Radiant (36 page)

So our presence caused global pain. The ghosts couldn't escape suffering just by keeping their distance from us. As long as we were on Muta, they'd feel us and burn.

Was it any wonder that the clouds wanted us gone, even if that meant sending Rexies to kill us?

One other thing I sensed from the smoke: the
pretas
didn't know about the Balrog. The moss had stayed concealed inside me; the one time it acted overtly was transferring spores to Ohpa, and that was done quickly in a room the clouds avoided because Ohpa caused them discomfort. Tut, Festina, and I had mentioned the Balrog in conversation, but Fuentes clouds wouldn't understand English, and the
pretas
of Team Esteem probably couldn't either—the Unity disdained all languages but their own. Only official Unity translators ever learned other tongues.

So the clouds didn't know what we were saying... and they didn't know the Balrog had hitched a ride in my body. A good thing they couldn't read auras—I could see the Balrog bright within me, shining like a forest fire. Ohpa, with his limited wisdom, had also seen the glow immediately; but the clouds were blind to the Balrog's brilliance.

If the
pretas
had known, perhaps a whole stampede of Rexies would be heading our way.

As we approached the shuttle, we could hear loud noises inside: not just the clatter of cutting tools, but Ubatu shouting and Li yelling back. Ubatu had reverted to some unfamiliar language, but I didn't need a translation—curses sound the same in any tongue. Li, on the other hand, opted for intelligibility in his outbursts. He spoke full English sentences devoid of actual profanity but loaded with the sort of insinuations that cause duels, bar brawls, and major diplomatic incidents. I could hear him accusing Ubatu of incompetence on the job, ignorance of every worthwhile achievement of human culture, and such a shameful degree of cowardice that Ubatu probably demanded general anesthetic when she got her scalp tattooed.

Listening to this, Festina rolled her eyes. "If we walk away now, will they end up killing each other or sleeping together?"

"Why not both?" Tut replied.

Festina sighed. "At least they're alive. And they sound healthy. Or rather, uninjured. So there's no need for us to stick around. We'll just leave some supplies and head for the Stage Two station."

"You think that's a good idea?" Tut asked.

"It'll be all right," Festina answered. "They're smart enough to wait someplace safe till we come back..." Her voice faltered. "They'll get into trouble, won't they?"

"Eaten by Rexies for sure," Tut said.

"Yeah." Festina sighed again. "We'll have to set them up somewhere warm and secure. But they're not coming south with us; they'd get in the way and slow us down. So neither of you say a word about where we're going. We'll put them in a Fuentes building, high enough up to be out of harm's way. We'll give them food and water, then get out fast before they can follow. Pretend we're going back to Camp Esteem for more supplies. With luck they'll stay put a few hours... by which time the storm will arrive and discourage them from going anywhere."

"You want to travel through the storm?" I asked.

"Yes," Festina said, "we can't waste time. The Stage One microbes are working on us. Who knows how long before they pull us to pieces? And who knows how long we'll need to start the Stage Two process?"

"How do you know we
can
start it?"

"I'm crossing my fingers the Balrog wouldn't be here unless there was a way to set things right. That seems to mean activating Stage Two. Maybe the Balrog will help us... though it's been remarkably useless so far."

I made a noncommittal shrug. The Balrog had actually helped us reach Var-Lann (by augmenting my kick on the storehouse door), talk to Ohpa (by passing on the ability to speak English), and find our missing diplomats (by locating the shuttle via sixth sense). The important question wasn't if the Balrog would
start
helping us, but if it would
stop.

"Not to be a pessimist," Tut told Festina, "but you realize the Balrog doesn't need us? 'Us' meaning you and me, Auntie. Mom's got spores in her pores, and the Bumbler says she's immune to Stage One. So whatever needs to be done on Muta, maybe the Balrog doesn't care if you and I turn misty—Mom will survive to save the day."

"Then you should be happy, Tut," Festina said. "If you turn to smoke and Youn Suu activates Stage Two, you'll become a demigod. Wasn't that what you wanted?"

"If I become a
cool
demigod. Like a ninja Hercules, or a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Godzilla." He looked at Festina. "What about that, Auntie? Wouldn't you want to become hemi-demi-semi-divine if you could be, like, a combination of Kali, Helen of Troy, and Picasso?"

