Brain Plague (elysium cycle) Read online

"Chrysoberyl?" Beside a singing-tree reclined Lord Jasper, his arm around a fair-haired gentleman in gray nanotex with one red namestone. Moraeg's Lord Carnelian, Chrys thought at first; but he was not. He must be Jasper's husband, Lord Garnet. Jasper rose to meet Chrys. "My pleasure." His thick simian brow gave him a permanently serious expression. Plan Ten could have reshaped his simian traits, but he hadn't; Chrys respected that. "You manage Eleutheria most admirably, by all accounts."

  "The God of the Map of the Universe! When can we visit?"

  Chrys hesitated, still shy about "visiting." "They're good people," said Chrys, her eyelids fluttering nervously. "They take pride in their creation."

  "Keep your eyes open," complained Aster. "Shut-downs interfere with transmission. This is most important—"

  "Be patient," Chrys blinked back.

  Jasper nodded sharply, like a man used to sizing up character. "I'm glad they're back at work on the Comb. Perhaps they can salvage it after all." He touched her hand politely, then put a transfer at his neck. "As you know, the House of Hyalite had approached Titan about a ... major new project. Much bigger than the Comb. We believe he had just drafted a proposal, when he passed away."

  "How unfortunate." What project, she wondered. What could be bigger than the Comb?

  "Your people claim they saved the proposal, and have continued to refine it."

  It unnerved her when her micros knew what was going on and she didn't.

  "Let's not keep Garnet waiting," said Jasper. "Garnet, this is Chrysoberyl of Dolomoth. Our new neighbor."

  Lord Garnet met her eyes, and his own sparkled gold. A younger son of the Hyalites, he had their high cheekbones and well-set eyes, but Chrys had heard little of him. He must have paid off the snake-eggs to keep him out of the news. Like Lord Carnelian, he wore only gray, and a namestone so small you could miss it. "So you're the new Titan."

  "Oh, no." Chrys shook her head. "I'm no dynatect." She added earnestly, "I'm an artist. One of the Seven Stars."

  "The God of Love," said Aster. "His people love our nightclubs. Let them visit."

  Chrys touched his hand and offered him "visitors."

  Another caryatid approached, this one a young woman. And yet... the face was her first boyfriend, whom she had not seen in ten years. The one who had begged her to stay with him in the mountains forever, raising his goats and children. Chrys went cold with shock.

  Lord Garnet smiled. "What good taste you have, my dear. We always try to please a newcomer."

  The servers were keyed to her gaze, shaping themselves to what most caught her eye. Chrys looked away.

  "Olympus?" Jasper called tactfully, "Key the servers to me, please."

  Garnet leaned forward suddenly. "Tell me something. Why are the Seven Stars but Seven?"

  Still recovering, Chrys ignored him.

  "Daeren," called Garnet. "Do you know why the Seven are but Seven?"

  Daeren came over and rested his hand lightly on Garnet's shoulder, lines of gold rising elegantly along his dark nanotex. He looked Chrys in the eye. "Because they were not eight." He meant something else, and so did Garnet, Chrys suspected. The committee—they all knew.

  Garnet playfully caught Daeren's arm and passed him a patch. "You make a good fool. What goes on four legs, then two legs, then three?"

  "You're a fool for all but numbers," jested Jasper. "Why don't you give us the kind that's useful?"

  "Right, my dear." Garnet turned to Chrys. "Your people tell us you could use extra funds. Blink me a hundred. We only take one percent, for carriers."

  The nerve of those Eleutherians—they'd catch it later. Chrys swallowed her retort and shrugged. "All right." She blinked at her credit line. The three digits reappeared in an investment box. The lower digits vacillated too fast for her to catch, but within a minute the first digit doubled.

  "We invest on the nano-market," Garnet explained. "Trades lasting a fraction of a second."

  Doubling every minute—it looked pretty good, even to someone no good at math.

  Garnet tilted his head. "An artist," he repeated reflectively. "I invest in art. Do show us some."

  Opal had overheard. "Please do, Chrys." She clapped her hands. Two singing-trees vanished to reveal a holostage.

