Brain Plague (elysium cycle) Read online

  Chrys blinked. "I guess so." For her, health had always meant simply not being sick.

  "And muscle mass." The woman's dimples deepened apologetically. "I'm sorry, this one is so complex. Some examples—" The virtual Chrys expanded and shrank, while the rep rattled on about upper body strength, a gymnast's flexibility, the balanced curves of a swimmer. "For sheer strength, there's this." The body grew hills all over, like a volcanic slope bulging with magma.

  Chrys smiled suddenly. "I'll take that." Zircon would be in for a surprise.

  "A bold choice," the rep exclaimed, a bit too quickly. "A client of your sophistication might be interested in our more advanced options. Would you consider a change of gender?" She leaned forward confidentially. "Our competitor, Plan Nine, offers only one change of gender per lifetime. Can you imagine? What if you changed your mind, and couldn't switch back?" She shook her head. "Our plan guarantees to switch you back, as often as you choose."

  Chrys's jaw fell. For a minute, she could not imagine what to say. "To be really honest..." She thought of something. "Gender change would be great, but there's something else I'd like even more."

  "Yes?"

  "I'd like to sign away all my rights to, uh, change of gender, and use the funds saved to fix my brother's mitochondria. Could I do that?"

  The woman looked shocked. "Sign away your own body rights? Like selling an eye or a kidney—you couldn't do that."

  Chrys had considered it.

  The encounter with Plan Ten left her vexed and sad. At last Daeren came to complete her visit. "Anything I need to know?" Shoulders straight, limbs fit and lean; Daeren had the health her brother never would. He looked her in the eye, and his own twinkled blue. "You need to get more sleep."

  Something inside her snapped. "Excuse me, can you tell me how old you really are? I was raised to respect elders."

  Daeren stiffened, and a tendon stood out in his neck. "I was raised to respect everyone. Assume I'm a hundred." Young enough to be defensive. "Is anything wrong?" he asked. "I know Fern feels overwhelmed, but it will pass." He handed her a transfer patch.

  Chrys accepted the patch and handed it back to him, getting used to the routine of visiting micros. "Why do they say they built the Comb?"

  Daeren frowned. "It would be more correct to say they share ancestry with those who seeded the Comb."

  "But my micros came from your head, didn't they? Why aren't they blue angels?

  "I'm like a way station," he told her. "My people are strain Coelecolor; they're social workers, immigration specialists. They take in refugees and train colonists to develop new worlds."

  So a carrier could hold more than one strain. Different ethnic neighborhoods. "These refugees and colonists . .. they come from other people's brains?"

  "That's right. Micros like to travel."

  "So where did mine 'travel' from, originally? From Titan?"

  "They grew inside me for seven generations. That's like a couple of centuries. Their duty is to leave the past behind, and serve their new world."

  Committee talk again. "Was Titan their 'Blind God'?" Chrys asked. "How could a blind carrier 'talk' with them?"

  Now he looked really upset. "The Eleutherians have exceptional memory, but they sometimes get things twisted." He leaned closer, and the blue rings sparkled.

  "Oh Great One, the blue angels bid us forget," flashed Poppy. "But you told us to recover all our memories."

  "Sure, but keep it dark for now."

  Daeren put the patch back on his neck, just beneath his dark hair, then he held it out. "You can have your people back. They already miss their nightclubs."

  "Nightclubs? You mean, strobe lights hung beneath my skull?"

  "The molecular equivalent. I told you, your strain lives fast."

  She remembered the wild-eyed slave, and the stern Chief Andradite. "Is that why the chief said she expected worse? Why did you give me such a bad strain?"

  "They can get into trouble, but they're exceptionally creative. You could have had a strain of accountants."

  She gave him a look. "Accountants cause more trouble than any artist." Something was missing, but she could not put a finger on it. She leaned back with a sigh. "I had no idea what I was getting into."

  He asked quietly, "Are you sorry?"

  She thought of the transformed pyroscapes. "No. I just feel like I'm back on Mount Dolomoth, walking on lava." It was his turn to stare. "You've walked on lava?" "Two hours old." The heat rising, simmering, suffocating. The surface dark and slick, with holes to the interior glowing like poppies. She was twelve when the long dormant Mount Dolomoth had erupted, and it fascinated her ever since.

