The soldier came through just as Shira had months earlier, overloaded, ready to collapse under the weight of his own equipment, and just disoriented enough to be vulnerable.
       Shira had been on Crucible long enough to adapt. The men stepping through that portal hadn't, and it meant one more little advantage in her favor. She wished it hadn't come to this. She'd been a botanist back on Earth, but she wasn't sure what she'd become since. This world was so different. Nothing looked the same here, not even the stars.
       Her hands trembled. She tensed. It had to be now. More troops would soon begin to resolve from the electric embers, and the longer she held back, the greater the chance they'd be able to defend themselves.
       Thick, blue-black mud squelched under her boots as she sprinted from her hiding place behind the shadow of a tall, fern-shaped plant. A smear of sweat briefly clouded her left eye. She drew it quickly away with the tattered sleeve of her mottled green fatigue jacket, fingers continuing up to the thick stubble on her scalp and the series of shallow scars along the crown of her skull. Those scars had come at the hands of men just like this.
       The man, lanky and red-headed beneath his mountain of gear, stumbled onto the soft eggplant-colored grass as he slowly emerged from the portal's bright cotton candy haze from wherever on Earth he'd originated. She struck before he could fully emerge from the pastel-colored fog. He struggled. Weak arms flailed across the portal's event horizon, but she pushed them easily aside before jabbing the hooked razor she carried against his chest.
       Tendrils of bluish-pink mist traced her movements. Tiny sparks flared. Micro-arcs of electricity bit at her fingers like wasps, reminding her the portal was a one-way trip and raising her growing anger above the fear she'd felt. The Siidi's rules had turned her from a botanist to a thief.
       "Let it go!" She cried out. Her grip twisted, jerking back. The soldier grunted. Shira's razor slashed through the jumble of gear, dislodging one of the smaller khaki satchels. The bag sagged but clung to the soldier's chest like a flap of dead skin.
       He was recovering faster than she'd anticipated. American. Special Forces by the patches on his neat garments. They were so much like the insignia worn by the brutal men who'd invaded her home after the arrival of the alien obelisks on Earth, so much like the badges of her past oppressors.
       The khaki-colored satchel struck the mud. Shira grabbed it, shoved the man backwards into the dirt, and ran just as a second form began to appear from the brightening mists.

       Crucible's swollen sun hung like a fat orange high above the bluish peaks to the east. Shira's mouth watered as she struggled over boulders covered in copper-colored moss that smelled faintly of cardamom. She hadn't seen fruit in three months, not since the supplies had run out, not since the ambush that had killed her team, leaving just herself and Esti Zurer alone in an unknown alien environment.
       "Esti, my sweet," she shouted in Hebrew as she approached the shallow overhang on the north slope of the hill. Purplish branches, already fading to a dull oxblood red, partially covered the rocky opening. "Esti, a miracle has happened!"
       A soft groan answered her. Shira rushed into the shade of the rock face, pushing her way through the makeshift concealment. She dropped to her knees in front of the struggling form on the tattered remains of a silver reflective blanket. Thin trickles of blood had traced curving lines across the woman's bare back. Ugly circular bruises highlighted three tapered, gold-colored needles spaced in a diagonal line from her shoulder to her upper hip on her right side, jaundiced bulls-eyes for the alien flechettes embedded in her flesh.
       "You came back?" Esti winced as she struggled to stand. Although the wounds appeared superficial, the darts had proved nearly impossible to remove, keeping Esti a prisoner in their burrow while Shira had gone out to forage for the bright pink pain-dulling herbs discovered in their first days on Crucible.
       "Don't move." Shira eased the older woman down onto the blanket. "I told you to rest."
       "I don't find being a human dartboard restful." Esti eased down on her stomach, the features on her dark face contorted.
       Shira smiled, shaking her head. "Stubborn--but it's okay now. I got something that's going to make everything better. Look."
       She pushed the khaki satchel across the stone floor, revealing its red cross emblem before unsnapping its clasps and flipping the top over. Inside were fine steel tools, bandages, antiseptics, medications, and a small diagnostic index bound in shiny white plastic. It'd been so long. Even a simple scrape so far from the comforts of Earth was dangerous, and this bag held a treasure as valuable as the prizes they'd come to Crucible to obtain. Shira almost cried when she saw it all.
       "Where'd that come from?"
       "I found it in the valley," Shira lied. Esti didn't need to know a new group of men had arrived.
       Esti narrowed her eyes. "Just found it?"
