Tales From the Crucible

by Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells

  “You want to live… in my robot?”

  The light wavered a little. “If that is unacceptable, I understand. Robots are their own people, after all.”

  “No, it’s not that.” Roz thought of how TRIS had so little purpose right now, how she sometimes patted her empty treasure hold as if mourning the fact that it was empty. “I think TRIS might really enjoy having you with her. She always loved carrying me around, after all. It’s worth finding out, at least.” And if something in TRIS’s programming rebelled at the idea of having a passenger riding alongside, then Roz could bring the spirit back to the chariot. “I’d be happy to take you along with me. What, um, what’s your name?” She couldn’t keep using “spirit” if she wanted the other being to be comfortable.

  “You may call me… Stella.”

  “Stella. That’s lovely.” Roz grinned. “I’m Roz.”

  “Very pleased to meet you. Is that the correct greeting?”

  “That was perfect,” Roz assured her. “Stella, if you want to ride in the battery in my backpack, you should feel nice and safe while we’re moving around.”

  “I will do so. But first…” She floated Roz’s screwdriver back over to her, then with a barely audible ka-chunk, detached a hub and handed that over as well. Roz happily inspected it. It was almost pristine, just a few scratches here and there that an expert could buff out in no time. Surely Mr Tsaagan would like it enough to forgive a little wear and tear.

  “Thank you,” she said wholeheartedly. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”

  “I don’t. I’ve been here so long that I’ve forgotten many things. But I hope to relearn them soon.”

  “I hope so too.”

  The moment Roz staggered back into Mr Tsaagan’s apartment, Grizl whooped so loud she almost had to cover her ears, and punched the air with one bright-blue fist. “Ha! I knew she’d make it in time! Pay up, pal!”

  Roz scowled at him. “What does that mean?” she demanded, pushing a strand of gunky hair out of her face. Good grief, had he been here lounging around the whole time? She’d only gotten out of the dump half an hour ago, and hadn’t even stopped at the workshop to change – she still had a few hours left on the clock, but if there was ever a day not to take anything for granted, this was it. What if a street had collapsed? What if a fire broke out? Roz wasn’t going to lose this damn bet on a technicality, not when she was so close.

  “Your master wished to lay a bet on whether or not you would make it back in time,” Mr Tsaagan said from where he was still reclining on the couch. He was wearing a different jumpsuit this time – not black, but a dark, shining bronze color that complimented his skin tone nicely. “In addition to another bet on whether you’d make it back at all.”

  Roz whirled on Grizl, so affronted she could barely keep from shouting. “Are you serious?” she demanded. “You wanted to make a profit off me disappearing?”

  “It was just a back-up bet, like – like life insurance,” Grizl said quickly. “I woulda used the æmber to put a memorial plaque up for you in the shop.”

  Roz scowled. “Half of whatever you get for my return goes straight to me.”

  “Hey,” Grizl protested, “I’m the one who made the bet. Who’s the master and who’s the apprentice here, after all?”

  “I’m the one who won the bet, both of them, so I guess that makes me the master when it comes to getting things done right, doesn’t it?”

  “Excuse me,” Mr Tsaagan said, breaking the stony silence that had fallen between the two of them, “but whether or not you’ve fulfilled your end of our deal remains to be seen. Where is the part?”

  “It’s here.” Roz took off her backpack, opened it up, and pulled out the hub. She paused to gently pat the battery Stella was resting in before straightening up. “As requested.” Mr Tsaagan took the hub from her, careful not to touch her mucky hand, and ran his claws over it reverently.

  “Perfect,” he said. “Quite perfect. Is the rest of the chariot still there?”

  “Yeeees…”

  “I may have more orders for you, depending on how well this one is received. Would you be amenable to that?”

  “Hey,” Grizl protested. “I’m her master, you’ve gotta go through me if you want to put her to work.”

  It was true, Roz reflected. Grizl was still the guardian of her time, and he would be until she had enough æmber to repair TRIS. Although… if things between TRIS and Stella worked out, then maybe the repairs wouldn’t even be necessary. Stella could improve TRIS’s functionality, and TRIS could be a safe, secure containment suit for Stella.

