So the Fasskisters’ home had probably been filled with their own native versions of nice little woods, quiet meadows, and the occasional rustic village. Now it was filled with Balrog, and it looked like some classic version of hell: scarlet, scarlet everywhere, like fire and lava and blood.
The orbital had a long white sun, kind of a fluorescent light tube stretching down the middle of the cylinder; but here on the ground, the whiteness of the shine was tinted crimson as far as the eye could see — as if we’d stepped inside a cherry-hot blast oven. The temperature was actually a bit cool, but the sheer look of the place made me break into a sweat.
"Dante would have been proud," Festina murmured, staring at it all. The red light shone up from the ground onto her face, casting weird shadows and giving her eyes little pinpoint dots of scarlet. I didn’t like the effect.
"What do we do?" I asked.
"Damned if I know," she answered. Looking off to our right, she said, "There’s a village over there. Let’s see if anyone’s around."
As soon as we aimed ourselves in that direction, the moss in front of our feet slipped aside to let us pass. Underneath was bare dirt. There must have been plants here once, grass or vegetables or something; but the Balrog had eaten clean down to the soil, gobbling whatever it found. It had probably eaten the support life too — all the worms and bugs and bacteria that orbitals need to keep the land healthy. The little animals weren’t sentient, so they were fair game for food… but still. It made me kind of squeamish to think of them getting dissolved by mossy digestive juices.
The path continued to open in front of us… and close in behind us. Not comforting. But the moss kept its distance, sifting away like drifting snow as we approached the village.
The huts in the village were half-sphere domes molded from glassy crystal, with millions of facets catching the light. The light was crimson, of course, glinting as if each dome was a cut-glass bowl plopped over a campfire. Twelve huts in all, and nobody in sight… till we got to the central square and found a single lumpy figure.
When Fasskisters aren’t dressed as some other species, they live inside "utility bots" — egg-shaped torsos with all kinds of legs and arms. I truly mean all kinds: ones that are clearly mechanical, as well as ones that mimic other species. If ever they have to deal with human technology, for example, it’s useful to have a human-shaped arm with lifelike human fingers; makes it easier to punch buttons, lift levers, and all that. So a utility bot is designed to have one of everything… a human arm, a human leg, a Mandasar Cheejretha, a pincer, a tentacle, a pseudopod, and so on.
Of course, these weren’t exact duplicates of the original limbs; since the robot had no head, each arm had its own eyes… and maybe ears and nose too. I can’t tell you how the Fasskister in the central egg keeps track of sixteen eyes at once, but I guess that’s none of my business. Anyway, it didn’t matter to this particular Fasskister: all its eyes and arms and everything were completely clogged over with moss. It had to be blind; it also seemed to be frozen in place, as if all that fuzz had gummed up its works.
"Aw," Festina said, "poor Tin Man. Need some oil?"
A strangled sound came from inside… maybe the actual voice of a Fasskister: what you got when you shut down the electronic amplifiers they usually used for speaking. It didn’t sound like words, at least not in English. I’d heard people say Fasskisters always spoke their own language; then circuitry in their suits converted their speech to a language their listeners understood.
Festina lifted her hand to her throat. "Kaisho," she said, "can you clean this guy off?"
Kaisho’s whisper sounded over our receivers. "Why would I want to do that?"
"To keep from pissing me off," Festina told her. "One. Two. Three…"
Like sand spilling through an hourglass, spores began to tumble off the Fasskister in front of us — clearing the tips of his uppermost arms and slowly sliding downward, leaving behind bare metal and plastic. I didn’t know which was more mind-boggling: that all these flecks of inanimate moss were moving of their own accord, or that Kaisho, way back in Jacaranda, could know which particular Fasskister we were looking at. And that she or her Balrog joyrider had some way of telling the spores in front of us, "Please, clear off, thanks so much."
The spores continued to fall. Suddenly, one of the Fasskister’s metal arms gave a twitch. Its wrist rotated through a complete circle, then its first elbow twisted most of the way around too, till the glass sensor on the hand’s thumb pointed directly at Festina and me. From the robot’s chest, a deep male voice said, "Humans?"
"Greetings," Festina said with a slight bow. "We are sentient citizens of the League of Peoples. We beg your Hospitality."
The Fasskister swung his arm and nearly took off her head.
Festina didn’t just duck; she deflected the swing with a quick little forearm block that flicked over and turned into a grab. Almost instantly she tugged on the robot’s wrist, pulling the whole Fasskister forward. At the same moment, her knee came up hard. The effect was the robot getting yanked into a very nice knee strike that landed CLANG against the machine’s metal chest.
On a human, the blow would have broken ribs. On the robot it didn’t leave a dent, but I could hear something go THUNK. It sounded like the flesh-and-blood Fasskister smacking against the walls of his robot housing.
I jumped forward to help, grabbing two more arms (one light and spidery, the other wide and chunky). Festina yelled, "Lift!" and together we heaved the Fasskister off the ground. He didn’t weigh much, but he’d started to wave his limbs wildly — not trying to wrestle us, more like a panicked attempt to get away, but I still got clonked a few good ones.
Festina snagged another of his arms with her free hand and shouted at the egg-shaped torso, "Settle down, or we’ll throw you into the moss. I mean it. We don’t want to hurt you, but if you can’t behave, we’ll toss you and find someone who can."
The Fasskister continued to flail about. Festina met my eye, and together we swung him back for a big throw, the way kids do when they’re about to chuck someone into a swimming pool. "Last chance," Festina said to the Fasskister. "That moss sure looks hungry."
For once, the Balrog decided to play along — the patch of moss in front of us flared up fiery bright, like hell flames leaping to catch another sinner. The Fasskister gave a mousy shriek and went completely limp.
Slowly, regretfully, the Balrog settled back into its usual dull glow.
"That’s better," Festina said. Keeping a tight hold on the robot’s arms, we lowered it until its feet touched the ground. Bare dirt — the Balrog had pulled back a few paces so we had a little circle of clear space in the middle of the village square. "No place to run," Festina told the Fasskister as she let go of the robot’s wrist. "You be nice, and we’ll be nice."
"He’ll be nice?" the Fasskister asked, pointing at me.
"Sure," I answered, confused by the question. "Why wouldn’t I be nice?"
"I know you," he said. "You are definitely not nice."
Festina opened her eyes wide in surprise. I was surprised myself; but then I remembered how the Fasskisters on this orbital had been booted off Troyen for causing trouble, back before the war. For all I knew, this guy might have been stuck inside a queen robot on that first night, when Sam got me to crush the crystal globe and discombobulate them all. Or he might have been one of the many Fasskisters who’d been banished personally by the high queen, while I stood solemn-faced beside Verity’s throne. He might just have despised me because I was tied to the whole system of monarchy, or because I was Diplomat Samantha’s brother — the Fasskister community never liked her much either. All kinds of reasons why I might not be popular with this fellow.