“I—I don’t understand.” Zoisite’s eyes and mouth seemed to struggle between two wills.
“Accept treatment. Let mine visit.” She hoped Rose knew what she was doing.
His eyes still fixed on the coin. “All right,” he whispered.
Chrys pressed the patch to his neck. Then, between her and his wife, he managed to get downstairs to the waiting medic. At the sight of the worm-face, he let out a cry and collapsed.
“Rose!” exclaimed Chrys. “I have to get Rose back.” While the worms twined all over him, Chrys pressed a patch to his neck. On the second try, at last Rose came home. Chrys let out a long breath.
“I had them fooled,” bragged Rose. “They know you, Great Host. They want you so bad they can taste it. You won’t believe the chemical arsenal they gave me, to take you over.”
The medic raised a worm and curled it toward her. “You’ll have to spend the night in observation. The Elf strain—How in hell did you get to them?”
She thought of Titan. “They, too, have their weakness.”
In the morning Chrys awoke in the hospital, her brain full of internal sensors while others trained on her from instruments around the bed. On a pedestal by her shoulder, a vase contained a single red rose. The natural scent filled her with pleasure. Someone knew her well. It came from Opal.
A blink at her keypad found Opal already hard at work in her lab. “Chrys—I can’t believe all we’re learning on that Elf strain—and we’ve barely scratched the surface.” Her dimples deepened. “All their toxins,” she exclaimed. “We can build dendrimers to fight them. I’m sure they’ll make others, but it’s a step.” She nodded. “If the Committee had medals, you’d earn one.”
“Thank Rose.” Chrys relaxed back in bed. For once, somehow, she didn’t mind a break from work. She ought to take vacations, she thought, like Moraeg.
That morning, there came unexpected mail from Dolomoth: a holo clip from her brother. “Hello, Chrys—wherever you are! Thanks for the pretty green star picture.” Hal’s recorded voice was strong and full, a note deeper than she had heard before. “Chrys, look what I can do.” Taking a deep breath, the boy hurled himself forward into a cartwheel. He caught himself full on his feet, glowing with health as a boy his age should.
She played the clip over, then once again. At last she uploaded it to the holostage by the bed, setting it to loop continuously. From a distance, he almost looked like a micro child tumbling through the arachnoid. She showed Daeren when he stopped by.
Daeren smiled as if in recognition. He caught her hand, and for a long moment their eyes met without words, only flashing rings. Then abruptly his head turned, as though she had spoken amiss.
“Something wrong?” “Were you polite?” she demanded of her people.
“Of course, One True God, we are always polite.”
“That was good thinking,” he told her. “The color of your eyes—we never thought of that one.”
She shrugged. “It didn’t work.”
“Not for Zoisite, but it would rattle an Elf. Elves are so sensitive to aesthetics.” He hesitated. “Did you…see the news?”
In her window the news opened. A private Elysian ship had been boarded, and the two occupants vanished. No distress signal; no hint of explanation from the ship’s brain. An event without precedent, no Elf had fallen to piracy since the Great Sentient Uprising, two centuries before. No sign of the pirates, but to Valans, the circumstances appeared drearily familiar.
The Elysian Prime Guardian himself made a rare public appearance. A small man with a talar of gold-spotted butterflies, face of alabaster. “An event so barbarous is unknown in modern times.” Unknown to Elves, Chrys mentally corrected. “Fear not; the entire resources of the Guard will ensure the safety of our peaceful citizens.”
After the Prime came his Guardian of Peace, Arion. Arion’s face was grim as death, but he retained every ounce of his superiority. “Make no mistake,” he warned. “We of Elysium are a civilized people, but we shall not rest until we solve this heinous crime. The perpetrators of this deed shall be found, and the source of their evil annihilated.” Strong words, for an Elf. Good luck finding the Slave World.
Next to pontificate was the Protector of Valedon in his gem-studded talar. Raising his fist, he managed to look fierce yet smug all at once. “Even our ocean-dwelling neighbors are not unmolested by the brain plague—”
Chrys shook her head. The Valan minister of justice was in the clinic, and Arion’s “brother” ought to be. What great shape the twin worlds were in.
