“Isn’t it more being brought back to life that gets you straight?” Harley said.

Bynum smiled and took another bite of the stew. This time he blinked, looked around, and found Xavier. “Hey, thanks, man. I keep running into you in some very strange places, don’t I?”

“Well, we’re glad you’re better,” Weldon said. “And that you have a purpose. Which is…”

Mouth full, Bynum gestured with the spoon, as if to say, Exactly. “I’m here as a messenger.” Then he smiled. “John the Baptist, maybe! Being reborn here has connected me to Keanu and a ton of really interesting stuff…once I figure out how to approach it systematically. Right now, though, I believe that I’m here to tell you—”

The subject was tabled for the moment, as Vikram Nayar arrived. With him was a slim, smug-looking Hindu…Jaidev. Nayar looked fretful, as Xavier’s momma would have put it.

If the Bangalore mission director was startled by Bynum’s presence, he showed no sign of it. Perhaps he’d been warned. “Did you find Camilla?” Harley said.

“No.”

“Do you know where she went?” Weldon said, losing patience. “It’s sort of important.”

“New kinds of hell are breaking loose,” Nayar said.

Jaidev had a Tik-Talk, which, on Nayar’s orders, he switched on, making Xavier wonder just how long the unit’s batteries were going to last. “My people are telling me disturbing things,” Nayar said. “The bugs aren’t just here at the Temple. They have appeared at least three other places.” Now he nodded in Bynum’s direction as he took the Tik-Talk from Jaidev.

Nayar’s hands were trembling, which greatly disturbed Xavier. Vikram Nayar was the most serene human Xavier had ever met—if he was freaking out, everyone should be freaking out.

Xavier was not one of the inner circle and had no obvious right to see what was on the Tik-Talk…but he felt, as an HB, that he was entitled. Also, by standing directly behind Harley Drake in his wheelchair, he was pretty much able to see what Harley saw.

Which was a series of cell-phone camera stills showing black Woggle-Bug growths on the shores of Lake Ganges, at the entrance to the Beehive, and at least three other places Xavier couldn’t identify. Then there was a video showing a bizarre, augerlike thing grinding its way from underground to daylight with no apparent difficulty.

“What’s that?” Weldon said, pointing to the auger.

“Another type of bug, it seems. Or at least an agglomeration of them,” Nayar said. “They have the same coloring and texture. They even share the fractal structure.” Seeing the lack of comprehension on at least two faces around him, he added, “I mean, the regular edges. As we look closer and closer, we just see more and more edges.”

“Shit,” Harley said. “We’re dealing with an infestation.”

“It’s far worse than that,” Nayar said, making Xavier even more unhappy.

The next still showed a black auger that seemed to have burrowed into the HB habitat from below. “What the hell?” Harley said.

“At least four of these drilling creatures broke ground just south of the Temple within the last hour. They’ve given us a clue to the Woggle-Bugs, if, as we think, they’re related; these creatures are like termites, absorbing and eating, processing raw material, then growing and reproducing.”

“Shit,” Weldon said, rubbing his eyes.

“It gets worse,” Nayar said. “Next video.”

This one showed a winged creature—not big. There was a Bangalore woman in the shot, ducking away from a black dragonfly that was maybe a third of a meter long, with a comparable wingspan.

“This may be a third type. But we’ve only seen one of them so far. And this,” Nayar said, calling up a final video. “This one was seen north of the Temple, and somebody said it appeared to have emerged from where the vesicles were.”

“Zack said that was closed off,” Weldon said.

“Maybe Zack was wrong,” Harley said. “Or maybe things have changed. Things do seem to change around here.”

The fourth creature was taller, larger, long-legged. To Xavier, it looked like a big black anteater.

“Have any of these things attacked humans yet?” Harley said.

Nayar gestured with the Tik-Talk. “One of the winged things buzzed that woman. But no, no one’s been bitten.”

Everyone was silent for several moments, trying to understand what they had seen, and what it meant.

Then Bynum spoke. Xavier had been watching the Revenant; eyes closed, still subdued, he had been watching the others until now, when he seemed to summon energy from within. “Is that it?” he asked. His voice almost sounded like it had before his death.

“You need more?” Weldon snapped.

Bynum turned to Harley. “The word you need, Drake, isn’t infestation. You could probably deal with that. The word is invasion.”

Bynum turned to Nayar. “Your intuition was correct. All three of the new things you saw are just different forms of these bugs. More complex…templates.” He seemed confused for a moment. “Yes, templates is the word in my head.”

“The important question,” Nayar said, “is whether these templates pose a threat.”

“They do,” Bynum said. “They’re what everyone is fighting.”

“Who’s everyone?” Harley said. Exactly what Xavier wanted to know, too.

“The Architects,” Bynum said. “And, essentially, every other race on the NEO. They have been fighting a war against these things for a seriously long time.” He hesitated and seemed to check out, reminding Xavier of a sideline reporter at a football game listening to new information in his earpiece. “They’re called the Gatherers, the Ravagers.” He smiled, reminding Xavier of a quiz show contestant who had hit on just the right answer. “Reivers. They’re the Reivers.”

Weldon said, “Have we somehow been enlisted in a centuries-long interstellar war against…bugs and anteaters?”

“You’re not getting this, are you?” Bynum said, as if talking to a dim child. “I’ve been sent to tell you this basic information: Unless we stop them here, the Reivers are going to suck up every bit of life and energy any of us have, just to make more of them. That’s what they do wherever they go.”

“Sounds efficient and focused,” Weldon said.

Bynum turned to Harley. “What do I have to do to convince you that this”—he pointed at the Woggle-Bug smear—“is a real enemy?”

To Xavier, Harley seemed ready to believe Bynum. But he also deferred, as always, to Weldon. “Tell you what,” he said to Bynum. “Go with Vikram and his team. Tell them everything you know, especially how to defend against the Reivers. That way, once we know what our next step is…we’ll be ready.”

It seemed logical to Xavier, but Bynum laughed. “Typical NASA. You guys bitch about the White House and everyone else, but when it comes to putting off painful decisions, you could give lessons.”

He leaned down, putting himself nose to nose with Harley. “Every minute, every second you waste, you make this harder. Wait too long, and there won’t be anything you can do about it, except watch the entire NEO be infected.

“And then, of course, there’s Earth. These things love mineral-rich, wet environments that have lots of sun. That will be their ultimate target.”

“Talk to Nayar,” Harley said.

As Bynum began sharing his Keanu knowledge with Nayar and Jaidev—it seemed to Xavier that he was almost barraging the Bangalore men—Weldon leaned over to Harley and said, “This resurrection stuff raises a lot of shameful temptations,” Weldon said.

“What are you talking about?” Harley answered.

“As big a pain in the ass as Bynum was in Houston, he’s far worse now. He could be dangerous as shit, too.”

“Agreed. So what?”

“Knowing that death isn’t permanent anymore…aren’t you just a little tempted to ice this guy again?”

Harley just shook his head and, perhaps realizing that Xavier could hear them, said, “Roll with me.”