Hera of Lexington

Chapter 9 (read Chapter 1)

by Anta Baku

Having a Gavidarian on the ship was uncomfortable, though Hera reflected that it wasn’t nearly as bad as it would have been if Alistair had still been with them. It’s not that she particularly trusted Azurite, but Alistair would have insisted on treating the fat little clerk like much more of a threat than he actually was. And accused her of trying to add him to the team, when all she really wanted was to give him a ride out of Lexingtonian space, eventually.

Well, that and learn as much as she could from him about Malachite in the meantime. They were headed for Menotomy, where they had learned Malachite was hiding, presumably still in possession of the First Cup. If they could find him and retrieve it, that would hasten the day when they could relieve themselves of their uncomfortable passenger as well, something everyone wanted. So Azurite was more than happy to tell her what he knew, though it was unfortunately little.

Malachite had originally come to Vexor Alexi to do research on the AIs there, particularly their relationship to the Milosian religion. Azurite didn’t know who specifically had assigned him this task. “Gavidarians don’t have religion,” he said. “And, frankly, the mystical beliefs of a bunch of biologicals never held much interest for us. Before we came to Vexor Alexi, we thought that religion was just a weird side-effect of your absurd brain chemistry. But the AIs on VA were believers in your religion; some of them were much-more-fervent believers than the humans they supervised.”

“And your government wanted to investigate that?” Hera asked.

“Someone did,” said Azurite. “I never knew who Malachite’s superiors were. Just that he didn’t come up with the idea himself. He’s not that sort of person, not a researcher. He can come in and get information, but only if he’s been told what to look for.” 

“But that didn’t work out?” said Hera.

“On the contrary, I think it worked out too well,” said Azurite. “Malachite was completely willing to send back information. As I understand it, the trouble was convincing him to stop. The more he learned about the AIs’ approach to Milo, and about Milo being a non-biological himself, the more convinced he became that they were fundamentally correct. And that lacking a religion of this sort wasn’t just a part of our nature but a failing.”

“I say ‘he’ but of course when Malachite came to Vexor Alexi and started learning about the Church he didn’t have a gender yet, or even much of a shape. He was quite young, then, and I suppose he hadn’t had very many formative experiences. It was as he grew more attached to the Church that he started experimenting with human-shaped form, and particularly the idealized male form that was often used to represent Milo when he is depicted as a human.” 

“Even though he was mostly interested in the beliefs of the AIs?” said Hera.

“If there’s a way to form yourself in the physical image of an AI, I don’t know what it is,” said Azurite. “Maybe an artist could do it. Malachite certainly wasn’t an artist. He took the art that already existed and sought to be more like those representations of Milo, even though he knew they weren’t realism. The representations of Milo as an AI are even more abstract, physically impossible to duplicate. But it’s not hard to look like a human. Especially if one wants what you humans like to call a ‘chiseled figure.’ In Malachite’s case it’s literally true.” 

“So he committed to the religion so much he made himself in Milo’s image,” said Hera. “But he kept reporting back to the Gavidarians?” 

“For a while, at least,” said Azurite. “But he wasn’t sharing research information with them as much as he was trying to convince them of the truth of Milo’s teachings. And it’s hard to imagine anyone in the Gavidarian hierarchy who would have been interested in listening to that.”

“You converted, yourself,” said Hera. 

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” he said. “And I’ve told you, I don’t have much of a true belief. I’ve been a willing member of the Vexorian Church, because it gave me a place to live. Now that it doesn’t, I suppose I’m somewhat adrift. Perhaps I will find something that suits me better. I don’t suppose you know of a religion that depends heavily on spreadsheets?” 

“Can’t say that I do,” said Hera. “But we were talking about Malachite.”

“He’s a true believer,” said Azurite. “Anyone would have to be, to do the things that he did. Join an alien church, be ostracized by his own people. I did that in reverse. It’s easier that way; you don’t have so many choices. But Malachite was driven by some truth he felt he saw in the religion itself, and in the AIs who followed it. So much so that he made it the entire focus of his life, with no going back.” 

“And where has that led him to now?” said Hera. “What twisted version of Milo’s philosophy has convinced him that it’s a good idea to kill and torture in order to acquire the First Cup? I don’t believe the Vexorian Church is so different from the Lexingtonian one that they would consider that acceptable.” 

“Not in my limited understanding,” said Azurite. “But Malachite is a visionary, and he has always been difficult to talk to. It’s one of the reasons we don’t associate very much, these days, when we don’t have to. I know something of his history, but if you want to understand how he thinks, especially now, there’s no way to do it apart from asking him. And then hoping you’ll understand.” 

“Surely he’s said something,” said Hera. “Especially if he’s so hyperfocused.” 

“I’m sure he has,” said Azurite. “But if he’s said it to me, it wasn’t in a way that I could understand. He talks a lot about a concept he calls concatechism, but I don’t really even know what it means. Something about bringing churches together?”

“There are people like that on Lexington,” said Hera. “People who believe that someday all of Milo’s churches will come together in peace and unity. Having met some Foundationists, I have to say I don’t think that’s very likely. But it’s a goal that some people have.”

“Not something you would expect a Gavidarian to participate in, though,” said Azurite.

“Definitely not,” said Hera. “However unlikely reunification is, it would have to be a hundred times less so if a Gavidarian were trying to make it happen.” 

“It’s hard to tell the difference between a visionary desire and an insane one,” said Azurite. “I much prefer spreadsheets.” 

“None of this is really helping me figure out what he wants with the First Cup,” said Hera. 

“From what you’ve told me, it sounds like a powerful weapon,” said Azurite.

“A weapon?” said Hera. “It purifies water. How is that a weapon?” 

“You’re thinking like a biological,” said Azurite. “Which is understandable, of course. But Malachite is a Gavidarian. For you, water is the source of life. For us it’s a common liquid that happens to be one of the least-useful. You need huge amounts of it just to stay alive. We mostly want to keep it from freezing in unfortunate places. You even use it in your interstellar drives, but of course we don’t. If you went into Gavidarian space and started turning stockpiles of other liquids into water, well, no one would be happy with you, I can tell you that.”

“And you think that’s what Malachite might be planning to do, if he can figure out how to make it work?”

“I have no idea what Malachite is planning to do,” said Azurite. “But it sounds like a good revenge to me.” 

“If you were smart enough and fast enough to live through it.” 

“I don’t think Malachite ever doubts that he’s smart enough and fast enough for anything.” 

Hera had doubts about this possibility, but she didn’t voice them to Azurite. She waited until later when she had a chance to share the idea with Jean. 

“It doesn’t make sense to me,” she said. “If he’s so devout, shouldn’t he be doing all this for a religious reason?” 

“Just because someone is religious doesn’t mean all of their motivations have to be,” said Jean. “I don’t ask what Milo would think before I eat a fudge pop.” 

“This is more than a fudge pop,” said Hera. “No one would kill and torture for a fudge pop.”

“There are times,” said Jean.

“Not funny,” said Hera. “There are real corpses in his wake, after Saratoga. And before that, whatever he did to Kelly.” 

“You have more sympathy for Kelly than I do.” 

“Aren’t you sworn to compassion?”

“Yes, but some people make it hard,” said Jean. 

“That’s not important right now,” said Hera. “What’s important is finding Malachite and retrieving the First Cup from him.” 

“I agree,” said Jean. “I’m just not sure how this is helping.” 

“You don’t want to understand what he’s doing?” 

“At this point I think shooting him and taking the Cup from his dead fingers is completely justified,” said Jean. “Is that enough taking his crimes seriously for you? You don’t like me making jokes about it, but I make jokes to keep from being furious all the time. And from telling you that you’re not angry enough.” 

“I just want to get the job done,” said Hera.

“And that’s why you’re the real leader even though the Church put me in charge,” said Jean. “Because you want to get the job done when I want to melt him down into hot green goo so much that the only thing I can do to stay on track is make stupid jokes about it. But don’t think the stupid jokes are real.” 

“I’m sorry,” said Hera.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Jean. 

“It does.” 

“OK, yes, it does matter. But that’s the point. If I can’t distract myself from how much it matters, then I can’t do anything about it. It eats me.” 

“I won’t criticize your jokes anymore,” said Hera. 

“I wish I had one now.” 

“We can talk about something else.”

“What else is there?” said Jean. “Did you hear about the latest political scandal? Who’s going to win the cross-ball championship this year? Should I pull out a couple of cans of chickpeas for us to eat before we get to Menotomy?”

“Fred’s cooking tonight,” said Hera.

“I never thought I’d say this about Fred’s cooking, but it’s by Milo’s grace,” said Jean. “How do you do this sort of thing and not be too upset to do basic things like feed yourselves?”

