Moraeg’s eyes widened. “There’s a planet I’ve never been to.”
Chrys grinned. “It’s inside my head.”
“Is it true then? You have Titan’s own brain enhancers…inside your head?”
“What about your own stuff? Don’t you have a show too?”
“Oh, another six months.” Moraeg called up her florals; carnations in baskets, lupins on the slopes of Urulan, the sort of thing you’d hang in a sitting room. Then, unexpectedly, Wheelgrass Meadow. Red looped petals hung from hooplike stems before a distant singing-tree.
“Our ancestral home! Beauty, imagination, excellent taste—Oh Great One, we must visit this—”
Chrys squeezed her eyes shut. “Stay dark, or face the god’s wrath.”
“Does it hurt when your eyes flash like that?”
Startled, her eyes flew open. She shook her head. “They just talk too much. But then, like, I have a million minds to draw inspiration.”
Moraeg held her chin thoughtfully. “You know, I’ve lived a hundred years; I made one giga-credit fortune, and married another. Now I’ve made a second life—in art. To go for the best.” She paused. “Does that trial still have openings?”
“We have a party of visitors all set to go,” Jonquil insisted. “We’ll be most considerate.”
Chrys’s pulse raced. “I don’t know. I can tell you who to call.”
“I thought you might have connections. If they need volunteers, let me know.”
After her friend left, Chrys took a deep breath. Another artist on Olympus—she was thrilled, yet wary, thinking what she had gone through. As for her people…
“Jonquil? You must call all the elders here at once.”
“I will try, Oh Great One. They are busy planning urban renewal—”
“At once. There is serious trouble.”
Chrys counted the seconds until Jonquil returned. “We are here, all thirty.”
“Rose too?”
“All of us. What is the god’s wish?”
“You disobeyed me. You expressly failed to follow my commands.”
“We are sorry,” said Jonquil. “We trust the God of Mercy will forgive.”
“Right now the God of Mercy is full of wrath. You will experience my wrath as an eclipse of the sun.” With that, she winked the window closed. Then she closed her own eyes.
Darkness within, such as she had not known for three months. “Xenon?” she called. “Tell me when sixty seconds are up.” A minute—about a week for them, should make a good eclipse. Still, it was the longest minute she ever spent. What did her people make of it? What if they went crazy, like the ancients? No sight, no sound except the pulse pounding in her ears.
At last she opened her eyes.
“The light returns! Oh Great One, we were paralyzed with fear. Even Rose was scared, although she won’t admit it.”
Chrys nodded at the yellow letters, satisfied.
“We praise your mercy,” Jonquil added. “We pray we never lose your sight again. We have written a list of a thousand new laws to make sure we never forget.”
One law alone would do, if only they obeyed. She sighed. “We all need to get in shape, before the test of the Deathlord.”
Despite their new laws, Chrys grew increasingly apprehensive as the days ticked off till her testing. She tried to put it from her mind and threw herself into her painting. She was adjusting the hue and saturation of a particularly difficult foreground, when Xenon announced Selenite.
Chrys half jumped out of her skin. The painting shuddered, turning all grayish green like a hurricane. “Um, please do sit down,” she urged Selenite. Xenon had his usual tea and cake laid out.
Selenite shook her head. “Sorry, I can’t accept anything for testing.” Her eyes narrowed. “Did Daeren ever?”
“No, of course not.” Not till he’d decided to pass her on. “It’s just that I think of you as a business partner.”
“It couldn’t be helped. Any problems you know of?”
“We’re all fine.”
“Please stand, I find it easier.” Selenite drew very close, the red fire flashing in her eyes.
“Beware,” Chrys reminded her people as she accepted the transfer. “Warn Rose and her friends.”
“We are ready,” Jonquil assured her. “We have prepared many generations for this day.”
After what seemed an interminable time, Selenite at last nodded and relaxed in a seat. “Not bad,” she allowed. “For your information, here’s a list of subversives I’m passing on to the committee.”
