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!"