The Last Crucible

by J. D. Moyer

  She found Gregoriu in the town square conversing intently with several older men. They stopped speaking as she approached, regarding her somewhat worriedly.

  She showed her palms. She’d left Biter secured in the hovershuttle, as agreed. She had a knife in her boot, but Gregoriu hadn’t asked about the contents of her boots. “Where is Jana? Take me to Jana please.” And then, for good measure, “Buon giorno.” The men relaxed considerably with the last words, and one of them called to a little girl and gave her instructions. The girl took Katja’s hand and led her, hopefully in the direction of Jana’s house.

  “It was you, who saw me last night,” Katja said. “I recognize your blue dress.”

  The girl didn’t answer but continued pulling her along. Her grip was warm and slightly sticky, like the palms of all children. Though Katja could do with a bath herself. Maybe she would take a dip in the sea later, if she could find a beach with calm, shallow water.

  “What’s your name?” she asked. “I’m Katja. Katja.” She tapped her chest.

  “Mi chiamo Bina.” The girl tapped her own chest. “Bina.”

  Bina led her to an old stone house on the outskirts of town. A crumbling stone wall protected a sprawling garden. Bina pointed to a gate; Katja realized the girl was too short to reach the latch. She opened it herself and followed Bina into a courtyard that might once have been opulent, but was now covered in vines, some bearing the same red fruit Katja had eaten for breakfast.

  “Signor Manca!” Bina called out repeatedly, until an old, thin, weary-looking man emerged from the house. Bina let loose a storm of words in apparent explanation. The man nodded and waved for Katja to enter. Bina, to Katja’s relief, came with her. The little girl was capable and friendly, and the closest thing Katja had to an ally.

  The old man led them to a bedroom. Jana was awake, though pale and drawn. She looked at Katja without apparent interest or recognition. Katja noted a resemblance between Jana and the old man, though he wore the features better. Jana’s father, mostly likely.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, though she knew he wouldn’t understand. “I will stay and help. She will recover. She will remember everything.”

  She hoped it was true. She hoped that this Crucible was different, and that Jana had not become another gast.

  If she had, Katja would have to use the knife in her boot.

  Chapter Eleven

  Hennik lumbered toward Tem. Did he know about Saga? He looked grim-faced and squinty-eyed, ready for a fight.

  But then Hennik extended his right arm in the traditional greeting. Tem reciprocated, grasping Hennik’s forearm, which was thick and ropy with muscle. Hennik was a full head taller than Tem. So were most men of Happdal, including Farbror Trond and his own father. Citizens of the Stanford had modified their genes to produce smaller, less resource-intensive bodies, and that was half of Tem’s lineage.

  “Good to see you, old friend,” Hennik said, his face cracking into a smile. “Remember when we fought, as boys? You and I were always scrapping.”

  “Of course I remember.” To Tem’s relief there was no menace in Hennik’s tone; he seemed genuinely happy to see him. Which meant, in all likelihood, that Saga hadn’t mentioned their tryst. And why would she? She was not the type to feel the need to confess anything. Tem, on the other hand, was already worrying about what he would say to Maggie. She would know in an instant if he withheld the truth. It wasn’t that he couldn’t keep a secret; he could be as tight-lipped as anyone if entrusted with sensitive information. But as for concealing his own misdeeds and feelings of guilt, he was utterly incompetent.

  “Sigurd told me that you had come this way to check on your flying boat.”

  “That’s true. But you’ve seen it before – it hasn’t changed.” For some reason he was reluctant to share his predicament. Though word would get out soon enough.

  “Yes, yes, of course. That’s not why I came to find you. I need your help with something. Will you come with me?”

  Tem followed Hennik back down the trail toward Happdal. Of course there was a chance he was walking into a trap, but Hennik was not such a great actor that he would be able to conceal his ire, if he had any. Unless the man was much different than the boy.