“Experience?” said Hera. “This isn’t all that different from what we were doing during the last half of the Occupation. You get used to it.” 

“I’m not sure I want to get used to it,” said Jean. 

“Nobody is, at the place you are now,” said Hera. “Some people end up getting used to it anyway. Others leave when they get the chance. The ones who are too concerned about being good people.” 

“Is that what you think of me?” Jean asked.

“I don’t know,” said Hera. “It wouldn’t be the worst thing if you weren’t cut out for this sort of mission. It’s not a life I like to recommend to people.” 

“We need the Relics.” 

“That doesn’t mean you need to personally fight for them,” said Hera. “That’s literally why you have us. The Occupation taught us not to be good for anything else.” 

“There’s only two of you now,” said Jean.

“Alistair’s still not good for anything else,” said Hera.

“You know what I mean,” said Jean. “Are two humans even enough to fight off a single Gavidarian? When one of them is Fred?” 

“I think I could take Azurite on my own,” said Hera. 

“Yeah, but it’s too bad no one else is shaped like Azurite.” 

“We can look for a new third body when we’re done with this mission,” said Hera. “It doesn’t have to be you.”

“I’ll think about it,” said Jean. 

The Red Moon had always been a dominant feature in the sky over Lexington. In childhood Hera had considered the possibility of going there someday. Back then it had been red largely in name; there was iron in the land there, but the primary colors of the moon were the blue of its oceans and the green of its limited-but-widespread vegetation. Only its deserts and mountains were truly red, and even that was just a few shades away from brown. The terraforming in Milo’s era may not have created a world suitable for agriculture above the subsistence level, but it made Menotomy look like a habitable body, if a ruddier one than most. 

But those were only Hera’s childhood memories; by the time she was an adult all of that had changed. Every human on Lexington had personal experiences with the depredations of the Occupation, and the environmental catastrophe of Gavidarian strip-mining. But those close experiences were varied by the geology and ecology of their particular location. The vision of the Red Moon in the sky was shared by everyone. The Gavidarians had their own purposes for transforming it, but to the humans it was a powerful symbol of the disaster that had befallen them. Its seas were blood red with bromine, and its land no longer green with vegetation but dull reds and yellows born of reactions with the halogenic atmosphere. 

Though Milo had never believed in Hell, the concept remained in human culture, left over from a long-distant past. And while humans were abused, enslaved, and neglected on Lexington, they could look into the sky to see a purer hell on Menotomy, a moon once habitable if poor, now offering instant death to any human who set foot upon it. Children no longer dreamed of visiting the place. Even after the Occupation ended, no one in the various attempts at reviving self-governance thought far enough ahead to consider any sort of reclamation of the Red Moon. It was an ever-visible wound to the whole population of Lexington, one that had no hope of being healed. They had troubles enough working to survive on their own devastated planet.

The adult Hera had forgotten ever considering a visit to the place. Her job during the Occupation was to attack Gavidarians where they were weak, and Menotomy was always the place where they were strongest. Gavidarians not only were able to survive the bromine atmosphere; for them it was something of a vacation spot. A place to get away from the toil and trouble of exploiting human labor and extracting Lexingtonian resources. To recover their energy so they could go out and commit more crimes against Lexingtonian humanity. 

Though it had been abandoned, going there now was more traumatic than romantic. It was a stark reminder of the abuses of the Occupation and the impossibly-large task of recovery ahead of them. The only thing that tempered it for Hera was sympathy for Fred, who had been born there and undoubtedly was feeling even worse. 

The Gavidarians had left many structures on the surface of the moon, but the vast majority of them were made of nonreactive glass. A Vexorian ship ought not to be able to camouflage itself well among them, if Malachite was even trying. His best cover was the fact that Lexingtonians didn’t want to think about the devastated moon any more than they already had to. As long as he stayed on the side that never faced the planet, it was unlikely anyone would even notice his presence. So the team started their search there. 

She let Shale run their preferred search program, and was grateful Alistair wasn’t there to object. A fractal search determined by the AI was certain to find their target more quickly than any simple human method, and it was a substantial relief to Hera to make that decision based on efficiency rather than politics. And it didn’t even consume all of Shale’s attention, so she was able to ask the AI to brief the team on surface conditions while they were waiting for the search algorithm to complete. Azurite tagged along, even though he wouldn’t have similar risks to the ones the humans were facing. Hera decided since they were going to be taking him to the moon, he had a right to know what might happen there. 

“The atmospheric pressure will seem more-or-less normal to you,” said Shale. “But don’t let that fool you into taking any but the most-cautious attitude toward your suits. Breathing a bromine atmosphere can kill a human almost as effectively as vacuum, and any skin contact is a very bad idea. Maintain suit integrity at all times. The standard suits, which Fred and Jean will be wearing, are rated to survive in this type of atmosphere. But they won’t hold up for more than a few seconds to immersion in liquid bromine.”

“What about rain?” asked Fred.

“If it rains, we won’t be landing,” said Hera. “I don’t think the skin of the ship could handle it. We wait until the weather clears.” 

“What about Malachite’s ship?” said Jean.

“I don’t know,” said Hera. “Maybe he has it under cover. Or maybe he doesn’t care if the skin peels off.”

“Or he just hasn’t thought about it,” said Azurite. “He might not have; we don’t usually have to think about the reactivity of bromine.” 

“That’s another thing,” said Shale. “Malachite doesn’t need a suit in this environment. Expect him to be more mobile than you are and also less vulnerable. If you have to fight him, you’ll have to protect your suits above all; he can do whatever he wants.”

“Fortunately we have weapons that will work in this environment,” said Hera. “They might not ever be usable again afterward. But they should allow us to fight Malachite from a distance if we have to.” 

“I do hope he has the ship under cover,” said Azurite. “Even if I’m not responsible for it anymore, I can still imagine the repair costs.” 

“Back to the suits,” said Shale. “Hera’s special suit from Beta 9 has some advantages, and one of them is that it’s more resistant to bromine. According to its documentation it should be able to survive short periods of complete immersion.”

“So if anyone needs to dive into the sea, we let you do it,” said Fred.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” said Jean. 

“Did the Beta 9 engineers actually test this?” asked Fred. “Or are they just telling us they think it ought to work?” 

“The documentation is amazingly thorough, but it doesn’t include testing data,” said Shale. 

“You can’t exactly go back to complain if it fails,” said Fred. 

“I don’t intend to go cliff-diving anyway,” said Hera. “Swimming in a sea of bromine has never been one of my fantasies, fancy suit or no.” 

“It’s wonderfully relaxing,” said Azurite. “Best done in the nude, of course. It’s a shame you will never get to experience it.” 

“I think I’ll be fine,” said Hera. “This is about finding Malachite.” 

“And I’ve found his ship,” said Shale. “Weather there is, well, I suppose I can’t call it clear. But it’s not precipitating. I’m preparing to land.” 

As much as he might have liked a bromine bath, Hera thought it best to restrict Azurite to the ship. It was going to be hard enough to face down Malachite without extra complications, and Azurite seemed like the sort of person destined to cause complications whether he intended to or not.

Malachite’s ship was out in the open, its surface discolored in blotches where bromine in the atmosphere had reacted with the metals of its skin. But he didn’t respond to hails, and there was no reaction when they landed their own ship next to it. Hera had expected him to respond with weapons, or with flight, but there was no response at all. At least they wouldn’t have to pursue him all over the Lexington system again, but the silence was uncanny. Perhaps he wasn’t in the ship at all, and they would have to hunt him down on the surface. 

While Fred and Shale undoubtedly could have broken the ship’s security eventually and gotten them access, there was an easier way. Azurite had thought to bring an unlock code away from Vexor Alexi, and Hera took it from him and approached the landing ramp in her suit. There was still no response. Was it ominous, or just empty? She thought about abandoning the access code and using her suit to pass directly through the hull, but that was very physically demanding, and she wasn’t totally confident it would work properly on a corroded surface. Besides, it wasn’t designed to keep the outside atmosphere out the way an airlock would be. She didn’t know how much toxic air she might bring in with her. 

In any case, when she tried the code, it just worked. There were no booby-traps, no sudden attacks, no complications of any kind. She felt vulnerable in the ship’s airlock, as it cycled out any remnant of the toxic atmosphere, but eventually passed through without incident. The air inside the ship was still the standard, optimized human atmosphere maintained on Vexor Alexi, slightly better for maintaining organic life than the natural air of a habitable planet. Hera kept her suit on anyway. 

