The Crucible

by Mark Whiteway

  “Yes, Quinn,” Zothan said.

  “I thought I told you to lift off at the first sign of danger.”

  “The Elinare have made no attempt to breach the sphere, and the low-pressure disturbance presents no immediate threat. I believe they are simply encouraging us to leave.”

  “Yes, well, I would say it’s time we took them up on their suggestion. Have you seen Rahada?”

  “No,” Zothan replied.

  “If we wait much longer, we could be stuck here forever.”

  “Where’s Keiza?” Vyasa asked.

  “She has a decision to make,” Quinn replied.

  “Is she coming with us?”

  “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  The sphere rang like a bell, once then a second time. A section of the wall grew transparent. Rahada was standing outside, a curved blade in each hand.

  Quinn exhaled. “Get her in here.”

  The transparent wall shimmered as Rahada stepped through, then it became opaque once more. She sheathed the knives in her belt.

  Quinn nodded to her. “Just in time. We were getting worried.”

  “The Elinare want you to leave,” she said. “Now.”

  Quinn turned to Zothan. “Have you any idea how to get this bucket of bolts off the ground?”

  Zothan raised his axe-shaped head and addressed the walls. “Launch.”

  Quinn blinked. “Is that it?”

  “I believe so.”

  Quinn felt no sensation of movement, but that mirrored their experience when the sphere had brought them here. The device appeared to have inertial-suppression technology similar to conveyances used by the Consensus.

  “How do you know we’re moving?”

  “The sphere has no physical control interface. Therefore, it must possess some form of rudimentary AI designed to accept command input.”

  Quinn shrugged. “You’re the engineer. Be nice to have a window, though.”

  “Window,” Zothan said.

  A new section of wall grew transparent, letting in a flood of light. The Haven lay stretched out before them. The curve of the distant horizon abutted purple sky.

  Quinn blew through his teeth. “Have we reached the barrier yet?”

  “Shortly,” Zothan replied. “When we pass through, we will likely come under fire from the blockading vessels.”

  “I’m assuming the sphere doesn’t have any defensive capabilities.”

  “It does not,” Rahada said. She hadn’t expressed any knowledge of Elinare technology before, but maybe they had let something slip during her time with them.

  “Can we outrun them?” Quinn asked.

  “I do not know the maximum speed of this craft,” Zothan said. “But it appears designed for orbital use only.”

  “So that’s a no, then.”

  “Maybe we could hide from them.” All eyes turned to Conor, and he reddened.

  Quinn smiled. “It’s okay. Tell us what you were thinking.”

  “Well, this planet’s hidden in… a fold of space, right? Perhaps we could do the same.”

  Quinn turned to Zothan. “How about it?”

  “I am sorry, Quinn, I have no knowledge of how to create such an effect. Passing through the barrier now.”

  The sky beyond the window switched from light to dark. Quinn stared. Even the stars’ harsh illumination would have been a comfort, but in this universe was nothing but unremitting blackness. He was about to turn away when an orb lit by dark-purple sparks appeared.

  “The Damise have launched a zahar,” Zothan announced. “They mean to drain us of power.”

  “So that we’ll be sitting ducks.” Quinn glanced sideways and saw Zothan, Rahada, and Vyasa staring at him. He shook his head. “Never mind.”

  The crackling orb grew larger.

  “Can we avoid it?” Quinn asked

  “Unlikely,” Zothan replied.

  “Well, let’s give it a go, shall we?”

  Zothan addressed the sphere. “Evasive course.”

  Quinn felt no sense of movement, but the orb in the window jerked left, then up, then down before resuming its former position.

  “Evasion ineffective,” Zothan announced. “The zahar continues to track us.”

  “Thank you. I figured that out,” Quinn said.

  “A chuthah is inbound. From a neighbouring ship.”

  A section of the opposite wall became transparent, revealing a diamond point of light. Chuthah. The zahar’s evil twin. While the zahar served as an energy sink, leaching a vessel’s power into the parallel neighbour universe and rendering it helpless, the chuthah drew energy from that universe to create a detonation powerful enough to obliterate virtually any target. We’re bracketed.

