Taryx blinked slowly. Burble hadn’t just passed him vinegar once. It had done it over and over again. Taryx simply hadn’t cared, with Burble eating away his emotions.
The vinegar wasn’t an accident. Burble had deliberately tortured his patients and slurped up their agony.
Taryx had allowed it. He’d helped. His sap felt like it had crystallized.
Burble was quickly turning him into something other than a healer.
He’d resisted all Minerva’s offers of cybernetic upgrades, feeling they were too artificial. But he’d found something else that could turn him into an unnatural automaton. One that would roughly treat patients and ignore whatever Burble was inflicting on them in the meantime.
Had Burble done this before today? Taryx racked his memories. He didn’t think so. Burble was getting bolder, perhaps.
But torturing a patient even once was too much. No one today had threatened Burble; the vinegar was no act of self-defense. He’d used the trust that Taryx had with the rest of the forest to do harm.
Taryx reached into his cotton robes. He found that cold, metallic disrupter Minerva had handed him weeks ago and slid it over his finger.
Burble came in through the front door, wings buzzing faster than a bumblebird’s. Taryx made a fist, bending the coil. Burble’s wings and tentacles went limp. It hit the floor with a dull thud and rolled to the side, its hat falling off.
Taryx had no idea what to do now. He wasn’t as bloodthirsty as Gaalm. He wouldn’t hack Burble into pieces. Slowly, Taryx scooped it up in his arms, just as he had on the day they met.
“Well. Shall we go see if you started this fire?” Taryx asked. “I don’t know if there’ll be any evidence, but I can look. I feel like I owe you – and everyone else – that much.”
Burble, of course, did not respond. Taryx strapped it to his back and headed east.
Taryx wasn’t sure what he expected to find. A sign that said Burble was here? A streak of its magenta ichor on the ground? Twenty acres of forest had burned before Gaalm’s people put it out. The ashes under his long feet itched, and the soil was baked hard. Skeletal trees jutted from the ground.
Forests needed some amount of fire to make way for new life. To clear dead plants. All things had their place, even destructive flames. But Taryx couldn’t remember a fire scarring the forest like this before. It wasn’t natural. He felt it in the fiber of his being. Just as he’d felt something unnatural about Burble the first time he saw it, laying prone on the woodchips.
Taryx walked over the acres, as if he needed to personally see every inch that Burble had destroyed. He needed to witness what its actions had caused. And then he had to decide how to get rid of Burble.
As he continued in long, slow strides, he almost tripped over something half-hidden by charred brush. Taryx easily cleared that away – it was mostly cinders now.
In a black circle of what had once been dried grass lay one of the faeries of the forest. The green patina over its metal exterior had bubbled and melted in places, and its leaf-shaped wings were bent. One foot kept twitching, sending out a spray of sparks. It looked just like – and probably was – the faerie he’d spotted on their hike to see the sunrise over Cobweb Grove.
Taryx surveyed the burnt acres. He wasn’t in the exact middle of them, but given the way the wind had been blowing, it was entirely likely that the fire had started here. With a malfunctioning faerie. Not with Burble at all.
The ember imp hung heavy on his shoulders. Burble hadn’t caused the stampede of patients. But he’d still tortured them intentionally, gorging itself on their fresh agony.
Perhaps he could explain to Burble why that was wrong. Perhaps, in time, they could have a trusting partnership. All creatures, from the predators to the parasites, played their role in nature.
But Taryx’s role was to heal. Whatever his hopes for Burble, he couldn’t promise himself that he’d never let another patient be unnecessarily harmed. Not when Burble was around.
He stared down at that poor, broken faerie, sparking and senseless. It had been designed to help and had caused great harm. Burble had been designed to inflict and devour pain, but it had helped in healing so many.
Taryx carefully gathered up the broken faerie. He wished Burble had actually been one of these robotic caretakers of the world, crafted by the Architects themselves. The forest could have used Burble’s unique abilities.
