"Ah… yes…" Festina said. "I remember how stable the research center was. You think the equipment here is the same?" She thought for a moment. "You’re probably right. Wherever I go, Fuentes artifacts all seem in similar condition."
I.e., on the verge of falling apart. Just as the rainbow-arch research center had flickered constantly, perhaps the machines around us were ready for massive failure. The Divine spores could perform routine maintenance on the station’s facilities, but how would they manufacture new parts when old ones broke beyond repair? Some time soon, there’d be a malfunction the gray moss couldn’t handle; then it would all be over.
Perhaps that explained why the Balrog had finally come to Muta. The Divine might be vulnerable now. In the past sixty-five centuries, while the station still worked, the gray spores had been unassailable… but now when the system was weakening, perhaps the moss could be beaten. Besides, the Balrog might want to resolve the mess on Muta before this station suffered permanent breakdown; otherwise, there’d be no way to propel the pretas into Stage Two. Our arrival may have been timed for a unique window of opportunity: when the station’s output was precarious enough to debilitate the Divine, but still sufficiently functional to elevate the pretas.
All we had to do now was persuade the Divine to share the station’s energy with their fellows: the EMP clouds, the pretas, the hungry, hungry ghosts.
"Where does the station’s power come from?" I asked the Divine. "Hydroelectric generators in the dam? Solar collectors? Geothermal? Fusion using lake water as a hydrogen source?"
"All those," the moss replied. "There’s also a sizable amount of plutonium buried beneath the building’s foundations. Well shielded, of course, but it provides ongoing heat."
"Tremendous," Festina said. "What prevents a runaway chain reaction? Control equipment sixty-five hundred years old?"
"You need not worry about nuclear explosions, human. Your death will come as we feed on your flesh."
"What do you need flesh for? Don’t you feed on this station’s energy."
"We bask in that glory, yes. But we also require small replenishments of chemical nutrients. We can obtain simple elements like oxygen and nitrogen from the air, but we have long since depleted all nearby iron, calcium, and the like. We spend much of our time dormant to reduce our needs… but the flesh of four humans will allow us to remain awake for years."
"Glad to be of service," Festina said. She looked at the surrounding equipment: the metal spikes, barrels, and pyramids. "Do all these things project the energy you eat?"
"They are part of the chain of production. The actual emission center is directly beneath us."
"There’s a basement?"
Li’s head cackled with laughter. "No. The emission surface is embedded in the floor on which you stand. We have positioned ourselves on the primary projection outlet. Originally, the power was supposed to be transferred to broadcast rods on the exterior; but we couldn’t permit it to be squandered on the world at large."
In other words, the Divine were sitting directly on the central emitter — like a dragon sprawled on its hoard. Or like a plug holding back the flow. If somehow the moss was cleared away, the Stage Two radiation would be released as originally intended: it would spark across the gap to the station’s roof and shoot from the spiky crown on the giant Fuentes head. Nearby pretas would be uplifted. Clouds farther off would learn what was happening, thanks to their shared mental links… and pretas around the world would fly here as fast as they could, yearning to be freed from their smoky existence. I didn’t know how long it would take for every cloud to make its way here and be transformed — hours? years? — but that didn’t matter. If clouds in the immediate neighborhood were elevated, we’d be safe from angry EMPs. We could set up a Sperm-tail anchor and return to Pistachio, where standard decontamination procedures would purge us of Stage One microbes.
All that stood in our way were the spores, corking up the energy flow. Remove them, and the problems of Muta would be solved.
Festina must have followed the same train of thought, because she murmured, "All right, your Buddha-ness, any suggestions for a fuzzy gray exorcism?"
"We could try gentle persuasion. Show them the error of their ways."
"Or," said Festina, "we could kick their ass."
"The moment you try, you get eaten like Li."
"Never underestimate a Western champion, you Eastern also-ran. We always have a trick up our sleeve… a magic sword, a flask of holy water, or spiffy ruby slippers."
I wanted to ask what trick she intended, but the Divine might overhear. So would Ubatu… who’d listened to Festina, and now had a worrisome look in her eye. It occurred to me, I’d never told Festina about Ifa-Vodun and Ubatu’s goal of toadying up to godlike aliens. Surely though, that wouldn’t matter — Festina had never trusted Ubatu (or anyone else, for that matter), so there was no risk Festina would say too much with Ubatu in earshot. Right?
Festina glanced cautiously toward the heap of Divine, then said very softly, "Back at Camp Esteem, when we first searched the cabins for survivors, I found something. Something I took, just in case it came in useful." Her hand slipped into her backpack. When she pulled it out again, a small object lay in her palm: egg-shaped, no bigger than the tip of her thumb, colored in swirls of pink and green. "It’s a Unity minigrenade. Doesn’t look like much, but there’s antimatter inside — enough for a good-sized explosion. Team Esteem must have packed it in case they needed to blow their way into some Fuentes security vault." She cast a sideways look at the Divine. "If those spores are as weak as I think, this should burn them to a crisp. We’ll take cover behind all this fancy equipment." Festina reached for the Bumbler with her free hand. "Give me a few seconds to analyze where we’ll get the best protection from the blast…"
She didn’t have those seconds. Ubatu snatched the egglike object from Festina’s palm with the speed of a striking eagle. I tried to stop her but wasn’t quick enough — Ubatu moved inhumanly fast, beyond even my bioengineered reflexes. Either her designers had discovered some new genetic tricks, or she’d been amplified with illegal implants: artificial glands that could pump a barrage of chemicals into her bloodstream when she needed an extra boost. I barely managed to catch her leg as she was bolting away… but she shook me off and dashed across the floor, hollering, "Ooommmph! Ooommmph!"
Straight toward the Divine.
The gray spores rippled at Ubatu’s approach… in fear? In anticipation of another hearty meal? But they took no obvious action. Ubatu stopped short of the mound and abased herself, holding out the little pink-and-green ovoid like an offering to an idol. Beside me, Festina turned dials rapidly on the Bumbler, scanning, scanning, scanning. Still looking for a place to take cover if the grenade went off? Was there really a chance of accidental detonation? I had no idea. I knew nothing about Unity minigrenades: not a subject we’d studied in the Explorer Academy. I didn’t know a grenade’s power, its volatility, the timing on its fuse…
Oh.
No…
Oh again.
Eastern champions don’t always think quickly, but sooner or later they do catch on.
"Be careful with that!" I shouted to Ubatu. "Don’t you know not to make sudden moves with a bomb?"
"A bomb?" The words squealed from Li’s mouth as the mound of moss went wild: variegated patches of gray thrashing against their neighbors. The patches remained separate, but their boundaries blurred. I wondered how much they’d been mind-linked in the past few minutes; enough to coordinate their efforts in eating Li and speaking through his mouth, but not to deal with matters of life and death. A motley — a mosaic — individuals with no real community. "A bomb?" the Divine repeated, as if they’d never entertained the thought they could be threatened in their own sanctum.