Radiant

For a moment — just a moment — I imagined the Balrog laughing.

I reached the station before the others: swam ashore, pulled myself above the waterline, and lay on the beach letting my clothes dry as I waited for Festina and the diplomats. Drying didn’t take long — the nanomesh channeled excess H2O molecules to the surface of the fabric, then formed a seal to prevent drops from seeping back in. I sloshed most of the moisture off with my hands. Muta’s predawn air did the rest.

The station’s front doors were only a stone’s throw away, but I made no effort to enter. Better to wait for Festina — I couldn’t help notice that pretas clustered thickly on the beach, but not a single cloudy particle ventured nearer than ten meters to the building. Those that got close moved on quickly, as if the proximity made them nervous. In fact, every cloud within range seemed anxious or outright afraid; their auras fluttered with agitation. Were they worried our group would cause trouble inside the Stage Two installation? Or did they fear that something in the building might be disturbed by our arrival and cause trouble for everyone?

Such questions would be answered in time. Meanwhile, I experimented with ways to get around in my low-mobility condition: crawling stomach down, sitting up and going backward (bouncing along on my rump), trying to walk upside down on my hands (impossible because my limp legs flopped around too much to keep my balance), rolling lengthwise, various ungainly sideways maneuvers…

At last, I paused for breath. Lying on the sand, breathing deeply, I considered other means of locomotion… like asking the Balrog for help. My alien parasite had spectacular powers. On Cashleen, the spores had formed that mossy carriage to whoosh me through the streets of Zoonau… and the navy’s files were full of similar incidents, including a time on the planet Troyen when the Balrog picked up the entire royal palace and used it as a battering ram against a mass of soldiers. If the Balrog could telekinetically move a building, why couldn’t it move me?

But I knew that wouldn’t happen — not on Muta, where the Balrog had gone to great lengths to hide its presence. Yes, the spores could construct glowing red carriages… and perhaps they could lift me into the air, or teleport me instantly to another continent. But they wouldn’t; not here. They’d do nothing out of the ordinary unless their actions could be concealed from the outside world. The Balrog might amuse itself under my skin, romping through my tissues and reshaping my brain; but it wouldn’t miraculously restore my half-amputated leg. That would give away the game to…

To whom? The pretas?

Or to whatever waited inside the station? Was that the threat the Balrog hid from?

Pity I couldn’t see into the building. In the meantime, I watched the horizon brighten and let myself fall asleep.

I woke as Festina and the diplomats became visible to the naked eye. They walked along the beach, all three glum and apprehensive — right up to the point where the Bumbler chirped to indicate it had sensed something interesting.

Me.

I lay on the outermost edge of its scan. Festina soon realized the little machine was reporting a human body sprawled in front of the station. She set off at a run, leaving the others behind… but she slowed to a casual jog when I waved to show I was alive.

The fear that had blazed through her aura shifted to beaming relief… then, because she was Festina Ramos, the relief darkened to suspicion. When she got within earshot, she yelled, 'How the hell did you end up here?'

'I swam. Saved you the effort of carrying me.'

'We thought you’d been attacked by Rexies.'

'I was.' I reached down and raised my left leg with my hands — showing her the stump. 'One Rexy wouldn’t leave without having a bite.'

Festina swallowed hard. 'Do you want me to look at your wounds?'

'Better not. The nanomesh closed up around the damage. You wouldn’t want to open things and start new bleeding.'

Festina’s eyes met mine. I’d spoken the literal truth — the uniform had closed up around the damage, and she wouldn’t want to start new bleeding — but Festina was smart enough to grasp what I’d left unsaid.

The nanomesh couldn’t have plugged the spurt of a major arterial rupture; that had to be the work of the Balrog. Festina realized there must be some reason I didn’t want to talk about the spores now that we were close to the station. She knew how circumspect the Balrog had been since we’d landed on Muta. Besides, she may have thought I was equivocating to hide my condition from Li and Ubatu… who’d hurried to join us and were now close enough to hear.

'You look pretty damned comfortable,' Li grumbled at me. 'Must be nice, not having to walk all night.'

I said, 'Must be nice, being able to walk at all.'

Li glared at me, but held his tongue. Ubatu, unable to speak, also remained silent beneath the bandages swathing her face… but her eyes, peering out between strips of gauze, glinted like black diamonds. I was still alive, and therefore still a prize to be seized for Ifa-Vodun. Perhaps even now she was praying to the Balrog — trying to project her thoughts to say, 'Great mossy loa, come ride me, come heal me.' I couldn’t be sure that was what she had in mind; but her aura showed ferocious hunger, fierce to the point of obsession, as she gazed fixedly at me.

Meanwhile, Li had turned to contemplate the gold spikes protruding from the station’s crown. Wan predawn light reflected from the polished gilt surface. 'So this is the place that’ll save us from turning into smoke?'

'No,' Festina said. 'This is the place that’ll turn the EMP clouds into gods… at which point, we get the hell back to Pistachio and save ourselves.'

