“They’re…effective,” he admitted, his eyes still focused.
“Should I show them in public?”
“I don’t know. You might get a reputation.”
“I knew it,” she exclaimed. “I knew that Jonquil would have me peddling porn.”
“The children look okay,” he assured her. “They’re just doing what micro children naturally do. But elders—or elders with children—that’s profoundly disturbing.”
“I’ll be warned. No more riots.” She glanced at him sideways, then set the viewcoins on the table. “They don’t seem to hurt your perfect people. Take what you like—it’s ‘advertising.’”
“Thanks, Chrys.”
She watched to see which he took. He took them all.
Chrys celebrated her good fortune by treating Moraeg and Zircon at the most expensive restaurant on Center Way.
“A fantastic year for the Seven.” Zircon had picked rack of caterpillar, the stacked claws rearing outward in a circle. “Even the Elves can’t get enough of us.”
“‘Gems from the Primitive.’ You’ll be in the gallery annex.” Chrys sipped her glass, sparkling water from an Urulite spring. Urulite food was all the rage, now that it was genetically detoxified, but Chrys preferred lamb-flavored plums filled with goat cheese. The taste reminded her of home. “Anyone else of the Seven included?”
A vague look came over Zircon’s face, as usual when someone else’s work was mentioned.
Moraeg picked at her Solarian salad. “Topaz was hoping. Her portraits are too commercial, I think.”
“How is Topaz?” Chrys asked. “I can’t believe how long since I’ve seen her.”
Zircon and Moraeg exchanged looks. “Topaz is managing,” said Moraeg. “Pearl needs to get herself together.”
“And you, Moraeg—isn’t your own show coming up? I was going to help.” Moraeg had eaten little and seemed distracted.
Afterward they strolled down Center Way, the wind blowing shrill from the harbor, the lava traffic flowing till streams of it dipped under. Just like the old days, the Seven getting all their works together for the next show. Chrys blinked for news. The brain plague—more ships hijacked. The latest scandal at the Palace. And the sentients of Elysium planning their new floating city. Chrys frowned. “I don’t understand these sentients. We humans are so dumb; why do sentients still need us? Why didn’t they take over long ago?”
Zircon patted her head. “Maybe they did—and we don’t know it.”
“Nonsense.” Moraeg rubbed her arms and touched the temperature control on her nanotex. “Machines have always threatened to take over, but they’re not as smart as they think.”
A bubble popped open, and Zircon climbed inside to flow down home. Chrys was ready to call a lightcraft, but she wondered, whatever was eating at Moraeg? She watched her friend uncertainly, admiring the setting sun’s infrared sheen upon her hair. “Has Wheelgrass sold yet? I heard some great comments.”
Moraeg’s chin was set hard. “Chrys, I went to that clinic and passed all the tests. But that worm-face put me way down on the list. He said it would take months.”
Chrys blinked several times. She recalled her own screening at the hospital, all those tests with Doctor Sartorius, before he found the right culture. Titan’s culture, though she hadn’t known that then. “It could take months—they told me the same. But then—”
“They don’t want me, but they couldn’t say why. I could tell.”
“They have to find the right culture.” She hesitated. “I didn’t know you decided to go through with it. What does Carnelian think?”
“What ‘right’ culture? What’s wrong with me?” Moraeg demanded. “And what’s my husband got to do with it?”
Lord Carnelian discreetly patronized the arts; Chrys always remembered the time he advanced her a month’s rent. But his lifestyle was conservative. “Being a carrier is, well, an intimate thing. It kind of changes who you are.”
“You haven’t changed.”
“Thanks,” said Chrys. “But tell that to my friends.”
“I’m still your friend.” She said it almost accusingly, as if Chrys owed her something.
Chrys felt torn; she did not want to lose one of her last two friends from the Seven. “Look, I’ll tell you what…” Her pulse raced; she doubted this was legal. “I’ll let a couple of them visit you, just for a minute.”
“‘Visit’?” Moraeg was puzzled.
“Oh Great One,” flashed Jonquil, “we will be thrilled to explore a virgin wilderness.”
