Twelve Minutes

This is what was heard in the hold of the cargo ship at dock seven, on Tirane, on day 227 of Year 47. An auxiliary hull core recorded it forty-six years earlier, on the Arca Aurora, in Ithera’s orbit. He recorded whatever passed through the ship’s hull network: voices, impacts, pressures. Whatever didn’t pass through the network, nobody knows.

Mamparo told it like this: with the time in front, no ornament, the way you log a shift.

---

10:29:00. Bridge. Captain’s voice.

“A hundred and sixty-eight.”

The Aurora’s bridge was a long room with a big window at the front and twelve consoles. In the window, far off, there were flashes: the war, which had been going for seven days. Two fleets that until the week before had been one, shooting at each other in Ithera’s orbit with the same ships and the same weapons.

“A hundred and sixty-eight requests for a corridor to Tirane in seven days,” said Captain Arrieta. “Not one answered. One side won’t answer because they think we’re with the other lot. The other lot, because they think we’re with the first. And we’re carrying eight thousand two hundred people, five thousand of them asleep, with air for eleven days.”

Nobody said anything. In a corner of the bridge, a thirteen-year-old cadet in a brand-new uniform was glued to the navigation console, talking quietly to someone over the navigation channel.

“How long to the seven?” he was asking.

“At the present rate,” answered a precise, old-fashioned voice from Tirane, “you will not arrive.”

“Nobody’s going to give us the corridor,” said the captain. “So we’re going to make one ourselves.”

10:29:20. The captain gave four orders. Mamparo logged them.

“All lights. Exterior, deck, docks, running lights. Maximum.”

“The Flota’s neutral code, on every band, full power.”

“Engines. Heading for the line of fire. Between the two fleets.”

“Police.”

A young woman in grey uniform, standing by the bridge door, came to attention. She was twenty-five, with very short hair and a face that expressed nothing.

“Captain.”

“To the armoury. Nobody fires from the Aurora. Nobody. Not even if we’re fired on. If anyone touches a weapon, arrest them. If anyone gives you a different order, come back to this one.”

“Yes, Captain.”

The helmsman turned in his seat.

“Captain, that’s suicide.”

“It’s a bet.” The captain didn’t raise her voice. “Nobody fires on a ship full of sleepers that puts itself in the middle with every light on. Nobody. Not one side or the other. If I’m wrong, you can tell me tomorrow.”

10:29:40. Lateral thrust. Section seven’s frames take load. Hull: holding.

---

10:31:00. All bands. Captain’s voice.

“This is the Arca Aurora. Civil ark of the Flota. We have eight thousand two hundred people aboard, five thousand of them asleep. We are placing ourselves between you. We are switching on all our lights so you can see us. Don’t shoot.”

10:31:30. Repeat.

10:32:00. Repeat.

10:33:00. Repeat. No reply.

Mamparo was in section seven, in the exact centre of the first tanda pilots’ room, where he had been for forty years. Nine pods in a row against the back wall, nine pilots asleep waiting for the day someone opened dock seven on Tirane and asked them to fly the people down to Ithera. In pod nine slept a woman of twenty-four who had asked him the time before she went to sleep.

Through the hull network, Mamparo could hear the Aurora turning. He could hear the frames creak. Above all, he could hear what wasn’t there: any reply.

---

10:36:00. Direct channel. Captain’s voice.

“Mamparo. Arrieta.”

“Captain.”

“The seven.”

“Nine pods. First tanda pilots. Pressure steady. Eighty-eight point four.”

“I’m going to release it.”

Mamparo didn’t answer at once. In the record there is a second and a half of silence.

“If this goes wrong,” said the captain, “someone will have to fly these people down one day. Whoever’s left. Let it be them. You release the seven, you seal it and you hold.”

“Until when?”

“Until someone comes who doesn’t shoot.”

“How long is that?”

“As long as it takes.”

“Holding.”

10:36:40. Captain’s voice, lower.

“Mamparo. The one in nine is Lys. The cadet’s sister.”

“I know.”

“There’s no pod for him. There isn’t room.”

“I know.”

“Don’t tell him.”

The captain closed the channel. But the direct channel went through the speaker on the navigation console, and at the navigation console was a thirteen-year-old cadet glued to the channel to Tirane.

---

10:37:10. Bridge. The cadet stands up.

In the record you hear a chair fall.

10:37:14. Voice of the bridge police.

“Hey. You. Stop.”

10:37:15. Footsteps in the bridge service corridor, heading aft. Fast. One pair of boots, small ones.

10:37:50. Footsteps in the section seven corridor.

10:38:04. Section seven hatch. Banging.

The hatch had a little round window of thick glass. Through it, Mamparo saw a face. Thirteen, hair a mess, eyes very wide, nose almost pressed to the glass. The same face that had pressed itself to the glass of pod nine on the day in Year 0 when his sister went to sleep.

“Open it,” the cadet shouted. “Open it. My sister’s in there.”

“Door sealed,” said Mamparo through the corridor speaker.

“Let me in. I’ll get in. I’ll fit anywhere. I’ll sit on the floor.”

“There’s no pod.”

“I don’t care.”

“If I open it, the seven loses pressure as it separates. Nine die. And you.”

“I don’t care,” the cadet shouted, and hit the hatch with both open hands. “Open it. Open it. Open it.”

10:38:20. Section seven separation charges: armed. Hatch frame temperature: rising.

The metal round the hatch began to heat up, as it always does before a section comes away. The cadet didn’t take his hands off it. He hit the little window, the hatch, the hot frame. In the record you can hear when he starts screaming in a different way.

“Take your hands away,” said Mamparo.

“Open it.”

