The Last Crucible

by J. D. Moyer

  “You will understand in time. You must think not only of yourself, only of your own friends. As maghiarja you serve everyone in Bosa. You must learn to take the long view, to act wisely and strategically. And you will, in time.”

  Jana ended the conversation. If she could have, she would have shut Sperancia out of her senses. That was impossible, but Jana needed a break from Sperancia and the others. They could not force her to attend their meetings or listen to their endless advice.

  It was her body – as uncomfortable as she was in it – and her life.

  ***

  Riding in the hovershuttle was thrilling. Tem piloted the craft with Maggie seated next to him, while Katja and Jana shared the back bench seat. At Katja’s request Tem flew with the dome down. Jana felt happy with the wind in her hair, holding Katja’s hand, looking down at the thick forests as they flew over the island of Corsica. It was a relief to be temporarily free of the burdens of her consorteria. She would deal with the old women later.

  Looking over her shoulder, Jana could see the other hovershuttle in the distance. Ingrid piloted that craft, riding with Lydia, Pietro, and Enzo. Jana hoped that young Pietro was enjoying the ride as much as she was. Even more so she hoped that Lydia could cure Pietro’s disease once they arrived in Ilium. That alone would affirm her decision to form a relationship with the visitors. So far they seemed trustworthy, but Jana withheld an ember of suspicion. She didn’t really know the people of Ilium and the Stanford, and she had no idea how much to value Bosa’s membership in their Coalition.

  The trip went faster than expected. It was not yet noon when the hovershuttle began to descend into a broad valley, at least a hundred kilometers wide according to the map display. They approached a small town consisting of domed structures, greenhouses, rectangular buildings made of sheet metal, and numerous colorful garden plots. The settlement was arranged haphazardly, with none of Bosa’s charm or dignity, but Jana could see that it was a young place with potential. People had lived in Bosa since Roman times and earlier, while Ilium had only existed for a couple decades. Jana herself was older than this place.

  Dozens of Ilium’s residents greeted them as they landed on a wide concrete platform that housed a number of other vehicles, including a squat vessel that Jana guessed might be the ‘mule’ rocket that Tem had referred to. The other hovershuttle, piloted by Ingrid, landed shortly after, and as Lydia disembarked a thin older man embraced the doctor. “Shane might still be alive,” Lydia said to him immediately, and the man’s face took on a strange expression, a mixture of joy and grief.

  “My name is Xenus,” the thin man said, addressing Jana, Katja, Enzo, and Pietro. “Welcome to Ilium. I’m a member of our governing council.”

  Jana extended her hand. “I’m Jana Manca, a member of the Bosa town council. I bring greetings from our mayor, Gregoriu Busincu.”

  “And you must be Pietro,” Xenus said, approaching the second hovershuttle where the boy was still seated. “Welcome to you especially.” Pietro, not understanding, smiled warily, but relaxed when Enzo grasped Xenus’s hand and then pulled him close into an embrace.

  “I hope they can help him,” Katja said quietly. “I would like to see Pietro run and play.” Katja then strode over to Xenus, exuding confidence, and introduced herself. “I am Katja, Tem’s aunt. I send greetings from the people of Happdal.”

  Xenus looked confused. “Happdal? How did you end up—”

  “It’s a long story,” said Tem. “Why don’t we tell it to you over some food and drink?”

  They joined many of Ilium’s residents for a communal lunch of sauteed fresh vegetables, goat cheese, brined olives, and elderberry wine. The dining hall was a solidly built brick building with many windows. Jana was seated at a round table with Katja, Xenus, Lydia, and a gray-haired hulk of a man with clear blue eyes and deep lines in his face. “Jana and Katja – this is Regis Foster, our Security Director,” said Xenus. “He used to serve in the Liu Hui military.”

  “I resigned long ago,” Regis said. “Or more technically, I defected. In any case, my loyalties are now to Ilium, and have been for the last twenty years.”

  “Did you know the Squid Woman?” Katja asked.

  Regis made a sound approximating a growl. “I used to serve Commander Umana, though of course I regret it.”

