Radiant (43 page)

Which gave me clear sailing through the night.

Satori [Japanese]: A sudden flash of enlightenment; a spiritual breakthrough. Strictly speaking, satori refers to a life-changing experience of seeing the world as it truly is. However, many people also use satori for smaller "Aha!" moments and for any burst of insight.

When Prince Gotama left the pleasure palace, he wandered through cities and countryside, seeking truth. He listened to many teachers; he practiced spiritual disciplines; he fasted in the wilderness before deciding that ravenous hunger was not conducive to inner calm. At last, he seated himself beneath a great tree and vowed he wouldn't budge until he achieved enlightenment.

The good gods rejoiced that this time had come. For all their power, they were no more free than any other living creature. They longed for Gotama to awaken—to become Tathagata—so he could teach them the path to liberation.

But one god feared what Gotama might achieve. Mara, god of passion and delusion, knew his power would be shattered if the prince won through to ultimate truth. Therefore, Mara summoned his sons (the Fears) and his daughters (the Desires), and together they tried to break Prince Gotama's resolve by using threats and temptations. Some say Gotama was so focused, he didn't even notice this assault; but others say Gotama had to summon all his mental strength to fight back and would never have Awakened if he hadn't been forced to make a supreme spiritual effort. Perhaps an all-out confrontation with the sources of turmoil is the only way to become a Buddha.

Whatever the case, Mara failed—Prince Gotama couldn't be intimidated or lured from his goal. The god and his children slunk away in defeat. Throughout the hours of darkness, Gotama passed through the four stages of Awakening: remembering his past lives, seeing the world without delusion, understanding the causes of suffering, and finally (at dawn) achieving nirvana... which is not some spacey state of bliss, but a simple unwavering clarity so perfect one can never fall into error again. Gotama, Tathagata Buddha, hadn't become some miracle-working superman; he'd just purged himself of all his own bullshit.

What transcendence could be higher?

I thought about Gotama as I floated through the darkness—about the night he faced Mara. Maybe I should try the same thing myself. Not that I was anywhere close to enlightenment; my earlier "So what?" moment was only a small upward step, not a leap straight into the heavens. But maybe I should confront my own version of Mara. As the Grindstone propelled me southward, I finally had the time and space to think. Slowly the depth of my situation sank in: the hollowness that would dog me down the years if I couldn't reach out and communicate.

"Balrog," I said. "Can we talk?"

Water rushed around me. Darkness filled my eyes.

"Balrog. We're joined, you and I. Merged. Closer than husband and wife. Can we talk?"

Only the river and the night.

"I've given up a lot," I said. "You've got the better of me over and over. The things you've offered in return... you've helped when I asked, and even saved my life, but... do you understand loneliness, Balrog? You're a hive creature. Maybe loneliness is beyond your comprehension. But if you and I are going to be together—for the rest of my life, till death us do part—I'll shrivel inside if we don't connect. If I'm just the lowly human and you never ever share... please, Balrog, don't make me live like that. It's too cold."

Blackness. Silence.

"When Kaisho Namida talks about you," I said, "she makes you sound like a lover. She makes it sound like she loves you, and you love her back. I don't ask you to love me..." (Oh, would no one ever love me? I yearned so deeply to writhe with passion, and would even open myself to the spores if it would ease my longing.) "I don't ask you to love me, but please... please. Meet me halfway so I'm not alone."

Nothing. And yet...

Floating gently, my eyes slipped shut. I dreamed.

Once again I was at the pagoda: the gravesite of Fuentes civilization, with its fountain and orchard of minichili trees. Once again I saw statues of heroes in the arboretum—one coated with purple jelly, another surrounded by sandy black grains, a third turned to glass and lava—but in my dream, the statues had changed.

Now the marble figure enclosed in jelly looked like Tut... the one with black sand had become an Arabic man carrying a huge four-barreled gun... the one in glass and lava was no longer Hui-Neng the Patriarch, but a beautiful naked woman... and all the rest within sight were similarly changed, some to people I recognized (students and professors from the Explorer Academy), others to people I couldn't name but who seemed familiar, as if I'd met them in other dreams. Or other lives.

