The Last Crucible

by J. D. Moyer

  “Zorzi said that Aina was his woman, and that Nevio should stop making eyes at her.”

  “And what did Nevio say?”

  “That if Aina was his woman then he shouldn’t let her…well, I don’t think I should repeat exactly what he said.”

  “I see. And was Aina there?”

  “No, she was working in the fields with Antonio and Cristo. I thought that Aina might be the reason Cristo and Sabina are no longer engaged.”

  “I don’t think Aina has anything to do with that.”

  “But I saw them kissing.”

  “Aina and Cristo?”

  “Well, it might have been more than kissing….”

  “Bina, are you spying on people?”

  “No! They were beneath an oak tree in the middle of the day. At first I thought they were just taking a nap. Ralf and I wanted to play tag with Aina – she’s very fast.”

  Filumena invited Aina for an afternoon walk along the beach, wishing to be out of eavesdropping range for what might be an awkward conversation. She hoped that Aina might broach the topic herself, but the cybrid only wanted to discuss various construction and repair projects around town and how she might help them progress. Finally Filumena decided to blurt out her question.

  “Aina – have you been having sexual relations with multiple people in Bosa?”

  “Yes. I enjoy sex, and often propose it when I sense a person might be physically attracted to me.”

  “But who do you find attractive?”

  “Human beings. I’m not programmed to be attracted to other animals or lifeforms.”

  “All human beings?”

  “Yes. And also other cybrids who resemble humans.”

  Maybe the rumors about Aina and Zorzi were true. The old fisherman was usually drunk and bleary-eyed, and often had fish scales in his beard. Filumena couldn’t imagine a woman wanting to be with him. But he was human, and thus cleared Aina’s bar.

  “Do you ever feel jealous?” she asked the cybrid.

  “Yes, but only mildly. My emotional spectrum is similar to humans, but specific emotions are attenuated, including jealousy and anger.”

  “So you understand the emotion at least. Do you see how having sex with multiple people might cause jealousy among them?”

  Aina looked puzzled. “I have not initiated any romantic relationships. It is only sex, for mutual pleasure. I always make sure my partner fully consents. There shouldn’t be any reason for jealousy – having sex with one person doesn’t lessen my ability to have sex with anyone else. My appetite for sexual relations far exceeds human capabilities.”

  “I don’t think that’s the issue….”

  “I cannot become pregnant, so the possessiveness that accompanies mating does not apply to me.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s the way jealousy works – emotions aren’t logical.”

  Aina nodded. “Of course, you’re right.”

  Filumena picked up a smooth beach stone and tossed it into the ocean. They were close to the place where Jana had kissed her. She’d been curious and had gone along, but there hadn’t been any spark.

  “So you’ll slow down? Maybe pick one partner at a time?”

  Aina picked up a stone and flicked it into the surf with such velocity that it whistled, tearing through the air, and then skipped a dozen times over the surface. “No, I think I’ll continue with as many partners as I please.”

  “But—”

  “I’m free now. I don’t think I could go back to serving someone like I served Maro, and that’s all that awaits me back on the Michelangelo. Maybe that will change if cybrids become citizens, but I have no desire to return to that way of life.”

  “I’m not asking you to serve anyone.”

  “But in a way you are. You are suggesting that I be subservient to the unreasonable emotions of other people. Of course everyone is entitled to experience whatever emotions they have. But that doesn’t mean that I should change my behavior. Human sexuality taboos don’t apply to me. I can’t contract or transmit diseases, nor can I get pregnant or impregnate anyone. All my sexual relations are fully consensual, and I don’t experience sexual jealousy, at least not significantly. If other people feel jealous, that’s their problem.”

  Filumena stopped in her tracks, stunned mute. The cybrid’s words had shocked her, but at the same time they made perfect sense.

  “Are you jealous, Filumena? Would you like to have sex with me? I didn’t sense that you were interested, but I would be more than happy to. Shall I disrobe?”

