Radiant (13 page)

...and every statue in sight had changed. All the bronze warriors, the marble sages, the martyrs in terra-cotta—they were now possessed by aliens. The purple jelly had climbed up a chiseled image of the Holy Madman of Pegu, while beside it, the noble features of King Thagya Min were obscured by smears of what looked like crawling black sand. A granite rendering of Buddha's lovable but dim-witted disciple Ananda was surrounded by a whirling cloud of dust; Hui-Neng, the Sixth Chinese Patriarch and founder of Zen, had scarlet lava dripping down the right half of his body, while the left had turned to glass. Through all the Arboretum of Heroes, not a single statue remained untouched: flames enveloped one, blue-leafed vines another, cottage-cheese goo a third.

I turned back to my mother, abandoning my usual hostility and just wanting to say, "Hey, Mom, come see this!" But the words were never spoken. My eye was caught by the Buddha in the fountain, entirely coated with glowing red moss...

In the conference room of
Pistachio,
I almost jerked out of my chair with a scream. Almost. But my "freeze-in-place" reflex had kicked in, and I made no sound, no movement. No physical reaction at all; but inside, my thoughts were racing.

Had any of that truly happened? Had my mother and I gone to the Ghost Fountain Pagoda on a clear sunny day?
Was
there actually something called the Ghost Fountain Pagoda on the outskirts of our town? Had I seen a purple-jelly Fuentes, had it recoiled from me, had the Buddha been covered with Balrog spores? The memories seemed so real—one hundred percent genuine. Yet they were also far-fetched: the Fuentes, the Balrog, all those other transcendent aliens casually manifesting themselves for no reason. And if something so strange had truly happened to me, why hadn't the memory of the moss-covered Buddha leapt to mind as soon as I saw the pictures of moss-covered Zoonau? Why was I only remembering it now?

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I've awakened from a dream unable to draw the line between dream and reality. I may dream I signed up for some computer-run training course and come morning I have to take the exam, even though I haven't done any of the lessons. For minutes after I wake, I lie trickling with sweat, trying to decide if I really did enroll in such a course or if it was just a figment of my sleeping imagination. Did I or didn't I? Such dreams could be so convincing, I honestly couldn't sort out the truth.

This felt like the same thing. Did I really go to that temple and see what I saw? Or was it just a false memory?

A false memory planted by the Balrog.

You demon!
I wanted to scream.
You demon, you demon, you demon!
The demon's spores were inside my head, and I couldn't even trust my own memories. I truly didn't know if those things at the pagoda had happened. The recollections seemed so real, but...

"Something wrong, Youn Suu?" Festina asked.

I must have made some noise that caught her attention. My body had finally unfrozen and given away my inner turmoil.

Now Festina was looking at me. Her expression wary. Regarding me as a spore-infected security risk. Her mistrust was entirely justified—my inability to judge memories true or false proved that. If I'd had any sense of responsibility, I should have declared myself unfit for duty and walked out of the room.

But I didn't. I didn't want to admit I was broken, and I didn't want to isolate myself from Festina. I didn't want to be alone.

So I mumbled, "I think I've found something," and looked at my data screen, hoping there'd be something I could pretend was noteworthy.

I read the words, EXTENSIVE WELL-PRESERVED RUINS.

EXTENSIVE WELL-PRESERVED RUINS OVERGROWN WITH
CAPSICILLIUM CROCEUM.

EXTENSIVE WELL-PRESERVED RUINS OVERGROWN WITH
CAPSICILLIUM CROCEUM,
DATING BACK 6500 YEARS.

What?

Quickly, I opened the corresponding file. Festina's eyes still watched me. The computer displayed a survey conducted from orbit early in the Unity's investigation of the planet. They'd sent robot probes to check promising areas for settlement... particularly fertile plains with plenty of rivers to serve as water supplies. Unsurprisingly, they'd found evidence of recent Greenstrider habitation—Greenstriders always sought out good farmland—but the Unity also found
Capsicillium croceum,
and ruins much older than the Greenstrider colonies.

The ruins dated back to the days of Las Fuentes civilization. But Las Fuentes didn't
leave
ruins. On every other world they'd colonized, they'd erased all remains of their presence.