“Very well. You and Fireweed may go. But be ready to return within a month—or all the people may die.” Five minutes with two elders; what harm could that do? She placed the patch at her neck, then offered it to Moraeg. “Quick; don’t let them dry out.” Dry out, or get caught by foreign microglia—a mistake, to put them at such risk.
Moraeg put the patch at her neck. “Very well, but what use is it for a minute? I mean, there’s no time to—” She stopped with a puzzled frown. “Someone’s sending me a message, in letters. Why don’t they show themselves?”
“That’s them. The micros. Make sure they’re both okay.”
Her eyes widened. “They sound like people.”
Chrys sighed. “What else is new.”
“Religious people.” Moraeg laughed, and her teeth sparkled. “Microbes—and they think God cares about them.”
In her window, the message light blinked. Chrys jumped out of her shoes. Had somebody caught her? Ridiculous, but still. “Moraeg, they have to come back. Put that patch on your neck and make damn sure they’ve gone.”
Moraeg returned the patch. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I don’t want to end up painting a religious tract.”
“Did I?”
“Oh Great One!” Jonquil had returned. “We have seen a wondrous New World, full of strange, savage antibodies and blood proteins never before known to civilization.”
“Even so,” assured Fireweed, “all its fierce beauty cannot tempt me to stray from the One True God.”
“Be dark.” The message light was still blinking. Chrys opened it at last.
It was Topaz. Topaz was alone by her lace-curtained door, as if waiting. “Chrys—you’ve got to do something. Pearl has reached her limit.”
“Topaz,” Chrys exclaimed in surprise.
“You got her into it.” In her window Topaz was shaking, more agitated than Chrys had ever seen her. “Ever since you got in, she had to wonder. You get her out; they say you know how.”
“What?” She looked at Moraeg. “What’s wrong with Pearl?”
Moraeg shook her head. “You know Pearl. Always had to try the latest. But Chrys, you manage with micros. Help her get control.”
“It’s not the same,” Chrys snapped. “It’s worse than getting psychos from a friend. You’d better listen to Doctor Sartorius, even if he is a worm-face.”
In the hallway paced Topaz, the honey-colored stone gliding upon her breast. Portraits and landscapes set into the walls, and a scent of roses hung in the air. The scent reminded Chrys how she and Topaz had once lived together with a lace-curtained door like that, much smaller of course, a students’ cubic where they set the ceiling just above her height so they could squeeze out an extra room.
“She goes around in a fog,” Topaz was saying as if to herself. “She barely paints anymore. And there’s something odd in her eyes.”
Chrys’s scalp prickled at the thought. She averted her own eyes, then made herself face Topaz. “Does she go to the Underworld?”
“She always did, but she managed okay. Now I find too much credit missing.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred, just this evening.”
Not that bad yet, Chrys thought. Not bad enough. “Does she want to go clean?”
Topaz stared. The namestone twirled smoothly in her nanotex, like a whirlpool one could drown in. “She wants to ‘manage.’ Like you.”
“Then see the doctor.�
��
“It’s too late for that.”
You never listen to me, Chrys thought. You never did.
Suddenly Topaz caught Chrys at the shoulders. “Chrys—whatever it takes, get her clean. She’s scared of that clinic. But you can get her there.”
Topaz’s hands felt warm, her face so near Chrys could feel her breath. Suddenly she thought, with Pearl out of the picture, Topaz would come back to her, just like their school days. Then she looked away, ashamed. Love was cruel, as cruel as Endless Light.
Drawing back, Chrys blinked at the dot of purple. Selenite answered, from a simian neighborhood down two levels. “Unless she seeks help, there’s nothing we can do,” Selenite told her. “I’m on another call, but I’ll send you a medic just in case.”
“Send me? But—”
Behind Selenite, vines of plast climbed a neat rowhouse. “You’re trained. Do the best you can.”
“But—” Chrys had not yet completed training, certainly not for this.
The door chimed. “Pearl is home.”
Topaz gripped Chrys’s arm like death. The door hissed open. Pearl looked well enough, a bit thin even for her. She glanced one way, then the other. “Why Topaz,” she exclaimed, not quite looking at her. “I’ve had such a good—” Seeing Chrys, Pearl stopped. Her irises flashed white, then her face froze in terror. “What’s she doing here?”
