Brain Plague (elysium cycle) Page 8

  "Those are astrocytes, whose arms clean up stray neurotransmitters. The smaller cells are microglia that would kill us in a trice if they knew what we were about. But they can't taste us, so long as we avoid presenting antigens. Come, follow me." Fern slid past the many-limbed microglia until at last she found the dark dendrites of a neuron. What neurotransmitter did it use? She did not recall, there were so many, but her body synthesized several. She hesitated just once. Then her neurotransmitters floated out, into the synaptic cleft, to pulse the wake-up call.

  "Fern, this thing you are doing is forbidden, beyond all forbidden things. Yet I trust you."

  "You are wise beyond your years. When the god awakes, you will tell what I did. Let the god take my life, but, perhaps, let our people live."

  Chrys half awoke; not the normal sense of awareness, but an awareness like being buried alive. Every muscle felt pinned down beneath stone. She screamed, but the pain itself was so hard she could barely hear her own scream. She slipped back out of consciousness, only to awaken again screaming. Again the pain forced her down.

  Over and over she awoke to the pain. Not in any one place, it was burning the flesh off every bone in her body, fingers of lava searing every crevice. No sense of time or place outside liquid pain.

  At last she awoke, still aching all over, but she could breathe. She lay very still, for the slightest movement thrust needles into the bone.

  "Breathe slowly." The voice of a doctor. "Take your time and breathe. Don't hyperventilate." ,

  Chrys swallowed. Her throat felt sore. The ceiling was that tasteless green of the hospital. The worm face loomed over her. Chrys tried to talk, but the words would not come out. She whispered, "Why can't I talk?"

  The doctor did not answer. A brief memory of the pain, and the screaming. She nearly blacked out again.

  Though her eyes closed, her window was open, keypad and all. She blinked wearily. "Fern? Are you there?"

  "I am here."

  "What happened to me?"

  "I am not permitted to say."

  Chrys frowned. "I bid you tell me."

  No response. "Fern?"

  "The gods will tell you. When you know, remember that you are the God of Mercy. Take my life; I accept my fate. But let the others live."

  "What is this? Where is Poppy?" She closed her eyes to see better, but all was dark. So she opened them again and tried to sit up. Her head still felt as if an entire city block were sitting on it.

  By the bed stood Doctor Sartorius, his face worms squirming. The doctor lifted an appendage. "Chrysoberyl, can you hear me?"

  "Sure." Idiotic question. "What happened?"

  "You overslept. You missed connecting with your growing population. As a result, you experienced an unfortunate episode." He sounded like he was trying to avoid a malpractice suit. "But your condition was caught early, with no permanent damage. You will make a full recovery."

  How reassuring. Chrys swallowed and said more loudly, "What happened?"

  Beside the doctor stood Andra, the tall Sardish chief of security, with the deadly blue eyes that flashed purple. The Thundergod. "For ten years you failed to meet your people," the chief observed. "Long enough for some to think up mischief. One actually figured out how to turn off your health sensors—a very serious event." Andra turned to stare at Daeren, who stood apart, his face averted, grim as death. Andra's look seemed to remind him how serious it was, and how badly he had messed up to let this happen. Then her hard eyes returned to Chrys. "The micros decided, after ten years of silence, they could do a better job of running your body than you could yourself. So they took over your dopamine center and were in the process of relieving you of your higher cognitive functions. Fortunately, they were not yet expert at it, and we caught them in time."

  The weight of it sank in. Pearl had been right, after all—how deadly these micros were. Yet, they were "people"—how could they have done this to her? Fern . . . "Are you sure?" she croaked. "Sure there's no mistake?"

  "They've been tried and sentenced." Microbial justice. "Twenty-one were executed. The entire population was recommended for disposal, but the Committee vote was only seven to one. Without unanimity, we decided to give you the final say."

  Chrys blinked. No wonder Fern had asked for mercy. "Why?" she asked. "Why did Fern do it?"

  "Fern warned us." Daeren spoke, still looking away. "Fern awoke you and used your neuroport to call us."

