Whatever the chances were, I knew what I was going to do — not what I had to do, but what I would do.

One step forward… and the Balrog closed around me.

I half expected to be teleported straight to some final destination. Navy records reported Kaisho Namida jumping instantaneously from star system to star system, sometimes hundreds of light-years in a single bound. But my mossy carriage simply lifted a centimeter off the pavement and accelerated at a couple of Gs, soon skimming along at a pace my Bumbler reported as a kilometer a minute.

This gave me time to take readings — in particular, to see where Zoonau’s inhabitants had gone. I switched to an IR scan… and gasped as I saw a blaze of heat sources at the city center. A huge mob of Cashlings had gathered there. Thousands. Tens of thousands. The whole population of Zoonau? A moment later, data analysis gave me a tally: 91,734 Cashling heat signatures… and two humans. Two humans? Tut and who else? The second human wasn’t me — I hadn’t reached the square yet, so I wasn’t included in the count. Could there have been another human in Zoonau when the Balrog attacked?

Plenty of humans visited Cashleen, but almost all stayed in the planet’s capital, thousands of kilometers away. The capital was home to our Technocracy embassy… and humans usually stuck close to the embassy. Whatever your purpose for coming to Cashleen, the embassy staff were far more likely to provide useful assistance than any Cashling you might find. So who would have reason for coming to a backwater like Zoonau?

I winced as an answer came to me: someone from the embassy staff.

Zoonau had been attacked two hours ago: plenty of time for somebody to fly in from the capital. No embassy personnel had been sent to Zoonau officially — the powers that be wanted Pistachio to handle everything — but I could easily imagine an ambitious vice consul buzzing off to Zoonau as soon as the news came in. He or she could have reached the city before our landing party, hoping to win a career boost by dealing with the Balrog single-handed. It was just the sort of grandstanding maneuver one expected from success-hungry bureaucrats… and just the sort of rashness that made Explorers grind their teeth.

Now I had to deal with a madman and an intrusive amateur.

I heard the people in the square before I saw them: thousands of gabbling voices, loud despite the muffling moss on every echoing surface. Then my transport egg rounded a corner, and the crowd was directly before me. No one had stayed down on street level; they were all packed onto the ziggurat, trampling flowers in the terrace gardens, clogging the open areas, milling on the stairs. I counted eight levels to the ziggurat, all of them spacious by normal standards… but with more than ninety thousand Cashlings crammed onto a single building, it looked like a dangerous squeeze.

Why had they come to this central area? Only one answer. The Balrog herded them here. It had used its spores to push or intimidate people through the streets until they reached the heart of the city.

The Balrog wanted an audience.

Once again, I tuned my Bumbler to Tut’s homing beacon. He was on the top level now, heading for the pulpit in the center. The Bumbler could reconstruct what was happening up there, as if looking through a telescope. Dozens of Cashlings fought for the pulpit, either because they had some inspired message to proclaim or because they just wanted to seize the highest spot on the pyramid — an "I’m the king of the castle" impulse. When Tut shoved his way through the crowd, several people tried to grab him, hold back the human in their midst… but a few blasts from Tut’s stun-pistol, and the opposition slumped to the roof tiles. The Cashlings edged back as Tut climbed to the pulpit’s perch.

Meanwhile, my Balrog-built egg had reached the ziggurat and started ascending the stairs. The egg didn’t fly, but surfed on a wave of spores that carried us smoothly upward. Cashlings ahead of us got brushed aside by a mossy wedge that preceded the egg, like the cowcatcher on an Old Earth locomotive. Anyone in our way was knocked left or right, their falls cushioned by beds of moss that sprang up to provide a safe landing. Other wads of moss performed crowd control — making sure no one accidentally got trampled.

Interesting. Navy files claimed the Balrog disliked contact with lesser beings… but the moss was taking a hands-on approach to keep the Cashlings safe.

Despite Balrog efforts to clear the way, our progress up the ziggurat was slow. Hundreds of people stood between us and the top. Many of them seemed eager to block us if they could, shouting curses and throwing themselves in our path. I don’t know what they hoped to accomplish; they were just so angry at the Balrog, they must have decided that if it wanted to take me upward, they wanted to get in the way. In other words, the Cashlings were acting out of sheer rebelliousness: the sort of rebelliousness that could turn to violence, especially if Tut did something inflammatory.

"People of Zoonau!" Tut’s voice boomed over the city. The pulpit obviously had a built-in sound system, and he’d patched his tightsuit radio into the feed. Giant hologram images materialized in the air, scores of them, all showing Tut’s golden face five stories tall. The pulpit had holo-projectors too.

"My name is Tut," he said with a cheerful metallic smile. "I’m from the Technocracy’s Outward Fleet — here to assess the situation and lend a hand." He paused, looked around. "Okay, here’s my assessment. You’re all really really pissed off. Right?"

A roar thundered from the crowd. The Balrog continued bearing me upward. Slowly. More people hurled themselves at our egg.

"You’re pissed off," Tut said, his words ringing through the streets, "because this big bully Balrog is pushing you around, and you feel like there’s nothing you can do. Am I right?"

The Cashlings roared again. I’d been hoping a lot of the crowd wouldn’t understand English. But almost everyone in the Cashling Reach learned our language, purely so they could amuse themselves with human movies, virtuals, and other forms of entertainment. Cashlings wouldn’t lift a finger to do productive work, but they’d spend long hours acquiring an alien tongue if that’s what it took to get the jokes in a mindless sitcom.

"I know what it’s like to feel helpless," Tut went on. "I’m an Explorer. I know what it’s like to get reamed by fat-ass aliens. But guess what: I also know how to take back control. I can tell you how to beat this damned Balrog. Do you want to hear the secret?"

The crowd screamed yes. My egg finally topped the steps, onto the flat uppermost level. Just a short distance now to the pulpit.

"Here’s what you do, Zoonau!" Tut shouted. He reached up to his chest and dug his thumbs under protective flaps on his suit’s yellow breastplate. Everyone watching mimicked his action… everyone except me. I was too busy thinking, Oh no. Oh no.

Suddenly Tut threw his arms and legs wide, like a giant human X. Every Cashling did the same. I didn’t. All I wanted to do was bury my face in my hands; but I held my head up, eyes open, to witness what happened next.

A tightsuit is usually an Explorer’s best friend. It provides you with air and protects you from lethal environments. Once in a while, though, your tightsuit becomes a liability: if there’s a life-threatening malfunction… if the suit’s weight means the difference between sinking or swimming… if something small and toothy has got inside the suit with you. Therefore, the Outward Fleet equips each tightsuit with an emergency evac system, for occasions when you have to get your gear off in a hurry. You activate the system by pressing hidden buttons on your breastplate — just as Tut had done. Then you spread your arms and legs wide — just like Tut — and you wait for a very short countdown.