Shunyata [Sanskrit]: The trait of being transitory and interconnected with other things. No thing is absolute or complete in itself. Where, for example, is a chair’s chairness? Not in any of its parts: a chair leg is not a chair; a backrest is not a chair. But even a complete assemblage of chair parts is not enough for chairness. Chairs can be chairs only in appropriate environments — they need gravity, a species whose anatomy can fit into the chair, and various other external conditions. Chairness is therefore not a property of a particular object, but a set of relationships between the object and external factors. This quality is shunyata… often translated as "emptiness." In isolation, a chair may exist as an object but it’s "empty." Chairness arises only when the object relates in a specific way to the rest of the world.

I ate more that breakfast than at any other meal in my life. And I’d never been a hesitant eater: my high-powered gene-spliced metabolism always needed plenty of fuel. But that morning, I surpassed all previous records. I just couldn’t stop shoveling in food.

The phrase "eating for two" kept echoing in my head. I pictured the Balrog siphoning off my intake, not letting a single mouthful reach my stomach… but even that image wasn’t enough to slow me down. I remained so hungry I found myself casting ardent looks at the mess’s meat section — bacon, sausage, kippers, and slabs of dead animal I couldn’t even identify — to the point where I might have renounced my lifelong vegetarianism if Tut hadn’t walked in the door.

He was looking surprisingly dapper, with his face burnished far beyond his usual shiny-finey standards. Gold glinted like pure rich honey under the mess’s bright morning lights; either Tut had found some new metal polish or he’d spent untold hours buffing it to a perfect mirror surface.

"Hey, Mom," he said, "I’ve been looking for you. Were you messing with the door to the equipment room? It’s locked, and it won’t let me in."

"Festina did that. Admiral Ramos. She won’t let us near the equipment, for fear we’d do something bad."

Tut made a noise like his feelings had been hurt. I told him, "Don’t pout, it’s mostly me she mistrusts. Or rather, the Balrog inside me."

"Huh." He looked down at the dishes all around my place at the table. There was nothing for him to steal this time — I’d eaten everything and practically licked the plates clean. "So when do we get to this planet?" he asked.

I tongued a control on the roof of my mouth. In the bottom corner of my right eye, a digital time readout appeared. "We’ll be there in two hours," I told him. "Do you know what we’re doing once we arrive?"

"Auntie gave me the basics last night. Mystery threat. Search for survivors. Save anyone we find. I’m also supposed to stun the knickers off you if the Balrog tries any tricks."

"Good luck. You’ll need it."

My sixth sense was still in perfect working order; I hadn’t asked the Balrog to turn it off after the previous night. Not only did I know the position of everything near me, including objects behind my back and out of sight around corners, but I’d begun perceiving life forces again. If Tut decided to shoot me, his intention would ring out loud and clear from his aura: enough warning to let me dodge, or even shoot him first.

It seemed unfair, in a way — having this extra edge over Tut’s mere human perceptions. But if I asked the Balrog to turn the sixth sense off, what good would that do? The Balrog itself would still have its full mental awareness; Tut and everyone else would still be at a disadvantage relative to the spores. So why should I blind myself when it wouldn’t help anyone? Staying augmented put me on a more even footing with the moss inside me. It might even give me the strength to resist any power plays the Balrog might attempt.

Yes. I’d keep the sixth sense for the time being.

As soon as I’d made that decision, my voracious hunger abated. It felt like a return to sanity.

A short time later, Festina called to say that Tut and I could check out the tightsuits we’d wear for the landing. She let us into the equipment area one at a time and kept close watch on everything we did.

I wasn’t allowed to touch anything except my own suit. Festina said she’d checked the other equipment herself. I couldn’t help asking a barrage of questions, mostly about how Festina had dealt with new gear and procedures — things that had changed since she’d been on active Explorer duty. But it turned out "Auntie" Festina had kept up with recent developments in the Explorer Corps: she’d done everything exactly the way I would have. She even let me look at the results of diagnostic tests she’d run earlier that morning. All equipment was working at optimal.

Once we’d finished with the tightsuits, Festina took Tut and me to the bridge, where she seated herself at the seldom-used Explorers’ console. Sometime during the night, she’d programmed four probe missiles to perform initial reconnaissance on the site where we’d land. The missiles would be sent down as soon as Pistachio reached Muta orbit. Based on their data, we’d decide how to proceed.

"And what site are we going to?" I asked.

"The one that sent the Mayday."

Festina turned a dial on her console, and the bridge’s vidscreen changed to show a satellite photo of Muta — one of hundreds included in the files we’d received from the Unity. A red dot glowed in the middle of a region that looked like a vast plain. "The Unity called this Camp Esteem." She made a face. "Typical Unity name. It happens to be the newest camp on the planet… so the survey team was fresher than any other team in residence. Maybe that’s why they managed to get out a call for help when all the other teams went without a peep. Or not. It could just be coincidence."

"If that’s the most recent site developed," I said, "it should be close to Fuentes ruins. The last four teams were all investigating Las Fuentes."

"I know. Team Esteem was poking through an abandoned Fuentes city they code-named Drill-Press." Festina made another face. I knew from the files I’d read that the Unity had named all of Muta’s geography after wholesomely useful tools. (I was glad we weren’t going anywhere near the Fuentes city called Reciprocating Saw.)

Festina went back to the satellite photo. "For the sake of caution, the Unity surveyors didn’t pitch camp inside the city — they set up quarters a short distance away." She zoomed the view on the vidscreen. "That’s the city, Drill-Press, in the lower half of the picture. You’ll notice a good-sized river running through downtown. The river’s called Grindstone. The Unity camp is here: fifteen minutes upstream from the city."

The original photo had shown a good chunk of the continent, so the zoom had disappointingly crude resolution — pixels the size of fingerprints, with a chunky lack of detail. Nevertheless, I could make out the features Festina had described. A good-sized river ran vertically down the center of the shot; it had a few gentle curves, but essentially flowed north to south (according to a legend in a corner of the picture). In the north, just west of the river, the Unity camp was highlighted with a digitally superimposed red circle. A cluster of prefab buildings lay within the circle: twelve small huts (living quarters for the survey team’s dozen members) and four larger units… a mess hall, a lab, an equipment maintenance shop, and a general storage area.

To the south, near the bottom of the photograph, lay the Fuentes city. Drill-Press. Even after sixty-five hundred years, it was easy to identify. This was not some Old Earth archeological site where primitive peoples built houses from sticks; on Muta, the "ruins" had fifty-story skyscrapers made from high-tech construction materials… materials as good or better than the self-repairing chintah in Zoonau. Las Fuentes had been more advanced than the Cashlings, and this city must have been constructed near the height of Fuentes achievement. It was hard to see much on the poor-resolution aerial photo, but none of the buildings showed obvious damage. Most of the roofs had rectangular cross sections, and I noticed no irregularities that might indicate holes, or edges eroded away. All of Drill-Press seemed structurally intact; "ruins" in name only. At ground level, the city was likely a mess — in six and a half millennia, the river must have flooded its banks on numerous occasions, leaving silt and water damage on the buildings’ bottom floor — but floodwaters wouldn’t have climbed much higher. Damage on upper floors would come from other sources: insects and other local wildlife. Mold. Mildew. Microbial rot.