"We've set traps for them."
From the front of the bubble, where the new passengers merged, came a figure veiled in white. The figure moved toward them slowly as a ghost. Chrys stared, every muscle taut. It wouldn't take much to knock one Elf clear across the car, no matter what the fine.
The stranger came right up to Chrys and stopped. The veil parted at the face. Chrys let out a cry.
It was Ilia. "Do what you have to." Ilia's eyes darted back and forth, then met hers. "You're not the first, you know."
"The rest of the children . . . you can take them?" Chrys passed her the transfer.
Daeren said, "We're forever in your debt, Ilia."
"Why?" exclaimed Chrys. "Why do you let this go on?"
Ilia adjusted her veil. "If the Guard knew, they'd wipe us all. Only Arion acknowledges the micros are people. The others don't want to know." For a moment Ilia's features wrinkled as if very old. "Your show will change that, but it will take time. Elysians have time, but our micros don't."
Daeren shook his head. "Elysians don't have time either." The precious Elf students in their jumpsuits, cared for till age fifty. "Experimenting" with micros.
The veil closed. Ilia moved off, carrying the last of Eleutheria's children.
Back at Andra's home, the doctor's worms encircled her scalp. "All your micros have to go," he told Chrys. "It will take a day to clear out your white cells and accelerate new ones from the bone marrow. All the while you'll be cleared of arsenic, in case false blue angels emerge. We've found we can't always find them in the bone."
"You can't?" Chrys asked. Arion had himself wiped daily and thought he was safe from Eris.
Andra gave a grim smile. "Medicine's never perfect. That's why they need lawyers. Daeren," she began warningly.
"I know," said Daeren, "I violated the protocol. But her people would have died out."
"They wouldn't be the first."
"But I couldn't just—"
"If Sar and I don't report you, we're all in violation. All our people too."
The four of them were silent. Only the holostage flickered, Chrys's vital signs scanning down.
Andra held out a patch to Chrys. "You can give me another hundred thousand," she said. "That's all I can take. Other Olympians will take the rest."
Opal arrived, and Selenite. Chrys sat there, feeling drained, Daeren's arm tight around her as the patch went back and forth, dispersing the Eleutherian refugees. Still more to go—Jasper and Garnet each took their share, then Pyrite and Zircon.
At last, for the final few, Moraeg. Diamonds swirling like a starry night; that night, Chrys remembered, when the Seven had planned their last show. Find your own way, Moraeg had told Chrys. Now it had come to this. Back where she started.
Moraeg bent over her. "It's only for a day, isn't it?"
The doctor warned, "It won't be easy, but you'll make it."
What did he mean, she wondered. Carriers who lost their people "didn't last," out of longing. But this was just for a day. The patch transferred one last time.
"One True God," flashed Fireweed. "All the rest have gone. I alone remain. My time is short, but I vowed to be yours until the end."
The doctor's worms flexed. "Are they all clear?"
"Except one," Chrys whispered. Fireweed had stayed, like a hermit upon Mount Dolomoth, alone with her God. Perhaps every believer in One True God secretly yearned to be the one true worshiper.
Daeren squeezed her hand. "Some of mine did the same. Sar had to—"
"Never mind." The doctor made a rare interruption. "The micro can't last long, without taking food or risking the toxin. The arsenic wipe can wait."
Before she could rest, Chrys had to sketch her portrait of the doomed Fireweed, the infrared letters flashing faithfully. At last she went to bed with Daeren, falling into a troubled sleep. Early in the morning, thrashing with troubled dreams, she woke. "They're gone!" she cried. "Daeren—"
He held her tight. "They're not gone. See?" His own eyes flickered, all the colors of the stars, a million light-years away.
"They're gone from me. I can't help it; I feel as if—" She was tumbling over and over, like the time she fell weightless in the dead spacecraft.
"That happened to me," Daeren said. "The inner ear goes off because they're not there, and you're disoriented without them."
Tumbling forever, falling through space; it was so unbearable, she thought she would die. But the tumbling only went on.