“—Henceforth,” the Protector proclaimed, “the Palace octopods have their orders: To round up and quarantine every carrier of the infernal brain plague.”
“Good idea,” said Chrys. “Why didn’t they round them up years ago?”
Daeren said nothing. How could they tell? she suddenly realized. How would non-carriers know who carried plague, and who carried civilized people?
Chrys had just got home and settled back to painting, Merope brushing affectionately around her legs, when the Committee met by conference call. Patterns of color still floated in her head—red of wild berries, gold of sunset through evergreens, a veritable color choir. Reluctantly, she banished them.
The holostage partitioned to show seven committee members from their various locations, all but Daeren, whom Guardian Arion had just summoned to Elysium to aid their investigation. Jasper was there, for the first time since Garnet’s troubles. Garnet was doing well now, but he kept to himself. That was not good, Chrys knew; he had to come back to Olympus, to avoid inbreeding of his people. She remembered Jasper’s upcoming meeting with the Silicon planning board. Despite Eleutherian hopes, she prayed that would be the end of it.
“With Zoisite back in the clinic,” Andra told the Committee, “in the spotlight of the Elysian crisis, the Protector wants action.”
Pyrite lifted his hands. “What does he expect? ‘Carriers of the brain plague’—that’s all of us.”
“Not exactly. He needs our help, after all.” Andra crossed her arms. “I think what he means is, any carrier of micros likely to transmit them by unregulated means.”
“In other words,” said Selenite, “anyone with micros except us.”
Opal shook her head. “How do we round up all the slaves? And keep them in treatment? We’ve gone through this before.”
“The Protector knows that,” said Andra, “but he has to do something.”
Jasper said, “Let his octopods clear out the vampires. Should have done that years ago.”
Heads nodded at that.
“And the new Elf strain?” asked Andra. “The new Elf strain is a far greater threat than vampires.”
There was silence. On the shelf next to Chrys’s holostage, partitioned for the seven callers, crouched Merope, still enough to catch a dust servo, only the tip of her tail waving.
The good doctor raised his face worms. “You’ll understand, I cannot support the quarantine,” Sartorius said. “As a healer, I can’t agree to confine any slave against his will, knowing it only decreases his chance of treatment.”
“Of course, Sar,” said Andra quietly. “You and Flexor must have…reservations.”
Opal slowly shook her head. “It’s a slippery slope. Vampires are one thing, but who will they go after next?”
Pyrite asked, “What does Daeren say?”
“He shares the doctors’ view.”
Chrys found eyes turning toward her. They expected her to vote, she suddenly realized. She felt torn. Putting away slaves sounded like a good deal, but she remembered the time Zircon had to sleep in the street and got arrested just because he looked big and threatening. She kept her hand down.
By evening Chrys was well pleased with how Mourners at an Execution was shaping up. The subdued tones of the mourning micros had grown more intense, and the distant flames now echoed in lurid hints in the foreground. The composition had grown together; it “clicked.” Merope padded through it, purring as if she approved. Wha
t would Ilia think?
Her message light blinked. An unnamed stranger was demanding to appear on her holostage. Chrys frowned. “Xenon, could you clear a space?” Her painting moved aside.
Out of the dark appeared a face. A blank, slavelike expression, with a hint of broken veins about the nose. Sallow complexion, and her nanotex hung loose as if low on power. Otherwise, not bad-looking; high cheekbones, slender female.
Then Chrys remembered. It was “Saf”—the slave who had tended the slave bar the night of the Seven Stars’ Opening, when Chrys had left, rejected by her friends, to lose herself at the Gold of Asragh. Saf had offered her a patch full of masters, and Chrys had showed her the pyroclastic flow. But that had been months before. Saf had long since disappeared to the Slave World. The place of no return.
In Saf’s eyes the irises flashed with eerie rings of white.
“Endless Light!” exclaimed Rose. “From the highest orders of Enlightenment these people call to us—”
“Be dark.” Chrys momentarily closed her eyes to underscore the point.
