“Ah.” The cardinal held up a whiskey tumbler and smiled contentedly at us. “This is why we are here, is it not? We are the ones who understand: Above all, you have to have faith. Cheers.” He downed the shot in one.

—

I got back to my yurt and sniffed cautiously. Sure enough, there was a melange of spice, flower perfume, and cologne. I went into the bathroom area and carefully opened the cupboard doors. The eggs had hatched, producing five hundred flies that were crawling sluggishly all over the shelf. Most of the nutrient in the glasses had been consumed.

I told Sandjay to switch on my emitter peripheral. The tiny lens embedded in my left eye began to shine ultraviolet light across the seething mass of insects. These flies had synthetic eight-letter DNA, which, as well as accelerating their pupae stage, gave them a neuroprocessor instead of a natural brain. My ultraviolet pulse triggered a full boot-up, which took about a second. In response, they all activated their emitters. The cupboard was doused in ultraviolet light as the linc program connected them into a coherent swarm.

Data splashed down my tarsus lenses. Hatching rate had been over ninety percent successful. Malformation rate was under two percent. Linc connection was enacted. I had a viable swarm, each one endowed with a biosensor capable of detecting a quantum spatial entanglement, courtesy of their eight-letter DNA. Individually, the detector worked at extremely short range—just a couple of meters. Collectively, that sense was expanded by two orders of magnitude.

Now all I had to do was get the swarm to the general area where we suspected the portals were situated: biochamber four.

Sections of my bagez unclipped into a series of innocuous rods and rings. But clipped together in the right sequence they became basic tools—spanner, screwdriver, pliers…I took the panel off the side of the bath and set about opening the hatch cover underneath. Like the rest of the bathroom, it was human built, with locknuts on each corner that had stiffened over time. After plenty of sweaty effort I got them all off and levered the hatch up. No matter what angle I looked at it, that opening was not large. Getting through was going to be tight and most likely painful. But other agents had gotten through on scouting runs, so—