  "All extremely illegal," the chief added. "Such behavior could subvert your will."

  Chrys swallowed. "What about Poppy?"

  Daeren said, "Poppy was the ringleader."

  The one she loved best. Her eyelids filled with water, but she would not let anyone see her tears. She turned her head to the wall. Behind her, she heard the doctor say, "I'm sorry, Andra."

  "Never mind, Sar. This strain was always difficult. They should have died with . . . Chrys, you must listen now."

  She turned her head slowly to face the chief. The chief's eyes were clear, their pupils small. No rings of light; no flash of comfort for Chrys's people.

  "You must decide. You have the next hour—for them, a year—in which to decide their fate. Once you decide, we'll remove them cleanly, with no danger to yourself, and they will suffer no pain." A likely story. "We will leave you to decide. Alone," she added, looking again at Daeren.

  "Wait," Chrys called, beginning to realize what her choice meant. "If these are really 'people'... I mean, I thought execution went out with the Dark Age." The Dark Age, when the brother worlds had warred amongst each other. After thousands of years, some of those dead worlds remained too radioactive to touch.

  "The Dark Age," nodded the chief. "That's about where micros are at right now. We've had only twenty human years to civilize them. Would you rather keep a terminal prison in your head?"

  Microbial wars. Chrys shuddered. What an idiot she was to get involved.

  "Micros have no civil rights," Andra emphasized. "Any strain that endangers human health is destroyed."

  Daeren added, as if to the wall, "Section Three-oh-four-four seven, sub-section D."

  Andra raised her hand and touched a limb of Sartorius—actually touched the worm-faced doctor. "I have another call across town. When you've decided, Chrys, call the good doctor." She turned and headed for the door. As she passed Daeren, the two barely looked at each other but exchanged a transfer patch.

  Doctor Sartorius departed, as did Daeren, leaving her alone. Alone, with her population of people—at last count, about half a million. Did they have souls? She knew what the law said, but what would the Brethren say? Who cares what they thought—what did she think?

  She shook her head and tried to clear her mind. She had a chance to reconsider—thank goodness for that. It made no sense, having absurd little people in her head that wanted to build buildings and preferred Zirc's art to her own. Her friends shunned her— who wouldn't? These carriers with their vampirelike ways. Who in their right mind would risk a deadly disease? Even the slaves in the Underworld called her a fool.

  And yet...

  The micros had helped her work. For the first time ever, they had actually made her work connect—with other humans. There had to be something human about them. Even if Poppy betrayed her, so had other people she loved. And Fern had saved her life, legal or not; you had to break into a burning building. Should a whole people die for the sins of a few?

  God of Mercy—they had called her that, from the beginning. Did the micros name the gods, just as the gods named them? Why "Mercy"? They must have known they were going to need it.

  But why had that Security Committee given her such a dangerous strain in the first place? How and where had Daeren got them? That dynatect Titan, his life ending in a pool of blood. And what was Daeren doing in the Underworld? Better to get out without knowing more.

  With a hiss, the door parted sideways. Chrys jumped, startled by the break in the stillness. There stood Daeren. He looked at her expectantly.

  Sh
e blinked and cleared her throat. "Is an hour up already?"

  Daeren shrugged and resumed his seat facing the wall. The light from the holostage caught one side of his face, casting the other into shadow.

  Chrys watched him curiously. Her eyes narrowed. "You were the one holdout, weren't you."

  He said nothing.

  "You think it was my fault, I overslept."

  "What I think is irrelevant," he told the wall. "You heard what the committee thinks."

  Committees were always suspect, made to do things no individual could feel good about. First they gave her these dangerous people, then they told her to kill them off. Chrys lifted her head. "I'm no quitter. I'll keep them."

  Daeren slowly turned his head. "Are you sure?"

  She watched his face. The face of a slave? Or just the self-appointed savior of microbial people? "I'm sure."

  He did not let his face change. He handed her a blue wafer. "This will tell them."

  "Fern, are you there?" Chrys put the AZ on her tongue. "I've decided. You can stay."

