Brain Plague

fibroblast, a nest of dendrimers formed the breeding chamber. Inside, two breeders had come together. Their filaments had dissolved, allowing their surface membranes to merge. As the pair merged, their DNA triplexes came together to exchange genes. Once the two triplex chromosomes recombined, the membranes would pucker and pinch in, and the new children would come apart—as three. The three newborn children would each have duplex DNA, until they each grew a third strand in order to breed again.

But this time, something had gone wrong. 'The offspring can't come apart,' flashed Poppy. The edges of the three rings puckered in all around, as the membranes sought to pinch through, but still they remained attached.

'Get the enzymes,' Fern told her. 'Enzymes to cut the membrane, slowly.' Carefully her filaments applied the enzymes to the grooves between the three half-separated children. Poppy did the same around the other side; it was vital to cut evenly, lest a child tear open. The grooves deepened. At last the three rings fell apart, three different lights flashing their cries: yellow, yellow-green, and green-blue. Three children, where there had been two.

'There are so many children now,' Fern told Poppy, her filaments tasting the children to calm them. 'Ten times more than I've ever known.'

'They'll turn into elders soon enough,' flashed Poppy.

'The young elders are as careless as the children. And few of the children are becoming elders. Most just keep merging and dividing.'

'How else can our people grow?'

One lovely child, a ring of pink violet, seemed quieter than the rest. She had just grown her third strand of DNA, but she seemed in no hurry to join a mate. Instead, she spent all her time tasting the records of Eleutheria, studying the plans of the Comb. 'I've figured out something,' she flashed to Fern. 'The windows of the dwelling the gods call the Comb. The legendary windows that gather starlight. I can show how they were grown.'

Fern was pleased, but kept herself from revealing how much. 'You're a good student, Pink-violet. But you have less than a year to find a mate to merge.' After a year, a god's hour, the breeder's mating structures would dissolve, and she would inevitably become an elder.

The pink-violet one pulled in her filaments. 'Merging is for gods and children. Not elders.'

'Are you sure of your choice?'

'When I become an elder, Fern, will I earn a name from the god?'

At home, Merope kept brushing around Chrys's legs till she tripped, and even Alcyone deigned to sniff her hand. Rarely had she been away from her studio so long.

Above the painting stage hovered the virtual palette. Chrys dipped her fingers in cerulean blue and a touch of brown, then brushed her hands through the air, leaving a trail of indigo. She blocked in the spattercone of congealed rock, then the Elf moon, then added local colors: cool violet grays for the volcanic peaks, amber and gold for the opening spurt of lava; sky of deep cobalt, bearing the seven stars and their hunter.

'Oh Great One, may we taste a sign of your favor?'

She thought of something. 'Poppy, I'll give you a sign if you can help me out.'

'Of course—anything, to serve our God of Mercy.'

The room darkened, and the new painting vanished. In its place appeared the lava fountain falling into butterflies.

'A river of stars,' said Poppy.

'Poppy . . . how can I help other people to see it as I do?'

'All the people can see it through your eyes. They're just busy right now.'

'I mean, the other... gods.'

A tiny replica of the volcano appeared in her eyes, hovering just before her. The replica looked washed out in black, crucial details missing, like an old oil color darkened with age. Chrys nodded. 'That is how other gods see.' That was why Pearl called her butterflies too dark.

'Try this.'

The replica changed. Its details returned, in a subtly different spectrum. No more infrared lava, but the reds and golds had their own distinctive range. Not the palette she would have chosen, yet compelling in its own way. Her pulse raced—she could hardly wait to show Topaz.

'Do we please you, Oh Great One?'

She reached for an AZ and placed the wafer on her tongue.

For the next hour, Poppy helped redo two other pieces. It was more than just a shifted wavelength; an aesthetic choice was made, a choice Chrys could not have made herself. The results were exciting; but were they hers alone?

Slowly she smiled. From the public archive she downloaded an image of AZ, azetidine acid, the four-atom square with the forked tail. She set the molecule in the corner of each piece, next to her own cat's eye.

If she worked fast, she could revise all her pieces in the gallery, and still get the moon piece done for the Elf gallery director and Zircon's Elf patron. But then, Elves could see the infrared. Which version should she show?

With a blink at her window, she called Topaz. Topaz's sprite floated beside a towering portrait of a fur- cloaked client from one of the Great Houses. Her finger was shaping the last stroke of eyelash and a blush on the cheek. She turned to Chrys. 'How's it going, Cat's Eye?'

'Topaz, any chance I could have a dozen more spots at the show?'

'Are you kidding? You're doing a dozen more pieces this week?'

Chrys looked away. She should have known better.

'The show's important, but don't kill yourself. I'm sure the Elves will love Lava Butterflies.'' Her voice had a trace of condescension.

Chrys looked up. 'I found out some things. Brain enhancers are actually self-aware. Like sentients.'

Topaz frowned. 'Cat's Eye, everyone knows a nanoservo can't be self-aware. How could it pack a trillion neurons?'

She wondered that herself. As the sprite dissolved, Chrys realized that Topaz still thought of her as the Dolomite sophomore who knew nothing. But this time, Topaz was wrong.

Another sprite flashed into her window. Zircon looked out at her from the club; the late afternoon hour, it was full of mountainous biceps flexing. 'Chrys, where have you been? The second workout you've missed.'

'Hey, I'm sorry.' Actually, she felt as if she had ten workouts that morning. 'Don't worry. Things are getting back to ... normal.'

On his chest, the large crystal gems swam out in spirals.

'Stars, Oh Great One,' flashed Poppy's letters beneath. 'When will you show us the stars?'

Startled, Chrys tried to keep her face straight. But Zircon gave her a puzzled look. 'Chrys, if you're in trouble, let me know, okay?'

She made herself smile. 'I had to crack cancerplast the other night.' Just the night before last—it felt like forever.

Zircon shook his head. 'You couldn't pay me to live on your level.'

'Nobody pays me to live elsewhere.'

He grinned infectiously, and lines appeared in his forehead. Not as young as he used to be, but always up for something new. 'Hey, I could fix you up. I know Elves, men or women, who'd just die to have you.'

Chrys liked Zirc, and she could have fallen for him, once upon a time. 'I've had enough of people. I'd sooner date a worm-face.'

'Mind-suckers!' Zircon shuddered. 'Don't even say that. It's . .. perverted.'

That evening Chrys took a break and strolled up Center Way. The lightcraft flitting up and down, the glowing signs, the virtual decor of the Great Houses—through her eyes, the micros exclaimed at all the lights, which they called stars. For the micros, she realized, ten meters might as well be ten light-years. How could they distinguish city lights from those across the universe?

'Wait,' flashed Poppy. 'Wait—/ see something most important. Something from our records; the oldest records of our people.'