She was pleased to show Selenite, at their next meeting. “Much better,” Selenite admitted, sipping Xenon’s exquisite green tea and teacake. Taking Xenon’s hint, Chrys had found that hospitality significantly smoothed their conferences. “We’ve completely transformed the model. Where’d they get the math to do that? The wizards?”
Chrys shrugged, hoping the Eleutherians kept dark.
“Well, it’s in good time,” Selenite told her. “The Board wants a demonstration, a test run on-site.”
“A test run? Tapping the roots?” Visions of cancerplast made Chrys ill.
“Only halfway down, level twelve. Inject the virus and see if it sends its data clear up to the executive suite.”
That weekend at Olympus, Opal clasped her hands in delight. “Selenite really thinks it will work—I can’t imagine what it will be like here without all those pans of dripping water.” She leaned over and whispered. “Do you really think Eleutheria will win at chess? Who’s their mysterious coach?”
“A woman with a past.”
A caryatid approached with a spiral assortment of nuts, and pâté sweeter than apples. Averting her eyes discreetly, Chrys nonetheless permitted herself one of each. The taste went straight to her toes.
“Chrys.” Lord Garnet’s eyes sparkled with excited people, even more talkative than her own. “The portraits are exquisite. I’ll keep them to look at forever. Such fond memories.” He slipped a transfer lightly at her neck.
“Thanks for the investment,” she told him, leaning back gingerly in her seat. The trunk of the singing-tree hugged her.
“The market’s done well,” he admitted.
Chrys admired the exceptionally fine texture of his talar, very plain, yet its nuanced shaping responded to every move. “I wish I had more time to spend it,” she sighed.
“That is the hard part,” Garnet agreed. “By the way, I hear you portray the gods as well. A rather…striking portrayal.”
She shuddered. “Never listen to microbial gossip.”
“Don’t hide your best work. And when do you dine with us?”
“After my next show.”
A living tire-creature wheeled past; startled, she followed the Prokaryan image till it vanished through the arch of a singing-tree. Around the arch of the tree sat Daeren and Selenite, at it again.
“Too many defectors,” Selenite was saying. “If we take in so many, their genes will displace those of our own people.”
While Daeren listened, Garnet leaned over to pass him a transfer and massaged his shoulder. “The defectors reject slavery,” Daeren pointed out. “They risk death to reject it. They desire freedom even more than our own, who take it for granted.”
Garnet nodded, and Opal sipped her drink thoughtfully.
Selenite shook her head. “In effect, we’re favoring strains more virulent than our own, more likely to enslave us. You can’t get around it.”
“Defectors are creative,” Daeren insisted. “The most independent-minded of their kind. They bring vital genetic diversity. Otherwise, our own populations in-breed and degenerate, growing tame and lazy.” Exactly what Rose said, thought Chrys.
Selenite’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not true. We’ll see who ends up at the Slave World.”
Opal extended an arm around each of them. “We don’t have to agree.”
The next night was Chrys’s regular shift at the Spirit Table. Sister Kaol was stirring the soup while Chrys chopped a growing pile of potatoes, keeping the skins for extra vitamins. At the long table sat a couple of derelicts, one of whom smelled so bad it filled the room.
“From each according to ability,” reminded Jonquil. “That’s what Rose says.”
“Watch out for Rose,” warned Chrys.
An elderly man came in off the street. But usually by eight the tables were full, and she and Sister Kaol were running back and forth to fill the pots. “Sister, where is everyone tonight?”
Sister Kaol leaned over to whisper. “There’s a vampire, hiding out by the tube. The poor thing is scaring off our customers.”
Chrys peered out the window. A light was out, and the tube entrance was in shadow. She could just make out the contorted shape of the vampire. “I’ll call an octopod.”
“Oh, no. An octopod would scare our customers worse. They’d never come back.”
Chrys frowned. Vampires even on this level—how far had the slaves spread? In her window, the purple button was waiting. She blinked.
