Brain Plague

THIRTEEN

The Thundergod sent judges to train Eleutherians to judge the gods themselves. But their transfer took several microbial "hours," while the one god reached out to the other.

To pass the time, Jonquil and Rose played chess. Jonquil was not a bad player, but her mind tended to wander to the Comb, the latest iteration of the torsional stress problem, or to art—how to inspire the god to ever more daring creations. Jonquil's own body had aged and stiffened too much for the athletics of passion, but she poured her dreams into the divine arts.

"Your move," flashed Rose. The micro chessboard curled over in a ring, so the pieces lined up in circular rows.

Jonquil's filament stuck to one protein piece, then set it down, replacing another.

Rose emitted a molecule of disgust.

" What's wrong? " asked Jonquil. "I trade a knight for a bishop."

"And doubled pawns. My rook swings around to take one. Hopeless," Rose added to herself. "I'm moving to the wizards, see if I don't."

Rose had made this threat so often that Jonquil no longer worried. "Now Rose," she said, emitting placating pheromones. "You know I couldn't manage without you." Flattery, she had learned, was the best way to get around Rose—and to gain information. "Those judges—you really stand up to them, with all you know of the masters."

"No host ever found Endless Light, save by choice."

"Now, Rose, let's not be naive—"

"Come, who's naive? Humans choose the path of Enlightenment. Alas, too many are betrayed; nonetheless, they choose."

"But the slaves who steal ships—"

"I tell you it isn't so." Rose refused to believe that the master-controlled slaves stole humans out of spaceships. "The host always makes a choice. Though we make the choice easy. I'll show you how—"

Rose stopped as the optic fibers flashed. The judges had arrived. They came, rolling sedately through the arachnoid, their filaments brushing the columns of fibroblast. They exuded authority and shrewdness, though they tasted a bit pompous. Jonquil emitted molecules of respect, with a hint of Eleutherian pleasures after their work was done.

"Your people have been chosen for an extraordinary mission," Judge-390 told Jonquil. "Your mission is to save the gods themselves from destruction."

"Eleutheria is honored to be of service." How well Jonquil remembered the false blue angels, and the great "passing over." They had just commemorated the event's twenty-fifth anniversary.

Rose added, "Salvation of the gods has always been my mission. " Jonquil brushed her filaments, flickering, "Be dark!"

"All participants in this service must apply for security clearance." Judge-390 produced a long chain of hydrocarbon, with many complex side branches, each with data tags to be filled in. A similar chain, about twice as long, Jonquil noticed, was presented to Rose. Much annoyed, Rose caught the molecular paperwork in her filaments and hauled it off.

The judge approached Jonquil alone. "Has the double agent served you faithfully?"

As far as Jonquil knew, Rose had done little worse than preach "enlightenment" to a few followers. "She set up food service for the homeless. The Council grumbled at the expense, but after all, even the gods have soup kitchens."

"She tells us nothing. Have you learned much?" "She showed us how the masters attack the brain, precisely which neurons they flood with dopamine."

"Did she say how they locate starships to hijack?" "She denied that masters take slaves by force, but she's starting to reveal the truth. She also helped us figure out how the false blue angels hid from our taste. They engineered their own genes to produce the surface proteins of microglia and astrocytes—making themselves taste like human cells."

"The false blue angels—most unsettling," the judge agreed. "Report everything you hear. Meanwhile, we shall teach you our photo codes: the patterns of light that identify you as security, and other patterns to help you pass falsely as masters. You must keep these codes to yourself. Above all, never tell Rose."

"Chrys, imagine you're the plague." Andra's command projected through the long, twisting branches of the neurons, simulated at human size. "You've just entered a new brain, and you want to master it without alarming the host. So you cross the blood-brain barrier, taking care to avoid activating microglia, and you find your way to the medial forebrain." Andra patted the cell body of a neuron, then her hand traced an undulating branch till its end, where it made a translucent cup. "The axon ends at a synapse." The cup lit up, expanding, as small bubbles full of dopamine oozed out into the synapse. The bubbles joined the receiving terminal of the next neuron. "Dopamine crosses the synapse to activate a neuron of the pleasure center."

