Andra stared ahead coldly. "It's the cheap way to clean out the slave trade."
Selenite passed Opal a patch of micro visitors. "Not quite." Her voice dripped with sarcasm. "We wouldn't want to lose all the slaves, would we."
Chrys blinked, puzzled.
"The clinic," Opal explained. "The good doctor serves ... friends of the Palace. When they convert to second stage and fear the third. Or when their families turn them in."
"They go clean for six months, on average," said Selenite. "Then they get resupplied."
Chrys had seen enough fur-dressed customers sidling up to the plague bar. But to think that it reached the Palace ...
Andra rose from her seat and paced between two redwoods, stepping precisely one foot ahead of the other. "Sar conducts research to improve our defenses."
"Right," said Selenite. "We tell the Palace we're walking culture dishes."
Andra frowned. "What we learn from the slaves protects us as well. Right now, carriers are safer than virgins—but the microbial masters are always learning new tricks." She rose from her seat, and light from between the branches glinted on her hair. "Bad micros, bad humans. Some day, we'll bring them all to justice."
"Good luck." Opal's smile brightened. "For now, Chrys, we'll find you a safe place to live. I checked out that townhouse—it's lovely, just down the block from Lord Garnet of Hyalite—"
"No." Chrys tensed, and Merope jumped down from her lap. "I'm sorry—I'm just not ready to run out and look at houses. Let me be."
Opal squeezed her hand. "Of course, dear. You can stay with us as long as you wish."
Andra put a patch to her neck.
"The Thundergod is departing," Chrys told Fern. "Any visiting 'judges'?" The ritual was now routine.
"Just a minute while we pull them out of the nightclubs."
Andra's patch made the rounds of the gods, picking up any stray judges lest they be lost for a generation, while returning wizards and Eleutherians. After she left, Opal exchanged a glance with Selenite. "We have a few things to attend to. If you need anything, Chrys, just call." The two carriers disappeared through a virtual tree trunk as wide as Chrys's lost home.
Alone now, Daeren looked up. "What happened to your art? Did you lose everything?"
Chrys shrugged. "It's all online." Except for little things like the holo still of her parents and her ailing brother, vaporized into random molecules of the city. "I'd be crazy to store anything in that neighborhood."
"It's not a bad neighborhood. It's a neighborhood in need of attention."
She eyed him skeptically. "If it got the right kind of attention, I couldn't afford to live there."
"Now you can live anywhere."
"And all my friends?"
He hesitated. "I've been thinking, I made some mistakes. I should have known what it would mean to get you involved with us. Usually our candidates can pick up and integrate easily with the carrier community. But you have a special community in the art world. You need to stay in touch with that, and it won't be easy. I'm sorry."
Chrys's eyes filled and she swallowed hard. "If they're worth anything, they'll come back."
"Oh Great One, we ask a favor." Fern again. "One of the Watchers, Delphinium, is aging sooner than expected. She won't ask for herself, but I know it would please her to spend her final days back home."
Chrys studied her window, then turned to Daeren. "Fern thinks Delphinium would like to go home."
Daeren frowned. "Are they trying to get rid of the Watchers?"
"I don't think so. We still have six others. Delphinium is dying; she won't last the hour."
"The Watchers pledged to end their lives with you." But his look softened. "Let me see." He rose from his seat, and Chrys rose to meet his eyes. The blue lights twinkled. "All right," he said at last.
Chrys handed him the patch, and he put it at his neck.
"Thanks, Chrys. We missed her." He smiled, revealing a different person underneath, someone who perhaps did not have to be quite so serious all the time. Micros were always "her," Chrys noticed. Unlike humans and sentients, they hadn't invented gender. They had other obsessions.
Chrys's head tilted quizzically. "Why did you first take micros, Daeren?"
His face closed again, his mouth small. "For the money." Unlike the other carriers, he had no lucrative line that she could see. "I'll see you for your next checkup," he told her.
The next morning, Chrys went with Opal to see the townhouse with the caryatids. The lightcraft set down at a row of towers that rose proud as lords in a reception line. Chrys stepped out of the lightcraft, clutching her stomach; she would never get used to it. Warily she eyed the towers, then their cousins across the street, lined up like a piece of rainbow cake sideways on a plate, each layer with its subtle pastel hue, all reaching up to an actual roof open to the stars. And each beautifully fenced with changing patterns of stunplast.
"Chrys, it's here. Remember?"
The tower was a plain shade of pink gray, its doorway flanked by two caryatids draped in classic style. Three floors, she guessed. Not a window in sight; the interior must be totally virtual. "Are you sure I can afford to buy it?" Over the day since her windfall, she had discovered she owed world, state, and city taxes, as well as a fine for failure to predict income. Then the Security Committee took a 10 percent "required donation"—bad as the Brethren. Her one point five megacred had shrunk by half.
"You don't buy a house," Opal whispered. "You hire him. 'Buying' is a dirty word."
Masculine, Chrys told herself, hoping she'd remember.
"Greetings, Ladies," boomed a voice from the house. "Xenon, at your service. Chrysoberyl of Dolomoth—a pleasure to meet you. I would not have considered a first-time home partner, but you came so well recommended by my gallery colleagues."
Her mouth fell open, then shut again. Her cheeks flushed slightly.
The wall indented into a stairway. "Do step up, please. First floor provides dining and guest reception; second floor, on my colleague's recommendation, is devoted entirely to your studio...." The painting stage alone took up greater volume than her entire previous apartment. "Of course, if you'd prefer to install a ballroom and gaming facilities, I'd be glad to oblige; I do love entertaining—"
"Thanks, this will do." Alcyone would have loved so much room to explore, she thought, aching for the poor lost creature. Merope would need a new companion. Chrys turned slowly on her heel, her mind spinning with the possibilities.
Opal nodded this way and that. "It's a good start. When you've made it big, you can expand for all your assistants."
"Furniture," Chrys exclaimed, her heart sinking. "How will I ever fill this place?"
"I provide an entire home package," assured Xenon. "What sort of bedding would you like? I'll put out samples."
Beneath her feet, the floor vibrated. Something was pushing out from the wall, and up from the floor. Floor and walls molded into a bed. Then a second bed appeared, circular, and a third, a vast half moon with a canopy. Which to choose? "Do you have, um, a default setting for everything?"
"Certainly, Chrysoberyl. I do love decorating myself. I can see we'll make great partners." The beds shrank away.
"I'll leave you to settle in," said Opal, taking out a patch to retrieve her visitors. "This evening—I know it's a lot to ask, after all you've been through, but could you manage a site visit to the Comb? Selenite wants to get started, before your people forget their promise."
Chrys couldn't wait to try out the new painting stage. Its scope overwhelmed her; she had never tried anything on this scale. Her hands dipped into the palette to pull out swathes of gray purple and amber green, then stretched through the air to block in the shapes of mountains. Painting felt like flying.