The Last Crucible

by J. D. Moyer

  “Yes, please. I’ll just lie down for a few minutes.”

  “Rest as long as you need to. If you want to stay in tonight, I’ll order some food for you. Do you have any dietary restrictions?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind. I’ll check in with you later. If you hear my voice in your room, just answer me normally and I’ll hear you.”

  Jana took off her boots and lay down on the smallest of the beds, intending to rest her eyes for a few minutes. Almost instantly she fell into a dreamless sleep. When she awoke, she had no idea how much time had passed. Had she missed the opportunity to meet Tem’s parents? In some ways that would be a relief. She needed time to adjust to her new environment.

  No – that was a weak way of thinking. She was here for a reason, to rescue Filumena and to find a way to protect Bosa from Maro and others like him. She had a job to do. It didn’t matter if she felt tired or sick or uncomfortable.

  Closing her eyes again, she opened her mind to the Crucible, and moments later she was in the town hall with Sperancia, Giuseppina, and Agatha.

  “Where is Itria?” Jana demanded. “I need everyone here.”

  A second later the door opened, letting in a beam of light that illuminated motes of dust in the air, some of which sparkled like gems. Half a dozen winged fairies flew into the hall, followed by a slender woman with black hair down to her waist, and dark gray-blue eyes.

  “Always with the dramatic entrances,” Giuseppina scoffed.

  “From my perspective,” said Itria, “the rest of you are as boring as bumps on a log. You can do anything in this place. Why not have a little fun?” And then, to Jana: “What is it you want of me, child? I have answered your summons.”

  “I need all of you working together,” Jana said. “Put your petty grievances aside. The future of our home is at stake, as are the lives of two people from Bosa.”

  “How can we help?” Sperancia asked.

  “I need ideas. You all see through my eyes and hear through my ears – you know as much as I do. I need you to think of a way we can get Filumena and Cristo back without starting a war.

  “I need to outwit Maro.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Maro did not want to confess to the murder of Cassia, not even to Livia. He considered strangling her right then and there, in the privacy of his own bedroom, but thought better of it. She was stronger than him, for one thing, and a Defender, trained in lethal combat techniques. He would have the advantage of surprise, but there was a good chance she would reverse any attack he attempted.

  And of course he loved her dearly, and would miss her if she were dead. Though he loved himself more.

  No, it was better to be honest. Hopefully she would understand.

  “We can end this game of cat and mouse,” he said. “As you’ve probably already guessed, I murdered her.”

  “Ha! I thought so. However did you do it? She’s thrice your size.”

  “Faustus assisted. His venom did her in.”

  “Faustus has a poisonous bite? You never told me.”

  “Had a poisonous bite. She broke his back.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, I’ll get a new ferret. But yes, Cassia is out of the way.”

  “How did you dispose of her body? Quite a bit of mass to manage.”

  This was the part Maro hadn’t been looking forward to. “Cassia took care of that loose end herself. She crawled off somewhere to die. When they find her body there will be absolutely no connection to me – I never touched her. And Aina already got rid of—”

  “Wait – did you confirm that she was dead?”

  “She was blue in the face.”

  “But she could still be alive?”

  “Not unless Aina moved her and lied about it. But that’s impossible – cybrids can’t lie to their owners.”

  “Unless they’re upgraded,” Livia pointed out. “Apparently the Bohm upgrade provides them with a great deal more free will.”

  “Really? Well, Aina hasn’t been upgraded. That would require my consent, wouldn’t it?”

  Livia shrugged. “One would think. But really, Maro, I’m impressed. What initiative on your part, getting rid of your opposition. If this doesn’t come back to bite you on the ass, you could very well be emperor.”

  “It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Emperor Maro Decimus.”

  “Very much so. Will you acquire a large harem?”

  “I see no reason to. I’m quite satisfied with you, my love.”

  “And with Aina, for your urges when I’m not available?”

  “She doesn’t count.”

  Livia kissed him, then climbed on top of him, reaching beneath his tunic to grab his already hardening cock. “It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?”

  “I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

  “Your experiment is a success. Let’s celebrate.”

  ***

  The next day Maro met privately with Traian at the Licinian Baths, a less popular spa with multiple heated pools, sulfurous waters, and rough stonework. At Maro’s insistence only the two senators and their personal cybrids were in attendance; he knew Traian to be a more reasonable man in the absence of an audience for his posturing.

  “Does your cybrid double as security?” Maro asked. Traian’s attendant was broad-shouldered and nearly seven feet tall, with chiseled Grecian features.

  Traian frowned as he handed his robe to his attendant. “I don’t want to disappear like Cassia.”

  “You know I had nothing to do with that. I’m sure Cassia is just holed up somewhere, enjoying all the hubbub. She’ll emerge at the moment of maximum dramatic effect, probably right before the election.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Traian conceded. “What is your cybrid smiling about? Does she know something we don’t?”

  Maro glanced at Aina, who looked back at him soberly.

  “I have no idea. Perhaps you just imagined it. She has a pleasing face.”

