Brain Plague (elysium cycle) Read online

  Her scalp prickled as she thought of all those eye windows that came on the market just a few years before. "What do you mean, 'micros invented them'?" Chrys wondered. "I mean, how do they enhance your brain—how does it really work?"

  "Micros are intelligent," he said.

  "Well, sure." Intelligent buildings, intelligent medical machines—everything was "intelligent" these days.

  "Intelligent people."

  Chrys stared hard at the agent, then at the doctor. She counted the doctor's appendages, one by one, all five of them. Was this really the planet's top brain surgeon? Could there be some mistake?

  " 'People'?" she repeated. "Like, human beings?" Like the sentient doctor himself? Some intelligent machines had earned human rights in the Fold. There were all kinds of "people" nowadays; most humans had got used to it, aside from groups like Sapiens. But. .. microscopic people?

  The worm face flexed two appendages together. "The law does not permit me, as a doctor, to answer your question. Only the Secretary of the Fold can determine what is human."

  The agent nodded. "A special commission at the Secretariat has been at this for twenty years. They have yet to make a ruling. But you'll know."

  "Daeren is right," the doctor said. "Any human carrier would agree."

  "It's absurd," Chrys exclaimed. "Nothing that small can have enough ... connections to be self-aware."

  "Self-awareness occurs in sentients with about a trillion logic gates," the doctor explained. "A micro cell contains ten times that number of molecular gates."

  Chrys shook her head in disbelief. "If the micros are people, why does the Protector condemn them all?"

  Daeren leaned forward slightly, and the stone at his neck sparkled sea green. "The Protector is in a tough position. Our economy will depend on micros—it's our only way to compete with Elysium. But plague micros built the Slave World, just as ours built the Comb."

  "Right," said Chrys sarcastically. "I suppose their 'Enlightened Leader' is a microbe."

  He hesitated. "That's classified."

  Microbial spies and dictators. "Saints and angels preserve us," she whispered.

  "Your micros will have nothing to do with the plague," Daeren assured her. "We've selected a very special strain for you: Eleutheria, the same strain as Titan of Sardis."

  Chrys caught her breath. What would you take—that was the question. Zircon lacked the nerve. Did she? "I'm no dynatect," she pointed out. "I'm just a starving artist."

  "Carriers never starve," the agent said. "You create art—these are the most creative strains we've got." He paused, hesitant. "They're a bit tricky, though. They flash a wide range of colors, wider than most Valans can see. But you see infrared, like an Elysian. You'll handle them better."

  Better than whom, she wondered. "Did Titan ... handle them all right?"

  "He had his eyes enhanced to the Elysian range."

  "His death was just an accident, wasn't it? I mean, it wasn't caused by—"

  "Titan's murder was a hate crime. He was killed because he was a carrier." The agent looked her in the eye. "As a carrier, you'll have more to fear from fellow humans than from micros."

  Chrys frowned. There was altogether too much hate in Iridis. Hate for sentients, hate for simian immigrants, hate for artists who mocked the Great Houses—the Protector instigated that, Chrys suspected. "We pyroscape artists attract our share of nuts, too," she admitted. "When I make enough sales, I'll buy security."

  The doctor added, "You can meet the micros yourself and ask them your questions."

  "'Meet them?' Where?"

  "Micros can't live outside a human host," the doctor said. "They live just beneath the skull, in the arachnoid, a web of tissue between the outer linings of the brain."

  On the stage appeared a giant brain, sliced through the frontal lobe. Between the cortex and the skull lay a thin sea of fluid, dipping deep into the folds of cortex. The sea of fluid was crisscrossed by a fine spiderweb, all around the cortex and into the folds. "Cobwebs on the brain?" Chrys asked.

  "The arachnoid is a normal part of your brain. It cushions the brain from impact, preventing injury."

  Her eyes narrowed. "But the micros aren't in my brain. Where are they now?"

  "Daeren prepared the culture. When you're ready to meet them, we will transfer two 'visitors' from his brain to yours."

