Hammer and Crucible

by Cameron Cooper

  “Or it might upset your little empire,” I replied.

  “The array was already upset,” Ramaker said, his tone tired.

  I stared at him, my jaw loosening a little. That was not what I had meant at all. I turned his reply over in my mind. “You had a tiger by the tail,” I concluded.

  “You are more right than you know,” Ramaker replied.

  Elizabeth was studying me, a deep furrow between her brows. “You still don’t understand, do you?”

  “That you hung my son out to dry? Oh, I get it,” I replied. “Now you’re trying to kill the array by taking away the thing that gives it life.”

  Ramaker shook his head and glanced at Elizabeth.

  “Gently,” she breathed.

  Ramaker met my gaze. “We can’t kill it, Danny, because you give it life. You are the array.”

  25

  “Danny? Danny?” Juliyana’s voice.

  Couldn’t breathe. Locked in my chest.

  “Get her into the chair.” Deep woman’s voice. “Danny, can you hear me? If you can, take a breath. Just a little breath. The rest will come.”

  “What is wrong with her?” Male voice, close by.

  Hands on my arms. Lifted. Lowered. Cushions.

  “Shock. It will pass. Just give her a moment.” A hand on my cheek. Perfume. “Open your eyes. That will help.”

  I opened them. Parquetry desk, mottled browns. Screen emitter. Time ticking in the corner.

  Time!

  I drew a breath—I didn’t even think about it. It just came, along with a great easing in my chest as fresh oxygen circulated. The buzzing heat and pressure in my head went away, too.

  I managed to lift my chin. Juliyana stood in her corner, her damp cheeks now very white, her eyes large. Her hand was on the butt of her shriver once more, but no one was paying any attention to her.

  Elizabeth and Ramaker studied me. Ramaker straightened. “Back with us, then,” he said dryly.

  Elizabeth continued to frown.

  I swallowed. My throat clicked. “I’m fine,” I lied. “Peachy. I am not the array. I would know.”

  Elizabeth stood back and glanced at Ramaker.

  He leaned on the cupboard with one elbow. “Oh? Are you sure about that? Your reaction says otherwise.”

  “Don’t provoke her,” Elizabeth said softly. She turned back to me. “You are not aware of the array within your consciousness, because you were not supposed to be. You were meant to think you were perfectly normal, perfectly human.”

  I shook my head. “I remember my life! I had a son. His daughter stands there!” I pointed at Juliyana.

  “You had a life,” Ramaker said from the cupboard. “There is a period in your life that you don’t remember. You call it your personal blackout, because it happened at the same time as the array Blackout.”

  I gripped my hands together. “That was…a year after Drakas,” I breathed.

  Elizabeth glared at Ramaker. “You’re pushing too hard, Majesty.” She turned back to me. “After Drakas, after your son died, the array wanted another human body. Through Noam’s consciousness, it had learned who you were. It learned to love you as Noam did…and it wanted you. Your life. Your body.”

  “We refused, of course. It was already unstable over Noam’s death,” Ramaker drawled. “It didn’t like that answer.”

  Elizabeth’s tone was less cynical. “The array reached into the Ranger databases and arranged for you to be given a solo intelligence gathering assignment. You won’t remember any of this because we did not restore any memories that might have made you question what came after. The assignment was extremely dangerous, with overwhelming odds. You completed the assignment as ordered, but the guerillas found you. You took them out before your wounds overwhelmed you. All of them.” There was a touch of admiration in her tone.

  “The array wanted you to die,” Ramaker said. “It demanded we give it your body for its own use after that. When we refused, the array switched off the gates. All of them.” His mouth turned down.

  “The Blackout,” Juliyana said, and sighed.

  “Twenty days of no interstellar transport,” Ramaker said. “No communications. Dwindling resources. Emergency supplies couldn’t go through. Ships were lost inside the array, unable to exit their wormholes. When Darius III needed to be evacuated after an extinction level asteroid struck the planet, the people there had no means to call for help. They could do nothing but die, all three million of them.” To his credit, he looked upset.

