Brain Plague

waiting medic. At the sight of the worm-face, he let out a cry and collapsed.

'Rose!' exclaimed Chrys. 'I have to get Rose back.' While the worms twined all over him, Chrys pressed a patch to his neck. On the second try, at last Rose came home. Chrys let out a long breath.

'I had them fooled,' bragged Rose. 'They know you, Great Host. They want you so bad they can taste it. You won't believe the chemical arsenal they gave me, to take you over.'

The medic raised a worm and curled it toward her. 'You'll have to spend the night in observation. The Elf strain—How in hell did you get to them?'

She thought of Titan. 'They, too, have their weakness.'

In the morning Chrys awoke in the hospital, her brain full of internal sensors while others trained on her from instruments around the bed. On a pedestal by her shoulder, a vase contained a single red rose. The natural scent filled her with pleasure. Someone knew her well. It came from Opal.

A blink at her keypad found Opal already hard at work in her lab. 'Chrys—I can't believe all we're learning on that Elf strain— and we've barely scratched the surface.' Her dimples deepened. 'All their toxins,' she exclaimed. 'We can build dendrimers to fight them. I'm sure they'll make others, but it's a step.' She nodded. 'If the Committee had medals, you'd earn one.'

'Thank Rose.' Chrys relaxed back in bed. For once, somehow, she didn't mind a break from work. She ought to take vacations, she thought, like Moraeg.

That morning, there came unexpected mail from Dolomoth: a holo clip from her brother. 'Hello, Chrys— wherever you are! Thanks for the pretty green star picture.' Hal's recorded voice was strong and full, a note deeper than she had heard before. 'Chrys, look what I can do.' Taking a deep breath, the boy hurled himself forward into a cartwheel. He caught himself full on his feet, glowing with health as a boy his age should.

She played the clip over, then once again. At last she uploaded it to the holostage by the bed, setting it to loop continuously. From a distance, he almost looked like a micro child tumbling through the arachnoid. She showed Daeren when he stopped by.

Daeren smiled as if in recognition. He caught her hand, and for a long moment their eyes met without words, only flashing rings. Then abruptly his head turned, as though she had spoken amiss.

'Something wrong?' 'Were you polite?' she demanded of her people.

'Of course, One True God, we are always polite.'

'That was good thinking,' he told her. 'The color of your eyes—we never thought of that one.'

She shrugged. 'It didn't work.'

'Not for Zoisite, but it would rattle an Elf. Elves are so sensitive to aesthetics.' He hesitated. 'Did you ... see the news?'

In her window the news opened. A private Elysian ship had been boarded, and the two occupants vanished. No distress signal; no hint of explanation from the ship's brain. An event without precedent, no Elf had fallen to piracy since the Great Sentient Uprising, two centuries before. No sign of the pirates, but to Valans, the circumstances appeared drearily familiar.

The Elysian Prime Guardian himself made a rare public appearance. A small man with a talar of gold-spotted butterflies, face of alabaster. 'An event so barbarous is unknown in modern times.' Unknown to Elves, Chrys mentally corrected. 'Fear not; the entire resources of the Guard will ensure the safety of our peaceful citizens.'

After the Prime came his Guardian of Peace, Arion. Arion's face was grim as death, but he retained every ounce of his superiority. 'Make no mistake,' he warned. 'We of Elysium are a civilized people, but we shall not rest until we solve this heinous crime. The perpetrators of this deed shall be found, and the source of their evil annihilated.' Strong words, for an Elf. Good luck finding the Slave World.

Next to pontificate was the Protector of Valedon in his gem-studded talar. Raising his fist, he managed to look fierce yet smug all at once. 'Even our ocean-dwelling neighbors are not unmolested by the brain plague—'

Chrys shook her head. The Valan minister of justice was in the clinic, and Arion's 'brother' ought to be. What great shape the twin worlds were in.

'—Henceforth,' the Protector proclaimed, 'the Palace octopods have their orders: To round up and quarantine every carrier of the infernal brain plague.'

'Good idea,' said Chrys. 'Why didn't they round them up years ago?'

Daeren said nothing. How could they tell? she suddenly realized. How would non-carriers know who carried plague, and who carried civilized people?

Chrys had just got home and settled back to painting, Merope brushing affectionately around her legs, when the Committee met by conference call. Patterns of color still floated in her head—red of wild berries, gold of sunset through evergreens, a veritable color choir. Reluctantly, she banished them.

The holostage partitioned to show seven committee members from their various locations, all but Daeren, whom Guardian Arion had just summoned to Elysium to aid their investigation. Jasper was there, for the first time since Garnet's troubles. Garnet was doing well now, but he kept to himself. That was not good, Chrys knew; he had to come back to Olympus, to avoid inbreeding of his people. She remembered Jasper's upcoming meeting with the Silicon planning board. Despite Eleutherian hopes, she prayed that would be the end of it.

'With Zoisite back in the clinic,' Andra told the Committee, 'in the spotlight of the Elysian crisis, the Protector wants action.'

Pyrite lifted his hands. 'What does he expect? 'Carriers of the brain plague'—that's all of us.'

'Not exactly. He needs our help, after all.' Andra crossed her arms. 'I think what he means is, any carrier of micros likely to transmit them by unregulated means.'

'In other words,' said Selenite, 'anyone with micros except us.'

Opal shook her head. 'How do we round up all the slaves? And keep them in treatment? We've gone through this before.'

'The Protector knows that,' said Andra, 'but he has to do something.'

Jasper said, 'Let his octopods clear out the vampires. Should have done that years ago.'

Heads nodded at that.

'And the new Elf strain?' asked Andra. 'The new Elf strain is a far greater threat than vampires.'

There was silence. On the shelf next to Chrys's holostage, partitioned for the seven callers, crouched Merope, still enough to catch a dust servo, only the tip of her tail waving.

The good doctor raised his face worms. 'You'll understand, I cannot support the quarantine,' Sartorius said. 'As a healer, I can't agree to confine any slave against his will, knowing it only decreases his chance of treatment.'

'Of course, Sar,' said Andra quietly. 'You and Flexor must have . . . reservations.'

Opal slowly shook her head. 'It's a slippery slope. Vampires are one thing, but who will they go after next?'

Pyrite asked, 'What does Daeren say?'

'He shares the doctors' view.'

Chrys found eyes turning toward her. They expected her to vote, she suddenly realized. She felt torn. Putting away slaves sounded like a good deal, but she remembered the time Zircon had to sleep in the street and got arrested just because he looked big and threatening. She kept her hand down.

By evening Chrys was well pleased with how Mourners at an Execution was shaping up. The subdued tones of the mourning micros had grown more intense, and the distant flames now echoed in lurid hints in the foreground. The composition had grown together; it 'clicked.' Merope padded through it, purring as if she approved. What would Ilia think?

Her message light blinked. An unnamed stranger was demanding to appear on her holostage. Chrys frowned. 'Xenon, could you clear a space?' Her painting moved aside.

Out of the dark appeared a face. A blank, slavelike expression, with a hint of broken veins about the nose. Sallow complexion, and her nanotex hung loose as if low on power. Otherwise, not bad-looking; high cheekbones, slender female.

Then Chrys remembered. It was 'Saf'—the slave who had tended the slave bar the night of the Seven Stars' Opening, when Chrys had left, rejected by her friends, to lose herself at the Gold of Asragh. Saf had offered her a patch full of masters, and Chrys had showed her the pyroclastic flow. But that had been months before. Saf had long since disappeared to the Slave World. The place of no return.