The Crucible

by Mark Whiteway

  “Magatha rashan, Quinn. You are mistaken, just as Durga was mistaken. Have you forgotten our sharing of water? We are of the same omesku. Therefore, I cannot be hokkah.”

  “Forgive me, my friend. I spoke out of turn.”

  Zothan raised a claw and stared into the darkness. “Silence.”

  Have I given offence? Quinn was still formulating an apology when Zothan spoke again.

  “Durga’s nucleus is outside. They have come to take possession of the wreck.”

  ~

  Quinn and Zothan walked side by side. Behind them lay the wreck of the Shanata vessel. Ahead, across the moonlit desert, shone the lights of the Nemazi transports. Thunderous booms heralded the dismantling of the carefully stacked pagodas. Soon, the town would begin to take shape, its distinctive pattern laid out according to the various cantons—healer, engineer, herd master, defender. Quinn would have liked nothing more than to stand and watch the process and marvel at the ingenuity of this unique race, but he had no time for that.

  Dozens of skimmers kicked up a sandstorm as they headed straight for the crashed ship. Durga was clearly determined to take possession of his prize before another nucleus wandered over and tried to claim salvage rights.

  Quinn glanced at Zothan. Right now, they were the only ones who stood in his way.

  The skimmers drew closer, humming like a swarm of bees. They settled in the sand around Quinn and Zothan, tube-shaped weapons bristling like stingers. Quinn picked out a skimmer with a high-backed chair.

  There Durga sat, his chin resting on a claw. “I did not think to see you again, Quinn.”

  “I’ll bet you didn’t,” Quinn said.

  “The Harani and the Osei do not appear to be with you. I do hope they didn’t meet with an unfortunate accident. The open desert can be so… unforgiving.”

  “They are just fine.”

  “I see. Well, we have pressing business. I trust you were not planning on delaying us.”

  “No,” Quinn said. “We were planning on stopping you.”

  Durga allowed the raucous laughter to die down. “We have an agreement reached by lawful trade. As you have spoken, so shall it be.”

  “I’m amending our agreement.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “On the grounds that you expired an entire nucleus of innocent Nemazi only a few days ago. On the grounds that you tortured and maimed my friend here, and on the grounds that I really, really don’t like your face.”

  The Nemazi on the surrounding skimmers shifted nervously.

  Durga raised his voice. “Take care, Quinn. Outworlders exposed to the Nemazi sun for extended periods have been known to lose all grasp of reality. It’s a condition that can lead to their making fatal mistakes.”

  “The only mistake I made was trusting you,” Quinn said. “And that’s one I’m about to rectify.”

  Durga stiffened and signalled the adjacent skimmers. Their crews trained mounted weapon tubes on Quinn and Zothan.

  Quinn glanced at Zothan and nodded. Zothan raised his claw and spoke into a tiny device. “Preserve the subject.”

  The side of what was once the Shanata vessel’s rear section blew apart, showering the desert with twisted metal. The dolin’s immense bulk emerged and advanced, shaking the ground with every step. Pausing a short distance from the Nemazi line, it swept the mass of skimmers with its orange eye beam.

  Panic gripped their crews. Some sat transfixed. Others started up their engines and wheeled around, only to crash into the skimmers next to them. Durga roared commands into the chaos.

  The dolin reached down to Quinn with its great stone hand. Durga leapt from his chair, shoved aside a Nemazi operator, and powered up one of the tubes, pointing it directly at Quinn’s head. The tube glowed red then yellow then searing white. The dolin brought a fist down on Durga’s craft, and stone ground against metal. Nemazi toppled or dived from nearby skimmers that then veered out of control. A disorderly retreat blossomed into a rout.

  The dolin raised its fist, revealing the flattened remains of Durga’s skimmer.

  Quinn cupped his hands to his mouth. “Hey!”

  The dolin froze and regarded him.

  “Lift me up quickly.”

  The dolin opened its fist, and Quinn climbed aboard the stone hand.

  “Up, up!”

  The dolin deposited him on its shoulder.

  “Stop!” Quinn yelled at the fleeing Nemazi, only to be drowned out by the cries of skimmer crews and the screams of engines pushed to their limits.