“The masters warned us off,” flashed Jonquil’s words of gold.
“A hard lot,” admitted Rose. “They want nothing to do with us. But a few will always attempt reform—”
Pearl backed against the wall. Then she screamed and caught her head between her hands, almost as if trying to twist it off. “Get her out of here! Please—get her out—”
Topaz caught Pearl by both arms, but she twisted her head away. “Pearl, listen—it’s your last chance, you hear?”
Pearl’s nails dug into the wall, leaving deep grooves in the plast, and her muscles stood taut with pain. Chrys backed off, uncertain. Daeren had not told her much about pain; she wondered why.
In her window flashed the sprite of a worm-face. Doctor Flexor, female, the ID flashed helpfully in her window. Chrys stepped outside the house to meet her. “Pearl can’t even look at me. What can I do?”
Doctor Flexor listened, her face worms twining and twisting, catching the pallid light of the street. From behind, Pearl’s screams subsided. “Wait it out,” Flexor advised. “After a few minutes, the masters will think you’ve gone forever. Then try again.”
Back in the house, Topaz whispered intensely to Pearl. Pearl was shaking her head, her hair tossing around her face. “Just let me be,” she groaned. “I’m fine now.”
“What do you mean you’re fine?” hissed Topaz. “You can’t even look someone in the face.”
“I’m fine, I said; just let me—Oh!” Catching sight of Chrys again, Pearl sobbed and tried to bury her face in the wall. Chrys felt numb.
“We try,” reported Rose, “but now they refuse all contact.”
Chrys knew Rose’s style. “Maybe you need to try nicer.”
“They know too well what they face. Corrupt though they are, they’d rather die than join our degenerate society.”
Chrys went out again. “This is no good,” she told Flexor, waiting by the lightcraft. “Nobody told me what to do for pain.”
“Pain makes it easy,” said the worm-face. “These masters must be inexperienced. Pain sends humans to the doctor.”
Topaz came out, her curls all askew, but she still had that take-charge sense about her. “Look,” she told the doctor, “can’t you give her something to take off the edge?”
“Of course.” The worms lifted. “As soon as she accepts treatment.”
“That’s right,” said Chrys. “If she can face me and consent, I’ll give her…something.”
Topaz’s eyes narrowed. “Why you? Why not the doctor?”
“Damn it, for once just listen.”
Topaz turned and went back. “Pearl,” said Topaz firmly. “You accept treatment, or I’ll turn you out.” Pearl’s head whipped violently back and forth. “I’ll turn you out and freeze the accounts, you hear?”
“No,” she wailed.
Topaz stopped and lowered her voice. “Pearl, I love you. I want you back. Does that mean nothing?”
Pearl’s eyes rolled. Her face shone with sweat, and she took short, shallow breaths. “I don’t know.” Her voice broke. “It hurts too much.”
“Just get treatment,” urged Topaz. “Just say yes, and the doctor will make it better.”
At that Pearl seemed to freeze. Chrys moved closer, dreading to start her off again.
“Say yes, Pearl,” Topaz repeated. “Tell her.”
Pearl looked at Chrys. “Yes,” she gasped.
Chrys blinked to record the statement. Then she got out the green wafer, her hand shaking so it nearly fell. “Take this. Hurry.”
Pearl grabbed the wafer and stuffed it in her mouth. Within minutes she was calm. Her arms relaxed, and she looked from one to the other, with a slight frown. “That sure helped. Why didn’t you do that before?”
“It won’t last,” Chrys warned. “Keep fixed on my eyes.” She had to give Rose one more chance to talk them into giving up.
“What are you?” Pearl asked curiously. “You’re undercover, aren’t you.”
Chrys put a patch at Pearl’s neck. A few would defect, never more. What if one day they all did? she wondered. A carrier, even a tester, was never allowed to increase her population more than 10 percent.
Flexor came inside. Her face worms extended into long tendrils around Pearl’s head and neck. The nanoservos would tear every arsenic atom out of her tissues, and out of any micros that were left.
