Brain Plague

Another caryatid approached, this one a young woman. And yet... the face was her first boyfriend, whom she had not seen in ten years. The one who had begged her to stay with him in the mountains forever, raising his goats and children. Chrys went cold with shock.

Lord Garnet smiled. 'What good taste you have, my dear. We always try to please a newcomer.'

The servers were keyed to her gaze, shaping themselves to what most caught her eye. Chrys looked away.

'Olympus?' Jasper called tactfully, 'Key the servers to me, please.'

Garnet leaned forward suddenly. 'Tell me something. Why are the Seven Stars but Seven?'

Still recovering, Chrys ignored him.

'Daeren,' called Garnet. 'Do you know why the Seven are but Seven?'

Daeren came over and rested his hand lightly on Garnet's shoulder, lines of gold rising elegantly along his dark nanotex. He looked Chrys in the eye. 'Because they were not eight.' He meant something else, and so did Garnet, Chrys suspected. The committee—they all knew.

Garnet playfully caught Daeren's arm and passed him a patch. 'You make a good fool. What goes on four legs, then two legs, then three?'

'You're a fool for all but numbers,' jested Jasper. 'Why don't you give us the kind that's useful?'

'Right, my dear.' Garnet turned to Chrys. 'Your people tell us you could use extra funds. Blink me a hundred. We only take one percent, for carriers.'

The nerve of those Eleutherians—they'd catch it later. Chrys swallowed her retort and shrugged. 'All right.' She blinked at her credit line. The three digits reappeared in an investment box. The lower digits vacillated too fast for her to catch, but within a minute the first digit doubled.

'We invest on the nano-market,' Garnet explained. 'Trades lasting a fraction of a second.'

Doubling every minute—it looked pretty good, even to someone no good at math.

Garnet tilted his head. 'An artist,' he repeated reflectively. 'I invest in art. Do show us some.'

Opal had overheard. 'Please do, Chrys.' She clapped her hands. Two singing-trees vanished to reveal a holostage.

Warily Chrys looked from one to another. What did they know of art, she wondered. Though if they liked something, at least they could afford to buy.

From online she called down Lava Butterflies, in Valan color mode. The piece began with the cone smoking quietly above the rocky landscape, foreground touched with poppies tinted orange. Then it erupted, the orange lava exploding into butterflies.

The carriers nearby all laughed, and even Jasper smiled. Chrys's face hardened. No sense of taste—philistines all.

'Chrys,' called Opal, 'why don't you show us Fern?'

She blinked in surprise. 'What do you mean?'

'We've all heard about Fern,' said Opal. 'How you put her 'in the stars.' '

The carriers all grew quiet and watched her curiously. She realized that her micros must have spread it around, telling all their people about her precious little sketch. But she would never put that up for laughs. 'It's private.'

Opal's face fell, as if it were a real disappointment. The silence lengthened. Chrys felt bad; Opal had done so much for her. The sketch was not online for sale, but she took a viewcoin from her pocket and held it out to Opal, set on low power, enough to reach her alone.

For a moment Opal stared. Her eyes widened and she clapped her hands to her head. 'That's it! That's how they really look, not like any micrograph. Like ...' She turned to Chrys. 'Put it on the stage,' she urged. 'Let everyone see.'

Chrys swallowed hard. It was just a sketch; she had never intended other humans to see it. Nervously she turned the viewcoin over between her fingers. At last she held it close to the stage. The lights dimmed. The image of Fern appeared, done in broad, hasty strokes, a giant green constellation, proclaiming the Eighth Light of Creation. The green filaments twinkled, in their own pulsing language that only the micro people knew.

'Behold our prophet,' flashed Aster, 'placed in the stars forever. God of Mercy, your greatness is everlasting.' Chrys smiled. She should have known Fern was a prophet.

The carriers watched without speaking, and who knows how many 'people' watched through their eyes. 'But—she looks real,' someone exclaimed. 'As real as life—and yet—'

'Human size,' added another.

Opal caught Chrys by the arm. 'Could you do one of mine?'

Garnet said, 'I'd like a whole gallery of my favorites.'

'Mine first,' insisted Opal. 'Please—she hasn't another day to live.' The urgency in her voice was most unlike her.

'What are your rates?' asked someone else.

The caryatids slowly passed, their food and drink unnoticed. Saints and angels, thought Chrys. Could it be that she would make good in 'portraits' after all?

NINE

The last of the Watchers, Dendrobium, was on the point of death, losing arsenic atom by atom. Aster tasted her fraying filaments. 'You've done enough for us,' Aster told her. 'We'll have to make it on our own now. Won't you return at last to the Lord of Light, as your sister did?' In her youth Dendrobium had been the Lord of Light's favorite, yet she chose exile among those who rejected him.

Dendrobium's filaments blinked faintly. 'It's too late; I could not survive the transfer.'

Except directly through the blood, thought Aster; the way forbidden by the gods.

'It's nothing,' the dying Watcher told her. 'I've lived a long life well. Now I have one last word for you to remember. Someday, your god will despair and let you do as you will. When that day comes, remember this: Just say no.'

Aster's filaments tasted the memory cell, with its whirling proton pumps and its photoreceptors. 'We will remember. We will record your image for all time.' Then she remembered the great miracle of Fern. 'You, too, belong in the stars. We will ask the Great One to perform this miracle.'

The dying cell did not answer.

Now Aster felt truly alone. The Council was divided on so many things— how to finance new bridges and fix decaying neighborhoods of arachnoid, what to do with young elders who couldn't find jobs. Jonquil had lots of bright ideas, but her authority was undercut by rumors of scandal.

'Jonquil, is it true?' demanded Aster. 'Is it true, what people are saying? '

'What are they saying?'

It was too shameful even to mention. Aster flashed the words behind a screen of dendrimers. 'They say you try to merge with adults.'

'Aster, everyone knows that's impossible. Only children can merge.'

Not a convincing answer. 'They say you try.'

'Why is that so bad?' asked Jonquil. 'The gods merge and come apart again.'

According to ancient legend, the Blind God had merged and come apart many times, with many different gods. But the God of Mercy never did any such thing. 'You are no god, just a foolish elder. Think of your reputation. I'm depending on you. How will you keep the next generation out of trouble?'

'The real trouble with the next generation is that they've all grown soft. All the Olympian peoples—we drown in mediocrity. Where are truly diverse foreign peoples to merge? Talents and ideas unheard of?'

'Ideas are one thing,' Aster insisted, 'scandal is another.'