Radiant

'Has it ever done anything like it’s doing to Zoonau?'

This time I knew the answer without doing a data search. 'A few years ago, the Balrog attacked an orbital habitat belonging to the Fasskisters. It overgrew the entire place — coated every square millimeter.'

'Ah!' Li said, rubbing his hands together. 'Now we’re getting a pattern. Did it leave the Fasskisters themselves untouched the way it’s leaving the Cashlings?'

I shook my head. 'You know that Fasskisters are puny little aliens who encase themselves in robot armor? Big powered suits that compensate for the Fasskisters’ physical weakness? Well, the Balrog covered each Fasskister suit with a thick mass of spores that disrupted the mechanical control systems. The Fasskisters ended up imprisoned like knights in suits of rusted metal. Kaisho, speaking for the Balrog, said the Fasskisters would be kept immobilized for twenty years. Their life-support systems would stay operative, and they’d be supplied with whatever they needed to survive, but they wouldn’t be allowed to move till the Balrog let them go.'

'Did she say why the Balrog did it?' Cohen asked.

'As punishment. Apparently the Fasskisters had captured a few Balrog spores and locked them in containment bottles. Then they used the spores’ long-range telepathy as a private communication system. The Balrog was furious at having bits of itself kidnapped to serve as someone else’s intercom. It imprisoned the Fasskisters as vengeance.'

'Vengeance.' Li echoed the word as if he liked the sound. 'Do you think that’s the reason for Zoonau?'

I shrugged. 'Cashlings aren’t noted for prudence. They might have done something to make the Balrog angry.'

Li nodded. 'They annoy the crap out of me every time I meet them. And they’re greedy too. I could easily picture them trying to exploit the Balrog and getting the damned moss mad.'

'Do you think that’s it?' Cohen asked me. 'You know this Balrog better than we do.'

I didn’t answer — I just turned a dial on my console. The picture of Kaisho disappeared, and the screen returned to Zoonau. No significant change in the picture. A few Cashlings were talking into comm implants now, holding animated discussions. Knowing Cashlings, they probably weren’t calling home to check on loved ones; they’d be contacting local news services, trying to sell their stories. Trapped by a moss monstrosity: my terrifying ordeal! Others were no doubt calling politicians, bureaucrats, anyone who’d answer. The people of Zoonau would howl to government officials, and those officials (eager to pass the buck) would call our Technocracy consulate for help… wailing, 'Please, we can’t handle this on our own.'

Although our consuls were probably sick of Cashlings whining, this particular crisis would elicit a quick response… because people at our consulate knew that sooner or later, some Cashling in Zoonau would fight back.

Cashlings seldom turned nasty. They were usually too lazy, vain, and petulant to take forceful action against obstacles they met. When something went wrong, they’d complain, complain, complain to other species till somebody bailed them out.

But even a race of useless idlers had some few individuals with sparks of spirit. In Zoonau, some Cashling would eventually be pushed beyond its limits, becoming so angry or upset it would stir into action.

Like trying to set Balrog spores on fire.

Or dousing them with dangerous chemicals.

Or simply smashing them with a rock, over and over and over.

Which would be understandable… but we couldn’t let it happen.

Not that I feared for the Balrog’s health. If it didn’t want to get burned, doused, or smashed, its spores would just avoid the attack. This was a creature that could teleport… and could foresee the actions of lesser beings far in advance. The Balrog wouldn’t let itself get hit unless it wanted to.

But the Cashlings of Zoonau didn’t know that. Cashlings were bottomless pits of ignorance when it came to most other species. And if some Cashling tried to pummel a clump of moss, the League would regard that action as attempted homicide: deliberately intending to kill sentient Balrog spores. The Cashling responsible would be considered a dangerous nonsentient. Furthermore, the Cashling government might be in trouble for not doing its utmost to avoid such violence; the Technocracy could be accused of negligence for not helping the Cashlings; and I myself might be considered callously indifferent if I saw this mess coming and did nothing to stop it.

'How old is this footage?' I asked. 'When did the Balrog attack?'

'About an hour ago.'

'Do we have anything more recent?'

Cohen shook his head. 'The city’s internal cameras aren’t broadcasting anymore.'

'Probably mossed over,' said Li, stating the obvious.

So the Cashlings had been trapped for an hour. And the readouts on the console in front of me said it would take another hour for Pistachio to reach Cashleen. By which time, the people of Zoonau would be getting antsy.

'We have to go in as soon as we achieve orbit,' I said. 'Before one of those Cashlings does something we’ll regret.'

'Looks like it,' the captain agreed. 'We’re the only non-Cashling ship in the star system.'