  Hennik had no natural talents beyond his size and strength, and lived a meager life, alone in a small house he had built with the help of his uncle, Harald. Harald had once been the village cheesemaker but had passed the dairy on to his daughter Alva. Hennik still worked in the dairy, but had a contentious relationship with his cousin and was thus incessantly dabbling in other activities with the hopes of securing his own wealth.

  “I have found something in the ruins,” Hennik said as they neared his house. “Something of great value, I believe. But I don’t know if it is real. Will you look at it and tell me what you think?”

  Tem started to protest that he was no expert at identifying ancient artifacts. But it occurred to him that he might know more than anyone else in the village, given his education on the Stanford. He was no scholar, but still he had spent many years in school, well into his twenties. It was amazing how much knowledge existed, more history and science than could ever be absorbed and understood by a single person, more literature and art than could ever be fully appreciated. He was thankful that the ringstations had preserved that knowledge, that it had not been lost to rain and rot or the crush of moving glaciers.

  Tem’s eyes adjusted to the dimness of Hennik’s cottage as Hennik rummaged around in a chest. His treasures, Tem supposed, various bits of metal, plastic, and sometimes even wood and paper that had survived the centuries. The ruins nearest Happdal had once been a town called Braunlage, a resort for skiing and other winter sports. Tem had explored the area himself as a boy but had never found much of interest; most of the old buildings were buried under forest debris and soil, entirely rotted out. But Hennik was tense with excitement over what he had discovered.

  “Here it is. What do you think?”

  Hennik handed Tem a small brown rectangular bar caked with dirt. Tem took it, somewhat reluctantly, and was surprised by its heft.

  “It’s gold, I think,” said Hennik.

  The bar did have a dull yellow gleam beneath the grime. “Do you have a rag and a bucket of water?” Tem asked.

  “I was afraid water might damage it.”

  “Not if it’s gold.”

  Gold was rare in Happdal. There were bits of jewelry, rings and bracelets and arm circlets that had been brought from the northlands and passed down through the generations. But the mountain mines, though rich in silver and iron ore, produced no gold.

  Hennik fetched a bowl of water and a rag, and Tem got to work scrubbing. He was curious as to how a bar of gold might have ended up in a resort town, but at the same time accepting of the fact that he would never know. Billions of people had lived and died on Earth, taking their stories with them.

  “Do you believe the Ice Trail song?” Tem asked. It was the history he’d been taught by his father, Esper, well before his time on the Stanford, a saga that described the migration of their ancestors from the north, fleeing the ice fields.

  “Of course not,” said Hennik. “It’s just a song. I think we have always lived in the mountains.”

  Tem nodded, unwilling to argue. He’d guessed as much. There were many in Happdal who preferred to believe that their people had always lived in the Five Valleys. That loss of knowledge saddened his father, but it was a fight Esper had given up after moving to the ringship.

  His parents, working together, had researched the possible origins of Happdal, exploring Car-En’s theory that Esper’s ancestors might have been part of a historical reenactment society in Norway. Many such groups had learned and practiced Viking Age skills and traditions, including blacksmithing. Those skills might have served them well during the Remnant Age, enabling their survival. Esper had found descriptions
of a Norwegian village – Gudvangen – where hundreds of such people had lived together communally, practicing the traditional arts and speaking Norse – the old language. Perhaps Gudvangen and Happdal were linked, though there was no way to know for sure.

  “Look, there are markings,” Hennik said.

  The grime was coming off easily, revealing a solid bar of gold beneath. The metal had been stamped with an image, a bird of prey clutching a symbol in its claws. The symbol looked familiar to Tem, and he felt a chill as he recalled details from his history lessons.

  “This is an evil object, Hennik. You should destroy it.”

  “Why? Isn’t it valuable?”

  “Maybe a little.” Asteroid-mining bots retrieved all the gold that was needed on the ringstations for electronic components and jewelry; the metal had lost its rarity and much of its cachet. Though it was still pretty, and rare in the Five Valleys.

  “Why do you say it is evil?”

