The spear was old.

The haft might have disintegrated by now, if it had been allowed to age true. It was self-translated nightly to maintain its condition.

Silver oak. Extinct, and then re-engineered back to a viable growing population. The head was early steel, set with twisting patterns, interlocking like chains or knots. Scratches lined it, use markings, sharpening markings, and a brown filled the deepest scratches, the furthest indents in the design. Too difficult to clean out.

At least a hundred distinct genetic chains resided in those faint scratches, carefully identified and recorded. The information was somewhere. The haft still had faint indents in it, the smallest of dips where ancient hands had gripped and gripped until the wood knew and loved them.

Genetic data from skin flakes left in the wood had also been gathered and cataloged. Somewhere.

A holy item, to a culture that shunned holiness. It was displayed prominently, in the center of the atrium. It had no label, no adornment.

The other artifacts had etheric labels. Turn your attention to them and somehow know what they are, what they are called. Like the recognition of an old friend, intimate details of their lives and adventures called to mind as you see or think of them.

The spear, floating gently above the center dais, simply was. All the world was its testament, and Veles was its context.

Maxwell thought it was an ugly old thing.

Crude. Modern edges had the benefit of modern fabrication methods and modern materials. The spear itself was an outdated weapon, more relevant among cavalry and sword than armored vehicles and firearms.

Not that he would ever say such a thing out loud. Sentiment was so much more precious to those who didn’t consider themselves sentimental.

He glanced at his reflection in the shining black of the dais. Among a society of vital, fit bodies he’d elected to keep a few signs of wear. The faint silvering of his hair. The graceful crow’s feet around his eyes. He was in no position to speak on the folly of sentimentality.

“Poor thing.”

The voice was husky, low but somehow more feminine for it. Maxwell did not turn. He would not recognize her even if he did.

“Shay,” he replied warmly.

Shay approached, brown, sashaying hip side to side as she moved. “When did it stop being a spear?”

Maxwell held out an arm and she folded herself into it. Short, this time. Breasts pressing yieldingly into his side. A wide, flat nose nuzzled against his chest.

“It’s still a spear,” he said. “It’s the spear.”

It was said there was godblood on it, of course. Scans indicated its presence, though the signal had faded over time. Physical analysis never turned anything up.

“Spear kills,” Shay murmured into his shirt. “Spear is not for looking at. When last was lifeblood on its head?”

He wrapped one hand around her, tucking it into dark curls. He found the texture of her hair pleasing under rough palms.

He’d had them specifically translated rough.

“Eight thousand years.”

“It is,” she decided, “a portrait.”

He looked at her, kissed her on the forehead after a moment.

“For hanging,” she said, almost disdainfully. “As if we could forget violence.”

“Not here,” he murmured, though he loved her for it. That she would say what nobody else would dare to. Her words sometimes fringed on the taboo; she had cost him credibility in some circles. An utterly worthwhile trade.

“Here,” she grinned up at him. “Where the young are taught to claw for the sky until they burn to the ground.”

“Shay.”

“And when we killed our gods, we reached out for others. Have you decided what you will say to the students? What last violence will you teach them?”

He laughed. “Some are several centuries old, here. Learning has no age limit.”

“Is that one of the empty platitudes you will give them?” she teased.

“One of the empty platitudes I’ll give you,” he nipped at her with his first two fingers. She pulled away, skirts billowing as she twirled and laughed, a bit irreverently, in front of the ancient artifacts here.

“They walk soon,” she laughed at him. “Get to them, fool, or they’ll remember you.”

“Then out of my sight, witch.”

She made a mocking bow, spinning and twirling as she moved. Beckoning to him. “Come. Or you will be late.”

“You’ll make me late,” he growled, smiling. Maxwell gave one last look to the spear, the ancient thing hovering above the dais. At the handprints sunk into the haft. He checked that he had his speech stored in his comm.

Then he turned and went after Shay. Toward the future.

*

Objectively, the laboratory was a small space. Ceiling at just eight or nine feet, before the cables and the scaffolding got in. Low-budget.