Daeren’s sprite appeared, at his home for once; usually he was outside some hospital waiting room. Chrys felt bad. “Sorry to bother you, but there’s a slave outside, and—like, if you could send someone to help them…”
“It’s okay, I’m on call,” he said. “Where is the slave now? Did they seek help?”
“I don’t know. He or she—it’s a vampire.”
Daeren shook his head. “Chrys, we only help those with the will to ask. Otherwise, they just end up back on the street. At the vampire stage, they’re beyond help, their entire bodies consumed by micros. They’ve lost most of their brain. Like a mad dog, they exist only to pass on a few desperate microbes.”
“You’re sure? You couldn’t just try?”
“If I came, my eyes would only scare them off.”
Chrys thought this over. A second bowl of soup steamed invitingly, yet no customers. “Why do some slaves turn into vampires, while others go to the Slave World?”
“Like tuberculosis, it can be acute or chronic. We guess that the Slave World is for hosts who readily obey, whereas those who don’t…” He shrugged. “It’s hard to know, since no human’s ever been to the Slave World and come back alive. Either way, it’s pretty grim.”
“How do you know that? I mean, if you’ve never been there.”
Daeren eyed her intently. “Why do you ask?”
Chrys did not answer. She thought of Rose, and Endless Light. She signed off and looked again out the window. “Rose?” she called. “Rose, where are you?”
“Here I am, Great Host. It takes me time, you know. Someone has to bring me out in chains.” The former master slyly played on her sympathy.
“Can you tell me how to help a vampire? If you can, I’ll set you free.”
“In a vampire, the betrayers have gone completely wild. Instead of bringing their host to Endless Light, as they should, they burn and pillage, devouring the very flesh. When their host dies, they will all meet their just end.”
Chrys thought of the street folk who would go hungry that night. “Can we at least get the vampire to move off and quit scaring customers?”
“Let the betrayers see me flash in your eyes. They’ll scare off.”
She put down her potatoes. “Back in a minute, Sister.” Outside, her eyes adjusted to the dark as she warily approached the tube. Music floated over from a neighbor’s house, and the sparks of busy lightcraft rose and fell in the distance. Her steps slowed. What harm could come, she thought. As a carrier she was immune; even picking up Rose had not hurt her. She took another step toward the shadows. A foul smell reached her.
A sound of gasping, with a rumble underneath. Then she saw the hunched figure, a man, she thought. He was bent over double, gasping and growling, as if at his last breath. His nose and fingers were white and blunted, dissolving inward like those of a leper. Chrys felt all her hair stand on end. “You, there.” Her voice rang hollow, and her throat caught with nausea. “Who are you?”
The head moved, catching light from across the street. What had once been a face now bulged with veins clogged by multiplying micros.
“Environmental disaster,” flashed Aster. “The masters destroyed their own host.”
“Betrayers,” added Rose. “The Enlightened Leader shall hear of this.”
“You think your ‘comrades’ don’t know?” Aster challenged. “How could they not?”
“The Leader is light-years away. Even human leaders cannot limit their own depravity. Of course, you naïve Eleutherians think the gods
are perfect.”
Chrys blinked hard. “Just make it go away.”
Rose said, “Get closer, to meet the eyes.”
Meeting those eyes was the last thing Chrys wanted. Steeling herself, she moved forward, at once repelled yet ashamed at herself for adding to the poor creature’s misery.
The stench of the victim overwhelmed her; her stomach contracted. His labored breath rasped louder, faster. Another step closer, and its eyes chanced to meet hers. For one long moment, Chrys saw the creature as a human being, the human it would have been before it sank so low.
A shriek split the air. The bloated head turned, tucked under an arm, as if lasers had put out its eyes. Then the creature picked up its feet and slowly shuffled away.
Unnerved, Chrys shook so hard she could barely move. The cheerful lights of the soup kitchen beckoned. She turned slowly, her thoughts full.
As she walked back, she thought she heard faint footsteps behind her, quicker than her own. Her head turned to look.
