Radiant

on a distant look. 'This isn’t the first time I’ve come across Fuentes technology nearing the end of its life. Maybe their equipment uses some standard component, like a control chip or power supply… and that component has a working lifetime of six and a half millennia.' She turned her head to the sky. 'Maybe all over the galaxy, there are abandoned Fuentes settlements we haven’t found; and in each one, lights are flickering, machines are stuttering, computers are crashing… because they all use the same crucial part, and that part is so old, it’s become erratic.'

The corridor flickered again. A single leap this time: like a skipping rope when someone snaps one end. The floor jerked precipitously, then dropped again to placid rest.

'If we were inside,' I said, 'would we have felt that? Like an earthquake tossing us around?'

'I doubt it,' Festina replied. 'If it had the force of an earthquake, it would have shaken the building apart. Even the few jumps we’ve seen should have caused major structural damage… and who knows how long the interruptions have been happening? Months? Years?' She shrugged. 'Once we’re inside, we likely won’t notice the fluctuations. It’s only while we’re here, on the outside looking in, that we can tell weird shit is happening.'

'What about when things finally die for good?' Tut asked. 'Will that wreck the place?'

'Probably not,' Festina said. 'If flicking back and forth doesn’t bounce everything to pieces, shutting off and staying off shouldn’t either. But what do I know? This stuff goes way beyond anything I’ve learned about physics.'

'I hope the place flies apart,' Tut told her. 'When the flatness finally goes, I hope the building can’t stand its new shape and just goes kerflooey! Wouldn’t that be great? Especially if you were inside and the floor under your feet just shot up, boom. Wouldn’t that be better than riding office chairs down the halls?'

Festina stared at him a moment, then turned away. 'Let’s get in and out fast, shall we? Before anything dramatic happens. I’m allergic to excitement.'

Once we’d stepped into the building’s central corridor, we saw no more flickers in reality. We didn’t hear or feel disturbances either — to our normal five senses, the building was as solid and unmoving as an ancient mountain.

But to my sixth sense, the place felt like a trampoline.

Every fluctuation sent my mental awareness skittering. It reminded me of age fourteen when I’d caught an inner-ear infection: the normally stable world seemed subject to swoops and staggers, movements made more disturbing because they didn’t jibe with the rest of my senses. Being on a real trampoline wouldn’t have been half so bad; at least then, all my senses would have agreed on what my body was experiencing. But having perceptions at odds with each other produced a sort of motion sickness — or nonmotion sickness — that left me dizzy with nausea after every bounce. I tried to hide my queasiness, but Festina noticed almost immediately.

'Are you all right?' she asked.

'Uhh, sure…'

'Don’t lie to me, Explorer! Are you all right?'

'Uhh…' I tried to gather my thoughts. Fortunately, the fluctuations only lasted a few seconds, after which tranquillity returned. I’d never mentioned my sixth sense to Festina… and was afraid to do so now, for fear of the way she’d react if she learned I’d been keeping secrets from her. At the same time, I didn’t want to tell an absolute lie. 'It’s the Balrog,' I said, swallowing back my disorientation. 'I think it can sense when the building bounces. It’s… it’s making me seasick.'

Festina took the Bumbler and gave me a head-to-toe scan. 'No obvious change in your infestation,' she said. 'No, wait. Your foot. The spores have spread.'

'Which foot?' I asked. As if I didn’t remember shattering the bones when I kicked down the door of the storage building.

'Your right,' Festina said. She lifted her head from the Bumbler’s display. 'You don’t feel any different?'

'In my foot? I don’t feel much of anything.'

'I imagine that’s true.' Festina stared thoughtfully at me. Her life force showed a growing mistrust — mistrust of me. Probably she was remembering how I’d smashed the door, then pretended to be all right. She realized now I must have been hiding what actually happened… and she had to be wondering what else I might have hidden.

The building flickered: a shudder so strong I almost threw up. Turn the sixth sense off, I thought fiercely to the Balrog. I can’t handle it here.

'You’d better go back outside,' Festina told me as my stomach heaved. Her aura showed concern for my health… but she was also glad for an excuse to send me away, at least till she decided how to handle an alien-infested stink-girl who’d obviously concealed important facts.

Balrog, I thought again. She thinks I’m turning traitor. Shut off the sixth sense so she won’t send me away. Please! I need to think clearly. Shut it off.

And just like that, I became blind; the sixth sense vanished, and I was reduced to my five fleshly ones. I could no longer tell where I was or what was around me unless I actually looked. Tut and Festina had no auras: all surface, no interpretation. I saw them staring at me, but nothing told me what they were feeling.