Chrys looked over the tangle of axons, each ended in a cup at the synapse of the next neuron. An intriguing pattern; she sketched the weblike network in her window.

"Every kind of pleasurable stimulus fills the synapse briefly,"

Andra continued. "Food, sex, or beautiful paintings." Chrys kept her face straight. "But micros can make their own dopamine and put it right into the synapse—and keep the cup full."

"I see." She remembered the vampire's attack, and the rush of pleasure, the glimpse of Endless Light. "What's wrong with, like, feeling extra good?"

The projected axons played across Andra's nanotex. "What's wrong with any drug? Cocaine and other drugs overload dopamine, but very crudely, with obvious side effects. Psychoplast, programmed drug dispensers, do so more cleanly—and still destroy lives. Micros do it intelligently." Andra pointed to the synapse at the neuron's branched terminal. "When the synapse overloads repeatedly, the body gradually steps down its own dopamine. You don't notice right away; you just think, every time you obey the masters, it feels so good. Eventually, you can no longer feel good at all—except from the micros. Your will is replaced by their own."

She wondered what Rose would say to that, but Rose and Jonquil were busy training with the judges. "Why does it work that way? I mean, like, why can't Plan Ten make us feel good all the time?"

"Humans didn't evolve to feel good. We evolved to survive and reproduce. The pleasure pathway evolved to make us repeat acts that raise our odds, such as eating rich food, or having sex." Andra pointed to the long axon, sending its signal to the synapse. "Once an act is completed, the neuron needs to turn off its signal as soon as possible, to get ready for the next one."

Chrys thought it over. "Why do I enjoy colors? I feel like heaven, studying a beautiful painting. That doesn't help me survive."

Andra nodded. "Our color sense evolved to tell good fruit from bad."

"Picking ripe bananas? You mean we're all still, like, simians?"

She looked Chrys in the eye, her irises pulsing violet, unnerving in the dark. "Simians in nanotex."

The model brain receded, revealing a spacious office atop the hospital with a view across Center Way. The sun glinted off the towers and threw a shaft across the large Sardish carpet, ending at Andra's desk, which was the size of a dining-room table. A caryatid glided forward to offer tea. "Of course," said Andra, "even the masters have their 'civilization.' More subtle strains, common in high-status hosts, give only a touch of bliss now and then. Without their host realizing, they reward little things, like forgetfulness; forgetting one's own name, for just an instant, then longer...."

Chrys frowned. "How could you forget your own name, no matter how good it felt?"

The chief stared hard. "How long is your name?" she barked. "How many letters?"

She blinked, startled. For some reason, the letters swam before her eyes. She counted on her fingers. "Ten. I mean, eleven." Seeing Andra's look, she protested, "I was never good at math."

"No one knows her name as well as she thinks." Andra's voice was ice. "Remember that." The armchair molded to the curves of the hospital's top malpractice attorney as she took her tea. "Virulent or subtle, the masters always need one thing: arsenic. A nutrient essential for reproduction."

"So then you go to the Underworld for ace?"

Across the desk flitted pages of torts and memos, which Andra ignored. "You run to the plague bar. Or you resist, at first, but find your steps taking you there. Your first time, the bar doesn't charge much."

"And then?"

Andra nodded slowly. "You'll soon see for yourself."

The usual crowd of patrons and octopods filled the Underworld, dodging the precancerous root tips of banks and brokerages. "You'll get to know slaves on sight," Daeren told her, "the off-gazing eyes, the little things that tip you off. And more important, your people need to know the masters." He and the worm-faced medic veered around a stand of nanoflowers, branches that rose and blossomed before the eyes of customers. "Once your micros know what to look for, they can practice testing—starting with us." Testing the blue angels. That would be a switch.

A simian boy in a ragged red coat held out a tin cup, imitating a street player's monkey. Playing to the stereotype, for a few credits. Oddly, the boy reminded her of Hal. For a moment she wished she could take him home. A crazy thought. Little boys were not cats, and the last thing she was ready to be was a mother. Chrys frowned. "Your chief says we're all simians," she told Daeren. "I bet she'd never set her clean feet down here."