       "Here." Shira quickly changed the subject, handing Esti three painkillers from an amber container. "We'll give it a minute, and then I'll pull those things out of you."
       Although shallow, Esti's wounds were complex. The alien projectiles carried a quartet of tightly spaced barbs. Impact had curled the hooks outward, spreading beneath Esti's skin and making it nearly impossible to remove without medical instruments. If Shira hadn't gotten the pack, she'd have had to cut them free with the knife she carried, no antiseptic, no anesthesia.
       "You didn't see them again, did you?" Esti's voice sounded far away. The pills had already begun to work.
       For a moment, Shira thought her friend meant the American soldiers. Her face grew hot. They'd agreed to never lie to each other.
       "The big man-birds?"
       "The Morlocks? No," Shira replied.
       They still couldn't agree on what to call the strange massive creatures responsible for killing their team, the same ones who'd chased and harassed them in the weeks that followed and who'd fired those deadly darts into Esti's flesh. Shira's nickname did little to describe the hulking monsters with their yellowish-grey skin covered in tight layers of tiny proto-feathers and the serrated markings the color of dried blood across the sloping, neckless nubs of their heads.
       She could still picture their small, lidless eyes and thick-lipped mouths, boney plates flexing like a bird's beak, as they squeezed their spring-loaded weapons and sent dozens of devastating flechettes whistling into the air. They'd lost twelve friends in that first attack, people with families back home on their little micronation of Kigo Maru, people who'd meant something to her.
       They'd also lost the prize.
       Shira felt embarrassed for even thinking about the complex piece of alien technology they'd discovered, the enormous engine suspended in a block of pale bluish resin. Friends had died. No object could ever replace them.
       "Esti?" The woman's breath had become shallow. Shira gently brushed her fingertips across the first barb and got no response. "I'm going to remove the darts now, my love. Please, for both of us, stay asleep."
       Shira pulled a squeeze bottle of antiseptic from the med kit, her fingers trembling, and sprayed the muddy orange liquid over the wounds. She was far from a doctor. The sight of blood made her squeamish. The thought of cutting into her friend's flesh made her stomach ache, but it had to be done, and it had to be her. She swallowed, a quick prayer escaping her dry lips. She hoped both Esti's God and her own were listening.

       Mauve-colored brush exploded inward. Camouflage fell away. Brilliant sunlight burst through the cave's mouth, and men shouted. The stench of sulfur filled the air. Sickly-looking yellow smoke flooded the hollow, and figures rushed in, huge, hulking shadows that cut jagged curtains in the blinding glare. Shira screamed.
       "Put it down!"
       "Freeze!"
       The commands came rapidly and in English. Someone tackled her. She hit the floor. A heavy weight crushed her face into the dirt. She tasted dust and limestone, grainy lumps clinging to her lips as she struggled to breathe.
       "Stop resisting!" Someone grabbed her arms, twisting them painfully behind her back, binding her wrists with cold, inflexible restraints before dumping her onto the stone like a sack of onions. She cried out.
       "Weapons?"
       "None, Sir."
       "But the supplies are here?" A soft authoritarian voice questioned. "Are you telling me these people aren't responsible for our casualties?"
       "Unknown, sir."
       Time seemed to blur. Shira lay sideways on the ground, Esti, still unconscious, beside her. Muddy silhouettes filled her vision, men with long spears, women holding thin green bows, arrows nocked and aimed. She recognized the insignia. These had to be the soldiers from the clearing.
       "Who might you be?" A tall black man moved into her field of view. He stood with a casual grace as if he'd spotted her across a crowded party, but a wicked-looking weapon, its fat blade cut at an angle, rested in his firm grip.
       Under any other circumstances, Shira would have laughed. Instead, she tried to keep from crying. Bright spots flared in her vision. Every muscle felt tight, tension burning like fire beneath her skin as she struggled to breathe.
       "You killed my men. Why?" His voice sounded cold, the flat, even tones of a man beyond rage.
       "I don't know what you're talking about." Shira jerked, trying to stand. Rough hands threw her back.
       The commander kicked the stolen med kit in her direction, his gaze never wavering. "How many in your team, and how are they armed?"
       "It's only the two of us," Shira whined. "Please..."
       She struggled to glance at Esti. He took his gaze off her, seeming to notice the unconscious woman for the first time. A red blotch had blossomed beneath the gauze padding where Shira had removed the first flechette from her friend's shoulder. The two remaining darts quivered against the woman's tan flesh, hideous reminders of the violent nature of Crucible, and of the strange beings who also searched for the cryptic rewards promised by the enigmatic Siidi.
