The Last Crucible

by J. D. Moyer

  “I’ll release you, if you take us with you. Myself and a friend. We don’t care if you killed Sperancia. She’s not really dead anyway. But it has to be now. What do you say?”

  “Of course, my brave boy,” he’d said to Cristo. “That was always why we came, to make friends and to invite guests. And your companion is welcome too.”

  Filumena had joined them at the barley field, flushed and wide-eyed. No one in Bosa had thought to guard or confiscate their balloon. It took only minutes to load the gondola and lift off. Passing over the town square had been Maro’s idea, and the winds had agreed. What a glorious moment, waving at his former captors. But was it not a fair exchange? He had what he wanted; they had a story that would be told for generations.

  Finding the right winds to carry them back to Tunis had been tricky. But Livia, using data intercepted from the Stanford’s weather tracking satellites, had managed it, first flying southeast across Sardinia, then catching a southwest eddy that carried them across the sea to North Africa. Their shuttle had been right where they’d left it, untouched. They’d deflated the balloon, leaving it and the gondola in Tunis, a mystery for some future archeologist.

  And now they were almost home.

  The Michelangelo was a vast, rotating cylinder, twenty kilometers in length and eight kilometers in diameter. The worldship housed its own artificial sun, a continuous aneutronic helium-3 reaction contained by magnetic fields. The original version of the Michelangelo, constructed in geosynchronous orbit using materials transported up space elevators, had been much smaller, with an efficient but modest deuterium reactor. But the Engineers had always been ambitious. They’d mined vast amounts of magnesium silicate, iron, nickel, cobalt, and gold from asteroids, helium-3 from Saturn’s atmosphere, and a small ocean’s worth of water from Jupiter’s moon Europa. Now the Michelangelo dwarfed the other worldships, even the Liu Hui. Unlike the others, their home was untethered from the Sun, the fusion core providing enough warmth and energy even in deep space. That tactical design choice had given them a great advantage, allowing them to tap the near-infinite natural resources of the solar system.

  Among the castes, Engineers were second only to Artists. Defenders – those who studied military strategy, combat tactics, and espionage – ranked third. The plebeians that grew food, educated the young, and maintained systems were just as essential. But only Artists, Engineers, and Defenders were ranked. And with rank came privileges.

  It was a fair system, one based on value and contribution. Rank conferred access to specialized services, as well as the wealth to accumulate unique artistic objects and ancient artifacts. That’s all wealth was for, really. Any plebeian could drape themselves in diamonds and gold. Like all physical materials, gems and currency metals were abundant and essentially free to all citizens. All the essentials of life were free: food, shelter, healthcare, education. And nothing second rate, either. No citizen of the Michelangelo was a pauper.

  But to dine with the best chefs, to own and play musical instruments created by masters centuries ago, to commission personalized works from brilliant painters and sculptors, those privileges were the rewards of rank and status. And of the latter, one could never have enough.

  “We have permission to dock,” Livia said. She’d navigated to the center of one end of the worldship. Maro shielded his eyes as the bay doors opened, releasing a flood of white light from the fusion core. Even as the shuttle latched on to the docking platform, they were still weightless, as was the entire central column. Maro noted that both Cristo and Filumena had handled the lack of gravity well, though they both looked a little green.

  “Don’t worry – you’ll have your feet beneath you soon enough.” He turned to Livia. “Will you take our guests through Medical and then get them comfortable in their quarters? And bathed? I should report to the Senate immediately.”

  “I’ll take care of them,” Livia answered, without making eye contact.

  “When will we next see you?” Filumena asked.

  “Soon, my child. This evening, at the latest.”

  “Isn’t it already evening?” Cristo asked.

  “It’s late morning here. We have filters that approximate night and day, dawn and dusk. And the seasons as well. You’ll get used to it.”