I keyed my data agent to do a cross-reference. Yes: several similar sites had been found in other regions of Muta: sixty-five-hundred-year-old ruins and
Capsicillium croceum,
all in the sort of areas where Las Fuentes usually lived. The Unity had even followed up their findings—the last four survey teams sent to Muta had all established camps near ancient ruin sites. They'd then proceeded to excavate the ruins... albeit with extreme caution.

The surveyors had found artifacts.
Lots
of artifacts. Anything from simple tools (hammers, saws, hand drills) to high-tech gadgets of unguessable intent. Most were in terrible condition—what could you expect after six and a half millennia?—but a modest amount of equipment had avoided the ravages of time inside weatherproof containers. Result: the Unity had stumbled across a treasure trove of technology from aliens who were more advanced than anyone we knew and who'd never left so much as a thumbtack anywhere else.

I lifted my head and looked Festina right in the eye. "I
have
found something," I said. "Something important."

"Like what?"

I told her.

I didn't get far into what I had to say—ruins, artifacts, Las Fuentes—when Li interrupted me. "Who are these Las Fuentes and why should we care?"

Festina didn't answer. She was keying her way through the files, looking for the records I'd found... and perhaps she also disdained any professional diplomat who wasn't familiar with a species that had an embassy on New Earth. I wondered about that myself; but there are hundreds of species, major and minor, with a presence on New Earth, and Li might not know them all. Especially not a race with a history of spurning all diplomatic overtures. I told Li, "Las Fuentes were an alien species who used to live in this part of the galaxy. Around 4000 B.C., the race transmuted itself up the evolutionary ladder. Now they look like heaps of purple jelly."

"Oh," said Li. "Those bastards. Useless."

He sat back in his chair as if he'd lost interest. I suppose from a diplomat's point of view, the modern Fuentes
were
useless. They refused to trade with humans, they wouldn't talk about science, and they seldom even shared tidbits of information about the galaxy and its inhabitants. "Las Fuentes may not interact much with humans," I said (trying to suppress my true/false memory of meeting a Fuentes at the temple), "but they're still important to the Technocracy. We know of many alien species beyond human level, but Las Fuentes are the only ones who ascended within reachable history. Not long ago, they were at the same evolutionary level we are now. Then they developed some process that let them become something superior."

Li rolled his eyes. "I don't consider purple jelly my superior."

Ubatu muttered, "I consider orange marmalade your superior."

"Now, now," Captain Cohen said.

"The point is," I said, "of all the races above us on the evolutionary ladder, Las Fuentes are the most recent to climb there. If you count 4000 B.C. as recent."

"Actually," Festina said, "the most recent Fuentes ascension was two years ago. I was there."

She'd spoken softly—a quiet statement that caught the rest of us off guard. I felt my automatic "freeze reflex" kick in again... just for an instant, then it was gone. Li opened his mouth, then shut it. Ubatu's mouth was open too; her hand came up to cover it.

"Admiral," Cohen said, "you'd better tell us about it."

"I met some Fuentes," Festina said. "Possibly the only two left who hadn't ascended."

Li and Ubatu leaned forward eagerly, but Cohen and I eased back in our chairs as if we were about to hear bad news. I don't know why the difference. Maybe because diplomats treat secrets like currency—the more they have, the more they can spend at opportune moments—but captains and Explorers treat secrets like bombs to be disarmed: nobody tells us classified information until it's festered into a crisis we're expected to fix.

"When the majority of Fuentes transformed themselves," Festina said, "a few couldn't bring themselves to take the plunge. Too afraid of radical change. Personally, I don't blame them. Who wouldn't be horrified by the thought of becoming a mound of jelly? I'd consider it healthy to say, 'Fuck that,' and get on with your life.

"But those who refused to ascend," she said, "never forgot what they'd turned down. It must have preyed on their minds constantly; they just couldn't get past it. I suppose they might have been lonely—missing the world and the people they'd known. Perhaps they also suffered from survivor guilt... or shame. Anyway, the holdouts never made anything of themselves; they just wandered the galaxy in the last Fuentes starship, no purpose but listless survival. The only work they could bring themselves to do was to sabotage up-and-coming races they thought might eventually become threats... but even for that, they couldn't muster much energy. As if they'd died when the rest of their kind ascended.