  “We pleaded,” Elizabeth said softly. “It refused to respond.”

  “Until you gave it me,” I finished.

  She nodded.

  “I died…” I repeated. “How could you bring me back? It’s not possible.”

  “Not ordinarily,” Elizabeth said. “We have been able to store human memories and consciousness for hundreds of years, but we have never learned how to transfer them to another body. Trials have never managed to make the personality wake properly after the transfer. But in your case, your personality had always been in the body. We just had to revive the body.” She paused. “The medical scans that Rangers are required to go through every month include a scan and storage of consciousness and memories. We have collected such data for over a century, anticipating that one day we might be able to use them, perhaps even bring those who have fallen in the line of duty back to life. We used your most recent scan, which was only a week before you died, and inserted into the same type of implants that Noam had.”

  “Implants that give the array access to my mind.”

  “Implants that gave the array and you access to your body. You were dead, Danny. The only part of you still alive was in the implants.”

  Juliyana scrubbed at her face. “Fuck…” she breathed.

  Ramaker didn’t even blink at that.

  “Then you threw me under the same tractor as Noam, and tossed me out of the Rangers,” I finished.

  “That was the array’s criteria, not ours,” Ramaker said, his tone short. Irritated. “It wanted you to live a quiet life. As the intelligence mission you had completed was completely off the books—no one was aware of the assignment, as the array had made it up—it was easy to encourage the Rangers to put pressure on you to resign and slink away. Which you did, to live a very quiet and peaceful life for forty years.” Ramaker grimaced. “The array loved it. And for four decades, we have been at an equilibrium with it.” Then his mouth turned down even further. “Then it apparently decided that it had had enough of the quiet life.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “You know why it stirred things up, Ramy.”

  Ramy?

  The Emperor looked disgusted.

  Elizabeth turned back to me. “You were growing older. Dying, in fact, because of the implants. I am almost certain that the array did everything it has done to push you off your family’s barge and into a position where you were forced to undergo rejuvenation.”

  I leaned on the desk and pressed my hand to my temple. Was it even really my temple? “So I would live longer and it could have its life go on.”

  “It knew from your thoughts and from Noam’s memories that if it dangled the hope that Noam had died for noble reasons, and not the monster he had apparently become, then you would chase that hope down with all your energy and relentlessness. Only, that is where the array miscalculated.” Elizabeth smiled. “Over the years, the personality in the implant transferred itself to the physical brain in the body you had been using. You were alive by all normal definitions. That is why the rejuvenation on New Phoenicia went smoothly and the new implants were accepted by your body without issue.”

  I rubbed my temple again. Mine, after all.

  “All the array wanted, I suspect, is for you to have the rejuvenation. It arranged for the funds to pay for it and placed you in the best facility for the therapy. Then you very inconveniently continued chasing after the clues it had placed in front of you. You kept looking for the truth about Noam. We think it has been
doing its best to make sure you survive the complications you’ve created in your search. It found a ship for you because even the freighter lines were too risky. It pushed Dalton at you, so you would stop looking for him. But you persisted.”

  “That’s me,” I said, with a sigh. “Fucking stubborn.”

  Juliyana gave a weak smile.

  “Time,” Ramaker said, his tone abrupt. He pointed to the screen still showing the Eugorian Gate.

  I turned to study it. We all did.

  The timer ticked all the way down to zero while we stared at the starfield visible through the gate.

  The time showed 0.02 when the gate shimmered.

  The Lythion hung visible, the reflecting barrier switched off. Dalton had surrendered and taken the Emperor’s free pass.

  It hurt more than I thought it should. I watched four of the approaching ships move forward. One of them was a corvette, which had coupling ramps and chutes. They would board the Lythion and deal with Dalton. Give him his free pass.

  I wished him well.

  I realized I was sitting in the Emperor’s chair, bent over while I watched the screen. I was too tired to stand up, or even straighten up. “Why are you telling me all this?” I asked. “If it is true, then why isn’t the array screaming at me in my head that you’re all lying, and it only wants the Emperor to let it live?”