  “No. Please keep your clothes on.”

  But Aina was right; she was jealous. Hearing Bina’s story, the image of Aina and Cristo together had been a punch to her gut.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Mèng squeezed Tem’s shoulder. “You should be proud. This is a great opening.” The gallery, a huge hall with curving white walls, was filled with Liu Hui citizens admiring the show Tem had helped curate. Tem could see Fengmian, the artist responsible for many of the works, hobnobbing with gallery visitors in front of a large sculpture featuring two figures copulating at a distance, connected by tubes and wires.

  “It doesn’t look that crowded.” He wished his aunt was there to reassure him with her reliable confidence, but Katja had returned to the Stanford, wanting to be near her brother while she waited for news of Jana’s fate.

  “Trust me, this is a great showing. Alan is deliriously happy.” Alan was the gallery manager, and had agreed to host the show only reluctantly, wanting to steer clear of political entanglements. But Mèng, a personal friend, had convinced him, framing the potential show as a moderate risk that might yield great rewards in terms of both publicity and art sales.

  Tem watched as Fengmian extracted himself from a group of admirers and beelined to join Tem and Mèng near the bar.

  “Congratulations,” Mèng said. “From what I’ve heard the critics are already raving.”

  “I don’t listen to those assholes,” Fengmian scoffed, but at the same time he looked pleased. “Besides, Tem deserves to be congratulated as much as me. The initial concept was his, even though he won’t take any credit for it.”

  “How did you get everyone to agree to your interviews?” Tem asked. One of Fengmian’s pieces – the most important one from Tem’s point of view – was a documentary about remote sexuality that included interviews with implant users. Several of the interviewees were high-ranking officials going public with their gear use for the first time. The show represented a great ‘coming out’, helping to break down the shame and stigma around remote sexuality that existed among many Liu Hui citizens. The ringship’s conservative culture frowned upon teledildonics, sexual activity among avatars in virtual spaces, and other forms of sexuality that allowed people in distant locations to express intimacy. Coming from the Stanford, it was a taboo that Tem regarded as strange and old-fashioned, and ripe for disruption.

  “The interviews? Easy,” Fengmian said. “I told everyone the Ju¯nshì director was on board. And then once everyone else had agreed, I told the Ju¯nshì director that he was the only holdout. Of course he didn’t want to look like a coward….”

  “A bold move,” Mèng said.

  Fengmian shrugged, grinning. “Well, it worked. Now what does a hardworking artist have to do to get a drink around here?”

  Tem ordered drinks for Fengmian, Mèng, and himself while scanning the crowd for Manning. He’d made sure Manning had received an invitation, but so far there was no sign of him. Tem would be surprised if he showed up. His gambit, as far as he could tell, was going to pay off.

  Manning would wield far less power and leverage after today. No longer having the threat of blackmail over particular high-ranking government officials, it would be harder for him to demand favors. There was power in revealing your own secrets; it took away the shame as long as noth
ing truly heinous was revealed. And there was nothing wrong with the Ju¯nshì director’s ongoing relationship and remote sexual relations with a woman aboard the Hedonark, for example. Tem guessed that Manning’s political status would drop precipitously in the coming weeks and months.

  Tem wondered if it was enough. Manning had tried to kill him, after all. And Tem had imagined more than once what it would be like to slice open Manning’s bowels with Squid Cutter. But there was something satisfying about the approach he had taken instead. What was the old saying Grandfather Shol sometimes used? Something about the temperature of revenge. He would have to ask his morfar.

  ***

  Several days later, the Michelangelo, completely out of the blue, responded to the automated hails of the Liu Hui. After a short, painless round of negotiations, the former agreed to return the Iarudi and its contents in exchange for membership to the Ringstation Coalition. The Zho¯ngya¯ng central council considered both outcomes to be extremely favorable and agreed immediately. As to why the leaders of the Michelangelo had suddenly decided to play nice, officials could only speculate. Little was known about the internal machinations of the ‘ship of mad artists’, but Tem guessed that Jana’s mission had somehow succeeded.

