The Crucible

by Mark Whiteway

  “You’re saying it wasn’t just my superior negotiating skills?”

  “The only reason the Qan-ho-nah let you leave was because it suited their purpose. And I think we can conclude something else. You said the being who calls herself Rahada entered you against your will and tortured Keiza. Those are serious crimes. So why didn’t the Qan-ho-nah stop her?”

  “What?”

  “Why didn’t they intervene? The Qan-ho-nah monitor the activity of every Elinare. They were given that capability so that they could coordinate work on the Problem. So why would they stand by and do nothing?”

  “They’re in on it,” Quinn breathed. “But why? What’s their game?”

  “I don’t know,” Aurek replied. “But if they had imprisoned and tortured Keiza on the Haven, they would never have gotten away with it. Maybe this was a way for them to exact their version of justice.”

  “The Agantzane…”

  Aurek smirked. “Now you’re the one who’s lost me.”

  “The Agantzane were prepared to sacrifice anything and anyone for their grand principle of justice, one plus one equals two. The Elinare are no better than them.”

  “The Qan-ho-nah,” Aurek corrected. “The overwhelming majority of Elinare would be horrified at such an abuse of trust.”

  “We have to expose them.”

  “Careful, Quinn. The Qan-ho-nah are powerful. More than that, their continued existence is vital to our finding a solution to the hole-in-the-universe problem. The whole of existence is at stake.”

  “I have to deal with the immediate threat, the Damise and their AI. I can’t be concerned with what may or may not happen in two billion years.”

  A sound like a whispering crowd or a thousand slithering snakes crept around a bend in the corridor. Behind it oozed a shiny black mass.

  “Looks like we no longer need to go to engineering,” Aurek said. “The AI has found us.”

  ~

  Quinn stood transfixed as the AI flowed up the walls, sending out questing tendrils that were then reabsorbed into the whole. The effect was almost hypnotic.

  Grey advanced towards the phenomenon. Quinn lunged at her, only to pull up short as Aurek reappeared in front of him, palm raised. “Stop! You mustn’t let it touch you.”

  The dark slick surrounded and smothered the Osei.

  “It’s not her,” Aurek reminded him. “She’s a character in a simulation, nothing more.”

  He’s right, of course.

  “We should get out of here now,” Aurek urged.

  Quinn shook his head. “Just a moment.”

  The AI rose from the floor. Slowly, as if guided by the fingers of an invisible sculptor, it resolved into legs, torso, arms, a head, and facial features, all as black as a chasm.

  Rahada.

  Her eyes opened like dark pits. “You surprise me. I was convinced you would run.”

  “What have you done with Keiza?” Quinn demanded.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t play innocent. You drove her out of the Osei.”

  “So she left Grey. Interesting. Perhaps she was bored. Occupying the lower races can be so… dull.”

  “Stop messing about and put her back!”

  “I cannot. I have no idea where she is.”

  She’s lying. But even if that were true, Quinn had no power to force the truth out of her, let alone get her to restore Keiza. He would have to try a different path.

  “Why bring me back here?”

  “Why return a criminal to the scene of his crime? Your investigator friend should know the answer to that one.”

  “He’s not an investigator—he’s one of you. And I think you have a connection to him that you won’t admit, one that explains this re-creation.”

  The air shimmered. Quinn choked. He was shackled to a post, surrounded by smoke and flames. Fire licked around a woodpile at his feet, igniting his Nemazi robe and searing his skin. He opened his mouth to scream…

  The bonfire vanished, and he was back on the Osei ship. He reached down, fingers trembling. His calves were reddened and blistered, and the fringes of his robe still smouldered. He swallowed. Guess I hit a nerve.

  Aurek stepped forward and faced Rahada’s effigy. “I don’t know who you are or what I once meant to you. But I want no part of you, do you hear? You are a disgrace to everything the Elinare stand for.”

  Her blackened face fell. “You don’t understand. You’re merely a part of this re-creation.”