  So it was like the vampires. Chrys took a breath. "That's . . . unsanitary. What if they grow and make me sick?"

  "Impossible," the doctor assured her. "The first two Daeren sends will be 'elders,' a non-reproductive form."

  Daeren agreed. "Like Elysians, they can live for many generations but have no children of their own."

  "I see." Even micro people had their long-lived superclass.

  "The two elders we send are very special: the priests, who guide their people. They will explain—"

  "Priests?" Chrys put up her hands. "No way. I never could stand priests."

  He thought a moment. "You can call them something else, if you like. You're the host; inside your head, you make the rules."

  Doctor Sartorius added, "Once they talk with you, you'll understand."

  "Just how do we 'talk'?"

  "The micros flash light, like fireflies," said Daeren. "That's how they 'talk' to each other, and to you."

  Talking with fireflies. How absurd.

  "After they visit, you can send them back with no ill effect."

  Chrys suddenly tensed all over. She gripped the edge of her chair until the plast puckered in. "All right, I'll talk with your 'priests.' Just tell them, no preaching."

  "You tell them," he said. "Inside your own head, you make the rules." As he spoke, a hospital form lit up and hovered above the holostage.

  Chrys read the form warily. "You're sure you can get them out again?"

  "Of course, Chrysoberyl," promised the doctor.

  From a pocket in his seamless nanotex Daeren withdrew a patch of plast the size of a thumb. The kind used for immunizations, it contained microscopic transfer needles that penetrated the skin without injury. He placed it at the side of his neck, just below the base of the skull. "The two micros will migrate into the patch. When I hand it to you, you need to place it immediately, just as I did."

  He took the transfer patch and held it out to her. Chrys picked it up. She turned it over in her palm. It felt like an ordinary bit of plast, smooth and warm, like the time she got booster shots. At last she placed it on her neck. It molded itself and adhered to the skin.

  "That's fine," he observed. "Except that you just made them wait two days. Would you like to sit in a lightcraft that long?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Micros live ten thousand times faster than we do. For them, one minute feels like a week. An hour is a year; a day is a generation."

  "Well," said Chrys, "they can put up with it. You said I make the rules."

  "Inside your own head. Outside—we'll get to that. Don't move the patch yet."

  The patch was starting to tickle her skin. "How long does it take?"

  "Not long, but you need to make sure they got through. They'll let you know, when they reach your retina."

  "My retina? You mean they crawl inside my eyes?"

  "Just inside the blind spot, where they can reach your neuroport. Try closing your eyes." A light flashed, pale green. She clapped her hands to her head. Moments ticked by, the sweat from her palms dampening her hair. Flashes of green, out of the dark, at random. The flashes swirled in fernlike fronds, then suddenly came into focus.

  A luminous disk of green, with a small depression in the middle. It did not look like the candy rings of the doctor's image; more like a star, full of twinkling projections. The projections extended in all directions, several times farther than the width of the ring-shaped body.

  "Is that... it?"

  Daeren's voice intensified. "What does she look like?"

  "Furry," said Chrys. "Not like on the holostage."

  The doctor explai
ned, "The holostage showed a space-filling model, based on electron density. The micros can't really 'see' details visually, because their size is just above the resolution limit for light. However, they can detect light blinking very fast, like a sound wave."

  Daeren nodded. "They 'hear' blinking light, rather like we hear sound. We can hear speech clearly, but can't 'picture' the source."

  "Then how do they 'see' all those fine projections?"

  He glanced at the doctor.

  "Each of those fine projections is a long chain molecule," the doctor explained. "A receptor molecule that can 'taste' different kinds of molecules in its path."

  Like a cat's whiskers, she thought.

  The green color fluttered in and out like a strobe. Then letters appeared, as if on a keypad: "I am here."

  Chrys's eyes flew open. "She can talk!" The words hovered in her window, like a message from the city, but only in one eye.

  "What did she say?" Daeren demanded suddenly. "Is she okay? Where's the other one?"