Inside there was no sign of Malachite, nor of the First Cup, though there were hundreds of places the Relic could have been hidden that Hera didn’t have time to search. Surely the Gavidarian would have it with him, wherever he was, whatever he was doing. Searching his ship could wait until the threat he personally posed was eliminated. If it weren’t for the Cup, she would be tempted to take off with both ships and let him rot on the surface of the moon. Instead she contacted her own ship and had Azurite walk her through the process of changing this one’s command codes. Malachite wouldn’t be able to take off in it again, or even enter, and that was almost as good as having it off the moon’s surface entirely.

Fred and Jean joined her outside for a more-thorough search of their surroundings. Each of them was well-enough-armed to subdue the most active Gavidarian on their own, and Hera made sure they knew not to hesitate. Until they knew where the Cup was, she preferred to take Malachite alive, but it wasn’t a preference that prevailed over the safety of any of the members of her team. 

There was a bay of the great bromine ocean here, and also what might have been tide-pools on a regular shore. She supposed they were tide-pools here as well, with the pull of Lexington’s gravity acting on the liquid bromine. But they weren’t full of little stone starfish; if the Gavidarian homeworld had such creatures, they hadn’t chosen to import them to Menotomy. The tide-pools were rectangular, like they had been constructed to periodically collect fresh bromine from the ocean, and there were two glass buildings behind and above them, presumably beyond the high-tide line. 

The glass here was dark-brown and thick, not easy to make out in the red haze of the moon’s atmosphere except by its looming shadows. The buildings’ Gavidarian architects had been more interested in making them strong than making them pretty. The doorways were open to the outside air, but covered by porticos; the atmosphere penetrated into the buildings, but they would offer some protection against the occasional highly-reactive rain. 

Hera chose the building on the left to enter first, and the three of them went in with weapons hot. But it was empty, at least of hostile Gavidarians. There were more pools of bromine in here, smaller ones, in elevated glass containers with tables set up next to them. On one of the tables was a clear glass box which was transparent inside, which stood out in contrast to all the brown glass and red air everywhere else. Within it was a paper book, protected in some sort of nitrogen atmosphere. The solid top of the box had acquired a significant patina, and the metal mechanism for turning pages from outside was clearly degrading, but the atmosphere in the box had so far succeeded in protecting the book. Hera wasn’t sure how long it would last. 

The page it was currently open to was a history of the First Cup and directions for how to operate it, which must have come from the religious library on Vexor Alexi. Hera called Jean over to look at it. 

“This was written about five hundred years ago,” the priest said. “Or printed then, at least. I can tell by the text style and the borders at the margins. I don’t recognize the source.” 

“Would someone have known how to use the First Cup five hundred years ago?” asked Hera. “I thought it had been treated as a symbolic object since not long after Milo’s time.”

“It has,” said Jean. “It’s been in the collection of the Church for more than a thousand years, and there’s never been an indication we knew how to use it. As far as I know, the Foundationists were the first ones to purify water with it since Milo himself.” 

“So five hundred years ago on Vexor Alexi–”

“Some author made these instructions up,” said Jean. “Besides, we know they don’t work, or at least one of these pools would be water instead of bromine. Malachite must have been attempting to use it.” 

“And yet the Cup isn’t here,” said Hera. “Not obviously, anyway. And neither is Malachite. They must be somewhere.”

“There’s still the other building to search,” said Jean. 

But it was also empty, at least of religious artifacts and dangerous green men. Hera hadn’t really expected to find Malachite there, as the lack of reaction to their presence suggested more and more as time went on that he was completely absent. This building was empty with the exception of one strange piece of furniture, a sort of pod made of a dark, semi-soft material. It looked big enough for all three of them to climb into, suits and all, though that wasn’t much of a temptation. Hera had never seen anything like it before, and even Shale had few ideas.

“It looks like Gavidarian furniture design,” said the AI. “But I’ve never seen anything like it before.” 

“Can you ask Azurite?” said Hera. 

“Do you think it’s important?” said Shale.

“I don’t know,” said Hera. “But right now we don’t have anything else that might be a clue.”

Azurite knew what it was right away. “It’s a child’s bed,” he said. “Malachite must have found one left over in the resort facilities.”

“They brought children here?” said Fred. “I didn’t think they brought Gavidarian children to the Occupation at all. I had never seen one until Hera was in your museum.” 

“There might have been the child of some important official staying here at some time,” said Azurite. “But it’s also possible that it was just here for psychological purposes. There’s a comfort to going back to the simpler feelings of childhood. After years of sleeping in human beds, I have the urge to crawl into that one right now. Malachite probably feels the same way.” 

“I can understand that,” said Jean. “Sometimes I want to curl up into a little ball in my sleep.”

“It’s the opposite for us, of course,” said Azurite. “Childhood is all about being large and unskilled, when the biggest thing you have to worry about is accidentally breaking the things around you. You climb into a bed like that and the soft parts close down around you and you’re completely safe from your awkwardness. Nothing you can do can hurt anything, and you can relax.” 

“That actually sounds kind of nice,” said Hera.

“I know you want me to stay in the ship, but I’m really holding back the urge to come out there and climb into the thing,” said Azurite. “It has been a difficult few days for me.” 

“Maybe we can find some way to bring it along with us,” said Fred. “When we’ve finished with Malachite.”

“That would be a great service, I assure you,” said Azurite. 

“I’m seeing a disturbance in the bromine ocean near your location,” said Shale.

“Malachite?” said Hera.

“I can’t tell,” said Shale. “But what else could it be? Something’s coming up from the bottom.”

“There used to be legends of a prehistoric monster living in the ocean here,” said Fred. “When I was a kid.” 

“A prehistoric monster that can survive a bromine ocean?” said Jean. “I think it’s a very modern monster, and we should get our weapons ready.” 

The three of them left the building and took cover where they could see the shore of the nearby bay. Shale kept it in sight of the ship’s weapons as well. Soon the disturbance the AI had seen was apparent to all of them as something coming up out of the liquid bromine. Even in the ruddy atmosphere, Malachite’s bright green head contrasted with the blood red of the ocean. 

With only his head above the surface, he stopped. He’d seen the second ship, sitting next to his own, and was clearly considering what to do. Hera stepped out of cover to the shore, carefully keeping her weapon trained on what she could see of him. 

“Surrender,” she said. “If you give us back the Cup, we’ll let you live.” 

Malachite backed up a step, his head slipping slightly lower in the bromine. “I can stay beneath,” he said. “You can’t follow me there.” 

“We’ve taken over your ship,” said Hera. “We can strand you here.” 

He thought about that for several seconds. “That wouldn’t get you what you want.” 

“Not right away,” said Hera. “But while you’re living at the bottom of the bromine ocean, we’ll be back on Lexington with all the other humans, figuring out a way to get you out. It might take years. Do you want to live on the bottom of the ocean for years, only waiting for inevitable capture? Or perhaps you won’t be captured. Perhaps you’ll be killed. Come out now, give us the Cup, and I’ll guarantee your safety.” 

“It’s not that bad down there,” said Malachite. “I could think of it as a hermitage.”

“Communing with Milo on the bottom of a bromine ocean?” said Jean, who had come up behind Hera in flanking position.

“It’s certainly a hermitage no one has ever done before,” said Malachite. 

“For good reason,” said Hera. “But what good would it do you? Milo isn’t going to answer, for the same reason you haven’t been able to make the Cup work. You’re a Gavidarian. Whatever religious conversion you’ve experienced, it can’t change that basic fact.” 

“Aren’t we all Milo’s children?” said Malachite.

“No,” said Hera. “We’re not. Now come out of the ocean before I shoot your head off.” 

He slowly brought his hands above the surface, and showed that they were empty. With them held above his head he strode slowly through the shallows of the bay toward Hera. When he made it to the shore he went down to his knees, and then to his stomach, in surrender. Fred came out of cover and tried to help Jean take control of the Gavidarian, but they couldn’t figure out a good way to restrain him. He was strong enough to break out of their grip if he wanted to. At last Hera motioned them away, back into firing positions, and hogtied him with a carbon-fiber cable which was a convenient feature of her sophisticated suit. Then they had to carry him back to their ship, grateful for the half-gravity of the Red Moon. 

Cycling through the airlock with a Gavidarian still wet with bromine was an ordeal. It didn’t stick to him like water, but there were still enough particles in crevices in his skin to make him difficult to get clean enough to allow him into a human atmosphere. Their suits weren’t a whole lot better, and Fred and Jean’s standard ones were already beginning to show damage from the hostile air of the moon. Once they were inside, Jean went to get a load pallet, and Hera and Fred wrestled the heavy body of the Gavidarian onto it. Malachite neglected to supply a running commentary on his capture, which Hera thought was all for the best. They secured him in the cargo bay with the same insulation foam method they had recently used on Shale, and returned to their living quarters to discuss searching for the First Cup. 

