The Last Crucible

by J. D. Moyer

  “On the Michelangelo,” Maro began, “we take history and the preservation of both knowledge and art very seriously. We preserve all manner of recordings, photographs, and artifacts, including many great works of art rescued from Earth museums before they could be stolen by looters or destroyed by vandals. Or lost to time and neglect.

  “But we are not simply interested in preserving old things. We want to live the old ways, to fully comprehend the minds and attitudes of our ancestors, so that we may fully understand the arc of our own history. We learn and converse in ancient languages: Latin, Greek, Canaanite, Aramaic, and many others. We grow and prepare food using traditional historical techniques. We maintain a vast library of seeds, not only for emergencies and protection from agricultural diseases, but to experience the entire range of what nature has provided over the centuries. We eat dates from trees that once thrived in the Judean desert five thousand years ago.”

  “You eat five-thousand-year-old fruit?” Micheli asked,uncomprehending.

  “I am simply trying to give you an idea of what we value. We are not so different than yourselves, in this way. We can see that you preserve the old ways of doing things. The way you build, for example, is not so different than the ruins of the castle on that hill.” He gestured toward the Malaspina castle that overlooked Sperancia’s house.

  “We value new things as well,” Sperancia said. “There are many things we could learn from you. Our ancestors grew grapes and made wine, but they also powered lights with electricity. We have forgotten how to do that. Could you help us regain the knowledge we have lost?”

  “Of course,” Felix answered, “but gradually. Slowly, so that it does not disrupt your way of life.”

  Maro glared at Felix. “That is not our decision, what they do with the knowledge we share.” And then, to Sperancia: “We are proposing an equal exchange. Both sides, teaching and learning. A cultural trade, spanning the artistic, the scientific, the mathematical…nothing off-limits.”

  “Nothing off-limits?” Jana repeated.

  Maro turned to her and smiled, but she caught a flash of irritation in his eyes. “Who is this?” he asked. “The youngest member of your council?”

  “Jana is my protégée,” Sperancia replied.

  “Yes, Jana, we would open our libraries to you, without limitation. And we would provide instruction and other resources you might require to put that knowledge to use. As you may now be realizing, we are offering your community an enormous amount of power.”

  “How did you find out about us?” Austino asked. “Have you been spying?” It was the same question that Iginu had asked, but it no longer seemed paranoid. The Ilium visitors had been spying on Bosa, for years, though they’d claimed they had stopped.

  “We have been observing you from the Michelangelo with powerful telescopes. But most of what we know of your culture is from history. It is fascinating to us that you survived, largely unchanged, when so many others perished. And Mediterranean cultures are of special interest to us.”

  “Why?” Sperancia asked.

  “The greater Mediterranean area is the birthplace of civilization. The Mesopotamians, the Sumerians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and later the Romans—”

  “What about the Indus Valley and the Chinese?” Sperancia interjected. “And the ancient civilizations of the Americas – the Maya and the Aztecs? We have some understanding of history ourselves, you know. Human civilization arose in many places simultaneously, taking different paths.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Maro. “But those civilizations are long dead, as is everyone descended from them. You are still thriving, a living link to the ancients.” There was something hungry in his voice.

  “Look,” Maro continued, “what we are proposing is simple: an exchange program. Some of you come live with us for a time, while some of us live with you. Only volunteers, of course, though after meeting some of you, I don’t think volunteers will be in short supply – you are a brave and curious people. And just for a short time, at first. A few months.”

  Gregoriu turned to Micheli. “It would be safer that way.”

  “Would we have any way to talk with our people?” Sperancia asked.

  “How could they?” said Micheli. “Their world is high in the sky.”

  “We have machines that would allow that – yes. You could communicate with your people easily, every day if you wished. Our guests in Bosa could facilitate that.”

  A lump of tension was rising in Jana’s throat. How were they discussing this so calmly, already working out the details, as if everything was agreed? She desperately wanted to speak with Sperancia alone, to share her feelings of distrust. To her it was as plain as day that Maro and the others were hiding something. But the council members seemed not to see it, or to care. And it was not her place to interrupt her elders.