       "Medic." The leader glanced back at Shira, a curious look in his dark eyes. "Medic, front and center."
       A compact woman with glossy brown skin and sharp, angular features pushed through the group at the cave's entrance, her combat helmet throwing thick shadows across deep-set eyes. She frowned with thin lips when she saw Esti but quickly dropped to her knees beside the woman.
       "I'm a doctor," she said, speaking with a soft, gentle voice that seemed at odds with her hard features. She stretched out a hand, and the world seemed to snap back into focus.
       "No!" Shira jerked, throwing herself across Esti's body. Confusion caught her breath, robbing her of air and making it hard to concentrate. She didn't know whether to be frightened or angry. Three months in an alien jungle, and she'd forgotten how to be human. She'd forgotten how to trust.
        "Let me take a look." The woman smiled, her grip solid but gentle as she maneuvered Shira out of the way. "I won't hurt her. I promise."
       The doctor picked up the flechette Shira had extracted, inspecting the slender needle, turning it over as if she expected to find something written on its sleek, golden surface. Then she handed it to the leader.
       "Propelled by springs," he said. "Very clever. The Siidi rules forbid electronics. They prohibit explosives, compressed gasses, and fuels, but someone still managed to come up with a trick the geniuses back home didn't think of."
       "We call the creatures... Morlocks," Shira whispered, a bit embarrassed by her nickname for the violent aliens. "On our first meeting, they took us by surprise. We lost nearly everyone, so I suggest you take the makers of these darts seriously."
       He frowned, turning away. "Nyuns, take three more and reinforce the perimeter. Tosh and Estabrook, I want constant surveillance. Pull the searchers back and post lookouts. Let me know immediately if even a single blade of that butt-ugly purple grass so much as wavers. We may have alien hostiles in the area in addition to an unknown human contingent. Go, people. Now!"
       The doctor removed her helmet and started laying out supplies from a large knapsack. Esti hadn't even stirred throughout the invasion of their little home, and Shira almost wished she could join her friend in oblivion. It'd be easier than dealing with these strangers.
       The leader knelt beside Shira, taking her chin in his rough hand, tilting her head up, and forcing her to look directly at him. His dark eyes shone in the pallid light.
       "I need your name," he said, his calm words at odds with the tight set of his jaw. "What country do you represent? What portal designation did you arrive by, and where's the rest of your team?"
       She pulled away. Her arms ached, her hands numb. "We're from Kigo Maru. There were fourteen of us, mostly scientists, before..."
       "Kigo Maru?"
       The doctor started in surprise at the name. "It's a ship, Captain Lucas, in the South China Sea, I think--"
       Shira cut her off. "It's a nation, a country of nearly seven hundred."
       Twenty-three years earlier, the Kigo Maru, a massive cargo freighter belonging to a Korean-Japanese conglomerate, had run aground on an unnamed atoll southeast of the Parcel Islands. Unsalvageable, it had been stripped of its payload and left to the mercy of the seas until an international group of outcasts and visionaries, Shira's family among them, had found it and made it their home. She wondered if she'd ever see it again.
       "Will you let me up now?" Shira asked.
       "No." He knelt partially out of her field of view, rifling through her notebooks and tossing her carefully packaged specimens across the dusty stone floor.
       "I told you what you wanted to know. We're not a threat to you, so just leave us alone."
       The Captain stood and pointed toward the cave's mouth, his arm rigid. "I have three dead soldiers out there. Someone took big chunks out of them with some kind of hollow, sharpened pipe, and I haven't decided yet if you had anything to do with that."
       "We're not responsible--"
       "You don't talk!" He shouted. "I talk."
       He lifted a boot. Shira tensed, but his foot came down several inches from her face.
       "We all came to this place for the same reason," she said softly, panting between the words as she struggled to catch her breath. "Call it a treasure. Call it a prize, or even a reward--call it what you want, but in the end, it's hope. Whatever we find here, it'll benefit all of humanity."
       "Plenty of people have murdered in the name of progress." He pushed some papers across a wooden framework Shira had erected as a sort of desk. His anger had vanished back beneath his calm facade as quickly as it had come.

       "How long are you going to leave me here?" Shira's arms felt like lead. Her voice rasped, words rolling around in her parched throat. "I've cooperated with you. It's your turn to cooperate with me."
       "Sometimes," he said distractedly, his cold tone bristling the hairs on her neck. "Cooperation is just not killing someone."