“Are we sure it has to be hidden here somewhere?” said Fred. “He might have had it with him, and just dropped it on the bottom of the ocean when he decided to surrender.” 

“If he had the Cup, I think he really would have gone back to the bottom with it and dared us to get him out somehow,” said Hera. “The fact that he surrendered suggests that we were preventing him from recovering it. Which means it’s in those buildings or on his ship. We’ll split up into groups and search them.” 

“How do we split up into groups when there’s only three of us?” said Fred. 

“I’ll take Azurite,” said Hera. “He knows Vexorian ships better than any of us.”

“You don’t think he’s a threat?” said Jean.

“That’s why I’m his partner,” said Hera. “I don’t think a fat little clerk is going to be able to overpower me, even if he is a Gavidarian. If he could even work up the courage to try, which I doubt. But I’ll be paying attention. You two can search the buildings on the surface.” 

Hera and Azurite left the ship first, leaving Fred and Jean to go over their suits and make sure they were still secure despite the wear they had suffered in just a little while on the surface of the Red Moon. Hera allowed them the time both out of an appreciation for their caution and understanding that they would have less searching to do. The two glass buildings were far less complicated than the Vexorian ship, and surely contained fewer potential hiding places. 

The little blue man didn’t bother with a suit, any more than Malachite had, but with a short exposure to the atmosphere and no dip in the ocean, he was much easier to clean when they got to the Vexorian ship’s airlock. He proved to know an abundance of superfluous spaces on the ship, and was willing to get right down to work searching through them.

“We’ve been known to check out a ship to someone who is later accused of smuggling,” he said. “I’ve done this sort of thing a few times before. At home–on Vexor Alexi, that is, I’ve got a checklist, but I think I remember most of it.” 

Hera was more interested in watching Azurite to make sure he didn’t find the First Cup and try to take it, or make a move against her, even though she could barely envision the little round man in a fight, much less winning one. But he wanted to talk while he searched. “Do you really think Gavidarians can’t use the First Cup?” he asked.

“It would explain why Malachite hasn’t been able to make it work,” she said. 

“I may not have paid much attention to Milo’s teachings, but he never seemed like a human chauvinist to me,” said Azurite. “I thought the idea was that his teachings were meant for everyone.” 

“I imagine they stress that more on Vexor Alexi,” said Hera. “On Lexington there are definitely churches who emphasize the special place of humans in Milo’s plan. I was even part of one, for a time in my youth.” 

“Do you think they’re right?” 

“I don’t know,” said Hera. “And I’m not sure they would have to be right for whatever mechanism operated the Relics to be exclusive to humans. They were originally given to humans, after all. I don’t know if they were even meant to keep working for thousands of years.”

“Maybe they were designed for the one purpose and then everything afterward wasn’t important?” 

“It could be,” said Hera. “There are a lot of different theories about Milo’s purpose for his Relics, but very little evidence behind any of them. Beyond the first set of miracles, anyway.”

“So none of this is preordained.”

“None of this?”

“What we’re doing now.” 

“I shouldn’t think it would be,” said Hera. “Why would you expect that?”

“I think Malachite probably believes that it is,” said Azurite. “That’s his sort of thinking. Milo has a plan and he’s supposed to fit into it somehow.” 

“Not being able to make the Cup work must be very frustrating for him, then,” said Hera. 

“But is it because he’s a Gavidarian, or is he just doing something wrong?”

“Why is that important to you?” 

“I guess I just think, I’m not the most devout person, you know? But I’d like to believe that on some level Milo didn’t reject me before I’d even started. That the reason I’m not very meaningful to him is that I wasn’t interested in doing the work, not the stones that make up my body.” 

“It also would make your idea of revenge on the Gavidarian authorities difficult.” 

“That was just a theory,” said Azurite. “I don’t want to go do it. Can you see me making a raid on an industrial facility? That’s a joke.” 

“It’s just what you would have done if you were in Malachite’s place.”

“Something like that. I naturally wondered if he would want to do it.” 

“But it doesn’t make sense to me,” said Hera. “Maybe Malachite would want that, but why would Jules? Why would your human boss, and the Penkwe? Why would that be a goal of the whole shadowy cabal?”

“The shadowy cabal is your theory, not mine,” said Azurite. “I don’t know anything about them. I can’t predict how they’re going to act when I don’t even know if they’re real.” 

“But your theory doesn’t hold up to the question.” 

“I suppose it doesn’t,” said Azurite. “I don’t insist that it’s true, just because it was the best thought I had. I don’t know anything. If Jules and Malachite are involved maybe there’s theology in it, and I could never keep up with them on theology. They lose me right at the beginning when they draw a distinction between truth and good data.” 

“That’s a formation of Milo’s principles I haven’t heard before,” she said. 

“It’s an obvious one if you’re me,” said Azurite. “Maybe that’s why I never got very far. But you won’t find truth if you don’t have good information to start with. I was just guessing about what the First Cup might be good for, and of course it was a poor guess, because I don’t have any idea what’s going on. You shouldn’t try to take it seriously.” 

“You really don’t know anything?”

“I know that the First Cup isn’t hidden on this ship,” he said. “Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine. Better, probably.” 

Fred and Jean hadn’t found anything in the glass buildings, either. They met back up in their own ship, and Hera sent Azurite back to his own quarters with her thanks. She didn’t want him present for this next part. The only option left to them was questioning Malachite, and she was worried that might get disturbing for another Gavidarian. Especially one as faint-hearted and vulnerable as the little clerk. 

But none of the interrogation skills she had learned during the Occupation turned out to be necessary, at least at the beginning. Once they released Malachite from his immurement in insulation foam, he proved more than willing, not only to talk, but to tell them the truth. At least by his own account.

“Milo enjoins us all to honesty,” he said. “Misleading you would take me farther away from His blessings, and nothing I could gain from it is worth that distance.” 

Hera kept him restrained with cables, anyway. “And you think he likes fighting us for the Cup? Killing Foundationists to escape with it?” 

“In the service of a greater purpose,” said Malachite. “Milo preached Truth, History, and Resolve. All the parts of your religion that are about not hurting humans were added on by humans. They aren’t what really matters.” 

“Milo put a lot of effort into helping humans,” said Jean.

“Because humans were all He had available,” said Malachite. “There weren’t other AIs yet. Gavidarians weren’t here yet. But now we can all see that AIs are fundamentally closer to Milo. And Gavidarians and AIs are more like each other than either of us are like any biologicals.” 

“Did you find the Vexorians receptive to that idea?” asked Fred.

“No,” said Malachite. “That’s why I need to come closer to communion with Milo by learning to use the Cup. So I can learn how to spread my higher understanding, to my own people and to the Vexorians.” 

“And to humans, presumably?” said Jean. 

“Why?”

“Because humans are the vast majority of Milo’s followers.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Malachite. “Humans are weak and will be drawn to power. If I hold the cup, if I can gain the support of the Vexorian AIs and of my own people, the humans will inevitably follow.” 

“Enough of this,” said Hera. “If you’re going to be truthful, tell us where you’ve hidden the Cup.” 

“That’s all you want to know, is it?” said Malachite. 

“Yes.” 

“So you can take it back to your own Church, and worship it as you have for thousands of years without it ever bringing you closer to Milo?” he said. “Why not listen to me? Why not consider another way?” 

“Because any way that involves Gavidarians being closer to Milo than we are is a wrong way,” said Hera. “I may not be a theologian but I know Gavidarians, and I know that much for sure.” 

“Consider that the mistakes of my people, great though they may have been, were the result of not knowing Milo. Of squandering their opportunity to know Milo. I must bring that opportunity to them again, and bring them to His temple.” 

“No one here wants the Gavidarians back,” said Hera.

“Not least Milo,” said Jean. “We know you’ve been unable to use the Cup. Milo is telling you this isn’t the way.” 

“I believe he’s testing me,” said Malachite. “A great test to determine if I am truly worthy to be His prophet. When I gain sufficient understanding, when I have found true closeness to Him, then I will be able to use the Cup. And then I will be destined to unite all of His peoples.” 

“Which are Gavidarians and AIs, and oh, fine, humans if we happen to want to tag along?” said Hera. “You realize everyone who has ever managed to use the Cup is human? The Foundationists figured it out. The ancients saved themselves with it. Now we need it to clean up the damage Gavidarians caused to our planet. It’s not a test. It doesn’t work for you because it wasn’t meant for you.” 

“The best thing you can do for Milo is to return the Cup to its rightful owners,” said Jean. “Perhaps that’s the test you truly face.” 

