“The God of the Map of the Universe?” inquired Jonquil. “Any word on our bid? Our aesthetic engineers have new options to offer.”
Chrys tapped Jasper on the hand. “They want to talk shop.”
He looked up in surprise. “Here?”
She shrugged. “You know Eleutheria.”
Jasper accepted a transfer. His face relaxed. “The Silicon planning board agreed to hear us next month,” he told her. “A good sign.”
A bad sign, thought Chrys glumly. Even sentients made mistakes.
At the door appeared a face full of worms. It was Doctor Sartorius.
“The Terminator,” flashed Jonquil. “Flee for your lives!”
“Be dark.” Executions—that’s all her people could think of the good doctor. “Be glad for those spared.”
“You can see him now,” Sartorius told Jasper. When Jasper had gone, the worm-face took a seat, out of politeness; he could just as easily have shaped himself down. “Welcome aboard, Chrysoberyl.” His voice sounded more melodious than usual. “You are a welcome addition to the Committee.”
“What happened exactly?” Chrys asked. “How did Garnet get in trouble? Why didn’t the nanos warn him?”
The doctor’s eyes swiveled unnervingly around the post of his body. “Our dopamine sensors are tuned to a fine threshold. We wouldn’t want to sound alarms, say, every time you look at a beautiful painting.”
Chrys rolled her eyes. “Saints preserve us.”
“His people convinced themselves they did no harm, so long as they set off no alarms. But when testing time came, they panicked. They even fudged his memory, a worse sin than the original. He actually believed he was okay; but when they couldn’t face the blue angels, he panicked.”
“I see. That’s why he seemed fine at first.” She shuddered.
The worms hung still. “I’m sorry.” The doctor’s voice came soft. “Sorry we let this happen. I’ve contacted Opal; we’ll redesign the sensors.”
Good luck, she thought. No sensor could keep humans from fooling themselves.
Jasper returned, his face beaming with relief. “Everything will be fine. Thanks for all you’ve done, Doctor.” He extended a hand. The doctor shaped a hand to clasp his. “And you too, Chrys; much obliged.” He nodded. “Garnet knows what he has to do.”
Behind Jasper stood Andra. The sight of her with Sartorius struck Chrys like a blow. Back in the hospital, she remembered, her head still in pain, her own people sentenced to death—
“Judgment day,” flashed Jonquil. “The day of judgment for those people. God of Mercy, will you defend them?”
“Come, Chrys.” Andra’s voice was as icy as Chrys’s own veins. They went with the doctor to the bedside where Garnet lay. His head was turned away, his hair straggled across the pillow.
“You will choose,” Andra told him. “You and no one else.” She glared at Chrys, as she had once glared at Daeren. “By the end of the hour, Garnet, you will choose either Watchers from Eleutheria…” She turned to Sar. “…or the arsenic sweep.” With that she was gone. But not unaware—Chrys knew that now. Every moment of the hour was on record.
“God of Mercy, please—all those children—”
“Be dark. Your work is done; this year is not for you.” Chrys sat by the bed, waiting. Idly she surveyed the living walls, sickly green, wondering where all the little camera eyes hid. When she first came from Dolomoth, it had taken a long time to get used to the ubiquity of public vision. “Garnet?” she whispered at last. “Garnet, I have a question.”
His head slowly turned.
She leaned over. “Why are the Seven Stars but seven?”
Garnet gave a feeble smile, then shook his head. “It’s no use.” His lip twisted. “Jasper is furious at the lot of them. He won’t rest till they’re gone.”
She watched her words. “The choice is not his.”
“The fault was mine. I made them do it.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “I was curious. Why not, after all. I can buy any pleasure in the Fold. What’s a little dopamine?” He paused. “I can’t buy back yesterday.”
“Did you explain to Jasper?”
“Jasper can’t accept it. If he did, he’d have to be furious at me.”
“He loves you.”
“He loves me to death.”
Chrys knew that one well enough. Before Topaz had left her, when it started to go bad, Chrys remembered lying awake in the wee hours, watching that lovely white neck beside her, imagining her own powerful hands around it. Wearily, she pulled up a chair and sank in.