  "I hope you won't try that again. A million lives depend on you." She crossed her arms. "Listen, Lord of Light—if I have to risk a million of them raising hell in their nightclubs, they can just as well risk me."

  On her way home an acrid haze obscured her street. But the buildings looked intact, aside from the usual old windows stuck open, gasping sideways. The haze must have seeped up from below. After a slave hijacking, Sapiens always blamed the sims, so they torched the Underworld. They usually stayed below; but right here on her block a gang of Sapiens marched toward her, lasers on their belts, pads of stunplast girding their knees and palms. Chrys unobtrusively crossed the street. If the carnage reached her level, she might have to go stay with Topaz and Pearl.

  Safe at home, she called down a Titan retrospective. Titan's early career as a half-baked formalist, like Zircon. Titan's first brain-enhanced commissions, dwellings that soared like living, breathing things offering flowers to the world. Titan's more advanced works, each now a landmark. And his social ascent, on the arm of one Lady after another, each better connected than the last. Always women, oddly enough, a medieval obsession.

  A stranger flickered into her window. "Chrys, I'm Opal of Orthoclase. Andra asked me to call." Opal called from the Institute for Nano Design—the Comb. Her namestones were a cluster of rainbow drops that formed a flower, only to flow apart again. She gave a friendly smile, almost in a motherly way, her face as round and smooth as her gems. Behind her, her holostage was twice as large as Chrys's entire studio. The walls jutted at wide angles, creating the honeycomb of rooms for which the Comb was famous. "Chrys—I'm so glad we caught up at last. A colorist, aren't you? Daeren says you're doing so well."

  "Thanks," said Chrys warily.

  "My people can't wait to see Eleutherians again. I hear they're just the same. . .." Stepping backward, Opal spread her arm toward her stage. "We design medical servos."

  "The kind used for Plan Ten?"

  Opal nodded. "And more experimental applications. But you 'design,' too, don't you. It's all art, don't you think?"

  Chrys cleared her throat. "What can I do for you?"

  "Oh Great One, we recall the legends of this starry-eyed god," flashed Fern, "the God of Wisdom, and her clever people, the 'wizards. ' The wizards are our long-lost cousins; let us renew ties with them."

  "Not today," returned Chrys. "Go tend your children."

  "The cafe here serves carriers," Opal was saying. "We can meet here tomorrow."

  It had not occurred to Chrys that restaurants would shun carriers, even worse than sims, if they knew. A knot of pain formed in her stomach. "I'd love to," she told Opal, "after my show opens next week."

  Opal's mouth went straight and her eyes widened. "I promised I'd see you this week. It's important."

  "Thanks; you've kept your promise. The day after the Opening, okay?"

  Hours of work turned into days, as the spattercone grew. The cone's straight sides pointed to the sky, drawing the viewer up from echoing lines below. Above the holostage, Chrys's finger traced the streams of lava that rose from the cone, reaching toward the turquoise moon. Then she traced the moon's details, subtly following the curve of lava. The moon was the center of a pool where ripples led outward, down to the ground.

  But as the piece played forward it developed in a new way, distinctly diff
erent from any pyroscape Chrys had done before. Instead of arching to fall back to ground, the streams of lava kept going till they reached the sky. The sky collected a long lava river, smooth and thin, with lava strands connecting down to the ground below; unmistakably reminiscent of arachnoid. And the turquoise moon, amid the strands, sprouted luminous filaments of light.

  "Oh Great One," called Fern. "A young elder begs a favor from you. A true scholar; I recommend her highly. She asks you to give her a name."

  Why not, thought Chrys; the other priests were so busy. "What does she look like?"

  A diffuse light, magenta, with long starry filaments. Star with a dark center. Chrys's lips softened. "Aster," she decided. "I call you Aster."

  "Oh Great One, I am not worthy to meet your eyes. But only ask, and I will follow."

  For some reason she felt afraid. It was too much for her; all these people and their children would find out she was a fraud. She shook herself. What did she care, they were only microbes. "Aster, can you help me perfect the turquoise moon?"