  The initial discussion concluded with an agreement to meet again the next day, with the second meeting to include more townsfolk. But Jana sensed that both sides had already decided the arrangement would be mutually beneficial. Sperancia was the hardest to read, but Gregoriu, Micheli, and Austino had all taken an obvious liking to the visitors. The men were all charmed by Livia’s symmetrical face and sultry voice, but also seemed ready to fall in line with anything Maro suggested. Even Jana found that part of her wanted to surrender to the Michelangelo senator’s commanding presence, to accept his reassurances at face value.

  But she knew better. Why didn’t the others?

  Many of Bosa’s residents were gathered outside of the town hall as they emerged, and Jana wanted no part of the parade back to the golden balloon. Too many people, too close together, and she would have to replant a good section of the field when it was all done.

  “Sperancia,” she hissed, grabbing the old woman’s arm. “Can we talk? In private?”

  Sperancia shrugged her off. “Later, child. Meet me at my house.”

  As the parade disappeared from sight, she was surprised to see Cristo hanging back. He looked how she felt: worried and irritated. “You don’t trust them either,” she said.

  “They remind me of wild horses,” Cristo said. “Sleek and strong and pleasing to the eye, but they also bite and kick.”

  “They didn’t threaten us, or make demands,” Jana said.

  “And yet you sensed it, didn’t you? That they’re dangerous?”

  Jana nodded.

  “Filumena is too trusting,” Cristo said.

  Jana noticed something in Cristo’s voice, a tenderness. “You care about her, don’t you? I mean, I know you think she’s beautiful. So do I. She is beautiful. But…you don’t want her to get hurt.”

  Cristo grunted. “Of course not. She’s a good person.”

  “Is it more than that?”

  Cristo wouldn’t meet her gaze.

  “You’re still engaged to Sabina, aren’t you?” Jana regretted the words as soon as she’d said them. It wasn’t a real question – she knew Cristo and Sabina were still engaged. Everyone would know within hours if they were not; gossip travelled faster than fire in Bosa. She was just being cruel, goading him.

  Cristo narrowed his eyes and spat in the dirt, but didn’t deny his feelings for Filumena. “Sabina will make a good wife, and I’ll be faithful to her. And you should consider your own feelings before you stick your nose in mine.”

  Cristo strode off with his usual arrogant swagger, head held high, in the direction of the docks. Jana stared at the cobblestones, feeling ashamed. Of course he was right. She loved Filumena, and it was probably obvious to everyone. Once, on a beach beneath some cliffs, they had kissed and pressed their bodies together. But to Filumena it had been pure playfulness, a game, while to Jana it had meant everything. Filumena had been serious the next day, realizing her mistake, and had reassured Jana that their friendship was the most important thing in Filumena’s life, and that she hadn’t meant
to toy with Jana’s feelings. But she didn’t feel the same way. Filumena had only ever felt romantic love toward men, and never expected to feel differently. If only Jana were a man….

  It had taken some time for their friendship to recover, but it had. Jana had tried to bury that afternoon on the beach in the deepest recesses of her mind. But here it was again, popping up, the smell of Filumena’s hair, the softness of her skin, the smell of mirto on her breath – they’d both been a little drunk.

  Jana forced herself to start walking, to get out of her head, and the exertion of climbing the steep streets toward Sperancia’s house helped. She pushed her pace until her thighs and calves burned. The pain was preferable to rumination and worry.

  Jana let herself into Sperancia’s yard. It would be some time before the maghiarja returned, and there was always work to be done. Jana fed the chickens and brushed the goats clean with a stiff hedgehog-spine brush. While she worked, she thought about the Crucible ceremony. Only Sperancia herself knew exactly what to expect; the last Crucible ceremony had occurred over one hundred years ago. But the way Sperancia described it was not at all reassuring. The Crucible, a kind of ancient machine that resided inside of Sperancia’s body – a machine that she had become dependent upon to sustain her life – would be forcibly ejected. Jana would then be expected to ingest the Crucible even as Sperancia died in front of her. Except that Sperancia didn’t describe it as dying. She used the phrase ‘physically expire’. Sperancia insisted that she would live on, complete and whole, within the Crucible machine. Within Jana.