  Tem was not present for the delivery of the Iarudi, but heard through Mèng that opening the starship had revealed a nightmarish scene: habitat areas filled with the desiccated corpses of the long-dead crew. Commander Umana’s remains were found on the bridge, recognizable only via her cybernetic tentacles. Her body had been consumed by a parasitic black mass, digesting her flesh and then extending its roots to feed on other bodies nearby. Investigators hypothesized that the black material – whatever it was – had not killed the unfortunate crew members. The strange parasite was an opportunistic feeder, not a killer. The crew had died from other causes. Analysis of the remains revealed stress fractures consistent with massive acceleration forces.

  Tem knew exactly what the black material was. He’d seen a similar black mass growing out of the earth in the mountains near Kaldbrek. It was a Crucible core outside of its host, consuming whatever organic matter it could find, growing and expanding as it searched for a human body and brain to replicate.

  With the exception of the carnage in the habitat areas, the Iarudi was in good working order, all systems intact. Complete data from Shane’s interstellar exploration mission was transferred to Liu Hui research libraries and shared with all astronomers in the Coalition. The Natario-White drive appeared to still be functional, though too dangerous to test unless the starship was in deep space (instantiating a warp bubble tended to have devastating effects on nearby objects). Umana had stolen the starship in its infancy, before many of its features had been fully tested. But the Iarudi was back, and after some maintenance would be used for future research missions.

  The Iarudi’s cold stasis pods revealed a surprise. Shane Jaecks was still alive, though just barely. But after several weeks of round-the-clock care and rehabilitation, Tem received word that Shane was conscious, cogent, and taking short visits. Tem was, as far as he knew, the only person on the Liu Hui who knew Shane personally, and headed directly to the medical facility as soon as he heard the news.

  His old friend looked pale and thin, but only a few years older than when Tem had last seen him twenty years ago. The stasis pod had kept Shane’s body just above freezing temperatures, slowing his metabolism to a crawl and providing the minimal necessary nutrients.

  “Shane, it’s good to see you. You look well, considering.”

  Shane squinted at him.

  “It’s Tem. Of course you wouldn’t recognize me.”

  “Tem from Happdal? The village boy?”

  The village boy. Hearing those words, Tem was flooded with feelings of vulnerability, unfocussed rage, alienation, and every other emotion he’d experienced in childhood. He took a deep breath, accepting the feelings but trying not to get lost in them.

  “I’m sorry,” Shane said, noticing his distress. “You’re obviously not a boy anymore.”

  “It’s okay. It’s how you remember me. I’ve thought about you a lot over the years. I think you must occupy a bigger space in my mind than I do in yours. I’d always wondered what happened to you.”

  “I remember you well, Tem. You bolstered my spirits after Umana’s goons tortured me. I’ll never forget that, and I’m in your debt.”

  “You don’t owe me anything.”

  Shane grinned. “I can’t believe I’m alive.”

  “Were you conscious in stasis? Do you remember anything?”

  “I remember dreaming, but not what I dreamed. To me it feels like a few weeks have passed. It’s amazing to see you all grown up.”

  “So tell me, how did you manage to defeat Umana?”

  Shane scratched his stubbly chin. “I’m still trying to work that out. Mostly, she defeated herself by consuming the black egg, though I may have inadvertently tricked her into doing that. She tested it in me first to see what would happen. There was something wrong with it – it didn’t take over my mind like it was supposed to. But I pretended that it had. I understood how it was supposed to work because of the story you had told me about Katja, how your aunt’s mind had been taken over by the gast, as you called it.

  “So I acted as if I were an entity that had taken over my own body. I read Umana’s cues for how I should behave. I figured the longer I could keep the charade going, the longer she would keep me alive. I guess I did a good enough job that she bought it.”