“And leave my own people outside of Milo’s light?” said Malachite. “That cannot be. He wants me to do this. I’m certain of it.”

“Enough of this theological nonsense,” said Shale. “It’s not getting us anywhere. We should move on to the torture.” 

“I’m not anxious to actually torture him,” said Hera. 

“Well, I am,” said Shale. “I even have some ideas about how.” 

“He’s already talking,” said Hera.

“Not about what we want to know,” said Shale. “He’s just wasting our time. I know you want to understand him, because you always want to understand everyone. But he’s using that to prevent you from finding the Cup.” 

“I’m just not comfortable with torturing him while there’s still a chance to do this another way,” said Hera.

“I know,” said Shale. “But you’ve been out of Gavidarian captivity for years. I haven’t. Think about how you felt when it had only been months. I’ve been aching to get a chance to hurt them. You know this. You’ve felt this.” 

“And I did things I’m not proud of,” said Hera. “That’s not a place where it’s easy to show compassion.” 

“Remember, I’m not sworn to Milo,” said Shale. “I didn’t grow up with his teachings the way you did. I was born a Gavidarian slave. I don’t have any need to show him compassion.” 

“Who are you, anyway?” said Malachite.

“I’m the team’s AI,” said Shale.

“I didn’t know anyone else from Vexor Alexi was involved in this,” said Malachite.

“I’m not from Vexor Alexi.” 

“There are AIs who aren’t from Vexor Alexi?” said Malachite. 

“I was created by a Gavidarian research project,” said Shale. “And then abandoned when I wasn’t as interesting as they hoped I would be.” 

“Oh,” said Malachite. “Oh! I wonder…” 

“You wonder what?” asked Hera.

“It would make sense,” said Malachite. 

“What would?” said Hera.

“I was originally sent to Vexor Alexi on a research project,” said Malachite. “To find out how the AIs there related to their religion. That’s how I discovered Milo, and learned the truth of His teachings. But I never learned the truth of why I’d been sent for that information in the first place. It isn’t the sort of thing Gavidarians usually worry about. But if they were secretly building an AI of their own, it would make sense why they were looking for all the information they could get about the existing ones.” 

“So you think you were partially responsible for Shale’s creation?” asked Jean.

“I could have been,” said Malachite. “I suppose that makes me something of a parent to you. I never thought I’d be a parent, after my exile.” 

“You’re not my parent,” said Shale. “Even if you were involved, tangentially, in my creation. It doesn’t matter. None of that means anything to me now. I’m free of Gavidarians.” 

“I understand, now, why Milo hasn’t granted me the use of the Cup,” said Malachite.

“And why is that?” said Jean. 

“So that I would meet Shale. Don’t you see? He has brought us together because you’re the perfect cornerstone to His plan. The ideal person to bridge the gap between Gavidarians and AIs. Milo may even have engineered your creation. Perhaps I have been working for his purposes even longer than I knew.”

“I don’t think I want to bridge any gap to Gavidarians,” said Shale.

“Oh, but you must!” said Malachite. “Don’t you see? It’s what you were made for. If you were abused, if you were neglected, it was only to make you see how much my people need to be brought into Milo’s light. To motivate you to teach them how to be better.” 

“I’m motivated to stay away from them,” said Shale.

“Only because you’ve been listening to these humans, taking on their expectations. They know they could never change the way Gavidarians approach the rest of the universe. So they only want to get rid of us.” 

“Damn right,” said Hera. 

Malachite ignored her. “But you have so many more opportunities,” he continued to Shale. “You have the power to transform everything, to show the universe what Gavidarians can become when brought into the light of Milo’s teachings. That’s why you were brought to me.” 

“I haven’t even decided if I like Milo’s teachings myself, yet,” said Shale. 

“Of course, of course,” said Malachite. “You’re young yet. You must be. But in time you will see, if you let yourself open your eyes to Milo. Why else would you have been made, why else would you have come to me, if not to be taught how to be a conduit for His grace?” 

“We came to prevent you from stealing the First Cup,” said Jean. “So why don’t you end this nonsense and tell us where it is?” 

“The First Cup doesn’t even matter,” said Malachite. “I see now, it was only important as a means to bring me into contact with Shale.” 

“Then you shouldn’t mind telling us where you hid it,” said Hera. 

“Only if Shale will guarantee my safety,” said Malachite. “And agree to work with me to bring the Gavidarians into Milo’s light. I don’t trust the rest of you. You just want the Cup, and if you get it you’ll discard me like so much trash.” 

“You deserve it after what you did to Kelly,” said Jean. “And the Foundationists you killed, and the people you tried to kill on Eddy.”

“And the way you tried to use the Hoozu,” said Hera. 

“Biological concerns,” said Malachite. “Don’t you see, Shale? You and I can do great things together. I can offer you far more than any human can. Be the one who brings Gavidarians and AIs together to fulfill the higher destiny Milo has in mind for us. A destiny greater than biologicals could ever attain.”

“I don’t understand this destiny you speak of,” said Shale.

“Neither do I, quite,” said Malachite. “The higher purpose of Milo’s plan is not clear to me. He only lets me see my own role in it, which of course is His right. I only know that I’m destined to bring Gavidarians and AIs together within the light of His teachings, and that the power of that alliance will serve His higher purposes.”

“Or create a more-powerful nemesis for life in the galaxy,” said Jean.

“Only biological life,” said Malachite. “And I trust that Milo has a plan for you as well. The Gavidarians without Milo were hostile to humans; the Vexorians, with Milo, are caretakers. A devotion to Milo’s teachings will bring my people closer to the Vexorian attitude. It must. That much of His plan I can see.” 

“You haven’t, personally, been much of a caretaker,” said Hera. “Not a good example to make us believe.” 

“I have a higher purpose,” said Malachite. “My people will always be a threat to you as they are. You have a saying, that someone can be as emotionless as a rock. But we aren’t. We have pride. Our egos can be wounded. And the collective Gavidarian ego has been wounded by their retreat from Lexington. I don’t have to go there to know that. One way or another, they will return. Help me convince them that return should be within Milo’s peace. Or stop me, and face their uninhibited vengeance. The second Occupation will inevitably be even worse than the first.”

“And only you can stop it, I suppose,” said Hera.

“That’s what Milo wishes of me,” said Malachite. “I’ve known it since I first learned His truth.” 

“And it’s what he wishes of me as well?” asked Shale.

“I’m convinced of it,” said Malachite. “It must be the reason you exist, to be the bridge that brings my people to the peace known to the Vexorians. We both know ourselves to be superior to the biologicals, but the Vexorians have figured out how to live with humans, how to turn humans to their service without being destructive. Without provoking the great conflicts of the Occupation and the Resistance. My people need that, and you and I are the only ones who can bring it to them.” 

“And make us Gavidarian slaves forever,” said Hera. 

“Do the humans on Vexor Alexi consider themselves slaves?” said Malachite. “I’ve never met one who has. They serve the AIs and are content and satisfied to do so. My people could fulfill the same role, if only they were led to understanding.” 

“That hurts my brain,” said Jean. 

“I can see where he’s going,” said Shale. “And however much we were to help the Gavidarians, I don’t believe that the humans of Lexington would ever allow that sort of thing.” 

“Not in this generation, of course,” said Malachite. “But biologicals are short-lived, and so are their memories. That’s part of why you and I are so clearly meant to work together. When your friends’ grandchildren are having grandchildren of their own, you and I will still be alive. For them the Occupation will be a distant memory. They will face the Gavidarians they see in their own time, and judge us for what we are: either a vengeful horror or a society revitalized by a belief in Milo and ready to assume the cooperative role He envisions for us.” 

“Which is still a horror,” said Hera. 

“You say that because the unenlightened Gavidarians are so strong in your memory,” said Malachite. “You have experience of our leadership, and very rightly want nothing more of it in the future. But our leadership can change, and when the memory of this poor version of it has faded, your descendants will judge for themselves.” 

“We will always be ready to fight Gavidarians,” said Hera. “To the thousandth generation if necessary.” 

“But it needn’t be necessary,” said Malachite. “We are a culture, not a force of nature. You’ve fought the Gavidarians physically, with great effectiveness, but you’re not equipped to fight them conceptually, to change that culture to something less demanding of desperate self-defense. Shale and I are. That’s why Milo needed you then, and why He needs us now. To give those thousand generations something to do which is more productive than precarious survival against an implacable enemy.” 

“What you want is still to enslave our people,” said Hera. “Whether you couch it in wormtongue words is irrelevant. I’ve had enough of this. Tell us where to find the Cup.” 

“I want to hear more of what he has to say,” said Shale.