  An ear-splitting wail rang out across the desert as Zothan stepped from a whirl of black smoke and activated a claxon on one of the skimmers. The retreat slowed.

  As the sound of the claxon died, Quinn shouted at the top of his voice, “Hear me! Hear me!”

  Skimmers turned and settled back to the ground. Nemazi cringed beneath the dolin’s searching eye beam.

  “Durga is no more,” Quinn began. “His crimes died with him. The dolin is under our control. None of you will be harmed, provided you do not resist.

  “Our omesku will join with yours. We are Zothan of the Nemazi; Grey of the Osei; Vyasa of the Harani; the dolin, ancient construct of the Agantzane; and myself, Quinn the human. Together, with your help, we will drive the gormgast from your world.”

  The Nemazi began a low chant. “Za-thaar, za-thaar, za-thaar…”

  Quinn called down to Zothan. “What are they doing?”

  “They are calling for a new zathaar,” Zothan replied. “The selection process must begin immediately.”

  “What selection process?”

  “Tests of skill, courage, and strength covering a period of eight days. Candidates are chosen by a specially convened council, which—”

  Quinn waved him away. “We don’t have time for all that.” He raised his voice once more. “Listen. Listen, everyone. Zothan is your new Zathaar. You will follow his lead and take his instructions. Is that clear?”

  Murmurs rippled through the Nemazi.

  “Zothan is your new Zathaar,” Quinn repeated. “Anyone who has a problem with that can take it up with the Shanata Tamah.”

  The Nemazi stared at him for a moment. Then they began a new chant that grew until it rang out across the desert.

  “Shanata Tamah, Shanata Tamah, Shanata Tamah…”

  ~

  The Nemazi assembled on the forward transport stepped aside for Quinn, each bowing at the passing of the Shanata Tamah. The last of them parted, revealing Zothan sitting in the zathaar’s high-backed chair, flanked by stoic guards. A robe hung about his shoulders. Decorated with gormgast parts, it clinked as he moved.

  Zothan’s orange gaze burned into him. “This is your doing.”

  Quinn folded his arms and smiled. “You’re welcome. Oh, and I’m pleased to report that our coordinated offensive with the Shannon and Cork nuclei has driven the gormgast from the plains.”

  “Those are not Nemazi titles.”

  Quinn shrugged. “I’m the Shanata Tamah. If I say those are their names, then that’s what they call themselves.”

  “They are calling me Gorz-kah. I suppose that was your idea as well.”

  “One claw. No, it wasn’t, but I’m sure it’s meant as a term of endearment. Did my son arrive yet?”

  “No, but I have sent for him. Are you certain you wish him to join us? We are likely to be in the vanguard of the coming conflict.”

  “He is a part of our nucleus,” Quinn said. “This is where he belongs. Besides, you and I are his greatest protectors. Where could he be safer?”

  Nemazi heads turned nearby.

  Quinn followed their gaze, hoping to see Conor. Instead, he spotted a winged shape against the cloudless sky.

  With powerful wing strokes, Vyasa angled towards the transport and alighted in front of him. “Quinn, come quickly.”

  “Why? What’s the matter?” he asked.

  A delicate frown marred her forehead as her gaze flickered back and forth like a frightened
bird. “I’m not sure. You must see for yourself.”

  ~

  As he swept over the barren plains, clinging to Vyasa’s back, Quinn cycled through various possibilities. Had the gormgast staged a counterattack? Had the Shanata descended from orbit and joined the conflict? What could have spooked her so? He tried broaching the subject, but she remained tight-lipped.

  Finally, he spied the dolin. It sat alone on a butte, its back facing him. Scattered around the desert were scores of gormgast, broken and lifeless. Before it powered down the last time, the dolin had questioned the nature of its existence as a weapon of mass destruction. Had it deactivated itself again? If Zothan couldn’t restart it this time, then that would toss an almighty spanner into Quinn’s plan to take back the planet.

  As they circled around to the dolin’s front, Quinn’s jaw dropped. Gathered before the construct were perhaps thirty gormgast in three neat rows.