  “Can we retreat through the barrier?” Quinn asked.

  Vyasa shook her head. “No time.”

  “Countermeasures?”

  “I know of no effective defence against a zahar-chuthah attack,” Zothan said.

  “Could we contact the Damise?”

  “And say what?” Vyasa asked.

  Right then, Quinn couldn’t think of anything helpful. Destroying the sphere would be a highly effective way of demonstrating the blockade’s effectiveness. The moment the Damise realised he and Vyasa were aboard— the individuals responsible for disrupting their attack—they would probably respond by launching another salvo.

  The window flashed as the zahar closed in. Then the scintillation ceased, and darkness returned.

  Quinn blinked away purple afterimages. “Did they miss?”

  The sphere juddered and creaked. Light from the surrounding walls dimmed.

  One side of Zothan’s face was lit up by the approaching chuthah, while the other lay in shadow. “Power is gone. We are now sitting as ducks.”

  ~

  As the chuthah hurtled towards them, Quinn imagined what being in an old-fashioned car crash must have been like, the final few seconds playing in slow motion as the driver realised nothing could prevent the inevitable. Brilliant light filled the window. He closed his eyes…

  “Access subspace pocket.” The voice was Zothan’s.

  Seconds ticked by. Quinn cracked open an eye. The sphere and its occupants appeared whole. The window was dark—the chuthah had vanished.

  He found his voice. “What happened?”

  “We are safe,” Zothan replied. “For the moment.”

  “Mind telling me how?”

  “The solution only came to me at the last moment.”

  “Solution?”

  “Dropping into a fold of space.”

  Quinn blinked. “I thought you told me you didn’t know how to do that.”

  “I do not. But this vessel is of Elinare origin. It occurred to me that the AI controlling its systems might possess that knowledge. I should have thought of it sooner. I beg forgiveness.”

  Quinn stared at the smooth, silent walls and took a deep breath. “Well, in view of the fact that you appear to have just saved all of our lives, apology accepted.”

  “Conor deserves the credit,” Zothan said. “It was his idea.”

  Conor gazed up at Quinn, fresh-faced.

  Quinn nodded. “Good job. You’re still grounded, though.”

  The boy’s face fell.

  Quinn smiled inwardly. “All right. So what now?”

  “We are left with a dilemma,” Zothan replied. “The Damise cannot detect us as long as we remain here, but we cannot navigate this space, so we are trapped. The moment we attempt to leave—”

  Rahada’s face was set. “They will destroy you.”

  “All right, what do you suggest?” Quinn asked.

  “The Elinare comprehend the vagaries of this space,” Zothan replied. “Do you believe Keiza will join us?”

  Quinn blew through his lips. “There’s nothing left for her on the Haven. Her people want rid of her, but they made it clear that if she leaves, she can never return. It’d be a tough choice.”

  “She probably needs time to make up
her mind,” Vyasa said.

  The air fizzled as a silver sphere materialised, and the image of Vil-gar appeared. He stared up at Quinn, and his wide mouth quirked. “I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

  Quinn’s eyes narrowed. Was Vil-gar an ally or a turncoat? His inner jury was still out. “Your timing is impeccable.”

  “You think so?”

  “No. That’s what we humans call sarcasm.”

  “You mean because you stumbled into the Damise’s trap? I told you before—I can’t risk them becoming suspicious.”

  “And yet now the crisis is past, suddenly here you are.”

  “Yes, because just before the chuthah detonated, you disappeared from their screens,” Vil-gar said. “They sent me to ascertain your fate.”

  “I see, and what will you report back to your masters?” Quinn leant on the last word.

  Vil-gar didn’t take the bait. “That you were destroyed, of course.”

  “Do you think they will believe you?”

  “I’m hoping they will believe the expanding cloud of subatomic particles I drew across from our universe. Its collective mass is the same as this sphere and all of you.”

  “That is extremely resourceful,” Zothan said.

  Vil-gar’s long ears pricked up. “Isn’t it! Unfortunately, the proportions are a little off, but they’ll only realise that if they decide to do a full resonance scan. And I project a less than twenty-five-percent chance of that.”

