The Epiglottis
The ridge was like a fortress of cartilage that was carved out of one piece, a huge, grey-yellow arc looking down the dark hole into the Maw's throat. Taste-Guard with their dampener pylons had established a base there, making a very unstable bubble of quiet against the Breath's wild psychic wind.
From there, they had a view of the Tongue Altar, or rather what was there now.
Leo Vance's crew had not been idle. The pointy thing that Cassandra had noticed was now absolutely obvious—a terrifying heap of interlaced bone, glowing fungus, and twisting mycelium cables. It seemed to have been grown rather than constructed, like a bug cathedral suddenly appeared out of the holy harvest place. The figures moving on it could be seen, small and dark against the light.
Captain Rhodes observed through her scope, her lips pressed together tightly. "They have barricaded themselves at the Altar. That thing is preventing us from getting to the main taste buds. Adler can't do the inventory if he can't see straight."
Adler, fiddling with his gloves inside his suit, looked over the edge and whispered, "It's impossible! The Taste of Form buds are just beneath that… that heap! We have to get rid of it!"
Rhodes lowered her scope and said, "Clear it is a risky move, Quartermaster, as it is a place where the defenders are most potent. Those people who know this area more than we do have made it. We would lose if we launched an offensive. Besides, it would be like starting a war with the Mycelian Symbiotes, which the Cardinalate hasn't done yet."
"They are a bunch of weirdos living on holy ground! Their mere presence here is like waging war against the Chain of Sustenance!" Adler's voice went much higher. "Your job is to do the inventory! I am telling you that thing is in the way and it must be taken off!"
Rhodes looked him straight in the eye. He stepped back from her stare. "My job is to ensure the safety of this trip and to get the inventory done. I will be the one to decide how," she said. She looked at Cassandra, who was standing a little distance away with her head tilted as if listening to a faint tune. "Vaughn. Your… thing. Can you sense what they are doing? Will they be attacking?"
Cassandra closed her eyes. The Breath was carrying whispers, but beneath that, through the feeble mycelium link she had established over the years on the Silent Sea, she sensed something else. A deep, regular beat. Not a heart. A reason.
"They are not attacking," she said in a low voice. "They are… repairing. The thing is not just a fort. It is a bandage. They have attached their symbionts directly to the Altar that is a sore spot. A very bad one. They are trying to close it."
"A sore spot? From what?" Rhodes inquired.
Cassandra's eyes were wide open, and she recalled the very first cut. "From us. From the harvests of the past years. The Tongue Altar is not even a place. It is a wound that hasn't been given the chance to heal. They are healing it."
Adler laughed mockingly. "That's insane! The holy harvest is a sacred talk. It doesn't cause sores!"
"Every cut leaves a sore," said Cassandra with her voice gradually becoming louder. "Even a good one. The core of their belief system is about a wound that never heals. The Symbiotes see themselves as the god's immune system. And down here… it's quite difficult to say that they are not."
There was silence except for the Breath that was sighing.
Then, a sound. A thin, sharp whistle, severing the low rumble. It was coming from the area where the Symbiote thing was.
Something long and thin made of hard fungus was thrown over the dampener field and landed a few feet away from them with a soft thud. It did not explode. Along with it, there was something like string with which a rolled-up piece of cured skin was tied.
A note.
Rhodes looked for traps on it and then took it. She unrolled it. The writing was not made by ink, but by glowing spores that were pressed into the skin. It was a map of the Maw, and few simple pictures that conveyed: the Cult's harvest tools, crossed out. The Symbiote thing, still standing. Then, the entire Maw, closed tight.
"They are not saying that they will attack," Rhodes said in a flat tone. "They are giving us a final offer. Stop harvesting at the Altar. Leave. Or, if they will be the ones who stop healing and start fighting." She glanced at the eerie, glowing tower. "They will try to close the Maw."
Adler laughed, but his laughter was shaky and nervous. "That's absurd! They can't… it's the god's mouth!"
"They see themselves as the god's body," Cassandra whispered. "And a body, when it is sick, will sometimes close off a hole to protect itself. Even if it's its own mouth."
Rhodes studied the note. Her orderly trained brain was having a hard time with a crazy choice. To do as Adler wishes, make use of the "sanctioned harvest" thing, and hit the defensive spot that is a wound. Or, yield to the weirdos, leave, and return to Sanctum as a failure of the Cardinal's important task.
Both choices were awful. One was quick and violent. The other was slow, a political problem, and would get her expelled while her son would be left without protection.
The Breath was still sighing around her, tasting like ozone and impossible choices.
"Pack up," Captain Joan Rhodes said, her voice lacking any emotion. "We are heading back to the lift platform."
Adler was about to argue.
She interrupted him with a look. "We are not in a position to fight a long battle here. I will inform the Cardinalate about the problem. The decision will be theirs as to what comes next. Our task at this point is to remain safe."
The team was moving quickly, but Cassandra took a moment to herself, staring down at the glowing bandage-cathedral. She sent a tiny wave of thought, not through the mycelium, but via the older, sadder way of her soul. A feeling of knowing. Of seeing the wound and being seen.
One fungus spire from the thing below lit up, more than the others.
They knew.
The immune system had given its warning. Now the infection had to decide what to do.