The Clockwork Rocket

In Yalda’s universe, light has mass, no universal speed, and its creation generates energy. On Yalda’s world, plants make food by emitting light into the dark night sky. And time is different: an astronaut might measure decades passing while visiting another star, only to return and find that just weeks have elapsed for her friends.

On the farm where she lives, Yalda sees strange meteors that are entering the planetary system at an immense, unprecedented speed—and it soon becomes appa…