       The Captain had his back to her. He'd been standing over her papers for several minutes. His fingers made tiny scratching sounds, like mice skittering across a floor at night, as he flipped through months of notes.
       "This..." He picked up a scrap of thick paper. It was a sketch Esti had done just after they'd found the immense engine, the prize. It showed a hazy rectangular outline in pastel blue. Wide pipes flared within, intersections of recognizable electronics mixed with something more organic and other-worldly. "Were you going to mention you'd found something?"
       He waved the sketch in front of her. Shira swallowed, suddenly weak. She started to protest but stopped. She couldn't argue with this man, not while bound on the cold cavern floor. He enjoyed her helplessness a little too much.
       "So much for hope and the good of humanity, huh."
       From the moment the soldiers had attacked, Shira knew she'd need to negotiate, and without something to offer, she'd stand little chance of getting off Crucible alive. If she told this man what he wanted to know, she had no doubt he'd leave the two of them behind.
       She told him instead of Okyere Badu, the leader of their expedition and former First Citizen of their little republic. It had been Okyere who'd fought the Chinese blockade and subsequent American invasion. He'd led the revolt, freed his people, and negotiated a treaty with the United States in those first days when the Siidi portal had appeared at the edge of their barren atoll like a petrified, eight-sided starfish, its entrance sitting like a jeweled tiara over the scorched rock. It had been Okyere who'd personally asked Shira to be part of the first expedition through to the unknown world of Crucible, and it had been Okyere who'd been the first to fall under the hostile alien darts as he turned to offer the hand of peace to a fellow intelligence.
       She could still see the surprised look in his eyes as the tiny missiles struck his chest.
       "He'd been so confident the Siidi meant what they'd written on the obelisks beside their portals, the promise of peace and cooperation."
       "I prefer to negotiate peace from a position of strength." The Captain winked at her as if they shared a joke. "And so does my government. Now, tell me what you found."
       "First, you need to promise to take us with you, Captain Lucas," she said when he appeared in front of her. "Both of us."
       The Captain's eyes narrowed, and he smiled with tiny white teeth. "And just why would I need to do that?"
       Esti groaned from behind them, her voice rough, her words slurred but recognizable. "Tell him. It's okay..."
       "Esti." Shira struggled to flip herself over, but the restraints bit deeply into her wrists. She fell back against the cool earth with a gasp.
       "I'm fine..." Esti said weakly.
       "She is," the doctor said, standing. "The damage was only superficial. She'll recover quickly."
       Esti chuckled, a soft burbling sound. "Shira, tell them..." Her voice faded. She'd passed out again.
       "Get her up." The Captain stood back. He sheathed his weapon and started rolling up his sleeves. "I'm getting tired of this."
       "Wait!" Shira felt weak. Was he going to beat her? "I'll tell you everything, but, please, untie me."
       One of the soldiers tugged Shira roughly to her feet and pushed her into the center of the low cavern. She staggered, almost falling over Esti's limp form before the man grabbed her from behind. His breath smelled like peppermint candy as he ran his hands suggestively down her body. Then, with a swift but painful jerk, he cut the slim plastic cords that bound her hands.
       Shira gasped. Her arms felt like molten lead. She rubbed them, turning in a slow circle, able for the first time to see the men and women who'd surrounded her. They stood at the cavern's entrance, still neat and tidy, still unsullied by the ravages of Crucible. Most of them looked too young to have volunteered for a mission that stood a very real chance of being their last.
       The Siidi had offered undreamed rewards, but the only way off Crucible was by finding those prizes and understanding the conditions the enigmatic aliens had applied to them. Rumors back on Earth said only one person had ever returned, but those had just been rumors.
       The Captain looked her in the eyes, his gaze hard and unyielding as he signaled. Two soldiers stepped forward. "She's your responsibility. If she causes any trouble, kill her. If she attempts to signal anyone, kill her. If she tries to run, kill her."
       "I get it," Shira said.
       He turned on her, teeth clenched and fists balled. He looked so much like the soldiers who's swaggered through her tiny nation, arrogant, cruel, and in complete control.
       "Listen carefully," he hissed. "You are an enemy combatant in a war zone. As far as I know, your... country isn't even recognized by the UN. You have no rights, and I grant no privileges. I could kill you as a terrorist and murderer or just leave you and your friend to die. Do you understand?"
       "I'm a botanist, not a terrorist," she said weakly. This man was a bully. They'd just met, but Shira could already tell he preferred intimidation over conversation. He'd fit in perfectly with this world.