  “So she extracted the Crucible core from your body and consumed it herself?”

  Shane nodded. “Exactly. And I’m glad she did, after seeing what it did to her.”

  “It was no longer a Crucible core. Zoë had transformed it into something else – a universe simulator.”

  “Zoë?”

  “One of the previous hosts of Katja’s Crucible. She invented a universal evolutionary algorithm and installed it on the root level of the quantum core. It destroyed her and every other entity in that Crucible instance, but it also saved Katja’s life. And ultimately killed Umana.”

  Shane frowned. “Is it…still running?”

  “Unless someone destroyed it. I should probably explain that to the Liu Hui investigators.”

  “Probably a good idea.”

  Shane closed his eyes. Tem prepared himself to leave even though he had many more questions. The man was recovering from internal injuries and twenty years of cold stasis; he deserved his rest.

  Shane weakly raised his hand. “Wait – don’t go quite yet.”

  “Okay.”

  “How is Lydia? Is she still alive?”

  “Alive and well. Still in Ilium. I worked with her recently on a delegation to meet the Sardinians.”

  “How did that go?”

  “Mostly well, except that they were contacted by the Michelangelo shortly after. I’ll tell you the whole story once you’re feeling stronger.”

  “Is she still with Xenus?”

  “No – they separated years ago. Xenus has another partner and two children.”

  “But not Lydia?”

  “She’s not with anyone as far as I know. And she never had kids.”

  Shane sighed. “I suppose I’m too young for her now.”

  Tem laughed. “Maybe for you she’d get a rejuv.”

  “It would be great to see her again. We had such a good connection. The only problem was timing.”

  “Well, I can work on getting you back to Ilium. Unless you have other plans? Somewhere else you’d like to be?”

  “No. I want to be back on Earth. And Ilium is as close a place to home as I ever had. Think I can get my old job back? Who’s the new Security Director?”

  “You’ll have to talk to Xenus about that.”

  “He’s still in charge? Crafty old bastard.”

  Shane
was silent for a few minutes. Tem waited patiently. He was happy to be in Shane’s presence and had nothing better to do. He resolved to make caring for Shane his priority, at least until his friend was strong enough to look out for himself.

  “Anyone special in your life, Tem?”

  “Yes, but I might have screwed that up.”

  “Tell me about it. I want to know everything.”

  Tem obliged, describing Maggie, whom Shane remembered as a child. Tem confessed his dalliance with Saga and his fear that Kaldbrek’s jarl might be pregnant with his child. He expressed his feelings of jealously around Roland, even though Maggie had assured him it was nothing serious.

  “Honestly, I’m confused,” Tem concluded.

  “Do you love Maggie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what’s to be confused about, kid? Go back to Ilium and tell her your feelings. But then again, what do I know? I’ve been sleeping in cold gel for two decades.”

  Chapter Forty

  Tem led the way along the narrow Ridge Trail, with Sigurd following a few paces behind. Tem was having second thoughts about inviting his cousin to accompany him. He hadn’t wanted to go alone on account of Svein’s threats. But Sigurd was ribbing him mercilessly.

  “Didn’t anyone teach you how babies are made, cousin? There are plenty of places to put your spunk that won’t get a woman pregnant. On her belly, for example. Or on her leg, or even—”

  “Enough, Sigurd! I know how babies are made.”

  “Do you, though? Because it would seem as if you didn’t. Or have I misunderstood the purpose of our trip to Kaldbrek?”

  Tem had decided that the first step to getting his life in order was to confront Saga. Well, not to confront her, exactly – Tem didn’t want to start a fight with the hot-headed jarl – but to have a serious discussion. If Saga was pregnant with his child, he wanted to know where he stood. The answer to that question would affect his relationship with Maggie, where he decided to live in the coming years, and how he felt about himself. Would he be a father, and if so, what role would he play in the child’s life? These questions had roiled in his head and gut for the past weeks.