"No," Festina answered.

"Cleopatra, Peter Pan, and a monkey?"

"I already said no, Tut. I respect humans more than gods or superheroes. Besides, surpassing mere humanity always has a price. Doesn't it, Youn Suu?"

"Yes. You pay and pay and pay." I tried to keep bitterness out of my voice.

"See, Tut?" Festina said. "Better to stick with humanity. It's what I'm good at. Being human."

"What if you don't have a choice?" Tut asked. "What if your only options are godhood or a billion years as a cloud?"

Festina didn't answer. None of us spoke.

We listened to Li and Ubatu snap at each other till they'd cut through the shuttle's hull.

As soon as the diplomats had a modest-sized hole in the fuselage, they pushed out the cutting tools and demanded we finish freeing them. I doubt I was the only one who considered throwing the tools in the river and leaving the stowaways in the shuttle—they'd be safe inside, since the hole was too small for a Rexy—but the opening they'd already made was big enough for the diplomats to squeeze out if they really pushed, and even if it wasn't, Ubatu's bioengineered muscles could widen the hole eventually. Then the two would head into Drill-Press, both too disgruntled for cautious behavior and guaranteed to get into trouble.

Grudgingly, we began hacking at the hull. For once, Festina didn't shoulder the hardest work; instead she sat sentry, watching for Rexies while Tut and I handled the manual labor. (I could have told her there were no Rexies within three kilometers... but then she'd ask questions about my newfound gift of perception. I preferred to avoid that subject, at least till I dreamed up an excuse why I hadn't mentioned the sixth sense earlier.)

Using the big metal cutters, I took a "slow and steady" approach to the job. Tut, however, threw himself into the work with vigor. He picked up a crowbar and used it to pry/smash/hammer the ship's battered hull. Soon, I heard him muttering. "The shuttle will buckle, grr-arrh. And then I will chuckle, grr-arrh. I'll rip up the tin, then the fun will begin. We'll shuck and we'll suck and we'll fuckle, grr-arrh."

"Tut," I said. "Stop that."

He didn't seem to hear. "We'll all soon be smoky, grr-arrh. But that's okey-dokey, grr-arrh. In the meantime we'll dance, and we'll rip off our pants, we'll pump and we'll prod and we'll poke-y, grr-arrh."

"That's enough, Tut," I said. But even his aura showed no response. It had taken a flat, damped-down appearance, like a gas fire on its lowest setting... and it had gone that way so quickly I'd been slow to notice.

"There's company coming, grr-arrh. They'll have us all humming, grr-arrh. We'll all become gods, and we'll all shoot our wads..."

"Enough!" I dropped my metal cutters and grabbed him by the shoulders. The instant I touched him, his aura flared with anger... and the same anger burst in every direction, echoed by hundreds of hidden EMP clouds watching from cover. For a moment, I thought I was seeing something new:
pretas
reflecting a human's emotions. They'd never before been affected by what we were feeling—for example, when Li and Ubatu were getting on each other's nerves inside the shuttle, the
pretas
hadn't reacted. But the second Tut got angry, the clouds responded as if he was one of their own...

Then the truth struck me. Tut's own aura was still flat and withdrawn; the anger that poured off him didn't belong to Tut himself but to EMP particles inside his body. I hadn't noticed them till they flared with emotion... and now that they were blazing, I could barely detect Tut's dull life force amidst their fierce glow.

An army of
pretas
had invaded Tut. Trying to possess him... just like they'd possessed the Rexy who attacked us. Maybe Tut's insanity made him vulnerable—his inability to resist any impulse that crossed his mind—or maybe the clouds simply targeted him at random. One way or another, they'd entered him so smoothly my sixth sense hadn't noticed.

Tut wasn't entirely under
preta
control—not yet. Otherwise, he'd be doing something far more drastic than chanting doggerel. But if I couldn't help him fight the clouds' mental influence, how long before he succumbed completely?

"Tut!" I said, shaking him. "Snap out of it!"

"What's wrong?" Li called from inside the ship. He and Ubatu had been watching our progress through the small opening in the hull.

"Tut!" I slapped his face, denting the thin gold surface with my blow.

"Youn Suu! Leave him alone." That was Festina, somewhere behind me. I ignored her and hit Tut again, denting his mask some more.