  “I cut off one of her tentacles with Biter,” Katja said matter-of-factly, patting the hilt of her longsword.

  Regis’s eyes widened. “Now that is a story that I need to hear. Please – start at the beginning!”

  At least two dozen people remained in the hall long after the food had been cleared. Though Ingrid and Lydia’s expedition had been in touch with both Ilium and the Stanford throughout, there was still much news and gossip to be exchanged, and many people wanted to meet Jana and Katja in person. Jana was beginning to realize that Katja was famous: as Tem’s aunt, as a previous Crucible host, and as a renowned warrior. Regis especially was impressed by the blond Happdal woman, and Jana felt a twinge of jealousy when she noticed Regis gazing at Katja’s strong arms and broad shoulders as she told her stories. Regis laughed heartily whenever Katja said anything even approximating a joke, though Katja didn’t seem to mind.

  “How soon can we leave for the Stanford?” Jana asked Regis. She felt impatient. Filumena was in danger and every hour counted.

  “As soon as tomorrow. The mule is already fueled up. It hasn’t been flown in a while so the maintenance crew is still going over their checklists, but they’re getting close. Who’s going?”

  “Myself, Katja, Tem, and Ingrid.”

  “The mule can fit one more,” Regis said. “Maybe I should go with you. My understanding of the situation is that you’ll need military support from the Liu Hui if the Michelangelo refuses to give your people back. I still have contacts there.”

  “But they need you here, no?” Katja asked.

  Regis shrugged. “This place has zero security issues. Everyone leaves their door unlocked, there are no fistfights, and we’re the only people in the entire valley as far as we know. The most exciting thing that happened this year was when a wild boar broke into a workshop and tried to steal a fabrication printer. No idea what he wanted to do with it.”

  Jana frowned. “But you defected from the Liu Hui. Your own words. Wouldn’t your presence…complicate negotiations?”

  Regis splayed his hands. “I was just offering. I’ll admit I’m interested in the potential excitement, but I don’t want to go if I’m not welcome.”

  Jana could sense her consorteria listening carefully, especially Sperancia. The women had given her space and privacy, sensing her distress and perhaps with the knowledge that all new hosts required an adjustment period. But Sperancia could no longer hold her tongue. Put your jealousy aside, Jana, Sperancia said. Regis could be useful. You should invite him to accompany us.

  Jana didn’t answer Sperancia, but she didn’t ignore her advice. “Thank you for your offer,” she said to Regis. “Let me talk it over with Tem and Ingrid.”

  “Of course. Tell them I’m happy to come along if I can be useful. And if not, I’m still willing to reach out to my contacts on the Liu Hui.”

  Later that afternoon, a small, black-skinned woman named Petra gave Jana and Katja a tour of the mule’s interior and helped prepare them for their flight. “You’ll feel extremely heavy as the mule accelerates, but that will subside, and at a certain point you’ll feel weightless. Weightlessness can be fun, but it can also make you sick to your stomach. We’ll give you some medicine that should take the edge off.”

  “What are those straps for?” Katja asked.

  “To keep you in your seat. Otherwise you’d float away.”

  “Float? Like a leaf in the water?”

  “Something like that.”

  Katja shook her head. “I don’t think so. I sink like a stone. It’s something the threads did
to me.”

  Petra frowned, not understanding. Katja didn’t elaborate, and Jana didn’t feel it was her place to explain. But it did make her wonder how the Crucible threads would affect her own body over time. Would she no longer be able to swim? Her mother had drowned in the sea.

  Around dusk Jana took a walk by herself around Ilium. She’d scarcely had a moment to herself in the past few days. Her mind was a confused jumble of desires and fears. She could not help but play out scenarios in her head, and for some reason they all took the form of explanations to her father. Filumena and Cristo are dead, she imagined herself saying to Leandro. We did everything we could to rescue them, but Maro murdered them shortly after they arrived on the Michelangelo. I won’t burden you with the knowledge of what was done to their bodies – it’s too horrible. Or a more optimistic scenario: They’ll be home within the week! Both Cristo and Filumena are recuperating on the Stanford, but they’ll be fine. Though surely they will have stories to tell at Micheli’s!