  He passed through Medical himself, and was relieved to learn that he hadn’t picked up any parasites or novel pathogens. He’d eaten their food, after all, not all of it cooked. But even if he’d picked something up, it would have been worth it. The tomatoes alone had been far more flavorful than their aquaponically grown equivalents from the Michelangelo’s rotating vertical farms. Even artisanal varietals grown in real soil didn’t compare to the rich red fruits he’d been offered in Bosa.

  Report to the Senate immediately had been an exaggeration. He still had several hours before the next assembly. After receiving his medical clearance, Maro descended an elevator to the ground and rode a giant Vertragus home. The cybrid, part flesh and part machine, was fashioned after the Roman Britain racing dog of the same name. It took skill to ride one; there was no saddle and the sleek hounds moved with alacrity. The Vertragus wove through gardens, parks, and residential streets, occasionally barking to clear plebeians from the senator’s path. But he managed the ride without falling, and sent the beast off with a slap on its flank.

  Aina, his personal cybrid, greeted him warmly with a kiss on the lips. Red-haired and pale-skinned, she was modeled after a Celtic slave. A loyal one, Maro liked to imagine, whom he treated fairly. She had no consciousness, of course. Faustus, his enhanced ferret, was more sentient. But he liked to feel Aina’s silk-soft hands on his body, and her lips wrapped around his cock, and to imagine the barbarians he might have slain to claim her.

  Faustus greeted him with a leap to his shoulder, and by his heft Maro was reassured that Aina had fed him adequately. “And the birds?” Maro asked. He kept a parrot and a blackbird, each with their own room to prevent constant squabbling.

  “They’re well,” Aina replied. “Healthy and fed. Shall I prepare your bath?”

  “Please.”

  He’d already showered and disposed of his clothes in the course of his medical exam, but he showered again as a matter of habit to prepare for his bath. That had been the worst thing about his Earth excursion – the lack of proper bathing. The people of Bosa had stunk of sweat and fish, and even now those odors lingered in his sinuses. Maro scrubbed his skin until it flushed and tingled.

  His bath was modest compared to the communal bathhouses, only three meters across, with a bench that kept his head just above the water. And yet he’d spared no expense in decorating the room, hiring artisans to hand-build the intricate mosaic floor, polished marble walls, and patinated bronze statues. “Join me,” he said to Aina, and she complied, removing her robe and descending the steps into the steaming water. Her skin was real skin, soft and supple but also a highly functional protective organ. Though instead of protecting flesh and bone, her skin protected the elastomer fiber bundles that animated her titanium alloy skeleton.

  “Rub my shoulders, Aina. I’ve been sleeping hard for weeks.” She slid next to him on the bench as he turned his back to her. As the cybrid’s strong fingers dug into his muscles, his thoughts turned to Jana. The young recruit Cristo had called Jana a maghiarja – a sorceress. And Sperancia before her, also a sorceress, a person of tremendous knowledge, astounding strength, and an uncanny ability to read people and predict their actions. Cristo hadn’t known about the black egg that Maro had seen Sperancia vomit up and Jana subsequently swallow, but he’d referred to something called the Crucible. Perhaps the black egg and the Crucible were one and the same. Some strange mechanism that bestowed knowledge, strength, and a form of immortality.

  Cristo had insisted that Sperancia was still alive, living on within Jana. Sperancia would see through Jana’s eyes and speak through her mouth, along with all the other Crucible’s previ
ous hosts.

  So it was a parasite of some sort. A human parasite.

  “Would you like to have sex?” Aina asked.

  “Not right now. Help me prepare for the Senate.”

  Maro donned a white linen tunic. Over that, Aina draped his toga trabea, an off-white woolen garment lined with a Tyrian purple stripe. For a moment, staring into the mirror, Maro was overcome by his own beauty: his flawless olive skin, his strong jaw and aquiline nose, his near-perfect symmetry and well-proportioned musculature. But he forced his attention back to the matter at hand. A battle awaited him in the Senate. Cassia, his chief opposition among the populares, would attack him at the first opportunity. And by now news of Felix’s death would have reached her. Undoubtedly she would attempt to blame him for the unfortunate incident.

