Chrys stared until the wall’s sickly green swam before her eyes.
“The gum tissue is thin, the capillaries right near the surface. I pressed my teeth at his neck, then counted the seconds for two long minutes.” He took a breath. “They were there, all right. Barely a thousand of them, half children—they had their priorities straight. And they’d saved all their records—every damn plan of everything they ever built, all bundled up in nano-cells.”
Saf would have sucked her blood for ace, thought Chrys. Daeren had sucked Titan’s, for Fern and Poppy. “So why didn’t you keep them?”
“We gave them their own cistern of arachnoid, and let them grow to ten thousand. I let them visit my eyes every hour around the clock. But it wasn’t enough. Every day, all they asked was, ‘When can we have our new world? The Promised World? The Blind God promised.’ Every day, for seven days.” Seven generations.
“What did Titan promise?”
Daeren shook his head. “Whatever Titan promised, there’s a long waiting list for carriers. The Eleutherians were lucky enough to settle with me. But I was never good enough,” he added bitterly. “They wouldn’t even let me grant them names. They built their own city; they never let their children mix with blue angels. I guess mine weren’t smart enough for them.” He paused, considering. “I could have had my visual spectrum expanded to please them, but I was too proud. I do things my own way.” Finally he looked at Chrys. “You were at the top of the list—clean living, professional, free of addiction. And you see infrared.”
Chrys nodded slowly. “You were so anxious to pass them on.”
“We should have waited till after your show,” he admitted. “But after seven sleepless nights, I’d had enough.” He nodded. “By the way, oral transmission gets you locked away for life. Subsection oh-one-A.”
He had risked that much to rescue Eleutherians, yet they gave him nothing but grief. How dismally human.
“God of Mercy,” came Fern’s letters. “Aster and I are ready to help you with your work.”
“We’ll see about that,” Chrys told them. “We’re starting over with some new rules. Ten Commandments.”
“Yes, Oh Great One.”
“First, you will obey every word I say, and keep out of my brain cells.”
“We will obey.”
“Second, you’ll let me sleep as long as I want every night.”
“That will be no problem now.”
“You will write a book about all the reasons you are grateful to live inside my head, and read it out to me every morning.”
“Every day. And what else?”
“Just go back to number one.” Enough playing god; she’d make herself sick.
Doctor Sartorius returned with his worms, their tool-shaped ends smoothed away. “How do you feel, Chrysoberyl?”
On the holostage, the quiet beach reappeared. Chrys turned to watch, trying to relax while the doctor’s worms probed her scalp. “They say I can sleep okay now,” she told the doctor. “Is that right? I thought their population was only half grown.”
An inset box displayed the luminous red S-curve. At the midpoint blinked a marker, about five hundred thousand. Yet the number of children had fallen off. “Once they’ve passed half way,” Sartorius explained, “their rate of increase levels off, so the proportion of children declines sharply.”
Daeren agreed. “The elders should have things under control. But never take them for granted.”
“So I can go home?” she asked hopefully.
“You’ll stay here under observation. Until the chief lets you go.”
From her hospital bed, Chrys checked her online gallery. Most of her new works displayed correctly, though Turquoise Moon needed more contrast. Her credit balance showed a third digit; one piece had sold. That meant she could pay her next rent.
But none of her friends called. They didn’t know, she told herself. Or else Pearl had told them all. Either way, she had no heart to reach them.
“Oh Great One, we are ready to serve you.”
Microbial friends—was that all she had left? All they had was her, exiled forever from their great dynatect. Suddenly she called the holostage. “Show me the dynatect Titan.”
The stage asked, “Alive or dead?”
“Before he died.”
The holostage filled with full-spectrum footage. There stood Titan, amidst a cloud of snake egg reporters. His talar, draped half open to reveal gold nanotex, was trimmed with infrared that few Valans could see, a pose of casual arrogance. His face had a prominent forehead, eyes wide, yet somehow drawn inward.