  “You two work it out,” Roz said after a moment. “I’m going home. I need to shower.”

  “Yeah, you do.” Grizl waved a hand in front of his nose. “Uh… you need me to call up a mender for you too? I’ll even cover the charges, just this once.”

  How generous. “Maybe later,” Roz said, testing the wobble in her ankle. “For now, I just need to get clean and get some sleep.” And introduce Stella to TRIS without you looking over my shoulder.

  “Sure, yeah, okay.”

  It was a slow walk back to the shop, but a surprisingly easy one – turns out people gave you a lot of space when you were as odiferous as Roz. She got inside, then locked the door behind her – no work today, not when she could barely keep her eyes open. She really did need a shower, some food, and a lot of sleep, in that order. But first…

  Roz walked into the workshop, all the way back to the corner where TRIS was slumped, her battery ebbing low even though she probably hadn’t moved since yesterday. Roz knelt down in front of the robot. “Hey,” she said gently. “TRIS.”

  Her eyelights slowly brightened, curving in a way that always reminded Roz of a smile. Her vocal apparatus was still shattered – Roz hadn’t heard the robot speak clearly since she was a child – but TRIS found ways to communicate nevertheless.

  Roz took the battery out again and laid it on the floor in front of TRIS. “I brought you a friend,” she said. “Really, I think I brought us a friend. Stella, are you ready to try?”

  A golden glow hovered over the case of the battery. “I am.”

  “Okay.” Pinching her lips together, Roz moved back a little. “Go for it.”

  Stella rose up into the air, a beautiful, amorphous cloud of light, before gliding over to TRIS and slowly, carefully, sinking inside her. TRIS’s eyelights flickered, then dimmed. The battery lights shut down all together, and the robot’s head sank against the wall with a clunk.

  Oh no. What had happened? What had she done? “TRIS?” Roz called anxiously. “Stella? Are you okay?” What would she do if they weren’t okay? She had worked so hard, it couldn’t all be for nothing, it couldn’t…

  All at once TRIS’s eyelights blazed like torches, illuminating the entire workshop. Her body whirred to life, all systems go for the first time in over a decade. TRIS stood without a single creak, and when she spoke, her voice was a perfect mix of what Roz remembered and Stella’s own airy tones.

  “We are so happy to be with you, Rozelyn.”

  Roz started to laugh, and to cry a little, too. She swiped her hand over her filthy cheek. “Not nearly as happy as I am. It’s… it’s working, then? You can live with each other?”

  “We think we will work well together. And with you.” The TRIS/Stella being tilted her head. “What should we do first?”

  “First is cleanup. For me and for you,” because TRIS was a little dingy still, and Roz –well, she wasn’t getting any cleaner just standing there. “And then…”

  And then, they could do anything.

  Extermination Examination

  Robbie MacNiven

  Professor Longaard was, according to his own academic profile on HubU, a ninety-six point seven per cent nonorganic. The nature of the remaining three point three per cent was a point of fierce debate among the student body of Hub University, though it wasn’t apparent from a glance what it might be, unless it accounted for the æmber that
made up a large part of his cranium. As one of his students, Nal’ai had been asked on more than a few occasions whether the most senior member of the Martian Studies faculty ever glitched or froze out during tutorials. Nal’ai had never seen anything like that, but she was certainly hoping the professor’s systems would be in the midst of a reboot right now. She was late.

  “Good morning, Nal’ai,” the professor’s vocal grille buzzed as she let herself into the office. Longaard was plugged in behind his powerbank desk, a bulky wedge of polished chromium plates and system panels clad in a suit made of Harrian tw’ee. His head – if head was the correct expression – was a small box of optic clusters and communication devices wired into a glassy sphere that glowed and pulsed softy with the golden aura of pure æmber. He wasn’t, despite Nal’ai’s silent prayers, rebooting.

  “Take a seat,” the professor’s vocals crackled. Nal’ai hurried to do so.

