Free The Eternal Flame by Greg Egan Page B

lose control of the situation. The two outcomes are mutually exclusive! You don’t achieve the first one by risking the second.”
    Tamaro tipped his head slightly, conceding that he might have gone too far. “The fact remains, though: Ivo’s an old man, he’s lived his life. I’m not saying that he’s planning a suicide mission, but when he weighs up the risks against his chances of glory, he’s not going to take the most cautious route.”
    “So what do you want me to do?” Tamara demanded. “Renege on my offer to bring him along? Tell him to delegate the job to a younger colleague with more to lose ?”
    Tamaro said, “No. But you could stay behind yourself. Find another old man to take your place.”
    Tamara looked to her father, hoping he might raise some objection to this sorting of the population into two distinct categories: expendable old men and people with lives worth living. But he gazed back at her with an expression of mild reproof, as if to say: Listen to your co, he has your interests in mind.
    “I’m the chief navigator,” Tamara said evenly. “Without me there is no mission.”
    “I thought every astronomer studied navigation,” Tamaro countered.
    “Yes, but not with these methods! They learn what was used to set the Peerless on its course, and what we’ll need to bring it home one day. None of that applies here.”
    Tamaro was unswayed. “So you devised a new system, especially for the Gnat . Are you saying it’s unteachable? That no other astronomer has the observational skills or the ability to perform the calculations?”
    Tamara hesitated, unsure how she’d backed herself into this corner. “Of course not,” she admitted. She’d already taught Ada everything she’d need to take over her role, if it came to that. “But I found the Object, I proposed the voyage. Unless there’s someone better qualified than I am, I have a right to a place on that rocket. My colleagues accept that, the Council accepts that. And if you think Ivo will be such a danger to the mission, you should be glad I’ll be there to keep him in check!”
    Erminio said, “You’re upset now. We can talk about this later, when everyone’s calm.”
    “I’m perfectly calm!” Tamara replied. But her father rose to his feet; the conversation was over.
    She fetched her dose of holin from the store-hole as the family prepared to retire to the flower bed. Erminio bid his children good night and lay down behind the wormbane. Tamaro brushed loose petals and straw out of their shared indentation, then placed his scythe along the middle of the bed.
    Tamara settled into the soil beside him, the long hardstone blade between them. “You should trust me,” she whispered. “I won’t let Ivo do anything stupid.”
    She received no reply, so she closed her eyes. Would she have been just as angry herself, she wondered, if she’d believed Tamaro was putting his own life at risk? Risking grief and pain for his family, risking turning their children into orphans? She had to admit that the thought of giving birth alone would have terrified her.
    If he’d gone rushing into some dangerous, vainglorious folly, of course she would have tried to argue him out of it. But if the goal had been a worthy one, and if he’d had his reasons for wanting to play a part, she hoped she would have listened to him.

9
    A s the dozen and three students from her optics class squeezed into the tiny workshop, Carla glanced anxiously down the corridor, wondering how much attention the gathering would attract. One rule Assunto had impressed upon her before assigning her to teach the class had been that she should never perform a demonstration whose outcome she could not predict in advance. “Practice each experiment first, as often as you need to,” he’d urged her, “until you’re sure you can make the whole thing run like clockwork. Researchers know that things go awry in their workshops all the time—and the greater part of their job is