  “What’s going on?” Quinn called to Vyasa.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “That’s why I brought you here.”

  “All right, put us down beyond the gormgast.”

  Vyasa turned in a wide arc and landed fifty metres behind them. Quinn slipped to the ground and scanned the creatures, but they made no move to attack. They appeared fixated on the dolin. Gesturing for Vyasa to follow, he skirted the gormgast and clambered up the butte. The dolin’s beam picked him out. The construct was supposed to protect him at all costs, but it had been demonstrating increasingly independent thinking.

  Quinn struck a conciliatory note. “Mind telling me what you’re doing?”

  “I am doing as you suggested, Quinn,” it said.

  Quinn cycled through his previous interactions with the dolin but could think of nothing that would explain this scenario. “How do you mean?”

  “You said I should find a new core directive. I have succeeded.”

  “How so?”

  “I am teaching them,” the dolin replied.

  Quinn glanced back at the rows of gormgast, which resembled expectant children in a classroom. “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “When we were together in the neighbour universe, you encouraged me to seek my own path. I determined that I should travel to Kastarann and awaken the others of my kind. But you reminded me that my brethren and I were created as weapons of mass destruction. Since they knew of no way to destroy us, the Agantzane put us to sleep for the benefit of all in the Consensus. I decided the best course was to honour the wisdom of their choice and shut myself down. However, I have found a third way.”

  “And that involves the gormgast?” Quinn asked.

  “Yes, Quinn. I learned that the Agantzane engineered the gormgast as an alternative to the dolin—one that they could more easily control. I theorised that if I could modify their core directive, maybe I could do the same for my brethren on Kastarann. So while the conflict raged, I transmitted a signal inviting them to consider a new path.” The dolin turned its head and regarded the hundreds of shattered gormgast spread across the desert. “Most would not listen, but a few responded. I am attempting to give them a new purpose.”

  Vyasa breathed into his ear. “This is reckless. You have to get it to stop.”

  Quinn raised a hand to the dolin. “Excuse us a moment.” He turned to Vyasa and spoke in hushed tones. “I don’t know. It might be on to something. If we could turn the gormgast to our side, it might shorten this campaign considerably and give us another potential ally.”

  “I’m talking about the other dolin,” she hissed. “If it revives them, the results could be catastrophic for the Consensus and for Earth.”

  “Well, I admit it’s not my area, but aren’t we talking about two completely different technologies? The gormgast are biomechanical whereas the dolin were engineered using some lost Agantzane tech involving ‘living stone’ from some place called Camillas. I doubt what works with one would work with the other.”

  “Exactly! If it succeeds here, it’s going to go to Kastarann and wake the other dolin. The risk is too great.”

  Quinn wiped perspiration from his brow. Zothan had gifted him a new mesh garment to replace the one he had shredded, but although it looked identical, it didn’t seem to cool him as efficiently as the old one. He’d concluded this must be his imagination.

  “Look,” Quinn said, “I have the gormgast, the Agantzane, the Damise, and the AI to cope with. I can’t worry about what the dolin may or may not do at some future time. Right now, we need it to… What the—”

  Numbing cold seeped into Quinn’s back. He shucked his pack and let it slip to the ground.

  “What’s the matter?” Vyasa demanded.

  “I don’t know,” Quinn replied.

  He upended his pack, tumbling the contents out. The crystal Balaki had given him was covered with rime. It emitted a thin haze of white steam.

  Vyasa extended slender fingers.

  Quinn caught her wrist. “Careful! It’s giving off intense cold.”

  Her gaze found his. “How—”

  As if to answer, the air fizzed, and Vil-gar’s small silver sphere appeared. Beneath it, his projection stuttered into life. The little creature gazed around and sniffed. “It worked! It actually worked! My genius astonishes even me, sometimes!”

  Quinn’s mouth drew into a line. “What are you doing here?”

  “I need your help.” Vil-gar’s wizened features twisted with fresh cracks, and his eyes grew misty. “I’m dying!”

  ~

  “You have to help me!”

  Quinn hovered between sympathy and irritation. “Calm down. You’re referring to your corporeal form, right? I assume it’s still in the avatron on Pann.”