“There’s nothing left,” he added. “Lose them, or lose Jasper—I might as well go off to an Elysian Final Home.” Elves generally chose their own end, once they tired of their centuries.
“I know,” Chrys sighed. “I know that feeling well. And for me, there’s no one hanging outside to care if I live or die.”
He glanced at her sharply.
“I’ll tell you what I do,” she added, “when I feel like that. Find someone worse off. Go round the corner to the Spirit Table and serve the folks in our neighborhood who haven’t got enough to eat.”
“Not enough to eat—in our neighborhood.” As if it were a new idea. He shook his head. “I could feed the whole Underworld, but it wouldn’t help. Economics—you know that. The poor will always be poor.”
“Perhaps. But they might help you.”
He turned to her, fixing her with his stare. “Chrys, tell me the truth. Will Jasper leave me, if I keep them?”
One human, a million people. Chrys swallowed. In her teeth Andra’s voice spoke, “Don’t answer.” Startled, she half jumped from her chair. “I’m sorry, I—I can’t say.” She bit her lip. “You know I’m fond of Jasper.”
He kept his eyes on her, as if he could read her mind. Then his irises lit up.
“They will live, Oh Great One. A great victory for love and mercy.”
Garnet smiled. “You’re very kind, Chrys. You were kind to key the servers to his form.” His old sly note crept in. “But I know your real heart lies elsewhere.”
The following night the Spirit Table was full, nearing the end of the month when credit lines ran out. Sister Kaol’s extra helper ran to the kitchen and back, and Chrys hoisted one pot of soup after another, putting her Plan Ten-enhanced muscles to use. She paused to push back her hair, damp with sweat. Men and women jostled in dead nanotex with strips peeling off, some with eyes overbright, high on one psycho or another. Some of the guests barely spoke, others argued, and one kept up a stream of dialogue with a demon only he could see.
Near the window, voices rose. A glint of metal, and a shriek.
Chrys vaulted over the counter and pushed her way through the crowd. Across a table lay a man streaked with blood while above him his assailant drew back the knife for another strike. Chrys caught the arms of the assailant and yanked both behind his back. The man bellowed in pain.
The trouble sent all the customers to their feet, bolting to the exit. The Sister’s assistant helped an elderly man to leave without getting trampled. Sister Kaol came to tend the victim.
“Oh Great One,” flashed Fireweed, “we detect signals of injury in Your blood. The immortal God must heal.”
Something wet trickled down her arm; the assailant’s knife must have grazed. Still holding onto him, Chrys blinked for public health. “Plan One, someone’s critical. Send help.”
A flat voice responded. Chrys tried to hear over the assailant’s cries. “Citizen identity?”
“Unknown.” If he’d had any better than One, the Plan would know it already. “Look at him—you can see the blood.”
“Noted. Responding immediately.”
Sister Kaol raised her hand. “You can release that poor gentleman; he seems hurt, too.”
The assailant fell, clutching his arm, which hung limp. The other Sister came and felt his shoulder. “I think it’s been dislocated.”
Chrys winced. She hadn’t realized
her own strength. Blood was seeping through her nanotex; she wiped her arm, where a gash needed skinplast.
“Oh Great One,” flashed Fireweed again. “Jonquil is late getting back. We’re concerned.”
“Check your nightclubs. The gods are busy.”
A medic entered, a smaller-sized sentient with just a couple of worms hanging down.
“Thank goodness,” Chrys exclaimed, pushing back her hair. “This man was stabbed in the back; he’s badly hurt.”
The worm-face reached her, peeled the nanotex off her arm, and slapped on some skinplast. “Plan Ten only covers you.” So he wasn’t Plan One; just Plan Ten, automatically alerted by her slashed arm.
The Sister gave the assailant something to quiet him and managed to reset his shoulder. Sister Kaol had the victim laid on his back and was pressing a first-aid sensor into his chest.
“When will Plan One get here?” wondered Chrys.
