Radiant (38 page)

Tut and the diplomats closed some of the gap between us while they were still in the city and Festina and I had to fight our way through ferns. Once they ran out of road, however, they fell to the same speed as the rest of us. I thought they might slow even further; but Tut had been trained to find routes through thick forest, and Ubatu could clear paths quickly by muscling foliage aside. With such a combination of brain and brawn, they kept making reasonable progress.

Meanwhile, the sky darkened with dusk and clouds: clouds more purple and bruised than any I'd seen before. Just a quirk of Muta's atmosphere—on alien planets, skies that look like home in sunshine can assume unearthly tints come twilight—but I couldn't help wonder which clouds were simple water vapor and which were Stage One
pretas,
riding the storm like dragons.

Certainly, my mental awareness detected
pretas
within the looming thunderheads. I could sense their fury, frustration, and longing amidst the burgeoning gale, but I didn't have the delicacy of perception to distinguish one ghost from another. Were there only a few, their particles spread thinly through the mass of cumulonimbus? Or were there hundreds of the ghosts? Thousands? Millions? I could almost believe every tormented spirit on Muta—Fuentes, Greenstriders, Unity, and any others who might have visited over the centuries, only to become trapped in Stage One's hell—had gathered into a single sky-raging host, stampeding their war chariots overhead.

Tonight a great battle would be fought: a great, ridiculous battle, for we were all on the same side, wanting to end Muta's pain. But history is full of senseless wars based on out-of-control emotions rather than rational decisions.

Several kilometers to the south, lightning flashed. After a long time, the sound of its thunder rumbled up the river valley... but between the flash and the rumble, rain had begun to fall.

The tree-height ferns did little to shut out rain. Most had vertical fronds, running directly up from the ground like festooned flagpoles. Flagpoles don't make adequate umbrellas. A few ferns had long stems that curved into horizontal fronds resembling roofs over my head... but either the fronds were made up of many thin leaves and therefore leaked prodigiously, or they were solid enough to act as drainpipes, funneling every drop of rain toward some central point, then dumping it straight down the back of my neck.

The Unity uniform I wore was only partly waterproof, in that maddening way of all nanomesh. The nanites in the fabric were supposed to keep rain out while simultaneously drawing off sweat from my skin so I wouldn't stew in my own juices. (Pushing through untamed wilderness is hard hot work.) Most nanomeshes keep you comfortably dry for fifteen minutes of downpour, after which the mathematics of chaos begins to take its toll. Some random excess of moisture accumulates in the crook of your elbow, or your armpit, or under your breasts, surpassing manageable tolerances. You feel a brief hot wetness, disturbingly reminiscent of bleeding; then the fabric dispatches reinforcement nanites to correct the problem, and the wetness goes away. (Just as disturbingly.) But shifting nanites to the trouble spot thins out nanite concentrations everywhere else... so soon there's another ooze of moisture in some other area where rain and sweat abound. More nanite emergency crews are dispatched; more thinning occurs elsewhere; and the vicious circle spirals upward. Soon, transient seepage ambushes you every few steps, always somewhere new and unexpected; most of the time with the warmth of sweat but occasionally with the unkindly chill of a late-autumn torrent... and all the erratic "now you're wet/now you're not" water torture would be enough to drive you frantic if not for a more overwhelming concern: the uniform doesn't cover your head, leaving your hair, face, and neck so utterly soaked that gushes of dampness elsewhere seem like trivial annoyances.

The other people in our spread-out expedition were all similarly drenched. Festina ignored the wetness, plowing doggedly forward, her aura ablaze with determination. Tut, still clad only in masks, danced and sang whatever songs came into his head... a medley of smutty folk ditties, gospel spirituals, and Myriapod throat chants (the kind fashionably used for background music in VR shoot-'em-ups). Li, wet and sulking, occasionally yelled at Ubatu to make Tut keep quiet. Ubatu pretended not to hear Li over the rush of the rain and secretly hummed along with Tut on many of the tunes. Especially the dirty ones.