But the Architects weren’t the only ones who knew something about biomechanics, Taryx thought as he strode back home across the ashes. Thanks to an unexpected crash landing a decade ago, Taryx happened to know a scientist with no small skill in the matter. Perhaps the Crucible really did take care of its own, on occasion.
Taryx set the imp and faerie side by side on his cot. With a little tinkering, something good might still come from all of this. He pressed the button on the kettle and called Minerva.
It took Taryx a day to walk to Macro-Research Facility 47μ carrying Burble and the faerie. It took another day to get cleared to enter. For the next three weeks after that, he stayed in Minerva’s lab while she worked on the project he’d proposed. Taryx was largely useless, but he insisted on staying and watching every step of the process anyway.
Now that it was finished, he couldn’t peel his eyes away from the glass lab table strewn with spare bits of Burble.
“That ember imp was the creation of a demon,” Minerva said, her expression as steely as her hair. “A robotic probe designed to gather and return with emotional energy for its master to feed on. We didn’t murder anything.”
“There are sentient robots.”
“Well, I promise you this one isn’t. I’ve seen it inside and out now.”
She could say that, but did anyone really understand how demons worked? Perhaps it simply had its brain in an unusual place. Or configured in a way they didn’t understand.
Taryx wished that Burble could have simply been his assistant, but the imp was like a cobalt mushroom – potent and deadly, unless prepared carefully and used in small doses. And sometimes, Taryx had to burn back cobalt mushrooms so they didn’t take over his whole garden.
“I’ve run this new model through thousands of simulations,” Minerva said, taking Taryx’s elbow and pulling him away from her workbench to a glowing suspension chamber.
Inside sat a hybrid drone. It had the faerie’s wings, legs, and arms, and Burble’s spherical body. Minerva had, according to her own tastes, plated the whole thing in swirling gold. It wasn’t ugly-cute, like Burble had been. Just shiny.
“I maintained its ability to pull out emotions, but it can only do it to one subject at a time now. It can’t numb you and a patient any more. And it can’t feed on that energy. Instead, I installed a liquid æmber battery, which shouldn’t run down for the next hundred years. The battery is sufficiently shielded that I don’t think your æmberflowers will take much note of it.”
From a demon and a faerie, Minerva had crafted a true medical assistant. Taryx could help his patients better than ever before, without worrying about losing his own soul in the process. He knew he should be thrilled beyond words that Minerva had been able to make this happen.
But it didn’t look like Burble. It wasn’t wearing a knitted hat. It didn’t make that cooing, whirring sound. Taryx’s eyes drifted back to her glass work table, to the black and magenta wings lying there among purple wires, bolts, and cogs.
Minerva shook her head. “Stop being morose and looking at the leftover screws. What you have now is infinitely better.”
“Of course. Thank you so much, Minerva.” Taryx put on a smile for her, because he was grateful. She’d let him keep this useful part of Burble and made it safe for everyone. But the grief remained inside him, as crisp as an autumn frost. In time, the pain would fade, composting into an old memory that was simply a part of him, instead of something sharp and bitter.
But for now, it was a relief to let that bittersweet regret churn through him, to see it and acknowledge it. It mea
nt that the process of grieving hadn’t been stolen from him. It meant he was feeling something.
The Perfect Organism
C L Werner
A crimson light beat down upon the parched landscape. Though two centuries had passed since the region known as Nova Hellas had been transplanted from Mars and added into the Crucible’s impossible skein, it stubbornly maintained the properties of the Red Planet, almost as though defying integration into this new world. The atmosphere remained thin and discolored by the red dust that filled the air. Gravity was weaker than elsewhere on the Crucible, retaining the reduced pull of Mars. It was a place where only the martians themselves could flourish. The martians… and the creations born in their vast laboratories.