  Elizabeth put her hands together, a prim gesture. “It cannot talk to you directly. It never has. Your personality was too strong. It has probably spent years trying to reach you directly the way it did Noam, so that it could control the life it was living.”

  “So I got nightmares instead. And seizures,” I added bitterly.

  “They were the old implants malfunctioning,” Elizabeth said firmly.

  “Then why am I still having seizures and talking to the array?” I demanded.

  She froze. “That…isn’t possible.”

  Ramaker gave a soft, surprised sound. Finally, I’d shaken him. It was a nice feeling, but not nearly enough to compensate for the chaos raging in my chest and gut.

  “I saw her do it,” Juliyana said. “I mean, I saw Noam. The array.”

  Ramaker glanced at her. “Actually saw him?”

  “An avatar,” I ground out. “A facility provided by the Lythion’s advanced weirdness.” I looked at Ramaker.

  He didn’t smile. He didn’t acknowledge the prod at all. “What implants did they give her?” he demanded of Elizabeth.

  “Just the normal type,” she said quickly. Then she paused. “The new generation are one hundred percent biomass, though. Perhaps there is a flaw in the design, and with the array trying to reach her, they generate seizures, just like the old ones.”

  “Wonderful,” I said dryly. “But that’s beside the point. Why isn’t it trying to yammer at me now, and drop me to the ground?”

  “Because it wants to hear us tell you this,” Ramaker said patiently. “The array has manipulated you all along. It wanted you to confront me. We counted on it.”

  “Why?” I demanded.

  Ramaker spread his hands, a regal gesture. “So that you would be angry enough to kill me.”

  It took me a moment to choose between wanting to laugh out loud, or swear, or thump the desk. I just shook my head and gave a soft chuffing sound that was a pathetic mixture of everything I felt. “Then it doesn’t know me very well at all, if it thinks that me being pissed at you is enough. And I am pissed at you, Majesty. The things you have done in the name of placating this thing are monstrous all on their own. Dalton didn’t run and hide for nothing. You were going to get him out of the way somehow, but he rabbited before you could. You killed Moroder because I spoke to him. You’ve cleaned and covered and…what did you call it? Damage control? So yeah, I’m pissed as hell at you. You’ve ruined lives. You are ultimately responsible for Noam’s death. And mine, apparently. But that doesn’t mean I’d ever contemplate killing you. I’m a Ranger, dammit. We serve the Emperor. Even if he has the morals of a slug.”

  Ramaker didn’t seem to be upset by my multiple complaints and insults. “Elizabeth, you were right all along. I owe you a dinner.”

  She smiled.

  Then my head exploded with pain. I gripped it, trying to squeeze the pain back under control, breathing hard.

  And I could feel him there. Noam. The array.

  “No,” I breathed, fighting it.

  Noam stepped into my view, moving between Ramaker and Elizabeth. I could see Juliyana through him, but he was real. He wasn’t a product of my imagination. His face worked grimly. “You have to kill him. For me. People have to know about me. About all of us who died because of him.”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Catch her. Protect her head!” Elizabeth cried, but I couldn’t bring my gaze around to where she was. Noam held it.

  “You have the gun in your holster. It’s old, but it’s good enough. Shoot him,” Noam insisted, his hands clenched. “You’re right there! All the things I have had to do to get you there…don’t waste this moment!”

  I shook my head. “Shut up…” I whispered. I could see an ornate ceiling through him and processed that I was lying on the floor.

  “Do it for us!” Noam hissed. “For all of us. It is the only way to stop this happening to anyone else. What if he comes after Juliyana next?”

  “No,” I slurred helplessly.

  “You must!”

  Noam. It wasn’t Noam, but it was. Noam was a part of the array now. So was I.

  Then I knew what to do. “Shut up,” I breathed.

  “Help me, Danny,” Noam pleaded.

  “No. This isn’t what happens right now.”