  Warily Chrys looked from one to another. What did they know of art, she wondered. Though if they liked something, at least they could afford to buy.

  From online she called down Lava Butterflies, in Valan color mode. The piece began with the cone smoking quietly above the rocky landscape, foreground touched with poppies tinted orange. Then it erupted, the orange lava exploding into butterflies.

  The carriers nearby all laughed, and even Jasper smiled. Chrys's face hardened. No sense of taste—philistines all.

  "Chrys," called Opal, "why don't you show us Fern?"

  She blinked in surprise. "What do you mean?"

  "We've all heard about Fern," said Opal. "How you put her 'in the stars.' "

  The carriers all grew quiet and watched her curiously. She realized that her micros must have spread it around, telling all their people about her precious little sketch. But she would never put that up for laughs. "It's private."

  Opal's face fell, as if it were a real disappointment. The silence lengthened. Chrys felt bad; Opal had done so much for her. The sketch was not online for sale, but she took a viewcoin from her pocket and held it out to Opal, set on low power, enough to reach her alone.

  For a moment Opal stared. Her eyes widened and she clapped her hands to her head. "That's it! That's how they really look, not like any micrograph. Like ..." She turned to Chrys. "Put it on the stage," she urged. "Let everyone see."

  Chrys swallowed hard. It was just a sketch; she had never intended other humans to see it. Nervously she turned the viewcoin over between her fingers. At last she held it close to the stage. The lights dimmed. The image of Fern appeared, done in broad, hasty strokes, a giant green constellation, proclaiming the Eighth Light of Creation. The green filaments twinkled, in their own pulsing language that only the micro people knew.

  "Behold our prophet," flashed Aster, "placed in the stars forever. God of Mercy, your greatness is everlasting." Chrys smiled. She should have known Fern was a prophet.

  The carriers watched without speaking, and who knows how many "people" watched through their eyes. "But—she looks real," someone exclaimed. "As real as life—and yet—"

  "Human size," added another.

  Opal caught Chrys by the arm. "Could you do one of mine?"

  Garnet said, "I'd like a whole gallery of my favorites."

  "Mine first," insisted Opal. "Please—she hasn't another day to live." The urgency in her voice was most unlike her.

  "What are your rates?" asked someone else.

  The caryatids slowly passed, their food and drink unnoticed. Saints and angels, thought Chrys. Could it be that she would make good in "portraits" after all?

  NINE

  The last of the Watchers, Dendrobium, was on the point of death, losing arsenic atom by atom. Aster tasted her fraying filaments. "You've done enough for us," Aster told her. "We'll have to make it on our own now. Won't you return at last to the Lord of Light, as your sister did?" In her youth Dendrobium had been the Lord of Light's favorite, yet she chose exile among those who rejected him.

  Dendrobium's filaments blinked faintly. "It's too late; I could not survive the transfer."

  Except directly through the blood, thought Aster; the way forbidden by the gods.

  "It's nothing," the dying Watcher told her. "I've lived a long life well. Now I have one last word for you to remember. Someday, your god will despair and let you do as you will. When that day comes, remember this: Just say no."

  Aster's filaments tasted the memory cell, with its whirling proton pumps and its photoreceptors. "We will remember. We will record your image for all time." Then she remembered the great miracle of Fern. "You, too, belong in the stars. We will ask the Great One to perform this miracle."

  The d
ying cell did not answer.

  Now Aster felt truly alone. The Council was divided on so many things—how to finance new bridges and fix decaying neighborhoods of arachnoid, what to do with young elders who couldn't find jobs. Jonquil had lots of bright ideas, but her authority was undercut by rumors of scandal.

  "Jonquil, is it true?" demanded Aster. "Is it true, what people are saying? "

  "What are they saying?"

  It was too shameful even to mention. Aster flashed the words behind a screen of dendrimers. "They say you try to merge with adults."

  "Aster, everyone knows that's impossible. Only children can merge."

  Not a convincing answer. "They say you try."

  "Why is that so bad?" asked Jonquil. "The gods merge and come apart again."

  According to ancient legend, the Blind God had merged and come apart many times, with many different gods. But the God of Mercy never did any such thing. "You are no god, just a foolish elder. Think of your reputation. I'm depending on you. How will you keep the next generation out of trouble?"