  The senators settled into the steaming water. This was good, Maro thought. Traian seemed relaxed and unguarded. While he didn’t need Traian’s vote to win the election, it would still help to soften what was left of the opposition. Ruling the Senate would be easier and more pleasant if the populares were resigned to the fact of his power.

  Traian yawned, stretching his arms over his head. “Level with me, Maro. Why the power play? What do you hope to gain by becoming Emperor Decimus?”

  “In terms of personal gain, absolutely nothing. I will be a humble servant, serving the best interests of the Senate and the Michelangelo. But we need a powerful leader to guide us through the storm ahead.”

  “And you’re the best person for the job?”

  “I’ll let the Senate decide that. But I won’t refuse the position if elected.”

  “A temporary title, then, to be rescinded once our situation stabilizes?”

  “Of course. Though it may be some time before the Ringstation Coalition comes to understand that we will not tolerate interference.”

  “Interference? All they have done is hail us. All we have done is ignore them. We’re hardly at war. We haven’t even officially disagreed on anything.”

  Maro gestured to Aina to rub his shoulders. Obediently the cybrid knelt at the edge of the bath and began to knead his muscles. “You are perfectly aware, Traian, of our cultural differences. The Coalition values collaboration and consensus, resulting in endless meetings and bureaucratic processes. We value aesthetics, great works, and scientific achievements above all else.”

  “Those values are not so different so as to be incompatible.”

  “So you might think. But mark my words, they will object when we begin to build our cities. They will object when we accept volunteers from Earth’s native peoples for our experiments. They wi
ll insist we follow their rules and regulations. The Coalition reaches out so they can shackle and bind us.”

  Traian chuckled. “You’re paranoid and delusional. We haven’t even heard them out.”

  “We will listen to what they have to say once I am elected. But my prophecy will prove correct.”

  “You would be a prophet now, as well as emperor?”

  Maro smiled, leaning back so that his head pressed into Aina’s bosom. “Even an ordinary man can predict the future with clear eyes.”

  Traian snorted. “You see yourself as an ordinary man no more than I see myself as a dolphin.”

  “Then enough of this speculation,” said Maro. “We will see how the Senate votes. But be assured that I only have the best interests of my fellow citizens in mind, and that should I be elected, I will not exercise any of the emergency powers bestowed by the petition.”

  “Unless there’s an emergency.”

  Maro sighed. He was getting bored with Traian’s passive-aggressive skepticism. Perhaps it wasn’t worth trying to befriend his fellow senator. Once he was emperor, he would simply obliterate him. Maro was an accelerating asteroid, massive and moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light, annihilating everything that stood between him and his ultimate destination.

  “What have you heard of the Iarudi?” Maro asked, not really caring but desperate to change the subject. All he knew was that the cybrid-crewed Falcon had approached the location of the gamma-ray burst and had physically sighted the Liu Hui starship.

  “They’re very close. They’ll intercept within a few hours.”

  “Why did they send cybrids on the Falcon?” Aina asked.

  Traian raised an eyebrow. “She asks questions?”

  It was unusual for Aina to interrupt a conversation, but idle curiosity was a part of her programming, along with a strong impulse to please, and an insatiable sex drive. Maro didn’t see any harm in answering – whatever he told her would go in one ear and out the other. “Cybrid bodies can survive significantly higher G-forces than human bodies, so the Falcon can accelerate and decelerate more quickly.”

  “Thank you for explaining that, Maro.”

  Traian narrowed his eyes. “Is she…upgraded?”

  “Of course not. She’s quite functional as she is. No need to fix what isn’t broken. I like her pliant and stupid.”

  “I see,” said Traian, with an expression that Maro interpreted as judgmental. Well, fuck him. Prepare to be annihilated, Senator, by Asteroid Decimus.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  If life were to get any better, Maro reflected, he might very well burst with happiness. The election was only three days away with his victory all but assured, the Engineers were already creating templates based on his Ancestral Realism data, and Livia, for the first time, was in love with him as much as he was with her.

  And now, as Livia wove the shuttle through the valleys of the Harz mountains, he was rushing toward his destiny, his legacy as an Artist. Patience was an overrated virtue; he was tremendously impatient to expand Ancestral Realism, and for that he needed more volunteers.

  Bosa, for the moment, was not the best place to obtain more recruits. Mistakes had been made. The old woman’s death had left a sour taste in everyone’s mouth. He had unfinished business with Jana, but for now that could wait. It would be some time before he could safely return to Sardinia.

  But the villages of the Harz mountains were virgin lands ripe for plunder. The anthropological data obtained from the Stanford had helped him select his first target. He would avoid the village of Happdal, which had been psychologically and culturally contaminated by sloppy researchers from the Stanford. His target was Kaldbrek, a small, destitute hamlet situated in a steep valley whose residents subsisted on a meager diet consisting mostly of mutton and berries.

  The poor wretches would accept his gifts with open arms. They would lap up his promises like sweet spring water.

  Instead of a grand entrance on a golden balloon, Maro had planned something more appropriate for the mountain folk. Car-En Ganzorig’s research indicated that the Happdal people had many domesticated animals: cows, chickens, sheep and goats, dogs and cats. But none of the villages had horses. They had had horses, long ago, when first migrating south from their ancestral home in Scandinavia, fleeing the encroaching glacial sheets. But those beasts had perished over the course of one or more harsh winters. The Harz people had eaten their horses out of desperate necessity, every last one.

