Brain Plague

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 behind.

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'?'