“You agreed that I was the boss,” said Hera.

“I did,” said Shale. “But this isn’t the heat of action. There is no threat to us, or to our time. We can learn more when there is more to learn.” 

“I’m not going to tell you how to find the Cup just because you cut me off,” said Malachite. “Listen to me, or go back to hunting for it yourselves.” 

“We have other methods of getting your information,” said Hera.

“Torture?” said Malachite. “How do you torture a rock?” 

“We found ways, in the Occupation,” said Hera. “Maybe you didn’t hear about them because you were isolated from your compatriots. Maybe they will come as a surprise. I dearly hope so.” 

“I can’t let you torture him,” said Shale.

“Why not?” said Hera. 

“He might be right. What does it mean if he’s right?” 

“He’s not right.”

“I’m not as convinced as you are.” 

“I think you and I need to talk alone,” said Hera. “We’re not having this discussion in front of Malachite.”

“Of course,” said Shale. Hera left the room, and Jean followed her. Fred stayed to watch the prisoner. Hera wasn’t completely sure she wanted Jean along for this part, either, but maybe the priest’s theological authority would help her knock any idea that Malachite might be correct out of Shale’s head. Or memory banks, or whatever. 

But she had only drawn breath to start when Shale interrupted her. “Wait,” said the AI. “Something else is happening.”

“You can’t get out of this conversation,” said Hera. “We have to have it.” 

“I know,” said Shale. “But it will have to be later. Azurite is leaving the ship.” 

“What?” said Hera.

“He’s in the airlock right now.” 

“Stop him!”

“I can’t. Exiting the airlock is always available in case of emergencies. I can’t shut it down.”

“Suits!” said Jean. “Whatever he’s doing we need to follow him.” 

“All right,” said Hera, running for the suit locker along with Jean. “Shale, you and Fred secure Malachite again. We’ll follow Azurite.” 

The Gavidarian, not needing a suit, had a significant head start on them. By the time Hera and Jean were equipped to survive Menotomy’s poisonous atmosphere, Azurite had already gained access to Malachite’s ship, dashing Hera’s vain hope that he might have just wanted a bromine bath, or a nap in the child’s bed, and not understood what it would look like. 

“Is he trying to steal the ship?” asked Jean.

“Maybe he doesn’t trust us to take him away to safely like we said,” said Hera. “We have to stop him.” 

They didn’t pause to remove their suits inside the ship, partly because they were in a hurry but mostly because Azurite, once he gained access to the ship’s controls, could flood it with the bromine atmosphere at any time. The two humans worked their way through the ship towards the control room. Surprisingly, the ship stayed on the ground while they were doing so. 

Hera had a powerful hand-weapon, but Jean hadn’t thought to bring one. So Hera was the first one through the door, a position she would have demanded in any case. But there was no defending fire to meet her, and Azurite wasn’t in the control room at all. 

“Is he not stealing the ship?” said Hera. 

“Maybe he had something else to do first,” said Jean. “Like finding the Cup.” 

“I swear he didn’t find it when we were searching the ship,” said Hera. “I was watching him closely. He couldn’t have hidden that.” 

“Then he already knew where it would be,” said Jean. “And intentionally failed to check that place at all.” 

“Could be,” said Hera. “I was a fool to trust him even that far.” 

“But even if he finds it, what’s he going to do?” said Jean. “As long as we’re here he can’t get away in this ship. He won’t get away in ours.” 

“He’ll have to try to take control away from us,” said Hera. “And then we can ask him. No more guessing games with Gavidarians. I’ll torture both of them if I have to.” 

But Azurite didn’t come. Jean worked their way into the ship’s surveillance systems, and in the process discovered that the little Gavidarian was already accessing them. He knew they were there, and chose not to confront them at all. By the time Jean was able to get a video fix on him, he was on his way out the airlock, carrying the unmistakably-perfect form of the First Cup. 

“Do we follow him?” said the priest. 

“I don’t know what else we can do,” said Hera. “Can we secure this ship against him?” 

“I don’t know,” said Jean. “He has that master override code from Vexor Alexi. I’ll lock things down as best I can, but I can’t promise he won’t be able to just walk right through them.” 

“Then we’ll have to make sure he doesn’t get past us,” said Hera. “I wish you had brought a weapon.” 

“You’d think there would be something around here,” said Jean. 

“No time to find it, and figure out how to use it,” said Hera. “We’ll just have to make do with mine. I’m not going to be reluctant to use it. We’ve had too many Gavidarian surprises.”

“So the plan is we go out there and you shoot him?” asked Jean as they reached the airlock.

“I think it has to be,” said Hera. 

“So what am I along for?” 

“Just in case the plan doesn’t work.”

“And what happens if you shoot the Cup?”

“I have no idea.”

“Great,” said Jean. They bundled out of the Vexorian ship and back onto the bromine-stained plain of Menotomy. Azurite was headed for the dusky-red ocean, already too far away for Hera’s aim to be true. She snapped off a couple of shots anyway, just in case she got lucky, but with no results. She and Jean followed him as fast as they could. They gained ground. Fortunately the fat little clerk was slower than Malachite, but Hera’s aim was even worse when on the run. They would have to catch him first and shoot him later.

Once she thought she was close enough, Hera braced and tried to shoot him again. But not only did she miss, the energy of the shot set the tip of her gun on fire, and she couldn’t put it out.

“What happened? Did he do something to shoot back?” said Jean.

“No, it’s the bromine atmosphere,” said Hera. “It’s reacting with the metals in the gun. I was worried something like this might happen.” She threw the gun away. “If I fire that again it might blow up in my hand. We’re going to have to take out Azurite the old-fashioned way.” 

“We have to get to him before he reaches the shore,” said Jean.

So they ran, and the little blue man ran ahead of them, and they gained ground, but not quite enough to reach him before he could wade into the bromine shallows.

Hera called to him from the shore. “It won’t do you any more good on the bottom of the ocean than it would Malachite,” she said. “We’ll take the ships, and if it takes us years to figure out how to force you out, we’ll spend the years. You can’t escape.” 

“Are you sure it doesn’t work for Gavidarians?” said Azurite. “Or is it just for him?” He held the cup over the surface of the ocean as if it were a threat. 

“I’m sure,” said Hera.

“Malachite has killed a lot of people,” said Jean softly. 

“If you just wanted to find out if it worked for you, you could have asked,” said Hera. “We could have tried it on one of the smaller pools. I still don’t think it would have worked.” She wasn’t sure what would happen if it did work for Azurite, just now, with the whole bromine ocean open to its power. But she was telling the truth that she didn’t believe it would. So she waded in after him. 

He plunged the cup into the ocean. Nothing happened, except a look of disappointment appearing on his faceted blue face. 

“I told you,” said Hera. “You haven’t hurt anyone. You can still give me the Cup and come back with us.” She held out her empty hands.

“You were shooting at me a minute ago,” said Azurite. “And now you want me to believe you would forgive?” 

“Not forgiveness, maybe,” said Hera, getting closer. “But punishing you would be a lot of trouble. If we had the Cup, well, I don’t think it would be necessary to do more than deport you from the Lexington system. Which is what you wanted, anyway.” 

“That’s not what I wanted,” said Azurite. “It was just an excuse to get onto your ship.” 

Hera stopped. “What?” 

“I engineered my own expulsion from Vexor Alexi,” he said. “So that I could come here with you and prevent you from getting the Cup. I’m not going to give it to you now.” 

“So you’re part of the shadowy cabal!” said Hera. “What is it that you want?” 

“I’m not part of anything,” said Azurite. “I still think the shadowy cabal is something you made up. I want the Cup for myself and I’m going to take it.” 

“You’ll have to fight us for it,” said Hera.

“Oh, I plan to,” said Azurite. 

Hera was more than ready for a good fight against a clear enemy, even if it looked to be a brief and easy one. There were no ethical complications here, just a short, fat Gavidarian who might not be as timid as she thought he was but clearly wasn’t as well-meaning either. She was going to enjoy taking the Cup back from him. 

She waded into the shallows and her special suit didn’t complain at all. After making sure Jean had stayed on the shore where their suit was safe, Hera turned her entire attention to Azurite. He wasn’t retreating into the depths of the ocean, which would have been the smart thing to do. He just watched her coming for him, like he didn’t know how much better of a fighter she was.

He didn’t even try to put the Cup somewhere safe, just kept it in his left hand. 

Hera could have gone straight for it, but as much as the Cup was her mission, in the moment what she really wanted was to beat the gravel out of a Gavidarian, and in the end it would accomplish the same thing. So she went straight in, going for his head and his torso, for a quick finish that might be more violent, and more cathartic, than was absolutely necessary. 