  So Maro was bringing them a surprise.

  “The shuttle does not make an ideal stable,” Livia commented. “The whole ship smells like horseshit.”

  She was right. The horses – two black mares and a bay stallion – had survived the weightless portion of their flight unharmed, secured in specialized harnesses that had limited their motion, preventing self-injury. But all three beasts had defecated profusely in reaction to their distress.

  “Aina – clean up the the manure.”

  He’d brought the cybrid along for labor, as well as for her tongue. Aina would serve as their translator. Maro hadn’t minded learning Italian in order to speak to the people of Bosa; Italian was similar to Latin and had been easy to pick up. Learning the language of the Harz people, a mix of Old Norse and Norwegian, had not appealed to him, nor had he the time. But the cybrid could acquire a new language in just a few minutes.

  Aina got up from her seat and headed back to the hastily fabricated stalls. “Yes Maro, I’ll do that immediately.”

  Of all the worldships, the Michelangelo maintained the widest diversity of animal life. Their initial launch population had included hundreds of animal species, a veritable Noah’s Ark. The founders had insisted on bringing animals featured in historical artworks: lions, tigers, snakes, eagles, peacocks, and of course horses. As the size and resources of the Michelangelo had expanded, the Engineers had resurrected other species from DNA archives. Their zoo was a masterpiece of meticulously designed habitats for each species, laced throughout with hidden viewing spaces for artists who wanted to sketch their forms.

  The zoo directors had lent him the horses only reluctantly. But no one wanted to cross the future emperor. Which was good, because Maro had no intention of returning the beasts.

  Livia skillfully landed the shuttle in a rocky clearing dotted with clumps of wildflowers. Even before the ship had settled on its landing pads, Livia opened the hatch, letting in a rush of cold mountain air. “Ugh, that smell. I can finally breathe.”

  With Aina’s help, Maro freed the horses from their safety harnesses and saddled them. With some resentment he noticed that the stallion and both the mares preferred Aina’s presence, while his own touch made them skittish. Which made no sense; Aina wasn’t even a mammal. But she looked and smelled like a human female – that was certainly true – and he supposed the illusion worked just as well on equines as it did on people.

  “These are beautiful animals,” Aina said, gently tightening a saddle strap on one of the black mares. “Which one will you ride, Maro?”

  “The stallion. Livia and I will ride in front, side by side. You will follow.”

  “Yes, Maro.”

  The clearing was on a mountain ridge overlooking the valley in which Kaldbrek was situated. There was a chance a wanderer or hunter would come across the parked shuttle, but the craft would be protected once it shelled up. And so what if someone saw it? For the volunteers, they would see the shuttle up close soon enough.

  Riding the stallion took some getting used to. Maro was as well-co-ordinated as any man, at least insofar as such things could be controlled with genetic manipulation and neurological enhancements. His balance and reflexes were superb. And yet controlling the horse was more of a challenge than riding the Vertragus he was used to. While the cybrid steed reacted to Maro’s slightest cues, the stallion obeyed him only reluctantly. When he wanted the horse t
o trot, it stubbornly ambled. And at one point, without prompting, the beast broke into a full gallop, stopping only when Maro yanked on the reins and shouted, “Subsisto!”

  “Would you like a short riding lesson?” Aina offered. “I have access to helpful tutorials.” Aina’s mare was even-tempered and obedient, as was Livia’s.

  “It’s a spirited beast. But it will submit eventually.”

  Consulting the map in his retinal feed, Maro led them to a wide, well-trodden trail. The dirt road descended into the valley, and as they neared the outskirts of the village they smelled smoke and came across a ramshackle hut. A lone goat nibbled on weeds out front. A short rope around its neck dragged along the ground, attached to nothing. A white-bearded man sat on a stump next to a sprawling bush thick with round red berries.

  “Heill ok sæll!” Maro said cheerfully, using the one Norse greeting he had memorized. Healthy and happy.

  The old man nodded noncommittally and puffed on a hand-carved pipe. His long white beard was forked and braided.

  Livia patted her mare’s neck. “He doesn’t seem impressed.”

  The old man raised an eyebrow at the sound of Livia’s voice, and for an instant Maro wondered if he could understand her words. But no, how could the man have learned Latin?

  Aina addressed the man, the old Nordic language rolling off her tongue with ease. To Maro’s ear the words sounded harsh and guttural, made tolerable only by Aina’s melodic voice. As planned, she was telling him that they were visitors from the Michelangelo worldship, looking for villagers to participate in a project. Volunteers would be richly rewarded with gold, food and drink, and whatever pleasures they desired.

  After Aina had completed her speech, the man regarded the three of them, each in turn, for an awkwardly long amount of time. Maro’s stallion stamped his foot and whinnied.

  Finally the man replied, just a single sentence. His voice was low and raspy, but Maro immediately realized the old man possessed a gift. His voice was impossible to ignore, drawing in the listener like a box of unknown contents being slowly opened.