Once Li stopped and refused to go any farther. By sixth sense I heard him say, "This is absurd! We’re stumbling around in the dark. I’m not budging another millimeter till morning." Festina took her time responding: probably deciding what tack to take with a stubborn diplomat. Ubatu, however, just grabbed Li by his pricey silk shirt and shook him, making incomprehensible sounds of rage through her ruined mouth. It worked far better than rational argument — a few hard cuffs, and Li started moving again.
Deeper out in the bush, Tut was also on the move. He had to be: if he slowed down, he’d die. A beanpole like him, with little insulating fat and no clothes but masks, could only survive the cold damp by staying active. By dawn Tut was racked with shivers, despite his constant capering. The foliage through which he moved was soaking wet, drenching him whenever he bumped against a rain-laden frond. Once the sun arrived it might warm him a bit, but the season was still late autumn. The day would remain cool for hours… and if Tut collapsed in exhaustion, even the heat of noon might not restore his body to a life-sustaining temperature.
For the time being, though, he was still on his feet. Pretas surrounded him, urging him on. They’d helped him through the night, jolting him awake whenever he came close to dropping from fatigue. I was sure they’d keep him on the move until… until he did whatever a planetful of frustrated ghosts wanted him to do.
We were all alive and moving — Tut, Festina, Li, Ubatu, the pretas, and I. All of us converged on the station, like actors approaching the climax of a VR melodrama. I wondered whether events had been planned this way from the beginning… by the League, the Balrog, the purple-jelly Fuentes, or any other godlike aliens who liked playing puppet-master. But as the Youn Suu in my dream had said, it really didn’t matter who was pulling the strings. The important thing was what we did with whatever small freedoms we had.
The first gray light of the coming dawn glistened on the water — a perfect time for a swim.
At the far end of the lake, the station rose above the beach. It was built in the shape of a Fuentes head — black marble skin, bright glass eyes with hundreds of facets, huge chrome mandibles framing the mouthlike entrance — but the forehead was circled with a crown of golden spikes: not pure gold but some gleaming alloy, each spike ten meters long, square at the base and tapering out to a point as sharp as a lightning rod.
The lightning rod resemblance wasn’t accidental. If the station had done its job sixty-five hundred years ago, bolts of power should have shot from that golden crown, uplifting every EMP cloud in the neighborhood. But I perceived no energy being emitted. In fact, I perceived little from the station at all. My sixth sense encompassed the building’s exterior, but stopped blind at the doorway… as if the world ended there, and the station’s interior was part of some other reality. A pocket universe like the research center in Drill-Press.
I wondered if even the Balrog knew what lay inside the building. It might be as blind as I was. Or perhaps the moss knew exactly what the station held and wanted to keep it secret; the spores never missed a chance to spring a surprise on lesser beings. The Balrog had a childish fondness for catching people unawares… unless there was some deeper motivation for the moss’s actions. Zen masters also loved springing surprises, in an effort to shock students out of conventional patterns of thinking. As one sensei famously said, "Sometimes a slap is needed for a newborn child to breathe."
Kaisho Namida had been a student of Zen. The Balrog had certainly jolted her out of conventional ways. Were the spores trying to do the same with me — not startling me for the fun of it, but doling out disorienting shocks in the hope of Waking me up?
"Just for the record," I told the Balrog, "my form of Buddhism isn’t like Zen. We prefer the slow but steady approach… without undue surprises. Trying to achieve enlightenment in a single lifetime is considered needy."
For a moment — just a moment — I imagined the Balrog laughing.
I reached the station before the others: swam ashore, pulled myself above the waterline, and lay on the beach letting my clothes dry as I waited for Festina and the diplomats. Drying didn’t take long — the nanomesh channeled excess H2O molecules to the surface of the fabric, then formed a seal to prevent drops from seeping back in. I sloshed most of the moisture off with my hands. Muta’s predawn air did the rest.
The station’s front doors were only a stone’s throw away, but I made no effort to enter. Better to wait for Festina — I couldn’t help notice that pretas clustered thickly on the beach, but not a single cloudy particle ventured nearer than ten meters to the building. Those that got close moved on quickly, as if the proximity made them nervous. In fact, every cloud within range seemed anxious or outright afraid; their auras fluttered with agitation. Were they worried our group would cause trouble inside the Stage Two installation? Or did they fear that something in the building might be disturbed by our arrival and cause trouble for everyone?
Such questions would be answered in time. Meanwhile, I experimented with ways to get around in my low-mobility condition: crawling stomach down, sitting up and going backward (bouncing along on my rump), trying to walk upside down on my hands (impossible because my limp legs flopped around too much to keep my balance), rolling lengthwise, various ungainly sideways maneuvers…
At last, I paused for breath. Lying on the sand, breathing deeply, I considered other means of locomotion… like asking the Balrog for help. My alien parasite had spectacular powers. On Cashleen, the spores had formed that mossy carriage to whoosh me through the streets of Zoonau… and the navy’s files were full of similar incidents, including a time on the planet Troyen when the Balrog picked up the entire royal palace and used it as a battering ram against a mass of soldiers. If the Balrog could telekinetically move a building, why couldn’t it move me?
But I knew that wouldn’t happen — not on Muta, where the Balrog had gone to great lengths to hide its presence. Yes, the spores could construct glowing red carriages… and perhaps they could lift me into the air, or teleport me instantly to another continent. But they wouldn’t; not here. They’d do nothing out of the ordinary unless their actions could be concealed from the outside world. The Balrog might amuse itself under my skin, romping through my tissues and reshaping my brain; but it wouldn’t miraculously restore my half-amputated leg. That would give away the game to…
To whom? The pretas?
Or to whatever waited inside the station? Was that the threat the Balrog hid from?
Pity I couldn’t see into the building. In the meantime, I watched the horizon brighten and let myself fall asleep.
I woke as Festina and the diplomats became visible to the naked eye. They walked along the beach, all three glum and apprehensive — right up to the point where the Bumbler chirped to indicate it had sensed something interesting.
Me.
I lay on the outermost edge of its scan. Festina soon realized the little machine was reporting a human body sprawled in front of the station. She set off at a run, leaving the others behind… but she slowed to a casual jog when I waved to show I was alive.
The fear that had blazed through her aura shifted to beaming relief… then, because she was Festina Ramos, the relief darkened to suspicion. When she got within earshot, she yelled, "How the hell did you end up here?"