  Her vision filled with a rainbow, all the colors stretched across the sky, from violet and green through poppy and lava; more beautiful even than the first hint of sunrise at the horizon of the eastern sea. She caught her breath, transfixed. "That feels too good. Are you sure it's legal?"

  "It is legal. I am humbled to serve you so well. Now that the children are grown, we will have more time for the gods, and our work."

  As the rainbow faded, Daeren was watching her patiently. She frowned at him. "Why did you give me such a dangerous strain?"

  "Any strain could have gone bad, if you left them ten hours at the height of their growth. The chief knows that."

  "But the chief said these are more dangerous than others."

  He nodded. "They're too smart. Another strain would have gone bad, but set off the nanos. Yours disabled the nanos. Smart people are always dangerous." He took out a transfer patch. "This time, I'll give you extra help. Watchers—my most respected elders, to live with you the next two weeks. They'll watch over yours, and remind them."

  "Why didn't you do that before?"

  He shrugged. "A judgment call. It's best in the long run if new colonies can develop on their own, without depending too much on outsiders. I thought yours would behave even worse, just to get around the watchers. But now, they've just seen twenty-one executions."

  As he put the patch to his neck, Chrys tensed, half expecting him to touch her directly, as he had for Andra. But he handed her the patch as usual. It felt warm in her fingers. She put it to her neck. Seconds passed; above on the holostage blinked a message light, and a servo scurried out from the wall to answer. Then again all was still.

  "Greetings, Oh Great One." These letters came sky blue. "My sisters and I will serve among your people and hold them to the Law. For the rest of my life I am yours. Do you grant me a name?"

  "Delphinium." For the rest of the micro's life, a month at best. Still, that was quite a gift. She thought of something. "Delphinium, can you tell me about the Lord of Light—what's he really like?"

  "The Lord of Light is the wisest and most wonderful of all the gods. His commands, and of course yours, are to be obeyed without question..."

  The poor Eleutherians would have to listen to that drivel for the next month. Serve them right. Chrys looked up and folded her arms. "You owe me the truth," she told Daeren. "Where did you get these Eleutherians? Why didn't they die with the Blind God?"

  Daeren clenched and unclenched his hands. "They survived because I got there with Plan Ten. The medic had Titan's circulation stabilized, but his brain had been sliced in half. There was nothing we could do for him." He hesitated, blinking rapidly. "But the micros—a few might still be alive." His face creased, as if struggling with himself. "The rule is, micros must die with their host, so that they never experience a god's death; for them, the gods are immortal. But I couldn't leave them. I put a patch at his neck. The blue angels went in, but they said the few left were too sick to survive the transfer." He paused again. "So I used my teeth."

  Chrys stared until the wall's sickly green swam before her eyes.

  "The gum tissue is thin, the capillaries right near the surface. I pressed my teeth at his neck, then counted the seconds for two long minutes." He took a breath. "They were there, all right. Barely a thousand of them, half children—they had their priorities straight. And they'd saved all their records—every damn plan of everything they ever built, all bundled up in nano-cells."

  Saf would have sucked her blood for ace, thought Chrys. Daeren had sucked Titan's, for Fern and Poppy. "So why didn't you keep them?"

  "We gave them their own cistern of arachnoid, and let them grow to ten thousand. I let them visit my eyes every hour around the clock. But it wasn't enough. Every day, all they asked was, 'When can we have our new world? The Promised World? The Blind God promised.' Every day, for seven days." Seven generations.

  "What did Titan promise?"

  Daeren shook his head. "Whatever Titan promised, there's a long waiting list for carriers. The Eleutherians were lucky enough to settle with me. But I was never good enough," he added bitterly. "They wouldn't even let me grant them names. They built their own city; they never let their children mix with blue angels. I guess mine weren't smart enough for them." He paused, considering. "I could have had my visual spectrum expanded to please them, but I was too proud. I do things my own way." Finally he looked at Chrys. "You were at the top of the list—clean living, professional, free of addiction. And you see infrared."

  Chrys nodded slowly. "You were so anxious to pass them on."

