Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I’ve awakened from a dream unable to draw the line between dream and reality. I may dream I signed up for some computer-run training course and come morning I have to take the exam, even though I haven’t done any of the lessons. For minutes after I wake, I lie trickling with sweat, trying to decide if I really did enroll in such a course or if it was just a figment of my sleeping imagination. Did I or didn’t I? Such dreams could be so convincing, I honestly couldn’t sort out the truth.

This felt like the same thing. Did I really go to that temple and see what I saw? Or was it just a false memory?

A false memory planted by the Balrog.

You demon! I wanted to scream. You demon, you demon, you demon! The demon’s spores were inside my head, and I couldn’t even trust my own memories. I truly didn’t know if those things at the pagoda had happened. The recollections seemed so real, but…

"Something wrong, Youn Suu?" Festina asked.

I must have made some noise that caught her attention. My body had finally unfrozen and given away my inner turmoil.

Now Festina was looking at me. Her expression wary. Regarding me as a spore-infected security risk. Her mistrust was entirely justified — my inability to judge memories true or false proved that. If I’d had any sense of responsibility, I should have declared myself unfit for duty and walked out of the room.

But I didn’t. I didn’t want to admit I was broken, and I didn’t want to isolate myself from Festina. I didn’t want to be alone.

So I mumbled, "I think I’ve found something," and looked at my data screen, hoping there’d be something I could pretend was noteworthy.

I read the words, EXTENSIVE WELL-PRESERVED RUINS.

EXTENSIVE WELL-PRESERVED RUINS OVERGROWN WITH CAPSICILLIUM CROCEUM.

EXTENSIVE WELL-PRESERVED RUINS OVERGROWN WITH CAPSICILLIUM CROCEUM, DATING BACK 6500 YEARS.

What?

Quickly, I opened the corresponding file. Festina’s eyes still watched me. The computer displayed a survey conducted from orbit early in the Unity’s investigation of the planet. They’d sent robot probes to check promising areas for settlement… particularly fertile plains with plenty of rivers to serve as water supplies. Unsurprisingly, they’d found evidence of recent Greenstrider habitation — Greenstriders always sought out good farmland — but the Unity also found Capsicillium croceum, and ruins much older than the Greenstrider colonies.

The ruins dated back to the days of Las Fuentes civilization. But Las Fuentes didn’t leave ruins. On every other world they’d colonized, they’d erased all remains of their presence.

I keyed my data agent to do a cross-reference. Yes: several similar sites had been found in other regions of Muta: sixty-five-hundred-year-old ruins and Capsicillium croceum, all in the sort of areas where Las Fuentes usually lived. The Unity had even followed up their findings — the last four survey teams sent to Muta had all established camps near ancient ruin sites. They’d then proceeded to excavate the ruins… albeit with extreme caution.

The surveyors had found artifacts. Lots of artifacts. Anything from simple tools (hammers, saws, hand drills) to high-tech gadgets of unguessable intent. Most were in terrible condition — what could you expect after six and a half millennia? — but a modest amount of equipment had avoided the ravages of time inside weatherproof containers. Result: the Unity had stumbled across a treasure trove of technology from aliens who were more advanced than anyone we knew and who’d never left so much as a thumbtack anywhere else.

I lifted my head and looked Festina right in the eye. "I have found something," I said. "Something important."

"Like what?"

I told her.

I didn’t get far into what I had to say — ruins, artifacts, Las Fuentes — when Li interrupted me. "Who are these Las Fuentes and why should we care?"

Festina didn’t answer. She was keying her way through the files, looking for the records I’d found… and perhaps she also disdained any professional diplomat who wasn’t familiar with a species that had an embassy on New Earth. I wondered about that myself; but there are hundreds of species, major and minor, with a presence on New Earth, and Li might not know them all. Especially not a race with a history of spurning all diplomatic overtures. I told Li, "Las Fuentes were an alien species who used to live in this part of the galaxy. Around 4000 B.C., the race transmuted itself up the evolutionary ladder. Now they look like heaps of purple jelly."

"Oh," said Li. "Those bastards. Useless."

He sat back in his chair as if he’d lost interest. I suppose from a diplomat’s point of view, the modern Fuentes were useless. They refused to trade with humans, they wouldn’t talk about science, and they seldom even shared tidbits of information about the galaxy and its inhabitants. "Las Fuentes may not interact much with humans," I said (trying to suppress my true/false memory of meeting a Fuentes at the temple), "but they’re still important to the Technocracy. We know of many alien species beyond human level, but Las Fuentes are the only ones who ascended within reachable history. Not long ago, they were at the same evolutionary level we are now. Then they developed some process that let them become something superior."

Li rolled his eyes. "I don’t consider purple jelly my superior."

Ubatu muttered, "I consider orange marmalade your superior."

"Now, now," Captain Cohen said.

"The point is," I said, "of all the races above us on the evolutionary ladder, Las Fuentes are the most recent to climb there. If you count 4000 B.C. as recent."

"Actually," Festina said, "the most recent Fuentes ascension was two years ago. I was there."

She’d spoken softly — a quiet statement that caught the rest of us off guard. I felt my automatic "freeze reflex" kick in again… just for an instant, then it was gone. Li opened his mouth, then shut it. Ubatu’s mouth was open too; her hand came up to cover it.

"Admiral," Cohen said, "you’d better tell us about it."

"I met some Fuentes," Festina said. "Possibly the only two left who hadn’t ascended."

Li and Ubatu leaned forward eagerly, but Cohen and I eased back in our chairs as if we were about to hear bad news. I don’t know why the difference. Maybe because diplomats treat secrets like currency — the more they have, the more they can spend at opportune moments — but captains and Explorers treat secrets like bombs to be disarmed: nobody tells us classified information until it’s festered into a crisis we’re expected to fix.

"When the majority of Fuentes transformed themselves," Festina said, "a few couldn’t bring themselves to take the plunge. Too afraid of radical change. Personally, I don’t blame them. Who wouldn’t be horrified by the thought of becoming a mound of jelly? I’d consider it healthy to say, ‘Fuck that,’ and get on with your life.

"But those who refused to ascend," she said, "never forgot what they’d turned down. It must have preyed on their minds constantly; they just couldn’t get past it. I suppose they might have been lonely — missing the world and the people they’d known. Perhaps they also suffered from survivor guilt… or shame. Anyway, the holdouts never made anything of themselves; they just wandered the galaxy in the last Fuentes starship, no purpose but listless survival. The only work they could bring themselves to do was to sabotage up-and-coming races they thought might eventually become threats… but even for that, they couldn’t muster much energy. As if they’d died when the rest of their kind ascended.

"So one by one, the remaining Fuentes gave in. They still had the means to transform themselves; and each year, a few of the holdouts decided that risking change was better than centuries of going nowhere. By the time I found where they’d been hiding, there were only two left — two pathetic specimens. Physically, they were fine, even after six millennia. Las Fuentes must have had superb antiaging treatments. But mentally… what would you expect from creatures who’d lived a hundred lifetimes in fear of taking a leap of faith? I admire caution, but eventually one’s spirit shrivels. The last two Fuentes were the most soul-shriveled beings I’ve ever encountered."