  But it would take time. Over weeks or months, the Crucible would adapt to Jana’s body, and eventually transform it, bestowing her with great strength and perceptive powers. It would weave its way into her mind as well, and gradually Jana would become aware of the previous Crucible hosts – Sperancia and three others – and be able to communicate with them.

  She would become part of a community.

  Or so Sperancia said. It was all so difficult to imagine. Jana wasn’t even sure if she believed her mentor. Maybe the old woman had gone crazy, beset with dementia. She was extremely old; that was indisputable. Every nonna and nonno on the island remembered Sperancia as being an adult when they had been children.

  But Sperancia gave no indication of any mental decline. The old woman was always sharp, aware, and at least three steps ahead of everyone else. There had to be at least some truth in how she described the ceremony.

  Jana heard the gate open. “Thank you, Jana, but there’s no need. I can do that myself.” Sperancia looked worried. “Come drink with me – I have a bottle of wine that will soon turn to vinegar.”

  They sat at a table in Sperancia’s small kitchen. Sperancia seldom drank, and the wine was as sour as Jana expected. She took a few sips to be polite, but Sperancia drank from her glass in gulps, not appearing to notice the taste. “You don’t trust them either,” Jana ventured. Sperancia shook her head, and Jana experienced a wave of relief. The old woman would know what to do.

  “The other visitors – from Ilium – I believe we can trust them. When they return we’ll conduct trade, and Pietro and Enzo will return with them to Ilium. I am hopeful – very hopeful – for Pietro. If all goes well, he will walk again, and live a long, full life.”

  “But the others, from the Michelangelo?”

  “Descending like gods in a golden balloon – what a show.” Sperancia smiled ruefully.

  “What do you think they really want?” Jana asked.

  “I don’t know exactly, but I would sooner die than allow any of our townsfolk to return to their world. We must act quickly, and in such a way that we can plausibly deny our actions. If they suspect us, they could easily slaughter us all.”

  Jana scooted her chair closer. “What do you mean exactly? What are you proposing?”

  Sperancia looked Jana in the eye, but her vision was unfocussed – she was somewhere deep within her own mind.

  “We must murder them – all three. Tonight. This is our chance to resist, swiftly and without mercy. If we wait any longer, our fate will be sealed. We’ll be mere puppets on their strings.”

  Chapter Six

  Jana had expected to find Cristo back at Micheli’s, drinking. Instead she found him at Austino’s shop, cleaning and reorganizing the stockroom with Antonio.

  “I need to borrow your crossbow.”

  “Why?”

  “Boars, digging up the barley field. A whole family of them.”

  “Well, you won’t need it tonight,” Antonio said. “The Michelangelo visitors have set up camp there. The children say their tents are made of golden silk.”

  “I need to practice – you know I’m not a very good shot.”

  “Fine,” Cristo said. “But if you lose or damage any of my quarrels, you’ll pay Austino for new ones. You can come by my house tomorrow morning and pick it up.”

  “I need it now.”

  Cristo set down a stack of small cork boxes on a shelf. “No, you don’t. It’s already getting dark. And I’m working. Find something else to do. Go down to the beach and have a swim.”

  Cristo said the words casually, but he might as well have drawn a knife and cut her. Jana’s mother had died swimming at night.

  But Jana didn’t let Cristo see her anger. He was lashing out because of what she’d said earlier, calling out his feelings for Filumena and questioning his love for Sabina. The score was even now.

  Antonio stood frozen and grim-faced, expecting a fight. Cristo continued to arrange the cork boxes. “I’ll stop by your house and get the crossbow from your father,” said Jana. “And I’ll mention what help you both were plowing the barley field.”

