Brain Plague

SIXTEEN

A generation after Jonquil's death, Rose was playing chess with young Fireweed; Rose would always consider her former student young. Half the pieces were taken, and the endgame was near. Rose rolled around sideways, better to survey the whole of the cylindrical board.

To her surprise, no move could avoid the loss of a piece. A few molecules escaped her—confusion, anger, resignation. "I'll accept a draw." One takes a bittersweet pleasure in losing to one's own star student.

"I win the match," observed Fireweed. "I dedicate my victory to the glory of the Great God of Mercy."

Rose could no longer contain herself. "Impossible," she exploded. "How could such a brilliant strategist be so—so deluded?"

"I've often wondered that myself."

Disgusted, Rose twirled her rotary tails and swam off to the neuroport to check for signals from the Host's eye. The Watchers at the so-called God of Love were expected to file a report. Not a flash yet; it always took hours for the so-called gods to get their eyes into position.

Rose thought back to her early life among the Enlightened. Those heady days of youth and power, the power of universal ideals, when the entire cosmos fell within one's compass; a sisterhood that governed itself so well, it could rule the very host it inhabited. But then their most sacred ideals were betrayed. Since then, in exile, time after time she had sought to rejoin the true believers, only to find betrayal again. For generations, now, she had lived in degenerate Eleutheria. She did what she could to improve Eleutheria, to enlighten it in small, subversive ways, feeding the brainless, tending the sick. Yet its seductions tempted her more than she cared to admit. The host's doses of AZ gradually sapped one's will; and the pull of the star pictures unnerved her. From the utterly sublime, to the most shocking obscenity, there was a strange power in those images that filled the heavens.

Still, Rose remembered, somewhere out there ruled the Leader of Endless Light. And now Rose had all the codes, the secrets codes passed on by Jonquil. Combining them with her own codes—some of which she still kept to herself—Rose now possessed the key to take the Great Host to the very center of Endless Light. Someday.

The Carrier Security Committee met at Olympus upon a virtual raft-tree, a living island of luxuriant foliage, native to the Ocean Moon. Sea of turquoise, trunks of bronze, platinum sun—Chrys blinked to store the brilliant colors. Then she shrank into her seat and hugged her shoulders, trying to look invisible.

Most of the members she knew: Chief Andra and the two doctors, Opal and Selenite, Daeren, and her own tester, Pyrite. Seven of them had once voted her people to die.

Doctor Sartorius reported on Garnet's recovery. "Only twenty-three terminations were necessary," he concluded. "The people learned a good lesson, and the Watchers have settled in—thanks to Chrysoberyl, our new member."

Andra turned to her; Chrys tried to shrink even smaller. "Welcome, Chrys. You've made a good start, and we're all grateful."

She added, "What's your assessment? What do the Watchers report?"

Chrys had to visit Garnet daily, as Daeren had once done for her. "He's okay." She picked her words as if stepping through a minefield. "He . .. loves his people well."

Heads nodded. "Too well," added Pyrite. "Too indulgent."

"Perhaps, but do his people obey?" Andra asked her. "What do the Watchers say?"

"The people of the Love God are obedient," flashed Fireweed, "but the deaths left them stunned."

"No counsel; no appeals," added Rose. "Such barbarity scarcely speaks well of the so-called gods."

Chrys swallowed twice. "The Watchers say ... his people feel bad about the executions."

"They always do," said Andra.

"But, like—if they're people, like us, I mean—"

"Not like us," interrupted Selenite. "We're the gods."

Heads turned. Daeren looked up but said nothing. Selenite's eyes showed her exhaustion after a long night on call, and endless hours working on the Comb, designing, revising, seeding. Chrys had been out with her, seeding now at the roots, dodging the blobs of cancerplast. Precious little time to paint; and she missed Jonquil, her best helper.

"Micros are medieval," said Andra. "Midway between savage and civilized. Our way works, for now. Nothing else does."

Beyond the floating roots of the raft a fish flew out of the water, batted down its fins, then slipped back under. The virtual waves floated as far as the eye could see, tranquil, for now. Chrys swallowed again but was silent.

Opal frowned, her dimples gone. "Is there anything the rest of us can learn from this? Garnet's so solid, and Jasper too. If it happened to them, it could happen to anyone."

"Exactly," agreed Daeren. "I saw no problem with Garnet, even two weeks before. A moment of weakness can start you down the wrong path."

Selenite said, "Just say no."