Over and over, lightning lit the sky, and thunder banged in answer. An extraordinary amount of lightning activity. Perhaps this was simply normal weather on Muta... but I wondered if the
pretas,
creatures capable of electrical pulses, might somehow be spurring the storm to loose bolts down on our heads. If so, the ghosts couldn't aim the attacks or overcome the basic laws of physics. Since we traveled low on the Grindstone's floodplain, none of the lightning strikes came close to us. Either they connected with buildings in the city (and passed harmlessly through lightning rods) or they blasted unfortunate ferns on the heights of land bordering the Grindstone valley.

If the lightning made me uneasy, it downright terrified the local wildlife. As I pushed my way forward, I felt nearby insects and lizards cringe every time thunder cracked in the heavens. Most animals had found shelter from the rain and hunkered down to wait out the weather: some grudgingly so (especially nocturnal creatures who'd woken up hungry at sunset and wanted to forage for food), others miserable at being cold and wet, still others simply putting their tiny brains on idle as they numbly endured whatever came their way... but all of them jumped or shivered at every flash-crash from on high.

A few animals stayed on the move: fish, of course, and aquatic amphibians... insects too stupid to realize it was raining... and six Rexies coming toward us at top speed.

Three of the Rexies approached from the south. They'd reach Festina first; and because each was traveling from a different distance, they'd arrive one by one. If she saw them coming, she could knock them out harmlessly with her stun-pistol... and she
would
see them coming because she'd programmed her Bumbler's proximity alarms to tell her when Rexies got close. Overall, she didn't seem in danger.

Tut, Li, and Ubatu, however, would meet the other three Rexies en masse in about half an hour.

Tut's party had no stun-pistol. Nor did they have a Bumbler to warn them of attack. Worst of all, my sixth sense told me at least two of the Rexies would reach them simultaneously... possibly all three. In this storm, Rexies moved much faster than humans—the
pretas
pushed the animals mercilessly, driving them to thrash through jungle vegetation without regard to safety. Their scaly skins showed numerous gashes, cut by encounters with thorns and sharp stones. Occasionally, the animals tripped on vines or slipped on slicks of wet mud, falling heavily enough to knock out teeth or fracture ribs and the delicate bones in their spindly arms. But the clouds in the Rexies' skulls didn't care about such minor injuries. All they wanted was the kill; and the sooner the better.

Thus the ruinous speed. By contrast, Tut and company moved with much more caution, plus the slowdown that always accompanies dampened spirits. There was no chance they'd outrun the predators heading for them.

As time went on, I saw one more thing: the Rexies adjusted their routes to set up a pincer operation. Two aimed for a position ahead of Tut et al.; the third would come in behind. I expected the two in front, bred by evolution to be pouncers rather than chasers, would find a place to lie in wait while the one at the rear drove the humans into the trap. On Earth, packs of wolves used the same tactic, but I doubted the Rexies had enough brains to devise such a plan. The
pretas
were the guiding intelligence, coordinating efforts over a distance of several kilometers as they brought the Rexies converging on their intended victims. Obviously, the EMP clouds could communicate with each other as well as share emotions. The ones riding the storm overhead might be acting as high observers, conveying directions to the clouds who'd got inside the Rexies' heads.

Considering the
pretas'
coordinated assault, I wondered why they'd never attacked the Unity in the same way. Team Esteem had recorded no unusual EMPs, no pseudosuchian ambushes, no odd clouds of smoke hovering in the distance. Why not? Why had the Unity been left alone for years, while our own rescue party was EMP'd before we landed and harried ever since?

Perhaps it could be explained by the knee-jerk enmity between the Unity and the Technocracy... and by the raw pain Team Esteem must have felt in their newly disembodied condition. The Fuentes clouds had suffered in Stage One for thousands of years; when the Unity survey teams landed, the clouds knew that the newcomers would soon turn to harmless smoke. Even as
pretas,
the Fuentes had learned some patience and restraint.

But the Unity
pretas
had no such control. When we sent reconnaissance probes into their camp, Team Esteem's ghosts must have whipped themselves into fury at the thought of hated Technocracy rivals "invading" Unity territory. The smoky Team Esteem had EMP'd our probe in outrage. When we showed up in person, they'd EMP'd us again... and even if the Fuentes
pretas
might have preferred to avoid direct action—or if the newly transformed Var-Lann told the others we were a rescue party, not opportunistic usurpers—hostilities had already commenced.