The alphanumerics scrolled down her window: reds, yellows, greens, and so on. There must have been several hundred. “You mean these are all…”
“They all fit one or more criteria of my screen. They go on file in our intelligence database. Didn’t Daeren tell you? You have a sizable file already.” She shook her head. “I always let the carrier know, for their own protection.”
“I see.” She clasped and unclasped her hands, feeling haunted.
“Chrys…” Selenite cocked her head. “You do a good job, but why do you tolerate those master sympathizers?”
“Well…” It was a compliment, Chrys told herself. “I was raised by true believers, and I’ve lived with artists. Different ideas are, like, different colors.”
“People live or die by ideas.”
To that, Chrys did not know what to say. She remembered something. “Do you still have a waiting list?” she ventured. “For new carriers?”
“A very long list,” Selenite warned. “Tell your people they have to wait. Unauthorized transfer is a terminal offense.”
“I meant, a list of humans who want to become carriers.”
Selenite nodded slowly. “We’re always looking for good candidates. You know our standards—you’re welcome to recommend someone.”
The show was packed; one could hardly get past the volcanoes. Chrys had underestimated the space required for her new large-scale compositions and had left the corridors too narrow between them. But then, no more than a handful of visitors had ever showed up before. This time, the news report must have made a difference.
Lord Garnet waved her over, gesturing toward the colored rings whose flickering filaments waved overhead. “They’ve finally come out—life size! Like real people!” Garnet had brought along half the financial district, all in the most discreetly expensive gray, their namestones diminutive. With them were Lord Carnelian and Lady Moraeg.
“I’ve never seen anything like it.” Moraeg’s forehead bore the Star of Ulragh, a famous gem she had acquired a generation before.
Lord Carnelian nodded, his talar and namestone like Garnet’s twin. “The brain interior—it’s truly pathbreaking.”
Chrys had done a giant transparent brain, with the subarachnoid spaces filled in, the Cisterna Magna and the other vessels of cerebrospinal fluid where her people lived. Next to that, a close-up of an arachnoid cityscape full of the ring-shaped people. And last, she had asked Moraeg to lend Wheelgrass, the ring flowers of Prokaryon. The visitors looked intrigued, certainly not bored. More than a few of them had the flashing eyes of carriers. Even if the Seven did not all show up, it was a success; she was beginning to believe it. She hugged Moraeg. “Let’s hope all these folks come to your show too.”
“Don’t forget our dinner party next week,” reminded Garnet. “After your show—you promised.”
Opal hurried over, a sheer gold talar flowing over her nanotex. “My colleagues from the Comb are amazed. At last they can see what’s going on in my head!” She beamed with excitement. Then abruptly her face fell. “Chrys—look there—” There stood Zircon munching a handful of AZ wafers that Chrys had put with the refreshments. “You can’t put those out for virgins. They’ll attract masters like flies!”
“Oh my god.” Chrys rushed to scoop up all the AZ, pushing her way as best she could through the crowd of perfumed talars, flashing nanotex, and fashionable vampire makeup. No Elysians, she thought with a trace of d
isappointment. It was too much, after all, to expect Ilia to return to primitive Valedon.
She nearly collided with Selenite. “Excuse me…”
Arms crossed, Selenite glared at Endless Light. At first glance, the cube was full of sheer white. Then the turrets of cloud appeared, light streaming through their windows upon an outstretched human form, face enraptured.
Chrys’s smile froze.
“How could you?” Selenite exclaimed at last. “Of all things—it’s indecent. Think of it—there could be recovering addicts here.”
“Well…” A couple made up fashionably as vampires watched the piece politely, the broken veins painted artfully on their whitened faces. “A show has to have something controversial.”
Down the hall, before the portrait of Dendrobium, her eye caught lava-bright nanotex, glowing infrared, the color only she and Elysians could see. Who would wear that?
Daeren. He must have meant the color for her; to anyone else, it would look his usual black. She felt warm all over, yet confused. Angry, yet she missed him. She wove her way between the chatting visitors to reach him.