  “A part of your re-creation,” Aurek corrected. “I am drawn from this human’s memory, but I react as you would have me react, and you know I would never be a party to such… cruelty.”

  “I am set on a path. I cannot turn aside.”

  “What path?” Quinn interjected. “What’s making you do these things?”

  The air shimmered once more, and bright light washed over him. The pain in his legs was gone. He stood in a forest of silver boles and copper leaves. The sky was a shining dome with no sun. The Haven. I’m back on the Haven… or a representation of it, at least. But why?

  He turned slowly. The metallic trees stretched as far as the eye could see. Nailed to each trunk was a ragged sheet of parchment. He went to the nearest and examined it. It was crammed with unfamiliar symbols.

  “Do you know what you’re looking at?”

  Quinn whirled. A female figure stood before him, clad in the white robe of the Elinare. She was as thin as a rail, with long, pure-white hair and features that morphed from severity to softness and back again like a curtain, drawn and redrawn. She reminded him of a shy girl in college he had worshipped from afar.

  “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

  She smiled without humour. “They are our failures.”

  “Failures?”

  “Theories. Formulae. Geometric progressions. Subsets tending into ever more subsets. All worthless dead ends fit only for kindling.”

  “You’re talking about your hole-in-the-universe problem.”

  “That’s right. It is the Qan-ho-nah’s most closely guarded secret, that after three millennia, we are no farther forward than when we started.”

  “I wouldn’t worry,” Quinn said. “You have a couple billion years to figure it out.”

  She smiled again as if tolerating a dumb puppy. “You don’t understand. Everything we have uncovered suggests that there is no answer, that we are wasting our time.”

  “And yet you carry on?”

  “With the fate of two universes at stake, what would you do?”

  Quinn bit his lower lip and nodded. “Point taken.”

  “There’s something else you must see. Follow me.” She swept past him without waiting for a reply.

  He remained rooted to the spot.

  She turned, eyes downcast. Copper-coloured leaves rustled in a gentle breeze. “I am deeply sorry for before. I was driven by base desires. Aurek reminded me that such fits of wrath are unworthy of a member of my race. I give you my word that no harm will befall you here.” She resumed her path through the glittering forest.

  After a moment’s hesitation, he trotted to catch up. “Is this your true form?”

  “My true…? Oh, I see what you mean. In a sense, yes. Elinare gave up their physical bodies so that we could exist in the neighbour universe. But this was my original appearance. I am called Salahan.”

  “What happened to Rahada?”

  “I told you before. She remains on the Haven as a guest of the Qan-ho-nah.”

  The leaves shone like mirror shards. A patchwork of light and dark tumbled across the forest floor.

  “I don’t believe you’re being honest with me,” Quinn said.

  Salahan turned to face him. “I realise you have reason to distrust me. But I assure you that your Shanata friend will not be harmed.”

  Quinn shook his head. “It’s not that. It’s”—he made a sweeping gesture—“this place.”

  “This is the Haven.”

  “Yes, but Elinare re-creations a
re supposed to be drawn from the subject’s recollections and experiences. Wherever this forest is, I was never here. Nor was I told about it. This doesn’t come from me. So how is it that I am experiencing it?”

  Her mouth quirked into a slight smile. “When I said earlier that communing with lower races was dull, I was being less than truthful. Aurek was right—humans possess a perceptiveness that is delightful and quite surprising. You are quite correct. For the purposes of this scenario, I have superimposed my matrix on your hippocampus. This scenario is drawn from my memory.”

  “Isn’t that contrary to the Elinare code of conduct governing the occupation of other beings?”

  “As a matter of fact, it is.”

  “And yet the Qan-ho-nah are turning a blind eye.”

  “In the circumstances, they are allowing me a certain latitude.”

  “What circumstances?”

  “That will become clear to you very shortly. In the meantime, I must ask you to trust me.”

  Quinn saw the opening and took it. “You want my trust? Then tell me—what have you done with Keiza?”