“Take your hands away.”

“Ada. Ada. Open it.”

Mamparo didn’t open it.

10:38:31. Warning light.

Mamparo had no arms and couldn’t move. The only thing he had, besides his voice, was a light. His lens wasn’t a lens: it was a Flota warning light, amber, made so that people would know which way to run when something broke. And he controlled the lights in his section.

He switched on every warning light in the section seven corridor. An amber line on the floor, from the hatch to the bridge, to the bridge’s aft escape trunk, the only place in that whole part of the ship built to take a hit.

“Run,” said Mamparo. “Follow the light. To the bridge.”

The cadet didn’t run. He kept his hands on the metal.

10:38:40. Footsteps. Big boots, fast.

“Got you,” said the bridge police.

In the record you hear a struggle. The cadet screaming. The woman shouting. And a short, wet sound as the cadet’s hands came away from the frame.

“Police,” said Mamparo. “To the bridge. To the aft trunk. Follow the light.”

“I can see it,” said Reyna Ostrach, and dragged him away along the amber line, while the cadet went on screaming his sister’s name in a broken voice.

10:39:00. Section seven corridor: empty.

10:39:02. Separation.

“Seven released,” Mamparo logged. “Spinning. Pressure: eighty-eight point four. Holding.”

---

Section seven came away from the Aurora’s hull with a dry jolt and began to spin, slowly, drifting off. It was still linked to the ship through the hull network, by radio, and the network lasted fourteen more minutes. From outside, through his hull sensors, Mamparo watched the Aurora move away with all its lights on, entering the line of fire between the two fleets like someone walking into a room where people are fighting and standing in the middle with arms spread.

10:41:00. First impact. Aurora hull. Port, aft.

10:41:20. Second impact. Starboard, midships.

10:41:21. Projectile signature: Matriz. No side.

10:42:10. Third impact. Port.

10:42:30. Fourth. Starboard.

Mamparo counted them. One from one side, one from the other. Both sides had seen a Flota ark lit up like a city crossing their line of fire, and both had thought it was the other side’s trap. Both fired. Mamparo didn’t know which side each shot came from, because a hull doesn’t know which way it’s facing, and because the Matriz makes the same round for everyone.

10:44:00. All bands. Captain’s voice.

“This is the Arca Aurora. We are civilians. We are still here. Don’t shoot.”

10:46:00. Twelfth impact.

10:49:00. Nineteenth impact. Bridge, forward section.

10:49:01. Captain’s channel: no signal.

In the record, after that time, Captain Arrieta’s voice does not appear again.

10:50:30. Aft bridge. Voice of the police.

“Aft bridge. I’ve got the cadet. Alive. Hands bad.” A pause, a breath. “Nobody fires from the Aurora. Captain’s orders. Nobody fires.”

Nobody fired from the Aurora. Not one of its turrets turned. The record logs every one of them, cold, aimed at nothing, for the last fourteen minutes of the ship.

10:55:12. Thirty-first impact. Hull network: lost.

---

After that, Mamparo heard nothing more from the Aurora. He only saw it.

Through the hull sensor that faced Ithera, he watched the ark, far off now, its lights still on, a city on fire falling slowly towards the greenest planet in the system. He watched it enter the air. He watched it open. He watched it shed pieces that shone like sparks. He watched it get small.

11:23:40. Flash on the surface of Ithera.

Mamparo logged it like that. Flash on the surface. He didn’t know that flash would be called La Cicatriz, or that a town would grow inside it, or that five guilds would be born among its wreckage, or that a woman of twenty-five would build a fort with walls and a wall of names out of what was left of the bridge. He knew none of that. He knew he had an order.

---

What came afterwards, Mamparo summed up in the hold on Tirane in under a minute. He had been logging it for forty-six years and didn’t have much more to say.

“Day 1. Pressure steady. Nine alive.”

“Year 3. Eight.”

“Year 9. Seven.”

“Year 14. Six.”

“Year 19. Five.”

“Year 23. Four.”

“Year 30. Three.”

“Year 33. Two.”

“Year 36. One.”

“Pressure heartbeat every six hours, on the hull band. No reply. Sixty-seven thousand heartbeats.”

“The frost started in Year 11. I lowered the temperature to last. Nine could take the cold.”

“A salvage drone kept me company from outside for seven thousand days. It had a green light. It left in Year 40.”

“Year 47. Day 221. Door. Someone.”

“I asked if they were shooting. No voice came out. I had little left.”

“A Vanguard corporal opened it. He didn’t shoot.”

“End of the seven.”

---

In the hold of the cargo ship at dock seven, nobody spoke for a long time.

There were ten people standing, one kneeling and one sitting on a cargo crate, gloves on and hands closed on his knees, looking at the floor. Twelve people who had heard thirty-one shots from both sides against an ark asking them to stop, a woman’s voice that didn’t appear again and a thirteen-year-old boy screaming a name against a door.

Colonel Ostrach was still by the door with her eyes closed. She was seventy-one. In the recording she was twenty-five and dragging someone along the floor, following a light.

Ada Lys was on her knees beside the crate.

And the Chancellor of the Cátedra de Ascensión finally raised his head and looked at the sphere with the amber lens that had shut the door on him.

“You switched on the lights,” he said.

“Yes.”

“In the corridor. All the way to the bridge.”

“Yes.”

“So I’d know which way to run.”

“That’s what my lens is for,” said Mamparo. “It’s a warning light.”

The Chancellor kept looking at him. Then he looked at his hands.

“Forty-six years thinking you shut the door on me,” he said.

“I did shut it,” said Mamparo. “And I switched on the light. Both. One on its own was no use.”