Daeren turned. “I hope things went well this week?” He held a drink, orange juice.
“You didn’t tell me you keep files on ‘subversives.’”
“I note a few, to keep the Committee happy.”
“Selenite listed them all.”
“Was it useful?”
“The blue angels—we haven’t seen them in generations.”
“Not now.” Too many non-carriers about.
Daeren added, “Working with a new tester is an important step. You made a good transition.”
“I hope you like the show.”
“You’ve captured the essence of micro people—exactly how they appear to us.” He looked to the portrait of Garnet’s favorite, the ring of forest green, its filaments bending in waves, its body slowly turning and bending just slightly, as if nodding. “That’s just how they look when they’re happy. Before, only we could see them. But now, everyone can see them as we do.” His irises flickered blue.
Jonquil flashed, “The blue angels thank us for rescuing all those defectors.”
Praise was sweeter than any drink.
In her eye the call light blinked. It was Ilia, her sprite clothed in her talar of butterflies. “I’m so sorry to miss your Opening.” The gallery director rolled her eyes. “We have a major fundraising event.”
“Of course, I understand.”
“However, I would like to stop by next week, if you don’t mind. For a private tour.”
After the Opening, Chrys basked in the attention and tried to put out of mind the fact that of the Seven, only Zircon and Moraeg had come. Her window drowned in mail, mostly congratulations, the rest quickly discarded.
One night she awoke in a blaze of light. Before her on the floor lay a body like her own, a pool of blood seeping from its gashed eyes. She screamed, until she realized it was just a sprite.
“You are entirely safe in this house,” Xenon assured her. “You just need to filter hate mail.”
Hate mail. She shuddered. “I don’t believe in censorship.”
“But you don’t have to read it at night.”
“Okay,” she sighed, “I’ll filter mail at night.” The price of fame.
“On the bright side,” Xenon pointed out, “look at all your new clients. You have more friends than enemies.”
More work than she could handle. “But it only takes one enemy.”
In the morning, at work in her studio, she got a call from an Elf. Not Ilia; an Elf lord she had never met. Not a “lord,” either, she reminded herself.
“Eris Helishon,” the sprite introduced himself.
Chrys’s jaw fell open. Eris Helishon was the Guardian of Cultural Affairs, adviser to Guardian Arion Helishon, and a dozen other things—including Ilia’s boss. If Elysium had “lords,” he’d be a big one. Yet there he was standing in her gallery, before one of the micro portraits, a virtual train of swallowtails playing out behind him. “I’m in town for the day,” the Elf said, “and I happened to come across your work. I’d like to consider an acquisition. Would you have time to meet me?”
She got a talar and put on her best namestone, a cat’s eye that shone like a moon. She took the lightcraft up to cross town; it bothered her less than it used to. She was a success, she told herself; a successful artist, meeting a buyer from Elysium.
They met at the gallery entrance, the great transparent brain shimmering just inside. About average height for an Elf, Eris had an air of complete self-possession, rather like Guardian Arion. To her surprise, his eyes flashed blue rings. The look was particularly striking amid his pale, cream-colored features. “I’m a carrier,” he told her, just like Ilia. “Strain Coelicolor.”
“Why, that’s blue angels,” Chrys exclaimed.
“Indeed. You know the strain?”
“Blue angels,” flashed Jonquil. “We’ve never met blue angels outside the Lord of Light. How interesting.”
She nearly touched his hand, but remembered that Elves avoided contact in public. “Do they ever visit? I mean, if you don’t mind.”
“Certainly; how civilized of you. You needn’t worry,” he added, “I direct the testing of all the Elysian carriers.”
“Of course, I understand.” Like Andra—the Elves had their own chief tester.
“I’ll receive visitors,” said Jonquil, “and Rose will lead our delegation.”
She winced, hoping Rose would leave a good impression. “Behave as you would for the Thundergod.” She held out the transfer patch. Eris took it, then returned it, carefully avoiding her fingers.
