Free Radiant by James Alan Gardner

enough to be felt despite the tightsuit's protection. Radio static roared in my ears. The heads-up display in my visor went black. A wind ripped the Bumbler from my hands, and a moment later, I felt the little machine's shoulder strap break. The Bumbler bounced away in the tempest, but I didn't see or hear it go—the only noise was static, and the only sight an impenetrable onslaught of spores.
    Pouches tore off my belt. My backpack flew away. Even the weight of my stun-pistol, holstered at my hip, suddenly departed as the gun was snatched by the gale.
    Then, abruptly, the fury ceased. Replaced by deep silence. The blinding red chaos was sucked away, leaving only a glimpse of the last spores sailing up out of sight into the sky.
    Afternoon sun poured painfully bright through the dome. The glass was clear. The buildings had returned to their dull gray. The patches of moss where Cashlings had been rolling were gone, revealing nothing but bare chintah.
    The Balrog had abandoned Zoonau. Just like that. Not a single spore left in sight.
    "Uhh, Mom..."
    Tut still lay on the roof tiles. I looked down. He pointed to my feet.
    Both my boots were covered with spores, like fuzzy red slippers. I did nothing but stare at them dumbly—like a villain in a cheap action virtie, who looks down in surprise to see she's been shot through the heart.
    "Oh," I said. "Oh."
    My boots vanished like smoke. The rest of my tightsuit too—totally consumed as the spores chewed upward, faster than the speed of thought. Even my helmet didn't slow the spores down: they slashed past my eyes in a wash of crimson, leaving nothing behind but the touch of a light spring breeze blowing against my skin.
    My suit was completely gone, eaten by the Balrog. Now all I wore was the thin, thigh-high chemise that most women put on under tightsuits for protection against chafing.
    I looked at my feet again. The fuzzy red "slippers" were gone. Just two spores left, one on each foot, glowing in the center of each instep like Christian stigmata. I closed my eyes.
    Two little kisses of pain, no worse than mosquito bites, piercing the flesh of my feet. When I opened my eyes again, I saw two pinpricks of blood, nothing more. They barely showed on my skin.
    But now, the spores were inside me.
     
    I felt nothing. Like Kaisho Namida, I couldn't sense the Balrog as it colonized my tissues. Still, I had no doubt I was rapidly becoming riddled with spores. My heart. My womb. My brain. Perhaps my nervous system was screaming in agony, but the spores invading my brain didn't let the pain register in my consciousness.
    "Oh, Mom," said Tut. "You got bitten."
    "I know."
    "By the Balrog."
    "I know."
    "It's in your feet."
    "I know."
    "They gotta come off."
    "What?"
    Tut didn't answer. He scuttled across the roof tiles to a half-open equipment pouch that had fallen off my belt. My first-aid kit had slipped partway out of the pouch. Tut grabbed the kit, opened it, took out a scalpel.
    "If those things spread, Mom, you're in trouble."
    "They've already spread, Tut. They're deep inside me."
    "You don't know that. They could just be nibbling your toes."
    "Tut, when the Balrog attacked Kaisho Namida—"
    "When the Balrog attacked Kaisho Namida," Tut interrupted, "her partner didn't do shit. Maybe he could have saved her."
    "He didn't do anything because she was infested from head to toe in seconds."
    "How did he know?"
    "He scanned her with his Bumbler."
    Tut shrugged. "We don't have a Bumbler."
    It was true. His had disappeared during the emergency evac explosion; mine had been torn away during the Balrog's departure.
    "Gotta cut off your feet," Tut said again.
    I took a step back from him. "It won't help."
    "It might. You never know."
    I backed another step. "I'll bleed to death."
    He gave me a withering look. "Think I don't know about tourniquets? And I ran past a hospital on my way in. Less than five minutes away. No problem."
    "Then get me to the hospital, Tut." Another step back. "Don't cut