The Crucible

by Mark Whiteway

  “Is everyone all right?” he asked.

  “I am with Kah-lar. We are unharmed.” The strained voice was Par-shan’s.

  Quinn assumed Kah-lar must be the healer’s name.

  “Grey,” Quinn called, belatedly remembering that was a private name he had assigned to the creature. “Has anyone seen the Osei?”

  “I am here, Quinn.”

  Grey’s voice was at his elbow. The Osei did not have eyes—at least, no organs Quinn could recognise as eyes. However, bats on Earth used sonar to “see” the world around them, and pit vipers possessed infrared vision. If the Osei had a similar ability, it could very well be a lifeline down here.

  “At least we all made it,” Quinn said.

  “After a fashion,” Grey replied. “Vil-gar’s projection is gone. The machine that generated it no longer functions. And his physical form will not last much longer.”

  “Can we summon help?”

  “I don’t see how. The subuniverse has collapsed. We are completely exposed to whatever creatures inhabit this realm.”

  “I think this is the Cethlan level,” Quinn said.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I don’t know. The damp. The stench of rust and machine fumes. I’ve been here before.”

  A steady hum sounded from above. Three horseshoe-shaped vessels descended, lit by running lights.

  The reception committee. “All right, let’s go meet them.”

  “Is that wise?” Par-shan asked.

  “We’ve nowhere to run. Besides, I negotiate better face-to-face than running away.” He set off towards the ships.

  She hurried after him. “You’re insane, human! We have nothing with which to negotiate!”

  “Well, I won’t know what they want until I’ve talked with them.”

  “What they want is our heads!”

  “More than likely. But perhaps I can offer them something more valuable.”

  Powerful arc lights on the three ships snapped on, illuminating the entire area. A graveyard of broken machines lay interspersed with dark puddles. At the centre was a group of Cethlan. Frills sprouted on either side of their snakelike heads, and their supple tentacles grasped a variety of instruments, including the needle weapons he’d encountered before. They reminded him of the Hydra of ancient Greek legend. Behind them was a mixed band representing others drawn from among the lower races. Observers? Or servants, perhaps?

  He halted at what seemed a respectful distance.

  One of the Cethlan slithered forward. “Two Kimmmmn,” the creature said in a voice that reminded him of a fussy aunt. “One Ossssei. One creature of undeterminnnned origin. An inferior speccccimen.”

  Quinn raised an eyebrow.

  “Neverthelessss, it maaaay be worthy of sssstudy. The Ossssei is a sssservant of the Agantzaaaane. It musssst not be haaaarmed. The Sunstealer Kimn are our enemiessss. Expiiiire them!”

  ~

  A dozen Anghard soldiers, called ascari, moved through the Cethlan ranks and separated into two groups. They appeared to have had an equipment upgrade—their traditional leather-style armour had been replaced by a shimmering copper-like metal, and their pikes and staves bore a silver sheen. They surrounded Par-shan and Kah-lar and levelled their weapons.

  Quinn raised his arms. “Stop! You can’t do that.”

  One of the Anghard jabbed Kah-lar as if to make a point, and she dropped to one knee, clutching her side.

  “You have trespassed into our domain,” the Cethlan declared. “The domain of the Cethlan Autocracy.”

  “Ah, yes. Sorry about that. We had power issues. And microuniverses are a bear when it comes to steering.”

  “Carryyyy out the sentencccce!”

  “I told you, you can’t do that.”

  “The Cethlan Autocracy’s woooord is laaaaw heeeere!”

  “No one’s disputing that. But you have an agreement with the Kimn. They’re your allies now. You can’t go ’round executing your allies. Destructive to morale, I’d say.”

  The Cethlan lapsed into a flurry of conversation in their language. They sounded like a collection of whistling teapots.

  Finally, the lead Cethlan raised its head. “We recogniiiise noooo such agreeeement.”

  “Quinn!” A snub-nosed giant burst into the circle of light. Clad in new armour similar to the Anghard’s, the Lampetia clumped over, grasped Quinn’s torso with an immense fist and lifted him onto his shoulder. “This is Quinn,” he announced, as if introducing a lifelong friend.