It made me laugh — bitterly. How long had I had the sixth sense? Less than two days… but going without it now felt like losing a limb. In fact, I had lost a limb, my foot turned to moss; but that seemed like a minor inconvenience compared to the amputation of my mental awareness. In that moment, I mourned more for my lost alien perception than for my real flesh and blood.

Demon, I thought silently toward the red moss. You got me addicted so easily. And if you’re as prescient as everyone says, you probably saw this coming — that I’d set the sixth sense aside and realize how much I missed it. But I won’t ask you to turn it back on. I won’t.

No response from the omnipresent spores… but I imagined them mocking me. The Balrog knew perfectly well I’d ask for the sixth sense back, probably the instant I left the building. I knew it too. I’d invent some rationalization for why it was necessary: it would be 'in the best interests of the mission' to regain my heightened perception. As soon as I could, I’d ask the Balrog to reinstate my enhanced awareness. If the spores delayed even for a second, I’d be ready to beg.

Disgusting, disgusting addiction. Even worse, I didn’t care how needy I might be, how much I’d have to grovel. I just wanted to see again. The only thing stopping me from pleading for the sixth sense back, right then and there, was the look on Festina’s face.

'What’s just happened?' she asked. I couldn’t tell if her voice was sympathetic or dangerously restrained. 'Something’s changed, hasn’t it? What happened, Youn Suu?'

'The Balrog… it’s, uhh… it’s numbed me. So I won’t feel the fluctuations anymore.'

'Did it tell you that?'

I shook my head. 'It doesn’t tell me anything — it never speaks. I just know I’ve been… numbed.'

'I wish I could be numbed,' Tut said. 'Does it make you horny?'

'No.' It makes me sad. 'But I’m okay. I can go on now.'

'Think again,' Festina said. 'You’re going back outside — where you’ll feel better, and we won’t have to worry about the Balrog playing tricks.'

I wanted to yell and argue; but if I did, she’d only mistrust me more. Luckily, Tut came to my rescue.

'Come on, Auntie,' he told Festina, 'we can’t send Mom outside on her own. Not if she’s sick. She might get eaten by a Rexy.'

'You can stay outside with her. Keep her safe.'

'No way,' Tut said. 'Then you’d be alone, Auntie… and who knows what dangerous shit might be in this building. Not to mention, if we’re trying to find what the Unity was up to, three people can search a lot faster than one. There’s a reason the Explorer Corps frowns on single-person operations.'

I could have given Tut a big wet kiss for standing up to Festina… and standing up for me. But I merely held myself upright like a competent human being. I’d overcome my dizziness from the spatial fluctuations and hadn’t yet begun to suffer serious withdrawal from losing my sixth sense. (I hoped there wouldn’t be withdrawal symptoms; but I could feel some perverse urge trying to invent some. My ancestors would have blamed that urge on the demon-god Mara, who keeps people under his power by filling them with worldly cravings and delusions. I seldom believed in Mara, but I knew the ease with which my brain could create trouble for itself. It would rather be bleeding than quiet.)

Festina looked at Tut and me, then growled. 'Three Explorers is a stupid size for a landing party. Not enough people to split up safely, but enough for the admiral to get outvoted.' She glared. 'Just remember, this isn’t a democracy. I can and will pull rank if I think it’s necessary. I’ll do it the instant you really become a liability.'

'I’m feeling better now,' I said. 'Honest.'

'No, Youn Suu. The Balrog is letting you feel better. Or making you feel better. And that’s assuming you are Youn Suu. For all I know, the real Youn Suu could have been silenced, and now the Balrog is speaking with her mouth.'

I’m the real Youn Suu, I thought. But I didn’t say it aloud — Festina wouldn’t have believed it.

Even I had my doubts.

CHAPTER 13

Bodhisattva [Sanskrit]: One who is close to becoming a Buddha; Prince Gotama was a Bodhisattva before his full enlightenment. In some schools of Buddhism, 'Bodhisattva' also means a particular type of saint — people who are fully enlightened, but who hold themselves back from ultimate transcendence so they can remain in the world and help others achieve enlightenment too. (Such Bodhisattvas may be depicted as archetypal beings with divine powers. To the unsophisticated, they fill the role of gods and goddesses. On a higher theological level, they’re metaphoric representations of spiritual virtues and right living.)

The river building’s central corridor only had a few doors leading off it — three to the left and two to the right. Apart from that, it was simply a dimly lit passage running more than two hundred meters, straight from the entrance to the exit on the other bridge. All five side doors were closed: blank expanses of the same pearly material as the exterior walls. Either the Fuentes didn’t believe in signs on doors, or the labels had eroded over the centuries.