  “This is wartime gold from the Builders. Rings, bracelets, and even tooth fillings were taken from prisoners and melted down to make this bar. The prisoners were starved, tortured, and murdered. Not just warriors, but children and women and men who had no interest in fighting. It was a mass slaughter, Hennik. A terrible part of history. And it happened not far from here.”

  “What is a tooth filling?”

  “When a tooth rots, it can sometimes be repaired with gold or other materials, instead of pulling it out.”

  Hennik looked dejectedly at the object he had hoped would bring him fortune. “What do you think I should do with it?”

  There were historians on the Stanford who would be delighted to study such an object. But Tem did not want to take it from Hennik, nor hold any responsibility for it.

  “You are friends with Saga, yes?” Tem asked, wanting to tread delicately.

  Hennik grinned. “Friends, yes. Perhaps something more, even. But I would risk my neck if I claimed her as my woman.”

  “Oh? Is she with someone else?”

  “No! But you know Saga. If I claimed something too soon she might smash me with a hammer.”

  “I think I understand,” Tem said, feeling a knot in his stomach. “What I was going to suggest is that you give this gold to Saga to melt down. Then give a piece to each of the jewelers and silversmiths of the Five Valleys. Or sell it or trade it. You’ll end up with either goods or goodwill, or both. And this metal will be made anew, into rings and bracelets.”

  Hennik nodded. “That’s good advice. I thank you for it. Saga already returned to Kaldbrek, but I will go there today and ask her.”

  Tem briefly considered saving Hennik the trip – he could easily melt the gold himself in Trond’s smithy. But no, he didn’t want to touch the war gold, nor did he especially want to go out of his way to help Hennik. He still remembered Hennik holding him down, beating him, taunting him for his darker skin tone. Maybe Hennik had changed, maturing and becoming more tolerant, but there was still a hard knot of pain in Tem’s heart that refused to unravel.

  “Travel safe,” Tem said. “May the Three Brothers be with you.”

  “And with you.”

  Tem left Hennik’s house and wandered aimlessly until he found himself at Katja’s doorstep. He might as well stay at her house. She had no use for it at the moment, and though he knew he was welcome at his uncle’s, it was noisy and chaotic there.

  How long would he be in Happdal? Maggie would send someone eventually. Not hearing from him, she would trace the hovershuttle co-ordinates and want to know why he was heading back to Bosa. Katja had been able to activate the craft with voice commands, but she wouldn’t know how to disengage location tracking.

  Unless she’d managed to? The hovershuttle was happy to explain its own operation to anyone who asked. Tem had neglected to employ any security measures whatsoever. What if Maggie thought he’d cut off communications on purpose? What if she decided to give him some space? It had gotten a little weird, her offering to accompany him to Happdal and him declining that offer. It would be perfectly reasonable for her to assume that he was going dark on purpose, maybe to reacquaint himself with his childhood home and way of life.

  He might be here a long time. Shit.

  Or help might already be on the way. He had no way of knowing. What was he going to do with himself in the interim?

  One thing was clear: he would go crazy sitting still and stewing in his own juice. There was plenty of work to be in done in the village; he would find a way to make himself useful. He tried to mentally reframe the problem. Being stuck in Happdal was an opportunity to bond with his family, and maybe to find complete acceptance among the villagers in a way that he had never experienced.

  An hour later he was making repairs to Farmor Elke’s storage shed, knocking out rotten wood and rebuilding a wall. The moment he had asked, his grandmother had casually rattled off a to-do list that would keep him busy for a month. It was almost as if she’d been keeping a tally of his work debts since he’d left Happdal to live on the Stanford with his mother, so many years ago. He knew Elke had never gotten over the fact that Esper, her favorite son and Tem’s father, had left to join them as well. She made her resentments clear to anyone who would listen. And now, as he breathed in dust and mold and wiped the grimy sweat from his brow, he wondered if he wasn’t paying a little for that decision to leave.

