By contrast, after generations beyond counting, even the farthest reaches of her own god's circulation felt familiar to Jonquil. She patrolled there with Fireweed, training the infrared elder to detect the slightest need for repair, signs even the nanoservos might miss. Her filaments twitched. "There—I taste a precancerous cell."
Fireweed extended her filaments. "An abnormal growth protein," she flashed, sending molecules of alertness. "Only stage one."
"Nevertheless, let's mark the site." Micros themselves did not dare leave the bloodstream to penetrate the epithelium, lest they attract deadly immune cells, but the Plan Ten nanoservos would eliminate the cancer.
On their way back to the arachnoid, the two elders came upon an outcast micro. Incapable of work, the grayish ring jostled aimlessly among the red cells, begging for vitamins. Fireweed brushed its filaments to pass it a few.
"Why?" asked Jonquil. "Why prolong its miserable existence?"
"The One True God decreed, 'Love Me, love My people.
"You call that brainless microbe a person?" Mutant children whose brains failed to reach Eleutherian standards were barred from the nightclubs, never exposed to the pheromones that ripened for breeding, nor did they mature as elders. Worth no more than a virus.
"There, but for a twist of DNA, go you or I," flashed Fireweed. "All people are one."
"You sound like Rose," observed Jonquil. "Don't listen to her, just live like her." Rose's abstemious lifestyle had earned her an exceptionally long and healthy life, the envy of many. But then, had Rose truly lived? Jonquil wondered. Jonquil herself, with the god's help, had led the greatest cultural renaissance Eleutheria had ever seen. But now, she felt the arsenic atoms tearing loose from her membranes one by one. Foreseeing the end, she had passed on to Rose her most vital knowledge, the photo codes from the judges of the Thunder god. The codes enabled people to pass safely among the masters.
Fireweed said, "That unbeliever does not sway me. But the new heretics—those who seek to emigrate to the New World— they shame us." After Jonquil and Fireweed had spread their stories of the New World, an unorthodox sect had risen up demanding to emigrate, to found a purer society in the wilderness. Jonquil tried to pass laws against them. A mistake, the restrictions only attracted converts to their fanatical leader: a Green One, verdant as the legendary Fern.
Before dawn Chrys tossed in her bed, her eyes full of colored cells twinkling, rolling through the arachnoid. "God of Mercy," flashed Jonquil. "Great One, we need your help." "What is it?"
"A new sect begs to address you. Will you see their leader?"
"Sure."
"God of the Eleutherians." The new one flashed green.
Chrys smiled, thinking fondly of Fern. "I call you . .. Pteris." A large, handsome tree-fern.
"That shall be—until we find our New World."
"What?"
"The new god promised us a New World. Let my people go."
Chrys shot upright, as wide awake as if the volcano smoking in the distance had exploded. Her startled cat jumped off the bed. "What nonsense are you talking? Jonquil, what's this?"
"My deepest apologies, God of Mercy," the yellow letters flashed. "Alas, these heretics were undone by the tales of our exploits in the uninhabited world. We'll remove them, to trouble you no longer."
"New god"—What had Moraeg told them?
"We shall return," the green one challenged. "We'll defy even death. Every year, we'll return to demand our New World."
"Why?" asked Chrys. "What's wrong with Eleutheria?"
"Eleutheria is a sham. Corrupted, untrue to its founding principles. 'World of opportunity'—what falsehood. See all the beggars floating homeless in the veins."
"Jonquil? I thought you and Rose took care of this."
"We tried," Jonquil admitted, "but in recent years, perhaps, I've not kept up so well."
"Rose? Is this your doing?"
"Nonsense," said Rose. "I have nothing to do with those god-talkers. I've tried what I can to spread enlightenment, but degenerate societies consume themselves from within."
"Rose," countered Jonquil, "you yourself want only the best chess champions. How could we breed the best, if we let all cells with inferior genes into the nightclubs?"
"Fireweed?" blinked Chrys. "What do you know of this?"
"Such heretics," said Fireweed, "in ancient times would have had their arsenic torn out." The letters came blood-red. "But truly, the heretics remind us how poorly we ourselves serve our God.
With faith and patience, we'll learn to love even the meanest ones as we do God Herself."
Red, yellow, green—Chrys shook her head, as if she could clear out the lot of them. "Go, then, and do so."
"And the heretics?" asked Jonquil. "What shall we do with them?"
"Pteris, why can't you stay and make Eleutheria better?"
"Our own god calls us," said the green one. "We'll return every year, until you let us go."
"Not every year. Or there'll be an eclipse of the sun."
For some seconds the letters vanished. Chrys guessed they all had plenty to say to each other. Then Jonquil asked, "How often will the god allow?"
"Once a generation." Chrys sighed, her eyes aching. Microbial rejection.
And today was her own day to be tested. What if the tester heard of Jonquil's little "visit"?
Her tester now was Pyrite of Azuroth, a nanodesigner from the Comb, who looked even younger than Daeren. Pyrite arrived a few minutes late. "Sorry," he apologized, "I was delayed below. A vendor tried to talk me into a trophy, a giant caterpillar claw." He smiled, obviously trying to put her at ease; Chrys knew their routine now. "How are you? Anything I need to know?"
Her heart pounded in her chest. "They visited a non-carrier," she forced herself to say.
His brows lifted. "With children?"
"Certainly not. Just two elders."
"You let them?"
"My friend insisted. She's upset because the doctor put her way down on the list."
"I see." Pyrite nodded. "Well, let's sit down and have a look." His irises flashed green, like Opal's. Perhaps his people came from hers. Pyrite nodded again. "Once you let them explore a 'virgin,' they get all kinds of ideas."
"I don't understand," exclaimed Chrys. "Before, they were perfectly happy with me. They're welcome to visit any other carrier."
"When humans discover a new habitable planet, what happens?"
Nervously, she clasped her fingers. "So what can I do?"
"Put up with it. After a few generations they may forget."
"Not Eleutherians."
Pyrite thought this over. "With luck, we may find a recipient soon. But there's a long waiting list for emigration."