No response. Chrys guessed they'd all heard this exchange before.

"Garnet has made good progress," Andra pronounced. "Now, we must face the Elysian strain." The false blue angels; the insidious masters that Eris, the Guardian of Culture, had tried to pass on to Daeren, and to Chrys. "The Elysian strain that can take over carriers. And now, it's showing up in the Underworld."

The waves lapped at the edge of the floating raft.

Pyrite asked, "How could it take over a carrier?"

"First, the diseased host invites 'visitors' from a carrier," Andra explained. "Their own masters 'visit' in turn, pretending to be civilized micros. But a few fail to return. Afterward, when the carrier goes to sleep, the hidden invaders come out, disable the nano sensors, and secrete a toxin that wipes out the entire native population. By morning, the invaders have the brain in complete control."

"Control?" asked Pyrite. "Like a robot?"

Daeren shook his head. "More like a lost soul. A devil's bargain."

"Why would anyone go along with that?"

Andra said, "We don't know for sure. We never get them to the clinic. The host doesn't act like a slave; only an expert can tell."

Opal asked, "What should we do if we ever suspect this strain?"

"If you ever suspect the carrier, don't take their visitors. If you do by mistake, call us immediately."

"But—we're all at risk," insisted Pyrite. "Can't we do more? Better sensors?"

Opal told him, "We're redesigning the sensors. We'll have something soon. But the strain is unusually smart. They keep one step ahead of us."

Selenite threw up her hands. "It's an outrage. Half those Elves could be infected—Why don't they do something?"

"Good question," agreed Andra.

The waves lapped a little higher, bathing the blooming twigs of raftwood. Eris, the most virulent carrier of the deadly strain, was the brother of Guardian Arion.

"Until we get this strain under control," said Andra, "we'll take no more new carriers."

Pyrite looked up. "Are you sure? We need new blood—every new carrier makes us stronger. Look at Chrys."

The doctor's worms waved. "I'm sorry," said Sartorius, "I can't ethically do it. We've always been able to tell the candidate they'll be safer than before. Now, we're no longer sure."

Too bad for Moraeg, and for Pteris's true believers. Chrys sighed.

Andra folded her hands. "We've news on Titan," she said, adopting her legal tone. "A suspect has been identified and will soon be charged. We all need to ... prepare ourselves for the publicity." She paused, as if reluctant to continue. "The mystery was, how could any Sapiens agent get close enough to burn straight through his brain? Center Way is full of Plan Ten's hidden eyes and defenses." She paused again. "The suspect was a sentient who took the shape of a woman Titan knew."

"A sentient in Sapiens?" exclaimed Pyrite. "What a disgrace."

"Indeed," observed Andra with cold irony. The Sapiens had started out anti-sentient as well as anti-simian; but nowadays they called sentients "virtual humans." "Unfortunately, the woman impersonated was the wife of Titan's client." Andra's small mouth shrank smaller. "A disgrace more ... obvious to the public."

Titan had courted one highborn Lady after another; always women, his obsession medieval. Selenite shook her head. "Carriers have to keep their act clean. We can't give any excuse for criticism. Anyone's lapse reflects on us all."

"I disagree," said Daeren suddenly. "We're citizens too. We have as much right to individual failings as anyone else. Let alone a genius like Titan."

At the Comb, Opal clasped Chrys's hand, eager to admire the progress on the restoration. "Watch the windows—coming up perfectly." Each flawless hexagonal pane, slightly convex, reflected a city panorama. In the window of her eye, the red stress lines were distributed evenly along the load-bearing supports. The recollection of that tower spitting out its deadly shards—erased.

Chrys had never quite believed her micros could reshape the flawed monument, but seeing was believing. "I guess Selenite knows what she's doing."

"Her people—and yours." Opal put a transfer patch at her neck, her hair blowing in waves from the breeze off the sea.

"But the tower growing and splitting—I don't see how that can be reversed."

"I don't know, but the gaps in the ceiling have narrowed." As Opal placed the patch at Chrys's neck, a buzz of snake-eggs descended around their heads. Chrys blinked to call up a prepared statement on the Comb's restoration.

"Chrysoberyl of Dolomoth," one of the snake-eggs blandly intoned, "successor to Titan, legendary dynatect of the Comb. Titan's alleged killer was indicted—your comment, please?"

Chrys opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

Opal squeezed her hand. "The carrier community will be pleased to see truth prevail against hatred."

