Hammer and Crucible by Cameron Cooper (easy books to read txt) 📗

“That’s why we have to give up soft beds and hammocks. Just until he’s done. It has to be done in three days.”

Dalton looked around, at the glowing snow-tipped peaks across the lake and the fireflies flitting nearby. He sighed heavily.

“You’ll get it back,” I promised.

“That’s if I come back here after.”

“That’s why you’re in here? Contemplating your mortality?” I said it gently. Every soldier had to deal with death in their own way. More than a few were like Dalton—they needed to be away from everyone while they faced the possibility. Still others like to party hard, squeeze in as much life as possible. I had my own rituals, honed from decades of battles and wars.

“Actually, I was lying here wondering why I didn’t set up a garden instead of the lake house.”

“You like to garden…” Amazing.

“I like the idea of a garden,” he shot back. “I never have stopped in one joint long enough to plant anything. Soil’s short on starships, anyhow. Only, the idea grabbed hold of me sometime in the last forty years and kinda stuck around.”

“It took root?” I suggested.

He didn’t roll his eyes at that groaner. “Every time I found myself hunched in the rusty guts of some clunker freighter, running away from yet another close call, the idea would resurface. A garden, peace. Planting things and watching them grow, then eating the harvest. No running…”

“That’s why you didn’t build a garden out of Lyth’s nanobots. You’re still running.”

He nodded. “That’s what I’d figured out when you busted in here.” He straightened and looked around. “So when does everything go zap?”

“I think it’s already happening.” I pointed to the far distant peaks. They were growing indistinct, the colors running together. “It might take a few minutes,” I added.

He turned and watched the mountains sink and disappear, then the lake water. “This is not going to end happily,” he murmured.

I knew he wasn’t referring to the disappearing lake. I knew, too, that he had been facing his mortality, after all.

When the walls and the rooms had all disappeared, there was nothing left but a yawning space a hundred meters long. Even the gallery corridors on either side were gone, for their interior walls had been nanobots, too.

Juliyana stood where the galley had been. A printer sat on the floor, ten meters from her position.

Lyth had gone. He would use the energy needed to generate his avatar for the work he faced.

Between me and Juliyana, my sack sat on the floor. Bits and pieces from the sack were scattered around it, including my pad, which I had left on the bed.

Dalton’s possessions, too, were spread around us. Five concierge panels squatted on the floor where each of our rooms had been, including Sauli’s new room, and the stellar room, too.

I thought I might miss that mountaintop.

From here, I could see the ramp up into the bridge, and the bridge itself. I turned. Behind us were the multiple entries into the service compartments, including the stairs down to the engine rooms. Sauli would be down there, unaware of the changes, for the service compartments were made of solids.

The lights came down to an early evening gloom.

“Wow,” Juliyana breathed, and her voice echoed.

“Suddenly, the bridge seems cozy and welcoming,” Dalton said.

“Okay, then,” I said. “Let’s do this.”

22

The Imperial City was also known as the Crystal City. The city is listed on official star maps as The First City of Carina-Sagittarius, a name that no one bothers to use. Even Imperial documents refer to it as the Imperial City.

The Crystal City hung in geo-stationary orbit over an unremarkable ball, Eugorian II, which had once held a breathable atmosphere and a fortune in rare ores and minerals that a hungry and expanding human diaspora desperately needed. As the resources were on a family-held ball, and not floating in rights-free ore belts where anyone could grab them, the family exploited the windfall with systematic deliberation.

With their unsurpassed, unimaginable wealth, the family turned their attention to researching more efficient travel about the known worlds that didn’t require spending generations upon a city-sized ship moving at sub-light speeds.

The family paid for the best research and development, pulling in talent and expertise from the known worlds. They developed the first working gate, then gifted a second gate to the nearest inhabited planet. It took seventy years to deliver that first gate, but the return journey back to the family seat took only seventeen hours.

Traffic through the pair of gates became a thick, congested highway.

When the other planets clamored for gates, the family franchised them and took a share of the profits from the taxes those planets charged for the use of the gates, in addition to their franchise fees.

And thus was borne the fourth Carinad Empire.

The present Emperor, Ramaker III, was the 76th. Ramaker had come to power by overthrowing his cousin, Karsci, in a bloodless coup. There were unofficial records and myths proposing that Ramaker had led the coup because he couldn’t stand Karsci’s imbecilic leadership. Ramaker became the 1st of the Tanique Dynasty, two hundred and ninety years ago, and had ruled with a stern and ruthless hand since then.

In the very long lifetime of the Fourth Carinad Empire, the array has been the foundation of their power, and the Crystal City their glittering statement of that power.

Eugorian is a binary system, which the Crystal City takes full advantage of. The domes of the city are not smoothly curved, but angular and faceted. The largest dome, the one which encloses the Imperial Palace, is a fractal geodesic structure a full five kilometers across. Inside the dome were parks and public areas and the palace itself.

Domes made up the city. The last official count I have heard was five hundred domes of various shapes and sizes. Every year, more are built, hooked up to the city, pressurized and gravitized and the real estate sold in a flurry of eye-popping deals.

From the top of the palace,