"Give them back," she found herself shouting. "Just one—"
"It will pass," he quietly insisted.
"Let the false ones out of the bone. At least they can stop it—" She hardly knew what she shouted, until the doctor returned to adjust something. Then she slept, half rousing now and then, back to troubled sleep.
In the morning she did not care if she slept or woke. Her surroundings receded, all seemed far away. "Can you tell me?" Daeren was pleading to get her to talk. "Tell me what's going on."
Chrys could not even shake her head. Empty and dark, her mind was an abyss.
"They still remember you," he promised. "Even the children. Look, you have to eat; they'll be hungry."
The doctor's worm rested on Daeren's shoulder. "Depression," he said. "We can take the edge off, but too much will endanger their return."
Daeren gave up talking. He drew her close, resting her head on his chest. He stayed with her all the rest of the day. She knew he was there, though she could not feel it, could feel nothing but aloneness, the most intense sense of being lost. Like that time when she was small, she had wandered too far from home and had spent the night out on the mountain. Now the mountain rose across the universe, and there was no way back home, ever.
"Another hour." Sartorius kept coming back from the hospital to let her know. "You got through another hour; just four more."
That evening, at last Andra returned. "Sar, are you sure?"
The doctor's worms twined. "Reasonably certain. No trace of the viral RNA can be found."
Turning to Chrys, Andra took out a patch. "Are you ready?"
Chrys heard the question twice before she could speak. "I'm not sure."
"It's okay," coaxed Daeren. "They're coming back. They're fine; they miss you, that's all."
"I don't know." She slowly shook her throbbing head. "What if it ever happened again? I couldn't face it."
"But they need you." Daeren turned the lights down. On the holostage, in the darkness, the green filaments twinkled, Fern, the first one, generations past, flashing her last words of wisdom for Eleutheria. "As we would receive mercy, so must we grant it in turn. ..."
The vision roused her, as if from a trance. For a moment she was back on the day Fern first came to visit, then to stay. She swallowed, her mouth dry. "Let me see just one."
The first flicker of yellow in her eye. "Cheers!" flashed yellow Lupin. "There's no place like home. When's your next show?"
Slowly she smiled. It was going to be all right.
"The children, next," offered Daeren. "With a few blue angels to help them resettle. It's what they're good at."
Throughout the evening, the Olympians came back, each returning their share of the lost generation. Opal kissed her on both cheeks. "They've founded another new school of something or other; I hope you don't mind," she added. "And that RNA plasmid—that won't fool us again."
Chrys found herself laughing, almost giddy with relief.
Selenite returned hers. "They weren't so bad," she assured Chrys. "Hypercorrect, in fact. But I wasn't fooled." She grinned. "I know their tricks now. We'll get on so much better."
Jasper patted her arm. "They certainly know how to flatter their host," he agreed. "I foresee a long and prosperous business relationship."
"We'll miss them," sighed Garnet. "They brought so much palladium, and spent it all."
"They're outrageous!" Zircon actually looked alarmed. "No offense, Chrys, but—do you know what your people did? They made their own ethanol and go
t drunk in all our restaurants."
"And who encouraged that?"
"My people abstain," the giant assured her, patting her head. "But that's okay. We tolerate the vices of others."
Pyrite returned his, and Moraeg hers. By now the mood was getting festive; it almost felt like the old times at Olympus.
"God of Mercy," called Forget-me-not. "Please—half the children are missing, still unaccounted for. What became of them?"
Chrys frowned, trying to think. She counted off all the Olympians. Then her head shot up. "Saints and angels. The last place I want to go back is—"
There stood Ilia, her virtual butterflies fluttering out over the sapphire pool. "Hope I didn't keep you waiting."
The laughter died, everyone's attention caught by the diminutive Elysian. Regally, she approached to hand Chrys the last transfer. "Truly a unique aesthetic experience," she observed. "And to think I'd always found all your 'people' so ..." Her gaze swept the group, coming at last to rest upon Andra. "... conventional."
"Thanks, Ilia," said Andra. "We'll remember."
She turned to Chrys. "You heard, of course, about your show."