Briilip strove to maintain the cold and studious demeanor befitting a Martian Elder while they gazed into the observation disc and the holographic images it presented. Perhaps if there’d only been the saucer’s crew of stunted martian soldiers there would’ve been no need for such restraint, but the presence of another Elder made Briilip cautious. It wouldn’t do to have a report filed that Briilip was exhibiting irrational excesses of individualism. Any question of independent attachment subverting loyalty to the Martian Empire was to be avoided. Briilip didn’t want a reprimand affecting their record. Or worse still, an appointment with a reeducation pod.
Just the same, there was a thrill that raced through Briilip’s veins as they watched the scene projected onto the observation disc by the flying saucer’s exterior sensor arrays. The desert with its wind-lashed buttes and boulders stretched away in every direction. Faintly on the horizon the Elder could see the Spire, but the gigantic structure at the Crucible’s geographical pole wasn’t the focus of their attention. The cause of Briilip’s excitement was a colossal shape that scurried across the sand.
The beast was rodent-like in its form, though its body was armored with great plates of cellulose, lending it a waxy appearance that recalled an agriponic vegetable more than anything animal in nature. Ten spidery legs stretched out along the creature’s sides, each tipped with thorn-like talons. A mass of thin root-like appendages dragged after it as the thing scuttled through the desert, the yellow fuzz of the nettles that coated each tail replacing the dull green of the armor plates. The head, broad and flat, sported a set of massive mandibles and a mouth composed of octagonal segments sharp enough to chew through quantum-folded cobalt. There were no eyes, as such, but rather an assortment of nodes scattered about the creature’s head that could shift beneath the armored plates. As they moved, patches of the cellulose would become transparent and enable the nodes to draw sensory input from the monster’s external surroundings.
“Number 647 is a complex construction,” Briilip stated as they stared at the hologram. “It represents the culmination of ten cycles of research and the refinement of approximately one hundred and three divergent theories of genetic manipulation.”
“You have devoted considerable attention and resources to this project,” the other Elder said. “Your focus on the needs of Mars is commendable.”
Briilip caught an inflection they didn’t like in their companion’s tone. There was a suggestion of doubt there that provoked the scientist. They held themselves before offering comment until the anger was suppressed. Ghireen might be deliberately trying to elicit a response. Probing to find some sort emotional failing that would indicate a strain of errant individuality.
“My creation has surpassed all tests it was exposed to under lab conditions,” Briilip explained. “Number 647 is the highest-performing organism to be vetted by the bio-weapons drome at Zyypzyar Primary.” The Elder’s eyes gleamed with pride as they turned their gaze back to the observation disc and the monster they had manufactured in their laboratory.
Ghireen tapped on their chin with their long fingers. “Commendable,” the Elder repeated, “but a high performance isn’t enough to satisfy the mandate we’ve been given. As a bioengineer, you’re aware that the objective is to design the perfect organism. A weapon that will be equal to any obstacle that presents itself. When Mars expands the empire into the shards occupied by inferior civilizations, the margin for error must be eliminated.” Ghireen shook their bulbous head. “A failed experiment can be overcome, but failure during a conquest will necessitate reeducation.”
Briilip was too filled with confidence to respond to Ghireen’s warning. “Number 647 will now face the ultimate experiment.” Their eyes stared at the other Elder. “You don’t recognize this region of Nova Hellas, do you?”
“I must concede that my researches haven’t called for that particular divergence of study,” Ghireen retorted.
“This is Anomaly Epsilon 54,” Briilip said. They indicated the rock faces and then gestured to a jagged crevasse that snaked its way across the desert. More ominous were the half-buried wrecks that poked out from the red sand. A vast debris field created by dozens of downed flying saucers.
Ghireen nodded. “That explains why you requisitioned a stealth field for your craft. That was a risky choice. Stealth field technology hasn’t yet been converted to æmber and the reserves of cavorite are dangerously minimal.”
“It was the only way to linger in the vicinity of the anomaly,” Briilip explained. “The Prime Director of our facility was impressed enough by Number 647’s potential to authorize the use of cavorite. This will be more than a field test of my creation. Afterwards the vein of æmber beneath the anomaly will be available to our miners again.”