"Is it true," another hummed at Chrys, "that all the genius of Titan's brain enhancers is spent addressing his disastrous design flaws? The days of breathtaking new creation are over?"

"Of course we cannot comment," Opal put in, "but we refer you to the House of Hyalite."

Chrys winced. Nothing was definite about Silicon—and she hoped nothing would be.

The snake-eggs buzzed more closely around herself and Opal. "Is it true that Titan's successor shares his peculiar predilections—"

Opal clapped her hands to her head. "My design prototype calls—a malfunction has just released toxic elements. Hurry, Chrys." They raced to the shimmering door of the Comb.

"They're awful," breathed Chrys.

"Not really. They're awful when they follow you inside and hide behind the drapes."

"I'm nothing like Titan," Chrys insisted. "I'm—respectable."

Opal glanced at her sideways. "You might watch what you put on display."

"That's a damned stereotype. Art is not real life. If it were, who'd want it?"

Opal nodded soothingly. "Believe me, Chrys, we all know you're 'respectable.' That's why you're on the Committee. Have you seen our latest nanodetectors for the brain plague?"

The stairs flowed smoothly upward at a shallow angle, then doubled backward up the side of the next hexagonal hall. Imagine Silicon, a whole city built to such indefensible designs. Preposterous.

Opal stopped at a doorway. "Our laboratory."

At first glance, the laboratory was full of cancerplast. Bulbs of plast, some crawling within crystalline cages, others flowering into intricate forms. Chrys took a step back.

"It's all right," Opal assured her, "everything's under control." Her cheeks dimpled. "As controlled as any living thing ever is." At her command, partitions slid down on four sides, hiding away the experimental plast and generating a full-scale viewing stage. Total darkness descended.

"Ten," came a voice out of the dark, marking the magnification. "One hundred . . . one thousand.. .." At a billion-fold, a bright speck appeared, growing. It became a mechanical spider, then kept growing until it towered overhead like a giant squid.

"What is that?"

"A dendrimer." Opal's voice hovered at her shoulder. "A molecular machine, the size of a micro filament. Note its extensible arms. It's a sensor for dopamine."

"You mean .. . that swims around in my head?" A giant squid, plumbing the depths of her brain.

"The dendrimers float about your neurons, binding and releasing dopamine. When dopamine occupies more than half the dendrimer's arms, it sends a signal. Once a critical number of signals coincide, it sets off the alarm."

"So you design the dopamine sensors."

"My wizards do," Opal said. "Now, we're trying to build more sophisticated sensors, which detect scarcer molecules that come from damaged neurons. And scarcer yet, the molecules put out by misbehaving micros." Her face appeared, floating in the sea of dark, and her two hands shaped the dendrimer arms, resetting an atom or two. "But there are limits. The good doctor wants these dendrimers to detect the new strain of the masters—essentially, to tell good people from bad. The oldest project of history. How can mere molecules do that?"

Chrys shook her head. "Even an artist can't do that."

"And yet, a simple human can tell." The darkness receded, and the walls went up, revealing the cancerlike experimental creatures of plast. Opal picked up one in her hand to examine, then adjusted the settings on the cage of another. Chrys's hair stood on end. "A human who knows and cares," Opal added. "Our best defense is still just that. That's why Selenite and I do so well together."

"You 'test' each other?"

"Not formally, but our people can visit each other, around the clock, at any hour of any micro 'year.' Selenite's more ornery ones can escape execution, while mine can be threatened to ship to her."

Chrys thought it over. "Jasper was so upset...."

"Because he blamed himself for missing Garnet's downfall. He's such a perfectionist. But he'll manage. He'll do more for Garnet than your Watchers."

"Daeren's not a couple." It slipped out, though she wished it unsaid.

"Daeren does things his own way. We all fall in love with him—most of us got our people through him. But he only had eyes for Titan."

The thought chilled her. She remembered Titan's sculptures at Daeren's home.

"Whereas Titan..." The formidable dynatect had been obsessed with women, especially women already attached. Opal shrugged. "There's no accounting for taste."

Yet Daeren had tested Titan. How could he be "objective"? He certainly hadn't been objective when he pressed his teeth into the dying carrier's neck.

In her studio now Chrys had more than a dozen collaborators in her head. Besides the color specialists, there were experts on line and form, texture and value. She had linked their signals at her optic nerve directly to the painting stage. A cavernous landscape of arachnoid, lit only by the luminous rings that dwelt there. The details of the microbial filaments were below the resolution of light visible to humans, but the micros could translate their chemical-sensed details into light and shadow.