  “I’m sorry I’m late, professor,” she began, but Longaard cut her off.

  “Normally I am deeply perturbed by unpunctuality, Ms Nal’ai, as well you know. However, in this case, you are a lesser sinner. There remains no sign of your assessment partner.”

  “Assessment partner,” Nal’ai repeated. The young krxix student had thought this was going to be a one-to-one discussion, a review of her results in a case study on cultural markers adopted by martian exile enclaves living in Hub City.

  “Indeed,” Longaard droned in a heavy monotone. “Did you not read about it in the meeting circular prior to coming here?”

  Nal’ai decided that, given the start to her day, it was best to avoid admitting she hadn’t read the circular. She had been kept up for most of the night nursing her roommate, Kolli, after the party-elf had stumbled home from a three-day post-exam blowout. Nal’ai had left her still groaning and semi-comatose after spending nearly half an hour digging through the room’s jumbled belongings, hunting for her own clean clothes beneath Kolli’s mess. Needless to say, elf garments didn’t exactly fit a six-limbed insectoid-species like Nal’ai. Somehow, though, she doubted Longaard would consider that an excuse.

  “Have you any idea where your partner might be?” the professor pressed, one of his systems beeping away quietly in the background.

  “I’m not sure,” Nal’ai replied, as terrified now of getting caught up in lying to her academic supervisor as she was of her actual assessment results. What partner?

  “We shall give them five more par-cycs,” Longaard huffed. That seemed to be that. The office settled into silence. The professor’s optics lit up blue while he conducted digital lit reviews, the only sound the low hum of his charge units.

  Nal’ai shifted uncomfortably in her worn leather seat, her compound eyes turning a deep shade of maroon. The office space surrounding her was a disconcerting blend of digi files and raggedy-looking tomes, banks of power clusters and stained old wood paneling, bathed in the lights of Longaard’s systems. The discordant decor certainly lent credence to the popular belief that Longaard hadn’t always been majority cogs-and-circuits.

  Just what species he’d belonged to before his mechanical metamorphosis remained unknown. Some said he was an Archon in disguise, others that he’d angered one and forfeited his body (or at least ninety-six point seven per cent of it) in order to survive the being’s wrath. Still others said the martians had done it. Nal’ai suspected that was the closest answer to the truth. He was the head of Martian Studies at Hub University, after all. Nal’ai didn’t know of any non-martian who had written so many celebrated studies of the infamously insular natives of Mars. He was an inspiration, in his own cold, bot-like way, and that was why Nal’ai was cursing herself for being late. In desperation she’d spun a multiweb to get across campus faster, swinging – in defiance of university protocol – between the Arts and Cultures block. Broodmother alone knew if she’d been seen or not.

  She tried to think about something else. Who was her partner supposed to be? She only knew of two other students under Longaard’s tutorship – Sorus the saurian and Gryk, a goblin. They’d already had their results back though. Surely he wasn’t going to make them re-evaluate with her?

  Just when she was considering asking to be excused so she could go and cry in the nearest chute cubicle, there was a hasty rap at the door. Nal’ai twisted in her chair and Longaard deactivated his review scanner.

  “Enter,” he intoned.

  The door opened, and Nal’ai let out an involuntary flurry of shocked ticks with her lower mandibles.

  “Sorry I’m late, professor,” Kolli said, dropping down into the empty seat next to Nal’ai.

  “A far from ideal beginning,” Longaard droned. “But let us not waste any more time on your lamentable tardiness, Ms Kolli. I believe you and Ms Nal’ai know one other already?”

  “She’s my roomie,” Kolli beamed. “Uh, I mean my roommate, professor.”

  “Then we can dispense with the introductions,” Longaard began to say, before Nal’ai did something she never thought she would do in all of her darkest nightmares – she interrupted him.

  “Professor, there must be some sort of mistake,” she blurted. “Kolli isn’t even in the School of Societies and Culture, let alone the Department of Martian Studies! She’s… she’s just a correspondence and communications studies student!”