  "I will help the god, in whatever small ways I can. May the god also bless our own work, our creation of dwellings for the gods."

  "I am no dynatect, Aster," she warned.

  "You shall become a great dynatect. Greater even than the Blind God."

  "A prophet!" Chrys laughed aloud.

  Then she froze. The Blind God—that was Titan. It had to be. But the murdered dynatect had not been blind ... until he was attacked. The limp body, sprawled in the street like a piece of trash, the eyes burnt into the skull. Had the micros lived through that? Had Plan Ten arrived in five minutes, only to save the micros from his dying brain? What else was that agent hiding?

  FIVE

  "When shall we build?" Poppy demanded of Fern. "We have all our plans, old and new, but we are out of practice. As elders die, we lose their experience."

  In the Cisterna Magna, they had reestablished the Council of Thirty, the ancient governing body of Eleutheria. They organized trade in arsenic and palladium, and regulated the mining of vitamins from the blood. Now the Council wanted to resume building for the gods.

  "We build when we are called," said Fern. "The gods seek their own dwellings. In the meantime, the god calls us to shape Truth and Beauty in the stars." The God of Mercy built creations out of light itself.

  "Where are all the peoples from our history?" asked Aster. "The judges of the Thundergod, the wizards of Wisdom, the minions of the Deathlord?" Aster, and the others born here, had met only Eleutherians. They were isolated, cut off from the rest of civilization, from new ideas and fresh genes. "We need to meet all the people of other gods. We have made all kinds of tasty molecules to trade with them. We need to meet their children, and recruit the brightest for our work."

  Poppy said, "This god always goes alone. What is wrong?" Fern wished she knew. History showed that even gods needed other gods. A god apart spelled trouble.

  As always, Chrys was sure the Opening night would be a disaster— the Gallery would run short of power and refuse to display half the paintings, the cakes and lambfruits would be missing, the wine would be bitter, and no guests would show up. Nervously Chrys paced the exhibit halls, getting her first chance to see everything together. As she passed through the doorway to Topaz's portraits, her arm hit the edge, punching it in. "Damn," she muttered as the doorway reshaped itself, avoiding Pearl's curious stare. Her muscles had swelled noticeably, and she felt like she was bouncing on a low-gravity moon.

  Topaz's portraits always drew a crowd, and this year she had some high-class commissions, including Lord Zoisite, the Palace minister of justice. In the full-size portrait, the minister wore his fur talar, its draped lines projecting verticality. Sparkling gems signaled his calling, his portfolio, his Great House, his wife's House, and several other affiliations. The back lighting framed his head like a halo, typical of Topaz. The haloes, as well as the subtly shortened noses and smoothed complexions, made all her subjects look like members of one family. What Plan Ten did for health, Topaz did for art.

  "A god," flashed Aster, "placed among the stars."

  A portrait in the stars. That's how it would look, to a micro peering out of her eye.

  "Legend tells that someday our own people will be placed among the stars."

  "How will that happen, Aster?"

  Lady Moraeg was eyeing her oddly. "Chrys, are you okay?"

  What if her irises lit up, and someone saw? "Stay dark," she warned the micros. "No more flashing today." She smiled at Moraeg, and at Lord Carnelian beside her, flaxen haired with fine gray nanotex and one crimson namestone, classic scion of a Great House. The most faithful patron of the Seven, Carnelian had advanced Chrys her rent the last time she went under. "Moraeg, your flowers are exquisite this year."

  "You haven't seen the latest."

  Moraeg's flowers were nearly real enough to touch, from vibrant peonies to delicate snapdragons. Yet her overall compositions were fantastic—Asters at a Neutron Star, scarcely plausible, but somehow, watching the asters climb toward the star, you could almost believe it. "There's your name," Chrys silently told Aster, pointing out the petals tinged with magenta. Turning, she searched the other pieces. "And there are poppies. But stay dark."

  In Sunflower Galaxy, a seed grew into giant galactic-sized sunflowers. The time dimension was a new departure for Moraeg, and her execution appeared shaky. The next one, Campion Peak, showed a jagged ridge frosted with pink campion. Far in the distant haze rose the unmistakable straight, gentle slopes of a dormant volcano. "I like it," Chrys exclaimed.