“Won’t you tell me something about your work?” he asked. “Especially the portraits.”
She took him through the portraits, explaining the background of each, and their human hosts.
“Extraordinary,” Eris exclaimed. “Simply unprecedented.” Behind him the virtual butterflies played across the floor and back through the doorway. “I keep telling Arion, we need to educate our citizens about the micro people.”
“These blue angels seem rather inquisitive,” Jonquil told her. “They keep looking into everything.”
“So, they’re curious. Maybe they’ve never been outside an Elf before.”
They passed the arachnoid cityscape, then abruptly came upon Endless Light. Chrys stopped and swallowed.
“Yes,” observed Eris. “May I ask what experience inspired this one?”
She looked away. “Just a fantasy. Experimental.”
“I see.” Thoughtfully he regarded the towering vision of light and cloud. “This was the one I particularly fancied.”
Startled, she looked at him. “To purchase?” She had priced it double its worth, intending to keep it in her hands.
“If it’s still for sale.”
“Sure. I keep a studio copy, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course.” He turned to her, his pupils flashing brightly in his white face. “Tell me…have you anything else ‘experimental’? Too controversial to show, perhaps?” He smiled. “You know, we Elysians have sophisticated tastes.”
“Well, I pretty much show what I’ve got.” She thought it over. “There’s one piece you’d like, but I’m still working on it.” She found a blank stage and called down Children Merging. She thought she had got the merging part okay with Jonquil, but the division into three still appeared off center.
As Eris watched, his face intensified. His cheeks flushed, then whitened again. “Yes,” he said as if to himself. “We must have that.”
“I’ll let you know when it’s finished.”
He stiffened, then seemed to recollect himself. “Excuse me. Thanks, do let me know. I believe I’ve taken enough of your time.”
“Oh Great One,” flashed Jonquil as he was about to leave. “Remember our guests. And Rose—she has yet to return.”
Chrys raised her hand. “Your people—I’m so sorry. Let me return them.”
She put the transfer at her neck, but for some reason Jonquil took longer than usual to signal it was ready. At last she held the patch out to him.
The Elf did not take it. Something told her he expected her to place it directly at his neck, the way Valan carriers did. She did so, used to it by now.
“I appreciate your local custom,” he said. “I hope we’ll be seeing much more of each other. I expect to add many of your works to my collection.”
Eccentric, she thought, but then she’d never had an Elf patron. So many inquiries were coming in now, she barely had time to paint. “What did you think?” she quizzed Rose and Jonquil on the way back to her studio. “How were his blue angels?”
“Slimy,” said Rose. “Slimy degenerates.”
Chrys sighed. Poor exiled Rose never had much good to say of her bourgeois comrades.
“They wouldn’t be my first choice of visitors,” added Jonquil.
“They tried to keep us there,” insisted Rose. “Tried to make us miss our return.”
Why would they do that, Chrys wondered.
“God of Mercy,” called Jonquil, “we have a problem. We discovered three blue angels who failed to get out in time.”
“On purpose,” said Rose. “I’m sure it was on purpose. They’re up to no good.”
“They say they just failed to understand our call. They flash a different dialect.”
This was a nuisance. “Do they have to go back? Let them settle with you. Enhance your gene pool.”
“They have to go back. They insist.”
“Good riddance,” added Rose. “I wouldn’t want them here.”
Chrys frowned, puzzled. “Let them speak to me.”
“They refuse,” said Jonquil. “They say we’ll be in big trouble if they don’t get back.”
Refusing to talk to a god—she did not care for that. But then, if Eris were the Elysian equivalent of Andra, his blue angels might mean business. She had better try to reach him.
To her surprise, she reached him immediately, in his ship on the two-hour trip back to the Elf moon. “I’m so glad you called,” he told her. “We were terribly concerned; it was my fault entirely they got left behind. Look, I keep another ship docked at Iridis; a first-class rig, you’ll find. Why don’t you take it and meet me in Helicon?”
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