'But suppose the Balrog is punishing the Cashlings,' Ubatu said. She’d finally turned back to join our conversation. 'Suppose the Balrog is punishing Zoonau like it punished those Fasskisters. If the Cashlings have done something to anger the Balrog, we have to think twice about coming in on the wrong side.'

Li nodded. 'We don’t want to get caught in the middle. Otherwise, we might find our own cities covered in moss. This is just the sort of incident that could escalate-'

'Haven’t you been listening?' I shouted. 'Don’t you understand?'

The bridge went silent. I could almost hear the echoes of my own voice ringing from the metal walls. Li looked shocked, like a man who’d never been yelled at before. Ubatu too — as if nineteen-year-olds in her world never felt the urge to scream. Cohen lifted his hand, about to pat my arm… which would only have made me more furious. But he must have realized this was not the time to play patronizing grandfather. He let his hand fall and said, 'What?'

I took a shuddering breath. 'Captain Cohen. Sir. The Balrog isn’t going to misunderstand our presence. The Balrog timed its arrival exactly to catch Pistachio and reel us in. You yourself said we’re the only non-Cashling ship in the star system.'

I looked around. Nothing but blank faces. 'The Balrog wants us to come,' I said. 'It’s been waiting precisely for this moment. It could have hit Zoonau anytime, but it held off until we were near… because it knew the Cashlings would demand help, and we’d have no choice but to get involved.'

'It wants us?' Ubatu whispered. 'Why?'

'We’ll have to go down and ask.'

'What if it’s… hungry?'

I looked her in the eye. 'Just hope you’re not the one it wants to eat.'

CHAPTER 3

Paticcasamupada [Pali]: Inter-connectedness. The principle that nothing exists in isolation.

Cashling authorities claimed the Zoonau dome was completely sealed off. They were wrong. Satellite photos showed that the Balrog had shut down Zoonau’s transit ports — five conduit-sleeves connected to orbiting terminals, plus an iris-lens hole in the dome that let shuttlecraft enter and leave — but there was one access point the spores had left open: a door leading out of the city into the surrounding countryside.

I wasn’t surprised the Balrog had left us an entry. It wanted us to come. It was waiting.

I also wasn’t surprised the Cashlings had overlooked the open door. They simply wouldn’t consider it a possible option. Cashlings never left their closed environments; if they wanted to travel from one city dome to another, they used shuttles, conduit-sleeves, or some other means of transport where they could shut themselves in metal cocoons. They never ventured outdoors… because the entire Cashling race had become agoraphobic: afraid of open spaces.

The ground entrance to Zoonau had been built centuries ago, likely as an emergency exit. True to form, the Cashlings had forgotten it was there. In a human community, such a casual attitude toward civic safety would be a crime. With Cashlings, it was probably better for them to stay inside the dome, even if the city was endangered by fire, flood, or some other disaster. If Zoonau’s inhabitants fled to the wilds, they’d soon die from their own ineptitude.

Not that the wilds outside Zoonau were hostile. Satellite scans showed a temperate region of trees, meadows, and streams. Clear skies. Late spring. A few minutes after noon. You couldn’t ask for a more pleasant landing. We didn’t even have to worry about animal predators: according to navy records, all dangerous wildlife on Cashleen had been driven to extinction millennia ago. (Likely by accident. If the Cashlings had deliberately set out to exterminate unwanted species, they would have botched it the same way they botched everything else.)

So nothing prevented us from landing a negotiating team, flown down in Ambassador Li’s luxury shuttle. The ambassador himself took the cockpit’s command chair; he seemed more excited about the chance to play pilot than to talk to an alien superintelligence. As for Commander Ubatu, she arrived in the shuttle bay wearing her best dress uniform: form-fitting gold leaf, almost like a reverse of Tut (her face unadorned, but her body sheathed in shining metal). Li made some remark about the ridiculousness of formal navy garb, especially if Ubatu thought her wardrobe would impress a heap of alien moss. Ubatu replied she had to come along because she couldn’t trust Li to handle the Balrog on his own.

Of course, Li wasn’t on his own. Tut and I were there too. In the grand tradition of the Explorer Corps, we were required to thrust ourselves into the jaws of danger so that more valuable lives could remain safe. We’d been ordered to enter Zoonau, make first contact with the Balrog, and set up a comm relay for the diplomats outside. Li and Ubatu could then 'engage the Balrog in frank freewheeling discussion' while Tut and I tried to keep the Cashlings from doing anything stupid.

Considering that Zoonau contained two hundred thousand people, Tut and I had no chance of controlling the city if things went sour. Our very arrival might set off a riot. I could imagine being mobbed by the first Cashlings who saw us. 'Help, help, O how we’ve suffered!'

But if Tut and I were lucky, we could contact the Balrog without setting foot in Zoonau itself. What I’ve been calling a ground-level door was actually a type of