  “Nothing.”

  “And you expect me to believe that?”

  She halted before a golden bole. “I don’t know what happened to her. I know you assigned Keiza to create and maintain a virtual environment in order to give the Osei the illusion of her Unity and allow her to function. Keiza told you that maintaining such a re-creation indefinitely would be extremely difficult. It is possible she wearied of the task and the simulation collapsed.”

  “Even if that happened, Keiza wouldn’t have abandoned her to her fate.”

  “I have no answer for you, Quinn.”

  He tapped his lips with a forefinger. “Aurek told me the Qan-ho-nah have some kind of link with each Elinare. Couldn’t they track her using that?”

  Salahan closed her eyes for several moments. When she opened them, they were misted. “She is unreceptive. Which could mean—”

  “That she’s dead,” Quinn finished. Darkness gathered within him despite the pervasive daylight.

  “I’m afraid I have more bad news. Vil-gar is about to expire.”

  “Th-that can’t be. The Cethlan assured me they could repair his avatron.”

  “See for yourself.”

  The air peeled back, and a vision of the interior of a spacious complex unfurled before him. At its centre, the avatron lay open, displaying Vil-gar’s dessicated form. Banks of flickering machinery encircled the life-support device while half a dozen Cethlan slithered between them, hissing at one another. Kah-lar stared at a readouts on a screen while Par-shan looked on.

  A high-pitched warbling sounded. The Cethlan’s hissing grew louder as their tentacles made rapid adjustments. The warbling became a steady tone, and their bald, round heads drooped.

  Kah-lar turned to Par-shan. “We lost him. I’m sorry.”

  Par-shan’s hand went to her mouth.

  The vision rolled up like a scroll and was replaced by shimmering sky.

  Quinn felt cold despite the intense light.

  “They did their best,” Salahan said. “But in the end, his physical body was simply too decrepit. I’m sorry.” She resumed her trek through the forest.

  Quinn grabbed her by a shoulder, spun her around, and yelled into her face. “Good God, don’t you realise what this means? If he’s gone, then so has his avatar. Soon, the Damise will break through the barrier protecting the Haven. They’ll devastate this world and force your people to navigate them back to the portal. Then they’ll crush all remaining resistance within the Consensus. Earth and its dependent worlds will fall soon after.”

  He swallowed as he recalled his death touch and let his hand drop, but then he remembered the Elinare were noncorporeal.

  Salahan regarded him with the mix of patience and pity that a parent might show a petulant child. “I feel your loss, Quinn. But you must see what I have to show you.” She set off once again.

  Quinn followed, but his brain felt disconnected from his body.

  The trees parted, revealing a large knoll covered in golden grass. The grass waved gently, though Quinn could feel no wind. Atop the knoll, beneath the blinding dome of sky, two figures knelt, facing one another.

  Salahan flashed a weak smile. “Come on.”

  Together, they ascended.

  About halfway up, she raised a hand. “This is close enough.”

  Quinn peered at the figures. “That’s Aurek. The other looks like you.”

  “Quite right.”

  Faced with the imminent destruction of everything and everyone he knew, Quinn’s patience was like worn-out tissue paper. “I’m sorry, but what does any of this have to do with—”

  “Watch.”

  Her hushed voice silenced him. He stared, transfixed by the pair on the summit.

  A pinprick of light appeared between them, bathing them in soft yellow illumination. It grew in intensity until it enveloped the figures on the hill. Quinn took a step forward. The air above the two figures congealed, forming a halo of dark, boiling clouds that rotated slowly. A spiteful wind slapped Quinn’s cheek. He started forward again but felt a restraining hand on his shoulder.

  “It’s beginning,” Salahan said, the wind clutching at her words. “You cannot prevent it.”

  “Prevent what?” Quinn yelled. “What’s happening?”