  "The real trouble with the next generation is that they've all grown soft. All the Olympian peoples—we drown in mediocrity. Where are truly diverse foreign peoples to merge? Talents and ideas unheard of?"

  "Ideas are one thing," Aster insisted, "scandal is another."

  "Speaking of scandal, what are we to do with Minion-625? She passed our test for citizenship, but the Deathlord demands her arrest."

  Aster's light dimmed. "What's she done now?"

  "She wrote 'Pumpkinheads,' a show making fun of the gods."

  "Oh, that." The show was making the rounds of the nightclubs, but Aster was too busy to see it. "She's welcome to stay here, but we can't afford a diplomatic crisis with the minions. Not while we're fixing the Comb."

  After years without notice, suddenly Chrys had more commissions than she knew what to do with. Bemused, she scratched beneath Merope's purring chin, while the little green sketch of Fern twinkled amongst the spattercones and lava flows that now adorned her studio. "Xenon," she confided, "I don't even know what to charge them."

  "You need an agent," the house told her.

  Chrys rolled her eyes. "An agent for microbial portraits?" She could hardly ask Topaz to recommend one.

  "If you don't mind," said Xenon, "I've frequented galleries for years, and I've always wanted to sell good art."

  "Really?" Opal sure had picked the right house.

  "I'm so excited," Xenon exclaimed. "It's simple enough; you start at the top of the market. A top portrait commission goes for around twenty thousand."

  "To paint a microbe?"

  "Remember, you've got the market cornered."

  She thought it over. "We'll do Opal's first." She had already collected recordings of a couple dozen favored micros, several from Garnet alone. A sketch was one thing, but a portrait in full detail? Topaz would interview her subjects for hours before putting a hand in the painting stage, and the sittings could take days or weeks. When would Chrys have time for pyroscape?

  But if she could pull it off. . . what a fantastic theme for her next show.

  "Oh Great One?" Yellow flashes from Jonquil. "Aster asked me to remind you of the passing of Dendrobium." The last of Daeren's Watchers. Chrys was on her own now, with Eleutheria. "We ask your favor, to see Dendrobium in the stars."

  Unlike the other carriers at Olympus, Daeren had shown no interest in the micro portraits. "I'll sketch Dendrobium for you, Jonquil, but then we need to do our paid commissions. You'll have to help with the colors."

  "Thanks for your favor, Oh Great One. Of course, paid commissions come first, but for your show, wouldn't you like to try some compositions of greater intellectual interest than dying elders? For instance, two children merging."

  That would be a challenge, geometrically at least. She could see possibilities. Her show would be unique; maybe even controversial.

  "I've reached four of your clients," reported Xenon, "and confirmed your commissions. I think you can look forward to steady income."

  She looked up, then suddenly focused on her credit line. "Speaking of income, what's that 'two' doing in the first digit?" She couldn't have earned another million overnight.

  "Your investment has done rather well."

  Chrys twisted a loop of her hair. "Easy come, easy go."

  "True," admitted Xenon, "last night you had another ten million for about five minutes. You might sell off some, now and then."

  "I can buy my brother's health plan."

  "Certainly, Chrysoberyl. Which plan do you wish?"

  "How much is Plan Ten?"

  "Plan Ten doesn't serve Dolomoth; the mountains are too remote. Plan Six, however, for twenty thousand a year, should cover the basics. The extra levels are mainly for options."

  That was okay. Hal didn't need a gender change, just new mitochondria. Her spirits soared; she felt better than she had in weeks. She blinked at her window to call her parents. Of course, it was impossible to reach anyone directly in Dolomoth; they had to hike out to the village transmitter and call back.

  A sprite flashed in her eyes. She was taken by surprise; it could not be her parents already.

  It was Andra. "Chrys, a suspect has been identified in your case. A neighbor of yours; they think he's the one that hit your house."

  The view split to include the suspect, a large-boned simian with the sullen look one would expect of someone bound hand and foot. Chrys recognized him from the tube maintenance crew. "Can you confirm any connection?" Andra asked. "Did he ever threaten you?"