  What the hell had he been supposed to do? He’d been just a boy, nine years old, when Car-En had decided that living in Happdal was not enough for her son, that she wanted him to get a real education on the ringship. He’d been horrified at the time. All he’d wanted, all he’d dreamed of, was to become a blacksmith. To follow in Farbror Trond’s footsteps, to become a master of steel and swords. His mother had taken that dream away.

  No, that wasn’t true. She’d simply expanded his world. He could have returned to Happdal to become a smith. Trond had always made it clear that he was welcome in the smithy, even to this day. Though Happdal didn’t need another smith; Trond was as healthy as an ox, and Jense, though he complained about his aches, likely had many years of good work left in him.

  There’d been another reason his mother had wanted him out of Happdal: racism. He’d never discussed it with her explicitly, but in hindsight it was clear. They’d stood out, Car-En and Tem, as the only people of Asian heritage in a village of fair Nordic giants. Some had accepted them fully. But others, like Hennik, had relentlessly harassed and taunted them. Him, especially, as a half-breed.

  Adjusting to life on the Stanford had been a rude shock. He’d been far behind his classmates academically. In Happdal, he’d viewed himself as capable and intelligent. But on the ringship he’d felt like an idiot for years, speaking Orbital English only clumsily, feeling clueless in his mathematics and science classes. He’d caught up after only a few years, but those years had been excruciating. And his sense of otherness had only intensified. He’d no longer been the only Asian kid; the Stanford was ethnically diverse. But he’d been cast in a new other role: the savage, the barbarian, the primitive child.

  Even now, as an adult, he struggled to feel a sense of belonging. He knew he had much to offer. He was uniquely suited to understand and guide Repop like nobody else on Earth or the ringstations.

  Yet here he was, an idiot stranded in Happdal, with the weight of a pending confession tearing up his conscience.

  “Ah – you’re doing good work.” Farmor Elke had crept up on him. She handed him a shallow wooden bowl containing two thick pieces of brown bread slathered with butter, a hunk of cheese, and an apple. “Here, take a break and nourish yourself.”

  “Thank you, Farmor.” Any resentment he had against his grandmother instantly dissolved. He’d offered to help, hadn’t he? And she was happy to have it, and to have him in Happdal. Who knew how many more years the elder generation of Happdal had left? He’d be a fool to let the past spoil whatever time they sti
ll had together.

  Elke stayed to chat for a minute. As far as he could tell, she was still unaware that Katja had left Happdal, stealing the hovershuttle. At some point he would have to swallow his pride and confess his predicament. But not yet. There was nothing anyone in the village could do to help him, anyway.

  As he resumed his work, Tem’s thoughts turned to Bosa. Why had the Ringstation Coalition waited so long to make contact with the Sardinians? Even though Director Balasubramanian’s ‘Three R’s’ formed the basis of Repop Council’s official policy, other council members still held strong Non-Interventionist views. Those traditionalists argued that Bosa should be left alone, that nothing good could come of making contact. They pointed to historical examples: indigenous communities invariably suffered from first contact with more technologically sophisticated cultures. The end result was often pandemic or genocide. It might be different if the people of Bosa were suffering from starvation or other ills, but by all accounts they were thriving. Though that information was old; the field research programs had all been terminated long ago. Tem himself had argued that the spying should stop; the people of the Five Valleys and other Earth communities deserved better treatment.

  So contact had been delayed, right up until the appearance of the Michelangelo. The worldship’s sudden move into Earth orbit had sparked a flurry of meetings and policy reviews, the end result being a rapid acceleration of the contact timelines. There were risks inherent in First Contact, but there was a greater risk in letting the unpredictable leaders of the Michelangelo reach out first. Balasubramanian had argued that the Sardinians needed to be protected, and Tem had no doubt that the old man was sincere in that belief. But there were other motives in play: keeping the upper hand, and maintaining control of the Repop narrative.

  “Ah, there you are! I’ve been looking for you!”

  It was Lars, the old one-legged man he’d seen arguing with Farfar Jense, poking his head into the shed. He looked in better shape now, bright-eyed and excited, emitting only the faintest whiff of öl.