Radiant

'This is for your own good, Fluffy.'

This is for your own good, Youn Suu.

The Balrog believed it was doing me a favor: infesting my body, infiltrating my mind. If I didn’t appreciate the favor… well, every pet owner has to deal with that look of accusation when Fluffy thinks she’s been betrayed. Lesser creatures can’t always understand when they should show gratitude.

Did I feel gratitude? No. But I felt acceptance. I put myself at the Balrog’s mercy, letting it do whatever it saw fit.

Perhaps I’d be saved from hypothermia by having all my skin replaced with moss: an insulating layer of fuzz that would hold in my body heat, but make me look like landscaping. Was that so bad? With my cheek, I’d never looked entirely human. Wasn’t I used to that by now? Why should I be dismayed by a new outward appearance?

I didn’t regret what I’d done, no matter the price I paid. I’d removed the final two Rexies from the picture; I’d even done it humanely, so they’d both survive. My long-distance perceptions showed no other Rexies near enough to cause trouble. Festina could reach the Stage Two station without further risk.

She wouldn’t press on immediately. With Li and Ubatu in tow, she’d return to the spot where she’d left me; she’d find my dragging trail through the thorns and follow it to the river; she’d see Rexy tracks in the mud and the spot where the hank crumbled when the Rexy and I went over the edge. Festina’s Bumbler would pick up traces of my spilled blood… but by the time she used the machine to scan the water I’d be far downstream, out of the Bumbler’s viewing range.

Eventually, she’d realize there was nothing she could do. She’d set off toward the station, probably sticking close to the river and using the Bumbler from time to time to see if I’d washed up onshore.

Tut would head in the same direction — hunched over like a bear, stopping occasionally to dance, roll in the mud, or kill some poor lizard and eat it raw — but he’d make his way to the station too. He had nowhere else to go. He certainly wouldn’t go back to Drill-Press: there was nothing to interest him there. And if he just wanted to wander through the wilderness, curiosity would turn his steps toward the station; even if Tut had gone feral, he wouldn’t find much entertainment in a wasteland of ferns. The station was the only nearby location where something extraordinary might happen.

Pretas continued to drift around him, trying to insinuate themselves into his brain. Tut’s life force fought back as it had before: with a swirl of evasive lunacy, impossible for the clouds to control. If ever they came close to conquest, a flash of mental purple beat them back. I couldn’t identify what the purple was — maybe some core of sanity within his madness — but it held the pretas at bay. They contented themselves with merely nudging him forward, guiding him to keep pace with Festina and the diplomats. Later, they might make an all-out attempt to turn Tut into their absolute puppet. For the moment, however, they only needed that he stay close enough to be available if they decided to use him.

So we all proceeded south: Tut through the bush… Festina, Li, and Ubatu along the shore… me on the current in the river’s deepest channel. I had no trouble keeping my head above the flood — partly turned to moss and missing half a leg, I was light enough to float high in the water. And unlike rivers back home on Anicca, the Grindstone had no snags where I might get caught: Muta was millions of years away from having trees, and therefore millions of years from having significant deadfalls blocking the stream. If a tree-sized fern fell into the river, it would rot so much faster than conventional wood, there wouldn’t be time for obstructions to form.

Which gave me clear sailing through the night.

CHAPTER 17

Satori [Japanese]: A sudden flash of enlightenment; a spiritual breakthrough. Strictly speaking, satori refers to a life-changing experience of seeing the world as it truly is. However, many people also use satori for smaller 'Aha!' moments and for any burst of insight.

When Prince Gotama left the pleasure palace, he wandered through cities and countryside, seeking truth. He listened to many teachers; he practiced spiritual disciplines; he fasted in the wilderness before deciding that ravenous hunger was not conducive to inner calm. At last, he seated himself beneath a great tree and vowed he wouldn’t budge until he achieved enlightenment.

The good gods rejoiced that this time had come. For all their power, they were no more free than any other living creature. They longed for Gotama to awaken — to become Tathagata — so he could teach them the path to liberation.

But one god feared what Gotama might achieve. Mara, god of passion and delusion, knew his power would be shattered if the prince won through to ultimate truth. Therefore, Mara summoned his sons (the Fears) and his daughters (the Desires), and together they tried to break Prince Gotama’s resolve by using threats and temptations. Some say Gotama was so focused, he didn’t even notice this assault; but others say Gotama had to summon all his mental strength to fight back and would never have Awakened if he hadn’t been forced to make a supreme spiritual effort. Perhaps an all-out confrontation with the sources of turmoil is the only way to become a Buddha.