  "We should have waited till after your show," he admitted. "But after seven sleepless nights, I'd had enough." He nodded. "By the way, oral transmission gets you locked away for life. Subsection oh-one-A."

  He had risked that much to rescue Eleutherians, yet they gave him nothing but grief. How dismally human.

  "God of Mercy," came Fern's letters. "Aster and I are ready to help you with your work."

  "We'll see about that," Chrys told them. "We're starting over with some new rules. Ten Commandments."

  "Yes, Oh Great One."

  "First, you will obey every word I say, and keep out of my brain cells."

  "We will obey."

  "Second, you'll let me sleep as long as I want every night."

  "That will be no problem now."

  "You will write a book about all the reasons you are grateful to live inside my head, and read it out to me every morning."

  "Every day. And what else?"

  "Just go back to number one." Enough playing god; she'd make herself sick.

  Doctor Sartorius returned with his worms, their tool-shaped ends smoothed away. "How do you feel, Chrysoberyl?"

  On the holostage, the quiet beach reappeared. Chrys turned to watch, trying to relax while the doctor's worms probed her scalp. "They say I can sleep okay now," she told the doctor. "Is that right? I thought their population was only half grown."

  An inset box displayed the luminous red S-curve. At the midpoint blinked a marker, about five hundred thousand. Yet the number of children had fallen off. "Once they've passed half way," Sartorius explained, "their rate of increase levels off, so the proportion of children declines sharply."

  Daeren agreed. "The elders should have things under control. But never take them for granted."

  "So I can go home?" she asked hopefully.

  "You'll stay here under observation. Until the chief lets you go."

  From her hospital bed, Chrys checked her online gallery. Most of her new works displayed correctly, though Turquoise Moon needed more contrast. Her credit balance showed a third digit; one piece had sold. That meant she could pay her next rent.

  But none of her friends called. They didn't know, she told herself. Or else Pearl had told them all. Either way, she had no heart to reach them.

  "Oh Great One, we are ready to serve you."

  Microbial friends—was that all she
had left? All they had was her, exiled forever from their great dynatect. Suddenly she called the holostage. "Show me the dynatect Titan."

  The stage asked, "Alive or dead?"

  "Before he died."

  The holostage filled with full-spectrum footage. There stood Titan, amidst a cloud of snake egg reporters. His talar, draped half open to reveal gold nanotex, was trimmed with infrared that few Valans could see, a pose of casual arrogance. His face had a prominent forehead, eyes wide, yet somehow drawn inward.

  A snake egg asked him about the Comb. "Some say, Lord Titan, that you yourself did not really build the Comb; you were just a culture dish for those who did. Is it true?"

  Titan's head expanded to fill the stage. "The Comb was made by the lights of Eleutheria. The light of Truth, ever true to its nature; of Beauty, the kind of beauty to draw the awe of generations; of Sacrifice, of only the best and finest materials. ..." As he spoke, his irises lit up, rings of infrared.

  Chrys felt a chill. "Fern . . . was that Poppy?"

  "That was Poppy."

  "What did she say?"

  "She said that the Comb was nothing compared to what we planned next."

  Chrys swallowed hard. "She did not live to see."

  "She lived to see a god die. The gods rarely let us see that and live."

  They should have died with Titan; but Daeren broke the rule. Her scalp prickled. "Do any others yet live, who remember?"

  "Only I remember. The others know only you, and your act of mercy."

  "What do you remember of the Blind God?"

  "When the blindness came, I starved. My cell ate its own proteins and half my memory DNA. I remember only the sketch of one future creation, for the God of the Map Stone. This god bears a remarkable stone, a map of the universe."

  Their next commission; that would be the one thing they'd recall. "Who was the God of the Map Stone? What other gods did you know?"

  "Our god was tested once in my lifetime, by the Lord of Light." Only once? Of course, every two weeks, and micros lived but a month or two. Two weeks with Chrys, and before that...

  Fern must be getting up in years. "That time, the Lord of Light was angry. He said our god let us 'push the edge.' "