until they reached the heart of the city.
The Balrog wanted an audience.
Once again, I tuned my Bumbler to Tut’s homing beacon. He was on the top level now, heading for the pulpit in the center. The Bumbler could reconstruct what was happening up there, as if looking through a telescope. Dozens of Cashlings fought for the pulpit, either because they had some inspired message to proclaim or because they just wanted to seize the highest spot on the pyramid — an 'I’m the king of the castle' impulse. When Tut shoved his way through the crowd, several people tried to grab him, hold back the human in their midst… but a few blasts from Tut’s stun-pistol, and the opposition slumped to the roof tiles. The Cashlings edged back as Tut climbed to the pulpit’s perch.
Meanwhile, my Balrog-built egg had reached the ziggurat and started ascending the stairs. The egg didn’t fly, but surfed on a wave of spores that carried us smoothly upward. Cashlings ahead of us got brushed aside by a mossy wedge that preceded the egg, like the cowcatcher on an Old Earth locomotive. Anyone in our way was knocked left or right, their falls cushioned by beds of moss that sprang up to provide a safe landing. Other wads of moss performed crowd control — making sure no one accidentally got trampled.
Interesting. Navy files claimed the Balrog disliked contact with lesser beings… but the moss was taking a hands-on approach to keep the Cashlings safe.
Despite Balrog efforts to clear the way, our progress up the ziggurat was slow. Hundreds of people stood between us and the top. Many of them seemed eager to block us if they could, shouting curses and throwing themselves in our path. I don’t know what they hoped to accomplish; they were just so angry at the Balrog, they must have decided that if it wanted to take me upward, they wanted to get in the way. In other words, the Cashlings were acting out of sheer rebelliousness: the sort of rebelliousness that could turn to violence, especially if Tut did something inflammatory.
'People of Zoonau!' Tut’s voice boomed over the city. The pulpit obviously had a built-in sound system, and he’d patched his tightsuit radio into the feed. Giant hologram images materialized in the air, scores of them, all showing Tut’s golden face five stories tall. The pulpit had holo-projectors too.
'My name is Tut,' he said with a cheerful metallic smile. 'I’m from the Technocracy’s Outward Fleet — here to assess the situation and lend a hand.' He paused, looked around. 'Okay, here’s my assessment. You’re all really really pissed off. Right?'
A roar thundered from the crowd. The Balrog continued bearing me upward. Slowly. More people hurled themselves at our egg.
'You’re pissed off,' Tut said, his words ringing through the streets, 'because this big bully Balrog is pushing you around, and you feel like there’s nothing you can do. Am I right?'
The Cashlings roared again. I’d been hoping a lot of the crowd wouldn’t understand English. But almost everyone in the Cashling Reach learned our language, purely so they could amuse themselves with human movies, virtuals, and other forms of entertainment. Cashlings wouldn’t lift a finger to do productive work, but they’d spend long hours acquiring an alien tongue if that’s what it took to get the jokes in a mindless sitcom.
'I know what it’s like to feel helpless,' Tut went on. 'I’m an Explorer. I know what it’s like to get reamed by fat-ass aliens. But guess what: I also know how to take back control. I can tell you how to beat this damned Balrog. Do you want to hear the secret?'
The crowd screamed yes. My egg finally topped the steps, onto the flat uppermost level. Just a short distance now to the pulpit.
'Here’s what you do, Zoonau!' Tut shouted. He reached up to his chest and dug his thumbs under protective flaps on his suit’s yellow breastplate. Everyone watching mimicked his action… everyone except me. I was too busy thinking,
Suddenly Tut threw his arms and legs wide, like a giant human X. Every Cashling did the same. I didn’t. All I wanted to do was bury my face in my hands; but I held my head up, eyes open, to witness what happened next.
A tightsuit is usually an Explorer’s best friend. It provides you with air and protects you from lethal environments. Once in a while, though, your tightsuit becomes a liability: if there’s a life-threatening malfunction… if the suit’s weight means the difference between sinking or swimming… if something small and toothy has got inside the suit with you. Therefore, the Outward Fleet equips each tightsuit with an emergency evac system, for occasions when you have to get your gear off in a hurry. You activate the system by pressing hidden buttons on your breastplate — just as Tut had done. Then you spread your arms and legs wide — just like Tut — and you wait for a very short countdown.
Three… two… one…
Tut’s suit exploded from his body. Literally. Shaped demolition charges blew out the seams that held everything together. His helmet went straight up, disappearing from sight as it bulleted toward the dome overhead. Tut’s sleeves shot off his outspread arms like jet-propelled bananas; the same with his pant legs, which flew apart in pieces and slapped into the upturned faces of nearby Cashling spectators. The breastplate cannonballed into the pulpit in front of him, knocking the lectern stand off its supports and toppling it onto the crowd. The backplate rocketed out and away over the edge of the ziggurat, probably falling on some unsuspecting Cashling several levels below. Other bits and pieces hurtled in random directions, belt pouches, shoulder pads, hunks of the crotch… until Tut was standing there, stark naked and hologrammatically enlarged, in front of all of Zoonau.