       He smiled again, a predatory grin as if he'd read her thoughts, before turning his back on her. "Tell me about the prize. What's its size? Composition? Purpose? Where did you find it, and why, if you've discovered this fantastic treasure, are you still here on this world?"
       "The reason we're still here," she said slowly as if speaking with a child, "is because we weren't the only ones to find it."
       "These monsters you spoke of, these Morlocks..."
       "Yes," Shira said.
       Her team had filled the clearing, experimenting on the strange device, trying to decipher the Siidi code and arguing about the soft glow that emanated from the truck-sized block of transparent bluish resin whenever they'd touched it with bare hands. She'd been at the edge of the camp, cataloging her specimens and excited at the prospect that she'd soon be responsible for a whole new branch of botany.
       Then the aliens had come. They'd shuffled through the tall plum-colored grasses, moving smoothly and with purpose, seven of them. They'd carried long cream-colored weapons that looked like stretched paper airplanes, but they'd waited to fire until they were among the unsuspecting humans. It had been a bloodbath.
       Shira's team hadn't been armed. Why should they have been? Crucible had been promised as a haven of cooperation, a series of puzzles and prizes to be unlocked by a single race or many species in conjunction. It was a scientist's dream or should have been.
       She'd run, sprinting out of the clearing with several others, but the pale, vaguely bird-like creatures had continued to fire until she'd reached the trees. She'd gotten separated. Night fell, and she'd spent several hours trembling in the cold darkness, tears running down her face and over her shaking hands.
       She'd returned to the clearing the next morning, but the bodies were gone, the Morlocks were gone, and even the prize was gone, thick gouges in the earth where it'd been dragged away.
       "And her?" The Captain asked, pointing at Esti.
       "Esti found me the day after, curled up in a bundle of dead leaves. I'd still be there if it weren't for her."
       "The prize was gone? So, that means these aliens figured it out, solved the puzzle, and went back to where they came from." The Captain circled her restlessly. "If that's true, then why are we still even talking?"
       "They didn't solve it," she said. "They dragged it away. We saw the trail through the brush."
       "How long ago was this?"
       "Months." She sighed, reaching down to brush Esti's cheek with the back of her hand. The woman's face felt hot, but she stirred, eyes opening at Shira's touch. Shira jerked her head. Esti, groggy but aware, nodded and closed her eyes.
       Shira glanced up, but the Captain hadn't noticed the exchange.
       They couldn't trust these people; that much was clear. They'd have to find some way of getting off this world on their own, but first, they'd have to find some way of escaping their captors.
       "Those wounds aren't months old," the Captain said. "Are you screwing with me?"
       "No. We've had multiple clashes with the creatures. The last just a couple of days ago, when Esti got hit." She bent and began repacking the specimens he'd scattered throughout the cave. They were every bit as valuable as a Siidi prize. "We'd been following them as they moved lower into the valley. It looked like they might be taking the artifact back to their original insertion point."
       "There'll be nothing there. The portal opens one way and then vanishes," he said.
       Shira shrugged. "Maybe you can ask them yourself..."
       "If I leave any survivors." His cold tone made her glance up. Reflected sunlight burned in his eyes.
       "Sir, we've found something, a clear path through the vegetation on the south end of the slope." A very young-looking soldier jogged into the crevice, his thin features pinched with anxiety. Shira had that same expression her first few weeks on Crucible.
       "Call in the advance teams. I want everyone to me and ready for action within the hour. Let's get this done today."
       Captain Lucas dived from the cave opening without even a glance in her direction, weapon raised, a steely look in his dark eyes, and a smile on his lips that told Shira he'd been aching for a fight.
       He glanced back briefly, making a gesture to the men tasked with watching Shira. "Them, too."

       An unnamed river gurgled somewhere downslope, hidden by lance-like shoots of deep black bamboo and coffee-colored weeds with blood-colored veins on their fat, circular leaves. Purple and plum-colored grasses choked the reddish earth, partially obscuring oddly rectangular, brassy-tinged boulders that looked like gigantic dice strewn haphazardly over the valley floor. Somewhere up slope came the gurgling cry of a bluecat, a harmless, six-legged, feline-like creature with mottled azure fur Shira's party had encountered in their first days on Crucible.
       Unique scents, reminiscent of cardamom and peach, hung like a mist over the crushed foliage as the troop marched down the tangled slope towards an unknown goal. Shira watched their features as they moved, young faces devoid of fear. They reminded her of a scout troop out to earn their first merit badge. All except Captain Lucas. He reminded her that danger could be found in familiar faces as well as alien.
