Brain Plague

Zircon looked away. 'Yyri needs younger men.'

'I'm sorry.' The nerve of that Elf, with all her arch comments to Ilia about primitive Valans. Chrys felt bad for her friend.

'Well, I'm not.' Suddenly intense, Zircon's eyes flashed rings of gold. 'Now that I'm fixed for credit, for the first time ever, I can choose someone I really care for.' He took both her hands, startling her. 'Someone like you, Chrys. Looking into your eyes so much, these past two weeks, I've realized what I've been missing. You were always there for me, and I'll be there for you.'

'The accountants want our business,' observed Forget-me-not. 'They've offered us outrageous terms. They would do anything to serve you.'

Chrys bit her lip, watching Zircon's gentle eyes, his massive neck flowing into his shoulders. 'Zirc—you're my oldest friend, and I don't know what I'd do without you. But, to be honest, right now, I just feel. .. confused.'

Releasing her hands, he spread his own wide. 'Say no more— believe me, I know. Those little rings have me so confused, I don't know who I am.' He grinned with a wink. 'But if you ever find out, just say the word.'

The latest new carrier was Lady Moraeg. Moraeg had got her people through Daeren, all safe and proper. Delighted, Chrys took her to Olympus and warned her of all the carriers' peculiar traits. Now at the two-week point, her colonists were overwhelmed with children, but otherwise doing well. 'What are they like, Moraeg?' She squeezed her friend's hand and shared a transfer. Moraeg's eyes flashed different colors; a creative strain.

'Metal and minerals, I think,' Moraeg told her. 'They keep showing me crystals—orthorhombic, monoclinic, isometric. It never occurred to me that crystals grew as beautifully as flowers.' Her arm swept toward the stage. A crystal of emerald extended like the shoot of a stem, then split off two side crystals at an angle. As angles grew and multiplied, suddenly all the corners sprouted flowers. Its beauty was daring and insightful.

'Something's wrong,' flashed Forget-me-not. 'Her people tell us their god is desperately unhappy.'

Moraeg must have seen Chrys's expression change, for her obsidian complexion turned gray. Chrys caught her shoulders. 'Moraeg? What is it?'

The Lady composed her face. 'Carnelian couldn't take it. He left last night.'

'Oh, no.' Lord Carnelian and Lady Moraeg, the most enduring marriage of the Great Houses. How the snake- eggs would hiss. Chrys embraced her, closing her eyes in shared pain. 'He'll come back, surely he will.'

'Never mind.' Moraeg straightened herself regally, adjusting the flow of her diamonds, not yielding a tear. 'If he can just walk away from our hundred years, so be it.'

In the early morning hours, as Chrys half roused, the little rings retold all their stories, their colors tumbling through glittering palaces woven in the arachnoid. Fantastic edifices rose to the stars, plans for Silicon, and others that would never exist outside the imagination.

'One True God,' flashed Fireweed, her infrared voice rising amid the glitter. 'What will the Hunter do to our cousins?'

'I don't know.' The news had said nothing, although rumor had the Prime Guardian mobilizing warships unused for five centuries.

The glittering palaces receded until all was gray, the roiling gray of a pyroclastic flow, the gray of a people annihilated.

'It sets us a bad example,' added Forget-me-not. 'It is hard for us to do nothing,'

'Did I grant your lives, only to be betrayed again?'

'Never again.'

'Never,' agreed Fireweed.

Dark—that terrible abyss that so often yawned just before daybreak.

'Give us a miracle,' pleaded Fireweed. 'To help us believe in eternal good, despite the evidence of our eyes.'

'Give us a sign,' urged Forget-me-not. 'A sign that you care.'

Chrys wondered, what would she do if her own cousins faced capture? 'Warn them.'

'Exactly!' said Forget-me-not.

Fireweed added, 'If it can be done safely.' The lava had learned common sense.

What harm could come of warning a slave? The destruction of Endless Light would not stop the plague; if anything, it might turn more into vampires. Either way, the brain plague would not ebb until someone faced its most virulent source—Eris, the Elf tester, the false god. How could the Hunter be so blind? But then, what would Chrys have done if the source were her own brother?

The morning was the safest time in the Underworld. Anyone out for mischief was sleeping it off. The Gold of Asragh, though open around the clock, was nearly empty by dawn. A simian girl in red lay splayed by the door, her skirt torn; Chrys tossed her a credit chip to find when she woke.

Inside, the slave bar was empty. 'Jay?' Chrys called, then again louder.

A slave came out, bedraggled hair, back hunched, her face the greenish tint of a hospital wall. No more Jay. 'None left,' Jay's replacement gasped. 'Supply's dried up.' Then she caught a flash from Chrys's eye. Straightening, she lunged for her wrist. 'Ace,' the slave hissed. 'You . . . full of ace.'

Chrys yanked her wrist free. Out of nowhere, it seemed, there were two more slave workers, more desperate for ace than usual.

Chrys backed into the doorway, making sure it stayed open. 'No,' she spoke clearly. 'No arsenic. I came to warn you.'

The three slaves stared with their maggot-ringed eyes.

'The Hunter has discovered Endless Light,' Chrys announced. 'Your world will die.'

The maggot eyes kept staring. From outside a bell chimed, an early street vendor just opening shop.

'We know,' hissed one worker. 'We know,' echoed the other.

The woman with bedraggled hair said, 'That's why our supply's dried up. Endless Light find a new home. We need new supply.'

Chrys's heart pounded till her ears heard nothing more. 'Fireweed, how did they know? Who else could have told them?'

'They say the blue angels told them.'

Daeren. The blue angels must have got to him.

Chrys felt more at peace with herself than any time since before she first heard from Saf. She had made things right with her people, and she figured Daeren had too. Meanwhile, with black-market arsenic down, the brain plague dropped slightly; fewer calls from the street. And among the carriers, their people spread the word of the true horror of Endless Light. No longer could any civilized micro be tempted by the masters' claims.

Jasper produced a draft contract for Silicon. The document looked as if it would take her a year just to read. Chrys knew she could no longer put off facing Selenite.

The two women met at the cafe at the top of the Comb. Opal was discreetly absent, and Rose gone forever. Haltingly, Chrys explained the project.

'So,' Selenite said at last, twirling a black curl pensively between her fingers, 'you couldn't manage the project yourself.'

Chrys sighed. 'None of this was my idea—yet everyone insists only I can do it. I just want it to get done right.'

'Can I help it if you can't rule your own people?'

'Can I help it if yours are just mitochondria?'

Selenite nodded. 'That's right, that's what yours call mine. How do you think the minions feel, getting looked down on all the time, and called names, just because they keep out of trouble and don't get sick in nightclubs?'

Chrys thought this over. 'I'll teach mine better manners.' A dubious prospect. Eleutherians might be good at math, but tact was beyond them.