'What if we can’t do anything? What if some machine is broken beyond repair?'

'Then we become smoke ourselves,' Festina told him. 'The Unity and Technocracy will research their asses off till they find some way to protect landing parties from Stage One microbes and EMP-shooting clouds. Once they’ve figured that out, you can be damned sure they’ll come back. They won’t pass up the chance to get their hands on Fuentes technology… especially the process for becoming transcendent. Sooner or later, they’ll bring in teams to get this station up and running, even if it takes a complete rebuild. We might spend a decade or two as smoke, but eventually someone will activate Stage Two. Then up we all go to heaven.' She made a face. 'Godhood, here we come. Yippee.'

'You still don’t like the idea?' I asked.

'I’ve been thinking about it all night,' Festina answered. 'Why am I so against it? What’s so great about my current condition that makes godhood feel like diminishment? It must be… you know…' Embarrassed, she gestured toward the birthmark on her cheek. 'I’m comfortable with feeling beleaguered. Always forced to struggle. Even when I succeed, I mistrust the success, so I run off to find another fight. I don’t know who I am unless I’m up to my eyeballs in shit.'

'I’m the same way,' Li said. 'Sitting around is exasperating. I need to be on the attack, to charge into the slavering horde-'

'No,' Festina interrupted, 'that’s not what I mean. I’m no adrenaline junkie. I’m an Explorer, for God’s sake. We don’t seek out trouble; that’s unprofessional. But I just feel I have to… like I’m being called to exercise my humanity…'

She blushed — her good cheek turning red. 'I told you, I’ve been brooding all night. Never a good thing. I start composing soliloquies. Trying to rationalize my contradictions. Why can’t I believe that advancement might work? Why does something in my head keep saying, Human, human, human, I must remain human… as if being human is the most sacred state in the universe and anything else is sacrilege. That’s bullshit. Homo sapiens are barely beyond monkeys. There must be something better… whether it’s achieved by microbes and dark energy, or by meditating over a thousand lifetimes until you find enlightenment. Run-of-the-mill humanity cannot be the peak of creation. No. No. A thousand times no.' She shook her head fiercely… then let it sag. 'But I bristle with mistrust at anything else. Becoming more than human seems either a false promise or a genuine evil. Human, human, I must remain human. That voice in my head won’t stop.'

'That voice in your head is Mara,' I told her. 'The god of delusion and ignorance. Or if you regard gods as metaphors, it’s the voice of ego.'

'If gods were metaphors,' she said, 'we wouldn’t be having this conversation. It’s the imminent chance of becoming a god that makes me feel this bleak.' Abruptly, she broke into a laugh. 'Hell, Youn Suu, maybe some people deserve to be gods… but me? On a heavenly throne? I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.'

'If you became a god,' Li said, 'you’d know then. There’s no such thing as a god with self-doubt.'

'Another reason I don’t trust gods.' Festina turned her gaze toward the station — the giant alien head with its insect eyes and mandibles. 'I look at that, and I ask how a whole world could choose to abandon their very flesh. Everyone on Muta planned to ascend… and if the experiment had worked, other Fuentes planets would have repeated the trick as soon as possible. In fact, the other Fuentes did ascend eventually; they found a different way to elevate themselves, and damned near the entire race chose to take the big leap. They were so eager to run from everything…' Her voice faded. 'I don’t understand it.'

'Maybe they were bored,' Li said. 'Like the Cashlings. So jaded with existence, they’d do anything to liven it up.'

'Are you bored, Ambassador?' I asked.

'I’m cold and tired and hungry,' he replied… as if that answered my question.

'In any civilization, some people are bound to be bored,' Festina said. 'But the whole species? Bored to the point where they’d rip their bodies into smoke in the hope of becoming something better?'

'The Unity does much the same,' I pointed out. 'They’re ready to engineer their bodies, their DNA, their language, their religion, all in the name of becoming more than human. The Technocracy is heading that way too. We haven’t gone as far as the Unity, but that’s because we’re in denial — publicly pretending we don’t believe in gene-splicing babies, while privately spending billions on the black market. I was engineered. Ubatu was too, right?'

She nodded… and looked grateful I’d involved her in the conversation rather than treating her like some speechless wad of flotsam heaped on the sand. I turned to Li. 'Did your parents build you inside a test tube?'

'Of course,' he said. 'Otherwise, I couldn’t compete with engineered children. Everyone who rises to the top has boosted DNA.'

He glanced at Festina as if he expected confirmation. 'I have no idea whether I was engineered,' Festina muttered. 'I was adopted.'

'So?' Li asked. 'The adoption agency must have supplied your genetic history when you came of age.'

'There was no adoption agency.' Festina had dropped her gaze to the sand under our feet.

'You mean you were found on a doorstep?' Li asked.

'Yes. Literally.' She lifted her head, and defiance burned in her eyes. 'I was left on the steps of a church, all right? Presumably because my real parents didn’t