It didn't help that we'd talked to Ohpa (whom the
pretas
hated or feared) and that we were now marching toward the Stage Two station. Perhaps the ghosts thought we intended to destroy the station, thereby destroying their only remaining hope for release. However the
pretas
usually handled visitors, this time they'd decided we couldn't be left to be pulled apart by microbes. We had to be eliminated: the sooner the better.

Hence the Rexies. And hence, I had to do something. Which would have been easier if
I'd
had a stun-pistol, a Bumbler, or a comm. But I was just as ill equipped as Tut's group... nor was I enough of a fighter to take on three homicidal protodinosaurs.

The Rexies would kill Tut. They would kill Li. They would kill Ubatu. If I was there, they'd kill me too... unless the Balrog played deus ex machina to save me, probably consuming more of my body in the process. Either way—whether I got eaten by an alien dinosaur or an alien clump of moss—it seemed so unreal, I couldn't work up much concern over either prospect. As for the others, I disliked Li, I feared Ubatu, and Tut might become as dangerous as the Rexies if the
pretas
possessed him again. Letting them all die would solve a lot of problems.

But it wouldn't solve my biggest problem: remaining human.

I didn't want to become a thing who calmly let others be killed. I didn't want to descend into what I imagined was the Balrog's attitude: unconcerned with the fate of lesser beings. The thought of Li and Ubatu dying didn't fill me with much emotion, but the thought of me casually letting it happen—
watching
them die with my sixth sense, seeing their life forces ripped from their bodies and cast off to dwindle into the ether—that made me shudder. I was absolutely terrified of changing into an inhuman entity devoid of compassion.

So I had to save them. I
had
to. Which meant I had to do the only thing that might rescue them in time.

I had to get Festina.

If I traveled fast, taking shortcuts, I'd have just enough time to catch up with Festina and bring her back to save the others. Persuading her to help wouldn't be easy. First, I had to get close enough that she could hear me over the storm. (Briefly, I wondered whether the Balrog could amplify my voice... but every time I asked the moss for a favor, I lost more of myself. No.) I had to get near enough to be heard, which was also near enough for Festina to break my legs. She'd unhesitatingly carry out that threat unless I found the perfect words to stop her. Assuming words would stop her at all; quite possibly she'd ignore talk completely, thinking it was just a Balrog ploy to slow her down.

Nor would it be easy explaining how I knew the locations of six widely separated Rexies. Even the nearest was more than a kilometer away, hidden by night, rain, and shrubbery. But perhaps that problem would solve itself—by my estimate, I'd reach Festina about the same time as the first Rexy coming her way. A big toothy predator howling for blood would help make my point that our friends were in similar trouble.

But only if Festina gave me a chance to speak.

As I hurried forward through soaking wet ferns, I tried to devise a persuasive approach. No inspiration presented itself. Anyway, "persuasive" was exactly what she'd expect if the Balrog were speaking through my mouth... unless the moss decided to go for "fumbling and artless" in an attempt to seem more genuine. The more I thought about it, if I chose
any
effective approach, its very effectiveness would make it suspect. If I prostrated myself on the ground submissively... if I saved Festina's life from a Rexy... if I got in front of her and built one of those noose snares so popular in VR adventures, where the victims are suddenly lassoed by the ankles and yanked off their feet to dangle upside down, helpless to do anything except hear you out...

I couldn't believe those traps actually worked. In real life, they'd probably break your neck through sheer force of whiplash.

Broken bones were very much on my mind as I hurried through the rain.

I thought of no brilliant solution to my problem. No clever phrases to win Festina over. No inspired truths or lies to smooth everything out.

My Bamar heritage left me ill equipped for subtle-tongued persuasion. I don't claim my ancestors were scrupulously honest, but they'd never revered slick speech as an art form. Other cultures have trickster folk-heroes who can wheedle their way out of anything... but the heroes in Bamar folktales are either Buddhist saints who never tell lies, or else noble warriors who get betrayed (by treacherous friends, two-faced lovers, deceitful relatives) and die in elaborately gruesome ways. The greatest heroes are combinations—warriors who achieve saintly enlightenment just before being killed. Such people may become semidivine after death: war-spirits chosen to serve Buddha himself as deputies and emissaries.