaround,’ Agata argued. ‘What’s wrong with a bit of solidarity?’

‘I prefer to reserve that for people I can look in the eye.’

‘All right. Forget it.’ They’d exchanged their views and found nothing in common, as usual. There was no point wishing it were otherwise.

‘I’m going to go strap myself down and sleep through all this nonsense.’ Ramiro nodded towards the passage behind her; Tarquinia had emerged from her cabin.

Azelio joined Agata and Tarquinia for breakfast, then the three of them set about putting up the guide ropes and checking that everything inside the Surveyor that might drift free was secured. The tool cupboard took the most work; there were individual straps for every item, but people had grown lazy about using them. Azelio went through the pantry, checking every sack of grain for holes. The sand in their beds was already resin-coated – and hoping to contain it was a tad optimistic whatever steps they took – but Tarquinia insisted on putting tarpaulins in place before the gravity was lost.

Agata clung to a rope in the front cabin as Tarquinia finally issued the command to the engines. The end of the turnaround for the Peerless had taken place over three full days, out of regard for the effects on the most vulnerable travellers, but the crew of the Surveyor were assumed to be more robust. As Agata’s weight plummeted, she was unable to dispel a conviction that the cabin was plunging down, but then the very idea of that vertical axis lost its meaning.

After a lapse or two, her body and everything around her was imbued with stillness. The view through the window was unchanged; the stars were indifferent to the sudden straightening of the Surveyor’s history. The susurrations of the cooling system grew quieter; Agata had grown accustomed to the old sound, and the new silence made the room feel dead.

‘What now?’ she asked Tarquinia.

Tarquinia unplugged her corset. ‘That’s it. Everything’s done.’

‘What about the plants?’

Azelio said, ‘There’s no hurry. A few days without gravity isn’t going to harm them. Ramiro will help me set up the tether soon.’

‘All right.’

Agata dragged herself back to her cabin and harnessed herself to her desk. She looked up at the pictures she’d brought: Medoro, Serena, Gineto, Vala and Arianna, scattered among the colourful childish sketches that Azelio was sharing with her. If she’d commandeered the Surveyor she could have flown in a loop right back to Ancestors’ Day on the Peerless. So far as she could tell there was nothing in the physics that would forbid it – so long as she didn’t try to cut corners and make do with a semicircular route, arriving as antimatter and spoiling the party. But she hadn’t seen herself anywhere else in the crowd that day, staring longingly at her friends – and if a visitor from the future really had joined them in her absence, Medoro had done a very good job of keeping it a secret.