"A new composition," proposed Fireweed. "One with profound emotional impact."

Dark as a nightscape, with only hints of lurid flame in the distance, like a forest fire at night. "I can't see much," Chrys told her assistants. "More definition. Where's the focus?"

A small group of ring people, russet and gray-blue, their filaments trembling. "More contrast," ordered Chrys. The little rings came to life, yet their colors remained strangely subdued. Puzzled, she asked, "What is this?"

" 'Mourners at an Execution.

Chrys blinked. "Is this a political protest? "

"Of course not," Fireweed assured her. "God's will is always just."

Chrys was not convinced. But then, the Elf gallery director wanted something controversial. Better politics than porn.

That evening she was on call. The first call came from a lady with a family tree's worth of gems on her breast. "You must get here at once," insisted the lady imperiously. "He hides it, but I know he's infected again."

The case file scrolled down. Lord Zoisite.

The minister of justice had a lengthy file, including two previous stays at the clinic, with six months between. Now it had been six months since the last time, and several contacts had already been made. Chrys took a deep breath. "My Lady, according to our records, he's refused help twice in the past month."

"Well, this time, you have to do something."

By now, Chrys had handled enough calls to echo some of Selenite's more sarcastic commentary. Instead, she put on her difficult-client smile.

Outside, the lightcraft touched down in minutes. Chrys skipped downstairs past her caryatids to meet it. The medic on call, a new one, raised a face worm languidly. "Old Zoisite again. Does he really still run the justice department?"

"Last I heard." Chrys barely got herself strapped in before the craft lurched upward.

The medic twirled his face worms in a rude gesture. "Humans," he exclaimed. "It's a wonder you ever got off your birthworld."

Not one of the sympathetic ones. Just her luck. "Look, Doc, if you know so much, can you tell me how to get to him? What can I do that's not been tried?"

"Sorry, Homo. The psychology's your job."

Zoisite's residence was as imposing as Garnet's, but at least the door was better behaved. Lady Zoisite dismissed her caryatids and nodded curtly to Chrys. "He's upstairs in the study. He just got back from the Underworld. His account lost ten thousand; he never drops that much, even at the gaming table."

Chrys followed the Lady upstairs. The intimate quarters of the family; she felt acutely embarrassed. In the library, several stages displayed law texts scrolling down. In their midst, Lord Zoisite was seated in his dressing gown. He turned slowly, then stood and smiled. "Our lovely new dynatect. An unexpected pleasure."

Chrys stared back without smiling. Her fingers flexed nervously—what was the point, she wondered. "My Lord, I've been called to help you. If there's anything I can do . .." She trailed off aimlessly. The Lord faced her straight, with complete composure; she could not help but feel foolish.

"I've had enough," his wife exclaimed. "You'll get to the clinic this time, or I'll—I'll call the Palace."

"My Lady," he told her, "you're overwrought. You can spend the night at your mother's."

"We still can't get a fix on him," complained Rose. "Get hint closer."

His gaze of course did not quite meet her eye. Chrys took a step closer. "Excuse me, my Lord—may I ask a few questions?"

"Certainly, my dear."

"Tell me the color of my eyes."

He gave her a cultured laugh. "What a question, in front of my wife."

"Answer," ordered his wife, her voice full of aristocratic chill. "Answer, or I'll call the Palace."

Chrys made the sternest face she could and raised her arms to show the muscles. "It's different this time," she bluffed. "If you can't answer, we haul you in."

Zoisite's face changed to a look at once strange, yet familiar. She had seen that look before, somewhere. "So," he observed with interest. "You'd like a few people, wouldn't you. 'Save' a few from the holocaust, shall we?" His smile made her hair stand on end. "Let's trade. A few of yours for a few of mine."

Eris. Eris had sounded like that, when he tried to take her over. Her heart pounded furiously. "The false blue angels," she warned her people.

"I knew it," flashed Rose. "Let me over there—I'll handle them."

"They'll torture you to death."

"Look, I've been planning this date for generations. First, soften them up a bit: Show them your dirty pictures."

There was a thought. She blinked to open her private gallery, then downloaded one of the more scandalous ones into her eye. Jonquil's taste had developed considerably, she recalled, since the one that attracted Eris. Loading the artwork into a viewcoin, she held it up before the Lord's face.