A snake egg asked him about the Comb. “Some say, Lord Titan, that you yourself did not really build the Comb; you were just a culture dish for those who did. Is it true?”
Titan’s head expanded to fill the stage. “The Comb was made by the lights of Eleutheria. The light of Truth, ever true to its nature; of Beauty, the kind of beauty to draw the awe of generations; of Sacrifice, of only the best and finest materials…” As he spoke, his irises lit up, rings of infrared.
Chrys felt a chill. “Fern…was that Poppy?”
“That was Poppy.”
“What did she say?”
“She said that the Comb was nothing compared to what we planned next.”
Chrys swallowed hard. “She did not live to see.”
“She lived to see a god die. The gods rarely let us see that and live.”
They should have died with Titan; but Daeren broke the rule. Her scalp prickled. “Do any others yet live, who remember?”
“Only I remember. The others know only you, and your act of mercy.”
“What do you remember of the Blind God?”
“When the blindness came, I starved. My cell ate its own proteins and half my memory DNA. I remember only the sketch of one future creation, for the God of the Map Stone. This god bears a remarkable stone, a map of the universe.”
Their next commission; that would be the one thing they’d recall. “Who was the God of the Map Stone? What other gods did you know?”
“Our god was tested once in my lifetime, by the Lord of Light.” Only once? Of course, every two weeks, and micros lived but a month or two. Two weeks with Chrys, and before that…Fern must be getting up in years. “That time, the Lord of Light was angry. He said our god let us ‘push the edge.’”
Chrys smiled. That was what she told Merope when the cat jumped up on the table at supper. Suddenly she remembered, her cats had had no food. She called her apartment to view them. Merope lay curled up asleep, while Alcyone prowled ghostlike through the volcanoes. She told the universal dispenser to put out food.
Late that afternoon, Andra returned. The sight of her brought back Chrys’s memory of pain; she felt faint, but she made herself stand. She observed Andra more closely than before. The chief had a few lines in her forehead, suggesting she had chosen “Distinguished.” Her eyes burned violet, a hellish bright that made Chrys look away. Or was it her own people who did not want to look?
“Please, God of Mercy,” begged Fern. “It’s too soon for the Thundergod. We saw the judges take our children.”
Chrys guessed this would not do; she had to keep her eyes steady, or the chief would keep her in the hospital. “It’s been eight years. You must visit the Thundergod. I decree it.”
Their eyes locked for what seemed an eternity. At last Andra nodded, then put a patch at her neck.
“Not the judges, God of Mercy. Don’t let the judges come back.”
Chrys took a breath. “If you’ve behaved, you have nothing to fear.”
“The judges wanted us all dead with the Blind God.”
The Watcher, Delphinium, flickered blue. “The judges must come. It is the law.”
She looked at the patch in Andra’s hand. “I’m the God of Mercy. I will protect you,” she promised. She put the patch at her neck.
At last the chief nodded, seeming satisfied. “You have a choice,” she said. “You may stay here under observation,
the rest of the week. Or you may go home tonight with Opal.”
Opal smiled apologetically. “I’m so sorry,” the round-faced designer told Chrys. “I should have stopped by your home before, but I’m working day and night on these new cardiac nanos.”
Another treatment her brother could not afford. “That’s okay, you don’t want to see where I live.”
Opal impulsively took both Chrys’s hands. “It’s so good to see you, after all we’ve heard. Are the Eleutherians there? Are they earning their AZ? Can we have a peek?” Like visiting a new baby. The rings round Opal’s eyes twinkled several colors.
“The God of Wisdom!” called Fern. “Please, God of Mercy, let us visit; we have not seen the wizards in ten generations.”
Opal already had a transfer patch at her neck. “Do you mind? We assume everyone wants to ‘visit.’ If not, just say no.” She quickly placed the patch at Chrys’s neck. Chrys drew back, not used to being touched like that.
“Transfer done.” The letters were yellow.
“How about yours?”
“You can visit,” Chrys told Fern.
“Ready to go.”
