Brain Plague

'Your wrath cannot touch me. I near the end of my long life in exile.'

What if Rose died, and the codes died with her? 'Where's Fireweed?'

'The others agreed to wait, to see a world without executions. They fear your wrath, but even more they fear the genocide they have seen.' The executions, even the innocents by Eris—could they blame her for that?

'You're raving. You put your entire people at risk—all your children—'

An object pressed to her side made her muscles go limp. Without a word, the slaves took her out the door and dragged her off. Her surroundings bounced crazily around her.

'You can still keep us safe,' added Rose. 'Keep your eyes open all the time. I will flash the code that your quota is full; you are not to be invaded.' But not to be set free.

'Fireweed? Forget-me-not? Where are you?' Had they forsaken her? Or had Rose done them in? Was she the false angel after all?

After interminable dragging down endless corridors, the slave workers reached their ship. The navigation stage pulsed with a thousand stars. Chrys's limbs were recovering their strength, but the device still pressed at her side, and she ached from bruises all over. 'Who are you?' she demanded. 'I'm not one of you. I said 'No'—a thousand times, No.'

One of her captors turned his sickly grin on her. Worker slaves were still conscious, but they had lost all natural sense of pleasure or pain. All they felt was their forebrain on overdrive, rewarding each command obeyed. 'Your eyes say other,' he spoke haltingly. 'Shaper of stars. Mystery. You have special call. To the Leader.'

The Slave World, place of no return. With a sudden twist Chrys heaved two of the captors off her body, sending them halfway across the floor. But the third stunned her again. The first two picked themselves up, never losing their grins, though one bled from his nose, the blood trickling onto his filthy nanotex.

They strapped her down for departure. As the ship skipped through the first fold of space, it occurred to her to blink her recording on. Her neuroports had several hours storage, and who could tell if her body might be recovered somehow, or if by some miracle she got out alive. 'There's always a first time,' the Elf Guardian of Peace had told her. Arion be damned. No Elf or Valan could help her now.

Chrys closed her eyes hard. 'My people,' she warned, 'there will be an eclipse of the sun.' She closed her window and waited. Strapped down, she felt the ship spinning into its first jump across a space fold—who could say where? The place of no return. Opening her window, she blinked the letters again: 'We'll never come hack, do you see? No more Olympus; we'll all be dead.'

No answer.

'Fireweed?' She blinked desperately, her eyes burning. 'No Silicon to build, ever—don't you see?'

'I see,' flashed Rose at last, her pink letters triumphant. 'I see well enough. I see that no Silicon will be built by me—you'll see to that, Great Host.'

'No, Rose.' Though it was true.

'I see well enough. It's the 'gods' who are blind—blind to their own fate, and their own true destiny.'

The ship skipped through fold after fold. Chrys's mind whirled, seeking some way to reach them. Were they really so angry? Had she herself tempted them with Mourners at an Execution, raising expectations she could not meet? A god, perhaps, but she was no saint.

Above the stage of the ship, amid the suspended stars, grew the disk of a planet. Blue ocean, green continents. Rectangular shapes suggested habitation, but no sign of movement, no ships in orbit, no microwave generators. As it coasted to land, trees flashed by; the vegetation of the first human home, itself long ago destroyed in the Brother Wars. Those trees meant a terraformed world, though none she knew.

The slaves prodded her out onto a windswept platform, overgrown with grass. The air smelled fresh and welcome. Still, no sign of human life, nor any animals, not a bird in the sky. A building stood there, blocks of it fallen down, its surface eaten away.

In her window a light started blinking. A health alert, her Plan Ten nanos warned: some strange toxin was damaging her chromosomes. Whatever could that be, she wondered, inhaling the clean air. Whatever it was, Plan Ten was far away.

The slaves led her into the depths of the decaying building. Its interior looked more intact, but wholly dead, no sign of plast, not even a door opening its mouth. Rectangular gaps cut into the walls; everything was angular. A sign appeared, full of strange letters; Chrys made sure to observe it up close, for her recording.

'Great Host, the damage to the DNA fits a pattern,' Rose told her. 'Either cosmic rays, or intense nuclear radiation could cause such damage. We'll work on it.'

Radioactive—was this where the slaves built their nukes? Chrys looked around, though she saw no sign of such equipment here. 'Rose—just let me go home.' No response.

The corridor turned at a right angle, as all the corridors did. Several more slave workers came out, their eyes flashing bleach white. The air became even more rancid than the ship, and a fly brushed her arm. Did the slaves never bathe?

Deeper within the decaying building, the only light came from blobs of cancerplast stuck to the ceiling. The dying cancers throbbed dull infrared. The corridor led straight down into reddish black, like a lava tunnel. Then it turned at a right angle. Several more slave workers came out, silent shadows, only their eyes flashing bone white.

Through one rectangular cutaway, she glimpsed cots with humans lying upon them. A steady hum of flies. Her steps slowed to a halt. The slaves turned around.

'What is there?'

The mouth of the slave worked out of its grin. 'The Enlightened Ones.'

She brushed another fly from her face. 'Let me see,' she told the slave. 'Rose, tell them to let me see... those 'enlightened' hosts. Let me see what I'm choosing.' She stared at the deadened eyes of the grinning slave. At last he inclined his head and led her in.

Within the room full of cots, the air was fetid, and flies settled everywhere. The slaves barely treated their wastes, either, she guessed. The humans, all thin and pale, seemed mostly asleep, although some sat up in chairs, their eyes glazed, rocking. One was being spoon-fed by a slave. 'Rose? Is this what you call Endless Light?'

'Remember, the Enlightened Ones lack resources. They are desperately poor— but all they have is shared equally, all for one and one for all. From each according to ability...' To each, according to need. Chrys saw plenty of need. 'Why are they all sick in bed?'

'They've achieved an advanced stage, the experience of endless light. They no longer desire to move.'

Having started the tour, the slave seemed determined to show her room after room. The next room smelled so foul she had to clench her teeth to steady her stomach. On the floor were soiled bedsheets and fecal matter. 'Can't you taste it, Rose? Can't you see how vile this is?' No sound but the everpresent flies. The humans were wasted away, their limbs like sticks, flies all over their eyes and mouths. For a moment her head swam, but she forced herself to stand and look. The recording, she told herself again. None of the humans made a sound; she hoped because they felt no pain.

'It's not easy to run your own universe,' said Rose. 'Did your own ape ancestors smell so sweet? The Enlightened Ones are just learning. They try bard, but they are starved for arsenic. They need help.'

Chrys felt a touch of panic. This conversation was not leading the way she had hoped. She followed her guide into the next room.