       The wispy mauve grass beside them parted. A flash of lime-colored iridescence erupted as something spun dizzily into view, a triad of glossy wings fanning the air. Esti tensed against her. The female soldier beside them lashed out, the butt of her long spear crushing the fist-sized, beetle-like creature with one blow.
       "I hate bugs," the woman grumbled with a dry smile as she lengthened her step to pull ahead.
       "They won't hurt you this time," Shira said softly to Esti.
       "The beetles?"
       "The Morlocks," Shira said. "You knew what I meant."
       "I'm fine," Esti said, but she glanced away. She'd changed. Their last encounter with the aliens had taken something from her.
       "You're not, but you're too stubborn to--"
       "Hold!" One of the men up ahead had raised his hand. The gesture had been repeated down the line, stopping the procession.
       A short female soldier jogged down the line in their direction, a compound bow and flattened pack of arrows bobbing against her back. She stopped in front of Shira, panting. "He wants you."

       "Advice?" Captain Lucas asked almost jovially as he knelt in the blood-colored dirt. "Which way are your monsters headed?"
       The dark grass had been gauged away, flattened in wide patches leading across the valley floor from the edge of an escarpment to vanish behind immense, fan-shaped trees towards where Shira imagined the river would be. Boot prints that looked like a trio of closely spaced exclamation points led in every direction, offering no clear travel route.
       "We found the device on a ledge somewhere in that direction," she said, pointing up the gentle slope.
       "So, they're headed down?"
       Shira didn't have a ready answer. If the hulking creatures were still out there, then there'd be a chance they hadn't figured out the Siidi puzzle and released the prize. Maybe they'd given up. Maybe the engine was sitting in the dirt, waiting for someone else to find it.
       "They might have moved on to something else," Shira said. "If they haven't figured it out in three months, perhaps they've quit."
       Something in the Captain's dark eyes told her he hoped the Morlocks hadn't given up.
       "We follow the trail. If your monsters are still out there..."

       Shira didn't know why they'd bothered to be silent as they approached. The racket the feathered creatures made would have covered a stampede of elephants heading their way.
       Two of the creatures knelt on top of the brick-shaped block of resin, looking like chicken-colored orangutans as they repeatedly battered the structure with a gear-driven apparatus. Another two attacked the device with short, fat-bladed knives the same golden color as their darts, as the final three attached a makeshift harness around the contraption, readying it to be dragged even further through the jungle. The resin surrounding the engine glowed faintly wherever they touched it, exactly as it had when Shira's people had inspected the device. It was a clue.
       These creatures should've been trying to decipher the Siidi puzzle. If they'd approached Shira's people in peace that first day, they could all have worked on the device together in the spirit the Siidi intended. This puzzle couldn't be solved by just one race. Shira felt sure of that. Instead, these monsters had chosen the dark path and had made enemies instead of friends.
       Captain Lucas made several gestures with his right arm in some kind of military sign language. Soldiers separated. Some faded into the brush; others fell back, readying longbows as they took to higher ground. Four men stayed beside the Captain. These men had a hard look far removed from the raw-looking recruits who fanned out through the foliage.
       "We're too close," Esti whispered from behind the corrugated bark of a fan tree. Up close, the gigantic fronds appeared more bluish than purple, their surfaces textured with long parallel ridges in chains of tiny triangles.
       "You're lucky I allowed you here at all," Captain Lucas said. "Both of you. I could've left you in the cave."
       Would that have been a bad thing? Shira shifted her weight. The soldier assigned to watch her stirred, placing a large paw-like hand on her shoulder as he shook his head.
       "Really? Where would I go?"
       "Just following orders, ma'am," the man said in hushed tones. His voice held cadences of an accent she couldn't identify.
       "Now what?" Esti asked.
       Captain Lucas grinned. "We claim the prize."

       Movement at the corner of her vision made Shira turn. She stiffened; a scream caught in her throat as something flowed through the grass beside her.
       It rippled with a languid undersea grace, looking like some mad biologist had attached octopus tentacles to a thin spiral staircase frame covered in red, yellow, and black stripes like a coral snake, hues shifting and changing as she watched. Bulbous blue-black eyes peered out at her from between each of the six smooth appendages, and it rotated lazily in place, seeming more concerned with the Morlocks than with the men around her.
       "Hold!" Captain Lucas hissed as the men beside him stirred, ready to strike. He stood slowly, machete-like blade in his hand.