“Then you’re confident Number 647 can succeed?” Ghireen asked. The Elder’s voice carried an unguarded note of awe and admiration that magnified the confidence Briilip felt.
“Today will be a historic moment,” Briilip said. “We will observe the final destruction of the intrusive being designated ‘Tyrant’. Today the monster meets a superior organism.”
The martians watched Number 647 scurry nearer to the crevasse. A weird prismatic pulsation rose from the crack in the floor, a glow that had come to be associated with Tyrant’s presence. Briilip considered the theory that the monster consumed æmber and that it was to feed on the material that it had appeared in Nova Hellas. Since its sudden arrival three years ago, no fewer than six military expeditions sent to eliminate it had been annihilated. Rather than squander further resources on a losing prospect, Mars simply surrounded the region with sensor arrays and left Tyrant alone under the theory that it would be content with the deposits in Anomaly Epsilon 54. The concession to pragmatism rested ill with many of the Elders, though none were so brazen as to openly doubt the decision. Briilip would alter that state of affairs when their creation annihilated the monster, as it was certain to do.
Nothing could prevail against Number 647.
Outside, the multi-legged creature warily advanced towards the pulsating glow. As it did, the air was filled with a rumbling growl. The sound issued from within the crevasse, a threat vocalization that had been recorded by every expedition sent against Tyrant. Number 647 didn’t hesitate. Anything resembling a fear response had been conditioned out of the creature through brain surgery and gland blockers. It knew only aggression, and so returned the warning growl with its own buzzing ululation produced by vibrating its great mandibles.
Number 647’s defiant challenge was soon answered. Another mighty growl rumbled up from the crevasse. The pulsating glow winked out as the monster producing it ceased to feed. The martians in Briilip’s saucer held their collective breath, even the dullest of the soldiers anticipating what must come next.
Up from the crevasse heaved a colossal beast. It began its ascent by using a multitude of bristling suckers to drag itself to the surface, but once enough of its squamous bulk was exposed, a set of tremendous wings slipped free from pouches on its back. Unfolding to their full breadth, the wet, glistening wings pulled the monster into the sky.
“Tyrant,” one of the soldiers muttered, unable to contain their fear. Briilip tried to make note of which of their underlings had spoken so that they could be sent
to the reeducation pods, but the Elder was too much in sympathy with that fear to look away from the observation disc. Watching that enormous monster rise into the air, Briilip was quite happy that their saucer was both cloaked and surrounded by a forcefield.
The behemoth’s body was serpentine, coated in a rough hide of craggy black scales. Along its belly ran columns of sucker-like appendages that were ringed with serrated teeth. Tyrant’s head was surrounded by a cluster of sharp horns, its face tapering into a canine muzzle that bulged with interlocking rows of fangs. The monster’s compound eyes protruded from the sides of its skull, each facet gleaming with the sheen of cut diamond and a fiery inner light. As it flew into the sky, a slim, bifurcated tail whipped into view, electricity crackling between its prongs.
“Today an enemy of Mars dies,” Briilip declared, their hand gesturing to the hologram of Number 647 as the creature positioned itself to react to Tyrant’s ascent.
The multi-legged organism gripped the desert surface with its talons and leaned back. The sensory nodes shifted about on its head so as to focus on Tyrant as the winged monster soared above it. The great mandibles clicked against one another, crashing and vibrating at great speed. A brilliant sphere of light began to manifest.
“Tyrant isn’t the only creature that harnesses æmber,” Briilip said. “Number 647 can absorb even the smallest trace particles from the air. It channels those particles through its body and then gathers them into a concentration around the mandibles.” The Elder grinned as they glanced over at Ghireen. “Now watch how it uses that energy!”
The sphere of light expanded into a crackling nimbus. Number 647 continued to follow Tyrant, angling itself so that it was always facing the foe. When the martian warbeast decided the charge was powerful enough, it fired the concentration full into its adversary. There was a blinding flash of light as the deadly orb rushed towards Tyrant.
Tales From the Crucible Page 19
