Brain Plague

'You disobeyed me. You expressly failed to follow my commands. '

'We are sorry,' said Jonquil. 'We trust the God of Mercy will forgive.'

'Right now the God of Mercy is full of wrath. You will experience my wrath as an eclipse of the sun.' With that, she winked the window closed. Then she closed her own eyes.

Darkness within, such as she had not known for three months. 'Xenon?' she called. 'Tell me when sixty seconds are up.' A minute—about a week for them, should make a good eclipse. Still, it was the longest minute she ever spent. What did her people make of it? What if they went crazy, like the ancients? No sight, no sound except the pulse pounding in her ears.

At last she opened her eyes.

'The light returns! Oh Great One, we were paralyzed with fear. Even Rose was scared, although she won't admit it.'

Chrys nodded at the yellow letters, satisfied.

'We praise your mercy,' Jonquil added. 'We pray we never lose your sight again. We have written a list of a thousand new laws to make sure we never forget.'

One law alone would do, if only they obeyed. She sighed. 'We all need to get in shape, before the test of the Deathlord.'

Despite their new laws, Chrys grew increasingly apprehensive as the days ticked off till her testing. She tried to put it from her mind and threw herself into her painting. She was adjusting the hue and saturation of a particularly difficult foreground, when Xenon announced Selenite.

Chrys half jumped out of her skin. The painting shuddered, turning all grayish green like a hurricane. 'Urn, please do sit down,' she urged Selenite. Xenon had his usual tea and cake laid out.

Selenite shook her head. 'Sorry, I can't accept anything for testing.' Her eyes narrowed. 'Did Daeren ever?'

'No, of course not.' Not till he'd decided to pass her on. 'It's just that I think of you as a business partner.'

'It couldn't be helped. Any problems you know of?'

'We're all fine.'

'Please stand, I find it easier.' Selenite drew very close, the red fire flashing in her eyes.

'Beware,' Chrys reminded her people as she accepted the transfer. 'Warn Rose and her friends.'

'We are ready,' Jonquil assured her. 'We have prepared many generations for this day.'

After what seemed an interminable time, Selenite at last nodded and relaxed in a seat. 'Not bad,' she allowed. 'For your information, here's a list of subversives I'm passing on to the committee.'

The alphanumerics scrolled down her window: reds, yellows, greens, and so on. There must have been several hundred. 'You mean these are all...'

'They all fit one or more criteria of my screen. They go on file in our intelligence database. Didn't Daeren tell you? You have a sizable file already.' She shook her head. 'I always let the carrier know, for their own protection.'

'I see.' She clasped and unclasped her hands, feeling haunted.

'Chrys . ..' Selenite cocked her head. 'You do a good job, but why do you tolerate those master sympathizers?'

'Well...' It was a compliment, Chrys told herself. 'I was raised by true believers, and I've lived with artists. Different ideas are, like, different colors.'

'People live or die by ideas.'

To that, Chrys did not know what to say. She remembered something. 'Do you still have a waiting list?' she ventured. 'For new carriers?'

'A very long list,' Selenite warned. 'Tell your people they have to wait. Unauthorized transfer is a terminal offense.'

'I meant, a list of humans who want to become carriers.'

Selenite nodded slowly. 'We're always looking for good candidates. You know our standards—you're welcome to recommend someone.'

The show was packed; one could hardly get past the volcanoes. Chrys had underestimated the space required for her new large-scale compositions and had left the corridors too narrow between them. But then, no more than a handful of visitors had ever showed up before. This time, the news report must have made a difference.

Lord Garnet waved her over, gesturing toward the colored rings whose flickering filaments waved overhead. 'They've finally come out—life size! Like real people!' Garnet had brought along half the financial district, all in the most discreetly expensive gray, their namestones diminutive. With them were Lord Carnelian and Lady Moraeg.

'I've never seen anything like it.' Moraeg's forehead bore the Star of Ulragh, a famous gem she had acquired a generation before.

Lord Carnelian nodded, his talar and namestone like Garnet's twin. 'The brain interior—it's truly pathbreaking.'

Chrys had done a giant transparent brain, with the subarachnoid spaces filled in, the Cisterna Magna and the other vessels of cerebrospinal fluid where her people lived. Next to that, a close-up of an arachnoid cityscape full of the ring-shaped people. And last, she had asked Moraeg to lend Wheelgrass, the ring flowers of Prokaryon. The visitors looked intrigued, certainly not bored. More than a few of them had the flashing eyes of carriers. Even if the Seven did not all show up, it was a success; she was beginning to believe it. She hugged Moraeg. 'Let's hope all these folks come to your show too.'

'Don't forget our dinner party next week,' reminded Garnet. 'After your show—you promised.'

Opal hurried over, a sheer gold talar flowing over her nanotex. 'My colleagues from the Comb are amazed. At last they can see what's going on in my head!' She beamed with excitement. Then abruptly her face fell. 'Chrys— look there—' There stood Zircon munching a handful of AZ wafers that Chrys had put with the refreshments. 'You can't put those out for virgins. They'll attract masters like flies!'

'Oh my god.' Chrys rushed to scoop up all the AZ, pushing her way as best she could through the crowd of perfumed talars, flashing nanotex, and fashionable vampire makeup. No Elysians, she thought with a trace of disappointment. It was too much, after all, to expect Ilia to return to primitive Valedon.

She nearly collided with Selenite. 'Excuse me ...'

Arms crossed, Selenite glared at Endless Light. At first glance, the cube was full of sheer white. Then the turrets of cloud appeared, light streaming through their windows upon an outstretched human form, face enraptured.

Chrys's smile froze.

'How could you?' Selenite exclaimed at last. 'Of all things— it's indecent. Think of it—there could be recovering addicts here.'

'Well...' A couple made up fashionably as vampires watched the piece politely, the broken veins painted artfully on their whitened faces. 'A show has to have something controversial.'

Down the hall, before the portrait of Dendrobium, her eye caught lava-bright nanotex, glowing infrared, the color only she and Elysians could see. Who would wear that?

Daeren. He must have meant the color for her; to anyone else, it would look his usual black. She felt warm all over, yet confused. Angry, yet she missed him. She wove her way between the chatting visitors to reach him.

Daeren turned. 'I hope things went well this week?' He held a drink, orange juice.

'You didn't tell me you keep files on 'subversives.' '

'I note a few, to keep the Committee happy.'

'Selenite listed them all.'

'Was it useful?'

'The blue angels—we haven't seen them in generations.'