She put a patch at her neck, then hesitantly raised it to Opal. Opal’s neck was smooth and white. Chrys felt embarrassed.
For a moment Opal stared; then she laughed. “Eleutherians—they’re just the same!” She shook her head in wonder. “After all they’ve gone through. Most strains protect their own DNA, but Eleutherians just want to get everyone’s brightest children.”
Chrys crossed her arms. “Are your ‘wizards’ bright enough?” she demanded. “Do they have good jobs? Are their parents respectable?”
“Of course they have good jobs,” said Opal indignantly. “Didn’t you see the news?” She held up a viewcoin.
Grains of cardioplast that rebuilt aging muscle cell by cell. The replay filled Chrys’s window, happy sprites with Plan Ten planning to live another two hundred years. Even happier sprites planning to make a billion credits. Yet Opal herself was not mentioned.
“That was ours,” insisted Opal. “Most carriers keep their names out of the news.”
“Not Titan.”
Opal nodded. “We don’t want to end like Titan. Too much fear and jealousy—but that will change. You’ll see.” She sounded as if trying to convince herself. Then she smiled, her dimples returning. “You and I have lots in common. I work at the Comb, and my wife Selenite’s a dynatect like you. She can’t wait to meet the new Eleutheria.”
“I’m no dynatect,” Chrys insisted.
“That’s right, volcanoes. Not so different, is it? I mean, volcanoes build up from below. Come, I’m sure you’ve had enough of the hospital. The lightcraft’s waiting.”
Chrys had never ridden a lightcraft. Outside, she eyed it warily, a giant squashed egg rimmed by rectennas; she half expected a couple of Elves to come out. Instead, she followed Opal inside. The door’s lips smacked shut. “Seat yourself,” ordered the lightcraft. From its walls came giant fingers, curving over to strap her down. Her stomach lurched as the city dropped sickeningly away below.
Opal relaxed beneath her straps. “Selenite does testing for the committee.” One of the other seven votes. “Did Daeren tell you how the committee works?”
Chrys shook her head, still trying to steady her stomach.
“We all adore Daeren, but he tends to see everything from the micros’ point of view.”
The lightcraft dipped, its descent even worse than the climb. Chrys closed her eyes and held her breath. At last the craft settled, and the straps fell away. Her steps still unsteady, she followed Opal out to the street. Tall, forbidding towers seemed to say, starving artists don’t belong here. “Andra’s different,” Chrys remembered. “Andra gives them no slack.”
“Andra’s a lawyer—an entire law firm, actually. She takes care of all the hospital malpractice.”
“I see.” Things were starting to fit. “Does Sartorius often need her services?”
“Andra and the good doctor are a pair.”
“What?” exclaimed Chrys. “You mean she’s a worm lover?”
Opal paused at a ramp leading up into a dark, discreetly intimidating tower of plast. “Don’t be provincial, dear,” she said. “They actually got married, out on Solaris where it’s legal. Sar runs our clinic, and Andra defends our right to exist. Without them, we’d be gone.”
Chrys was repulsed. “How could anyone stand it?”
Opal shrugged. “How he looks, alone with her, is anyone’s guess.”
Chrys followed Opal up the ramp. The ramp began to rise; Chrys had to catch herself.
“Watch your step, Ladies,” breathed the building. Plast all over; rather live plast for her taste. Chrys hoped its roots below were healthy.
“Keep still,” advised Opal. “The house knows where we’re headed.”
The live walkway carried them inward and upward. Light revealed a vast virtual wilderness—a forest of redwoods, taller than the eye could see, their canopy crowding out the sky. Amazed, Chrys caught herself on a soft railing.
Opal guided her to an artfully placed tree branch that offered drinks and plates of AZ. Out of the forest emerged a petite woman with black curls. Her nanotex pulsed black and gold, and her jewels swam attractively around her waist. Opal clasped her arm and gave her a kiss, while they exchanged a patch at the neck.