The creature had changed its mind and come back. This time it moved with surprising speed, as if with all its last strength. The horror froze her for a moment; then she turned to run. In the darkness, she stumbled on the curb and fell.
As she picked herself up, the creature lunged toward her. Instinctively, she raised an arm before her face. The vampire caught her arm. With a cry, she flung the creature from her. It fell in a contorted heap on the street, completely still. The street was dark and eerily silent.
But its teeth had sunk into her arm. The wound stung, as she frantically wiped it of blood mingled with the creature’s saliva. Trillions of fanatic microbes lay dying with their host, but a lucky, deadly few had made it to their next victim.
“Plan Ten, Emergency,” she blinked, brushing the tangled hair from her face. She sprinted for home.
“Mayday—Capture invaders,” flashed Aster.
“Get them all in dendrimers, every one.” The medic would exterminate them.
“There are too many; and they’re hiding all over your body. We don’t even know their language. Set Rose free to help translate.”
A ringing tone filled her head, like an internal smoke alarm.
“They’ve reached the forbidden zone.” Where Poppy had gone; the alarm that should have gone off. Instead, Chrys had awoken in that hospital, bones burning with pain.
“Can’t you stop them, like Fern did?”
“We’re trying to find them, but that region has a billion neurons.”
She reached her house. The stairs carried her up between the caryatids. At the top, she stumbled. Her mind clouded over, and the room receded.
In her mind opened a window, a new kind of window, vast as the universe. All the lights of heaven flooded in. The light lifted her onto a lava stream of pleasure and desire. It was the first kiss of her boyfriend, swooning amid the campion on the mountainside; and it was her first taste of Topaz, her mind spinning amid all the colored lights of Iridis. It was ten times more than that, every inch of skin crying out for more yet, until the colors grew and merged into blinding endless light.
Abruptly, the light clouded over. Her surroundings somehow were gray—the banisters, the ceiling, the caryatids, even Xenon’s new furniture. Her feet sank like lead, glued to the floor, which now seemed unaccountably dirty and verminous, though when she looked hard she saw nothing. Her skin felt covered with slime that would not rub off.
“We found them, Oh Great One,” said Aster. “We captured the masters before they caused permanent damage.”
The master micros; they had tried to take her over. The thought left her shaking. And yet…where was that place they sent her? Was there no way back?
Below, at the foot of the spiral stairs, two medics arrived. “You’re on record as a carrier,” said one worm-face, as if reciting a history.
“We’ll check you out,” said the other, “but we can’t touch the micros till your agent arrives.”
Her skin was starting to recover, but her head ached, and her stomach felt unsettled. She sat down in the kitchen, in case she needed the sink.
The limb of a worm-face slapped a bandage on her arm, then its tendrils sank into her scalp, pressing more roughly than Doctor Sartorius. “Disgusting,” he or she muttered. “Why don’t you let us just clear them out?”
“Some lifestyle,” the other medic remarked.
“Great One, these nanos are unfriendly,” flashed Aster. “Please, Great One; don’t let them hurt us. We did our best; we caught all the invaders we could find.”
“Look,” said the medic, “why do you put up with this? We could clean you out completely.”
“You’re on Plan Ten,” said the other. “You could live forever. Instead, you’re a menace to society.”
Chrys glared back. These medics sounded like Sapiens. Maybe they’d burnt her cat.
The first medic waved its worms smoothly, in a motion meant to be pleasing. “If you want to feel good, we have ways. We can shape your mind however you please, just as we shape your body.”
Mind-suckers. Chrys sketched the handsign against evil.
Xenon chimed for a new arrival. There stood Daeren, at the foot of the caryatids. Chrys sighed with relief.
“She’s been exposed,” the worm-face told Daeren as he came up the stairs. “We have to file a report.”
“Section oh-three-five-one,” Daeren agreed. “If you’re done, please wait outside.”
