Joan Slonczewski
Brain Plague
ONE
The peak spurted lava, an arch of blinding white across the sky. As it fell, the lava stretched into butterflies of red and infrared, the color only Chrys could see. The infrared butterflies collapsed into a river of fire. On a ledge above, a clump of poppies shared the lava's color, their petals outstretched as if to drink it in.
In the foreground floated a polished cat's eye, the namestone of artist Chrysoberyl of Dolomoth. Chrys knew real lava well enough, the heat rising like a blast of hell from Mount Dolomoth, where she was born. But
At the gallery with Chrys watched the rest of the Seven Stars, friends from her class at the Iridian Institute of Design, setting up their annual show. The virtual pyroscape projected above its own holostage. Chrys pulled back her thick red-black hair, which never would fall smooth and had caught in the cat's eye twirling between her breasts. 'What do you think?'
Topaz, who always directed the show, walked all the way around the pyroscape, then put a hand to her chin. Her veins snaked pleasingly along her neck, and her honey-colored name-stone twirled upon her nanotex, an intelligent clothing material. 'I like that bit at the end, dear, especially the dark flower. The moral tension of power and fragility.'
Chrys nodded, though she had made the poppies bright infrared, just beyond red, like the cooling lava. No eyes but her own saw that, not even the eyes of Topaz, who did portraits prettier than their models.
'Your sky could lighten,' said Pearl, a landscapist known for moonlit skies. Pearl put her arm through that of Topaz; the pair had been married senior year. A petite woman with delicate veins, her blue nails matched the waves of ultramarine pulsing down her skintight nanotex. 'And those butterflies, their dark wings could show up —'
'They're not dark.' The lava emitted wavelengths beyond red; Chrys saw the infrared, just as she saw it reflected by skin, offsetting the dark veins. Normal Valan humans could not see infrared. Those Elysians, now, with their genetically engineered senses—they could see it. If they ever deigned to take notice of Valan art.
Zircon stretched, his shoulders bulging like boulders beneath his nanoplast, its swirling patterns designed to accentuate every muscle. 'Never mind, Chrys, it'll sell.' A sandy-haired giant of a man, Zircon did installations that filled a city block. 'Your scale is domestic. It'll fit right into someone's living room.' He really meant, why didn't she make the volcano life size, like his own immense creations. But Zircon lived off his lover, a wealthy Elysian collector. Chrys could barely afford a cubic meter of painting stage. And if something didn't sell soon, her apartment would spit out her things and take a new tenant.
Topaz patted her hand. 'That's okay, Cat's Eye. Your palette is fine by me.'
Chrys shrugged. 'Hey—I do things my own way.' That was what she had said in her brief stint at portraits, the year she lived with Topaz. Chrys's portraits all showed people's veins like spiderwebs. She knew she would never sell portraits anyway.
'Yours is a good way,' said Lady Moraeg. Lady Moraeg's dark pigmented features reflected only infrared, a 'poppy' tint that pleased Chrys. Her diamonds flowed in intricate formations through nanotex nearly smart enough to demand a salary. An immigrant from the planet L'li, Moraeg had made her fortune mining moons, then married a Lord from one of the Great Houses, before she took up art at the Institute. 'You find your own way, Chrys. What you need is a sentient studio—an intelligent partner to project your vision.'
Chrys smiled at the diamonds; Lady Moraeg always meant well. But Chrys, in her twenty-ninth year, felt time closing in. She had yet to 'make it' in the art world of Iridis. She had to earn enough to pay the rent, let alone hire a sentient studio.
Before her eyes blinked a message light. The light hovered before her, next to the keypad and credit balance in the 'window' produced by the optic neuroport inside each eye. Each neuroport, a dot of nanoplast, sat on the blind spot, where it tapped the retinal axons feeding into the optic nerve. Chrys had shut her window to avoid downloading ads from the street, but this one blinked 'urgent.' Was it her father back in Dolomoth? Was her younger brother sick again? Her brother was on the waiting list for new mitochondria—the tiny cells within cells that powered all living tissue, including his ailing heart.
Topaz snapped her fingers. 'Pyroscape always draws a crowd. Gallery,' she called. 'Let's put
'Excellent placement, Citizen.' The Gallery, a sentient machine, obligingly sprouted another holostage between Lady Moraeg's florals and Zirc's installation, which took up an entire hall.
'For the Opening,' Topaz reminded, 'we still have setup, cleanup, and publicity.' She squeezed a viewcoin. The viewcoin's signal reached the window in everyone's eyes.
As the task list came up in Chrys's eye, the message light vanished. If it were important, it would download at home. 'I'll do cleanup.' After opening night, Chrys would be too stressed to sleep anyhow.
Lady Moraeg stepped forward. 'I'll do setup. Topaz, thanks for getting us organized.' Going out, she patted Chrys on the arm. 'If you're ever in the market for a studio, I'll help you choose a good one.'
'Thanks,' said Chrys. 'When my credit line adds a couple digits.' The credit line in her window hovered near zero, and her rent was due the next day. She already owed Moraeg, and she hated to ask Zircon.
Zircon grinned, flexing his biceps; he worked out at the same club with Chrys. 'There are ways to raise credit.'
Chrys eyed him coolly. 'Like, I should join the slaves and rob a ship?' The 'mind slaves,' their brains controlled by the plague, terrorized deep space.
Topaz frowned. 'That's no joke. The slaves took a friend of mine—nobody knows how they knew his flight plan.' The brain-plagued hijackers shipped their captives to the hidden Slave World, where they were building an armed fortress for their mysterious Enlightened Leader. The Valan Protector always pledged to find that Slave World and nuke it. But he hadn't yet.
'Anybody could be a slave,' warned Pearl. 'Anyone you know. At first you can't tell, but they end up vampires.' 'Vampires,' late-stage slaves with jaundiced eyes and broken veins, stalked the Underworld for a neck to bite before they died.
As the artists departed they passed Topaz's portraits, glowing giants trapped within ice cubes. At the front wall Gallery opened a doorway, like a mouth sideways. Topaz called, 'Just two more weeks left to make this our best show ever.' She patted Zircon's bicep. 'Thanks for getting us the Director of Gallery Elysium.'
Elysium—the genetically engineered 'Elves,' who saw twenty primary colors and transmitted radio from their brains—scarcely noticed Valan art. Yet this year, the Director of Gallery Elysium, Ilia Heli