“Chrys, I’m Selenite.” A dynatect, Opal had said. “How’s Eleutheria?” Selenite’s delicate fingers held out a patch; the standard ritual, Chrys realized.
“The Deathlord,” Fern told her. “This god puts all dissenters to death.”
Chrys blinked. Deathlord? The woman had fine, delicate fingers, no muscles to speak of. Her pupils twinkled reddish orange.
“The Deathlord’s minions want to visit us. Is it safe?”
“She’s a dynatect. Don’t you want help with your work?” Hesitantly Chrys raised the patch to her neck.
“We never need help with our great work. Others seek help from us, but we are too busy.”
Microbes with attitude. Maybe this “Deathlord” would give them a scare. “I bid you visit them.” She held the patch to Selenite’s neck.
“Remember to touch my hand first,” Selenite warned. “To make sure of consent.”
Opal waved her hand. “Chrys is just learning. Relax, we’re at home.”
“She won’t always be at home. Chrys, we’re so glad you pulled through. I know it’s a challenge to manage Eleutheria.” She sounded doubtful that Chrys was up to it.
“Have something,” Opal urged.
A drink emerged from a shelf in the “tree.” Blended fruits, like the first bloom of summer. Chrys savored the taste on her tongue. “Where do all the…gods’ names come from?”
Selenite motioned to a seat, disguised as a polished stump; its plast molded gracefully to seat her. How the other half-a-percent lives. “I earn my name.”
Opal’s dimples showed. “The micros know us remarkably well.” Well enough to flatter, Chrys guessed. “They name their populations, too.”
“Like ‘Eleutheria’?” asked Chrys.
“Eleutheria is our formal name for your strain. It means ‘free spirit.’ But micros call other strains by informal epithets, such as ‘wizards’ or ‘blue angels.’”
“What do they call mine?”
“It’s rather crude, I’m afraid.”
Selenite said, “A loose translation would be ‘libertines.’”
Opal explained, “It means they let their children mate with any kind of people.”
Chrys narrowed her eyes. “Any bright enough.” Just what she needed—microbes with a reputation.
Selenite’s eyes had been flashing busily. She drew closer. “Chrys, your people tell me they kept all the plans of the Comb.”
“So I hear.”
“Amazing,” whispered Selenite, shaking her head. “Listen. I have this contract for structural improvement.”
“Improvement? On the Comb?”
>
“It ought to have been Titan’s job, but Titan, shall we say, took little interest in…”
“Maintenance,” finished Opal.
Maintenance on the Comb, the work of genius. Chrys eyed Selenite with new interest. “His death left me in a fix,” Selenite explained, “because, it turns out, the only complete set of plans was in his head.”
Chrys nodded slowly. “What sort of maintenance would the Comb need?”
Opal looked askance. “What doesn’t it need.”
Selenite frowned. “She’s a great building. Just a small problem of fenestration.”
“Of what?”
“Fenestration. The placement of windows—Titan’s spiral fenestration was legend. But unfortunately—”
The Comb appeared, growing absurdly amid the redwoods. Her form expanded, appearing larger and closer, until the ground level came into detail. “The Comb, like all Titan’s buildings, grows from the bottom up,” Selenite explained. “So the top execs never need change their office; they just keep rising upward. Whereas below—” She pointed. “Here is the youngest ground level. Look closely.”
The legendary windows soared beautifully up the honeycombed chambers. But in the bottom row, nearest the ground, each window was cracked. Fine grooves ramified through every pane.
“You see?” said Selenite. “If the newer floors all come up like that, it’s a disaster. No easy fix, either. Whatever we do has to go in from the roots up.”
“I see.”
Selenite clasped her arm. “Here’s the deal. We’ll subcontract your people for a megacred. It’s not much, but they’ll get back in touch with the business and reconnect with customers. What do you say?”
A megacred? Seven digits? Chrys’s mouth fell open. “Fern? Aster? What’s this about?”
“The Deathlord’s minions seek our genius,” replied Aster, such pretty magenta. “But the Comb is an ancient monument. We build for the future.”
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