"Balrog?" I said in the darkness. "Did I make another choice? Was that what the dream was about?"
No answer. Never an answer.
I washed myself off in the shower, scrubbing with all my strength. Then I went back to the bed, gathered up the sheets, and washed them in the shower too until the smell of soap overcame the reek of bodily fluids. As for the bed itself, I offered my thanks to whoever decreed that navy mattresses should be one hundred percent waterproof — able to be cleaned with a damp cloth. I wiped the mattress down, then sat at my desk to give everything a chance to dry.
Through all this, I hadn’t turned on the lights. I didn’t need to. Despite the utter darkness, I could make my way without stumbling. I knew the exact position of every object in the room. If I concentrated, I knew the location of individual dust motes in the air. I didn’t sense them; I just knew. And this time, I didn’t tell the Balrog to take away its gift of inhuman perception. Keeping the room pitch-black was comforting after I’d almost died.
"I did almost die," I said to the Balrog. "Right? And you let me decide… or did you? Was it just another trick to seduce me?"
The vision I’d had — an infinite wheel of Youn Suu lives from countless cycles of time — accorded exactly with the teachings I’d learned while growing up. Exactly. As if the Balrog plucked images from my mind and built a cosmic experience tailored to my expectations. And the decision I’d made (if I really did make a decision… and what had I decided?)… did the decision save my life? Or would the Balrog have kept me alive anyway? It controlled my body. It could suppress my deadly fever if it chose. The Balrog might have started the fever in the first place, so it could give me a taste of what I thought Ultimate Enlightenment would be like.
I couldn’t trust anything I’d just been through. Wasn’t this precisely the way nefarious cult leaders won converts? Wear down the target’s physical resistance with fatigue, starvation, and fever. Orchestrate experiences that brought on heightened emotional states. Wait for the target to embrace offered truths and fall deliriously in love with the guru himself… or in this case, the guru itself. An alien known for playing games with lesser creatures.
"I’m tired," I told the Balrog. "If you’re going to keep toying with me, save it till tomorrow."
Within minutes, I’d fallen asleep in the chair. No dreams. When I opened my eyes, it was morning.
CHAPTER 8
Shunyata [Sanskrit]: The trait of being transitory and interconnected with other things. No thing is absolute or complete in itself. Where, for example, is a chair’s chairness? Not in any of its parts: a chair leg is not a chair; a backrest is not a chair. But even a complete assemblage of chair parts is not enough for chairness. Chairs can be chairs only in appropriate environments — they need gravity, a species whose anatomy can fit into the chair, and various other external conditions. Chairness is therefore not a property of a particular object, but a set of relationships between the object and external factors. This quality is shunyata… often translated as "emptiness." In isolation, a chair may exist as an object but it’s "empty." Chairness arises only when the object relates in a specific way to the rest of the world.
I ate more that breakfast than at any other meal in my life. And I’d never been a hesitant eater: my high-powered gene-spliced metabolism always needed plenty of fuel. But that morning, I surpassed all previous records. I just couldn’t stop shoveling in food.
The phrase "eating for two" kept echoing in my head. I pictured the Balrog siphoning off my intake, not letting a single mouthful reach my stomach… but even that image wasn’t enough to slow me down. I remained so hungry I found myself casting ardent looks at the mess’s meat section — bacon, sausage, kippers, and slabs of dead animal I couldn’t even identify — to the point where I might have renounced my lifelong vegetarianism if Tut hadn’t walked in the door.
He was looking surprisingly dapper, with his face burnished far beyond his usual shiny-finey standards. Gold glinted like pure rich honey under the mess’s bright morning lights; either Tut had found some new metal polish or he’d spent untold hours buffing it to a perfect mirror surface.
"Hey, Mom," he said, "I’ve been looking for you. Were you messing with the door to the equipment room? It’s locked, and it won’t let me in."
"Festina did that. Admiral Ramos. She won’t let us near the equipment, for fear we’d do something bad."
Tut made a noise like his feelings had been hurt. I told him, "Don’t pout, it’s mostly me she mistrusts. Or rather, the Balrog inside me."
"Huh." He looked down at the dishes all around my place at the table. There was nothing for him to steal this time — I’d eaten everything and practically licked the plates clean. "So when do we get to this planet?" he asked.
I tongued a control on the roof of my mouth. In the bottom corner of my right eye, a digital time readout appeared. "We’ll be there in two hours," I told him. "Do you know what we’re doing once we arrive?"
"Auntie gave me the basics last night. Mystery threat. Search for survivors. Save anyone we find. I’m also supposed to stun the knickers off you if the Balrog tries any tricks."
"Good luck. You’ll need it."
My sixth sense was still in perfect working order; I hadn’t asked the Balrog to turn it off after the previous night. Not only did I know the position of everything near me, including objects behind my back and out of sight around corners, but I’d begun perceiving life forces again. If Tut decided to shoot me, his intention would ring out loud and clear from his aura: enough warning to let me dodge, or even shoot him first.
It seemed unfair, in a way — having this extra edge over Tut’s mere human perceptions. But if I asked the Balrog to turn the sixth sense off, what good would that do? The Balrog itself would still have its full mental awareness; Tut and everyone else would still be at a disadvantage relative to the spores. So why should I blind myself when it wouldn’t help anyone? Staying augmented put me on a more even footing with the moss inside me. It might even give me the strength to resist any power plays the Balrog might attempt.
Yes. I’d keep the sixth sense for the time being.
As soon as I’d made that decision, my voracious hunger abated. It felt like a return to sanity.
A short time later, Festina called to say that Tut and I could check out the tightsuits we’d wear for the landing. She let us into the equipment area one at a time and kept close watch on everything we did.
I wasn’t allowed to touch anything except my own suit. Festina said she’d checked the other equipment herself. I couldn’t help asking a barrage of questions, mostly about how Festina had dealt with new gear and procedures — things that had changed since she’d been on active Explorer duty. But it turned out "Auntie" Festina had kept up with recent developments in the Explorer Corps: she’d done everything exactly the way I would have. She even let me look at the results of diagnostic tests she’d run earlier that morning. All equipment was working at optimal.
Once we’d finished with the tightsuits, Festina took Tut and me to the bridge, where she seated herself at the seldom-used Explorers’ console. Sometime during the night, she’d programmed four probe missiles to perform initial reconnaissance on the site where we’d land. The missiles would be sent down as soon as Pistachio reached Muta orbit. Based on their data, we’d decide how to proceed.
"And what site are we going to?" I asked.
"The one that sent the Mayday."
Festina turned a dial on her console, and the bridge’s vidscreen changed to show a satellite photo of Muta — one of hundreds included in the files we’d received from the Unity. A red dot glowed in the middle of a region that looked like a vast plain. "The Unity called this Camp Esteem." She made a face. "Typical Unity name. It happens to be the newest camp on the planet… so the survey team was fresher than any other team in residence. Maybe that’s why they managed to get out a call for help when all the other teams went without a peep. Or not. It could just be coincidence."