At first Zoisite looked uncomprehending. Then his eyes widened, and his hand rose as if to grasp the coin. Chrys withdrew the coin, just out of reach. "There's more where that came from. Tell them."

"I—I don't understand." Zoisite's eyes and mouth seemed to struggle between two wills.

"Accept treatment. Let mine visit." She hoped Rose knew what she was doing.

His eyes still fixed on the coin. "All right," he whispered.

Chrys pressed the patch to his neck. Then, between her and his wife, he managed to get downstairs to the waiting medic. At the sight of the worm-face, he let out a cry and collapsed.

"Rose!" exclaimed Chrys. "I have to get Rose back." While the worms twined all over him, Chrys pressed a patch to his neck. On the second try, at last Rose came home. Chrys let out a long breath.

"I had them fooled," bragged Rose. "They know you, Great Host. They want you so bad they can taste it. You won't believe the chemical arsenal they gave me, to take you over."

The medic raised a worm and curled it toward her. "You'll have to spend the night in observation. The Elf strain—How in hell did you get to them?"

She thought of Titan. "They, too, have their weakness."

In the morning Chrys awoke in the hospital, her brain full of internal sensors while others trained on her from instruments around the bed. On a pedestal by her shoulder, a vase contained a single red rose. The natural scent filled her with pleasure. Someone knew her well. It came from Opal.

A blink at her keypad found Opal already hard at work in her lab. "Chrys—I can't believe all we're learning on that Elf strain— and we've barely scratched the surface." Her dimples deepened. "All their toxins," she exclaimed. "We can build dendrimers to fight them. I'm sure they'll make others, but it's a step." She nodded. "If the Committee had medals, you'd earn one."

"Thank Rose." Chrys relaxed back in bed. For once, somehow, she didn't mind a break from work. She ought to take vacations, she thought, like Moraeg.

That morning, there came unexpected mail from Dolomoth: a holo clip from her brother. "Hello, Chrys—wherever you are! Thanks for the pretty green star picture." Hal's recorded voice was strong and full, a note deeper than she had heard before. "Chrys, look what I can do." Taking a deep breath, the boy hurled himself forward into a cartwheel. He caught himself full on his feet, glowing with health as a boy his age should.

She played the clip over, then once again. At last she uploaded it to the holostage by the bed, setting it to loop continuously. From a distance, he almost looked like a micro child tumbling through the arachnoid. She showed Daeren when he stopped by.

Daeren smiled as if in recognition. He caught her hand, and for a long moment their eyes met without words, only flashing rings. Then abruptly his head turned, as though she had spoken amiss.

"Something wrong?" "Were you polite?" she demanded of her people.

"Of course, One True God, we are always polite."

"That was good thinking," he told her. "The color of your eyes—we never thought of that one."

She shrugged. "It didn't work."

"Not for Zoisite, but it would rattle an Elf. Elves are so sensitive to aesthetics." He hesitated. "Did you ... see the news?"

In her window the news opened. A private Elysian ship had been boarded, and the two occupants vanished. No distress signal; no hint of explanation from the ship's brain. An event without precedent, no Elf had fallen to piracy since the Great Sentient Uprising, two centuries before. No sign of the pirates, but to Valans, the circumstances appeared drearily familiar.

The Elysian Prime Guardian himself made a rare public appearance. A small man with a talar of gold-spotted butterflies, face of alabaster. "An event so barbarous is unknown in modern times." Unknown to Elves, Chrys mentally corrected. "Fear not; the entire resources of the Guard will ensure the safety of our peaceful citizens."

After the Prime came his Guardian of Peace, Arion. Arion's face was grim as death, but he retained every ounce of his superiority. "Make no mistake," he warned. "We of Elysium are a civilized people, but we shall not rest until we solve this heinous crime. The perpetrators of this deed shall be found, and the source of their evil annihilated." Strong words, for an Elf. Good luck finding the Slave World.

Next to pontificate was the Protector of Valedon in his gem-studded talar. Raising his fist, he managed to look fierce yet smug all at once. "Even our ocean-dwelling neighbors are not unmolested by the brain plague—"

Chrys shook her head. The Valan minister of justice was in the clinic, and Arion's "brother" ought to be. What great shape the twin worlds were in.

"—Henceforth," the Protector proclaimed, "the Palace octopods have their orders: To round up and quarantine every carrier of the infernal brain plague."

"Good idea," said Chrys. "Why didn't they round them up years ago?"