  “You know thissss creature?”

  “Of course! It was during the time of the uprising. The Kimn trapped us within their cushatra. They demanded that one in five of us be expired as the price of our freedom. Quinn reached an agreement that reversed the cull and guaranteed the lower races their rightful place in the sun! Many would not be alive today were it not for him.”

  “You sssswear heeee is the one?”

  The Lampetia raised himself to his full height. “Lampetia do not lie. Ask the hundreds of others who were there. He is Quinn the Human. He is one of us. If you choose to expire him and his companions, you will have to expire me also!”

  “Sallsassah sasshah!” the Cethlan hissed.

  The Anghard withdrew their weapons and slunk back to their lines. Kah-lar rose, still holding her side.

  Quinn exhaled slowly. “Well, now that we’re all friends here, maybe I could ask a small favour. A member of our party is extremely ill. You have advanced technology. Perhaps you could help him.

  “None of you appearrrrs unwell.”

  Quinn waved absently. “He’s back there in the casket. He’s Farish.”

  “The Farishhhh are no morrrre. The Moooogrey overraaaan their level loooong agoooo.”

  “Actually, he’s the last of his kind. And he’s vital to your survival as well as ours. Will you help him?”

  “Weeee are Cethlan. Guaaaardians of ancient knowledge. Custoooodians of long-forgotten technologies. Ten thouuuusand years ago, the Cethlan empire stretched across a thouuuusand suns. Weeee shall not be denied our desssstiny!”

  “Yes, but in the meantime, could you help my friend here?”

  “I will doooo far moooore, Humaaaan Quiiiinn. I will shoooow you what no sunstealer has ever seeeen.”

  Quinn jumped as a wide double curve of lights beneath his feet snapped on. More lights winked to life, spreading out and crisscrossing the platform like an elaborate road system. At the centre lay the base of a vast construction. The lights swept up it, revealing an immense tower that terminated at the next platform, the Anghard level. Scores of tiny illuminated ships swarmed around the tower like midges. Huge bay doors opened like mouths, disgorging dozens of the midge-like ships while swallowing others.

  Quinn stared open-mouthed. “Looks like you’ve been busy.”

  ~

  The broken machines, the stagnant pools, the stench of decay—that was all a ruse. Those few who ventured this far down saw only what they expected to see and carried back tales of a degenerate and dying civilisation who had turned their backs on technology. Meanwhile, the Cethlan had toiled in the darkness, waiting for the day when they could rise up and reclaim their supremacy.

  But it wasn’t going to be that easy.

  After listening to them pontificate for some while about their past achievements, Quinn had finally been able to explain that the Damise’s AI now controlled pretty much the entire Consensus and that their only hope lay with a creature dying in a three-thousand-year-old coffin. A larger Cethlan craft whisked them all to the tower, where Quinn now sat alone at an open portal, staring down at a surface cloaked once more in darkness. Apparently the mighty Cethlan Autocracy had decided it would be better not to reveal their true nature to the universe just yet.

  He needed good news like some folks needed their morning caffeine fix. His fingers closed around the Badhati crystal, and he lifted it to his lips. “Zothan.”

  Utter silence filled the dark, smooth-walled chamber where he s
at.

  “Zothan, can you hear me?”

  Still nothing. He considered holding it to his ear and shaking it, but the image struck him as absurd. He was about to put it away and try another time, but then the crystal glowed the colour of old blood.

  “Quinn?”

  “Zothan, is that you?”

  “Yes, Quinn. It is the middle of the night here on Nemazi.”

  Quinn smiled. “Sorry, my friend. This thing doesn’t have a built-in time-zone app.”

  “I expected to hear from you before now.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s been wild here. Pann is a mess. The Medyran platforms are almost totally destroyed, and the lower races have overrun what’s left of the upper levels. We lost more than half our team just getting to the avatron.”

  “What of Vil-gar?”