       Shira kept her gaze fixed on the new alien, afraid to look away. Its appendages, offset from each other and stacked along its spiral trunk, never stopped moving. They curled and writhed, slithering across each other lithe and oily like a bucket of worms. A short iron dowel floated between the creature's arms, intermittently visible among translucent hair-like cilia, a hollow rod with stiletto-like teeth at one end.
       This was Captain Lucas's murderer. She knew it, and the look on the Captain's face told her he understood as well.
       "Captain--" He silenced her with a look. Her heart slammed her chest, a frenzied staccato beneath her skin that threatened to burst its way out, but she remained still.
       Lucas stared at the creature. It seemed to glare back at him, something ominous in its bulging, oily eyes. Neither moved. Shira held her breath, waiting for the inevitable and bloody confrontation.
       Then it stirred. The creature rotated lazily as if inspecting the humans around it and slithered past into the open. Shira exhaled. Captain Lucas's smile widened.
       "What was that?" Esti's voice sounded high, near-hysterical, her breath hot against Shira's cheek.
       "I... I have no idea." Shira turned to the Captain, knees still weak from the encounter. "Why didn't you do something?"
       "I will." He signaled. Men moved in the tall plum-colored grass, widening to circle around the clearing where the creature undulated. The Morlocks, unaware, continued to batter and bully the Siidi engine as if they could counter its advanced technology with pure brute force. "After."
       Shira didn't understand.

       Six of the multi-tentacled creatures attacked, moving with unbelievable speed, silently, tube-like weapons flashing in Crucible's swollen sun as they threw themselves onto the larger feathered creatures.
       Two Morlocks collapsed instantly. A third held one of the tentacled creatures against the resin block, stabbing with its fat-bladed knife, as others fired into the attackers with their needle guns. High-pitched caws shred the silence. The tart scent of sour cherries stung Shira's nostrils, and a weird vibration rumbled through the forest floor.
       "Something's happening." Shira placed her hands on the ground. The rhythmic hum welled up around her, coming from deep in the earth. It seemed to originate from the Siidi device. "I think they're making it work. Somehow."
       "How? They're not cooperating. I thought that was the point of all this." Captain Lucas knelt, his fingers brushing the thick reddish-black dirt.
       "It's the same illumination my team witnessed," Shira said. The resin block glowed faintly every time either of the creatures struck it, pale blue splashes outlining bodies as they fought for control of the object. "But the shaking, the vibration, that's new. And it's only happening when both types of creatures are against the device."
       Captain Lucas looked confused, and for the first time, uncertain. "They can't claim the prize while they're fighting, can they?"
       "I don't know."
       "Opinion. Can they activate it, just the two of them?"
       "I don't know," she repeated. "But it's still sitting there. I think it needs something else, maybe a third type of creature to trigger, possibly more."
       He glanced at the fight. "This isn't cooperation. This isn't what the Siidi intended."
       She laughed. The man was a monster. His idea of cooperation had been to overpower her, but he had a point. The Siidi monoliths back on Earth said there'd be challenges, quests and puzzles, tests to foster teamwork and understanding between the seventeen species invited to explore the world of Crucible. It shouldn't be easy. Should it?
       "I need options, fast. There won't be enough of either of these monsters to operate anything if we don't act soon." Lucas flexed the fingers of his left hand, his right swinging his machete in short arcs.
       He'd called them monsters, but were either of those creatures any worse than the men around her? Shira had seen horrible things, heinous acts committed by both sides during the invasion of her home. All committed by humans. All homegrown and every bit as bad as anything she'd seen on Crucible.
       High-pitched screeching ripped the air. Jaundiced smoke trickled from small fires set by the defending Morlocks, partially obscuring the raging battle, but intermittent splashes of pale blue continued to illuminate the Siidi engine. Time was running out.
       "What do I do!" Captain Lucas grabbed her. His hand felt hot, his fingers like a vise around her arm. "Tell me what we need to happen because those creatures aren't cooperating."
       She pulled away, anger giving her voice a shrill edge. "Someone once told me, sometimes cooperation is just not killing each other."
       "But they are killing each other," he said.
       "And we've got to stop them." Shira leapt from concealment. A Morlock's flechette whizzed past her face. She ducked, landing on all fours in the blood-colored earth, panting furiously.
       The Siidi had studied the races they'd allowed on Crucible. That much had been obvious by the instructions on the sixty-four monoliths they'd scattered randomly across the Earth, layered with welcomes in all human languages as well as dozens of totally incomprehensible scripts Shira assumed were the written languages of the other sixteen races involved. They couldn't have been ignorant of the violence, mistrust, and fear an unknown planet would represent to some species. Their ban of explosives and technology proved it. Yet they'd allowed two of the most violent species she could imaging compete for the same reward. Why?