I turned toward the fountain in the middle of the pagoda. False memory said the fountain had contained a golden Buddha overlaid with Balrog moss. My mother said she had seen Kaisho Namida in a wheelchair. Now... now I saw both Kaisho and myself, the two of us sitting in lotus position, facing each other, knees touching. Our eyes were open, gazing on each other as we floated in midair two meters above the fountain. We both were moss from the waist down: glowing a warm-hearth red that filled the space around us with light. Kaisho's hands made the mudra gesture for Birth, while mine made the gesture for Enlightenment. The pair of us smiled with sisterly gentleness.

Comfortable with each other. Not alone. Reassurance.

I dreamed this as if I were a third person standing in the temple's doorway: with a view of the arboretum outside as well as Kaisho and me inside. No one else was part of this. Just the statues of heroes, plus a levitating Kaisho and Youn Suu. Did it mean something that I saw the scene from the threshold between the temple and the outer world beyond? The boundary between the sacred and mundane?

"It means whatever fits," said Kaisho. She and the duplicate Youn Suu turned, rotating in air until both could look at me. "None of it's really predetermined. At least we hope not. We throw a lot of things your way, but only you decide what to use."

I asked, "Who's 'we'?"

The Youn Suu in front of me smiled. "You want to know who's pulling the strings? Irrelevant. The important thing is what you do once your strings are cut loose. I'll have to remember to teach you that."

"You're going to teach
me?"
I said. "You
are
me."

"No. Look at yourself."

I did. My hands weren't my familiar dark brown, but a much lighter shade that showed multiple scrapes and scratches. My clothes were Unity nanomesh, but not colored in motley Mutan camouflage; just a solid sheen of black stretching down to the white boots of a Technocracy tightsuit.

Festina had taken the black nanomesh. Her tightsuit was white and her hands, gouged and nicked in her trip through the bush, were exactly like the ones on the end of my arms.

"You're having her dream," the other Youn Suu said. "She can't have it herself—she's awake."

"Besides"—Kaisho chuckled—"Festina would
hate
receiving messages in dreams. Such a rationalist! If she dreamed two plus two equaled four, she'd automatically mistrust it. You, on the other hand, will pay attention. Oneiromantic prophecies are in your blood. Literally."

"You mean my veins are full of Balrog spores?"

"Shush," Kaisho told me. "There's one universal rule of prophecy, recognized by every thread of human culture: you don't get to ask clarifying questions. You just listen and suck it up."

"Then," Youn Suu added, "if you've got a milligram of sense, you interpret the message like an intelligent mensch, rather than some self-centered oaf who's never learned the concept of 'double meaning.' "

"I know how prophecies work," I said. "The wise benefit, while fools work their own destruction."

The second Youn Suu turned to Kaisho. "Pompous little bint, aren't I?"

"She's quoting," Kaisho replied.

"I knew that." The other Youn Suu turned back to me. "Are you ready to hear the message?"

I nodded.

"Okay," the Youn Suu said. "Give her the message, Kaisho."

Kaisho frowned. "I thought
you
had the message."

"How can I have the message?" my double said. "I'm just Youn Suu. I have no words of wisdom, and I certainly don't know anything about the future."

"Well,
I
don't have a message either," Kaisho said. "I've been the Balrog's meat pasty for decades, but do the blasted spores tell me anything? Not bloody likely. I get sent on errands all over the galaxy, and most of the time I don't have the slightest hint what I'm supposed to do." She glanced at me. "Get used to faking it, sister. Our mossy master loves us dearly, but he never spells things out."

"So we go to all this trouble," the other Youn Suu muttered, "for an honest-to-goodness dream visitation, and we don't have anything to say?" She looked down on me from her place above the fountain. "This is a great steaming mound of embarrassment, isn't it?"

"I get the message," I said.

"You do?"

"I do. But did you have to lay it on so thickly?
I'm just Youn Suu. I have no words of wisdom, and I certainly don't know anything about the future.
Spare me the gushing humility."

Youn Suu gave me a dubious look. "That's the message you think we're sending? Some crap about having faith in yourself? Sweetheart, if tripe like that was all we had to offer, we'd send you a goddamned greeting card."

"You've stopped talking like me," I said. "I don't swear, and I don't use words like 'sweetheart.' "

"How about words like 'fucking smart-ass'?" My own face glowered at me, then turned to Kaisho. "Come on, moss-breath, we're done here."