  For the umpteenth time, Quinn felt a growing urge to punch Vil-gar in the face.

  “We seem to be stuck in this fold of space,” Vyasa said. “Could you help us?”

  “Not if you want me to find your Shanata vessel. I can’t navigate you and locate them at the same time.”

  “Then what do you expect us to do?” Quinn asked.

  Vil-gar sniffed. “You got yourself into this. So get yourself out!” He seemed to notice Rahada for the first time, and his ears flattened. “Strange. What’s she doing here?” He vanished in a swirl of light, followed by his projection sphere.

  Vyasa cut the silence. “Maybe he’ll return when he’s found our ship?”

  Quinn darkened. “Or maybe he’s informing his Damise friends that we’re trapped here.”

  “He created the illusion of our destruction to throw them off,” Zothan pointed out.

  “Did he? Or was he just saying that to lull us into a false sense of security?”

  “We did ask him to locate the Shanata vessel. He cannot be in two places at once, Quinn.”

  “That’s not much use if we can’t move, and they can’t approach the Haven without getting blown out of the sky.”

  “Perhaps the answer lies with you.” Zothan’s steady gaze and taut features made him hard to read.

  Quinn straightened. “Explain.”

  “Vil-gar said, ‘You got yourself into this. So get yourself out!’” Zothan did a bad imitation of Vil-gar’s shrill voice, which in another setting might have been comical.

  Quinn did not crack a smile. “So what?”

  “He was referring to you.”

  “Zothan’s right,” Vyasa said. “He was speaking directly to you.”

  A memory flashed. The void. Neither Zothan nor Vyasa had been with him when he and Rahada were caught in the Damise’s artificial gravity well. Vil-gar had created a huge four-space bubble to rescue them, only to leave them in the lurch. Quinn had eventually figured out how to use his Shade abilities to control the bubble, allowing them to escape.

  “Could we create a bubble large enough to encompass the sphere?” Quinn asked.

  “That is beyond my ability,” Zothan said.

  “And yours,” Quinn was sure the Nemazi wanted to add, but he was too circumspect. However, this was not the time for pussyfooting around.

  “You remember the bubble we used to rise to Pann’s upper level?” Quinn asked. “Vil-gar created it by folding dozens of tesseracts and arranging them in a corkscrew pattern he called the Helix.”

  “That technique is forbidden,” Zothan said.

  “Forbidden? Why?”

  Several seconds passed before Zothan spoke. “It is gazzath tamah.”

  Quinn translated from Nemazi. “‘Forbidden on pain of death.’ But why?”

  Zothan faced Quinn, his yellow eyes burning. “Such an attempt caused the Transformation that devastated my world.”

  ~

  The Transformation—a spatial distortion involving a massive release of exotic particles that had rained down on the worlds of the Maaka nebula, shattering the fabric of time and transforming their various races into hideous forms.

  “How do you know that was the cause?” Quinn asked.

  “It is so written,” Zothan replied.

  From Zothan’s stance and tone, Quinn concluded that asking where or when it was written would be pointless. The Nemazi believed that one of the Founder Races, the Japhet, was responsible for the Transformation, although Aurek of the Elinare had claimed the Nemazi had done it to themselves. Clearly, now was not the time to toss in that tidbit of information.

  “Okay, so it’s a little dangerous,” Quinn said. “But we’re a long way from your home, in another universe. There’s absolutely no risk to your people.”

  “You do not understand, Quinn. Dabbling in the lore that led to the Transformation is against our highest law. We would expire others or be expired to prevent it.”

  “On Pann, you watched Vil-gar create the phenomenon and did nothing.”

  “I did not realise what he was doing until it was too late,” Zothan replied. “Besides, I could not have prevented it. He is a projection. You are not.”

  The dolin fixed the Nemazi with his eye beam. Zothan was small for one of his kind but still rivalled Quinn in height. The three of them gazed at one another in a triple standoff.

  “Vil-gar might return,” Vyasa said quickly. “Or Keiza could rejoin us. Why not wait for one of them?”

  Quinn shook his head. “No time. Vil-gar might be betraying us to the Damise as we speak. And even if he isn’t, they could initiate their scan thing and discover his little subterfuge. We have to leave. Now.”