"Andra does the slave ships."

Chrys's jaw dropped. "She does what?"

"Flashing the photo codes, she passes for a slave. She's reached several substations."

"She's nuts."

"We're mapping the substations, to zero in on the Slave "World." Beside Daeren, the medic waved his face worms as if signaling.

Chrys nodded thoughtfully. "The Slave World—we could nip it at the source."

"Don't you get ideas," Daeren warned. "After tonight, you keep clear of slaves, you hear? You'll have enough to do testing carriers."

She rolled her eyes. "Not to worry." Two more portrait clients visiting the next day, then the Hyalite dinner. At this rate she'd never paint her own ideas again.

They reached the Gold of Asragh. Daeren nodded to the medic, who waited outside while he and Chrys went in. The slave bar was now out of sight behind a curtain; must be laying low this week. She followed Daeren through the curtain, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the dark. Behind the bar stood the man who replaced Saf, the slave who had offered Chrys her masters the night of the Seven's last show. Where was Saf now, Chrys wondered. The Slave World? Where was Endless Light?

Daeren leaned over and put his arm on the slave's shoulder. "Jay, I'd like you to meet a friend of mine."

Chrys forced a smile. "Remember your codes."

"We're flashing now." Jonquil flashed the codes from her eyes to put the masters at ease.

The new slave, Jay, had a pleasing smile and a bit of a simian brow, like a salesman you'd find around level twelve. He faced her but his eyes could not meet hers for more than a moment. He smiled and put a patch at his neck. "Can we help you? Ace on the house."

Daeren touched his arm. "That's okay, Jay."

Chrys accepted the transfer, then returned it. Her people had to see first-hand how the masters operated. But what if they weren't allowed back?

"The masters are visiting," Jonquil told her. "Full of viruses and parasites. Appalling condition."

Her scalp crawled. The diseases that could spread through those microneedles; she hoped Plan Ten could handle it. She gave Daeren a doubtful glance. Daeren stroked Jay's arm in a friendly way. "How's life?"

Jay grinned. "Have all the ace I need. Pass on the little friends to whoever wants them." Something was missing about Jay, Chrys realized. His chest was blank—no namestone. Just empty nanotex.

"How's your wife?" asked Daeren. "Still hoping to move up level?"

Nothing registered in Jay's face.

"You remembered your wife last week," Daeren said quietly.

At the crack in the curtain a shadow passed. Someone stood just outside. A glimpse of an aristocratic profile—Lord Zoisite. The minister of justice, the board member of the Comb.

Horrified, Chrys got up and moved back several seats. Zoisite seemed to ignore the curtain, as if pausing idly on his way to the show. But Jay had slipped out from the bar to pass him something, hidden in his palm. Zoisite did not even look at the slave, but simply passed on.

"Daeren," Chrys whispered hoarsely, "we have to do something!"

Daeren looked down. "The Palace knows the minister has a problem."

"But—"

Jay grinned. "He sure pays well. We double the rate every time, and still he pays. At this rate, he'll finance our whole operation."

She glared at the slave before she caught herself, but Jay did not seem to notice. His gaze shifted to the next customer.

A pretty young woman with blond curls and a scent of jasmine about her, the kind of look Chrys had once envied. The woman's eyes widened as she caught the bar. "Jay, can you help me?" Her head tilted wistfully. "It's awful soon again, I know. But you'll help."

"Sure thing, Per. Twelve hundred will do it."

Her lips parted, and her eyes shifted the way people look at their credit line. "That's a bit steep. Isn't it?" she added, as if she couldn't recall what she'd paid before.

Jay shook his head. "Ace is scarce. We got raided last week." The Palace had sent in the octopods and slapped a fine on Gold of Asragh.

"I'm just fifty short," pleaded Per. "Won't it do?"

He nodded at her neck. "That little stone."

The young blonde fingered her namestone, a lovely round peridot. She slipped it casually between her fingers. Chrys watched, her heart pounding. She looked at Daeren, but he said nothing.

The fingers tightened around the chain, then loosened. The stone fell onto the counter. Jay's hand replaced it with a pill. She swallowed it, then sank into a chair. Her eyes defocused, entranced by a magical vision. Embarrassed, Chrys looked away. From outside lilted the first chords of the caterpillar dancers.