It was airy and spacious, with beautiful wide open areas. It gave more the impression of a cathedral than a laboratory. The eye was drawn upwards, to the dark space above, the fire sprinklers, the faint tracery of pipes, done in lacy corrosion.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Maxwell regarded Shay’s annoyance with fond bemusement.

“Is the grandeur a needed thing for the experiments?” she asked.

Kaelen had been speaking when she asked. Shay did not raise her voice. She never raised her voice. But the researcher stopped immediately, looking for Maxwell’s reaction. He declined to give her one, keeping his slight smile in place.

His treasure always knew just how to strike. Shay left her comm translation off by default; it took a moment for Kaelen’s comm to send out a discreet pulse, seeking her intent. The baffler Shay wore would prevent it getting a clean signal.

Now, Kaelen had just been insulted by the wife of an Eifni board member, and she had incomplete information on the social context. She would need to take a risk. Maxwell didn’t narrow his eyes; Kaelen didn’t need a cue to understand that they would judge the worthiness of her response.

Kaelen looked between the two of them without fully masking her anxiety cues. Once it became apparent that neither of them would break the silence, Kaelen smiled at Shay—a safe move, which would immediately have earned Shay’s contempt.

“I’m sorry,” Kaelen said, pinging uncertainty on her comm to invite Shay to repeat the question.

“We have something in common.” Shay patted her on the back. Kaelen’s comm emitted confusion, but Shay struck again before she could ask for clarification, practically leaping to a nearby glass tank layered with dirt.

Twenty precisely-placed grass blades poked up from the soil.

“What is this? The saddest of little forests?”

Kaelen seized the opportunity to retreat to familiar ground. “It’s a”—here the slightest of pauses, an assessing look at Maxwell—“personal project, testing the Heoshin Criterion.”

Maxwell raised an eyebrow ever so slightly.

“I don’t want to presume—well, you probably know, since you’re—you know.”

“What is it you are saying I know?” Shay cut in.

“Blue-rank academia is still trying to find the lower limit for beings to produce worship,” she said. “Some animals do, some don’t. Our best model is something called the Heoshin Criterion, which is that certain kinds of souls can—”

“Are they,” Shay interrupted again. Kaelen shut up immediately, to Shay’s evident satisfaction. “Are they… are they singing?”

“They’re worshiping,” Kaelen said primly. With some pride.

“They’re grass.”

“Millet, actually.”

Shay squinted at the plants. “They look… happy. Why have you made happy the plants?”

“Should I have made them sad?” Kaelen looked like she’d won some kind of victory.

“What does grass worship?”

“Me.” Kaelen beamed. “But these are important results. We’ve successfully grafted sufficient consciousness emulation to bypass the Heoshin Criterion. If only it were legal to publish the results…”

Shay barreled straight through Kaelen’s implicit request. “Why do you want grass to worship you?”

Kaelen looked at Maxwell, checking for signs of offense. “It’s not about what I wanted. It’s a test case. Worship requires a teleologic sink that fits the three criteria for sympathetic—”

“But grass has no attention for you,” Shay tried. “Why be worshiped by plants?”

Kaelen sighed. “I told you. It’s not for the sake of being worshiped, it’s for the sake of seeing what that does to a population without any complicating factors or extraneous variables.”

Maxwell felt the moment Shay engaged her comm for the killing blow.

“I know you are using your comm to record the teleologic feedback,” Shay said in perfect Velean, “but if you are truly testing Heoshin, then you could have set a pseudoconsciousness to fulfill the requirement for etheric-band recipient. Then you can measure the effects indirectly with a conduit transducer.”

Shay turned off her comm. “Without the worship of grasses.”

There was a pause as Kaelen digested that.

“It’s millet,” she snapped. She glared. “Why are you here again?”

“You’re aware that there’s a ban on worship research outside of Eifni Theolytics,” Maxwell said pleasantly. It wasn’t a question. “You’re also aware that Eifni Theolytics does not sponsor researchers without previous experience in worship research. Why do you think that is?”

