"Treasure?" Festina and I repeated in unison.
"Our blessing. Our inheritance."
"O Splendid Ones," I said, "perhaps you should explain what that means. We wish to comprehend your true greatness."
"We’re glad to do so," the Divine replied. "Too long have we been misunderstood. Listen, and be amazed."
As the Divine began to speak, Ubatu laid me on the floor. That might just have meant she was resting her arms — why hold me during a potentially lengthy diatribe, when she might need all her strength later? — but I was still troubled by her action. Ubatu hadn’t been carrying me out of courtesy or compassion; it was something to do with Ifa-Vodun. She saw me as the vessel of a particularly powerful loa. I’d thought she wanted to keep her hands on me and perhaps win favor with the Balrog through displays of worshipful servitude.
But now Ubatu had met the Divine. And now she’d set me down. I couldn’t help wondering if she’d decided the Divine would be more susceptible to her pandering than the Balrog had been. They certainly seemed better candidates for being manipulated: powerful, but not very bright. If Ubatu abased herself before the Divine — if she offered to be their priestess — they might be gullible enough to accept.
Especially if she could prove her loyalty. Perhaps by offering Festina and me as sacrifices. And betraying the secret that I harbored the Divine’s enemies: Balrog spores. If Ubatu had been capable of speech, she might have already blurted out the truth. As it was, she’d have to bide her time: wait for some kind of opening that would let her catch the Divine’s attention before Festina and I could stop her.
Or not. I might be inventing ulterior motives where none existed. Ubatu could simply be resting her arms. I wished I could still read her life force, but my sixth sense had lost its reach. I had to fall back on my natural five senses, keeping a close eye on Ubatu to make sure she did nothing treacherous while the Divine talked.
Meanwhile, Festina took up a position leaning directly on the curtain of blackness across the room’s entrance. If the energy field lost its solidity for the slightest instant, she’d fall into the outer corridor and perhaps beyond the Divine’s clutches. Putting her weight on the blackness might also force the Divine to expend energy maintaining the curtain’s impenetrability. If the gray spores had limited resources of power, why not compel them to use as much energy as possible?
I found it difficult to believe the Divine were as mighty as they claimed. They reminded me of a grandiose jungle tribe, hiding from modern society, claiming to be masters of the world but living on lizards and insects. If we could make them overextend themselves, we might find a way to avoid being eaten like Li. But first, we had to listen to them pontificate.
"Long, long ago," the Divine said through Li’s half-eaten lips, "we were technicians at this station. The ones who readied it for Stage Two of the Ascension. We did exactly what we were told. Exactly! We followed the scientists’ directions to the letter."
"Fine, we got the message," Festina said. "You just followed orders, and you weren’t the ones who screwed up. What happened?"
"The Ascension happened!" The Divine apparently liked to shriek. This particular yell sounded more breathy than those previous; I wondered if the spores had started snacking on Li’s lungs. "It happened just as predicted. First, the microbes pulled apart our bodies. Then, the energy projectors in this station activated themselves. It was glorious."
"What went wrong?"
"From our viewpoint, nothing. In the form of clouds, we gathered at the energy projectors. We felt ourselves change — growing more powerful. New strength flooded through us, and we used that strength to feed on the radiation. We gathered it to us; we drank it in; we reveled in it. All that power for ourselves."
"For yourselves?" I asked. "What about the people in Drill-Press? Weren’t they supposed to get their share too?"
"There wasn’t enough to go around! The scientists must have miscalculated. After we ascended, we drove the others away; otherwise, they would have stolen what was rightfully ours."
"You’d already ascended," Festina said, "but you kept sucking up the power pumped out by this station?"
"The power belonged to us. Our treasure. Our due."
"Oh boy," Festina muttered under her breath. Raising her voice, she said, "Let me get this straight. This station could produce enough energy to uplift everyone in this part of the planet, including the entire city of Drill-Press and God knows how far beyond. Instead, your team of grease monkeys, who happened to be closest to the source, were the first shoved up the evolutionary ladder. You acquired fancy new abilities and immediately used those abilities to grab the energy for yourself. For the past sixty-five hundred years, no one else has been able to ascend because you’re hogging the juice… and you yourselves are getting a million times the intended dose of radiation, which means you’re-"
"Divine and glorious," I put in before Festina finished her sentence.
She paused for a moment, then said, "Right. Divine and glorious. Absolutely." She gave me a look, then turned back to the moss. "I suppose the same happened at other projection stations?"
"At all of them," replied the moss. "We’re in constant mental contact with our counterparts around the planet. Our thoughts are… sublime."
"I’ll bet. Because you guzzle sublime radiation. The more you get, the more you want, right?"
"The more we absorb, the more our majesty increases."
"We get the picture… don’t we, Youn Suu?"
"Indeed."
Personally, I was picturing a group of people on Anicca called Crunchers. They caught and ate small snail-like creatures whose shells contained powerful hallucinogens. Crunch, crunch, crunch as the snail shell went down… then they’d pass out or go off wandering in a daze. Every few years, safety officials talked of exterminating the snails as a means of ending Crunch addiction; but monks and nuns howled in protest at any mass killing — even snails. Besides, the snails played a role in Anicca’s ecology: a protein in their slime trails helped keep the soil fertile. The snails couldn’t be slaughtered for fear of environmental disaster. Anicca’s safety officials never carried out their threat, and the crunch-crunch-crunching continued.
Festina probably wasn’t familiar with Crunchers, but she’d be picturing something else — a different drug, or perhaps wire-heading, sex-melds, surgical deverbalization, or any of the other ways Homo sapiens embraced delusion. If life didn’t offer enough opportunities for fixation, people doggedly sought more inventive obsessions. And the enthusiasm for honey traps wasn’t restricted to human beings; these gray spores, these former Fuentes, had succumbed to a similar temptation. When the Stage Two energy flowed, they were supposed to let it wash over them, like bathing in a pleasant stream… but instead, they’d got a taste of uplifting energy and instantly wanted it all. They’d gobbled so much in those first few moments, they’d overdosed. Yes, they’d gained telekinesis and perhaps other powers too, but they’d damaged themselves in the process. Burned out their brains. Instead of gaining enlightenment, the Divine had become virtually infantile… but infants with godlike strength.
"So you’re still basking in the station’s radiance," Festina said. "I’m surprised the equipment keeps working after so many millennia."
"We are the Divine!" the moss shouted. "Do we not have the power to do what we will?"
"They were technicians," I reminded Festina. "Now they’re technicians with TK. They know how to keep the machines operational. Anyway, Fuentes technology can last a long time without outside maintenance. Remember the research center in Drill-Press? Whatever kept the pocket universe stable… remember how well that equipment worked?"