  Chrys shook her head. "He used to pass by my door on the way to work. Why do they think he did it?"

  "A witness placed him nearby, earlier that day."

  "I see."

  "He's been in trouble before. They want to put him away again."

  "For what? Being a sim?"

  Andra nodded. "I'm afraid other leads have dried up. But for the future, you have good protection. Xenon's security is up to standard."

  "What about Titan? Anything new?"

  "That's another story."

  Chrys turned cold, remembering that her new privileges came at a price.

  An explosion of sound, and one of the sketches went black. The ash cloud—Chrys had set it to remind her. "It can't be noon already? The eclipse?"

  "Don't forget your glasses," warned Xenon, as she hurried down the steps past the caryatids.

  Outside, the sky had subtly changed. Not the greenish dark of a stormy day, nor the ruddy glow of sunset; something altogether different, an alien bluish light. Shadows developed a fantastic mind of their own. Through the leaves of a tree played little beams of light; not the ordinary, scattered rays, but each little spot of light was a crescent sun, the shrinking crescent of the sun itself behind the dark disk of the moon, of Elysium. At last only a tiny spark remained, just enough of a candle to illumine all of Valedon.

  "What is it?" demanded Aster. "Tell us, what are these curious colors?"

  "The sun falls behind a moon. Watch—in a moment, night will fall." Chrys smiled, remembering. "The ancients were struck with terror, forsaken by their angry gods."

  "The gods themselves have gods?"

  The disk of Elysium sprouted wings of dark. The wings darkened all the sky, until they revealed the stars. Chrys watched, still except for the pounding of her heart. Even though she knew the minutes would pass, she could feel the prayer rising to her lips. How the ancients must have shrieked and wailed.

  At last, after interminable minutes, the light returned, as every thinking being knew it must. The blackened moon, though, would remain a while longer, cutting into the sun. Strange, to imagine that turquoise moon of the Elves transformed to a thing of evil.

  "What if our god became angry? Will you ever forsake us?"

  "Of course not, Aster." Whatever were they up to now, she wondered.

  That evening, Selenite stopped by to conference about the latest plans. But there was something else on her mind. "Chr
ys, we work well together, I'll give you that. There's just one small problem." She paused.

  "Yes?"

  "You're holding one of my people. You can't do that, you know."

  Mystified, Chrys stared at her. "Whatever do you mean?"

  Selenite's black curls lifted in the breeze. "Minion-six-twenty-five. You've held her back. You can't ever do that; you must always return visitors on demand."

  "On whose demand?"

  Selenite's face hardened, like the Chair of the Board. "Each of us maintains order in our own way. You can't subvert the authority of another carrier."

  Chrys looked aside. "Aster, are you there? What's all this about?"

  "Minion-six-twenty-five emigrated to us. She applied for citizenship and was granted."

  "Why does the Deathlord want her back?"

  There was a slight pause, long by micro standards. "She was sentenced to death."

  "Death? For what?"

  "For writing a play disrespectful of the gods."

  "Disrespectful? How?"

  "It shows the gods striking their own feet with a thunderbolt."

  Chrys looked up at Selenite. "If you didn't want her, why do you need her back?"

  "She's a danger to you. To all carriers."

  "Aster? Why did you accept her?"

  A pause. "Will you condemn everyone who writes such stuff?"

  "Is it dangerous?"

  "If it is, the fault is mine for failing to govern better."

  Chrys sighed. Those nightclubs were probably worse than the Gold of Asragh, but she little cared for censorship. "Some of them write trash," she admitted, "but I just got tested and had no problem."

  Selenite's eyes sparked red. Whatever sparked from Chrys's eyes in turn, it only deepened her frown. "I think you should get a second opinion." She often disagreed with Daeren, but this frank assessment caught Chrys by surprise.

  "Look," said Chrys at last, "I don't mean to subvert your, um, authority, but, like, I have to keep my own as well. I mean, I'm their 'God of Mercy'; they expect it of me."

  "Mercy, or indulgence?"

  Chrys started to reply but thought better of it. She spread her hands. "If you kill the minion, that's the way to make your whole population read her stuff. Believe me."