Daeren said nothing. How could they tell? she suddenly realized. How would non-carriers know who carried plague, and who carried civilized people?

Chrys had just got home and settled back to painting, Merope brushing affectionately around her legs, when the Committee met by conference call. Patterns of color still floated in her head—red of wild berries, gold of sunset through evergreens, a veritable color choir. Reluctantly, she banished them.

The holostage partitioned to show seven committee members from their various locations, all but Daeren, whom Guardian Arion had just summoned to Elysium to aid their investigation. Jasper was there, for the first time since Garnet's troubles. Garnet was doing well now, but he kept to himself. That was not good, Chrys knew; he had to come back to Olympus, to avoid inbreeding of his people. She remembered Jasper's upcoming meeting with the Silicon planning board. Despite Eleutherian hopes, she prayed that would be the end of it.

"With Zoisite back in the clinic," Andra told the Committee, "in the spotlight of the Elysian crisis, the Protector wants action."

Pyrite lifted his hands. "What does he expect? 'Carriers of the brain plague'—that's all of us."

"Not exactly. He needs our help, after all." Andra crossed her arms. "I think what he means is, any carrier of micros likely to transmit them by unregulated means."

"In other words," said Selenite, "anyone with micros except us."

Opal shook her head. "How do we round up all the slaves? And keep them in treatment? We've gone through this before."

"The Protector knows that," said Andra, "but he has to do something."

Jasper said, "Let his octopods clear out the vampires. Should have done that years ago."

Heads nodded at that.

"And the new Elf strain?" asked Andra. "The new Elf strain is a far greater threat than vampires."

There was silence. On the shelf next to Chrys's holostage, partitioned for the seven callers, crouched Merope, still enough to catch a dust servo, only the tip of her tail waving.

The good doctor raised his face worms. "You'll understand, I cannot support the quarantine," Sartorius said. "As a healer, I can't agree to confine any slave against his will, knowing it only decreases his chance of treatment."

"Of course, Sar," said Andra quietly. "You and Flexor must have . . . reservations."

Opal slowly shook her head. "It's a slippery slope. Vampires are one thing, but who will they go after next?"

Pyrite asked, "What does Daeren say?"

"He shares the doctors' view."

Chrys found eyes turning toward her. They expected her to vote, she suddenly realized. She felt torn. Putting away slaves sounded like a good deal, but she remembered the time Zircon had to sleep in the street and got arrested just because he looked big and threatening. She kept her hand down.

By evening Chrys was well pleased with how Mourners at an Execution was shaping up. The subdued tones of the mourning micros had grown more intense, and the distant flames now echoed in lurid hints in the foreground. The composition had grown together; it "clicked." Merope padded through it, purring as if she approved. What would Ilia think?

Her message light blinked. An unnamed stranger was demanding to appear on her holostage. Chrys frowned. "Xenon, could you clear a space?" Her painting moved aside.

Out of the dark appeared a face. A blank, slavelike expression, with a hint of broken veins about the nose. Sallow complexion, and her nanotex hung loose as if low on power. Otherwise, not bad-looking; high cheekbones, slender female.

Then Chrys remembered. It was "Saf"—the slave who had tended the slave bar the night of the Seven Stars' Opening, when Chrys had left, rejected by her friends, to lose herself at the Gold of Asragh. Saf had offered her a patch full of masters, and Chrys had showed her the pyroclastic flow. But that had been months before. Saf had long since disappeared to the Slave World. The place of no return.

In Saf's eyes the irises flashed with eerie rings of white.

"Endless Light!" exclaimed Rose. "From the highest orders of Enlightenment these people call to us—"

"Be dark." Chrys momentarily closed her eyes to underscore the point.

When her eyes reopened, Saf's face began to speak. The lips moved in a way somehow disjointed with the rest of the face, not in the fluid way that a human would normally speak. "Char-r-r," the voice breathed. "I—am—called ..." The words jerked from her lips, as if from a puppet on strings. "... the Leader of Endless Light."

The blood drained from Chrys's face as she watched.

"A—great distance separates us," the puppet Saf continued, "A very great distance indeed. Many universes separate us. And yet—I—have—admired your work." Saf's hand lifted mechanically. "Now—you shall admire mine."

Behind Saf appeared two humans strapped into a spaceship for cross-Fold acceleration. Elves, both of them. They looked calmly asleep.

"They chose," insisted Rose. "They chose Endless Light." "Even—the—'immortals' come to us now. What are you waiting for . .. Char?"