  “Aina – I would like you to live with Cristo and Filumena for the next few days. Provide them with whatever comforts they desire, and keep a close eye on them. I’ll expect a full report.”

  “Where do they live?”

  He provided her with the address. Despite being an automaton devoid of conscious awareness, Aina was functionally intelligent enough to work out the remaining details on her own.

  The Curia Simoni was close by, and Maro chose to walk. As he strolled through parks and gardens, past marble statues and elaborate fountains decorated with intricate tile mosaics, he accumulated, almost immediately, an entourage of hangers-on and genuflectors. Welcome back. Tell us about your voyage. How many did you recruit? Maro smiled and vaguely answered a few questions, giving them nothing of substance. Surely Cassia had spies among the minor magistrates.

  The Curia was a huge shimmering dome constructed primarily of mollusk nacre, a building technique borrowed from biological engineers on the Stanford. Inside, the air was cool, and Maro was glad for the warmth his wool toga provided. Most of the senators had already arrived and were seated. Maro spotted Cassia instantly. It was impossible not to, given her height and coloring.

  The opposing senator had engaged in a series of aggressive genetic and surgical modifications since adolescence. She was nearly two and a half meters – or eight Roman feet – tall. She weighed at least one hundred fifty kilos, maintaining her mass with six meals a day, platters heaped with meat, fruit, and pastries that she often shared in public with her plebeian constituents. Cassia eschewed the lean muscular aesthetic preferred by Maro and the other optimates in favor of a strong but statuesque build. Her thighs and buttocks were massive, her arms as thick as a lion’s leg, her back as broad as a Viking rower’s. Her voice was booming and resonant, enhancing the Ethos of her arguments. Everything about her – her size, her voice, her dark brown skin – Cassia had engineered to gain respect and authority and gravitas. Or attention: her irises were a bright reddish-purple (royal purple, matching the stripe on Maro’s toga); her hair emerald green; her flawless teeth as black as obsidian. She was both beautiful and monstrous, an amalgam of cheap psychosocial engineering tricks. But those tricks worked. Cassia was powerful and popular.

  “Greetings, Maro,” she boomed the instant she saw him. “How did you find Earth, our dear and precious ancestral home?”

  “Vertiginous, to be honest,” he replied, trying and failing to match Cassia’s volume. “It was unnerving, at first, to be under a limitless sky, and to see land or sea stretch out before you so vastly, with no upward curve, no sense of the loop.”

  “And yet you returned whole, unlike our friend Felix.”

  “I have arranged a memorial service for my friend and lover. It will be elaborate and luxurious, as he would have preferred. I trust you will attend?”

  “Of course.”

  The assembly was brought to order. The agenda opened with various mundane topics that held little interest for Maro: infrastructure repairs; construction plans for new gymnasiums, bathhouses, dining halls, and galleries; hearings for disputes among plebeian groups that the lower magistrates had failed to resolve. While feigning attention to the speakers, Maro focussed on the nonverbal tells of the swing senators, those who had yet to align with either the optimates or the populares on the major agenda item. Ignatius, young and androgynously beautiful, looked nervous and would not meet his gaze. The sour old dog Traian did make eye contact, but with a beady-eyed resentment that made his sentiments clear enough.

  The winds of the Senate might be headwinds today.

  “And now for the matter of the Ringstation Coalition,” intoned Praetor Ovidius, adjusting his toga. “The Stanford and other orbital worldships continue to hail us with increasing insistence, inviting us to join their coalition and collaborate on various projects, most notably the repopulation of Earth. We have yet to respond. The matter is now open for debate.”

  “Worldships, hardly,” Ignatius said. “Their habitats are little more than glorified space stations. We dwarf them, physically and culturally.”

  “And yet their scientists continue to exceed the achievements of our Engineers,” Cassia pointed out, raising a giant hand to emphasize the point. Murmurs of agreement followed.