  Another bewhiskered ring, tinted infrared, like a poppy at sunrise. "Here I am! Can you see me?"

  Chrys's window projected full spectrum, but nobody ever sent her text in infrared. She gripped the edge of her chair. "They said 'I am here,' both of them."

  "You saw Unseen, that's good." He sat back, his hands relaxed. "You can put down the patch now."

  The transfer patch peeled off her neck, leaving a tingling sensation.

  "Greetings from Eleutheria." Again in her right eye the letters pulsed green. "Please, Oh Great One, give us a sign. We have waited so long. We bring gifts and songs of praise."

  "They're praying." Chrys laughed. "God never listens to humans—why should he care about micros?"

  "You should answer them, before they get discouraged."

  "What?"

  "Please, Oh Great One. We have waited so long for the Promised World."

  Her jaw fell, and she stared at the agent. "You mean. . . they're praying to me?"

  "They'd better. You're their entire world; you offer life or death."

  She continued to stare, without reading the rest of the letters that desperately appeared. To be prayed to, herself, was definitely a concept outside her experience, in Dolomoth let alone Iridis. "Saints and angels," she muttered to herself. "So how do I talk back?"

  "Use your keypad."

  "You mean they can tap my neuroports?"

  "They designed them."

  Micros designed the neuroports, for sale all over Valedon—to help the micros spread. Suddenly it dawned on her. She looked at the doctor, then back to the agent. "They're taking over—and you help them."

  The agent sighed. "Indians always say that, about the latest new immigrants: 'They'll take over.' We said it of L'liites before they married into the Great Houses. We said it about sentients, and simians. And now micros."

  Microbial "immigrants"?

  "Oh Great One—without a sign, we will die."

  She blinked twice, then focused on the text box, where the neuroports would detect movement of her eye muscles. Her eyes flickered simply, "Hello."

  "A sign! The god in her mercy has given a sign."

  "Let us sing in praise."

  The two bewhiskered rings tumbled over. Then a swirl of color opened at the center, expanding, with all the colors of the rainbow, violet through infrared. The swirl grew, until it filled her entire visual field. Chrys watched, transfixed. After a few seconds, the swirl faded. A burst of stars, expanding, shifting through lava, red and orange, only to fall at her feet. Another starburst, then another, all in different ranges of color.

  "Did you like them, Oh Great One?" The infrared letters returned. "Which did you like best?"

  Her eyes wrote, "I liked the starburst."

  "At last, I am seen! And the God of Mercy likes my offering best."

  Just like human priests, playing holier than thou. "I like all offerings equally," Chrys wrote back. "My world is a democracy."

  The letters came back green. "As the God wishes. Are we granted names?"

  "What is your name?"

  "We went nameless in the eyes of the Lord of Light. Our own God will grant us names."

  The mention of another god, whoever that was, made her vaguely jealous. "I'll call you Fern," she told the green letters. "And you will listen to no other god but me."

  "Of course, God of Mercy. We live or die at your pleasure."

  "What do you call me?" came the infrared.

  "I call you Poppy."

  "Thanks, Oh Great One. May we bring our children to the arachnoid?"

  This question brought her back to reality. The doctor was still there, and Daeren watched her like a cat. She asked him, "Do you go through this all day?"

  For the first time Daeren smiled. "I can't see your window, but, yes, I expect so. I'm used to it."

  "Do you ever tell them to shut up?"

  "It's rarely necessary. They know me too well." He leaned forward. "Watch my eyes."

  "What?" Puzzled, she watched his irises, cat's-eye-brown with intense radial lines. Suddenly their rims flashed, a ring of blue light around each. Astonished, Chrys stared, her lips parted.

  "The blue angels call us," wrote her green letters. "Tell the Lord of Light we've done well."

  So Daeren was the one they called the Lord of Light. Her mouth closed, and she drew back. "Will my eyes strobe like that?"

  "Only to contact another carrier. Otherwise, they'll stay dark."