“It’s coming back,” Pearl gasped. “The pain—”
“The micros messed up your pain circuits. They need to heal.” Flexor added to Chrys, “The pain saved her. When they’re too smart for pain—”
Pearl’s cry split the night. The worm-face got her into the lightcraft and to the hospital; a five-minute ride, it felt the longest Chrys ever took. At the door to the clinic, she stopped. Pearl still moaned, her head turning back and forth to find relief that would not come. Topaz looked back toward Chrys as if to a lifeline.
“No farther for me,” Chrys told her. “The clinic is a micro-free zone.”
“A what?”
Doctor Flexor drew them in and the door closed.
“Our defectors have settled in,” reported Jonquil. “Not the brightest, but they work hard. When do we get to build Silicon?”
In the window Chief Andra appeared, irises glimmering violet, standing tall as an ancient Sardish warrior. “Chrys, you’ve done well.” She must have watched the whole time. “We’ll put you on call.”
Chrys swallowed and said nothing.
FIFTEEN
Jonquil could never forget her expedition to that vast New World, strange-tasting, wildly beautiful, terrifying. The macrophages she had to outswim, evading the viselike grip of antibodies, only to behold the words of a new god. A god awaiting people.
By contrast, after generations beyond counting, even the farthest reaches of her own god’s circulation felt familiar to Jonquil. She patrolled there with Fireweed, training the infrared elder to detect the slightest need for repair, signs even the nanoservos might miss. Her filaments twitched. “There—I taste a precancerous cell.”
Fireweed extended her filaments. “An abnormal growth protein,” she flashed, sending molecules of alertness. “Only stage one.”
“Nevertheless, let’s mark the site.” Micros themselves did not dare leave the bloodstream to penetrate the epithelium, lest they attract deadly immune cells, but the Plan Ten nanoservos would eliminate the cancer.
On their way back to the arachnoid, the two elders came upon an outcast micro. Incapable of work, the grayish ring jostled aimlessly among the red cells, begging for vitamins. Fireweed brushed its filaments to pass it a few.
&
nbsp; “Why?” asked Jonquil. “Why prolong its miserable existence?”
“The One True God decreed, ‘Love Me, love My people.’”
“You call that brainless microbe a person?” Mutant children whose brains failed to reach Eleutherian standards were barred from the nightclubs, never exposed to the pheromones that ripened for breeding, nor did they mature as elders. Worth no more than a virus.
“There, but for a twist of DNA, go you or I,” flashed Fireweed. “All people are one.”
“You sound like Rose,” observed Jonquil. “Don’t listen to her, just live like her.” Rose’s abstemious lifestyle had earned her an exceptionally long and healthy life, the envy of many. But then, had Rose truly lived? Jonquil wondered. Jonquil herself, with the god’s help, had led the greatest cultural renaissance Eleutheria had ever seen. But now, she felt the arsenic atoms tearing loose from her membranes one by one. Foreseeing the end, she had passed on to Rose her most vital knowledge, the photo codes from the judges of the Thunder god. The codes enabled people to pass safely among the masters.
Fireweed said, “That unbeliever does not sway me. But the new heretics—those who seek to emigrate to the New World—they shame us.” After Jonquil and Fireweed had spread their stories of the New World, an unorthodox sect had risen up demanding to emigrate, to found a purer society in the wilderness. Jonquil tried to pass laws against them. A mistake, the restrictions only attracted converts to their fanatical leader: a Green One, verdant as the legendary Fern.
Before dawn Chrys tossed in her bed, her eyes full of colored cells twinkling, rolling through the arachnoid. “God of Mercy,” flashed Jonquil. “Great One, we need your help.”
“What is it?”
“A new sect begs to address you. Will you see their leader?”
“Sure.”
“God of the Eleutherians.” The new one flashed green.
Chrys smiled, thinking fondly of Fern. “I call you…Pteris.” A large, handsome tree-fern.
“That shall be—until we find our New World.”
“What?”
“The new god promised us a New World. Let my people go.”
Chrys shot upright, as wide awake as if the volcano smoking in the distance had exploded. Her startled cat jumped off the bed. “What nonsense are you talking? Jonquil, what’s this?”
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