  “The merging. Aurek and I had grown together over the centuries, our intellects intertwined, linked together as we worked on the Problem. We were convinced that together we could achieve a new level of awareness. But the Qan-ho-nah saw it as a dangerous precedent, a distraction.”

  The wind became a gale. Lightning crackled from the clouds on the hill. A single bolt struck the space between the two figures, extinguishing the light between them and blowing them backwards. Arms and legs flailing, each rose into the air as if grasped by an invisible fist. The black maelstrom swallowed them and drifted skywards, lit by energy flashes.

  “They broke us apart, forbidding any and all future contact,” Salahan said. “Shortly afterwards, the anomaly was detected in your universe, the unexplained destruction of the Shanata system. Aurek agreed to investigate. I think he wanted an excuse to get away from the Haven… and me. That was how he encountered you.

  “When news broke that Aurek had expired, something deep within me shattered. I couldn’t work… couldn’t think. Shortly afterwards, the Damise laid siege to the Haven and began bombardment with their AI-enhanced ships. My people attempted to bolster the Haven’s energy barrier, but after centuries of devotion to pure thought, our technological and engineering skills had atrophied. It would only be a matter of time before the Damise overran my world. Then you arrived, and everything changed.”

  “Me?”

  “That’s right. When Aurek placed you and himself within the time pocket, the Qan-ho-nah were no longer able to monitor his actions. Somehow, he found a way to completely purge the combined Shanata, Osei, and Badhati fleet of the AI infestation. He is the only being ever to have overcome it. Sadly, that knowledge expired with him. Yet there is one place in the universe where it still exists. Your memory.”

  Quinn shook his head. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I have no more idea of how he did it than you.”

  “Consciously perhaps, but you witnessed those events as they happened. The recollection of them is”—she pointed at his temple—“in there.”

  “How do you propose to work out how Aurek did it?”

  “Simple,” she replied. “I want you to expire me.”

  ~

  Quinn glanced around at the forest of failures surrounding the golden knoll and moistened his lips in the still, parched air. “What? No, I’m not going to do that.”

  Salahan smiled without humour. “After everything I’ve done to you, I would have thought it would be easy—the well-deserved destruction of an enemy. You could even justify it as self-preservation.”

  “Was that the Qan-ho-nah’s plan, to provoke me into d
estroying you?”

  “Not to begin with. They simply needed the information in your head. That meant re-creating the events on the Osei ship in every detail, including—”

  “Including Aurek’s sacrifice. I get it. But why you?”

  “I volunteered. Aurek was gone. What we had together was also gone. All I had left was my rage towards the being that I was convinced had brought about his end.”

  “Me.”

  “You.”

  “Were you not angry at the Qan-ho-nah for splitting you up?”

  “At first. But I accepted they were motivated by the need for the Elinare to devote all their efforts towards solving the Problem. They told me that in time, when we were approaching a solution, it might be possible to relax the demands placed on us, that Aurek and I might be permitted to resume the Merging.

  “The Qan-ho-nah knew of your history with the Agantzane and your reluctance to take life. My vengeance was a way of breaking down your resistance, so that when the moment came, you would do what had to be done.”

  “So why jeopardise the plan by telling me this now?” Quinn asked.

  She sat cross-legged and patted the slope before her. He settled into the golden grass.

  She stared at her hands. “As I wandered the canyons of your mind, looking for memories of pain, nightmares—anything I could use against you—I came across a conversation you had with the Farish on the meaning of existence. Do you remember it?”

  Quinn smiled. “Vil-gar. He taught me that life had to involve more than mere survival, that at its heart, our existence is a quest for knowledge.”

  “Knowledge. Or in a wider sense, truth. When Aurek condemned me, my mind went back to that conversation. I had told myself that my actions were justified because the survival of my race and the fate of two universes depended on your expiring me as the AI. But if life is a search for universal truth, can it be based on a lie? You deserve to know the truth, Quinn.”

  Quinn drew a long breath. “I’m not sure I can go through with it, even knowing what’s at stake.”