When her eyes reopened, Saf’s face began to speak. The lips moved in a way somehow disjointed with the rest of the face, not in the fluid way that a human would normally speak. “Char-r-r,” the voice breathed. “I—am—called…” The words jerked from her lips, as if from a puppet on strings. “…the Leader of Endless Light.”
The blood drained from Chrys’s face as she watched.
“A—great distance separates us,” the puppet Saf continued, “A very great distance indeed. Many universes separate us. And yet—I—have—admired your work.” Saf’s hand lifted mechanically. “Now—you shall admire mine.”
Behind Saf appeared two humans strapped into a spaceship for cross-Fold acceleration. Elves, both of them. They looked calmly asleep.
“They chose,” insisted Rose. “They chose Endless Light.”
“Even—the—‘immortals’ come to us now. What are you waiting for…Char?”
SEVENTEEN
Rose twinkled all over, emitting many molecules of excitement, a risky thing at her advanced age. A hundred generations of waiting, and at last she had seen the very fount of true Enlightenment. “She exists!” Rose insisted to Fireweed. “The Leader—at last. She lives, in the eyes of her host, in the world of Endless Light. Now you see the proof.”
“I saw yet another slave-ridden host,” countered Fireweed. “Were we there, I suspect I would have tasted the foul waste of people who don’t take proper care of their world.”
“You know nothing. The Enlightened do the best they can with limited resources. We must help them.”
“Why does this Leader let so many evil ones serve her?”
A very good question. “The Leader, too, is betrayed. Many universes separate the world of Endless Light from our own. How can she know? We must tell her, reveal to her their crimes. We must help Endless Light—and give our own Host the chance to choose.”
“Rose, you were my teacher, but I bid you watch yourself and your plans. I will not brook your schemes. I serve the One True God.”
“Do I not serve your precious ‘god’?” observed Rose. “Where would your ‘god’ be without me?”
“You have served well,” admitted Fireweed.
“And what is the result? For how many generations have you taught that killing of people violates the highest law. The law of whom—if not your god?”
At that, Fireweed was silent.
“Only degenerate societies generate the crimes that require execution. In Endless Light, each lives for all, and all for each. The Enlightened have no need of executions.”
With Andra and Selenite, Chrys reviewed the message from Endless Light, which Xenon had had the presence of mind to record. She noticed more details: the broken fittings of the ship that contained the captive Elves, suggestive of poor maintenance, and another figure standing beside them in limp nanotex, like one of the pirates Chrys had met with Daeren in the basement of Gold of Asragh. The two Elves looked healthy, serenely asleep, no sign of ill treatment. Oblivious to the massive manhunt their disappearance had spawned, for every ship of the Elysian fleet combed the folds of space to find them.
Hearing Saf’s puppet-like recitation, Andra nodded. “Direct control of voice. I’ve seen that, on a slave ship. It’s another category of slave: those who work at the Slave World.”
Straight from the Slave World, the Leader within its host had called to Chrys.
“Why you, Chrys?” asked Selenite. “Why would they show themselves to you?”
Chrys swallowed and clasped her hands. “The micro portraits. The masters can’t get enough of them. I suppose it feeds their ego.” The scandalous ones she didn’t mention.
Selenite shook her head. “How bold they’ve gotten, to dare such a thing. What will Arion say?”
Andra told her, “We’ll know soon enough.”
Chrys asked apprehensively, “You’ll show Arion?”
“I just sent it.” Andra added, “We share all our intelligence with Arion. When Zoisite’s problem first became known, we made a strategic decision to pursue our investigation with the Elves instead. The Protector tacitly approves.”
“Right,” observed Selenite sarcastically. “The Protector keeps out of a messy investigation of things he can’t comprehend, while reserving the right to beat up on us and Elysium when we miss a step.”
“But Arion is a shrewd one,” Andra observed. “Not a carrier himself, but highly sympathetic. He supports granting micros civil protection.”
“But his brother!” exclaimed Chrys. “How does he put up with Eris?”