  Quinn sighed. “His projection lost power, but his body still lives. In an odd twist, one of Pann’s lower races, the Cethlan, are caring for him. They’re confident that they can repair his avatron. They’ve preserved a lot of advanced technology down here.”

  “Do you think they might join our cause?”

  “I’m not sure. They seem bent on galactic domination rather than helping us recapture this corner of it. How are things on Nemazi?”

  “Our deserts have been mostly cleared of gormgast opposition. Any remaining pockets of resistance are largely confined to the hills. However, with so much gormgast technology now lying around awaiting retrieval, the omesku have begun to bicker over salvage rights. Our hard-won unity is beginning to fracture.”

  “Tell them the Shanata Tamah says to… get a grip.”

  “I am not sure they will understand the reference, Quinn.”

  “Then tell them I said that all the junk belongs to me, and any zathaar who directs his omesku to collect it rather than support the liberation effort will lose his share.”

  “I believe that will have the desired effect.”

  “Good. How goes the work on refitting the darts?”

  “Slowly. We have not encountered Founder-Race technology before. Much of the theory behind it is unknown to us.”

  “Well, keep at it.”

  “There is something else, Quinn.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It is the dolin. The speed of our success has been due in part to the dolin’s ability to reprogram a significant proportion of the gormgast. The altered specimens now number in the thousands.”

  “You believe them to be a threat?”

  “It is difficult to call them that,” Zothan said. “They have made no aggressive moves, but they are highly inquisitive. They wander into our omesku, whirring and clicking, scaring our young and panicking the pozetkah herds. Humans have a word for them. Creepy.”

  “Surely your people aren’t frightened by a few overly curious biomechanical tourists?”

  “It is not the gormgast they fear. It is the dolin. The construct is an ancient Agantzane weapon of great power, and it is highly protective of its charges. They are afraid that if they confront the gormgast, the dolin will wreak vengeance on them.”

  “I don’t think that would happen.”

  “Nevertheless…”

  “All right, all right. When I get back, I’ll ask it to keep the dogs off your lawn. Anything else?”

  “I do not believe so.”

  “Okay. I’ll be in touch. Hang in there.”

  Quinn stuffed the crystal back into his pack. He had hoped the call to Zothan would lift his spirits, but his mood was darker than ever. On the face of it, things were going well. Nemazi was almost free, and he had gained a powerful, if unpredictable, new ally. Yet his plan to defeat the Damise’s AI was like a house of cards. A jog of the table, a stray gust of wind, a single misplacement, and it would all come tumbling down. And like Humpty Dumpty, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men wouldn’t be able to put it together again.

  Quinn heard a rustling and turned from the opening. Grey stood in the middle of the chamber. Her epidermis was milk white.

  “Keiza… is… gone.”

  ~

  Quinn lay with his eyes closed and contemplated stepping into the lion’s den.

  He had been putting off the final showdown until the last possible moment, but Grey’s crisis had dragged it into the here and now. The Elinare who called herself Rahada had remained dormant within him ever since he had confronted her over her relationship with Aurek. Was she meditating on his words or plotting revenge? He had no way to know. But now Keiza had left Grey alone to face the terror and confusion that came with the loss of the Osei Unity.

  Quinn had quizzed Grey, but that was like talking to someone in the midst of a living nightmare, and little of what she said made sense. Keiza would never have abandoned her willingly. Rahada had to be behind it.

  Rahada. He treaded water in a sea of memories. Rahada, talk to me.

  Silence. Then…

  He stood in a dim corridor. Beside him was Grey.

  A spectral figure in a grey trench coat popped out of the air. With a fedora tipped over one eye, the apparition was a grey-skinned incarnation of fictional private eye Lance Larsen. His other eye flashed. “Are we ready?”

  “Aurek,” Quinn said.

  “What did you say?” Grey asked.

  “N-nothing.” He was back on the Osei ship.

  Aurek of the Elinare had taken up residence in Quinn’s mind and was invisible to anyone else, including Grey. Aurek was about to execute a plan to purge the ship of the Damise’s AI, a plan that would end in his own destruction. Could history be altered? In a different simulation, Aurek had insisted that was impossible, but that didn’t mean Quinn couldn’t give it a try.