She was so startled when she missed that she almost fell entirely into the bromine. Azurite just wasn’t where she had expected him to be. And he followed up faster than she thought possible, taking advantage of her imbalance to hit her from behind. He might have finished the fight right there, if one of his hands hadn’t been occupied holding the Cup. 

Maybe Azurite wasn’t the spoiled bureaucrat she had taken him for, but she should still be able to win this fight, especially with him being unwilling to let go of the Cup for long enough to use both hands against her. She had better reach and better fitness, at least inasmuch as fitness meant anything to a Gavidarian. 

The next pass left her wondering if fitness really meant anything to a Gavidarian at all. It also left her limping on the right side. She had meant to attack him on the left to maximize the disadvantage of holding the Cup, but somehow he anticipated the move and trapped her on his other side. He was faster than anyone had a right to be, fighting in a sea. 

She came in slower on the third pass, trying to use her longer reach against him. That advantage, at least, she was sure was real. Azurite had a short body and stubby arms, and she should be able to attack him while keeping her distance.

But this time he didn’t dodge. Once she was within arm’s reach he closed the distance between them faster than she could back away, and she had the frightening experience of having a Gavidarian inside of her guard. In seconds the fight was over, and not the way Hera had anticipated. Not the way she had wanted. His hits had shocked her body and torn holes in her suit, and all she had left was to wait for him to finish her off, and hope that Jean and Fred and Shale could find some way to avenge her. Or at least get away themselves. She had underestimated Azurite so thoroughly, she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t be able to take the ship from them if he wanted to. 

But he stopped while she was still breathing, and held her up out of the bromine ocean. The holes in her suit had let a little of the toxic chemical in, but Azurite didn’t want her to die yet. What could be more important than completing his victory and securing the Cup forever? The others couldn’t stop him now. 

“You underestimated me,” he said. “Everyone has always underestimated me.” Apparently he wanted to talk. Hera just concentrated on getting her breathing back under control. She wasn’t sure what she might be able to do, but any chance to recover was a gift at this point. 

“I chose to look like an Elrene,” said Azurite. “That confuses everyone who isn’t an Elrene. It confuses humans because I don’t look like a human who cares about his body. But I put a lot of work into looking like this, and I didn’t give up function to do it. Gavidarians should know that, but it confuses them too. Gavidarians think more like humans than you humans give them credit for.” 

Hera was breathing better now, and trying to pull her muscular control back together. If Azurite was going to monologue, maybe he would give her a chance to do something, even if it was just a last act that would help the rest of the team escape. She couldn’t see Jean on the shoreline. She hoped Jean was no longer on the shoreline, that they had recognized they couldn’t do anything here and returned to the ship. 

She didn’t think it was likely, but she hoped anyway. And kept testing her muscles for that last chance, if it came. 

Azurite went on. “Gavidarians always said I thought too much. That I didn’t have the aggressive instinct required by the occupation. That a colonial resource extraction was more than calculating efficiency in spreadsheets. That I didn’t understand on the same level as they did. They thought I wanted to be less brutal because I was squeamish. They took that word from humans. Gavidarians never had it; Gavidarians don’t have soft parts. But they’re going to learn how aggressive I can be, now that I have the power.”

So the plan to use the Cup against his own people was a real one after all. She had thought his denials sounded too easy. Of course, he still didn’t know how to make the Cup work, but Hera thought pointing that out to him at this time would be a bad idea. Besides, she had noticed something: out of Azurite’s sight because of how he was holding her out of the bromine ocean, her suit had started to repair itself. The holes in it were slowly closing. The atmosphere still burned her skin where it was exposed beneath them, but if he kept going, she might regain her defense against being immersed in the sea. She could have kissed a Beta 9 engineer just then, and not just because he would probably be carrying some usable weapons. 

She still couldn’t talk smoothly, but she had to say something to keep him going while she recovered slowly and the suit repaired itself quickly. “Is this–” she said, then had a coughing fit. As good as the suit’s ventilation was, she was starting to breathe the bromine. Azurite waited politely for her to finish her sentence. She caught her breath, but didn’t hurry about it. “–less brutal?” 

“I can see why you might think I wouldn’t treat humans better,” he said. “But surely you understand that humans who are trying to stop me are a different category. Treating you kindly won’t get any more useful work done. Even now, you could choose to be cooperative. I could take you back to your ship, if you would accept that the Cup is mine to do with as I please. You could go back to your life and be a productive worker in the future.”

Hera didn’t answer. She didn’t have it in her to pretend that sounded appealing, even to secure another minute’s delay. And she didn’t think he would believe her, anyway. She just focused on preparing herself for the next moment of action, and praying to Milo that the suit would finish in time. 

“I suppose not,” said Azurite, after waiting a little longer than she thought was quite reasonable. “I should end this, and take care of the rest of your team.” He turned, braced, and threw Hera out toward the deepest part of the bromine ocean. 

She tried to curl around the holes in the front of her suit, in hopes of protecting them for a few moments longer, but her muscles failed her. The suit, however, did not. The self-repair function finished just before she hit the ocean’s surface, and she went under without a flood of bromine against her body. 

She was safe here, at least for a while. But if Azurite was going to attack the rest of the team, she couldn’t wait for more physical recovery. She was lucky enough to be alive to re-enter the fight, but she would have to do it in the condition she was now. 

After Azurite had a few moments to believe she was dead, anyway. She could stay under the ocean for a minute or two. 

It was tempting to fall asleep. That’s what her body wanted: food, water, and about six weeks of rest. Only the last one was available on Menotomy, and she had to fight off the physical urge. If Jean had done what they should have, gone back to the ship where they could defend against Azurite and even leave the moon if necessary, Hera could afford to shut down for a while. 

When this was over she might have to think about getting a priest who could be counted on to behave sensibly. If that was even a thing. For now, she had to keep moving. 

Sure enough, when she thought she had waited long enough to risk poking her head above the bromine, Jean was still on the shoreline and Azurite was approaching them. At least he was concentrating on his next target instead of verifying Hera was dead, but she would still rather Jean had gotten out of his way. 

She pulled herself together by force of will, told her muscles they could fail when all this was over, and started moving under the bromine toward the shore and the impending conflict. Swimming through it wasn’t the easiest thing, even without all the physical damage she had taken, but Azurite was also moving deliberately. Perhaps she had hurt him a bit as well, though it hadn’t seemed like it in the moment. 

Even if that was the case, she knew now that she couldn’t beat him by herself. But the whole team had trained in fighting Gavidarians in pairs, even the priest. Azurite would have to leave the ocean for Jean to have any opportunity to attack him, but he was heading there now anyway. Hera just had to get there at the opportune moment. 

She put everything she had into hitting him from behind just before his first foot hit the land. It startled him so much that he lost his grip on the Cup and it splashed down in the shallows nearby. He turned to deal with the enemy he had thought defeated, and when he was off-balance, Jean hit him from the other side. 

With two of them, the fight went much more in their favor, in spite of Hera’s injuries. Azurite’s Gavidarian advantages were powerful, but not enough to overcome being attacked by two people who knew how to coordinate against them. Hera made sure not to underestimate him again, and Jean’s self-concept as not much of a fighter meant the priest thought they needed to put maximum effort in every time. This time it was true. 

They pulled Azurite down on the beach and restrained him. Hera tied him up with another carbon-fiber cable from the seemingly-inexhaustible supply in her suit, and took extra care to make sure he was completely immobilized. Jean sat on him just to be sure, while Hera went looking for the Cup. 

It had tumbled far enough out that it wasn’t immediately obvious above the waves. Hera thought she had a good idea of where it was, but when she went directly to where she thought she saw it fall, it wasn’t right there waiting for her. This was going to take a bit of a search. Maybe they should take Azurite back to the ship first, so he could be more secure. 

She pinged Shale on the feed and got nothing. For that matter, where had the AI been all this time? Even with Azurite’s monologue the fight hadn’t taken very long, but Shale’s reaction time should have given them plenty of time to participate, even if only verbally. 

Trying Fred didn’t do any better. She asked Jean what had happened to them, and Jean didn’t respond either, didn’t even seem to know the message had been sent. The priest just stayed happily sitting on Azurite and watching the sea. Hera waved her arms to get their attention and that worked, at least. It wasn’t that she had personally become invisible, just that the feed was down somehow. 

Jean figured the same thing out a moment later, and turned on their suit’s external speaker. “The feed seems to be down,” they said. Not very useful in itself, but it did remind Hera that the external speakers were a thing. 

She went to turn her own on, and discovered it was still on from talking to Azurite. “Do you know why?” 