"Char," Jay called to Chrys suddenly. "Something for you."

Chrys drew back, having no interest in ace.

"The transfer," prompted Jonquil. "Our delegation needs to return."

Chrys accepted the patch, relieved to get her people back, though repulsed at the thought of more viruses.

"Great Host, you must see these people," Rose told her. "They are truly enlightened."

"Enlightened extortionists," Chrys blinked back.

"How do you know? The Enlightened only lack what your world cares for most: Money."

"What the devil do they need money for? They took that woman's last credit, down to her namestone."

"What's in a name, when you lack for arsenic? Where our people first evolved, arsenic was the dust of the world. Here, your world sets a price, and keeps it from us."

Chrys blinked, confused.

"To starve for arsenic," Rose continued, "the proteins contorting, ripping themselves out of your cell—you cannot imagine a worse hell."

The young woman seemed to have wakened. Her eyes cast back and forth, her fingers flitting nervously. Daeren moved to sit by her. "You're Peridot," he said, emphasizing her full name. "What's your line of work, Peridot?"

"Account manager at Bank Iridium."

"You were, until they let you go."

Peridot shrugged, and her eyes half closed. Chrys felt her chest tighten.

"What will happen next week when you come back?"

"So many generations." Thinking only like a micro, Chrys realized with horror.

"You'll have no credit left," Daeren told her, "and no more namestone. What then?"

Peridot leaned back, her hands pressing the table as if to push away. "What do you know?"

"You could get your job back," Daeren told her. "Whatever else you've lost—your apartment, your family—"

Her face twisted in sudden pain, her head casting about like a puppet on strings. "I've got to go."

Chrys raised a hand. "Wait—" She caught up to the woman at the curtain. "Don't you understand? You'll end up a vampire."

Peridot frowned. "Who are you? I'll call the octopods."

"Just wait a bit. Look—" Chrys held out a viewcoin. It was her precious Fern, the luminous green filaments twinkling about truth and beauty.

Peridot's eyes widened as she stared. Her hand lifted, trembling, as if to touch what she saw before her. A ring of gold glimmered faintly around her iris.

"They want to visit—hurry," urged Jonquil.

Chrys offered her a transfer. "We mean no harm to your... little friends. Let us help you."

Peridot twisted a curl of hair between her fingers. As if in a daze, she placed the transfer patch at her neck, then gave it back. She shuddered all over, as if with some internal struggle. With a last hint of jasmine, she disappeared out the curtain.

Daeren whispered, "There was nothing you could do. She hasn't yet lost enough."

"But. . ."

"She left defectors," Jonquil announced. "Let them stay."

"Refugees," added Rose. "Starved—oppressed by your Olympian hosts."

"They were backward and ignorant. Thoughtless—destroying their own environment."

"Eking out a desperate existence as best they could."

Chrys shut her eyes. "Be dark, you both." She reopened them to see Daeren nodding at her viewcoin. "Good work, Chrys," he said. "All those defectors you encouraged."

"But she left!" That lost woman, without even a namestone, ending up in a ditch somewhere. Chrys could not bear to think of it.

"Be glad for those who stayed."

The defectors. Would they be like Rose?

"Your portrait really reached them," he added. "Could you show it to Jay?"

Reluctantly, Chrys followed Daeren back to the bar.

"Jay," Daeren called, "did you know Chrys is an artist? An artist for the 'people.' "

Jay stared at the vision from the viewcoin. For the first time the grin left his face. "Come," he announced suddenly. "Come show."

Daeren's jaw tightened. He hesitated, but at last followed Jay back through a doorway, down a dark, descending hall. The songs of the caterpillars receded behind them.

A dim light revealed two men and a woman, studying a holostage full of stellar coordinates. They turned toward the newcomers, their faces watchful, yet somehow incurious. Broken veins betrayed their status as late-stage slaves. Their hair was cut crudely, and their bodies smelled stale.

Daeren kept glancing backward at the passage. He regretted his idea, Chrys suspected. Trying to steady her stomach, she held out the viewcoin to one of the men.

