“I have enemies,” Eusebio said pointedly. “People who, if they knew of these plans, would happily spend a good part of their own fortune just to see me fail.”
“I don’t care,” Yalda replied coolly, resisting the urge to remind him that she’d suffered far more from his enemies’ pique than he had. “If the travelers are to have any hope of surviving, you’re going to need every biologist, agronomist, geologist, chemist, physicist and engineer on the planet as worried about their fate as you are.”
“And why should they fret about the lives of a few strangers?” Eusebio retorted. “You didn’t seem too eager to spread news of the catastrophe that this trip is intended to forestall.”
“I was wrong,” Yalda admitted. “First I didn’t take my own reasoning seriously, and then I was vain enough to think that if I could see no remedy myself, there was none. You’ve shown me otherwise, and I’m grateful for that. But it can’t end there.”
Eusebio said nothing, his gaze fixed ahead.
“No more silence,” Yalda declared. “I need to make the case for the problem, and you need to make the case for the solution. Let people argue, correct us, support us, tear us down. It’s the only hope we have to get this right.”
When Yalda arrived home Daria was in the apartment, helping Valeria and Valerio infuse some anatomical realism into their sketches of giant lizards laying waste to Zeugma.
“Lizards can rearrange their flesh almost any way they like,” Daria explained, “but they have five favorite postures, which are used in different places for different tasks. If they were on the ground, smashing buildings like this, you can bet they’d have a lot of flesh in their rear legs and their tails. It’s no good drawing them the way they’d look running along a slender twig.”
The children were entranced. Yalda sat and listened, not saying too much, hoping that merely sharing their interest would be read as a sign of affection. When she tried too hard Valeria reacted with scorn, but if she kept her distance she was punished later with accusations of indifference. It was exhausting having to be so calculating about it, but whatever it was that could sometimes make the relationship between a child and their protector almost effortless, it rarely seemed in evidence with Tullia’s children and the three friends who’d agreed to raise them. This was a labor of love, but that didn’t stop it being the hardest thing Yalda had done in her life.
Lidia had taken Amelia and Amelio to the doctor, but they were expected back soon. When the children were asleep tonight, Yalda decided, she would tell Lidia and Daria everything.
They had a right to know the truth—but what if they simply doubted her sanity? Watching Valeria chirping happily as she and Valerio re-drew each other’s lizards in a cascade of jokes and refinements, Yalda felt her own conviction about the peril of the Hurtlers faltering yet again. Whenever she immersed herself in domestic life, instead of apprehending the threat to the people around her more acutely she found herself growing numb and disbelieving. It wasn’t hard to imagine a time when everyone in this household would be gone; with the passage of years that was inevitable. But picturing every woman and every girl that lived having gone the way of men, leaving not a single child to survive them, only made her mind rebel and doubt the entire chain of reasoning that could lead to such an absurd conclusion.
Daria disengaged from the anatomy lesson for a moment to speak to Yalda directly. “There’s a letter for you on the sideboard.”
“Thanks.” Yalda judged the artists sufficiently engrossed not to care if she briefly left the audience.
The letter was from Lucia. Yalda had written to her several times since her last visit to the farm, but their correspondence had been intermittent.
She uncapped the wooden tube, tugged out the rolled-up sheets and smoothed them flat. Some of the symbols were a bit shaky, as if Lucia had been unable to keep the ridges still when she pressed the paper to her skin.
My dear sister Yalda
I’m sorry that it’s been so long since I last wrote to you. I’m sorry, too, that you haven’t been able to visit us yet and see the new farm, but I understand that you must be busy, taking care of your friend Tullia’s children as well as continuing your work at the university. (You won’t be surprised to hear that when I finally told Giusto about the children he denied that such a thing was possible, and said you needed to hunt down the derelict co or co-stead responsible!)
Claudio and his children joined us on the new farm a couple of stints ago. It’s lovely to have so many people around after all these years on our own. We never stopped visiting the old place, of course, but since tradition demands that the two farms are more than a separation apart, it hasn’t been too often.
The main reason I’m writing to you now is to tell you that this will be my last letter. I remember how hurt and saddened you were that you had no news or warning about Aurelia and Claudia, and I wanted it to be different for us. So: tomorrow I will become a mother.
I would be lying if I told you that I wasn’t afraid, but I’m also filled with great hope and happiness, knowing that Lucio and I have done our best to prepare for the children’s future. The farm is very well established, and we have plenty of money saved, so while the young cousins work under their father’s watchful eye, Lucio will mostly be free to take care of the children. (And please don’t be angry with him, this is my decision as much as it is his.)