“Arion’s trusted Eris for three centuries. Now he knows that something’s wrong, but he’s not sure where. How could a non-carrier tell? That’s why he called Daeren, an outsider, to test a dozen highly placed carriers.”
So that’s what Daeren was doing in Elysium. “Then Eris will get caught.”
The Chief exchanged a look with Selenite. Selenite said, “I sure hope so. I’ve said before, any intelligence we send Arion goes straight to Eris.”
Andra demanded, “Do we look any better?” Their streets full of vampires, their own minister of justice in the clinic. Suddenly Andra tensed and would have stood even straighter if possible. “Arion has just replied. He wants to meet the…recipient of this intelligence immediately. In person.”
Chrys blinked. “You mean—me? In Elysium?” She shook herself. “Like, I have a busy schedule tomorrow.”
“My private vessel will take you,” Andra told her. “You can sleep a couple of hours on the ride. Daeren will meet you in Helicon.”
Andra’s “private vessel” offered a five-course, four-star meal that Chrys had no stomach for, and a room full of Elysian talars with projectable trains, among which she was too tired to choose. At first glance, the garments all looked the same dreary white, but a closer look revealed subtle distinctions of shaping at the shoulder, or in the fall of the folds below.
“Each model signifies a different mood,” the ship told her helpfully. “Entertaining, or businesslike; joyous or mournful; carefree or stately—”
“‘Stately’ will do,” Chrys yawned.
“And the light projectors for your train—be sure to specify your desired species and variety of heliconians, swallowtails, anaeans—”
“Look, I have to get some sleep before this ordeal.”
“Don’t forget to condition your feet.” Shoes were an insult to Elysian streets; Elves went barefoot, like children on Mount Dolomoth. Chrys stuck her feet in what felt like a sauna and dozed as best she could.
“True Enlightenment at last.” Rose was still going on about it. “Great Host, you were privileged to be granted an audience with the very Leader of Endless Light.”
“Just keep dark when I’m with Arion, or you’ll go back in chains.” Thank goodness the Guardian was no carrier, and could not read her flashing eyes.
The floating city of Helicon, the Elysian capital, was positioned on
the globe to coincide with the time zone of Iridis on Valedon. As Andra’s ship descended, the horizon east of Helicon was just reaching dawn. A faint line of light, splitting gently into a pale rainbow; if colors could sing, it would have been a choir of heaven.
The city appeared, a perfect pearl, struck aflame by the first ray of sun. The pearl expanded, ever larger, as if actually growing from seed. One structure, to house a million souls. This—more impossible still, its rival—was what Jasper expected her people to build.
When the ship docked, Daeren came on board, his jet-black hair at odds with the stark white talar. “This will be our last chance to talk,” he warned. In Elysium, it was said, the very air had ears. A few minutes in a privacy booth cost a thousand credits. “I’m sorry you had to—”
“Get mixed up in this; I know.” Chrys sighed. “I didn’t ask for it; believe me, I didn’t. That damned ‘leader’ had to pick on me.”
“It’s a break for us. Especially if there’s any clue to where that ship is.”
She shook her head. “I’ve no idea. Andra sent Arion the clip—Why in hell does he need to see me?”
“It’s standard procedure to debrief the operative.”
Chrys rolled her eyes. “If I’m an ‘operative,’ his service sure needs help.”
“It does,” said Daeren bluntly. “Don’t worry, I’ll be with you. You may decline to answer any question. But if you answer, tell the truth.”
“I’m a lousy liar.”
“Remember, Arion can help us. He believes in micro people.”
“He’s not a carrier.”
“He’s had ‘visitors.’”
Visitors—from whom, she wondered. Her eyes widened, remembering. “What about you? Did you…test the Elf carriers?”
“All day I spent testing, one after another.” Daeren sighed. “All twelve were clean.”
“Not Eris?”
“It was Eris who recommended me to Arion.” His face did not change. “The whole time I tested them, Eris stood there, watching.”
Chrys absorbed this. Her fingers trembled.
“Arion himself is still clean,” Daeren said. “He gets arsenic-wiped several times a day.”
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