  Other carriers? There must be a whole pantheon of human carriers, each with micros swimming in the cobweb lining of the brain, and flashing rings around their eyes, like a nightclub act. "What keeps them from infecting your brain and making you sick?"

  "They stay within the arachnoid layer, just outside the cortex. They never touch your neurons. They're only allowed a population of a million."

  That sounded like plenty. "How can you be sure? You can't control a disease."

  "Your Plan Ten nanoservos monitor your brain. Besides, the micros control themselves. Even ordinary microbes, without intelligence, usually limit their occupation of animal hosts.

  "If they don't make you sick, what do they do in the ... arachnoid?"

  "Build homes and schools, raise their children. And help your work."

  Little candy-colored rings building schools upon her brain.

  "Do I please you, Oh Great One?" flashed the infrared. "What do you look like?"

  "No, Poppy," said Fern. "To look on the face of God forbodes death."

  Microbial superstition. "Here I am," blinked Chrys. Her eyes downloaded her old self-portrait, from her sophomore year with Topaz. Her hair was lava flowing down her shoulders, and every vein snaked with anatomic precision along her face and breasts, out her arms and down to her feet.

  "Our own God of Mercy, amid the stars," said Fern.

  The stars? What did that mean?

  "A great road map," said Poppy. "We will get to know those veins well."

  Micro people swimming through her veins—enough to chill the blood.

  "Only our own god can see her own veins," Poppy added. "Our god sees color beyond red, beyond other gods. Ours is indeed the best and greatest of all the gods."

  Typical priests. "If I am so great a god, why should I take you in?"

  The green one said, "We are the People of Eleutheria. When our First World came to an end, and most of us died, the Blind God promised our children a New World, in a new arachnoid where no people ever lived before. We live by the lights of Truth, Beauty, Memory,..." The letters went on at length, about the various lights of virtue; Chrys lost patience after the third or fourth.

  "Stop," said Chrys.

  The letters ceased. That was encouraging.

  "What can you do for me?" Chrys asked. "Can you help me create great art?"

  "Our ancestors created dwellings for the gods themselves. We will create the greatest works ever seen."

  Modesty was not their strong point. "What sort of dwellings?"r />
  "The Lord of Light forbade us to speak of it, but to live only for one true God."

  She frowned. "If I am your one true God, you must tell me everything."

  "Yes, Oh Great One," said Fern, "but the blue angels warned—"

  "It shall be as you say!" Poppy's letters danced. "I knew this was the New World for us."

  "What can you do with this?" Chrys downloaded her gallery piece, the lava fountain that turned into butterflies.

  At first the volcano spurted and poured, just as it had for her fellow artists at the meeting. Then the visual began to change. The colors deepened, becoming more fantastic, until the hungry rivers swallowed themselves into abstraction. Then the abstract forms picked up the volcanic rhythms, returning in a cooler form; a volcano of ice. Chrys watched, her lips parted. All kinds of possibilities—she ached to get back to work.

  The images faded. "Today is the anniversary of our arrival," came the green one out of the dark. "Has the God of Mercy decided our fate?"

  Chrys looked up. The doctor and the security agent were still there, waiting. The agent asked, "What do you think?"

  She drew back. "I'll sleep on it."

  Daeren shook his head. "They've already given you a whole year. They await your decision now."

  She glared at him suspiciously.

  The worm face wiggled. "A carrier needs to make life or death decisions quickly. But it is a lifelong commitment. So, if you don't feel comfortable, you should decline, and think it over. In the next year, we may have another culture ready."

  That was reasonable, but what if the next culture were less creative than this one? On the other hand, what if these caused too much trouble? She thought of something. "Do these 'people' have ... legal rights?"

  Daeren hesitated. "They ought to. I've spent enough hours at the Palace on their behalf." A lobbyist after all.

  The doctor's worms stretched thoughtfully. "Legally, Daeren, they're the plague."

  "They are not," insisted Daeren. "That's like calling all humans murderers."

  "She asked their legal status."

  He turned to her. "Our micros will actually protect you from the real plague. As a carrier, you'll be safer than before."