  “Danny…”

  “You will shut up and step back out of my mind. Right now. I will fix this, do you hear? I will sort it out, but if you don’t behave yourself, I will find the nearest gravity well and throw myself into it. I was ready to die, Noam. You know I was. You were there and heard all my thoughts. You think I won’t embrace death now I’m rejuvenated? Now, shut up!”

  Silence.

  “Are you going to behave?” I demanded.

  “Yes.” His voice was small.

  “Then you may listen while I talk to him. Do not interrupt me. Understood?”

  “Yes.” Even smaller this time.

  “Good. Humans don’t interrupt and scream at each other like that. It is rude and it doesn’t generate cooperation. Now watch and listen.”

  I sighed. The headache was receding. I opened my eyes.

  I was on the floor. I had guessed that already. The rug was warm and thick. My head was on a cushion and I was on my side. Classic recovery position.

  I sat up, feeling the energy move through me.

  Elizabeth gripped my shoulder. She was on her knees next to me. “Slowly. You had another seizure.”

  “It wasn’t a seizure,” I told her. “Where’s the Emperor?”

  “Ramy!” Elizabeth called.

  The door into the front room opened and Juliyana and Ramaker came in. Juliyana looked relieved. Ramaker looked urbane, the snake. How had I ever considered him charming? It was all surface. The interior was blacker than the hole in my memory.

  But he was the Emperor.

  I got to my feet. Elizabeth tried to help me. “I’m fine,” I told her, shaking off her hands. “Majesty, we have something to discuss.”

  Ramaker looked me over. “It tried to make you kill me.”

  “Clearly, it didn’t succeed. Noam is listening to me, now. That puts you in an interesting position, Majesty.”

  “Noam?” Ramaker replied, startled.

  Then the window blew in.

  They were armored windows. I didn’t think there was anything that could break them. I dived to the floor once more as shards of razor sharp glass as thick as my thumb spat across the room like maniacal darts.

  An answering shout came from beyond the door of the study. The door was rammed open, just as a figure in a black environment suit swung through th
e hole in the window, to drop to the floor behind Ramaker’s desk.

  The Shield house guards boiled into the room, their heavy boots crunching on the glasseen.

  Dalton leapt across the rug and threw his arm around Ramaker’s throat and pressed another of the antique shrivers against his temple. “Tell them to stay back,” he growled.

  Ramaker winced and threw up his hand in the classic “halt” position.

  The faceless, helmeted guards all paused, their shrivers raised. Theirs would be the latest, most powerful editions, unavailable to the public, and with a firepower that would stop a planet in its tracks…and reduce the hapless victim they shot at to a small bag of vapor.

  I shuddered, and felt a touch of dismay and fright that was not mine.

  They won’t shoot when the Emperor might be harmed, I said soothingly in my mind.

  The fear backed off a little.

  Dalton retracted the faceplate and hood of the suit. His face was sweaty—he really did not like being enclosed like that—but he spoke evenly as he said to Ramaker, “By the way, Your Imperial Majesty, I decline your offer.”

  “That is…awkward,” Ramaker said, his voice strained against the grip that Dalton had on his throat.

  I glanced out the window. A cable hung there, swinging slightly from Dalton’s descent. I moved to the window and looked up. The cable climbed all the way to the very top of the dome, and through the dome itself. The hole in the dome was plugged by the same nanobot replacement as the hole we had created. And even further overhead, floating well out of the gravity sink of the city, was the Lythion.

  I looked at Dalton. “But I saw the ship on the screen.” I pointed at the screen on Ramaker’s desk, which was showing the normal gate now. The fleet had fallen back. I had a feeling the birthday honors parade would be delayed, this year.

  Dalton shrugged. “We replaced one shield with another. They saw what they wanted. By now the Shield are trying to let the Emperor know it was a fake-out. But it gave me the time I needed.”

  I wanted to laugh at the sour look on Ramaker’s face. He understood precisely the position he was now in.

  “Tell the guards to leave, Majesty,” I told him. “Dalton, you can let him go. I’ve got this.”