  “Of course! Where else would it be? Do you think it just wandered off on its own?”

  Quinn closed his eyes and silently appealed for patience. “No, but it was dying when we left it. It’s over three thousand years old. I’m sorry, but no one lives forever.”

  The projection’s lines blurred as it jumped up and down. “No, no, no! You don’t understand! Why, oh why, am I saddled with a human, the most moronic race in the galaxy, which can’t even see the blindingly obvious! What am I?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “What am I?”

  “You’re Vil-gar.”

  “Not who… What?”

  “Uh, a projection?”

  “Right. So what does that mean?”

  Quinn looked to Vyasa for inspiration, but her expression was blank. “I suppose if your body dies—”

  “Then I cease to exist,” Vil-gar said. “What do you think will happen then?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

  “Then let me spell it out for you. My body dies, and I vanish. The Damise redouble their assault on the Haven, realising their only way of navigating null space and returning to our universe is to force the Elinare to help them. Along the way, they discover I’ve been disrupting their efforts. In a matter of days, perhaps hours, they break through the Elinare defensive net, laying waste to the artificial planet. Then they cross back into our universe with their invincible AI-modified fleet. Now do you understand?”

  “Yes, of course,” Quinn replied. “But I’m not sure how I can help.”

  “You can travel to Pann with your Osei engineering adept and fix my avatron.”

  Quinn spread his arms. “I have my hands full here! Besides, Pann will almost certainly have been overrun by the Damise’s AI, and—”

  “And you lost the Shanata vessel,” Vil-gar finished.

  “How’d you know?”

  “I calculated a fifty-three percent chance that you would fail to control the rhadeon variance and that the blockading vessels would detect you and set some kind of a trap.”

  “We still have the Elinare sphere,” Vyasa offered.

  Vil-gar sniffed. “No good. They’d detect you in a moment. Fortunately, with my vast intelligence, I have prepared for every contingency. Behold!” He flourished a bony arm upwards.<
br />
  Quinn squinted at the sky, which resembled a bowl of shimmering mercury. Then he spotted a white streak. “Something’s coming.”

  “Someone,” Vil-gar corrected. “An old friend.”

  A rushing sound filled Quinn’s ears. A trio of Nemazi darts came in low over the desert, trailing wisps of dark smoke. He ducked instinctively as they passed directly overhead then watched as they shot into the sky. The dolin raised its head and tracked their trajectory, and every one of the gormgast followed with their eyestalks like obedient children—or Midwitch Cuckoos…

  “What are they doing?” Vil-gar demanded.

  A couple of seconds passed before Quinn realised he was talking about the Nemazi. “Uh, we persuaded the omesku to commit their surviving darts to join the fight against the gormgast.”

  “Then why are they attacking the Kimn?”

  “You brought the Kimn here?”

  “Of course. How do you expect to return to Pann on the ship you crashed!”

  “The Nemazi will assume any incoming ship is AI-controlled,” Vyasa said.

  Quinn addressed Vil-gar. “You didn’t foresee that?”

  “They weren’t supposed to have any darts left. In any case, it doesn’t matter. The Kimn will obliterate them.”

  Vyasa’s brow furrowed. “Nemazi darts are among the quickest and most manoeuvrable short-range vessels in the Consensus, and their phasing ability lessens damage from incoming strikes. I would say the Kimn are at a disadvantage.”

  Vil-gar stuck his long nose in the air. “You think so?”

  A patch of air darkened, showing an image of outer space. Sunlight glinted off a delta-shaped vessel. Slim darts buzzed around it like angry flies.

  An orb like a glowing coal emerged from the delta ship’s bow, arced towards the nearest dart, and imploded. Massive distortions ripped apart the dart’s hull before it disappeared in a brilliant blue flash.

  “You equipped the Kimn with your new ka-horeth weapons,” Quinn said.

  “Naturally,” Vil-gar replied.

  “Tell them to cease fire.”

  “And let your Nemazi savages destroy them? Never! I told you, the Kimn are essential to my preservation, and my preservation is essential to the Consensus’s survival, as well as Earth.”