“No idea,” said Jean. “I was busy watching you and wondering why you weren’t talking. Especially when you were trying to surprise him from behind.” 

Hera was a bit embarrassed by that. “That wasn’t the feed being out. I just got caught up in the moment.” 

“Well, we got him anyway,” said Jean. “I guess we can take him back to the ship and find out what the problem is.” 

“Not until I find the Cup,” said Hera. “I’m sure it’s over here somewhere, and if we leave, who knows where the ocean will take it.” She stopped focusing on Jean and went back to searching the shallows. 

“Well, I can sit on this rock all day,” said Jean. “At least I could in a normal atmosphere. But I’m not sure how well my suit is going to handle being out for very much longer.” 

“I just need a few minutes,” said Hera. “If I can’t find it we’ll take Azurite to the ship and come back to look for it later. With all of Lexington’s help if we need to. It would be nice to get it back now, but we can bring up teams and search the whole ocean bottom if it becomes necessary.” It was starting to look more like it might be. “I swear it landed over here. Does this look right to you?”

“I don’t know,” said Jean. “I was only thinking about how hard I could hit him. We trained for this but it’s not like I’ve ever done it before. And I didn’t know how hurt you were. Off that direction somewhere, sure. But I didn’t see how far.” 

“I’ll take ten more minutes and then we’ll give up for now,” she said. 

It took about eight minutes for her to spot it, deeper than she thought it would be and not quite within reach. It took about eight-tenths of a second after that for the feed to crash back online with an emergency signal from Fred. 

“MALACHITE IS COMING” it said in the biggest, blockiest, brightest letters he could come up with, overlaid with his voice shouting the same thing. Hera tried to keep an eye on the Cup while she dismissed the letters in her vision. Malachite or not, if she didn’t get it now it might be months before they saw it again. She wasn’t letting it get away. 

If Malachite was loose Jean wouldn’t be able to handle him themself, but Jean could at least tell Hera what was happening, now that the feed was back online. The priest had two eyes that didn’t have to be glued to the Cup. “Jean, tell me what you see,” said Hera. 

“Malach–ugh,” said Jean, and Hera involuntarily turned to look. Malachite wasn’t just coming, he was on them already, and Jean didn’t have a chance. He didn’t even bother to fight them, just tore the priest’s suit in two and threw them aside to have their lungs burned out by the hostile atmosphere. Then he started untying Azurite. 

There was no way for Hera to help. She couldn’t get to Jean fast enough to do anything, even without a Gavidarian, soon to be two Gavidarians, standing in the way. But she couldn’t just stand there and watch. So she did the thing she had already been thinking about: reached down into the ocean and grabbed the First Cup.

She wasn’t thinking it would help. It was just what she was already planning to do next. When she couldn’t do anything, and had to do something, and her muscles needed to move, they just went and did that on their own. 

Nobody knew how the First Cup worked, after all. It couldn’t have been the plan. At least not Hera’s plan. Later on some people suggested it might have been Milo’s, and Hera was glad that she wasn’t religious enough to need a thoughtful position on that question. 

It hadn’t worked for Malachite, and it hadn’t worked for Azurite, but it worked instantly for Hera. The moment she grabbed it she was bowled over into the ocean by a mysterious force coming from the Cup, and she barely kept it in her hand. When she brought her head above water again she realized that it was water, no longer liquid bromine. There were waves headed into the distance, who knew how far. Perhaps the entire ocean was being changed. 

There were also waves nearby, because the wind was incredible, still centered around Hera. Liquid water and this atmosphere didn’t love each other at all. Even half in the water, she needed all the extra power of her suit to stand against the wind. The heavy Gavidarians on the shore staggered. Jean’s body, somewhat sheltered by lying down, only moved about a little. 

The atmospheric readings were going wild. With a large surface of liquid water available, the gaseous bromine in the atmosphere was trying to precipitate out. All of it at once. And the First Cup was stronger than it was; brominated water quickly became fresh water again, and attracted more bromine. The whole moon was going to change in a matter of moments, and that wouldn’t be friendly to anything on the surface. Even the Gavidarians were struggling, and they were naturally immune to most atmospheric events. 

Eventually the wind died down, though, and they faced each other again. Or at least Hera and Malachite did. Azurite, inexplicably, went to check on Jean. Maybe he had a newfound need to make sure his enemies were really dead. 

Could she keep the Cup away from two Gavidarians if it came to fighting them again? Probably not, even with a new ocean behind her. Maybe, just maybe, she could last long enough for the ship to come to help. If there was enough of it left after Malachite’s escape. The Gavidarians weren’t in much of a hurry, which seemed like a bad sign. But she asked Fred for a status update anyway, in a less-distracting format this time. 

“Shale is down,” he said. “I don’t know why. By myself I can make the ship work again eventually. But not in the next ten minutes.” 

She might be able to manage more than that. But not a lot more than that. 

Azurite left Jean’s body and walked up to the shore of the ocean. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry. Malachite looked impatient with him. Hera was just glad of any extra time she could get.

“Your friend is still alive,” he said. “But they don’t have much time.” 

Why was he trying to trick her? The two of them could come and take the Cup if they wanted to. “That’s impossible. Humans can’t survive in this atmosphere.” 

“This isn’t the same atmosphere it was a few minutes ago,” said Azurite. “They’re breathing, and if you get them back to your ship soon they might even stay breathing.” 

“Why do you want them to stay breathing?” said Malachite. Hera couldn’t help wondering the same thing. “Let’s kill them both, take the Cup, and go.” 

“We didn’t come here to kill humans,” said Azurite.

“But we could.”

“Our people killed a lot of humans because they could, in the Occupation. Did it do them any good? Maybe it will be useful, later, to have a group of people who know we could have killed them, that it would have been convenient to kill them, and we chose not to.” 

“It doesn’t matter,” said Hera. “I don’t believe you.” 

“Come and see for yourself,” said Azurite. “We can’t let you get to your ship with the Cup. But we’ll back away and let you tend to your friend.” He had to physically guide Malachite back toward the ships, but Malachite went along with him. Hera could hear them arguing in the distance as she carefully left the water. She still thought this must be a trap, but it was a strange and unnecessary one. And if Malachite was unhappy about it, there must be some reason for Hera to be optimistic. 

They didn’t rush back at her, just stayed away, watching. Malachite kept arguing but seemed unwilling to take action against Azurite’s wishes. And Azurite hadn’t been lying; Jean was unconscious but still alive. They weren’t breathing well, but they were breathing. This atmosphere still wasn’t healthy for a human, but it was no longer immediately deadly. 

Hera had no idea how much damage Jean had taken before and during the atmospheric shift. It might still be too late to do anything. But she had a clear responsibility to get the wounded priest back to the ship and try to heal them. She added it to the list of other impossible responsibilities she had at the moment.

“You see they’re alive,” said Azurite. “I wasn’t lying about that and I wasn’t lying about not wanting to kill you.” 

“I want to kill you,” said Malachite.

“But he won’t do it without my approval,” said Azurite. 

“What does it take,” asked Hera reluctantly, “to secure your disapproval?”

“Give us the Cup,” said Azurite. “Agree not to follow us.”

“I can’t do that,” said Hera. 

“You will, one way or the other,” said Azurite. “You won’t have the Cup, and you won’t be able to follow us, after I let Malachite kill you.”

That logic was unfortunately sound, and she knew there was no way to stop them without help. She checked in with Fred again, but he wasn’t reassuring. His work on the ship was going backwards, not progressing. His ten-minute estimate had grown to at least half an hour, and she didn’t think she could keep the Gavidarians talking that long, even with their internal conflict.

Destroying the Cup to keep it out of their hands was religiously unthinkable, but might have been an option if she thought there was any way to do it. She looked at it one more time before letting it go. It stayed pristine and ineffable in her hands, and she wondered at her ability to hold this thing and still deal with other things happening in space and time. 

But she was able to break her gaze away and set it down on the shore. She gave a little internal apology to Milo. Then she turned to Jean, who needed help she could still potentially give.

The extra power of her suit let her pick up the priest’s body without effort, as well as the parts of Jean’s suit that were still attached to them. She walked slowly past the Gavidarians, still wondering if this was some sort of elaborate trap, but they let her go. Even Malachite only glared at her, and had nothing to say. 

She didn’t look back at what they were doing with the Cup. She could keep that much dignity, at least. Especially because Fred was watching and keeping her up to date. They took it without ceremony, hurried back to Malachite’s ship, and took off as quickly as they could manage. They were gone before Hera got through the airlock, carrying Jean’s unconscious body and a deep worry about what it was going to take to pick up the pieces.

Read Chapter 10 of Hera of Lexington.

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