Whatever the case, Mara failed — Prince Gotama couldn’t be intimidated or lured from his goal. The god and his children slunk away in defeat. Throughout the hours of darkness, Gotama passed through the four stages of Awakening: remembering his past lives, seeing the world without delusion, understanding the causes of suffering, and finally (at dawn) achieving nirvana… which is not some spacey state of bliss, but a simple unwavering clarity so perfect one can never fall into error again. Gotama, Tathagata Buddha, hadn’t become some miracle-working superman; he’d just purged himself of all his own bullshit.

What transcendence could be higher?

I thought about Gotama as I floated through the darkness — about the night he faced Mara. Maybe I should try the same thing myself. Not that I was anywhere close to enlightenment; my earlier 'So what?' moment was only a small upward step, not a leap straight into the heavens. But maybe I should confront my own version of Mara. As the Grindstone propelled me southward, I finally had the time and space to think. Slowly the depth of my situation sank in: the hollowness that would dog me down the years if I couldn’t reach out and communicate.

'Balrog,' I said. 'Can we talk?'

Water rushed around me. Darkness filled my eyes.

'Balrog. We’re joined, you and I. Merged. Closer than husband and wife. Can we talk?'

Only the river and the night.

'I’ve given up a lot,' I said. 'You’ve got the better of me over and over. The things you’ve offered in return… you’ve helped when I asked, and even saved my life, but… do you understand loneliness, Balrog? You’re a hive creature. Maybe loneliness is beyond your comprehension. But if you and I are going to be together — for the rest of my life, till death us do part — I’ll shrivel inside if we don’t connect. If I’m just the lowly human and you never ever share… please, Balrog, don’t make me live like that. It’s too cold.'

Blackness. Silence.

'When Kaisho Namida talks about you,' I said, 'she makes you sound like a lover. She makes it sound like she loves you, and you love her back. I don’t ask you to love me…' (Oh, would no one ever love me? I yearned so deeply to writhe with passion, and would even open myself to the spores if it would ease my longing.) 'I don’t ask you to love me, but please… please. Meet me halfway so I’m not alone.'

Nothing. And yet…

Floating gently, my eyes slipped shut. I dreamed.

Once again I was at the pagoda: the gravesite of Fuentes civilization, with its fountain and orchard of minichili trees. Once again I saw statues of heroes in the arboretum — one coated with purple jelly, another surrounded by sandy black grains, a third turned to glass and lava — but in my dream, the statues had changed.

Now the marble figure enclosed in jelly looked like Tut… the one with black sand had become an Arabic man carrying a huge four-barreled gun… the one in glass and lava was no longer Hui-Neng the Patriarch, but a beautiful naked woman… and all the rest within sight were similarly changed, some to people I recognized (students and professors from the Explorer Academy), others to people I couldn’t name but who seemed familiar, as if I’d met them in other dreams. Or other lives.

I turned toward the fountain in the middle of the pagoda. False memory said the fountain had contained a golden Buddha overlaid with Balrog moss. My mother said she had seen Kaisho Namida in a wheelchair. Now… now I saw both Kaisho and myself, the two of us sitting in lotus position, facing each other, knees touching. Our eyes were open, gazing on each other as we floated in midair two meters above the fountain. We both were moss from the waist down: glowing a warm-hearth red that filled the space around us with light. Kaisho’s hands made the mudra gesture for Birth, while mine made the gesture for Enlightenment. The pair of us smiled with sisterly gentleness.

Comfortable with each other. Not alone. Reassurance.

I dreamed this as if I were a third person standing in the temple’s doorway: with a view of the arboretum outside as well as Kaisho and me inside. No one else was part of this. Just the statues of heroes, plus a levitating Kaisho and Youn Suu. Did it mean something that I saw the scene from the threshold between the temple and the outer world beyond? The boundary between the sacred and mundane?

'It means whatever fits,' said Kaisho. She and the duplicate Youn Suu turned, rotating in air until both could look at me. 'None of it’s really predetermined. At least we hope not. We throw a lot of things your way, but only you decide what to use.'

I asked, 'Who’s ‘we’?'

The Youn Suu in front of me smiled. 'You want to know who’s pulling the strings? Irrelevant. The important thing is what you do once your strings are cut loose. I’ll have to remember to teach you that.'

'You’re going to teach me?' I said. 'You are me.'

'No. Look at yourself.'

I did. My hands weren’t my familiar dark brown, but a much lighter shade that showed multiple scrapes and scratches. My clothes were Unity nanomesh, but not colored in motley Mutan camouflage; just a solid sheen of black stretching down to the white boots of a Technocracy tightsuit.

Festina had taken the black nanomesh. Her tightsuit was white and her hands, gouged and nicked in her trip through the bush, were exactly like the ones on the