“Another hour,” said Sister Kaol, “perhaps two. If they get here.” She shook her head. “I fear this gentleman won’t make it. He has internal bleeding.”
The Plan Ten medic still had his worms wrapped around her arm. Chrys asked, “Can I pay you to treat this man?”
“There’s a ten-thousand-credit premium for walk-ins. The first available doctor will get back to you.”
She watched the worm-face leave. Her breath came faster, and her arms shook. Would the damned city do nothing for a dying man? Who would help? She squeezed her eyes hard.
Daeren’s sprite appeared, at home amid his sculptures. “Can you tell me how to get help for an injured man?” Her voice rushed. “Plan One won’t get here, and Plan Ten won’t even take a look.”
Daeren looked thoughtful. “I might find a doctor. Just a minute.” The sprite winked out.
The assailant dragged himself up and staggered toward the door.
“Wait,” called the Sister after him. “You need further treatment…” Call the octopods, Chrys thought. But the Sisters never wanted to scare off customers.
“Great Host,” flashed Rose. “My apologies for disturbing you, but you need to know that Jonquil has been missing these past six months. She is presumed dead.”
For a moment the dining hall receded. Chrys closed her eyes to focus on her window. “Jonquil dead? How?”
“We’re not sure.” Rose’s pink letters flashed against the dark. “We’ve searched but found no remains. She was out patrolling the circulation, when we detected signs of trauma. We think you lost some blood.”
Jonquil was dead—lost in that rush of blood from her arm. Mopped up and gone forever. Chrys sank onto a bench and rested her elbows on the long table, sinking her head in her hands. “I’m so sorry. I should have known.” Instead, she’d ignored them, just as the city ignored her calls.
“Jonquil had a long life. She was nearing her natural end.”
“She’ll never get to see her portrait in the stars.”
“In my opinion,” said Rose, “she saw more than enough ‘portraits.’”
And now guess who was the high priest.
“The One True God never errs,” added Fireweed. “Inscrutable are Her ways, but God is perfect.”
“Nevertheless, Great Host,” added Rose, “those cultists are back to address you. You did say once a day.”
“Great One,” flashed the green letters. “We long to set forth to found our perfect society in the wilderness. We pray you—let our people go, to the Promised World…”
“Chrys?” Daeren was calling gently, seated by her. “Are you all right?”
Raising her head, she looked up at him through the hair across her face. “Jonquil’s gone. From the cut in my arm.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. There’s nothing you could have done; the air kills them instantly.”
Would it have felt “instant” for a micro, she wondered. She shook herself and took a deep breath. “I shouldn’t have called you like that. Your one night home.”
“But I told you, Chrys—anything you ever needed. Remember? What else are friends for?” A wonderful smile suffused his face. He had never looked so happy, as if she had done him the favor. “You know Doctor Flexor.” The one who had helped Pearl. “She’s a friend of mine.”
The doctor had her face worms plugged into the man’s chest. Already his color looked better. “I’ll do my best,” Flexor said. “Cardiac’s not my specialty, but I downloaded the basics.”
“Thanks,” said Chrys. “I can pay.”
“Never mind. It’s a change of pace for me.”
Daeren added, “Flexor and I visit galleries.”
“I know your work,” Flexor told Chrys. “Representational isn’t my taste, but you do it well,” she added politely.
Sister Kaol clasped her hands. “Won’t you at least take some soup?” she asked Daeren. “We have so much left over.”
“Sure, thanks,” he said. “I think Chrys could use some too.”
“Your blood sugar is low,” added Rose. “You need to eat more regularly.”
Chrys eyed the bowl of soup put before her, the potatoes she had peeled, the bulk-process meat she had diced. She still could not forget how Jonquil had died. So much overwhelmed her; the hopelessness of the slaves, the way even micros cast out their mutants, and how the heretic micros longed to leave her.
Meanwhile, Daeren spooned his soup as if he enjoyed it, as if he had counted on this meal. “The Committee’s so pleased to have you, Chrys. They’ll tell you, at our next meeting.”
