Brain Plague

Daeren's mind was still alive.

A sudden wrench sent Chrys spinning, floating in zero gravity. 'Ship?' she called, not knowing its name. 'What's going on?' The ship had not even greeted them, not even to strap down. 'What's wrong?'

No response. Her stomach lurched as she tumbled, her hair swinging around her face. Finally she grabbed a handhold and steadied herself.

In her window blinked a ship contact button. Shutting her eyes, she winced at her window. Three contact points appeared for the ship's brain, two of them marked 'inactive.'

'Oh my god.' The slave had put her on a dead ship. Whether on purpose or not, the result was the same. To get so far, only to die out in space ... Her head and arms went numb. But she took a deep breath and made herself think.

The one active contact was for distress call. She blinked hard once, then again. Her eye muscles must have registered, for the spot started flashing red. Reserve power, enough for SOS. But it could be hours before anyone found her. Or days.

'Fireweed? I'm not sure how long we'll last.'

'Years, at least. Have faith.'

'You must sleep,' added Forget-me-not. 'Conserve oxygen.'

Daeren's body still floated, unaware. His shoulders, his chest, his face that Plan Ten had shaped—still perfect. Yet who was left inside? 'You could have stayed last night,' she whispered. 'Instead of getting caught in the Underworld.' The tears floated away from her. Closing her eyes, she brought up the image of her brother turning cartwheels.

Health for all the children of her village—the one truly good thing she had ever done in her life. Now she herself was going to die, without ever having children of her own. Why did she never think of that? The micros, with all their crazy projects, never forgot their children. Now it was too late.

She closed her eyes, trying to sleep while keeping her arm locked to the handhold. For an endless time she dozed, half waking for a few minutes at a time, her people flickering. If she ever did get out alive, she vowed, she would go home and see Hal. And she would have her own children, if she had to get them off the streets of the Underworld.

The ship slammed her against the wall. Something had docked, hard. Sparks flew from the door as it ground open. Two octopods came in, their black limbs slithering over the floor.

'What the—' Chrys knew better than to argue with octopods. They hustled her out into the docked ship. Long worms of plast extended from the ship, emergency medical. In their midst, in white hospital nanotex, stood Andra.

Andra ignored Chrys, her attention fixed on Daeren, now strapped to a stretcher. Doctor Sartorius instructed the octopods, and the extensions from the ship, silently of course, but one could tell. The worms from his face stretched into long threads that wrapped all around Daeren's head. Then Andra leaned over him, pulling back his eyelids to check.

Chrys strained forward, but the octopod held her back. 'Andra?'

Daeren's head moved ever so slightly. Then his eyes flew open, and every muscle strained as if to burst. He let out a deafening cry. His left arm came loose from the strap and jerked violently, hitting the wall.

'Too soon,' murmured the doctor. Daeren's eyes closed, and he went limp.

Andra nodded. 'He feels pain. That much of him's left.'

The ship extension felt around his arm, the one that had hit the wall. 'A clean fracture,' the ship announced. Its limb slapped nanoplast around the arm. Then an octopod wheeled Daeren out.

Chrys strained forward. 'Andra—let me stay with him.'

The octopod extruded a thin black needle, a finger of death. The needle pressed to Chrys's neck.

The chief turned and brought her face within an inch of Chrys. 'What are you?' Her eyes flashed deadly purple. 'What are you, that you can come and go from the masters?'

She swallowed, feeling the needle at her neck, but her eyes did not flinch. 'I gave them no arsenic.'

'Then what?'

'Nothing you would want.'

For an eternity Andra stared. Then she nodded at the octopod to remove the needle. She put a patch at Chrys's neck. 'You'll give them up, every one,' she ordered. 'Any masters, and any of his blue angels.'

A few of Daeren's blue angels had stayed with her to heal. 'Not the blue angels. They were sick—they've been through so much.'

'They face trial. And so do you.'

'Keep talking,' urged Forget-me-not. 'We need to keep some of the defectors. At least the mathematicians—they're really smart. We'll tell the judges —'

Chrys pulled against the octopod arms until one gave her a shock. She clenched her teeth. 'I rescued him —'

'We'll see what you rescued.'

Doctor Sartorius came over. 'He's stabilized. He can handle consciousness for a few minutes.'

Andra frowned. 'Is Selenite here yet?'

'Just arrived.'

Chrys demanded, 'What's going on?'

Andra gave her a look, haunted yet calculating. Daeren lay surrounded by a webbing of filaments from the wall. Behind him waited Selenite with a grim expression, arms folded. Daeren's eyes were open, bright with pain.

The chief brought her face close to his. 'Listen,' Andra spoke rapidly. 'Your people survived, about two hundred thousand of them.' One in five—what became of the rest? Torture? Starvation? 'You have to give them up.'

His eyes flitted away, then back, irises dark. 'It wasn't their fault.'

'No, but your forebrain's shot to hell. You know the rule. You have to heal in the clinic.'

'Alone?'

'How else?' Andra demanded. 'You'll be arsenic-wiped every day. Tell them.'

'I can't do that,' Daeren whispered. 'I can't send them away. Homeless.'

'They'll have a home—half with me, half with Selenite.' By regulation, a carrier could not hold more than 10 percent over their limit.

'Selenite? But she'll breed them for—'

'They'll live, won't they? Why didn't you think of that when you gave yourself up?'

Chrys caught her breath. Whatever could Andra mean?

Daeren closed his eyes. 'Why did you bring me back?'

'What really happened to him?' Chrys demanded of her people. 'What do the blue angels say?'

A moment of hesitation. 'They say he went to the masters. Because he had destroyed their world, he gave them his.'

She stared without seeing, without breathing. She remembered his eyes, when he last came to see her, the shifting eyes of a slave. His last call for help.

'I warned you,' whispered Andra. 'He can't have micros again, ever.'

Doctor Sartorius stood by the cot, tendrils hanging motionless from his head, their eye sensors turned aside. Chrys caught the sentient carapace between her hands. His warmth surprised her; 'waste heat,' the sentient unspeakable. No eyes, but she faced the worms. 'Doctor, can't you do something? He's no slave; he just slipped. You know what he is. You've got to cure him.'

'I'll do what I can, Chrysoberyl.' The doctor's voice was strangely soft, the different voice that she had heard once or twice, still distinctly his. 'But chemicals alone cannot fix the brain, without exchanging one slavery for another.'