  “Have you forgotten you cannot navigate this space, Quinn?” Rahada asked.

  “No. But I’m guessing if we set a general course away from the Haven, either Vil-gar or Keiza will find us eventually.”

  “I am sorry, Quinn. I cannot permit you to make the attempt.” Zothan opened his claws.

  Quinn had witnessed a Nemazi slaughtering a Grok with a single claw stroke in the Consensus-run city of Zahava. He swallowed. “It’s our only way out of here. I have to try. I stand a much better chance of success if you agree to help me, but I’ll do it alone if I have to.”

  Zothan stood still and silent as a statue.

  “Very well.” Quinn closed his eyes and concentrated on the tesseract shape. With the fringes of his mind, he caressed its lines and edges and basked in its perfect symmetry.

  Raised voices from somewhere far off rippled his mental pond. He blotted them out and concentrated on the T shape, coaxing its form, teasing its sides. He cracked open an eye. Black smoke curled around his fingers. The semitransparent shape pulsed, folded in on itself, and became a shining cube. He stared along a fourth spatial axis. Sharp pain like a hot spike pierced his forehead but faded after a moment. He steadied his breathing.

  In the Damise-created anomaly, he had found that maintaining Vil-gar’s subuniverse was a matter of preventing the helix from losing cohesion. But sustaining the structure and building it from scratch were two very different things. Could he hold the helix’s shape while at the same time folding new tesseracts and adding to it? Vil-gar’s helix had contained hundreds of folded tesseracts, but the subuniverse he created had been vast. Quinn just needed to generate an anomaly large enough to encompass this vessel.

  His brow furrowed as he invoked a second tesseract and forced it into four dimensions. As he folded it and watched it collapse into a second shining cube, he
felt stabbing pain once again. Ignoring it, he formed a third cube then a fourth, arranging them into the beginnings of a helix shape. Elation rose within him. I can do this!

  He was starting on a fifth tesseract when Zothan appeared in front of him. Before Quinn could utter a word, the Nemazi lashed out. The side of Quinn’s face erupted in agony, and he fell to the floor. His shining cubes shimmered and vanished. Zothan advanced and stood over him. Just as Quinn raised an arm to ward off a killing blow, Zothan stepped back, and Conor appeared in his place.

  Fear and revulsion battled across his features. “Dad! What happened to you?”

  “What do you mean?” Quinn asked.

  “Y-your face. You’re… no longer human!”

  ~

  Quinn gazed at his reflection in the sphere’s window. A dim patch of light generated by the sphere’s emergency power displayed a face three-quarters covered in black chitin. One eye was the colour of yellow pus, and half the head sprouted thinning white hair. Quinn brushed his cheek with his fingertips and felt the hardness.

  On Nemazi, he had been caught up in a time front that catapulted him back to the night of the Transformation. Exposure to exotic-particle fallout had granted him Shade abilities to manipulate space and pass through solid matter but at a price. The more he used his newfound talents, the faster his body underwent change. Zothan counselled him to ease up, but Quinn had not listened. Now witness the results.

  Not just his appearance had changed. His bones ached, and his bowels wrenched.

  Vyasa’s white hair framed wide eyes and a furrowed brow. Conor’s skin was pale, his eyes distant. Rahada’s right hand hovered near the knife at her belt. The dolin was a mask of stone.

  Zothan spoke softly. “I am sorry, Quinn.”

  Quinn was becoming a little irritated by Zothan’s constant need to apologise. “What for?”

  “For striking you. It seemed the only way to prevent you from harming yourself further.”

  “Maybe you should have done it sooner.” Quinn stared at Zothan’s blank expression. “Never mind.”

  “We are bound for Maaka,” Zothan continued. “No one has greater knowledge of the Transformation than the races within the nebula.”

  Quinn glanced at the Nemazi’s shiny black skin and sticklike frame. Didn’t do you much good, did it? He fought down his dark mood. “I appreciate the thought, but we’re still faced with the same problem. If we can’t get out of the hole we’re stuck in, we won’t be visiting the Maaka nebula or anywhere else.”