Brain Plague

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 different 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?