  Iginu was out, at Micheli’s. But Vissenta was home, playing dice and drinking wine with her friends. Jana started to explain the situation with the boars, but Vissenta was on a hot streak, hoarding a pile of coins. She waved Jana off. “You know where his room is – go and get what you need.”

  Cristo’s room was lit only by moonlight streaming in the window. She hadn’t been in his room for years – not since they were children – but little had changed. The same bed, the same chest of drawers, the same shelf displaying the bits of sand-polished sea glass and small animal skulls that Cristo liked to collect. And there was the crossbow, hanging on the wall, along with a wide quiver of iron-tipped hunting quarrels.

  Sperancia had a plan, and Jana had agreed to play her part. Which was not to kill the Michelangelo visitors – Sperancia would do that herself. Jana’s role was to create a distraction. She felt strangely calm, carrying out the steps Sperancia had assigned. Along with the crossbow and quarrels, she needed a small pot of tar and a hod of burning coals.

  The visitors had done nothing to deserve the mayhem Sperancia planned to unleash on them. And if Sperancia was wrong, if the Michelangelo delegation was in fact peaceful and well-intentioned, then they were making a grave mistake. At first Jana had argued as much, that they needed to watch and wait. But Sperancia had vehemently disagreed. The maghiarja’s voice had changed, becoming lower and gruffer, as she’d recounted a story from her distant memory:

  “When the ringships were first built, before the great eruptions, the Michelangelo was founded on lofty principles: the protection of civilization’s great works, the practice of art as humanity’s highest purpose, and ultimate personal freedom as a means to pursue that purpose.

  “But the truth was that the Michelangelo was created for a different and simpler purpose: hoarding wealth. In the Revival Age, global economies had mostly recovered from the Hundred-Year Recession. But Earth’s wealthiest oligarchs were well aware that the geological activity near Naples could bring everything to an end, and they would do everything within their power to secure their wealth off-planet before that happened. They knew that most assets – natural resources, stocks and bonds, property, and currency – would become worthless in the event of
a global apocalyptic event. Even gems and gold held little value: the former could be created synthetically, the latter mined from mineral-rich asteroids in huge quantities.

  “But unique, world-famous works of art – those would hold their value as long as any fragment of human civilization persisted. And so would human talent, the brightest minds in every scientific and artistic field. So the oligarchs went on a buying spree, securing massive private collections of art and locking down long-term contracts with brilliant scientists, engineers, designers, composers, and fine artists. The Michelangelo would be their private artists’ colony, museum, vault, and stronghold.

  “The visionaries behind the project proclaimed their lofty ideals even as they paid criminal gangs to plan and execute museum heists. The Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in the same week the Rosetta Stone was lifted from the British Museum. Though nobody could prove it, everyone knew that both ended up on the Michelangelo.

  “And their crimes weren’t limited to art theft. To the founders of the Michelangelo, their ends were justified by any means. Several scientists were rumored to have joined the ringship only because their children were kidnapped. Famous art collectors died under suspicious circumstances, only to mysteriously bequeath their art to the Michelangelo trust. And contracts that had been secured for months with space-elevator operators and aerospace construction firms were breached, always to the benefit of the Michelangelo founders. From the beginning, the Michelangelo was a cabal that did and acquired what it wanted, and got away with it.

  “After the great eruption and the food shortages that followed, nations were in chaos. Rioting and looting broke out in Paris, New York, Rome, London, Amsterdam, Saint Petersburg, Mumbai, Hong Kong, and every other city that housed the world’s most famous museums and greatest works. Michelangelo representatives swooped in, promising temporary protection and preservation of the planet’s most treasured works of art and ancient artifacts, in state-of-the-art climate-controlled environments, until civil order could be restored. Mayors and museum managers caved, fearing the irrevocable destruction of the treasures they had been entrusted with. Slowly but surely, Earth’s masterpieces migrated by rocket shuttle to the Michelangelo.