  “There’s nothing wrong with borrowing,” Maro said. “Are we not the tallest if we stand on the shoulders of giants?” Cassia gave him a sharp look for his choice of words, but many in the crowd chuckled.

  “What are the risks if we respond, if we engage with them?” Traian asked.

  “Nothing other than cultural suicide,” said Maro, pulling no punches. “No good can come from mingling with those who do not share our appreciation of art.”

  “That’s overly dramatic,” Cassia countered. “The other worldships have rich cultural and artistic traditions.”

  “Certainly,” Maro replied. “But to them, the arts will always be a slice of the pie, a line item, one among many things to consider. To us, art is primary, central, our collective purpose. Our lives serve the creative spirit, above all else. It is our reason for being.”

  “You do not speak for everyone, Maro,” piped in Didius, a bland and annoying ally of Cassia.

  “I speak for the spirit of our namesake, and for our ancestors who built this great worldship.”

  “We are not so simple as a pot of dye, to be diluted when mixed with water,” Cassia argued. “Our values have been consistent for centuries. When we change, it is willful, conscious change. And that is what I am proposing, that we accept their invitation in order to see new paths and then choose our own way. We have been isolated for too long.”

  Maro, in speaking to the Sardinians, had explained their move to the inner solar system under the same pretext: ending isolation. But he wanted nothing to do with the Ringstation Coalition. There was naught to be gained from joining a bureaucracy of piddly space stations, endlessly debating what was right and what was wrong. The citizens of the Michelangelo would shape their own destiny. And whatever they wanted of Earth – people or animals or natural resources – they would simply take. Who would stop them?

  The debate over the Ringstation Coalition continued for some time. But when it came to the vote, Maro’s optimates prevailed by a narrow margin; the Michelangelo would continue to ignore all hails from the Stanford, Liu Hui, Alhazen, and Hedonark. ‘Keep them guessing’ was the majority sentiment, overwhelming Cassia’s pleas for engagement and dialogue. Diplomacy had its place: a tool for parties of approximately equal strength and status to resolve their differences. But that was not the case here. The Michelangelo was superior in every way: size, population, military capability, technological advancement, cultural sophistication. Diplomacy was irrelevant.

  The next agenda was a necessary annoyance. Cassia had filed a formal protest against Maro’s Ancestral Realism project, gathering enough support to force the Senate to hear her appeal. It was meaningless theater; the project was already approved and well underway. But Cassia loved the sound of her own voice.

  “My fellow senators,” she began, “within hours Maro Decimus will begin an invasi
ve psychological experiment on live human subjects, a heinous and barbaric practice which we should never have approved. I implore you to withdraw your support for this Senate-sanctioned torture, this savagery practiced in the name of science and progress.”

  Her monologue continued, a seemingly endless blast of hot wind. Maro sat still and straight, trying to keep his face neutral, not too smug. When it was finally his turn to respond, he kept it short. “I would like to remind the Senate that there are only two subjects at the moment, and both are eager volunteers. So eager, in fact, that they escorted Livia and myself out of Bosa personally, at some risk to themselves, after we had been falsely accused of murder and detained. In no way are we coercing either of them to participate. They are free to leave the experiment and the Michelangelo if they wish. I would escort them home personally. And will, healthy and whole, once the experiment is complete.”

  “Then provide me access to the subjects,” Cassia demanded. “I would like to speak with them.”

  “So you can tell them lies about Ancestral Realism? I think not.”

  Cassia had no ground to stand on, and she knew it, but that didn’t stop her from harassing Maro for as long as the Senate would allow. Which was quite some time, as it turned out. Maro stoically endured the abuse until the next agenda item.

  Which came as something of a surprise.

  The Engineers had detected an anomaly – a powerful gamma-ray burst – in the outer solar system. The burst had occurred near the Centaur Chariklo, a minor planet with two icy rings orbiting the Sun between Saturn and Uranus. After a careful analysis the Engineers had deemed the event critically significant, and had prepared a report for the Senate. A woman named Lucretius, an astrophysicist, began the presentation, appearing nervous and agitated.