"Heard what?"
"The Guard closed it down."
"Oh, no."
Ilia's eyes gleamed. "For violating public standards of decency, morality, and security."
"I'm so sorry."
She waved a hand dismissively. "We appealed and got it reopened within an hour. Now the lines to get in stretch for three blocks." She added triumphantly, "And I've been called to testify before the Guard. That hasn't happened to the Gallery since our first millennium."
"I see."
"We'll all see," promised Ilia. "If Arion won't take a stand, perhaps someone else will."
At last all had left for the night, except for Daeren, who sat perusing one of his legal documents on the holostage.
"We'll remember," promised Forget-me-not. "The poisoned veins, the sacrifice of Fireweed, and our flight to the ten worlds. And in our Great Diaspora, we have learned some things about the true meaning of Eleutheria."
"I've learned, too," Chrys reflected. "I would have taken the false ones—anything. The virgins are right; we are addicted."
" 'Independents,' " Daeren corrected, without turning around. "They're addicted to oxygen."
"Carriers share everything." She whispered, "But Daeren, it's different with you."
He half turned, his face set hard. "Are you sure?"
He was actually jealous. She went to him and knelt, crossing her arms in his lap. "You're still my one Lord of Light."
Daeren's face softened. He picked her up and carried her off to bed, kissing her madly. This time, at last, they both had their fill. "God of Mercy," he whispered. "I live or die at your pleasure."
In the morning, Andra brought bad news. "Someone told the Palace. We're all summoned—Sar and I, and both of you."
Across the pool flooded the virtual rising sun. Heaven was always too short. Chrys sighed. "So what do we do?"
Andra put her hands together. "I cut a deal." As usual. "Sar goes to the Palace for interrogation. They'll rake him over, but they owe him for Zoisite. The rest of us go to Arion."
"Arion?" asked Chrys. "Why?"
"The first Elf children have succumbed to plague." Andra let this sink in. "Now, at last, Arion swears he will hear the truth."
"We've told him nothing else."
"The whole truth," Andra emphasized.
"Do you believe him?"
Andra was silent. The silence expanded, like ripples on the pool. "Until now, I have. Now, for the first time . . . I'm no longer sure. His eyes did not quite meet mine."
Chrys closed her eyes as if to shut it all out. Then she forced them open. "Do we have a choice?"
"You have one other choice."
Into her window sprang a virtual ticket. A starship ticket to Solaria. Exile.
Daeren must have seen the same. He looked down. "Chrys, I'm in your hands. Wherever you go, I will follow."
Chrys turned to Andra. "If we leave, what will become of you? And Sar?"
Andra looked down. "We'll manage. We always have."
And the other Olympians, and Ilia, and all the hapless citizens in the streets. She thought it over, eyeing the ticket. "Solarian nightlife's the best. Can we have, like, a rain check?"
TWENTY-FOUR
The terror of the flight from poison would never be forgotten, especially by the children swept out into new worlds. And still, Forget-me-not knew, worse was yet to come. Somewhere out beyond the familiar gods walked others, gods who could dissolve people with as little care as for a mindless virus floating in the blood.
But the Eleutherians who returned from the Diaspora were a different people than before. Some individuals had stayed behind to dwell with their new gods, while many strangers had left their own gods to join Eleutheria. The newcomers brought their own ways, but in the end most took up the great challenge of the past generations. And this time they made sure their work would outlast even death.
"Fear not," Forget-me-not told the god. "Fear not the future. Whatever becomes of us, Eleutheria will remain. We have stored all of what we are, our history and our works, for whoever will find it after we are gone—in all the different worlds to which we fled. For in truth, Eleutheria is no genetic race, nor a physical place, but a way of being, a path of endless life. All those who seek to build in truth and memory shall find our way."
The three carriers went in to see Arion, flanked by octopods. So much for peaceful Elysium. The Guardian of Peace sat there behind a conference table, live butterflies flitting outside the window beyond. Beside him sat his brother.
Chrys stopped to let her pulse subside. "It's all over."
