Straight from the Slave World, the Leader within its host had called to Chrys.
"Why you, Chrys?" asked Selenite. "Why would they show themselves to you?"
Chrys swallowed and clasped her hands. "The micro portraits. The masters can't get enough of them. I suppose it feeds their ego." The scandalous ones she didn't mention.
Selenite shook her head. "How bold they've gotten, to dare such a thing. What will Arion say?"
Andra told her, "We'll know soon enough."
Chrys asked apprehensively, "You'll show Arion?"
"I just sent it." Andra added, "We share all our intelligence with Arion. When Zoisite's problem first became known, we made a strategic decision to pursue our investigation with the Elves instead. The Protector tacitly approves."
"Right," observed Selenite sarcastically. "The Protector keeps out of a messy investigation of things he can't comprehend, while reserving the right to beat up on us and Elysium when we miss a step."
"But Arion is a shrewd one," Andra observed. "Not a carrier himself, but highly sympathetic. He supports granting micros civil protection."
"But his brother!" exclaimed Chrys. "How does he put up with Eris?"
"Arion's trusted Eris for three centuries. Now he knows that something's wrong, but he's not sure where. How could a non-carrier tell? That's why he called Daeren, an outsider, to test a dozen highly placed carriers."
So that's what Daeren was doing in Elysium. "Then Eris will get caught."
The Chief exchanged a look with Selenite. Selenite said, "I sure hope so. Eve said before, any intelligence we send Arion goes straight to Eris."
Andra demanded, "Do we look any better?" Their streets full of vampires, their own minister of justice in the clinic. Suddenly Andra tensed and would have stood even straighter if possible. "Arion has just replied. He wants to meet the ... recipient of this intelligence immediately. In person."
Chrys blinked. "You mean—me? In Elysium?" She shook herself. "Like, I have a busy schedule tomorrow."
"My private vessel will take you," Andra told her. "You can sleep a couple of hours on the ride. Daeren will meet you in Helicon."
Andra's "private vessel" offered a five-course, four-star meal that Chrys had no stomach for, and a room full of Elysian talars with projectable trains, among which she was too tired to choose. At first glance, the garments all looked the same dreary white, but a closer look revealed subtle distinctions of shaping at the shoulder, or in the fall of the folds below.
"Each model signifies a different mood," the ship told her helpfully. "Entertaining, or businesslike; joyous or mournful; carefree or stately—"
" 'Stately' will do," Chrys yawned.
"And the light projectors for your train—be sure to specify your desired species and variety of heliconians, swallowtails, anaeans—"
"Look, I have to get some sleep before this ordeal."
"Don't forget to condition your feet." Shoes were an insult to Elysian streets; Elves went barefoot, like children on Mount Dolomoth. Chrys stuck her feet in what felt like a sauna and dozed as best she could.
"True Enlightenment at last." Rose was still going on about it. "Great Host, you were privileged to be granted an audience with the very Leader of Endless Light."
"Just keep dark when I'm with Arion, or you'll go back in chains." Thank goodness the Guardian was no carrier, and could not read her flashing eyes.
The floating city of Helicon, the Elysian capital, was positioned on the globe to coincide with the time zone of Iridis on Valedon. As Andra's ship descended, the horizon east of Helicon was just reaching dawn. A faint line of light, splitting gently into a pale rainbow; if colors could sing, it would have been a choir of heaven.
The city appeared, a perfect pearl, struck aflame by the first ray of sun. The pearl expanded, ever larger, as if actually growing from seed. One structure, to house a million souls. This—more impossible still, its rival—was what Jasper expected her people to build.
When the ship docked, Daeren came on board, his jet-black hair at odds with the stark white talar. "This will be our last chance to talk," he warned. In Elysium, it was said, the very air had ears. A few minutes in a privacy booth cost a thousand credits. "I'm sorry you had to—"
"Get mixed up in this; I know." Chrys sighed. "I didn't ask for it; believe me, I didn't. That damned 'leader' had to pick on me."
"It's a break for us. Especially if there's any clue to where that ship is."
She shook her head. "I've no idea. Andra sent Arion the clip— Why in hell does he need to see me?"
"It's standard procedure to debrief the operative."
Chrys rolled her eyes. "If I'm an 'operative,' his service sure needs help."
"It does," said Daeren bluntly. "Don't worry, I'll be with you. You may decline to answer any question. But if you answer, tell the truth."
"I'm a lousy liar."
"Remember, Arion can help us. He believes in micro people."
"He's not a carrier."
"He's had 'visitors.' "
Visitors—from whom, she wondered. Her eyes widened, remembering. "What about you? Did you . .. test the Elf carriers?"
"All day I spent testing, one after another." Daeren sighed. "All twelve were clean."
"Not Eris?"
"It was Eris who recommended me to Arion." His face did not change. "The whole time I tested them, Eris stood there, watching."
Chrys absorbed this. Her fingers trembled.
"Arion himself is still clean," Daeren said. "He gets arsenic-wiped several times a day."
"How reassuring. Why won't he test Eris?"
"Chrys, if there were any way I could get you out of this—"
"Never mind. Let's get it over with."
The ship door opened, revealing a long luminous corridor.
"Activate your train," Daeren told her. "A button should appear in your window."
She blinked at it. Behind her a trail of butterflies came alight, more gaudy than the floor show at Gold of Asragh. "Is this really necessary?"
"It's the custom. And remember, no physical contact in public, not even a handshake."
The wide, vaulted street of Helicon lay buried in nanoplast kilometers thick, yet it filled with a soft light, like the natural light of dawn. The street's surface was just warm enough to please her bare feet. At the side a small thing scurried; a rat, she thought in surprise, but it was only a cleaner servo, searching in vain for the slightest bit of trash. Ahead glided a couple of Elysian, their virtual trains sparkling for half a block behind them. Like angels attending a wedding.
Daeren stopped at a garden of towering foliage; one of the famous butterfly gardens of Elysium. The butterflies, dark heliconians barred with blue and pink, were just flexing their wings, bright with moisture. "Those live barely longer than our micros," observed Daeren. "Yet that's how Elysians feel about their own centuries—gone as if in a day. You'll never understand an Elysian till you grasp that."
Overhead, what looked like an overgrown snake-egg descended with a faint whine, settling at their feet. Cleaner servos scurried like mad to the spot, in case a speck of dust was raised. The giant egg formed a round lip which puckered in, a mouth gasping. Chrys hesitated, then stepped into the mouth. Her train projectors automatically turned off. Once the two Valans had entered, the egg did not rise, but sank into the street, through a fluid-filled transit reticulum. It seemed to sink at an angle, though Chrys could not tell for sure; her stomach lifted and felt sick.
Daeren touched her talar; he would have touched her arm, she thought, but he remembered just in time. "We'll soon be at the Nucleus."
The Nucleus, the very core of Helicon, housed the government of Elysium. No sign of the armed octopods that so ostentatiously filled Palace Iridium; but then, the very air had ears. A maze of corridors and doors, half of them illusory; how could one ever find one's way here, Chrys wondered. Fortunately, a traveling shaft of light led them at long last to the reception room of the Guardian of Peace.