Kaisho gave me a piercing stare.
"Are
we done? Do you know what you have to teach Festina?"

"How would I know that?" I said. "I'm just Youn Suu. I have no words of wisdom. I certainly don't know anything about the future."

The thing that looked like me made a growling sound in its throat. "Buddhists! You can have them, spore-head. They're all yours. Give me a hot-looking glass chick with legs and an attitude, and I'll make the galaxy my bitch!"

The Youn Suu look-alike winked out of existence. Kaisho looked apologetic. "Sorry. He can never resist putting on a show."

"Who was he?" I asked.

"A friend of the Balrog's."

"Some great and powerful alien?"

"Of course," Kaisho said. "He and the Balrog are working together on a project. Along with a good many others in the League."

"What are they all up to?"

Kaisho smiled. "You'll figure it out. When you do, tell Festina. It's time she knew."

"No hints?"

"Sure, here's a hint. Become enlightened. Then you'll know everything."

"How do I become enlightened?"

Kaisho shrugged. "It's easy. Just wake up."

I woke up. Dream over. And despite the lack of direct information, I felt I'd learned a lot.

I'd learned that when I reached out to the Balrog—when I needed the solace of contact—the Balrog was ready to answer.

Oblique, frustrating answers... but enough to assure me I wouldn't live my life in numb solitary confinement.

I rode peacefully on the flooded Grindstone. The rain had stopped. Above me, the sky was full of stars.

An hour before dawn, I reached the lake created by the Stage Two station's dam. The current was slower but still perceptible; muddy water poured thick as cream over the dam, taking with it leaves and other debris floating on the lake's surface. I could easily swim against the pull. Taking my time, conserving my strength, I stroked toward the station.

My skin had not turned to moss; that hadn't been necessary. When the nanomesh uniform sensed my body temperature dropping to unacceptable levels, it had puffed itself up: from a skintight sheath to a thick layer of fabric filled with air bubbles. It held my body heat like foam insulation, even stretching itself to cover my hands and most of my head—just the face left bare so I could see and breathe. I offered my thanks to the Unity's foresight, giving their survey teams all-weather clothes.

The outfit reminded me of a cold-water diving suit I'd worn during scuba training at the Academy... except that the Unity uniform was still colored in multihued camouflage patterns matching the local foliage. I attracted much interest from plant-eating fish who thought I might be a tasty mat of ferns floating on the surface. My slow swimming kept them from coming too close (even mid-Triassic fish were smart enough to know that plants didn't do the breaststroke) but I accumulated a crowd of followers who wistfully hoped I might prove to be food.

Onshore, Festina and the diplomats continued toward the station. Their journey wasn't as easy as mine; walking through semi-jungle gets tiring. At least they had adequate light for traveling—Festina carried a number of spare glow-tubes. The Bumbler also helped. It could scan ahead for trouble, letting them pick better routes and reducing the need for backtracking. Still, they hadn't had a pleasant time. Ubatu was injured and weakened from blood loss. Li was in decent physical shape for a civilian, but came nowhere near matching Festina's level of endurance. He whined... demanded frequent rest breaks... didn't push himself to keep up.

Once Li stopped and refused to go any farther. By sixth sense I heard him say, "This is absurd! We're stumbling around in the dark. I'm not budging another millimeter till morning." Festina took her time responding: probably deciding what tack to take with a stubborn diplomat. Ubatu, however, just grabbed Li by his pricey silk shirt and shook him, making incomprehensible sounds of rage through her ruined mouth. It worked far better than rational argument—a few hard cuffs, and Li started moving again.

Deeper out in the bush, Tut was also on the move. He had to be: if he slowed down, he'd die. A beanpole like him, with little insulating fat and no clothes but masks, could only survive the cold damp by staying active. By dawn Tut was racked with shivers, despite his constant capering. The foliage through which he moved was soaking wet, drenching him whenever he bumped against a rain-laden frond. Once the sun arrived it might warm him a bit, but the season was still late autumn. The day would remain cool for hours... and if Tut collapsed in exhaustion, even the heat of noon might not restore his body to a life-sustaining temperature.