"Stop, Youn Suu, or I'll shoot." Festina had drawn her pistol. If she fired, I wondered if it would have much effect. When Tut shot me on Cashleen, I'd only gone down for a few minutes... and that was when the Balrog was new to my body. Now that I'd been more thoroughly assimilated, I suspected the stunner would barely slow me down.

"Wake up, Tut!" I yelled. One more slap to his face. Festina began to pull the trigger... but in that instant, Tut's aura flicked back to life. Immediately, clouds streamed out of him: erupting from his mouth, his nose, his ears, pouring like steam off his skin, surrounding both of us with fury-filled fog before it gusted away beyond normal sight. My sixth sense followed it a few seconds longer; then I turned my attention back to closer surroundings.

Festina still had the gun pointing at me, but her aura showed no intention to shoot. In the shock of seeing clouds gush from Tut, she'd simply forgotten to holster her weapon. Li and Ubatu hadn't had a clear view through the hole in the fuselage, and they knew nothing about
pretas,
so they were babbling questions that I didn't bother answering.

Tut himself was dazed, either as an aftereffect of being occupied by aliens or because I'd hit him hard several times. I eased him down to the ground. As I did, I couldn't help notice what I'd done to his gold-plated face: three strong slaps with my right hand had caved in his golden left cheek, opening a rip halfway between nose and ear. Blood trickled out of the jagged slit; when the metal buckled under my blows, a sharp edge must have gashed the flesh beneath.

Hey, Tut,
I thought,
I've given you an oozing left cheek.
It seemed so ridiculous, I didn't know why I started to cry.

Samsara [Pali]: The ordinary world. Also, the ordinary condition of human life, filled with fixations and dissatisfaction. Samsara is the opposite of nirvana... but they aren't different places, they're different ways of experiencing the same place. Samsara is the sense of being messed up; nirvana is being free of clutter.

Festina nudged me aside and took care of Tut. All she did was dribble disinfectant into the golden crack—the wound underneath was only a nick. Then she used a scalpel from the first-aid kit as a delicate pry bar, lifting the jagged edges of gold and bending them away from Tut's face so they wouldn't cut him again. Meanwhile, she gave Li and Ubatu a minimal rundown of what we'd found out so the two diplomats would stop plaguing us with questions. Festina told how the Fuentes had botched their ascension and turned themselves into EMPing creatures of smoke... but she failed to mention the same would happen to anyone who stayed on Muta too long.

All the time she was speaking, I sobbed: quietly, trying to make no noise. Crying as much for myself as for what I'd done to Tut. Crying because I'd reached the limit of what I could repress. It wasn't so much emotion as a physical need—something my body had to do. I couldn't stop it any more than I could stop my heart beating. But I felt detached from my wet cheeks and runny nose; as I fought to silence my snuffles, my mental awareness continued to view the world more clearly than my teardrop-blurred eyes.

So I saw Ubatu take back the tools and finish widening the hole in the ship's hull. I saw Li clamber out into the late-afternoon sunshine. I saw Ubatu climb out too, her eyes on me as if appraising whether I was now ripe for attention from Ifa-Vodun. I saw the two diplomats lean over Festina's shoulder for a few moments before they lost interest in Tut and his injuries. I saw them gaze for a moment at their surroundings, then begin ambling toward the city. I heard Festina yell at them to stay put, and I saw both their auras flash with annoyance as they slowed but didn't stop their casual walk along the highway. They went another ten paces, just to show they didn't have to do what Festina told them. Then they turned around and came back.

By then, I'd got myself under control. Tut was coming around. "Whoa!" he said. "Whatever I drank, I want more."

"The cloud-things got inside you," Festina replied, still kneeling beside him. "Do you remember?"

"Nope. But I forget lots of stuff... which works out pretty well, cuz the memory gaps let me stretch my imagination."

I gave my nose a final wipe as Festina turned toward me. "What about you? What tipped you off something was wrong?"

"He was chanting," I said. "Bad poetry. He did the same at Camp Esteem while he was wearing a bear mask. I thought he'd fallen into a trance... like in a Unity mask ritual. Did you ever go to a mirror dance, Tut?"

"Hundreds," he said. "Now
there's
where you don't remember stuff."

Festina frowned. "And you're good at going into trances?"

"I'm a natural-born expert."