Huh. He’d been telling the truth. The gold
My egg reached the pulpit (now just a bare platform) two seconds later. For a moment, nothing happened. Tut looked down at me, beaming a big bright smile. I stared back from my egglike prison, a Princess Gotama just before all hell breaks loose. The Balrog did nothing. The Cashlings did nothing. I thought about drawing my stun-pistol and shooting Tut before he caused further trouble… but that might send the crowd berserk.
Two heartbeats of silence.
Then the Balrog egg melted around me — all the spores slopping straight down. My helmet visor became flecked with red, and my suit felt heavy with dust. Most of the spores, however, just dropped to the roof tiles and pooled around my ankles. Several square meters of them. They glowed a soft red.
'Thanks, Mom,' Tut murmured. 'Knew I could count on you.' Then he raised his voice and called to the Cashlings, 'Here’s how to show the bastards you don’t care. Swan dive!' And he jumped from the pulpit, straight into the pile of spores that had just dripped off me. He was like a child leaping into a mound of autumn leaves. A moment later, Tut rolled happily naked on the red moss, laughing out loud and crooning, 'Ooo, it’s fuzzy!'
A murmur went through the Cashlings. A sigh. A cheer. Then they were running, sprinting at astonishing long-legged speed toward the patches of spores dabbed around the ziggurat. On the lower levels, people raced down to the city streets, crowds of them hitting the pavement and throwing themselves onto the first clumps of moss they found. If the Balrog had dodged, the Cashlings might have broken their bones as they struck cement-hard
Down by my feet, Tut grinned. 'See, Mom? Problem solved. No one will go homicidal today — they’re having too much fun.'
He looked up at me with spores covering his face and body: even on the gold parts where you wouldn’t think moss could stick. I smiled back vaguely, but only from reflex; inside, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Why? Because I knew this was far from over. The Balrog wouldn’t have caused such a fuss, only to let the uproar be defused by a lunatic doing a fast striptease and rolling in the red. As far as I could see, the Balrog hadn’t accomplished anything yet. All this sound and fury had gone nowhere… which meant 'Stage Two' of the plan was still waiting to unfold.
But I said nothing. The Balrog was famous for showmanship. It was the sort of monster that held off its attacks until someone said, 'We’ll be safe now,' or 'I think it’s gone.' Above all else, the Balrog loved dramatic timing.
'So,' Tut said, 'looks like we’ve got this bitch under control.'
I had time to wince.
Zoonau erupted in geysers of red. Spores shot up from the ground. More gusted down off the dome. Trillions of red particles tore away from the buildings. A crimson dust storm battered my world, thudding against my helmet, buffeting my body hard enough to be felt despite the tightsuit’s protection. Radio static roared in my ears. The heads-up display in my visor went black. A wind ripped the Bumbler from my hands, and a moment later, I felt the little machine’s shoulder strap break. The Bumbler bounced away in the tempest, but I didn’t see or hear it go — the only noise was static, and the only sight an impenetrable onslaught of spores.
Pouches tore off my belt. My backpack flew away. Even the weight of my stun-pistol, holstered at my hip, suddenly departed as the gun was snatched by the gale.
Then, abruptly, the fury ceased. Replaced by deep silence. The blinding red chaos was sucked away, leaving only a glimpse of the last spores sailing up out of sight into the sky.
Afternoon sun poured painfully bright through the dome. The glass was clear. The buildings had returned to their dull gray. The patches of moss where Cashlings had been rolling were gone, revealing nothing but bare
The Balrog had abandoned Zoonau. Just like that. Not a single spore left in sight.
'Uhh, Mom…'
Tut still lay on the roof tiles. I looked down. He pointed to my feet.
Both my boots were covered with spores, like fuzzy red slippers. I did nothing but stare at them dumbly — like a villain in a cheap action virtie, who looks down in surprise to see she’s been shot through the heart.
'Oh,' I said. 'Oh.'
My boots vanished like smoke. The rest of my tightsuit too — totally consumed as the spores chewed upward, faster than the speed of thought. Even my helmet didn’t slow the spores down: they slashed past my eyes in a wash of crimson, leaving nothing behind but the touch of a light spring breeze blowing against my skin.
My suit was completely gone, eaten by the Balrog. Now all I wore was the thin, thigh-high chemise that most women put on under tightsuits for protection against chafing.
I looked at my feet again. The fuzzy red 'slippers' were gone. Just two spores left, one on each foot, glowing in the center of each instep like Christian stigmata. I closed my eyes.
Two little kisses of pain, no worse than mosquito bites, piercing the flesh of my feet. When I opened my eyes again, I saw two pinpricks of blood, nothing more. They barely showed on my skin.
