Seeing her puzzlement, Selenite explained, 'The sentient engineers who do the real work. They don't even stoop to human speech. You don't suppose those board members could build so much as a tube stop, do you?'

'I kind of wondered.'

Jasper nodded. 'Maybe the brains can bring it down to, say, an increase of fifty percent. By the way,' he warned, 'you'll have to raise Selenite's cut, proportionately.'

'It's an outrage,' Selenite exclaimed. 'Runaway costs, wasteful consumption.' She added, 'But I'm getting used to it.'

Chrys kept Daeren's sprite hovering above the painting stage, between Fern's and Hal's, and she stopped by Andra to see him every day. One day she brought Opal and Garnet.

As they reached Andra's invisible door, Opal beamed with excitement. Garnet was more reserved, but he held between his hands a large dark sphere. Chrys eyed it with suspicion. 'Like, a bomb?'

'Please,' sighed an octopod. 'It's been years since anyone tried anything.'

Garnet looked shocked. 'Flowers.'

They met Daeren out by the swimming pool. Opal threw her arms around him and kissed the top of his head. 'How could you stay away so long? We've missed you so.'

His face darkened with confusion, but he was not displeased. 'I've been busy.'

'Working too hard as usual. And the blue angels? Just a peek?' She took out a transfer patch. Chrys felt vaguely jealous but checked herself.

Garnet set down the sphere. It sprouted a red carnation. There followed lilies, rosebuds, even Prokaryan ringflowers, live plast imitating live plants. 'Olympus just doesn't feel right without you.' He rested his arm lightly on Daeren's shoulder.

'You'll be pleased to hear,' Opal said, 'we're working on better communication with the non-carriers. We're not to call them 'virgins' anymore. They're 'independents.''

'Sounds reasonable,' Daeren agreed.

Garnet added, 'We've been talking with Carnelian about how we can help the 'independents' fight the brain plague.'

Opal nodded. 'All those defectors your brain brought back— we've put their intelligence to good use.'

Garnet's gaze took in the glittering pool and the headball court beyond. 'Excellent taste, though claustrophobic, I'd say. It must be tough being trapped in here,' he observed, kneading Daeren's shoulder. 'Watching your investments grow. Wondering why the seven are but seven.'

'I was a fool,' Daeren sighed. 'Now they'll never let me back. Not for what I used to do.'

Chrys felt numb. It was hard to imagine Daeren doing anything else.

Opal squeezed his hand. 'Wait and see.'

'I know the rules,' he said shortly.

Garnet raised a hand. 'I know what you can do. You can come serve at the Spirit Table. Jasper and I go there every week. It's just the thing for you.'

Daeren smiled. 'You're right, I could serve at the Spirit Table. There are any number of things I could do. But what about the blue angels? All their tradition of relief work, and nothing left to do except look after me.'

After Opal and Garnet left, Chrys took a dip in the pool. Then she and Daeren rested at the far end, water rippling around their arms entwined, as they watched Garnet's 'flowers' grow and collapse to grow anew.

'The truth is,' Daeren exclaimed, 'I'm tired of chasing addicts who will only run back the first chance they get. I'd like to get back to law, and acquire a place like this.'

The virtual sunset gleamed across the swimming pool, glinting off the sapphires. 'Sounds good to me,' Chrys smiled. 'I'll be your worm-face.'

Daeren sat on in silence, a hand stroking her breast. 'Chrys,' he asked thoughtfully, 'what is 'fenestration'?'

'The placement of windows? Why do you ask?'

'Just like to know what your people are chatting about.'

'One True God,' flashed Fireweed. 'We have a vision. A new work lies before useven greater than Silicon.'

Chrys absorbed this news with deepening suspicion. 'What sort of work?'

'A new building plan. Commissioned by the blue angels.'

Forget-me-not added, 'We've installed a branch office with the Lord of Light.'

'With divine permission?'

'Of course. What do you take us for?'

She looked accusingly at Daeren. 'You didn't tell me.'

'Tell you what?'

She sculled the water with her hands. 'What's your project?' she demanded of Fireweed.

'Rebuild the Underworld.'

'House the gods as they deserve,' added Forget-me-not.

'Homes, schools, playgrounds,' flashed yellow Lupin. 'All with the cooperation of the inhabitantsnot just a building grown from seed. Incalculable problems to solve. Truly a challenge worthy of the highest intellect.'

Chrys crossed her arms. 'This was your idea,' she told Daeren.

'I'm not allowed to have ideas, remember?' he said. 'Just obey.'

'And how will it be financed?'

'Our profits from Silicon, to begin with,' flashed Lupin. 'Then we'll raise funds from all our neighbors. We have ways.'

Chrys put her head in her hands. She imagined what Jasper and Selenite would say.

As her exhibition date neared, the brain plague worsened. Whole sections of Level One were abandoned, and every morning dead vampires appeared in the streets. The Palace doubled the patrols of octopods, but that did little good against a menace unseen.

From Elysium, it was rumored that Elf children experimented with 'visitors.' Kept in school for fifty years, they'd be bored enough to try anything. All in all, the reports did little to dispel tension over her upcoming show.

'Might you bring an octopod to your Opening?' ventured Xenon. 'A real one, in camouflage.'

'Elysium won't allow it. They're above security,' she observed. 'Even the Gallery had to get a special dispensation to post a guard.'

'Their medical response system is the Fold's finest,' Xenon assured her.

'I hope I don't find out.'

The Fall Opening at the Gallery Elysium was the foremost cultural event of the year. Chrys herself had never attended in person, but she had always watched through her window as Elysium's most refined millennial citizens mingled with Valedon's most famous and infamous. This year she found herself at the window's other side.

The snake-eggs buzzed so loud one could barely hear, and the multicolored butterflies projecting behind all the talars mingled so confusingly that one hardly saw the art. But then, most people on Opening night were there less to see than to be seen. Chrys herself wore a talar of burnt dark red, shading into infrared that only the privileged could see, her hair flowing thick past her shoulders.

At her side hovered Ilia, filling in occasional responses for her to answer the more abstruse questions she was asked. 'Pathbreaking,' Ilia assured a butterfly-swirling visitor. 'The most pathbreaking exhibit we've ever done.'

The visitor would not touch Ilia, of course, but impulsively caught a fold of her talar. There was a lot of clasping of talars, as highly placed Elves tried to show the world how intimate they were with those even more highly placed. They kept more of a distance from 'Azetidine,' however. Perhaps it was the hair, or the infrared. Or perhaps it was the hint of scandal that put a strain in some smiles, the furtive glances toward the white curtain.

A group of Elf students strolled in parti-colored jumpsuits. They looked and acted her brother's age, though in actual years they were probably closer to her own. Their guide spent a lot of time at Chrys's old self-portrait, making the point that even great artists had to begin the hard way. She wondered whether the guide would let

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