The medics hesitated, obviously reluctant to give up their patient, but they finally packed in their worms.
Daeren put a patch at his neck. “Next time, call us first, the purple button,” he advised Chrys. “We make sure they send the right medics.” For some reason, his eyes seemed to blink brighter than usual. Pulling back her tangled hair, Chrys squinted, unable to look straight.
“Oh Great One, we don’t need testing today. It’s all under control.”
“If it’s under control,” Chrys told them, “you have nothing to worry about.”
Daeren pulled up a chair. “Try and relax, Chrys,” he told her. “Can you keep your eyes open?”
Chrys held her eyes open. The blue rings round his eyes flashed furiously.
“That’s better.” He held out the transfer patch.
“No, no!” begged Jonquil. “Not today—another generation.”
“We’re too busy. We can’t see blue angels today.”
Chrys frowned. “Why are they afraid?”
Daeren held out the patch. “Don’t keep the blue angels waiting.”
“God of Mercy, they’ll kill all the new children.”
“Is that true?” Chrys asked. “You’ll kill all the vampire’s children?”
His voice quickened. “Chrys, I can’t answer that. You have to take the patch.”
“Just answer my question.”
“If you don’t take the patch, you’re a slave. Those medics out there will wipe you clean. Section oh-three—”
“Promise me you won’t kill anyone.”
He threw up his hands. “I’m the last one to want to kill them; you know that. But I can’t make a promise I won’t keep. I don’t yet know what I’ll find.” He took a deep breath. “Chrys—for god’s sake, take the patch.”
“So instead of their slave, I’m yours?”
For a moment every tendon stood on his neck. Several different thoughts seemed to cross his face. “All right,” he said in a monotone. “I promise.”
She put the patch at her neck. The minutes passed. Daeren’s hair over his amber-colored forehead reminded her of Moraeg. The Seven; how she missed them all.
Suddenly, he sank back and relaxed, satisfied by the signals his investigators sent out her eye. “Your Eleutherians are okay. Just tell them to quit hiding the vampire’s children—I don’t care what their math scores are.”
“But you said—”
“We don’t kill them all. We take them out to sort them. Some we can civilize and settle among carriers.”
“
The blue angels are taking our children.” The golden letters pleaded in her window. “Please, Great One; they’re all settled in with us. They lost their home once; don’t uproot them again.”
“Can’t the Eleutherians just keep the children? They kept masters’ children before.”
He stared. “They did what?”
She cursed her tongue. “You missed a transfer, from that slave,” she reminded him. “It fell in the street. They said I had to save them.”
“What in hell do you think you’re doing? You have no training for relief and rescue.”
“Should I just let them die? You always say they’re people.”
He let out a breath. “I’m glad they were saved; we were sorry we missed them. But you can’t take such risks. If you go wrong, your whole population dies.”
“The blue angels want to take Rose.” Aster’s pale violet flashed sadly.
Chrys shook her head. “I warned her to quit preaching Enlightenment.”
“But she helped us. She knows all the invaders’ tricks; she helped us capture them.”
Chrys gave Daeren a tentative look. “Can’t you leave Rose? She has nutty ideas, but she means no harm.”
“The one you call Rose is an unrepentant master. She’ll take you over, if she hasn’t already.”
“I want a second opinion.”
He stopped, taken aback. He crossed his arms. “If that’s what you want. I’ll call Andra. Excuse me.” He turned and left the room.
“The Thundergod,” Chrys warned Aster. “Now you’re in real trouble.”
“Never mind, it buys us time. We’ll settle the children and make Rose keep dark.”
“The children are settled,” added Jonquil, “as if they were born here. They know nothing else; they’ve grown here for years.”
Years? At the corner of her eye, the time read well past midnight. Four microbial years. She had not realized how long the medics took, and the blue angels investigating. What a lot of trouble she had caused. And yet, that place the masters showed…was there no way back? Pressing her hands to her head, she squeezed her eyes shut. “Aster, show me fireworks.”
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