Pallid circles lit up his eyes like dusty lightbulbs. Then the unkempt creature snatched the viewcoin from her hand. Chrys jumped back as the others all crowded around, their eyes ringed with off-white glow.

"The Leader!" exclaimed Rose. "The Leader of Endless Light. These hosts know and serve her—"

"Let's get out," whispered Daeren. "Back off, very slowly."

Slowly their steps carried them backward till they reached the dark passage. Turning, Chrys broke into a run, stumbling blindly up and out past the bar until she caught herself, outside the curtain. She blinked in the light, the distant music from the night's show swirling in her ears.

"It's okay, Chrys." Daeren pressed her arm reassuringly. "You did well. Your people learned more than enough."

"Who were those ..."

"The crew of a slave ship."

After her show, Chrys had promised to dine with Garnet and Jasper at the Hyalite House. Like Olympus, two rows of caryatids stretched out front. These, however, were solid gold. The eyes in the golden heads watched Chrys as she passed between them with Opal and Selenite.

The caryatids culminated at an enormous golden door. The door was molded into scenes from across Valan history, in each of which a Lord of Hyalite had played some crucial part, from opening trade with the Ocean Moon to colonizing Prokaryon. Jutting out from the door, a cornucopia spilled out gemstones in intricate settings.

The door announced, "The Lords of Hyalite await your pleasure."

Opal nudged Chrys. "You have to pick something, else the door won't open."

Chrys eyed the cornucopia warily. In her experience, nothing of value came for free.

"Please," begged the door. "I'm so overburdened; won't you lift a bit of weight?"

Opal laughed, and Chrys found it hard not to smile. She picked out a trinket of black-flecked amber.

"The dearest of the lot; a fossil of an insect, long extinct, from a world long gone. The only specimen of its kind; worth the east wing of the Institute for Natural History."

"Then the Institute shall have it."

The golden tracery melted inward, revealing the patrician Lord Garnet. "My apologies," said Garnet smoothly, "the door likes to have a bit of fun. We must teach him better manners." Far above ran the ceiling, a barrel vault of electric blue. Songbirds sang and trilled. Behind Chrys the golden door slipped away; in fact, she realized, the four of them were traveling smoothly down the cavernous hall.

"All the Palace is buzzing at your exhibit, Chrys," Garnet exclaimed, touching her hand for visitors. "And you've joined the Committee. Such an honor to have you dine with us."

"Our nightclubs expect lots of business this year," observed Jonquil.

The entrance to the dining hall was a towering arch of sapphires set in mother-of-pearl. Below stood Lord Jasper, the crag of his simian brow most impressive above his tall straight form, his sleeves extending majestically as he raised a goblet of wine. A map stone covered nearly the full breadth of his chest.

"The Map of the Universe—God of Mercy, will we hear this year about our next great work?"

"I don't know. I will ask," she promised.

The dining was arranged symposium style, each guest reclining before a jewel-encrusted table attended by golden servers. Recalling the Olympian servers, Chrys tried to look away from them altogether, but this proved harder than she expected. She had a better idea.

The sound system connected all the far-spaced guests in intimate conversation. "I don't believe the sentients can get away with it, do you?" A Board member addressed another guest, the wormfaced engineer with the emeralds. "A new Elysian city—the first in ten centuries—run entirely by sentients?" Elves do this, Elves do that, thought Chrys. No matter how highborn you were, there was always someone higher yet to cluck about.

A server bowed, setting out a turkey-sized tray of sculpted hearts, layered pastries, vegetables carved into forms too lovely to eat. Chrys wondered how to take food properly while reclining. Her long hair fell across her face, and her first sip of nectar ended up on the floor, where a legless beetle scurried to mop it up.

"Don't miss the calamari," announced Garnet, "and the sole en croute. Shipped in fresh from L'li, and from Urulan." Shipped across the light-years from two different worlds, when a synthesizer could have done as well.

"Just take a bite," came Opal's whisper, artfully transmitted across the room. "You can expect a dozen more courses."

Chrys eyed the tray regretfully, thinking how Sister Kaol could use the remains. The next course was an entire tureen of soup, its rising steam carrying enough herbs to transport you to the very court of Urulan.