"So one by one, the remaining Fuentes gave in. They still had the means to transform themselves; and each year, a few of the holdouts decided that risking change was better than centuries of going nowhere. By the time I found where they'd been hiding, there were only two left—two pathetic specimens. Physically, they were fine, even after six millennia. Las Fuentes must have had superb antiaging treatments. But mentally... what would you expect from creatures who'd lived a hundred lifetimes in fear of taking a leap of faith? I admire caution, but eventually one's spirit shrivels. The last two Fuentes were the most soul-shriveled beings I've ever encountered."

"But they eventually ascended?" Ubatu asked.

"Eventually." Festina spoke the word as if there was a great deal more to the story but she preferred not to go into details.

"How?" Li asked. "Did you see the process?"

Festina nodded. "You probably know Las Fuentes left thousands of fountains behind. Those fountains produced a fluid called blood honey. Bathing in the fluid brought on the transformation."

"They changed into purple jelly?"

"They changed into creatures who looked like jelly, given our limited vision." Festina shrugged. "I've met a number of elevated beings; none looked like much to human eyes. Does that mean ascended creatures aren't impressive? Or could it be that
Homo sapiens
aren't perceptive enough to see what's really there?"

Li made his usual face of disgust. He clearly hated any suggestion that humans weren't the crowning glory of the universe; but he was reluctant to contradict the celebrated Admiral Ramos. Instead, he changed the subject. "So these fountains," he said. "They're the key to the transformation. Have we studied them?"

Festina shook her head. "They've been dry for thousands of years. Nothing left to study... except for the one used by the Fuentes I met."

"And what about that fountain?"

"It's no longer available."

We waited for her to explain. She didn't. In the silence, a thought struck me; I did a quick search on our files. "There were no fountains on Muta," I said. "At least none found by the Unity."

"Interesting," Festina said. She sat back in her chair with a pensive look.

"These Fuentes," Cohen said. "We had a lot of their fountains on my home planet... but nothing else. Before they ascended, they cleaned up, right? Pulverized all traces of their civilization?"

Festina nodded.

"But Muta has ruins," Cohen continued, "as if the Fuentes didn't have time to clean up. They just left things as is."

"I see where you're heading," Ubatu said. "We know there's something dangerous on Muta—something that attacked the Greenstriders and the Unity. So maybe it attacked the Fuentes too. They might have started some settlements, built things up for a few years, then suddenly got taken by surprise."

"Right," Cohen said. "And this happened before the Fuentes began their process of ascension—before they built the fountains, which is why there aren't any fountains on Muta. Later, when the Fuentes were cleaning up in preparation for ascension, they couldn't erase their abandoned colony on Muta because they were too afraid of whatever was on the planet."

Ubatu nodded. "That's why there are Fuentes ruins on Muta, unlike everywhere else. They didn't dare go back to clean up."

"It's possible," Festina admitted. "But if so, I'm more worried than ever. Sixty-five hundred years ago, Las Fuentes were much more advanced than we are. The few Fuentes artifacts that survive are technologically superior to anything we have now. If Las Fuentes had such high tech and were still scared of whatever's on Muta, we're really going to have our hands full."

So what else is new?
I thought.

We studied the files for several more hours but found no hints of what might lurk down on Muta. The Unity had been thorough in their investigations; they'd checked as many possibilities as time and personnel allowed, yet they'd turned up no unusual threats.

Of course, their knowledge had gaps. For one thing, the files contained almost nothing on activities in the past six months. That was how long it had been since the last luna-ship visited the planet and received downloads of survey team findings. It would have been nice to know what the teams were doing just before they went non-comm... but the Unity swore they didn't have that information.

Perhaps, as Li suspected, the Unity was hiding something from us. Or perhaps we'd received everything the Unity had, and it just wasn't as much as we hoped. A handful of survey teams can't possibly learn all about a planet in just a few years. For example, the Unity knew almost nothing about Muta's oceans: a serious problem, considering that three-quarters of the planet's surface was covered with salt water. I couldn't help remembering the Technocracy planet Triomphe, which once housed three hundred thousand human colonists... until an army of intelligent octopi had emerged from the deeps to exterminate every man, woman, and child.