Do you have the same beautiful shooting stars there in Zeugma that we have here? I know you’re studying these things, so it must be an exciting time for you. I can’t believe how glorious they look, even during the day, and it’s rather strange and wonderful to think of my children growing up to take such sights for granted. They’ll be amazed to hear from their father that there was once a time when the sky was so much emptier!
Your sister Lucia
11
The morning after her first appearance with Eusebio in the Variety Hall, Yalda woke early and went out to see what the papers had made of it.
A boy on a nearby corner was selling City Skin, so she bought a copy, but after flicking through the sheets three times it was clear that the end of the world didn’t rate a mention here. She went back to ask the boy for Talk; he’d sold out, so she waited while he dusted his chest with dye and made a fresh one for her.
“I’ll pay you the same for just the news and entertainment sections,” she offered impatiently.
“We’re not allowed to do that,” he said, summoning the memory of another sheet onto his chest.
“Why not?”
“The advertisers don’t like it.”
When he’d finished, Yalda took the whole bundle from him and walked around the corner before discarding the financial advice, restaurant reviews and railway timetables. She had to search the remainder twice before she found what she was looking for.
Last night our spies were at the Variety Hall, where the preternaturally plump Professor Yalda regaled a non-paying (!) audience with news of civilization’s impending demise. In a performance mixing the illusionist’s art with the terrors of geometry, the bountifully bulky Professor attempted to tie fleet-footed Mother Time in knots, leaving many observers wondering at her motives.
If the audience was unpersuaded by her message of doom, the attempt that followed by Councilor Eusebio to attract supporters (or even volunteers!) for his Ride Beyond the Sky was greeted by a veritable uproar of disbelief and derision. To anyone willing to back this venture: we have a design for Mechanical Wings gathering dust in our cupboard, awaiting only the life-giving touch of a gullible investor.
In the interests of sanity, Talk consulted Professor Ludovico of Zeugma University, who explained that the Hurtlers bringing such angst to last night’s double act are in fact nothing more than Spontaneous Excitations of the Solar Miasma. Despite its alarming appearance this phenomenon can do no harm to anyone, given that said Miasma is unable to interpenetrate our own plentiful atmosphere.
Ten more nights of this unprecedented madness remain. If the customers were paying then this cheerless and unscrupulous diversion would quickly close for want of funds, but Talk urges the next best outcome: an empty hall, to shame these charlatans into silence.
When Yalda reached the apartment Daria was awake, so she showed her the piece.
“I wouldn’t pay too much attention to Talk,” Daria said loftily. “Their idea of pushing the intellectual boundaries of journalism is to cover a literary salon.”
“What’s a literary salon?”
“An event where people who can’t read or reason gather to reassure each other of their own importance.”
Yalda said, “But anyone who reads this will think the whole thing’s some kind of… investment scam!”
Daria was amused. “Anyone who’d take this uncomprehending babble seriously was already a lost cause: they were never going to help you improve the Peerless, let alone volunteer for the ride.”
“Maybe not,” Yalda conceded. “But—”
“But you want everyone in Zeugma to understand what’s at stake?” Daria suggested.
“Of course. Don’t you think they’re owed that?”
Daria said, “I’ve been in the business for ten years, and I’ve had notices far worse than this. Believe me, the people who are truly curious will still come.” She rolled the sheet deftly into a cylinder and launched it across the room. “Just forget about it.”
Lidia had worked a late shift and was still asleep; Daria agreed to take the children to school. Yalda did her best to follow Daria’s advice, but when she reached the university Giorgio had more bad news for her: the senior members of the department had voted to refuse Eusebio’s offer to fund a new observatory. What’s more, they were taking their title over the land to Zeugma’s Council, seeking an order forbidding Eusebio from interfering with their present use.
Giorgio said, “If the telescope is raised entirely above the atmosphere it would actually improve the quality of observations. So if you can get the right wording on the order…”
Yalda was in no mood for jokes. “I thought you were going to persuade your friends to vote for this! Whatever they think of Eusebio’s rocket, a bigger telescope would be a worthwhile trade-off, surely.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Ludovico had more favors to call in than I did.”
Yalda didn’t doubt that Giorgio had kept his word. But he was still trapped in the kind of anesthetized state from which she’d taken so long to emerge herself. When he argued the physics with her, he accepted that the orthogonal cluster theory of the Hurtlers was as plausible as any alternative—but he still couldn’t bring himself to take the threat seriously, to look at his children and imagine their extinction.