  “Was a C and C student,” Longaard corrected, his machine voice carrying a hard edge. “Ms Kolli’s results this past trimester appear to have been less than satisfactory. However, pending a two-semester re-sit, she has successfully applied for a school transfer. I have personally reviewed her application concerning the working relationships established between martian exile communities and the bartering networks of Lower Hub traders. It is a commendable piece of research – perhaps you should ask Ms Kolli to share it with you? It would likely compliment your own studies.”

  Nal’ai didn’t trust herself to speak. That had been her research. She’d dumped it after deciding it didn’t fit with her broader argument about the malleability of martian phobias beyond the bounds of traditional Nova Hellas hierarchies. Why in the name of the Great Web had her roommate stolen it, let alone used it to put in a transfer request?

  Next to her, Kolli was clearly struggling to maintain a serious academic exterior. A few years before Nal’ai would probably have marveled at the fact that the sick, grubby, intoxicated student she’d quite literally tucked into bed had reappeared clean and dressed, with only slightly hollow eyes and the faint scent of stale alcohol to suggest she’d been throwing up in a waste chute two hours previously. But Nal’ai had long since become accustomed to the seemingly supernatural powers of resurrection possessed by the student community’s serial partygoers. Kolli’s ability to endure no sleep and a thumping hangover knew no bounds, especially when twinned with the elf’s natural biological capacity to process intoxicants rapidly.

  “I’m really so grateful for this opportunity professor, believe me,” she was saying. Nal’ai decided there and then that she was going to kill her. Literally, physically, kill her. The realization that Longaard’s optic clusters were focused on her snapped her thoughts away from turning the professor’s office into a crime scene.

  “I suppose you are wondering about your end of year review results?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she managed to say, unintentionally adding a clack of her mandibles. Her eyes had turned a deep, dark russet color, almost black. Longaard made a buzzing noise before his vocal units kicked back in.

  “Your first trimester work has been commendable, if ultimately incomplete. Based on your initial literature review and chapter by chapter breakdown, I will not be recommending that you continue with your studies.”

  Nal’ai’s world dropped away underneath her. As she fell, she heard Longaard’s damnable drone, as though from a great distance, dragging her back up again.

  “However, I believe there is still time to salvage something of worth from the data you have compiled thus far. Your greatest shortcoming is your lack of
fieldwork to date. I propose a way to rectify that.”

  “How?” Nal’ai asked, feeling lightheaded. She was glad she was already sitting down.

  “I am sure you have both read my work on the integration methods of the Borreal enclave? I count myself a friend of their chief elder, Orix Veyy, though some of their subordinates are less than thrilled with my research. I have requested that Veyy welcomes you for the duration of a single week’s study, and provides you with limited interview access to both the enclave’s facilities and its members. Needless to say, this is a privilege rarely afforded to those outside the martian species. Do not waste this opportunity to further your research, Ms Nal’ai.”

  “And what about me, professor?” Kolli asked. Longaard’s systems burbled for a second before responding.

  “As excellent as your application was, Ms Kolli, I must warn you that transitioning to Martian Studies is no easy thing. The cultures of Mars are an exceedingly complex subject. Like Ms Nal’ai, you will benefit a great deal from personal contact with your subject species. Therefore, I am recommending that you accompany her on her research trip to the Borreal enclave.”

  Nal’ai was still struggling for words when Kolli responded.

  “That sounds like an amazing opportunity, professor! I can’t tell you how delighted I am!”

  Nal’ai shot her a look as venomous as her mandibles.

  “Tact is a must,” Longaard said, his machine optics apparently oblivious to Nal’ai’s silent fury. “I am sure even novices such as yourselves understand that martians, including rogue enclaves such as the Borreal, are deeply distrustful of outsiders. Even with my personal assurances, it may take them some time to trust you enough to communicate openly.”

  “We will certainly take our role as ambassadors for Hub University with the utmost seriousness, professor,” Kolli said.

  Ambassadors, Nal’ai snarled mentally. You weren’t much of an ambassador for Hub Uni last night, Kolli, unless the negotiations were being carried out with barmen or scrumball center forwards on a post-game night out!