"Not yet," said Forget-me-not. "Another year's as good as ten. So long as we live, we live free."
Eris did not even pretend to meet their eyes. He studied his hands, clasped before him on the table, as if to say, this was none of his affair. Beside him, Arion looked on as before, his features the color of alabaster, his eyes penetrating. "Seat yourselves, Citizens."
Andra narrowed her eyes, her gaze hunting Eris like a bird of prey. "Eris. How long it's been." Her voice was deceptively relaxed. "How long since I've seen our descendants?"
Descendants of her own people? The false blue angels? As if a window opened, Chrys saw now why Arion did not trust Andra, and why Daeren's slip had sparked her anger. The worst of micros could become the best; but even the best had produced the worst.
Eris acted as if he did not hear. Arion ignored the remark as well. He nodded at Chrys. "For the record, Citizen Chrysoberyl, you are the betrayer of two worlds, indeed the very integrity of the Fold."
"Excuse me?"
"You tipped off the slaves before our mission."
"I tried to," she admitted. "To prevent genocide. But someone else got there first." She glared at Eris, daring Arion to ask who.
Arion added, "You are also the only human to have seen the Slave World and come back free—twice."
"I know of none else," she admitted.
"And you made an exhibit of their obscene propaganda."
That took her aback. "You want facts, or art critique?"
"And you expect me to believe that you follow your own free will, and not that of the brain plague."
She studied Arion's eyes. They met hers, just barely. "No," she said at last. "I honestly don't expect you will believe me. I expect to leave here with my people wiped, victims of—"
He waved a hand. So much for hearing the full truth. "Daeren," he began. "The main tester of carriers at Hospital Iridis, you gave yourself up to the Slave World."
Andra said, "He was not himself."
"Let him answer."
"I was myself," Daeren corrected, his voice level. "You, Arion, were not yourself when you chose to annihilate what remained of a crippled world. The ancient barbarians, as you call them, left grass and insects. Your own act left nothing."
"You did no
t object," Arion pointed out. "You knew why it had to be done. It was either that, or wipe all the carriers of Elysium, and make the Valans do the same."
"I was wrong," Daeren said. "There are other choices."
"But you came back." Arion turned again to Chrys. "You rescued him. How?"
Her throat tightened. She could still hardly bear to speak of it. "The ... Leader. Her portrait paid."
Arion frowned. "You and your portraits. There, too, you abused my trust."
"That's true," Chrys admitted. "I should have asked your consent."
"But Daeren—you recovered." Arion's voice took on a peculiar note of urgency. "How? How did you recover, from the worst depths, yet hold on to your 'people'?"
Andra explained, "An experimental treatment. Doctor Sartorius has the details."
"Did the treatment work?"
"We believe it is working."
"Would it work for others?"
No one looked at Eris.
"Daeren's failure was brief," Andra reminded Arion. "Even so, his recovery has consumed substantial resources, and the care of very special... people."
"No amount of resources would be too great to save a millennial life." As if an eighty-year-old sim would not matter. As if a person's worth could be measured by his lifespan.
"Did you hear, Eris?" Arion's voice softened. "Did you hear that even the worst case can be cured?"
The room was suddenly still; had a fly crept across the table, it could have been heard. Only butterflies flitted in the garden beyond. At the table, Eris did not move. He did not respond aloud, but his electronic sense must have reached Arion.
"Yes," Arion nodded. "Chrysoberyl, please explain what we found the night after you left your show. The medic who treated your injury reported mysterious trace molecules—later identified unmistakably as a mark of the brain plague."
Andra insisted, "She was cleared. Arsenic-wiped."
"But how did they get there?" pursued Arion. "How can you explain, unless you were a slave?"
Chrys stood suddenly, her hands planted on the table. From behind, an octopod arm gripped her shoulder. "He did it!" Her voice rose to a shout. "Eris did everything, you know he did. He sent the damned snake-egg to poison me. He's poisoned half your own carriers, sent them to the Slave World; he tried the same with me. And now he's starting on your children."
Brain Plague (elysium cycle) Page 36