       "We've just got to get them to stop long enough to realize they don't need to die for this."
       A wave of smoke enveloped her. Bitter fumes burned her eyes, flowing like acid down her throat. She covered her face, sighted on the unworldly blue glow coming from the engine, and rushed forward.
       The sizzling whine of Morlock darts ripped through the air. A bolt of pain punched her left leg, knocking her down. She grabbed for it. The flechette jerked in her hands. Its hooks sprang loose. Barbed fingers slashed like razor blades beneath her skin, and she screamed.
       "Shira!" Esti ran forward, grabbed Shira by the shoulders, and dragged her the rest of the way to the resin block.
       "Don't be stupid! Get back!" Shira pushed at the other woman.
       Esti pushed back. "No! Not this time. We do this together."
       Shira panted, closing her eyes against the burning in her leg. If she was wrong, then they'd both end up dead.
       She sighed. "Keep down!"
       A spray of darts struck the device over their heads, punctuating Shira's words.
       She lay her hand on the device, palm down. It trembled at her touch, the previously impervious resin becoming jelly-like beneath her fingers. A jolt raced through her. Her heart fluttered, and her knees grew weak. This was it! She could feel the device warming at her caress.
       "Stay down!" She yelled as she leapt away from concealment. Her injured leg buckled, agony bringing tears to her eyes, but she pushed on.
       A Morlock had one of the tentacled aliens pinned against the device nearby. The slender creature's limbs waved and writhed as they struggled, sagging as the Morlock heaved against it.
       "Break it up!" She shoved the Morlock back, startled at how soft the tiny feathers across its upper body felt and how easily the beast yielded under her touch.
       The Morlock squawked, its beak-like mouth opened, its all too human-looking eyes widened. It shifted. The smaller creature slithered from its grip, tentacles lashing out to trap the Morlock's arms. A third tentacle wrapped itself around Shira's wrist. She yelled as it pulled her into the fight, twisting her against the big monster. Its grip felt like an iron band. Fine, hair-like cilia flexed against her skin, tickling and repulsing her.
       "Look at me." She focused on one of the creature's eyes near the center of its twisted body and stopped fighting, allowing her body to go limp. If she could let it see she wasn't a threat...
       The alien paused as if contemplating her. One of its lower tentacles slithered up, inspecting her. It felt warm, but its smooth texture became abrasive when she shook away from its touch. The creature paused. Then, slowly, it loosened its grip. Shira took the tentacle gently, carefully reaching around to place the appendage against the Siidi engine. It twitched as she held it there.
       "No, don't pull away. Trust me. We need to work together." Shira spoke slowly, although she had no hopes the creature understood her. The words were for herself.
       The creature's complexion changed. The emerald-colored splotches along its central trunk faded to dull cerulean, while its appendages brightened and blushed with shades of crimson and orange. Was it trying to speak to her?
       An arrow slammed into the Morlock. Shira spun, nearly dropping her hold on the smaller alien. Captain Lucas and his troops had converged on the device.
       "No, not this way!" She screamed, placing herself between the archers and the Morlock. The Captain, visible intermittently through the fog, frowned, his eyes narrowed as if he were trying to decide whether to put an arrow in her as well.
       Shira revised her original assumption about the Siidi's motives. Maybe they hadn't designed this test for two of the most violent species, but three.
       "Help me." She gently touched the Morlock. It trilled weakly, its beak gnashing the air, but didn't pull away when she grabbed its slender, almost human hand, and placed it beside the small alien's tentacle.
       "That's right," she said quietly. "I can feel it, can you? We can do this, but we've got to do it together."
       The glow had increased. The vibration beneath her feet leveled out, its steady pulsing like the beating of a heart as the resin under her fingers melted, sublimating into steam that vanished as quickly as it formed. She sank into it. The engine appeared as the block evaporated. Shira's fingers touched metal, cold and unyielding.
       The clearing fell silent. Fighting stopped as the survivors of all three species realized the puzzle had been solved and that the prize had been unlocked.
       "Now what?" Captain Lucas shouted from his position in the trees.
       Shira felt the first ticks of energy. Faint cotton candy splashes of color wavered in the air around her, heralding the opening of a Siidi portal. She laughed.
       "You better get down here, all of you, or you're going to miss the ride."