  Jana tried to get out of her head by paying attention to her surroundings. Up close, Ilium was a more attractive town than she had initially realized. Residents had decorated their domes with colorful paint, hanging plants, and rooftop gardens that gave the illusion that each small building was a creature of some sort, its strange head emerging from the ground. Goats and chickens ran free, though she guessed there was some technological means of tracking or corralling them when necessary. She didn’t notice any goatherds or herding dogs and wondered if wolves were a problem. Maybe there were no wolves in this part of the world.

  It was strange how few people lived on the planet compared to the billions that had once inhabited the Earth. To Jana, Sardinia had always felt big. It took two full days to walk across the island, and though she had never done so, intrepid explorers had walked the entire coastline, a journey of weeks. And yet the island of Sardinia was a mere dot on a map of the world. Maggie had shown her how to use the zoom feature on the hovershuttle map display. She’d seen maps in ancient books, but to see a living, accurate map of the entire world had given her a better sense of scale.

  Earth was huge, and nearly empty.

  All her life Jana had known only a single town, and yet now, learning of the multitude of peoples that inhabited and orbited the Earth, she felt fearful for humanity. Bosa, with its thousands of years of history, had always felt permanent to her, as if the town had always existed and always would exist. But this town – Ilium – was only a couple decades old. And the ringstations were only centuries old. Towns, settlements, and entire civilizations could come and go. Everything was temporary, perhaps even the existence of human beings.

  Maybe it wasn’t worth the risk of starting a war over two people’s lives, even if one of those lives was dear to her. She didn’t want to inadvertently trigger the extinction of a large portion of humanity by starting a war among the ringstations.

  “Jana! It’s time for dinner.” Maggie was calling for her. “What are you doing way out here by the beehives? I was looking all over for you.” Jana looked around and noticed she had wandered into a field of dozens of squat wooden boxes.

  “How are things between you and Tem?” Jana asked on the way back to the dining hall. She’d noticed some tension between Maggie and Tem during the hovershuttle ride, though they’d done their best to hide it, speaking overly politely with one another.

  “Oh, you picked up on that, huh? Yeah, things are a little rough right now. Did he tell you about Saga?”

  “No. Though the name sounds familiar. Katja may have mentioned her.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll tell you after dinner, if I’ve had enough wine.”

  ***

  Tem and Ingrid agreed that Regis would be a helpful addition to their group. Jana herself still had her reservations, but she’d presented Regis’s offer to the others as dispassionately as possible. She tried to convince herself that her jealous feelings were overblown, that Regis had been harmlessly flirting with Katja. But something bothered her about the ex-soldier.

  Jana was surprised to learn that the mule rocket didn’t require a pilot, but would be controlled via machines (or if necessary, remotely by Petra). Tem, Ingrid, Katja, Regis, and Jana would be free to relax and socialize during the voyage, which would take only a little longer than the trip from Bosa to Ilium.

  Just as Petra had warned, Jana felt extremely heavy during takeoff. The sensation would have been alarming except for Katja’s laughter, which was louder even than the roar of the propulsion rockets. “She said I would float!” Katja yelled over the din. “But my body feels like a sack of stones!” The weightlessness that followed surprised Katja even more. When Ingrid said they could unbuckle their seat belts and float about the capsule if they liked, Katja did so, joyfully somersaulting midair and launching herself from wall to wall. “Join me, Jana!” she said, but Jana wanted no part of the acrobatics. She gripped the armrests of her chair, willing herself not to vomit. Ten minutes later she threw up anyway, but neatly at least, into a stiff paper bag provided by Ingrid.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Ingrid said, patting her shoulder. “It happens to most of us during the first spaceflight. Humans just aren’t used to weightlessness.”

  Feeling a little better, Jana took in the magnificent view. Though Sardinia was mostly obscured by clouds, she could see the outline of Italy, lush and green except for the Apennines and the snow-capped Alps to the north and west of the Po Valley. The Mediterranean Sea was a deep blue, nearing indigo. The water along the eastern coast of Italy took on a brilliant turquoise hue.