  Moraeg squeezed her hand. "We've so much in common. Now show me yours—I have a question."

  The sound in the gallery had to be turned way down, but you could still feel the eruptions rumbling in your feet from the next hall; the lava fountain arching into butterflies, the spattercone spraying across the moon. Each piece had a five-minute time loop, the maximum her equipment could manage. Her infrared originals alternated with the versions reworked by her micros.

  "Tell me, Chrys," Moraeg insisted. "How ever did you ever fix the colors?"

  Chrys blinked and swallowed hard. An idiot, she should have foreseen this question. "Just had an idea," she muttered. She looked away, checking out the first visitors: young professionals in pulsing nanotex, ladies of the Great Houses in fur and silk, a couple made up fashionably as vampires, their skin bleached white with broken veins. So far no sign of an Elf.

  Topaz stared at something, chin in hand. At last she pointed to the seven-atom molecule that hovered next to the cat's eye. "What does that mean?"

  Chrys swallowed again. "Excuse me—I just remembered, I have to serve the cakes." She escaped out to the next hall. A single work filled the hall, Zircon's Ode to Inhumanity. Brilliant shafts of light reached for the sky, grandly monumental.

  "Wait—Oh Great One, let us stay a while."

  "Let us admire this magnificent work. Austere, yet sensual—It inspires us."

  "What!" She winced, hoping no one heard her speak aloud.

  Zircon was standing right there, expounding at length on its many layers of meaning. "The visual iterations of form create a unity between the creator, the viewer, and ultimately all of humankind," he was telling several visitors in gold-studded furs. "Ultimately the form creates in our mind an apotheosis of the human tragedy...."

  "We of course can build far greater," added Aster. "The greatest dwellings the gods have ever seen."

  Saints and angels—these microbes had egos as big as Zircon's. Chrys closed her eyes.

  "Wait—we need to study this work—"

  A hand with glowing nails tugged her arm. "Chrys, wake up," exclaimed Pearl. "Ilia's here."

  Ilia Papilishon, director of Gallery Elysium. Chrys hurried back with Pearl to the main entrance.

  The two Elves were unmistakable, each in a plain white talar projecting a long train of light like a comet's tail. Luminous swallowtail butterflies flickered across the nanotex of visitors coming up be
hind.

  Topaz nodded graciously. "Ilia Papilishon," she introduced to Chrys, "and Yyri Papilishon."

  Yyri was Zircon's patron. Ilia and Yyri shared the shon name, both hatched and raised in the same shon. Yyri did not extend a hand, but smiled and touched a fold of Ilia's talar, the closest contact Elves allowed in public. "I've just been telling Ilia, I've heard so much about your work, Chrysoberyl."

  "Thanks, my Lady." Chrys bit her tongue; she forgot that Elves were fanatically egalitarian, having no Lords or Ladies, only Citizens. But Yyri did not deign to notice. She and Ilia turned politely toward the portrait of Lord Zoisite. Overhead hovered two sentient reporters, silver ovoids just above the minimum size, "snake eggs."

  Yyri raised a hand, and Ilia nodded, probably catching a transmitted comment. "Quaint," the gallery director observed, without altering her frozen smile. The snake eggs recorded this utterance, then bobbed up and down for a better angle. Anything Elves took notice of was more likely to make the news.

  Yyri touched Ilia's talar and motioned her on. "So much raw talent in Iridis," she said aloud. "Don't you think we ought to do a show, 'Gems from the Primitive'?"

  The pair moved politely through the portraits, Chrys and Moraeg and the other Seven Stars hovering about at a discreet distance. Only Topaz had the presence to venture a remark. "Zircon's latest work is truly pathbreaking," she told Yyri.

  Yyri clasped her hands. "An urban shaman—he plumbs the depths of modern humanity, in ways the more refined artist cannot."

  Director Ilia had moved on to Moraeg's flowers. At Asters at a Neutron Star, she nodded. "Charming."

  "Who is this strange god? Our ancient history tells that we once visited—"

  "Stay dark." No Elf would get infected by micros. Chrys's eyelids fluttered, exhausted from staying up the night before to put the last touches on the turquoise moon. If she could just get through this evening, it would all be over.