"When I last toured Urulan ..." The melodious voice of Lord Zoisite. Chrys startled, and another little servo had to scurry out to mop up her soup. A slave, she told herself. The Palace minister of justice is a plague-ridden slave—and nobody gives a damn.

"Great Host. When do we return to help our starving brethren?" Rose had importuned her thus every hour or so, since they left the Underworld. "You feed the starving gods," insisted Rose. "Why can't we feed starving Enlightened Ones? A few grams of arsenic would cover everyone for a year."

"And enslave us all." Still, Chrys found herself wondering, if Lord Zoisite could get away with "enlightenment," why shouldn't others? Was microbial dopamine any more immoral than serving a meal ten times bigger than anyone could possibly eat?

"Why Jasper," called Garnet, watching Chrys, "I do believe one of our guests has an eye for you."

Chrys looked up innocently. Every server in the hall was a golden cast of Jasper, the eyes two caverns beneath his majestic brow.

Jasper laughed long and hard. "There's a first, my dear," he told Garnet. "Usually it's you they set their eyes on." Putting down his glass, his fingers fluttered. He turned to Chrys. "I hope, my dear, your people are pleased to develop the Comb. Not too tedious, I trust?"

She decided to take the plunge. "We are most pleased to maintain that great monument," she said. "But my people long for their next project. Some waited forty generations, and died still hoping."

Jasper nodded sagely. "People must wait upon the gods."

By the twelfth course, the golden servers started strolling with harp and theremin, while the guests rose to stretch. Chrys shook her legs, unaccustomed to reclining so long.

Alone, Jasper caught up with her. His fingers curled around a pipe of inlaid wood, balanced against his short thumb. The pipe lifted to smoke, keeping his Plan Ten anti-cancer nanos at work, but he looked more distinguished than ever. Then he removed the pipe. "Chrys, we've something to show you." The hallway carried them to a holostage large enough for a lecture hall. With his pipe Jasper pointed.

An ocean of sun-speckled turquoise. Out of the waves rose a pearly dome of immense proportions, full of elaborate tessellation. A city-sphere of Elysium; not Helicon, the capital she would recognize, but one of the other eleven. Perhaps Papilion, center of the arts, home of Ilia and Yyri? Or Anaeon, known for scholars and philosophers?

"Silicon. The future city of Elysium." Jasper's voice vibrated with pride. "For a thousand years, there were but a dozen. Now, at last, will rise the thirteenth."

"It matches our plans—exactly!" flashed Jonquil.

"Down to the fenestration. ..." The faintest of lines revealed an elaborate pattern of hexagonal panes.

"If only Aster had lived to see. Does it please you, Great One?"

Chrys regarded the dome thoughtfully. "It's lovely. Like all Elf cities, a pearl floating upon the sea."

"Silicon will be NOTHING like other cities. You'll see." Jonquil was unusually vehement.

"We have revised the plans substantially, in recent generations, " agreed Rose.

Chrys found her voice. "A . .. whole city?"

Jasper said, "My firm put in a bid for Silicon. The plans for our bid were drawn by Titan—that is, Eleutheria. We were awaiting the client's response, when—" He shrugged delicately. With sudden insight Chrys realized the true reason Eleutherians had called Titan "blind"—an omnipotent god who failed to foresee his own end. Little did they know, or perhaps they dared not think, that all the gods were blind.

A new floating city. Her eyelids fluttered as she tried to come to grips with it. "Don't the Elves limit their population? Why do they need another city?"

"Not a city for humans. For sentients."

A city for sentients. That had made the news, back when she used to listen. She put up her hands and shook her head. "Saints and angels— Why would sentients hire microbes?"

Jasper nodded. "Sentients have complex attitudes toward their human progenitors. Yes, they want to do things their own way; and yet, they want to be seen as having nothing but the best, even the best of what passes for human taste. Of course, Silicon will be built by sentients, thousands of them; but the overall aesthetic design ..." His pipe puffed reflectively. "Your people say they have revised their design. Interesting. With your consent, I'll arrange a new presentation to the Silicon planning board."