  “Come on,” Aurek said. “We need to get to the engineering section.”

  “We must begin by retaking engineering,” Grey said.

  Quinn shook his head. “It’s not going to work.”

  “What do you mean?” Grey and Aurek chorused.

  “Your plan… the plan involves using time pockets to slow the AI’s advance, giving us time to purge it from the ship’s systems and the affected crew.”

  “You can slow time?” Grey asked.

  “Yes… no… It doesn’t matter. What we’re forgetting is that the AI is adaptive. It reacts to invasive procedures and develops counterstrategies.”

  “Don’t worry. The time pockets will take care of that,” Aurek said. “It won’t have time to think—literally.”

  Quinn shook his head. “You’re wrong. Somehow, it’ll realise what we’re doing and speed up the time pockets, making it faster than us. It’ll use our technique against us. When you realise what it’s doing, you’ll try to introduce a spurious command to disrupt its systems. It’ll respond with a lethal discharge designed to destroy me. You’ll interpose your matrix, saving me but sacrificing yourself in the process.”

  “Whom are you talking to?” Grey asked.

  Quinn ignored her.

  “You speak of these events as if they had already happened,” Aurek said. “As if this were a simulation.”

  “It’s exactly that,” Quinn said.

  Aurek’s eye darkened. “If what you say is true, then nothing that happens here can alter the flow of events in the real world. I will do what I must.”

  “In this case, what you do or don’t do could matter a great deal. Do you know of another Elinare who might be… upset if you ceased to exist?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Then let me put it another way. Are you close to anyone among your people?”

  Aurek frowned. “If you are referring to base emotions, they are the driving force of the lower races. The Elinare shed their corporeal form millennia ago. We have risen above such petty concerns.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  Aurek’s gaze fell.

  “Forgive me. I meant no offence,” Quinn said.

  Aurek smirked. “You’re perceptive, human. Elinare bask in their achievements. We tell ourselves
that we are the first sentient race ever to rise above architect level, that we exist in a region of pure thought. Yet rivalries abound among us. Perhaps it’s we who are foolish to think we could so easily escape our origins.”

  “So is there anyone who might mourn your passing?”

  The last time Quinn had posed a similar question in a simulation, Rahada had confused Aurek’s speech. Still, he had nothing to lose by trying.

  “I cannot say,” Aurek said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I know of no one who might fit that description. But if I exist only as part of a re-creation within your mind, then that would be entirely consistent.”

  Wheels within wheels. “Because this re-creation is drawn from my recollections of you and your expressions. Your memories died with you.”

  “Exactly.” Aurek touched the brim of his hat with a slender finger. “Maybe a little deductive reasoning might help. After all, that is what Lance Larsen was famous for. This Elinare has taken up residence within you, just as I did, correct?”

  “That’s right. Only it was against my will.”

  “That is a grave violation of our most basic beliefs.”

  “It gets worse. She also imprisoned and tortured the Elinare who was occupying me at the time.”

  “Did she reveal her own name?”

  Quinn shook his head. “She assumed the guise of a Shanata friend of mine, Rahada. Her principal aim seems to be to destroy me. In a number of scenarios, she came close.”

  “Hmmm.” Aurek put an index finger to his lips. “I don’t think she was trying to expire you.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because bursting a blood vessel in your brain would have been a lot simpler and quicker.”

  “You’re saying she wanted to make me suffer?”

  “Yes, but not just her.”

  Quinn closed his eyes. “You’ve lost me.”

  “Think back to your last meeting with the Qan-ho-nah.”

  “You were dead by then. How could you—”

  Aurek tapped his temple. “We’re in your mind, remember? They allowed you to leave the Haven with Keiza on condition that you would not return.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “They agreed a bit readily, don’t you think? Elinare are the most advanced beings in the galaxy. Most would regard it as beneath them to speak to a member of the lower races. Yet they allowed you to reason with them, broker a deal, and even depart with one of their own.”