Kaelen perked up. “Because the Eifni Organization only hires proven individuals with the talent to navigate tactical, social, and intellectual challenges, and banning the research tests our resourcefulness.”

“There’s that,” Maxwell conceded. “It also filters out the candidates who can’t manage operational security to save their lives.”

“That’s you,” said Shay.

“One of your assistants betrayed you,” Maxwell said amiably. “SecEnf is coming to kill you and decontaminate the area. They’re supposed to delay the cordon until the graduation crowd thins out, but I’m told the officer in charge has a certain determination.”

The blood drained from Kaelen’s face. “And you waited until now to tell me?!”

“We also look for candidates with high social acuity,” Maxwell said. “Consider the…” he checked his comm, “four minutes it took to ask as your handicap for the interview.”

“Interview.” Kaelen, who had been frantically sweeping around the room to gather her materials, paused and looked at him hopefully.

“The position’s yours if you can make it to the Theolytics building by end of day,” said Maxwell. “Do you have a weapon?”

“Wea—I’m a researcher. Why would I have a weapon?”

“In case someone else with a weapon tries to kill you,” Maxwell said. “It’s much harder unarmed. There’s a spear in the lobby, if you can get to it.”

“SecEnf has disrupter weapons, a spear won’t—” Kaelen froze midsentence. When she spoke again, her voice came out much weaker. “...that spear?”

Maxwell nodded, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“I can’t use that spear,” Kaelen protested. “Eifni used that spear.”

“And according to history, it works very well,” Maxwell said. “But it’s your choice. Good luck, and I hope to see you at Theolytics.”

Shay waved cheerfully as they left the room.

*

There were ten soldiers standing outside the laboratory wing as Maxwell and Shay emerged. They were clad in navy blue uniforms. Two of them stood with their backs to the door, SECULAR ENFORCEMENT emblazoned across their upper backs over the SecEnf logo.

Between them and the soldiers, a small group of academics waited helplessly. They’d be scanned and released within the hour, most likely. Kaelen’s project was too minor to have any significant etheric footprint. In fact, SecEnf probably shouldn’t have shown up at all for an infraction this minor, but her traitorous lab assistant’s tip had lacked any sense of subtlety and they’d used the wrong channels besides.

After reading the tip, Maxwell had almost ordered its author’s credit penalized on general principles, but everyone played the game sloppily at this level.

“They won’t let you through,” one of the academics said as the couple walked toward the cordon. “It’s a lockdown.”

Maxwell ignored him. One of the soldiers levered himself off the wall, disruptor rifle at ready position.

“He’s right,” said the soldier. “No one gets in or out.”

Maxwell smiled patiently.

The soldier thumbed his safety. Shay drifted behind Maxwell.

“SecEnf SOP requires you to log the comm of anyone who approaches a cordon,” Maxwell reminded him.

He could see a few of the other soldiers had recognized him—they were the ones who looked like they were watching two vehicles on a collision course with no room to brake. One of them was surreptitiously gesturing at the man talking to Maxwell.

“Tai can do it,” the soldier said, jerking his head toward another soldier. “Look, asshole, some hysterical maniac is holding Eifni’s spear hostage. The negotiations aren’t going well because she’s crying too hard to handle her end of them. No exceptions, no irregularities, stand the fuck back and wait for the decom teams.”

“Uh, Ival?” said Tai, who was staring wide-eyed at Maxwell. “Maybe you should do it this time.”

But Ival wasn’t looking at his comrade. He pointed the gun at Maxwell. “If you know our SOP, you know this is a disruptor weapon. Stand back.”

One of the other soldiers let out a muted “godfire.”

Maxwell raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, seriously, what’s with—” Ival said, looking back at his team, who were all in the process of moving their hands as far away from their weapons as they could manage. If there was a shot, no one wanted even a hint of ambiguity that they fired it.

It took a moment for Ival to check Maxwell’s comm and the affiliations displayed there. He said nothing, but it showed in his eyes. His finger slowly lifted off the trigger.

Maxwell reached out and patted him on the shoulder.

“Thank you for your service,” he said.

Then he and Shay walked out of the building.