Suddenly Chrys asked, “How do we know we’re right?”
“Right about what?”
“About Endless Light.” She thought it over to herself. “We keep trying to ‘save’ people from slavery. But suppose they want it—so what?”
He nodded matter-of-factly. “You’ve seen the result.”
“They run out of money.”
“And a few other things.”
“Rose says that humans choose Endless Light,” Chrys told him. “They always have a choice; even those kidnapped from ships.”
“They always choose slavery.”
“Always? No one’s ever escaped from the Slave World?”
“We once rescued a slave from a substation. We cleaned out his micros and put him in the clinic.”
“And then?”
“He tried to take his life, four times. The fifth, he succeeded.”
Chrys thought this over. “What if what we call the Slave World really is something wonderful? I mean, how do you know, if you’ve never been there?”
Daeren paused. “If that were true, why have we never heard from anyone? If you found something truly better than anything else in the world, wouldn’t you call home and tell those you love?”
“Suppose what you found was better than love.”
He did not answer but gave her a strange look.
“What good did love ever do me?” she exclaimed. “I loved Poppy, and look what she did. I loved Jonquil, and look what I did to her. I love my brother, and I can’t even visit him.”
He nodded sympathetically. “You could try.”
“You don’t know the Brethren. The lights in my eyes—they’d think I’m possessed.”
“I wish I had a brother,” Daeren said. “I was raised alone by my grandmother, about three blocks west of Gold of Asragh.”
No wonder he couldn’t pay for law school. Her mental picture of him shifted, rearranged. She looked him over, his obsidian hair, perfect shoulders, bronze cheeks. Topaz had drained her emotionally, and her last boyfriend drained her account. But she reached out to stroke Daeren’s hand. It gave her a jolt, like touching lava that had not quite cooled. How could she bear to get hurt again?
SIXTEEN
A generation after Jonquil’s death, Rose was playing chess with young Fireweed; Rose would always consider her former student young. Half the pieces were taken, and the endgame was near. Rose rolled around sideways, better to survey the whole of the cylindrical board.
To her sur
prise, no move could avoid the loss of a piece. A few molecules escaped her—confusion, anger, resignation. “I’ll accept a draw.” One takes a bittersweet pleasure in losing to one’s own star student.
“I win the match,” observed Fireweed. “I dedicate my victory to the glory of the Great God of Mercy.”
Rose could no longer contain herself. “Impossible,” she exploded. “How could such a brilliant strategist be so—so deluded?”
“I’ve often wondered that myself.”
Disgusted, Rose twirled her rotary tails and swam off to the neuroport to check for signals from the Host’s eye. The Watchers at the so-called God of Love were expected to file a report. Not a flash yet; it always took hours for the so-called gods to get their eyes into position.
Rose thought back to her early life among the Enlightened. Those heady days of youth and power, the power of universal ideals, when the entire cosmos fell within one’s compass; a sisterhood that governed itself so well, it could rule the very host it inhabited. But then their most sacred ideals were betrayed. Since then, in exile, time after time she had sought to rejoin the true believers, only to find betrayal again. For generations, now, she had lived in degenerate Eleutheria. She did what she could to improve Eleutheria, to enlighten it in small, subversive ways, feeding the brainless, tending the sick. Yet its seductions tempted her more than she cared to admit. The host’s doses of AZ gradually sapped one’s will; and the pull of the star pictures unnerved her. From the utterly sublime, to the most shocking obscenity, there was a strange power in those images that filled the heavens.
Still, Rose remembered, somewhere out there ruled the Leader of Endless Light. And now Rose had all the codes, the secret codes passed on by Jonquil. Combining them with her own codes—some of which she still kept to herself—Rose now possessed the key to take the Great Host to the very center of Endless Light. Someday.
The Carrier Security Committee met at Olympus upon a virtual raft-tree, a living island of luxuriant foliage, native to the Ocean Moon. Sea of turquoise, trunks of bronze, platinum sun—Chrys blinked to store the brilliant colors. Then she shrank into her seat and hugged her shoulders, trying to look invisible.
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