  “I remember the first time I saw the Earth from space,” Tem said. “I was in a mule – like this one but smaller – with my mother. And it was Petra who guided our flight, just like today. Though back then we had to wear heavy spacesuits to protect against radiation. This ship has better shielding.”

  Approaching the Stanford, the mule rotated, and for the first time Jana understood the ringstation’s massive scale. Eight spokes radiated from a central hub to a great wheel.

  “The spinning of the wheel creates a gravity-like force,” Tem explained, “but we’ll dock in the center, where we’ll still be weightless.”

  After the mule had docked, Tem helped Jana navigate a corridor in her weightless state by moving her body by way of rungs attached to the wall. Katja picked up the technique quickly and was soon propelling herself along, effortlessly keeping up with Regis and Ingrid.

  “Why is she so good at it?” Jana asked Tem resentfully.

  Tem laughed. “Don’t compare yourself to Katja. She’s always been freakishly good at learning physical skills.”

  All five of them were required to pass through decontamination procedures before joining the ringstation’s populace. Jana was given a private bathroom and told to follow a set of instructions on a card printed in Italian. Holding on to wall rungs for support, Jana awkwardly removed her clothes and reluctantly placed them in a chute where they were sucked away to an unknown location. She scrubbed her skin with damp, medicinally scented washcloths, and ran a fine comb through her hair that made her scalp tingle with tiny shocks. She dried herself with a large towel and dressed in a soft robe, and when a small panel opened revealing a packet of greenish-gray liquid, she drank it as instructed. The beverage had a bittersweet taste and chalky texture. She hoped the drink was not a preview of ringstation cuisine in general.

  After Jana had completed the instructions, Ingrid greeted her at the door and returned her clothes, neatly folded and noticeably cleaner. “Just a few more scans and tests, then we can get dressed and take one of the spoke elevators to the main ring.”

  It was more than an hour later when Jana, Katja, Tem, and Ingrid finally descended Spoke 7 into a lush botanical garden lobby, replete with ferns, hanging vines, and ponds populated by large orange-gold fish. Jana’s limbs were heavy and she still felt nauseous, but the fresh air helped. Regis had finished de
con before them and had gone to meet some friends for a drink, inviting the others to meet him later for dinner.

  “My grandfather Shol has invited us to his apartment for tea and snacks,” Tem said. “My parents will be there as well. Shall we go there now and then meet Regis later? Or would you like to rest first?”

  “I would love to see my brother and Car-En,” Katja said immediately, without so much as a glance at Jana to see how she felt. “It has been several years since I’ve seen them. I would also like to meet your morfar.”

  Jana wanted nothing more than to be alone for a few minutes, and perhaps take a nap, but she smiled gamely. “Yes, that sounds fine.”

  “Why don’t you two go ahead?” Ingrid suggested. “I should show Jana where she and Katja will be staying. We’ll meet you at Shol’s place a little later, okay?”

  “I thought you could use some rest,” Ingrid said once they were alone. “You still look a little green from the flight.”

  “It’s difficult for me to be around many people,” Jana admitted. “It makes me tired.”

  “I understand perfectly.”

  They were strolling through a neatly manicured park. Oddly, there were no food crops that Jana could see: no vegetable beds, fruit trees, or grain fields. All the plants appeared to be ornamental. “Where do you grow your food?” Jana asked.

  “In greenhouses mostly, in a different part of the ringstation. It’s more efficient that way.”

  Though she was acclimating to her own weight, Jana felt disoriented by the strange environment. Looking up, she saw there were multiple tiers to the ringstation, like ridges on the interior of a seashell, with the topmost being the narrowest. While the ground felt flat to walk on, the horizon sloped up and away in every direction.

  “Here we are,” Ingrid said, stopping in front of a two-story building constructed from glass and narrow beams of brightly painted metal. “Guest accommodations – you and Katja will be staying in the upstairs suite. There are three bedrooms, so you’ll have plenty of space.” Ingrid placed her hand on a panel, which caused a glass door to slide open. “Just go up those stairs. The door will be open. Should I come get you in an hour or so?”